I joined my elder sister Carol when I was five, at the Spring Bank Primary School in New Mills and my first memory is leaning against the wall, just inside the gate and being joined by another first day kid, whose name was Glynn. We spent a few years together, Glynn and me; he was my best mate.
Being a red-blooded pair of kids, we sat in the back of the class and as I couldn’t read the blackboard, the teacher assumed that I was a slow learning retard. This was perfectly understandable, as half the kids were slow-learning retards, (Cruel but true!).
Eventually, Mum took me to the optician and I got my first pair of specs, they were John Lennon type glasses and the change was amazing, I could see each individual leaf on a tree, instead of a green amorphous blob. My joy was short lived however. I went into the class and Rosemary Hoggins started laughing at me and then most of the kids were taking the piss out of me and calling me “speccy four eyes”. After that I only ever wore them when I was looking at
the blackboard, it took me years to get over that.
At the age of six or seven, Carol, Joyce (my younger sister) and me all went to Hague Bar Primary school, which was much better. The head master was called Mister Hallam and if we misbehaved he used to smack us on the leg with a ruler or if we really misbehaved he smacked us on the backside with a plimsole (sandshoe, no Nikes back then).
After a year or so, I became a ‘milk monitor’; this involved collecting the crates of milk from outside, where the milkman left them. For those of you who didn’t live in England in the fifties. As part of the welfare state, all primary schools were obliged to provide a third of a pint of milk to each pupil. The reasoning behind this was so that all the kids would grow up with strong bones and teeth, I think! (as an aside, Margaret Thatcher became known as ‘Thatcher the Milk Snatcher’ in later years, when she discontinued the practice).
This was good in theory, but not such a great idea in practice. In summer the milk, which had a nice inch or so of cream at the top of the bottle would be warm (yep! even in an English Summer) and bordering on rancid. Drinking it took a very strong stomach and kids would be dribbling milk and trying hard not to vomit. Being the person partially responsible for this form of child abuse, I was not Mr. Popular.
In spring and autumn it was OK apart from the Tits (feathery type Blue-Tits and Great-Tits, not what you were thinking, although the mental connection between tits and milk can be forgiven). The crafty little critters used to peck through the aluminium tops and drink the cream from half the bottles.
A big responsibility for one so young, was deciding who got the untouched bottles. In winter the milk would freeze and as milk expands when frozen, this pushed the tops off the bottles and seemed to keep the Tits away. Could this be the origin of the expression ‘Freeze your Tits Off’?
I remember one winter’s day when the snow was very heavy. Carol, Joyce and me couldn’t catch the bus (which couldn’t get safely through the snowdrifts) and walked to the school, about two miles away, very slowly, throwing snowballs at each other. I got a slippering with a sandshoe from Mr. Hallam for being late and the girls didn’t get punished at all, which wasn’t real fair.
But even in those days it may have been considered improper, for a male teacher to be smacking young girls on the backside with a shoe. All sorts of perversions spring to mind.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A personal and cynical view of the UK
I was born in March 1949 in New Mills. This is a small town of about 8,000 people in North Derbyshire. It is sort of in the Midlands, but if it was a mile or less further north it would be in Lancashire, which is in the North of England and we all speak (or in my case, spoke) funny like Mancunians (natives of Manchester), so we think we’re Northerners.
Not that that is a real big deal, most Southerners i.e. Londoners and their ilk, think that anything north of Cockfosters (which is the most northerly station on the underground) is the deep north and should be avoided at all costs. Who cares what they think anyway! They’re almost as bad as the French and have spawned the likes of Margaret Thatcher.
Most thinking people recognise that the further you travel from London except South and East, (where they’re all cast in the same mould and even closer to France) the friendlier the people. West Country folk are very nice and not averse to smuggling a few barrels of brandy etc. from the accursed French.
They also make a very nice apple cider (called scrumpy which is best described as ‘Rough Cider’ including the skin and pips and rots your socks off . Up north a bit, you’ve got the Southern Welsh who were kind enough to give me a tertiary education. (more of that later).
East from there, after you jump over Offa’s Dyke you’ve got the Potteries Counties. The dyke was dug by some geezer called Offa and his tribe to keep the Welsh where they belonged, although it could have been intended to keep the Anglo Saxons out of Wales.
A bit further north is the Black Country, which was originally named because of all the factories belching out smoke, during and just after the ‘Industrial Revolution’. These days all the dark satanic mills have been moved offshore to China and India.
Further north still, you’ve got your good people from Manchester, Liverpool and if you hop over the Pennines, Sheffield. The other Yorkshire folk are a bit strange, but alright in small doses. Then you go up further and you get to the Geordies, who are some of the best I’ve met and invented Newcastle Brown and other delicious beverages.
Over to the left, you’ve got the Lake District which is very picturesque and that’s about all I’ve got to say about it. I’ve been there once and it’s got a few lakes and some famous people and poets lived there. I think Wordsworth may have wandered through a host of golden daffodils in that neck of the meadows.
In the far north you cross Hadrian’s wall, obviously built by a Roman Wally called, you got it! Hadrian. This was designed to keep the mad buggers called Picts and Scots back over the border in Glasgow fighting among themselves. The Scots are supposed to be a bunch of dour sods, but the ones I’ve met love a bevy or two and rarely get violent, I may have been lucky there.
To get back to New Mills, it’s situated on the confluence of the rivers Goyt and Sett (which will never get a mention in any documentary on the great rivers of the world). Although they do eventually flow into the Mersey and if you’ve never heard of that you shouldn’t really be reading this. As you were obviously born after the Beatles and the rest of the Scousers conquered the music scene.
These two, not so mighty, rivers were trapped behind a weir and forced into a mill race, which strangely enough turned a mill wheel, which provided power for a mill or maybe two, milling corn. The local idiot savant said “Oh! New Mills” and the local villeins and serfs clapped delightedly and the name stuck. That’s enough geography for the time being, I don’t want to bore you too much.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Not that that is a real big deal, most Southerners i.e. Londoners and their ilk, think that anything north of Cockfosters (which is the most northerly station on the underground) is the deep north and should be avoided at all costs. Who cares what they think anyway! They’re almost as bad as the French and have spawned the likes of Margaret Thatcher.
Most thinking people recognise that the further you travel from London except South and East, (where they’re all cast in the same mould and even closer to France) the friendlier the people. West Country folk are very nice and not averse to smuggling a few barrels of brandy etc. from the accursed French.
They also make a very nice apple cider (called scrumpy which is best described as ‘Rough Cider’ including the skin and pips and rots your socks off . Up north a bit, you’ve got the Southern Welsh who were kind enough to give me a tertiary education. (more of that later).
East from there, after you jump over Offa’s Dyke you’ve got the Potteries Counties. The dyke was dug by some geezer called Offa and his tribe to keep the Welsh where they belonged, although it could have been intended to keep the Anglo Saxons out of Wales.
A bit further north is the Black Country, which was originally named because of all the factories belching out smoke, during and just after the ‘Industrial Revolution’. These days all the dark satanic mills have been moved offshore to China and India.
Further north still, you’ve got your good people from Manchester, Liverpool and if you hop over the Pennines, Sheffield. The other Yorkshire folk are a bit strange, but alright in small doses. Then you go up further and you get to the Geordies, who are some of the best I’ve met and invented Newcastle Brown and other delicious beverages.
Over to the left, you’ve got the Lake District which is very picturesque and that’s about all I’ve got to say about it. I’ve been there once and it’s got a few lakes and some famous people and poets lived there. I think Wordsworth may have wandered through a host of golden daffodils in that neck of the meadows.
In the far north you cross Hadrian’s wall, obviously built by a Roman Wally called, you got it! Hadrian. This was designed to keep the mad buggers called Picts and Scots back over the border in Glasgow fighting among themselves. The Scots are supposed to be a bunch of dour sods, but the ones I’ve met love a bevy or two and rarely get violent, I may have been lucky there.
To get back to New Mills, it’s situated on the confluence of the rivers Goyt and Sett (which will never get a mention in any documentary on the great rivers of the world). Although they do eventually flow into the Mersey and if you’ve never heard of that you shouldn’t really be reading this. As you were obviously born after the Beatles and the rest of the Scousers conquered the music scene.
These two, not so mighty, rivers were trapped behind a weir and forced into a mill race, which strangely enough turned a mill wheel, which provided power for a mill or maybe two, milling corn. The local idiot savant said “Oh! New Mills” and the local villeins and serfs clapped delightedly and the name stuck. That’s enough geography for the time being, I don’t want to bore you too much.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Thursday, April 2, 2009
More on Imp v's Metric! Skull's own Scale of Measurement
Having contemplated this further I have decided that my own measuring system is a curious combination of both. For instance, when I weigh myself in the morning after doing my ablutions I stand on the scale and if I weigh less than 75kgs I am a happy chappy, if I weigh more I’m less than happy. I have absolutely no idea what 75kgs is in Stones and pounds.
If I weigh myself in public I am much heavier than that, this is partially due to the fact that I am wearing boots and clothes and have had something to eat and drink. It is possible to weigh yourself in the local shopping centre before consuming anything and you can take off your boots, jacket and sweater with only a few amused glances. However, if you start taking off your jeans and T-shirt people start to get a little worried and if you politely ask a passing little old lady to hold your socks and jocks, all hell will break loose.
The moral of this story is, that if you want to find your true weight and don’t want to end up in the slammer, invest $40 in a decent set of bathroom scales.
When it comes to my height, I’ve always said that I’m 5’ 10’’ but I think I was probably closer to 5’ 9’’, what’s an inch between friends (on second thoughts, don’t answer that). I think that is about 173cms, give or take a cm or two. 5’ 10’’ sounds like a good average height, not too short and not real tall, but 173cms seems like a real midget.
If you’re 2m tall that sounds good, but in reality it’s about 6’ 6’’, which is huge. If you’re 2m tall and your missus is the same, you’re going to end up with kids who are 7 feet tall. This would be great for the lads, they could always become highly paid basketball players or ruckmen in Aussie Rules Football, or lowly paid light-bulb changers and bouncers, but what about your daughters?
Women who are that big scare potential suitors, this is because the male brain has been hot-wired since the days of ‘hunter gathering’ to believe that they are the head honchos, wrestling with sabre toothed tigers and scaring the bejasus out of mastodons.
Nowadays, most of them are pasty-faced, lily-livered clerks, who knuckle a respectful forelock at their ‘superiors’ and go home to kick the dog and shout at the wife and kids to assert their superiority. What are they going to do if they’re confronted with a 7 foot tall Amazon, shout at her or run off whimpering?
The only guys who like their women that tall are the real short arsed ones, like Bernie E. and the Gnomes of Zurich, whose wallets are so thick that they need a step ladder to reach the top of them (the wallets and the women).
These guys are so obsessed with being successful, due to the fact that normal sized blokes used to park their pint pots on their heads while they lit up a Marlboro, that they have gone through life without the simple pleasures, such as sniffing the flowers. This is a bit of a pity really, because they’re closer to the ground, I suppose they make up for it by standing on their tippy-toes and sniffing their wives. I won’t pursue that line of thought, I shall leave it to your own prurient imaginations.
To get back to my original thoughts concerning the metric system, I live on a block of land that is a quarter acre, this is the Australian dream, a house on a quarter acre block. I know exactly what it looks like because I have to mow it. I haven’t got a clue what that is in hectares or square metres but I’m sure it sounds a lot more impressive in square yards.
When it comes to drinks, I am reasonably fluent in both Metric, Australian and Imperial. I know for instance that a ‘pot’ is 10 fl ozs which is half a pint, a ‘tinny’ holds 375ml as does a ‘stubby’, a ‘long neck bottle’ holds 750ml and there are 24 ‘tinnies’ to a ‘Slab’ which fits nicely into an ‘Esky’ with a bag or two of ice.
What more could a bloke ask for, I’m 5’ 9’’ and a bit and weigh approx. 75kgs, my missus is 4’ 11’, I have a son who is 5’ 11’ and a daughter who will be around 5’ 5’’. I live on a quarter acre block within walking distance (a mile and a half) of a shopping centre, where I could either buy a slab of VB cans and store them in an esky or weigh myself ‘au naturel’. I suppose if I could find a wallet, lost by one of the Gnomes of Zurich, I wouldn’t mind going up to 85kgs and consuming a few more ‘long necks’, but you can’t have everything.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
If I weigh myself in public I am much heavier than that, this is partially due to the fact that I am wearing boots and clothes and have had something to eat and drink. It is possible to weigh yourself in the local shopping centre before consuming anything and you can take off your boots, jacket and sweater with only a few amused glances. However, if you start taking off your jeans and T-shirt people start to get a little worried and if you politely ask a passing little old lady to hold your socks and jocks, all hell will break loose.
The moral of this story is, that if you want to find your true weight and don’t want to end up in the slammer, invest $40 in a decent set of bathroom scales.
When it comes to my height, I’ve always said that I’m 5’ 10’’ but I think I was probably closer to 5’ 9’’, what’s an inch between friends (on second thoughts, don’t answer that). I think that is about 173cms, give or take a cm or two. 5’ 10’’ sounds like a good average height, not too short and not real tall, but 173cms seems like a real midget.
If you’re 2m tall that sounds good, but in reality it’s about 6’ 6’’, which is huge. If you’re 2m tall and your missus is the same, you’re going to end up with kids who are 7 feet tall. This would be great for the lads, they could always become highly paid basketball players or ruckmen in Aussie Rules Football, or lowly paid light-bulb changers and bouncers, but what about your daughters?
Women who are that big scare potential suitors, this is because the male brain has been hot-wired since the days of ‘hunter gathering’ to believe that they are the head honchos, wrestling with sabre toothed tigers and scaring the bejasus out of mastodons.
Nowadays, most of them are pasty-faced, lily-livered clerks, who knuckle a respectful forelock at their ‘superiors’ and go home to kick the dog and shout at the wife and kids to assert their superiority. What are they going to do if they’re confronted with a 7 foot tall Amazon, shout at her or run off whimpering?
The only guys who like their women that tall are the real short arsed ones, like Bernie E. and the Gnomes of Zurich, whose wallets are so thick that they need a step ladder to reach the top of them (the wallets and the women).
These guys are so obsessed with being successful, due to the fact that normal sized blokes used to park their pint pots on their heads while they lit up a Marlboro, that they have gone through life without the simple pleasures, such as sniffing the flowers. This is a bit of a pity really, because they’re closer to the ground, I suppose they make up for it by standing on their tippy-toes and sniffing their wives. I won’t pursue that line of thought, I shall leave it to your own prurient imaginations.
To get back to my original thoughts concerning the metric system, I live on a block of land that is a quarter acre, this is the Australian dream, a house on a quarter acre block. I know exactly what it looks like because I have to mow it. I haven’t got a clue what that is in hectares or square metres but I’m sure it sounds a lot more impressive in square yards.
When it comes to drinks, I am reasonably fluent in both Metric, Australian and Imperial. I know for instance that a ‘pot’ is 10 fl ozs which is half a pint, a ‘tinny’ holds 375ml as does a ‘stubby’, a ‘long neck bottle’ holds 750ml and there are 24 ‘tinnies’ to a ‘Slab’ which fits nicely into an ‘Esky’ with a bag or two of ice.
What more could a bloke ask for, I’m 5’ 9’’ and a bit and weigh approx. 75kgs, my missus is 4’ 11’, I have a son who is 5’ 11’ and a daughter who will be around 5’ 5’’. I live on a quarter acre block within walking distance (a mile and a half) of a shopping centre, where I could either buy a slab of VB cans and store them in an esky or weigh myself ‘au naturel’. I suppose if I could find a wallet, lost by one of the Gnomes of Zurich, I wouldn’t mind going up to 85kgs and consuming a few more ‘long necks’, but you can’t have everything.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Mobile Pheromones! How to attract lovely species!
Mobile Pheromones
Just in case you think that this is a typographical error, you are dead set wrong, a ‘Pheromone’ according to my dictionary is “a chemical substance secreted and released by an animal for detection and use by another, usu. of the same species”.
Now, you can make of that what you will, but my understanding is that the chemical substance being secreted is intended to stimulate sexual desire in the other “usu. of the same species”, so that they will get together for a good old fashioned bonk, to propagate the species and have a good old time while they’re doing it.
So, go figure, if this is nature’s way of attracting ‘mates’, why have we created a multi billion dollar industry to try to camouflage our natural ‘pong’, which should be attracting “usu. of the same species” by the dozen.
Thus we get to ‘Personal Hygiene’
Now, being a Pom, I can’t say that I’m fanatical about this. I believe that you should keep yourself reasonably clean, so that you don’t become overly smelly and offensive to other people, who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in procreating with you.
Let’s face it, it doesn’t make for a good start to the day, if you’re trapped in a crowded train with your snot-box stuck in somebody’s smelly armpit. This was not what Mother Nature intended at all, (let’s face it, mass transport has sod all to do with the propagation of the species, or does it?).
Of course, if you’re vertically disadvantaged and your schnozz is firmly implanted in the groin of someone of the opposite sex, pheromones can cause some very strange reactions, but we’ll leave that alone for the time being. Although you could look back at one of my earlier postings, concerning the ‘Gnomes of Zurich’ and Bernie Ecclestone, (I can’t find it, so I don’t really expect you to either. Actually for your edification and delight, I just found it and have published it on my next blog.)
To continue, when I was working in an office, I thought that it was incumbent on me to shower and shave every morning, which I did from Monday to Friday. Even then, I never went overboard and used soap and shampoo in moderation only, none of your bath gel, conditioners or any other exotica for me.
Afterwards a quick shave with a spurt of cream and that was it, no after-shave and maybe a quick roll-on of deodorant, if my fellow train travellers were lucky. I could never see the point of arriving at the office smelling like a pox-doctors clerk. After all, you were supposed to be there to do something productive, not reproductive.
I can’t really say that I was much better when I was single and went out at the weekend, on the hunt. Let’s be honest here, if nature had meant us to attract members (I use the word guardedly) of the opposite sex, she wouldn’t have invented pheromones and instead our sebaceous glands would be secreting Chanel or L’homme.
If somebody could distil Eau de Pheromone, you could throw a bucketful over your head and you’d be fighting off nubile young maidens at the local disco with a three foot piece of four-by-two. You’d probably stink like a rancid buffalo, but I don’t reckon you’d be too worried about it.
So, the point of this so far is, don’t go overboard with the showering, you’re not doing yourself any favours by destroying your natural secretions which keep your skin healthy and acne free and you’re not doing yourself any good by smelling like a sugar plum fairy (unless of course, you’re that way inclined).
With ‘real workers’ i.e. blokes who work up a bit of a sweat doing physical work, there isn’t a lot of point in showering before you go to work and then sweating your mattocks off as soon as you get there, so they generally shower at work or as soon as they get home. Unless of course, the missus is turned on by the pheromones and then they might be dragged into the boudoir, but I won’t go down that path. (I’m beginning to think, that I’m a bit of a prude!).
So there you have it, go easy on the showers. Although, I must admit that when I was in the Philippines, the in-laws were providing me with a case of beer every morning and it was so hot and humid, that I was walking around sweating like a mobile Trevi Fountain. The locals were very concerned and thought I was melting and needed financial assistance, (or maybe they were throwing coins at me and making wishes for some other reason). In those circumstances I was showering five or six times a day, (no soap mind you) and collecting the coins out of my ‘Y-Fronts’.
Finally, cleaning the old gnashers, I can’t start the day without that, even though I gave up the coffin sticks thirty odd years years ago and stopped over indulging in the grog over five years ago. My gob still feels like the bottom of a bird-cage in the morning and the second thing I do is reach for the Macleans. I leave the first thing to your lurid imaginations.
For any of you who were expecting a dissertation on ‘Mobile Phones’, I apologise. I can only say that I’m completely incapable of using them, especially for 'texting' purposes and although The Good Lady Wife has given me one, for my upcoming trip to Anglo Saxony. I have no intention of using it, apart from incoming calls, obviously from the GLW checking up on me.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Just in case you think that this is a typographical error, you are dead set wrong, a ‘Pheromone’ according to my dictionary is “a chemical substance secreted and released by an animal for detection and use by another, usu. of the same species”.
Now, you can make of that what you will, but my understanding is that the chemical substance being secreted is intended to stimulate sexual desire in the other “usu. of the same species”, so that they will get together for a good old fashioned bonk, to propagate the species and have a good old time while they’re doing it.
So, go figure, if this is nature’s way of attracting ‘mates’, why have we created a multi billion dollar industry to try to camouflage our natural ‘pong’, which should be attracting “usu. of the same species” by the dozen.
Thus we get to ‘Personal Hygiene’
Now, being a Pom, I can’t say that I’m fanatical about this. I believe that you should keep yourself reasonably clean, so that you don’t become overly smelly and offensive to other people, who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in procreating with you.
Let’s face it, it doesn’t make for a good start to the day, if you’re trapped in a crowded train with your snot-box stuck in somebody’s smelly armpit. This was not what Mother Nature intended at all, (let’s face it, mass transport has sod all to do with the propagation of the species, or does it?).
Of course, if you’re vertically disadvantaged and your schnozz is firmly implanted in the groin of someone of the opposite sex, pheromones can cause some very strange reactions, but we’ll leave that alone for the time being. Although you could look back at one of my earlier postings, concerning the ‘Gnomes of Zurich’ and Bernie Ecclestone, (I can’t find it, so I don’t really expect you to either. Actually for your edification and delight, I just found it and have published it on my next blog.)
To continue, when I was working in an office, I thought that it was incumbent on me to shower and shave every morning, which I did from Monday to Friday. Even then, I never went overboard and used soap and shampoo in moderation only, none of your bath gel, conditioners or any other exotica for me.
Afterwards a quick shave with a spurt of cream and that was it, no after-shave and maybe a quick roll-on of deodorant, if my fellow train travellers were lucky. I could never see the point of arriving at the office smelling like a pox-doctors clerk. After all, you were supposed to be there to do something productive, not reproductive.
I can’t really say that I was much better when I was single and went out at the weekend, on the hunt. Let’s be honest here, if nature had meant us to attract members (I use the word guardedly) of the opposite sex, she wouldn’t have invented pheromones and instead our sebaceous glands would be secreting Chanel or L’homme.
If somebody could distil Eau de Pheromone, you could throw a bucketful over your head and you’d be fighting off nubile young maidens at the local disco with a three foot piece of four-by-two. You’d probably stink like a rancid buffalo, but I don’t reckon you’d be too worried about it.
So, the point of this so far is, don’t go overboard with the showering, you’re not doing yourself any favours by destroying your natural secretions which keep your skin healthy and acne free and you’re not doing yourself any good by smelling like a sugar plum fairy (unless of course, you’re that way inclined).
With ‘real workers’ i.e. blokes who work up a bit of a sweat doing physical work, there isn’t a lot of point in showering before you go to work and then sweating your mattocks off as soon as you get there, so they generally shower at work or as soon as they get home. Unless of course, the missus is turned on by the pheromones and then they might be dragged into the boudoir, but I won’t go down that path. (I’m beginning to think, that I’m a bit of a prude!).
So there you have it, go easy on the showers. Although, I must admit that when I was in the Philippines, the in-laws were providing me with a case of beer every morning and it was so hot and humid, that I was walking around sweating like a mobile Trevi Fountain. The locals were very concerned and thought I was melting and needed financial assistance, (or maybe they were throwing coins at me and making wishes for some other reason). In those circumstances I was showering five or six times a day, (no soap mind you) and collecting the coins out of my ‘Y-Fronts’.
Finally, cleaning the old gnashers, I can’t start the day without that, even though I gave up the coffin sticks thirty odd years years ago and stopped over indulging in the grog over five years ago. My gob still feels like the bottom of a bird-cage in the morning and the second thing I do is reach for the Macleans. I leave the first thing to your lurid imaginations.
For any of you who were expecting a dissertation on ‘Mobile Phones’, I apologise. I can only say that I’m completely incapable of using them, especially for 'texting' purposes and although The Good Lady Wife has given me one, for my upcoming trip to Anglo Saxony. I have no intention of using it, apart from incoming calls, obviously from the GLW checking up on me.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull.
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Naked Bog Hopping in The Peak District
I read a very short piece (about one column inch) in the Melbourne Age, about this degradation of the peat bogs, (not the naked bog hopping part) and sent this off to The Buxton Advertiser as a tongue in cheek review. I got a rather stern reprimand, stating that the bogs in the Peak actually soaked up more CO2 than all the forests in Europe.
Further research showed that the original piece was based on an article written by the Ecological Reporter for the Manchester Guardian. I received a grudging apology and although this was written for a very localised readership, I shall include it here. All the characters in this load of the old proverbial, are figments of my imagination and bear no resemblance to anybody who ever walked in Britain's very first National Park.
THE PEAK DISTRICT PEAT BOGS
I read recently that the Peak District Peat Bogs were a major cause of the dreaded Global Warming, this was a trifle distressing to find out that the bogs were causing more emissions of methane/carbon dioxide than the entire bovine herds of Argentina and ovine flocks of Australia plus rain forest clearing in Brazil and Indonesia.
It has been suggested that the peat bogs be ‘bombed’ with bales of heather, so far nobody knows how she feels about this invasion of privacy, but it has gone ahead regardless, with bales being flung, hither and yon, over the bogs of Bleaklow and subsequently Kinder Scout. This will, they hope, end up with the bogs covered in newly sprouting heather come spring time. In effect draining the bogs and turning them into virtual meadows.
I then discovered that if the bogs were drained, that 17 different types of lichen, found only in that part of the world would be lost for ever, according to Gerald P. Greenbotty the world renowned Lichenologist from Warwick University.
If this was not enough, amateur ornithologist Phyllis C. Heaps said that the the yellow bellied, lesser spotted, great tit, (which had been thought extinct until her husband Arnold stumbled on a nest, literally rather than metaphorically, in the great fog of 1987) was still flittering around in rather depleted numbers.
This is confirmed by Gladys MacPlebian, a well known Scottish eremite, who in traversing the Pennine Way down to Salford to see her sister, fell up to her neck in a bog just south of Kinder Scout. Taking this as a sign from ‘God’, she decided to build a bothy there. She states quite unequivocally that she has heard the plaintiff cries of the great tit quite frequently.
This claim is disputed by Hubert Thistletwaite of ‘Thistlethwaite Bean & Broccolli Growers’, Lower Strange Lane, Edale , tel No 156 472, who requested to remain anonymous. Mr X claims that ‘the plaintiff cries’ heard by Gladys Mac, are in fact the throttled screams of Dan D. Rough the lead singer of local punk band ‘The Hairy Nits’ playing at the Disco in Castleton.
NAKED BOG HOPPING
There are also local concerns about the behaviour of Gladys Mac, who having seen ‘God’, has now introduced ‘Bog Hopping’ to the local spinsters, this apparently involves naked rites at the solstices and equinoxes, where the participants frolic, tits akimbo in the bogs, hopping from tussock to tussock and immersing themselves in the slime.
According to Cyril Neptune of the Manchester Institute of Reptilian Studies, this is seriously affecting the reproductive patterns of the local fauna, specifically the legless shit-brown lizard, which is listed by the RSPCA as being endangered.
Gladys, however, remains unrepentant and claims that Bog Hopping has improved the complexions of the Glossop, Hayfield and Buxton Ladies Ramblers Society (GHABLRS) to such an extent that five of their number have attracted spouses and a few others report fighting off toyboys and gigolos.
She also states that this came to the notice of Maggie T, who joined the GHABLRS at the spring equinox in 1989 and was joined by her adoring hubby Dennis in the bog, (this in itself is unusual, as males generally stay away, as a cold northerly wind does nothing for the proud properties of the male danglers).
However, it is reliably reported that Maggies shrieks drowned out the great tits plaintiff cries, when Dennis gave her a ‘Damned good Rogering’ in the shower afterwards. Subsequently it has been noticed that when Maggie fondly fondles Dennis’ family jewels, his eyes glaze over and his tongue lolls out rather alarmingly.
Rumours that Betty-Nancy Brush, wife of ex-US-president Basil H. W. Brush upon hearing of this miracle cure, has instituted something similar in the peat bogs of Pennsylvania, for the use of the upper echelons of Washington society attending her clinic, are as yet unconfirmed.
Locally however, Lucille Throgmorton of the Little Hayfield, ‘Olde Alternative Pharmacology Store’ has reported record sales of her vials of ‘Peak Peat Bog #5 Slime’, she also expects a record turn out for this year’s ‘Summer Solstice Bog Hop’. As it is expected that this event could rival Glastonbury in years to come, tickets should be purchased early at the store, or other major retailers.
Cheers,
SkyBlueSkull
How could any rational person have taken that lot seriously?
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Further research showed that the original piece was based on an article written by the Ecological Reporter for the Manchester Guardian. I received a grudging apology and although this was written for a very localised readership, I shall include it here. All the characters in this load of the old proverbial, are figments of my imagination and bear no resemblance to anybody who ever walked in Britain's very first National Park.
THE PEAK DISTRICT PEAT BOGS
I read recently that the Peak District Peat Bogs were a major cause of the dreaded Global Warming, this was a trifle distressing to find out that the bogs were causing more emissions of methane/carbon dioxide than the entire bovine herds of Argentina and ovine flocks of Australia plus rain forest clearing in Brazil and Indonesia.
It has been suggested that the peat bogs be ‘bombed’ with bales of heather, so far nobody knows how she feels about this invasion of privacy, but it has gone ahead regardless, with bales being flung, hither and yon, over the bogs of Bleaklow and subsequently Kinder Scout. This will, they hope, end up with the bogs covered in newly sprouting heather come spring time. In effect draining the bogs and turning them into virtual meadows.
I then discovered that if the bogs were drained, that 17 different types of lichen, found only in that part of the world would be lost for ever, according to Gerald P. Greenbotty the world renowned Lichenologist from Warwick University.
If this was not enough, amateur ornithologist Phyllis C. Heaps said that the the yellow bellied, lesser spotted, great tit, (which had been thought extinct until her husband Arnold stumbled on a nest, literally rather than metaphorically, in the great fog of 1987) was still flittering around in rather depleted numbers.
This is confirmed by Gladys MacPlebian, a well known Scottish eremite, who in traversing the Pennine Way down to Salford to see her sister, fell up to her neck in a bog just south of Kinder Scout. Taking this as a sign from ‘God’, she decided to build a bothy there. She states quite unequivocally that she has heard the plaintiff cries of the great tit quite frequently.
This claim is disputed by Hubert Thistletwaite of ‘Thistlethwaite Bean & Broccolli Growers’, Lower Strange Lane, Edale , tel No 156 472, who requested to remain anonymous. Mr X claims that ‘the plaintiff cries’ heard by Gladys Mac, are in fact the throttled screams of Dan D. Rough the lead singer of local punk band ‘The Hairy Nits’ playing at the Disco in Castleton.
NAKED BOG HOPPING
There are also local concerns about the behaviour of Gladys Mac, who having seen ‘God’, has now introduced ‘Bog Hopping’ to the local spinsters, this apparently involves naked rites at the solstices and equinoxes, where the participants frolic, tits akimbo in the bogs, hopping from tussock to tussock and immersing themselves in the slime.
According to Cyril Neptune of the Manchester Institute of Reptilian Studies, this is seriously affecting the reproductive patterns of the local fauna, specifically the legless shit-brown lizard, which is listed by the RSPCA as being endangered.
Gladys, however, remains unrepentant and claims that Bog Hopping has improved the complexions of the Glossop, Hayfield and Buxton Ladies Ramblers Society (GHABLRS) to such an extent that five of their number have attracted spouses and a few others report fighting off toyboys and gigolos.
She also states that this came to the notice of Maggie T, who joined the GHABLRS at the spring equinox in 1989 and was joined by her adoring hubby Dennis in the bog, (this in itself is unusual, as males generally stay away, as a cold northerly wind does nothing for the proud properties of the male danglers).
However, it is reliably reported that Maggies shrieks drowned out the great tits plaintiff cries, when Dennis gave her a ‘Damned good Rogering’ in the shower afterwards. Subsequently it has been noticed that when Maggie fondly fondles Dennis’ family jewels, his eyes glaze over and his tongue lolls out rather alarmingly.
Rumours that Betty-Nancy Brush, wife of ex-US-president Basil H. W. Brush upon hearing of this miracle cure, has instituted something similar in the peat bogs of Pennsylvania, for the use of the upper echelons of Washington society attending her clinic, are as yet unconfirmed.
Locally however, Lucille Throgmorton of the Little Hayfield, ‘Olde Alternative Pharmacology Store’ has reported record sales of her vials of ‘Peak Peat Bog #5 Slime’, she also expects a record turn out for this year’s ‘Summer Solstice Bog Hop’. As it is expected that this event could rival Glastonbury in years to come, tickets should be purchased early at the store, or other major retailers.
Cheers,
SkyBlueSkull
How could any rational person have taken that lot seriously?
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sport and Religion in Australia
This is another copy of a blog that I sent to the 'Manchester Evening News', so it appears on the 'Net' somewhere else, but Odin (I already told you that I'm descended from the Vikings) knows where. So I am including it here as well, just in case you can't find it either, that's the sort of thoughtful, caring guy I am!
I have some statistics before me, these are ‘dinki di’ statistics compiled by the ‘Christian Research Association’ and printed in ‘The Melbourne Age’ a very august publication in much the same vein as ‘The Manchester Evening News’, not the usual crap that I make up off the top of my head. (To be honest with you, I just added that in case the inestimable editor of the MEN, stumbled on this in an idle moment).
Anyway, these stats reveal that of Melbourne’s population of 3.6 million, 1 million are Catholics and another million are made up of various Protestant groups ((are Anglicans, (400,000) Prods?)) and Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and other assorted odds and sods. That leaves over 1.5 mill or 42% who don’t claim to be anything.
That’s an awful lot of Godless bastards, in America 98.67% (alright! I admit it, I just made that up) claim to be church-goers. Over there if you claim to be an atheist, you’re only one small rung above being a paedophiliacal necromaniac with a shoe fetish.
So, what do these Aussies believe in? Well, you can go for twenty years working next to a person and never find out that they’re an Archdeacon in a Druidical sect, that practices animal/virgin sacrifices at every full moon. People just don’t talk about religion, apart from the door-knockers, Seventh Day Adventurists, PsuedoOlogists and clean-cut lads in suits from Salt Lake City.
However, you can’t go longer than twenty minutes without finding out which Aussie Rules Team they barrack for (We’re talking Melbourne here) different rules apply in NSW and Queensland, where they follow Rugby League Teams, but the principle is just the same.
In the AFL (Aussie Football League) there are 16 teams, one each from QLD and NSW, two from SA and WA and the rest from VIC. To function properly at all levels of society you HAVE to be a fan of one of these.
You can follow and participate in Crown Green Darts, Ice Soccer, Synchronised Swimming, Table Badminton, or Nude Beach Tiddly-Winks. Whatever takes your fancy , but you MUST follow an AFL club or you are a social leper.
So, what is this AFL you ask? Well, it’s a very quick, athletic game played between two teams of eighteen, very fit young men who attack a ball and try and kick it between four (not two) posts at either end of a large oval field. If they succeed, then a man dressed as an attendant in a lunatic asylum, waves white flags dementedly around and another similarly attired gentleman waves back at him from the other end of the ground.
This semaphoric routine indicates whether the ball went through the inner bigger poles, which scores 6 points in which case two white flags are flapped around maniacally.
The other alternatives are minor scores which go between a big pole and a small pole, this scores one point and only one flag is used. If the ball misses all the poles then no flags are waved and the crowd shouts obscenities at the player who missed. If he’s one of yours, these can be in an anguished tone, if he’s one of theirs then it should be in a jeering manner.
You also need to shout out obscenities at the umpires as they are always useless, blind white maggots of questionable parentage with exceptionally low IQ’s. As a newcomer to the game, it is highly recommended that you study a game on the TV before you attend an actual game. This is not particularly difficult to achieve as they are broadcast in their entirety (upwards of two hours) on Friday evenings and all day long and most of the night on Saturdays and Sundays.
This means that you can shout obscenities at your spouse (women are even more vociferous than men) all weekend and get away with it. Women love the game and why not? where else can they watch 36 young men in skimpy shorts, beating the crap out of each other? I know that I for one would be glued to the screen if there were games of beach volleyball, with 36 bikini clad beauties beating each other up and no net to intervene, but I’m a sicko!
Unlike most games, where the teams start off in their own half of the field and run like buggery into their opponents half, in AFL they all go anywhere they like, right from the start and then run around higgledy piggledy, trying to confuse everybody, including themselves.
If it’s like any other game, the one that comes closest is Gaelic Football, but they have an excuse, because they’re all Irish and it's expected of them. I won’t go into Aussie Rules any further at this stage, unless popular demand requires me to, as it would require a book, of which there are many available in all good book-stores and selected news-agencies.
Aussie worship of sport doesn’t end there of course, they love beating anybody, but especially The Poms. This is rooted in history, and there is no tradition stronger than that of Test Cricket. The Poms are just as bad of course, when they beat the Skips in England, the Queen knighted the bloody lot of them, including the ‘Sight Screen Movers’.
Not really giving much of a flying frolic who won, although I do enjoy watching test cricket. If the Poms were winning, I used to go into work and say “The Poms are going alright then”. If the Aussies were getting the upper hand, I’d wander in and say “Us Aussies are thrashing the arse off those Pommie Bastards, eh!”. This tactic caused great consternation among the Aussies and it pays to beat a hasty retreat if you’re about to get lynched.
I could go on about other sports, but I won’t mainly because I’m getting bored. Suffice it to say that if you are a sportsman or woman and you’re prepared to be naturalised (sounds painful) then Godzone is the place for you (not from a religious point of view of course). Look at ‘Aussie’ Joe Bugner for one, on second thoughts don’t It’s not a pretty sight.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
I have some statistics before me, these are ‘dinki di’ statistics compiled by the ‘Christian Research Association’ and printed in ‘The Melbourne Age’ a very august publication in much the same vein as ‘The Manchester Evening News’, not the usual crap that I make up off the top of my head. (To be honest with you, I just added that in case the inestimable editor of the MEN, stumbled on this in an idle moment).
Anyway, these stats reveal that of Melbourne’s population of 3.6 million, 1 million are Catholics and another million are made up of various Protestant groups ((are Anglicans, (400,000) Prods?)) and Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and other assorted odds and sods. That leaves over 1.5 mill or 42% who don’t claim to be anything.
That’s an awful lot of Godless bastards, in America 98.67% (alright! I admit it, I just made that up) claim to be church-goers. Over there if you claim to be an atheist, you’re only one small rung above being a paedophiliacal necromaniac with a shoe fetish.
So, what do these Aussies believe in? Well, you can go for twenty years working next to a person and never find out that they’re an Archdeacon in a Druidical sect, that practices animal/virgin sacrifices at every full moon. People just don’t talk about religion, apart from the door-knockers, Seventh Day Adventurists, PsuedoOlogists and clean-cut lads in suits from Salt Lake City.
However, you can’t go longer than twenty minutes without finding out which Aussie Rules Team they barrack for (We’re talking Melbourne here) different rules apply in NSW and Queensland, where they follow Rugby League Teams, but the principle is just the same.
In the AFL (Aussie Football League) there are 16 teams, one each from QLD and NSW, two from SA and WA and the rest from VIC. To function properly at all levels of society you HAVE to be a fan of one of these.
You can follow and participate in Crown Green Darts, Ice Soccer, Synchronised Swimming, Table Badminton, or Nude Beach Tiddly-Winks. Whatever takes your fancy , but you MUST follow an AFL club or you are a social leper.
So, what is this AFL you ask? Well, it’s a very quick, athletic game played between two teams of eighteen, very fit young men who attack a ball and try and kick it between four (not two) posts at either end of a large oval field. If they succeed, then a man dressed as an attendant in a lunatic asylum, waves white flags dementedly around and another similarly attired gentleman waves back at him from the other end of the ground.
This semaphoric routine indicates whether the ball went through the inner bigger poles, which scores 6 points in which case two white flags are flapped around maniacally.
The other alternatives are minor scores which go between a big pole and a small pole, this scores one point and only one flag is used. If the ball misses all the poles then no flags are waved and the crowd shouts obscenities at the player who missed. If he’s one of yours, these can be in an anguished tone, if he’s one of theirs then it should be in a jeering manner.
You also need to shout out obscenities at the umpires as they are always useless, blind white maggots of questionable parentage with exceptionally low IQ’s. As a newcomer to the game, it is highly recommended that you study a game on the TV before you attend an actual game. This is not particularly difficult to achieve as they are broadcast in their entirety (upwards of two hours) on Friday evenings and all day long and most of the night on Saturdays and Sundays.
This means that you can shout obscenities at your spouse (women are even more vociferous than men) all weekend and get away with it. Women love the game and why not? where else can they watch 36 young men in skimpy shorts, beating the crap out of each other? I know that I for one would be glued to the screen if there were games of beach volleyball, with 36 bikini clad beauties beating each other up and no net to intervene, but I’m a sicko!
Unlike most games, where the teams start off in their own half of the field and run like buggery into their opponents half, in AFL they all go anywhere they like, right from the start and then run around higgledy piggledy, trying to confuse everybody, including themselves.
If it’s like any other game, the one that comes closest is Gaelic Football, but they have an excuse, because they’re all Irish and it's expected of them. I won’t go into Aussie Rules any further at this stage, unless popular demand requires me to, as it would require a book, of which there are many available in all good book-stores and selected news-agencies.
Aussie worship of sport doesn’t end there of course, they love beating anybody, but especially The Poms. This is rooted in history, and there is no tradition stronger than that of Test Cricket. The Poms are just as bad of course, when they beat the Skips in England, the Queen knighted the bloody lot of them, including the ‘Sight Screen Movers’.
Not really giving much of a flying frolic who won, although I do enjoy watching test cricket. If the Poms were winning, I used to go into work and say “The Poms are going alright then”. If the Aussies were getting the upper hand, I’d wander in and say “Us Aussies are thrashing the arse off those Pommie Bastards, eh!”. This tactic caused great consternation among the Aussies and it pays to beat a hasty retreat if you’re about to get lynched.
I could go on about other sports, but I won’t mainly because I’m getting bored. Suffice it to say that if you are a sportsman or woman and you’re prepared to be naturalised (sounds painful) then Godzone is the place for you (not from a religious point of view of course). Look at ‘Aussie’ Joe Bugner for one, on second thoughts don’t It’s not a pretty sight.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
Sunday, March 29, 2009
More about my best friend. Sparky the Collie.
When I left this topic a few weeks ago, me and my offspring were at a farmlet West of Melbourne, checking out some Border Collie pups. A consensus was reached and I forked out A$200 for the one my daughter chose. A cute little critter that looked a bit like a Panda (facially that is, not at all like one otherwise).
A$200 seemed like a bit of a bargain at the time as they were charging $210 at the dog pound. However, their’s were de-sexed, vaccinated and micro-chipped and mine wasn’t and still isn’t, apart from the vaccinations. It still has it’s nuts and it hasn’t run off yet, in fact it seems to like it around Chateau Skull, so who needs a micro-chip, apart from the local council.
I won’t go into the reasons, because I’m trying to keep this blog short and it’s a long story, but it ended up with the name ‘Sparky’. If anybody out there really wants to know why, you can email me or blog me.
Sparky was and still is a ‘Chick Magnet’ when I take him for walks, which is 3-4 times a day, males smile at him and heaps of females stop me and want to pat him. They usually ask me “Can i stroke it?” and being a sicko pervert, I answer “Yes and if you’re good, you can stroke the dog as well.”
That aside, the pooch is not at all a ‘house dog’ after disgracing himself by pissing on the carpets (twice) in his first five minutes in the Chateau. He now lives with me, in my garage/study/kennel/aviary/workshop and is not allowed inside the house. I’m allowed in, for feeding and sleeping purposes.
This is a fairly good arrangement for all concerned, Sparky had exceedingly sharp claws and being a friendly, jumpy sort of a dog succeeded in tearing flesh from the arms and legs of any passing humans, including myself. Having personally got through a box of band-aids a week, I took him to the vet for a pedicure.
He also tends to cause a lot of destruction in our mutual abode, tearing down anything that can be torn down, eating books and terrorising my two remaining birds, although he can't reach them YET. He has become toilet trained to a degree, but if I discipline him (by beating him around the head with a bit of four by two) he comes in, defiantly looks me in the eye and pisses up my desk and runs off before I can catch him.
These habits have not endeared him to the rest of the family and although his claws are now considerably more blunt, he still insists on jumping up gleefully to greet people. After nearly three months of being well-fed, he has just about trebled in size, which is a tad worrisome.
More to follow eventually.
Cheers,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
A$200 seemed like a bit of a bargain at the time as they were charging $210 at the dog pound. However, their’s were de-sexed, vaccinated and micro-chipped and mine wasn’t and still isn’t, apart from the vaccinations. It still has it’s nuts and it hasn’t run off yet, in fact it seems to like it around Chateau Skull, so who needs a micro-chip, apart from the local council.
I won’t go into the reasons, because I’m trying to keep this blog short and it’s a long story, but it ended up with the name ‘Sparky’. If anybody out there really wants to know why, you can email me or blog me.
Sparky was and still is a ‘Chick Magnet’ when I take him for walks, which is 3-4 times a day, males smile at him and heaps of females stop me and want to pat him. They usually ask me “Can i stroke it?” and being a sicko pervert, I answer “Yes and if you’re good, you can stroke the dog as well.”
That aside, the pooch is not at all a ‘house dog’ after disgracing himself by pissing on the carpets (twice) in his first five minutes in the Chateau. He now lives with me, in my garage/study/kennel/aviary/workshop and is not allowed inside the house. I’m allowed in, for feeding and sleeping purposes.
This is a fairly good arrangement for all concerned, Sparky had exceedingly sharp claws and being a friendly, jumpy sort of a dog succeeded in tearing flesh from the arms and legs of any passing humans, including myself. Having personally got through a box of band-aids a week, I took him to the vet for a pedicure.
He also tends to cause a lot of destruction in our mutual abode, tearing down anything that can be torn down, eating books and terrorising my two remaining birds, although he can't reach them YET. He has become toilet trained to a degree, but if I discipline him (by beating him around the head with a bit of four by two) he comes in, defiantly looks me in the eye and pisses up my desk and runs off before I can catch him.
These habits have not endeared him to the rest of the family and although his claws are now considerably more blunt, he still insists on jumping up gleefully to greet people. After nearly three months of being well-fed, he has just about trebled in size, which is a tad worrisome.
More to follow eventually.
Cheers,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
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