Essex Man - v - Science
The European Organization for Nuclear Research is an international organisation whose purpose is take over control of the world and also to operate the world's largest particle physics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_physics> laboratory in order to produce the perfect peanuts to be used in the Percy Dalton peanut factories across the globe.. Established in 1954, the organisation is based in the northwest suburbs of Geneva <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva> on the Franco-Swiss border. It looks like Hartley Wintney a bit, but surrounded with 20,000 foot mountains, vast glaciers and thousands and thousands of bell-cladded cows.
The term CERN is also used to refer to the laboratory, which employs just under 2,400 full-time employees, 1,500 part-time employees, and hosts some 10,000 visiting scientists and engineers and three female assistants who collectively type, make tea and order the office supplies and who work non stop 24/7 and are not allowed out of the building. CERN's main function is to provide fun & giggles for all those with better to do all day under the guise of studying the particle <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_accelerator> accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research - as a result, numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN following international collaborations. None of them work. It is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web>. Whatever that is.
God -v- Science
I was listening earlier to Radio 4 where they discussing the sub atomic Higgs Bosun particle which is proving extremely evasive to actually track down its exact whereabouts. One scientist described the skillfully elusive Higgs Bosun particle as being 'very dull and very boring' which lead me to thinking they all might all be better off looking for it somewhere in Aldershot.
Later on in that same Higgs Bosun particle talk on Radio 4 they were discussing whether the sub-atomic particle had a mass. I had never even considered that the Higgs Bosun was a Catholic.
We had a school teacher called Higgs who was our scientist teacher, who used to use a fog horn in the class to get us to pay attention and stop us talking. I know he had served in the Royal Navy during WWII so he could have been a bosun, but he always seemed to be drinking, cursing or chatting up the female teachers and being very open about it, seemingly not worried about doing penance about at all so my best guess was he wasn't either a catholic or a Scientologist.
USA Election - A Tie!
It's US elections today, and my sister who lives in New Hampshire and her extended family will already have voted and then will spend the rest of the day campaigning for Mitt Romney. They are so very intense and hoot and whoop whenever he appears on TV.
Every time I've seen Romney come on stage at some convention I think he's really creepy and he always points an extended arm with his finger pointing like he's picked out somebody he knows. Maybe he's pointing at Elvis Presley who is making a comeback or possibly a pantomime horse or the dishevelled lost flying ace Amelia Earhart has just walked into the room clutching her flying helmet. The most positive thing I can think to say about Romney is that he has a cool selection of ties.
I've thought deeply about who I would vote for long and hard, deciding in the end I really want Barrack Obama to win because he looks, sounds and acts like a decent man even though his ties are absolutely awful.
Poisoned Christmas Berries
At the weekend in nearby Hadleigh Woods I got into conversations with a group of older women who were picking berries off of trees.
'What berries are you picking?' was my opening gambit
'Hawthorn, holly, elderberry and yew'.
'Bless you,' I said
'No not a-tish-you. I said yew. It's a tree!' Muriel, the leader of the hunter-gatherers chastised me.
They all wore bobble hats and green wellies and looked very similar to those sweet little white haired ladies who run all those awful gift shops which sell jigsaws, cups and saucers and dreadful printed tea towels you see attached to Castles.
'Do you make all these berries into cakes?' I asked rather stupidly. I had no idea what you did with hawthorn, holly, elderberry and yew berries. I very nearly had said 'Do you make all these berries into poisons' rather than cakes but thought better of it.
They all started giggling and laughing and slapping their thighs holding on to each other to stop themselves toppling over. Whatever I had said obviously amused them greatly.
'Have you ever heard of a hawthorn cake?' asked Muriel tears starting to trickle down her cheek
'Or a holly cake?' inquired Barbara, one of her sidekicks
'Or a-tish-you cake,' butted in another called Norma, who thought she was very, very funny.
'Well I only asked,' I meekly replied bringing further tears to their eyes.
Apparently, I was told, they are used for decoration for Christmas, or to stuff into vases, or hang drooping from the ceiling. Maybe they should sell them in those awful gift shops alongside the jigsaws, cups and saucers and tea towels you see attached to castles.
Percy Daltons Famous Peanut Company
Percy Dalton used to make peanuts in Bow, East London.
During my youth they used to be sold outside all sporting arenas in and around London in little bags for today's equivalent of £1, usually by little old people (about my age now) from trays outside or just inside the exit doors.
I always bought Percy Dalton peanuts outside of Walthamstow Dog Track, Romford dogs, Crayford dogs etc. Everybody did. They were always lovely and fresh. Large and crunchy and still in their shells.
I always felt sorry for the little old people ( I feel sorrier still for them now I'm one of them) and would always stoop to buy a bag or two. You always had to Q up to buy them. Often there would be two or three little old people selling them. You never asked for change. The little old people would always looked freezing cold and poorly dressed, almost in rags, often wearing fingerless mittens, and would smile and call you 'Guv' or 'Luv' and always thank you with a tear in their eye. Often people would money in their tray and not take the peanuts. Those little old people were pretty cute.
I did hear many years later, they made so much money they always went home by taxi probably giggling and laughing at everybody standing in the rain eating Percy Dalton peanuts at the bus stops.
Percy Daltons must be a London thing. It never occurred to me that they were not universally known. I guess there are not too many dog tracks in or around Hartley Wintney or Odiham.
I also found nothing whatsoever on the Internet about Percy Dalton to my dismay.
If Percy Dalton are all gone and are no more, then my future prospects of employment are sorely diminished.
HOWZAT?
Did you know I played cricket for North London v South London schoolboys in about 1955 in the good old days before anybody had TV, most people went to church to pray to some invisible imaginary deity, and most of us were pretty unworldy, so much so, that if asked most people would have guessed Chiamydia was a country in the Balkans.
I was picked for North London after sterling displays for Torriano Junior School. I was opening bat (of course I was) and in the first over scored 17 runs comprising a six, two fours, three threes, a two, and 8 singles. Pretty impressive, especially if all added up together.
Every batsman, or batter, only had one left glove and only one leg pad ( I kid you not) and the bowler, or batterer, was not allowed to chuck it head first at the batsman, or batter, which was a crying shame.
I was also opening fast bowler (of course I was) and also the wicket keeper (naturally) which meant I had to move pretty damn quickly up and down the pitch. I took seven wickets, three bowled first ball, three caught in the gully, two leg before wicket, and another whom I yorked. I also as wicket keeper stumped three, ran out another, and strangled the night watchman for overstaying his welcome.
The manager of the team was called Pinkerton, or Pinkers, who was ex-Army NCO. Pinkers acted as referee, or umpire, whenever North London were bowling and if it hit the pads of the South London batsmen, or batters, Pinkers would yell out himself 'HOWZAT!' and then give him out. If the batsmen, or batters, complained he would stride down the pitch and beat and batter the hell out of them with the barrel of a German Luger pistol he had smuggled back from Berlin for this very same purpose.
'I think therefore I am' Essex Man
Today I have been reading Rene Descartes who was considered the greatest of all French philosophers, especially by himself.
He came up with the hit one-liner 'I think therefore I am.'
This was to prove he was alive and kicking and not just a figment of his own imagination.
No words of wisdom came from Descartes about the various merits of large as against small bubble wrap, or vice verse, for which we are entirely grateful, but it is known Descartes would often play for hours popping the bubbles
Descartes, suffered from melancholy and took things personally, deeply and couldn't take a joke.. It appears he left France in a huff, never to return after Cardinal Richelieu ate the last milk covered chocolate biscuit from the biscuit box tin
Arranging an Old Boys Reunion
George works still on Monday/Tuesday & Friday so any Wednesday or Thursday he's free.
I'm off on Fridays (without fail) and Thursday pm I take Max 3, (grandson) out on buses, trains, boats or by car to see ducks, swans, the lowlife of Southend, and then into our favourite department store, where we mix up all the toupee's of the male models in the men's department, swopping them over with the long haired ringlet hairpieces of the female models in the ladies fashion department which amuses Max no end, and amuses me even more.
Then we mix up the shoes in the shoe department, pull off the moustaches on the men models transferring them onto the women models, then we go into the restaurant to make corn dollies out of the drinking straws, pour all the sugar into the vinegar bottles, and collect up all the cups and try to balance as many as we can on top of each other. 88 is our record. Thankfully Blanche, my beautiful, lovely, and engaging daughter-in-law knows nothing about any of these terrible childish antics of her wayward son.
So any Wednesday would be fine with me and probably George too. George has to be told in advance of these things though, otherwise he panics and can get flustered the way some old men do.
You both might like to:
(a) have a guided tour around the Olympic Stadium, (around not in) which sounds tame but I've done it and it's pretty cool or
(b) get a Thames Clipper along the Thames and shout out rude offensive remarks to the tourists who wave at you in a friendly way as you go under bridges, or
(c) pick up some young French starlets to show them a good time.
I think either (a) or (b) might be our best bet all things considered as (c) sounds great but could be embarrassing.
Let me know some dates Frank and I will pass them on to George
Hacking off by White Van Man
I keep looking to see if my solicitor client is scurrying pass the Royal Courts of Justice
in the heavy rain, where the Judge Levenson Inquiry is holding its televised
meetings with the Murdochs.
I see ‘white van man’ driving along the Strand more or less every day, and he never
fails to honk his horn, to disrupt and curtail any TV interview taking place
on the pavement outside and they turn to curse him – as invariably he is male -
and have to re-start the interview all over again.
One day, I know he will get arrested for honking the horn, but it is
just harmless fun and makes me giggle quite a lot too.
I've no doubt the
British Justice system would find him guilty as hell, and would just love, if
it could, to deport him to Australia to break up rocks with a sledgehammer for
his sins. The law must be obeyed.
Obviously honking one's horn is much more
serious than phone hacking people's private conversations after all.
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Chamomile Etiquite
I have known the main Lady for many years and she desires nothing more of me
other than to speak with me whenever she can. I have that effect on some
women you know. I know it's strange but what can you do. I suppose it's a
gift really.
She finds me fascinating. Of course she does. She makes me chamomile tea
just so as I linger whenever I meet her in the London office.
Actually I find her annoying to be honest, even though she laughs at
everything I say and blushes when I hold her hand and tell her she looks
cute and then whisper sweet nothings in her ear and she thinks it rather
funny and amusing when I dunk my digestive biscuits into the chamomile.
'I've never seen anybody do that before,' she offers.
'Then you should get out more' I tell her.
Still she laughs.
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