Get the world into perspective. Trust me, it's a big place.

Here's something that makes me go all weird for a few minutes if I think about it: the Earth's crust is only 70km thick at it's largest point, and something like 5-10km thick at the lowest points of the ocean bed. below that is 2,200km of mantle. Have you ever seen lava flow from a volcano? That stuff is magma. This swirls round at stupidly hot temperatures at very high pressure, and moves the earths crust around. Want to know what causes things like earthquakes and grounds your flight to Iceland? That'll be the mantle. below that is the core. This is mostly iron and is more dense than your average Big Brother contestant. it's constant moving causes the magnetic field that helps you find your way. It is unimaginably hot, and the whole shebang goes down a total of 6,500km, which is about the distance from England to Uganda. Wowzers!

Now, look at the ground. All that is going on right under your feet, right now!

Read more...

Peer Pressure: Forcing You To Make Silly Decisions Since Time Began.

Having referred to a handy collection of the millions of fashion websites, I now know that this summer, we need to be wearing 70's chic, "biker" gear, punk fashion and 60's ladylike in order to be wearing "this season's look". Not at the same time I assume, mostly because you'd look like you'd just stepped out of a panto having been dressed by Stevie Wonder. However, thank God we have these websites, eh? Otherwise, how else would we know what to wear? That's one less worry! However, come Winter, I think I'm going to make my own fashion website and decide what the "trend" is. I'm absolutely certain that it'll be a massive hit, and I'll revel in having made everyone walk around wearing, I don't know, bin liners on their arms. Seriously, who comes up with these fashion trends? Is it one person telling everyone what to wear ahead of time, or does someone see that a lot of people are wearing frilly tops and declare that to be a "look"?

Read more...

I could learn every language in the world, and there's still one that will always stump me.

There's one thing about speaking English that I enjoy; everyone else in the world appears to speak it. It takes the whole "language barrier" thing away for the majority of the time. This was discovered by a friend of mine on a trip to The Netherlands last year when, in the belief that they spoke as little English as we do Dutch, she shouted "tits" across the train, much to the rapturous amusement of a German business-boy opposite me. Even if you're from, say, Norway and you're speaking to someone from France, you might not speak each others' language, so you'll both speak in English. Bonus! Now, this doesn't mean I'll do the standard thing while abroad of speaking LOUDLY... AND... SLOWLY while asking for TWO... BEERS... PLEASE because I can't be bothered to learn the local lingo.

Read more...

Everyone is individual. Some are more individual than others, especially when they say the world's ending.

I bet you were all as truly amazed as I was at 6:01pm last Saturday, when we all were still alive! Amazingly, despite repeated promises, we were not raptured. Well, I say "amazed", I actually mean you were probably doing exactly what I was doing: something else entirely that was infinitely more interesting, and only noticed the time had passed rapture-o'clock a few hours later. Professional doom-monger Harold Camping had told everyone that, after spending possibly minutes analysing Bible passages, that the rapture was coming on the 21st May at 6pm. Now, despite the fact that I've read War & Peace more times than I've read the Bible, I suspect that Mr Camping didn't put a huge amount of effort into his "analysing", because even I know that there's a passage that specifically states that no-one knows when the rapture is, not even Jesus. But, apparently, a televangelist knows. And I bet that it had nothing to do with promoting his radio station.... whatsoever. Nevertheless, he's decided that he missed a small chunk now (not the aforementioned important clause, however) and it's now been moved back to the 21st October. Of course it has, Harry, course it has.

Read more...

Sorry, how much is that rubbish? Oh, I want one now...

I sometimes go into charity shops, and even go as far as to buy things from them. There, I said it! I even said it on the interwebs and everything. I'm not embarrassed by this, but what I do remember is at school, it was somehow the ultimate insult that something you owned helped to do a small bit of good in the world via it's second hand purchase. I remember a girl who was massively picked on because she had a bike that came courtesy of a Marie Curie shop for £3. Nowadays, it's not so bad to go in and see what you can find, especially if it's something for a one-off or to get dirty. However, this isn't the main reason I'll be seen going into them. It's because they are home to some absolute stonkers that, somehow, the lady behind the counter who looks as animatronic as the cash register didn't realise was worth a fortune/rare/explosive. I've bought a pair of brand new Converse shoes in an Oxfam for £8, as opposed to the £50 I planned to pay. I was mightily impressed with myself, but nowhere near as impressed as I was with a friend of mine, who wondered into a Cancer Research shop, gave the robot lady the £4.50 that was on the price tag... and walked out as the proud owner of nearly £1,000 worth of (seemingly) brand new Gucci handbag!



Read more...

People's dignity: cheaper by the day, it seems.

So there I was, in the queue at a shop in Cambridge to buy a pair of shoes, as you do, and I can see him at the end. He's wearing the kind of cringe-worthy blazer that someone dons when they've just proudly bought a boat, and insist on calling everyone "skipper". He had a straw-woven hat that matched the awful ensemble that he was sporting, and had a John Thompson-esque goatee. His wife was next to him, with that "sun-kissed" skin that could only remind me of a ten year old sofa. I don't like making snap judgements about people I've never met, but I couldn't shift the belief that these two are the kind of folks who are full to the brim of their own pompous opinions, and take great enjoyment in broadcasting them to everyone.



Read more...

Lack of Honesty = Broken Wine Glasses = Hilarious X-Factor Auditions

This morning, I have this to say: the world is now full of people who have this massively mistaken belief that they can sing! Have you ever wondered why that person in your office, or on the bus, or in the room next door to yours keeps belting out "ballads" that have yet to feature a correct note? Are you sick of replacing your wine glasses because your neighbours singing makes them explode on cue? Where did these people, and their mistaken beliefs, come from? Well, I blame "X-Factor" personally. I mean, let's look at someone like Gareth Gates (yes, I know he was on Pop Idol). He started as a nervous nobody with a stutter. Now, he's a household name. He's a successful recording artist. He's even appearing in Les Miserables in the West End! The thing is that previously, we were used to hearing of great singers after they'd been working at it for years. People like Rod Stewart seemed to have been born for singing; I can't imagine anyone like that having a stutter. This does cause a slight problem, however...



Read more...

Going To a Festival? Don't Annoy The Locals, Everyone Else Has!

Every Autumn, around where I live my commute is regularly held up by potatoes. No, seriously, around deepest, darkest Bedfordshire, (it be farmin' country around 'ere) every August the tractors full of tasty goods fill up their loads and trundle along the roads at what is basically walking speed, to send them off to Mr Morrisons, so you and I can enjoy a lovely salad, or a Turnip Surprise (comments at the end please, on what the Surprise is...). It does make my hay fever go bonkers, but hey, they've got shots for everything nowadays. Now, this may sound like the start of a rant, but it's barely even worth complaining about.

Those who live (or regularly commute) around London must be looking at the combo of the royal wedding this April with dread, but not half as much dread as the up and coming Olympics next year. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for them, but can you imagine trying to get the Circle Line to work, only to find the first three trains crammed up by people in "amusing" shorts, questionable baseball caps and massive cameras? Crikey, it'd drive me mad! Constantly being stopped in the street and being asked in broken English where "the big sports place lives", and not being able to get anywhere due to the endless traffic from the events, leading tourists to question if anything actually moves on the roads! If I lived there, do you know what I'd do? Go on a massive holiday! Some people are renting out their flats or houses in London to tourists who can't get a hotel, sometimes for crazy money for a week. One person I know is asking for £1,000 for a weeks stay in their central London pad to anyone who wants somewhere nice to stay during the games.

Read more...

The brain-dead are in my way... again!

As much as I would rather crawl to a far away place than take the bus, driving does become somewhat annoying at times, don't you think? It's always the stupid little things that get you. For example, my car tells me for miles and miles that it's got loads of fuel and can go for ever and ever, seemingly. Then, all of a sudden, it starts crying and demanding to be fed. "But I'm hungry", it cries with a beep and a flash of the little picture of the fuel pump, "feed me now", like a small child. My pleading with it to shut up and wait a minute are clearly ignored, because it still screams. "But I'm really hungry, and I'm gonna totally die if you don't give me food. Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!".

Things like this can be overcome easily, it's the things I can't fix that really get me. Do you know what I love, especially at stupid o'clock in the morning? It's driving somewhere, only to be stuck behind someone driving so slowly, that sensitive measuring equipment is required to ascertain if any movement is actually happening. Good god it winds me up! They drive along, being steadily overtaken by continental drift, with that stupid look on their face that tells us all that the only thing that's going through their mind is the Magic Roundabout theme tune. I'd like to also point out that these people are different from They (as previously mentioned, check the link to learn more), as they're not co-ordinating their efforts to frustrate you; such a move would require something called "thinking". So now, I've started looking at ways to counter these people, and have some interesting ideas.

Read more...

If I can have my Summer back, that'd be nice.

So today, I've got to go to the doctors to get an injection. It's not a blood-test, it's for hay fever. Yes, every year, for about four months, I find that I can't venture outside without being smacked upside the head with sneezing and a blocked nose. However, this injection should solve it for about a month and a half, which is a massive blessing as I love Summer about four hundred times more than any other time of the year (except 31st March, jus' saying). I had the injection last year, and it was a surprise, mostly because I rolled my shirt sleeve up only to be told "nope, guess again". But, it worked, and it was well worth it just to get my Summer back. I love Summer; I love that a t-shirt and shorts are all that's needed, that it's daytime until about 9:15, that sitting by a river or a pool becomes more enjoyable and less masochistic, but mostly, because it just makes everything that much more awesome. Therefore, it'd be nice to experience it without filling my pockets with tissues and sounding like the man from the Tunes advert.

Read more...

Oh Charlie Sheen, how you show us all how to live!

This week, for your TV viewing delight, there's a programme about a TV cook who does no cooking but does design a school, there's a chat-show starring someone who's barely famous and annoying but has a Dad who's barely famous and annoying, and a whole programme about a house that Queen Victoria stayed in, maybe, for 4 whole days before she was even Queen, thus rendering the whole thing pointless.

Now, I'm not going to spend next Wednesday's blog telling you how it all turned out, because I rarely ever watch TV. Now, I'll give you a moment to take that on board.... You OK? Good! That's right, I barely ever watch TV, due to a combination of what is on being a waste of my time, and my aerial having a personality of its own. This would be fine, if it wasn't a personality that sporadically hates TV when it decides, and sometimes simply can't be bothered to do anything. This week, my TV has been used mostly for watching copious quantities of LOST on DVD, Xbox and occasionally, re-runs of QI and Top Gear on Dave. When the Aerial lets me.

Read more...

I dunno, something about a Big Society?

Welcome, one and all, to the "Big Society". Don't ask me what it is, because I honestly have no clue. Apparently, that's the point? I don't know, but what I do know is that the jist of it is that we all contribute a bit of effort to make everything lovely. How nice! However, one problem I've noticed is that I'm not really sure if I'd be a lot of help to this volunteer force. Unless, that is, sarcasm and Xbox is in need on any particular day. That aside, I do think that if it works as suggested, it would be quite nice. There's a number of factors though, that could scupper the whole deal, and the biggest factor... is us.

On Saturday, like a good lad, I helped an old couple do up their garden. Is it fun? No. Is it rewarding? sort of. Is it messy? Oh yes! The small amount of money I received from doing this good deed merely went to replace the gloves and trousers I'd ruined. Could have had a lie-in, but noooooo...

Read more...

My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding? I'd Rather Spend The Money On Me, Ta!

As we slide merrily through February and March, we seem to have entered the other part of the year where everyone's birthdays seem to congregate. Seriously, everyone seems to have a birthday either in November or in February/March (myself included). It just makes for a headache planning everything around it; I can get a thoughtful present and a lovely card for all, but if I miss just one person, then the grief I get is colossal! Still, it does at least let me cram in as many parties into the shortest space of time as possible.

However, and this is a big however...

Read more...

Don't like being molly-coddled? Then blame the terminally stupid!

I really could not believe what I was reading when I browsed through the recent dress-code for Royal Ascot's annual Ladies Day. Apparently, underwear is essential, and tans must be even and correctly applied (basically, no streaky marks). Now, Ladies day is a formal event for well presented ladies with satellite dishes on their heads to attend and enjoy the festivities, and has been running since Queen Anne opened the first day on 1711. Clearly, having been opened by the Queen would suggest it's quite a well-to-do event. So what's happened here to allow the risk of some ladies turning up sans pants and with limbs that are coloured part-carrot and part-parsnip to be so great, they felt the need to send out letters to this effect rather than relying on common sense?

Read more...