I hate other travellers.

On the annual trip to the folks last weekend, our train trip reinforced my belief that travelling with strangers should be avoided at all costs. Some lessons my fellow travellers should have learnt:

1. If you are going to travel on a Friday, reserve a seat. Don’t look surprised that the train is full to bursting and you don’t have anywhere to sit for the next two hours. And if you decide to plonk your suitcase in the middle of the aisle and sit on it, expect to be made to move regularly by people going to buy booze and then have to visit the toilet lots when they’ve drunk it.
2. When waiting for the train (on a Friday) and they call the platform, don’t run like a crazy person dropping all your belongings on the way and looking stupid. There won’t be any available seats.
3. When you get on the train and find the right carriage, wait till everyone has got past you before deciding to unpack REALLY slowly and put all your bags around the carriage in random places. And keep your bottom stuck in to avoid sticking it in the face of the poor passenger next to you.
4. When you get on the carriage and find someone is sitting in “your” reserved seat, make sure you check what carriage you are supposed to be in before you start an argument. You are guaranteed to be in the wrong carriage, and as far away as you could be from the right one.
5. If it is at all possible, upgrade to first class. You get free stuff and loads of room and don’t have to mix with the other idiots travelling with you.
   

Man, I feel like a woman (who shot her husband)

This song will forever be associated in my mind with this news story. You couldn’t make it up, and I wish I had been on the jury. Another news report in the paper added the details that the couple had an “experimental” sex life and the poor bloke was still wearing his blue dressing gown (but no underwear) when they found him – how erotic!

Vegetable porn

Sorry for the faint hearted among you, but here is the sweet potato that started it all. All credit must go to Mr P for taking the photo (though why he banned Miss S from buying it I will never know, presumably to allow other innocent shoppers to share in the fun) and Miss S for modelling it.

Confessions of a carrot packer

It recently came to my attention through Lady L and Miss S that I was part of a conspiracy to deprive northern England of comedy shaped vegetables. You know how it is, it brightens up your day when you take a carrot out of a bag and it looks like genitalia, or you come across a potato that looks like the pope. I used to have a summer job in a carrot factory. Depending on which line you worked on, there was a scale of carrot that had to be strictly adhered to. Marks & Spencer only had the best perfectly straight and unblemished carrots, and they had to be the same size give or take a few millimetres. The bigger supermarkets, Tesco and Sainsburys, were next down the chain; they allowed slightly bent carrots, and perhaps a bit of marking. Then right down at the bottom was Kwik Save. Anything went there, basically everything that the other supermarkets wouldn’t take. So my job was to weed out funnily shaped carrots, thereby depriving people of an unexpected giggle (well if you’re one of my friends anyway!), and in Miss S’s case pretty much a promotion! Surely one carrot tastes the same as another? But you wouldn’t believe the lengths the quality control people went to to ensure blemish free carrots. When the trend started for leaving the green bits on at the top for the posh folk, my that caused some people nightmares.

People of northern England, I apologise. If you want penis shaped vegetables, go to Kwik Save. It’ll be cheaper too. And taste just as lovely.

And as for the people who shop at Kwik Save. Why has their uncanny knack of getting a parsnip that looks like a willy or a potato with legs never come up in conversation?

I'm sorry do you think this is a doctor's?!

So maybe I was a tad too quick to declare my love for my new doctors. It was the new patients interview with the nurse this morning, she did the usual height and weight checks, asked how much we drank (think of a number, halve it...), asked if we smoked (of course not, the odd drunken social fag doesn't count) etc.

I started to worry a bit the third time she mentioned how hard it was to get an appointment at the clinic. She told hubby that he'd have to see his doctor before they can give him any insulin. This is quite important. So we asked for an appointment at reception. The next appointment is in May. May?! May!! It's March 21st today. What would happen if you were really sick? "If you're not better in a month and a half, come and see us"? Luckily being the marvellous wife I am, I had anticipated this and ordered shed loads of medicine from his old doctors. Which should keep us afloat in insulin. Unless at the actual appointment they then say it will take another 3 months to set up the repeat prescription...

Songs to wake up to

Rest of the week? Kelly bloody Clarkson - Breakaway. (There is a definite mind implantation policy going on by her record company).

This morning? A-ha - Analogue.

Oh it's going to be a good day :-)

There's a ghost in my house

One thing that wasn't on the survey when we bought the house was the ghost. Our house has a gooseberry in spectral form. Now I am sure that the ghost isn't malevolant and we don't mind it at all really. But when it tries to make me think I'm going crazy it just ain't right and I am going to have it out with the ghost and establish some AUTHORITAY! Oh yes.

So what evidence have I got for this ghost? First of all the stereo in the bedroom started switching itself on in the middle of the night. Then every time I went in the room the stereo was on. I ended up putting the volume on minimum just in case it happened in the day when we were out. And it did. I even moved the damn thing, thinking it was coz it was too close to the radiator and heat does funny things to electrical equipment you know. No change. One time hubby swore that it was actually switched off at the plug.

And things have gone missing. To date I have lost a bag full of necklaces, two pairs of scissors, a kitchen spoon thing that picks pasta up, and the lining off my coat hood. Maybe it's the Borrowers?

Then as the stereo and petty theft wasn't affecting us too much, the ghost moved to the lounge. And every Sunday without fail, it changes channels on the tv. It has happened on other days, but Sundays you can guarantee it. The remote control is usually on the floor, or on the desk, not even pointing at the tv. And it doesn't even change the channel to anything good, usually the premium "pay lots of money to watch them" movie channels or the Antiques Roadshow. This makes me suspect the old lady who lived here is our ghost. Why is she not at peace? Does she not approve of us living here? Or is it that she does approve and is just teasing us?

I am not mad.

Romeo

Ladies!! One of the world's most eligible men is newly single! Oi, get to the back of the queue, I saw him first!

Oh I jest of course. Lovely romantic old Phil Collins fell for this unfortunate lady and then dumped his poor second wife by fax. I wonder how this one went? "You're dumped" in alphabetti spaghetti at dinner time? A letter from his solicitor at breakfast time? Or maybe this is the first she's heard of it?

Phil must have someone lined up already, I can't wait to hear who it is. Hmm, who is single at the moment? Renee Zellwegger? Cher? Billie Piper?

He is rich though...if I was after a super rich sugar daddy husband who would surely die if he had an over-enthusiastic young wife I'd be straight in there.

You know you are too polite when...

...you walk into the only ladies loo in a pub to find a "lady" stood on top of the toilet snorting coke off the hand drier and you apologise.

Shakespeare is among us

So finally the world of literature has attracted one of the greats of our times who wants to tell us all about his life. In 5 books. Over 12 years. For £5 million quid. Who is this doyenne of intellectual thought who will teach us great things and make us question the world we live in? Why, no other than Wayne Rooney. What took you so long Wayne?

I imagine the first volume of the five (what do you call a series of 5 books? A cinquette?) will be something like this:

Monday: “I woke up and brushed me teeth in the special toothpaste that Colleen got me. It’s got seaweed in it and it makes me feel sick. Then I got dressed. Jones our butler had made me favourite brekkie – Lucky Charms and toast with the crusts cut off, I hate crusts. Then I got a call from Sven who wanted to tell me to stop eating so much cereal and start on the body building shakes for the World Cup build up. I don’t like them much but he wants me to be able to knock over those ‘orrible other players who think they can beat me easily”.

Tuesday: “I got up and brushed me teeth. Had a Crème Egg for brekkie, coz Colleen was out already at Lakeside shopping. Had footie training.”

Wednesday: “Went to awards ceremony after tea. Colleen made me wear a pink suit to go with her dress. Met Lionel Blair, he’s my hero.”

Thursday: “David (Beckham) called to see how I was doing. He says I’d better eat lots of eggs as well as all those shakes.”

Friday: “Watched Deal or no deal. Those poor people get really upset about a piddly 250 grand, Colleen spends that most weekends.”

And so on. How can he stretch it over 5 books? It isn't quite Lord of the Rings, and that only made it to 3. I imagine the early life will be: “I went to school, I was quite good at football, I got spotted and signed.” Of course there must be some early hardship to go through, maybe his mum couldn’t afford Adidas trainers and he had £5 ones from the local market. My life could be this exciting, do you think I could get a few million to tell my story?

I can’t wait to read them. No really.

I'd like to withdraw ALL your money please Mr Security Man.

What is going on with all the money being stolen at the moment? Since the £53 million was nicked, loads of Securitas depots and vans have been robbed. A plane in Sweden was robbed too! It's like the audacity of nicking £53 million made all the other crims go "whoo, it looks dead easy to make a quick buck, let's nick a tractor and go make ourselves rich". And ironically they usually have so far. It makes me suspicious. Either it's all the same people and they need MEGABUCKS for some dastardly scheme, or it's rival gangs who are competing with each other. Or they're trying to take the heat off the big money by making the cops investigate lots of little robberies in a cunning red herring type strategy.

Or the robbers found out that Securitas were a big bunch of frauds not guaranteed to look after our money at all, with very little security around to stop them. Hell they probably had the money lying around piled up in a big room and they spend all their days bellyflopping into it and giggling. Not likely to stop your more serious criminal mind. Not one with a tractor anyway.

I L.O.V.E. my new doctor's

I finally registered with a doctor today. I haven't been registered with a doctor close to where I live for nearly 3 years so I fully expect to be beset with some horrible illness now I have somewhere to go. My elderly neighbour recommended them, on the basis that they hadn't killed her yet. I failed 3 times at picking up new patients' forms and in the end had to beg them to post them to me. Today I went there clutching my filled in forms and I walked there in the rain. Yes I did. In the rain. Go me!

The minute I walked through their doors their computers died. Is it just me?! As it was still raining I said I'd wait and see if they could be fixed. As I was sat steaming quietly in the oh so lovely waiting room I noticed lots of things that make me heart my new doctors. They have an electronic sign that announces appointments. It makes a binging sound so everyone remembers to look up and then the sign says: "Mrs Smith! Doctor Brown! Room 1, and have a nice day now!". Ok I made up the exclamation marks and the over familiarity, but that's what it felt like. The receptionists all smiled and they even had a plant with an amusing note stuck on it. It said: "Hello. Please don't water me any more, I have plenty. Thankyou, Drowning Plant".

The people in the waiting room all seemed to be kindly looking elderly gentlemen who all looked very healthy. Cocoon anyone? Ooh apart from one man who looked a bit pale and a sly glimpse at the letter he was clutching explained it - he was in for the snip. Ouch!

I went to look at the doctor's my sister-in-law is registered with which is nearer than my new doctor's, but seriously? It looked like a crack den from the outside. And the inside wasn't much better. It was a dodgy terraced house and some of the upstairs windows had those metal screens they put on drug dens they've closed down. For the extra 10 minute walk it's worth it for smiley nurses, a talking sign, and over-watered plants! And the entertaining sight of men's faces when they know they are about to have their little willies messed with! And miracle of miracles their computers came back on and I was allowed to join the hallowed ranks.

My useless work colleague

Now I said I wouldn't swear lots about this person and I won't, but in the past couple of days work bitching with my more useful colleagues (it's the best way to get through the days) has come up with some gems:

On a general ability to help anyone. Period:

"Why don't we replace her with a cardboard cut-out. It would be more efficient and at least we could put a sign on it saying "I'm sorry there is no-one here at the moment who can help you"? "

On hearing Ms Useless is approaching a significant milestone in life:

"Well it just proves that fat people don't show their age"

"Well at least she's a year nearer retirement"

I am sure that crying with laughter at the Enquiry Desk would be frowned upon by the Great Librarian in the Sky, but sometimes it just has to come out.

The one good thing...

...about being off sick from work? Watching Deal or No Deal and seeing a crazy lady admit to the whole world that her dead parents were channeling her decisions. Genius.

Ramblings

Yesterday I composed a blog about my useless work colleague. But I've decided not to publish it as life is too short to read lots of swearing, and if I ever became famous and my identity leaked out then I'd be in big doo doo.

So today I woke up with Orson's "No tomorrow" in my head, probably courtesy of Lady Librarian who gets violent at the very thought of it. And yesterday it was more KT Tunstall, what is going on? I don't own her album, I'm starting to suspect that it's some kind of mind implant, but it won't make me buy it, oh no!

I've got drawn into watching the current series of American Idol for some bizarre reason. It's a bit mad. None of the songs they sing (apart from the classics) have made it over to these shores so I've got no idea if they're singing them well or not. And apart from 1 guy who makes me mad as he has the best rock voice and could be doing the music thing for real - WHY didn't he start a band or join a band, is American Idol really the best outlet for his talents? - they are mostly a bunch of average karaoke singers with confidence. It's weird watching all these American kids being told they are absolutely rubbish turning around and telling the judges they don't know what they're talking about. None of them think they are rubbish, just that the judges either don't know what they're talking about or that the judges have got some idea of who they want to win and they don't fit the bill. Where does all this unfounded confidence come from? Hell, I can't even sing in front of my nearest and dearest and I love singing. But I suppose I'm a repressed Brit.

Dumbass lawyers

This is the type of person who has been plaguing the poor librarians this week:

Dumbass lawyer: "Have you got 'Precedents on land law?'
Librarian: "Yes we do. What date?"
Dumbass lawyer: "It's the first of March."
Librarian: "???"

[Nb the intelligent librarian meant to say "which edition are you looking for?" but assumed the lawyer had a brain.]