They say that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. If this is the case then you can’t expect to become an expert in many things in your lifetime. I like to set myself reasonable targets, so I’m thinking of becoming an expert at one thing and maybe a half expert at another. I need to fit in 15,000 hours of practice. Well I’m 27 so I’ve probably got about 420,000 hours left to live, give or take a year. So if I want to fit in 1.5 things at expert level before I die I need to spend around 3.5% of the remainder of my life practicing, that’s around fifty minutes a day.

I think I could manage that, but then I might only fully master the lute on my deathbed. The whole point of being a master is to get laid, but if you’re a very old master you’ll just end up with lots of high school kids hanging around who want to learn karate and that’s no good unless you want your car waxed.

No the only non labour intensive solution is to master sex. Kill two birds with one stone so to speak. So I’m looking for a partner for 50 minute sex sessions every day for the next 48 years, but don’t worry by 2039 we’ll be experts! Of course I’m already an expert in masturbation. Here is a video of a kid who looks about 19 who is already, clearly, an expert at dice stacking, (wouldn’t have been my first choice) this would mean that he must have spent about 6% of his whole life doing this, which is, if you consider he spent several years as a puking, shitting, baby, pretty impressive.

P.S. apologies if this post is a bit amateurish this is only 296th post. It’s going to be a few more years before I get the hang of this, but on the plus side it's better than the crap at the start.

Update: I found this interesting blog about a guy who is counting down the number of days he estimates he has left in his life to give him the impetuous to do things.

Update 2: I feel at this point, following some of the comments received, that I should point out that even if I had a rather leisurely 15 minute wank everyday it would take me 109 years to rack up the required 10,000 hours of wanking to make me a wanking expert by which time my knob would surely have fallen off. So no I am not an actual wanking expert, but maybe I like to think I am.

Bulimics and their excuses! At least she’s out in the open about it.

Last night I solved a crime. An official crime that has a crime number and shows up on the crime statistics. A crime that is deemed serious enough to warrant a prison sentence should you be unlucky enough to be found guilty for it. A very serious matter indeed. Unfortunately for the national crime statistics I also imagined the crime in the first place. I'm guessing your somewhat baffled as to how I achieved this, so I will explain (at this point I feel I should say, elementary my dear reader).

You may remember that I wrote a post titled Scardy Cat Burglar back on the fourth of August. You can see it here, but if you can't be arsed with that I will quickly recap the key facts:

We returned home from the pub drunk.
The front room window was open.
The room was tidy and undisturbed with a single glove in the middle of it, nothing was missing.
This glove didn't belong to me.
Kate told me the glove wasn't hers.

Based on the above facts of the case I formulated a theory in which the glove belonged to a burglar. The burglar had dropped it when he was disturbed by us coming home, or perhaps our brave cats. The next day I contacted Lewisham police who thought my story credible enough to send one of their forensic officers to my house who confirmed my theory by finding glove marks on the window frame, evidence that someone wearing gloves had entered the room via the window. Relying on the evidence provided by CSI Lewisham I pronounced my theory proven and acted smug around Kate, who was backing her own theory, benevolent glove fairy, in which a fairy had thrown the glove through the window because we had wished for a glove out loud three times in our sleep.

Since the police took the glove away they have failed to catch anyone for the heinous crime of leaving a glove in our front room. They are however missing one vital clue, a piece of evidence that changes the whole basis of the case. THE GLOVE WAS KATE'S. Yes she discovered the other one in her stuff a couple of days ago and only got drunk enough to tell me yesterday.

So I think we can safely say that this utterly destroys my original theory. I could complain that I was provided with wrong information, but something inside me says that Poirot would have spotted that one. In fact I feel like Captain Hastings, you know the one that always falls into the obvious trap and points the finger at the black guy. Poirot would have known to have completely ignored the input of the bungling coppers and used them only to take away the crim and the crim would have confessed when faced with the superior intellect of Poirot. But who in this case is the crim? Who is going to take the fall for this official, numbered, crime statistic?

Clearly it is Kate, it was Kate's glove!

But wasn't Kate with me at the time of the crime?

No, no, no, no, non Hastings, Miss Kate climbed through the window and planted the glove before you went to the pub and got pissed, knowing full well that with your overactive imagination and bungling ways you would formulate a theory involving the cats and even destroy the forensic evidence by wearing the glove in an effort to convince people that it would fit a man.

But why on earth would she do that Poirot?

Surely Hastings even you can see that the reason was simple. Kate planted the glove in the room simply to make you Hastings, look like a total dick, and on that point alone my dear Hastings, she has succeeded completely.

Crime solved, now who's going to tell the police.

I don't know whether I am livid or elated. I've just taken a call from my local P.C. shop who have, for the princely sum of 42 quid, fixed my computer. It turns out the problem was the hard drive was full. Apparently when the hard drive fills up completely the computer stops working to the extent that the ON button no longer works, which means that you can't remove any of the data and can't fix the frickin problem.

I don't resent the man his 42 quid. He is a professional, he needed to take the hard drive out of my computer and put it in another one which I couldn't do. The thing that annoys me is that I have been trying to get people to take their fucking photos of my hard drive for bloody ages! (I'd like to say I told you so but I had no idea the computer died when it filled up). The thing that annoys me more is that in my heart of hearts I know the file that broke the P.C.'s back is a porno of Dane Bowers and Katie Price aka Jordan doing the dirty in crotch-less panties. I didn't even use it for sexual gratification (you can't) I downloaded it for a laugh research!

It is funny, the porno I mean. I wonder if the people down the shop are watching it right now? I hope Dane Bowers doesn't qualify as a vulnerable individual or I'll end up in the dock on charges of tossing off over a Garage M.C, which of course never happened, try telling that to a judge.

I've noticed that this type of celebrity-voyeur porn is more socially acceptable, (it is socially acceptable right? You're saying I shouldn't I have brought it up at the seminar?), than normal porn, in which the actors consent to being watched by the paying public. Clearly the reason is nothing to do with consent and all to do with the sin of onanism. Simply put if looking at Jordan and Dane Bowers demonstrating their love for one another in a physical sense with a vibrator and a hot tub makes you laugh you're not a perv, if it gives you a hard-on you might well be, and if you are watching it in a court room as part of jury service then go easy on me, that kind of thing doesn't float my boat, I'm more into watching dwarfs annally fisted into incontinence pants and I've got the credit card receipts to prove it.

What did you do on the most average day of the year? This weekend was the most average weekend of the year daylight wise. Almost all this week if you live in London you will be experiencing 12 - 12 day and night, light and dark. The forces of night are steadily encroaching and for the next 6 months things will only get worse. Well more accurately progressively worse and then better until in 6 months time we are back to 12 - 12 again; the only difference being the future prospect of 6 months of British Summer instead of winter. Quite an exciting prospect.

I'm sure by now you have all noticed in the papers the story about the retreating Sea Ice in the Artic and the opening of the North West Passage to shipping. Exciting isn't it. The very prospect of cheaper Korean, Chinese and Japanese consumer goods is almost too exciting to be true, but before you sink your life savings into Artic shipping companies you should know that any day now the far north will be plunged into 6 months of darkness and as darkness is hardly conducive to ice melt the passage will probably close up, oh darn.

Perhaps we should move Christmas forward a bit. Think about it, if all those container ships containing the latest Chrimbo fad products have to travel shorter distances to deliver our goods, they will produce less C02 and that will be good for the environment; plus we get our Ice Cream makers at a time when we may just use them more than once!

From the look of this video the squirrels have been in training for some time. I’d age this at about ten years old and they are just completing the assault course. If my experiences of Tomb Raider are anything to go by once you perfect the assault course you start level one, on level one you get guns! By now they have probably completed the whole Tomb Raider series and are able to drive numerous vehicles, shoot a variety of weapons and even fly a plane!

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Twin Towers, I won’t say any more or else you’ll just accuse me of being one of those internet nuts and a squirrel will come round and eat my face.

Now this story is a great story, one of the greatest, it is not a story about me, but about a very close friend of mine called Michael Clarke and though it may seem far fetched to you, I know it happened, because I know Michael Clarke, and if you knew Michael Clarke you wouldn't doubt it's truth for a moment, so I suppose I had better start by telling you a little about M.C.

I know several people who when they first met M.C. thought he was black, which is a strange phenomenon because he isn't, he may have brown skin, but this is a tan and it sits on the tough wiry frame of an Irishman. He stands at about five foot seven and at the time of this story had his hair in dreadlocks, shaved at the sides, I don't know what he was wearing, but it wouldn't have come from the GAP. He was born in Ireland, but spent his formative years in Uganda and both countries have left their mark on him. From Ireland he gets a sprit of rebellion and a love of getting drunk; from Uganda, a country once led by Idi Amin, he learned a deep distrust of authority and a liberal interpretation of the rule of law. The man can be succinctly described as lawless, from the time I spent with him I found him to have a deep-set and almost belligerent compulsion to do the exact opposite of what is expected of him by polite society.

On the day of the story Wee Michael Clarke was a foot passenger on the car ferry between Wales and Ireland, travelling alone, on his way home to his family for Christmas, unannounced, as is his way, he had set off that morning unaware that he was about to embark on an epic voyage. Restless and bored of the entertainment on offer up top, bar and duty free, M.C. started to explore the passages below deck and it was here that he discovered, stuck in the door of a cabin, a key card. An occurrence probably not uncommon, the cleaners probably leave these doors unlocked all the time, well at least they did. I’d imagine the captain was proud of the crime free status of his floating fiefdom in which you could leave your penthouse cabins unlocked with the keys in the door, until now, until Michael Clarke.

This ferry's penthouse cabin featured a shower, Sky T.V., a very big bed and a mini bar. Michael Clarke didn't waste any time in making use of the full extent of the facilities. Taking a shower before relaxing on the bed to watch the T.V. while emptying the mini bar of its contents and even smoking a spliff. Michael Clarke is the only person you will ever meet to have smoked a spliff on a plane! He would smuggle his drugs across international borders rolled into sausages and stuck in his hair.

Soon Michael was sound asleep, and when he awoke it was daylight and the ferry was still sailing. He felt a sinking feeling which wasn't the ship because, unless this ferry was delayed, it should be in port by now and it wasn't. It is not often that you get asked what direction a ferry is going in. Direction can be a confusing concept on the featureless seas even more confusing when asked by a wild, red-eyed, dread locked, wee, drunk, possibly black, Irishman wearing an Irish Ferries dressing gown in the middle of the day, so you can forgive the little scouse lad for not answering straight away, but when he worked out M.C's predicament he didn't have to laugh so hard. Michael Clarke was heading in the wrong direction, back to Wales!

Michael was meant to be going to Ireland, so going back to Wales wasn't part of the plan. Michael needed a change of plan, so he made one. He waited for the ferry to dock then he stowed away. He left his cabin and hid on the ferry and waited for the ferry to start the journey to Ireland again. When the ferry was loaded and had left the dock he emerged from hiding. Now at this point he has robbed a mini bar and he is a stowaway on a ferry. A normal man would just go listen to the cabaret, but Michael Clarke has the key card to the penthouse sweet and Michael Clarke, is Michael Clarke.

Back in the penthouse sweet Michael Clarke enjoyed the relaxing comfort of the double bed; watched sky movies; and drank the, now restocked, mini bar dry. He doesn't make the same mistake twice, when that ferry comes in to port, he rolls out of his personal cabin and disembarks with the rest of the hoy-poloy at journeys end; just the small matter of a train.

The train station is on the dock and M.C. is horrified to discover that he has missed the last train for the night. He has already been delayed for the length of two trips across the Irish Sea and he now needs to wait another 7 hours for a train in the dark and cold. Not much fun I suppose, but having already lost so much time probably best to to knuckle down and accept your fate.

Now if I was telling this story in a pub and you didn’t know M.C. I’d end it at this point. Poor wee Michael Clarke spends the night at the train station and the story retains just a smidge of realism because, don't forget, this is a true story. But that’s not what happened and I’ve explained to you about M.C. so you will understand when I tell you what happened next, Michael Clarke exclaims, 'fuck that' and strolls slightly pissed back onto the ferry. (He still has the key to the penthouse cabin in his pocket.)

Back in the penthouse cabin now heading for Wales for the second time Michael Clarke enjoys the relaxing comfort of the double bed; watches sky movies; and drinks the, now restocked, mini bar dry. On arrival he hides once more with his trusty key fob. Now a veteran stowaway he departs on his third trip to Ireland and makes his way from his hiding place to the penthouse cabin, he slips his key into the door, but this time instead of being met by a nice restocked mini bar he is leapt upon by the ships security who, having worked on ships for years, are more than a little enthusiastic about their first stowaway. Locked in the brig were M.C. is destined to spend the final leg of his five leg journey in considerably less comfort than the previous legs, M.C. is presented with a bill for 700 pounds worth of travel expenses including a considerable bar bill.

When faced with this situation M.C. has two tactics, they’re the most effective tactics available in these situations and they're not rocket science, in fact toddlers use both tacs regularly. Act completely ignorant and refuse to comply with whatever punishment is devised. (The second part just involved saying no allot.) So after repeating, got no money, not paying for the remainder of his trip Michael Clarke was plonked unceremoniously onto an Irish dock and told never to travel on Irish Ferries again.

And that is the end of the story, we leave M.C. sitting on a dock, probably smoking a spliff about to embark on a train, did he buy a ticket? Maybe, I don’t know, but probably not. Is there a moral to the story, no.

The End.

I have an iGoogle page. (I cannot stand the trend of putting an i in front of everything these days and I can barely forgive Google for having fallen into this trap, but never the less it is true.) It is a personalised Google page, it opens up instead of the normal Google page. You add widgets to the page, these are little tools set up by other websites and they display a little bit of the content of that page. One of my widgets is quote of the day. Every day it gives me three new quotations from notable, usually American, persons. If one really catches the eye I like to make a note of it on a txt doc on my desk top. I've been doing this for over a year and I've got just over 30 of them in my collection, so I thought I'd share some of the those that I thought were the best.

A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.

- Bertrand Russell

There's no secret about success. Did you ever know a successful man who didn't tell you about it?

- Kin Hubbard

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

- Joseph Baretti

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

- Albert Einstein

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

- Kurt Vonnegut

You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.

- Vicomte de Chateaubriand

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

- Sophocles

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Martin Luther King, jr.

One of Martin Luther King's less snappy moments, but the sentiment is a powerful one none the less. Amen to that brother.

Today I don't like radio DJs who read out a request from a listener, but don't play that song next; instead they say something like, we'll see if we can fit that in for you sometime in the show Dave.

It reminds me of the time I wanted Star Trekking Across the Universe, or whatever it was actually called, played at my primary school disco. To cut a long story short the dick head refused to play it so I went home and cried cut his fat face up with a vimto carton, it was the only song I knew any of the words to except, I Should be so Lucky, and I wasn't going to admit that.

Why mention the request in the first place if you're not going to play the song? And if they intend to play it later why not just wait and read out the message then? If it is something to do with delayed gratification then I recommend they start drinking vimto and learn about instant pleasure, if they don't like that then I might just make em.

On Sunday I went to a greasy spoon for a fry up and read The News of The World and there I found the following quote which I just love.

"I gave her a second chance, but shagging Phil Mitchell is just ridiculous."

It was a 'news' story not the T.V. section. You can read the article here.

My co-worker whose surname is Do, pronounced like dough, (She is Vietnamese) told us today that her brother’s name is Peter.

Are you there yet? P. Do

HA HA – P. DO!

Laugh, I shat myself. Give me a break, that is easily the funniest thing that has happened this week,

I have terrible cold today so I’m off work. My nose is absolutely streaming. It reminds me of a time I was in a similar condition while working in McDonalds, they encouraged me to continue working though I should definitely stop sneezing on people’s food and wash my hands after I touch my nose, which would have been about every five seconds and was entirely unfeasible.

My memory of the hygiene in McDonalds is that it wasn’t that bad. However my hygiene standards are what would be considered, below par, and they were far worse when I was a teenager. We did keep the place pretty clean with yours truly doing many of the worst jobs. Unblocking the oil trap in the drains is still quite easily the worst smell memory I have ever had. Worse even than the time I found a dead cow by a gate, the cow had ballooned to nearly twice its alive-size and appeared to be shitting maggots. That stench takes second place with third place going to a fart by Rebecca Sarll. What a fart that was, cleared a full room person by person. The best bit was she knew she was sick, so she tried to do it out the door, but the wind blew it back in and an invisible stench curtain advanced across the room like a rancid tide. Each person it hit jumped up, screamed and ran for the door. It was like some kind of Mexican stink wave.

I digress, back to McDonlads, the place got very untidy the day that was proclaimed the 25th anniversary of the Big Mac. On this day for every Big Mac you bought you would be presented with a free Big Mac! But I already have a Big Mac. Well the fat bastards that are the general public went nuts for this ‘amazing’ offer. The whole country ran out of Big Mac buns, I think they even ground up that dead cow for burgers. By the end of the day everyone was fucking exhausted and the area behind the counter where the ‘magic’ happens was filthy. The thing I distinctly remember was that the floor was entirely covered in a very dark green layer of what looked just like moss. It was in fact lettuce that had been ground under the feet of the frantic workers and mixed with bits of burger, buns etc. It looked rather surreal like the whole place had been carpeted to look like a golf course. Someone else had to clean that lot up, which was nice.

Yesterday I blogged about eating cat shit and today in a totally unrelated incident I came across this. A story about eating Cat Shit, well Civet shit, which is very similar to a cat, see picture.

The parts of the Civet turd which are sought after are the coffee beans. Beans that the Civet has picked, eaten and shat out. The cat's digestive system is meant to remove some of the caffeine and bitterness. (Urr, so Decaf with sugar). But get this, the shit sells for 300 quid a pound and they've managed to flog some of it to the queen. Living the dream, selling cat shit to the queen, which audacious bastard came up with that?

Clearly some of you won't believe me, don't blame you, so here is my source, LINK.

Cat shit is amazing! Cat shit is miracle shit. The cat digestive system is capable of transforming the foulest thing on the planet, the mixture of ash and putrid offal that is cat food, into something which is, by comparison, not that bad.

Like every gardener I’ve accidentally dug up a bit of cat shit, maybe with my bare hands, and I will come as no surprise that this is not pleasant - but I can only imagine the horror I would feel if when running my fingers through a crumbly loam I were to uncover, with my bare hands, a glob of whiskers ‘supermeat’. I’m not saying cat shit is nice, far from it, but cat food . . . Offal is too good a word for it; it is the last spongy remnants of death itself mixed with beef-crisp flavouring in jelly, or gravy.

Imagine what your shit would look like if your diet consisted entirely of cat food. Imagine what Gillian McKeith would say about the slop you would produce after just one week of eating cat food, and then imagine eating that all your life and try telling me that the feline digestive system is not a marvel of the animal kingdom. I can think of no other animal whose shit is more edible than their food and that is why cat shit is so special.

Deviants, perverts, freaks, flaming chods; whatever you like to call them, they are a menace to society and should not be running for election to Brighton Borough council on a ‘Paul Danan is a Sex Pest’ ticket. I mean look at that T-shirt. I think that's an iron on transfer.

I wrote half of this while a bit pissed, it think it's rather good. Next time an opera.

I’ve received some really nice tags recently and for that I’m truly grateful, however in the past some people had been tagging me with the same tag as other users. If you’re tagging everyone the same how can I be sure your sentiment is genuine? So I’ve removed ‘squid molester’, ‘loves geckos’ and ‘shy’. Now all my tags are entirely unique to me. Cheers guys. YAY

x

To see my tags click on my profile.

Today I went to Reading University were I have some lectures every now and again to make me a better employee. For lunch I ended up in the university’s restaurant. My first impressions, this is a bit posh for a university canteen. Neatly dressed young ladies were standing at tables offering slices of chocolate cake to people; don’t remember that happening at my uni. So I have a look at the menu, wow uni meals have changed. Go up to the nice lady, ask for what I want; Ravioli please. That looks good, not allot like my uni’s ravioli; that looks distinctly edible, in fact that looks delicious. Now I twig there is something going on and it’s confirmed moments later when I realise there isn’t a till. They don’t want you to pay! I sit down at an empty table with my colleague and eat our lunch. Pretty soon it becomes apparent that everyone else is wearing badges. It turns out we’re at The Friends of the Earth national conference and we’re eating a free lunch! Hooray.

I finish eating and resist the temptation to have the chocolate cake as it was ‘taking the piss’ then we scarper. On the way out I remember remarking “there is nothing quite as tasty as a free lunch is there”, but then I remember we get expenses, so my lunch is free anyway. What I just did was save my company, a subsidiary of one of the world’s biggest banks, money by stealing from a charity. Does that mean I’m a bad person?

No, as there was plenty of food I was simply making sure nothing got wasted. If there is one thing Friends of the Earth are against it is waste. I was simply upholding the values of the conference. Friends of the Earth should be thanking me for setting such a good example.

Making the world a better place has made me a better person and it can make you one too. The conference is on until Sunday. The restaurant is called Cedar’s restaurant. It is on the University of Reading’s Whiteknights Campus and it is building number 7 on the below map. I’d turn up around one to get the best stuff, I recommend the ravioli.

This summer has been good for slugs, but not peppers. This is the only Red Pepper I've produced this year (so far, still hoping). Though to be honest the weather isn't completely at fault the plants got a bit smothered by the tomatoes.

Ramadan starts pretty soon, Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic Calendar and during this month Muslims are obliged to fast from sunrise to sunset. The date of Ramadan moves back approximately 11 days a year and performs a full cycle in relation to the solar year every 33 years. When the month of Ramadan falls in the middle of summer British Muslims may have to wait over 16 hours between drinks of water. If they lived on the North Pole they wouldn’t be able to drink for the whole month as the sun doesn't set for six months; and that’s why Mum-hamed hasn’t gone to Iceland.

Other than being one of the worst, most contrived jokes ever is that wrong in any other way? Please direct any abuse you might have here.This is my current favourite website. Paul Danan is a twat, a myspace page simply devoted to abusing the television celebrity Paul Danan. The comments are directed at the eponymous twat, though I don’t think he checks it that much as he hasn’t replied to any yet. Here is a flavour:

8 Jan 2007 - Have a miserable New Year you Bellend.

27 Dec 2006 - You are indeed cheesier than a tramp's cock!

6 Oct 2006 - I hated you way back when u were in hollyoaks u absolute chod.

And perhaps my favourite of all, 24 Feb 2007, from Sean: Thank you for adding me to your friends list.

Sean you’ve missed the point completely you avant-garde fuckwit.