Gruts

BBC: Duck cull ruffles feathers
The [UK] government is planning a nationwide cull of ruddy ducks to protect another species from extinction.

Forget the ruddy ducks, when are we going to cull some ruddy cats?

Observer: Students face personality tests for university places
[UK Government] Ministers want universities to adopt methods such as psychometric testing, the psychological questionnaires widely used in City recruitment which explore personality traits and ability to learn, and US-style aptitude tests as fairer ways of assessing teenagers.

And these morons have been put in charge of my country. There's only one thing wrong with psychometric tests: they're complete bollocks. Mind you, I would say that: the last psychometric test I took said I have a scepticism rating of 87.

If you're not with me on this one, do yourself a favour and read the late Stephen Jay Gould's book, The Mismeasure of Man.

• Ursula Andres
• Nick Price (golfer)
• Jill Dando
• Friar Tuck

Irish Mick just emailed me to point out that my last one to him had kisses at the end. Look, I was tired, and for some reason I signed off with the valediction I usually reserve for Stense. Sorry to have got your hopes up there, Mick.

Conversation with Carolyn while removing a splinter from her finger with a tiny pair of tweezers:

According to a passing visitor, gruts is Kiwi slang for underpants. Cool.

Conversation at work:

Jen has this crackpot theory that it always snows in this neck of the woods on her friend's birthday. The theory might well be ludicrous, but it is at least capable of being falsified (i.e. it is possible to devise a test that could disprove the theory). According to the philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994), this means that Jen's snow theory counts as a scientific theory. Indeed, it could be argued that it is more scientific than a typical Meteorological Office prediction of a 20% chance of snow (how could you ever test that one?). So Jen's weather forecast is in some ways far more scientific than that of the UK's official weather forecasting organisation, with all its Cray super-computers and satellite images - even though it is clearly complete and utter bollocks.

Today is Jen's friend's birthday.

It's snowing.

Today, BBC News published an interview with Henry Heimlich of lifesaving manoeuvre fame.

The interview got me thinking. It must be really cool to have an actual manoeuvre named after you. So I've gone ahead and invented a manoeuvre of my own, henceforth to be known as The Carter Manoeuvre.

The Carter Manoeuvre is used to recover from those embarrassing situations where you are walking along, quite happily minding your own business, and are suddenly startled by something that really shouldn't startle you quite so much. I am particularly adept at this manoeuvre following loud barks from dogs which are safely secured by ropes or confined behind fences. The manoeuvre is initiated in mid-air following your instinctive, adrenaline-induced leap away from the source of alarm. As your parabolic trajectory brings you back towards the ground, slam your leading foot down as hard as you can, then quickly slow your pace and resume walking nonchalantly in your original direction of travel, remarking, "Got it!"

Just back from five days in Barcelona. Great city, but it's a pity about all the graffiti.

It's nice to see that bars in Barcelona know their audience. Note the sudden change into English on the following receipt:

L'ARC

TABERNA VASCA

MEIR-TETRO S.L. N.I.F:B-61.791.216

RAMBLAS, 77 (BARCELONA)

11/03/2003 20:47 ****** *02*

T001 CAJERO-2 MESA 59

2 CERV.JARRA 1/2L 4.36 8.72

SUBTOTAL 8.72

BASE IMPONIBLE 8.72

I.V.A. 0.61

EFFECTIVO 9.33

ENTREGADO 10.00 >>

CAMBIO 0.67 <<

TIP NOT INCLUDED

(By the way, you won't tell any of my friends that I was drinking lager, will you?)

Conversation with the local coal merchant:

No slur intended on either of the gentlemen concerned, but, is it just me, or do UK Foreign Minister, Jack Straw's spectacles bear an uncanny resemblance to those once worn by SS Reichsführer and Nazi war criminal, Heinrich Himmler?

Have you seen the latest BBC 5-day weather forecast for my neck of the woods?

 

Yeah, right. Who are they tryng to kid? It's quite clear they're not from round these parts.

Another 2003 prediction comes true:

Daily Record: Our Boys are Boiling, Starving and Begging from the Americans [10-Mar-03]
Scots squaddies are suffering in the Gulf heat because they still haven't got lightweight desert kit… One RAF aircraftman told his dad: "We beg everything from the Yanks. It is embarrassing but needs must. I am one of the lucky ones who has desert clothing. The rest are in normal greens which just cook you in temperatures of 100 degrees plus."

Yes, that's a news story (i.e. yarn) about RAF clothing. I tell you, if this was the sixteenth century, that Farthing woman would be burnt as a witch.

Had a rare old time in Barcelona, thank you for asking. Lots of nasty, fizzy, cold beer and warm, sunny weather. Kept forgetting I was in Spain, being convinced, for some reason or other, that I was in Italy. On the first evening, I got so pissed that I insisted on buying an old Spanish/Italian woman a drink. I took a shine to her because she was so short that the barman had to lift her onto her bar stool. We ended up conversing in French (please don't tell any of my friends). It was the first time my begrudgingly learnt 'O' Level French has actually been used to communicate with anyone who wasn't perfectly capable of talking with me in English in the first place. I told her that the monkey was in the tree, a vacuum cleaner is used for cleaning carpet, and that, in the year 2000, every family will travel into town by electric helicopter (because there will be no more petrol). As you will have gathered, I can only remember a few key French phrases, but I got by. I'm not quite sure what the old lady said in reply, but I think we might be engaged.

There's absolutely no delicate way of putting this: I farted while getting dressed this morning, and the noise that emerged was a perfect rendition of the first note of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. Yes, that's right: my arse has perfect pitch; no bum notes from my backside, no siree.

Thinking about it, Satisfaction is a pretty appropriate Rolling Stones song to play by fart. I suppose I could have been less subtle and gone for laughs, blasting out Fart Me Up or Trumping Jack Flash (it's a gas, gas, gas) - but the first note of Satisfaction is so much more instantly recognisable (and, let's be honest, less challenging).

Every morning for the last five days, I've been woken by an owl hooting somewhere in the garden. As I've never heard an owl hooting anywhere in the garden before, I'm taking this to be some sort of sign. So, in honour of recent world events, I've decided to give my owl a name: either Saddam Hootsein, Co-lin Owl or Tawny Blair.

Eureka Alert: Men overestimate the number of sexual partners they have had in their lives [12-Mar-03]
…It remains, however, unclear as to how male overestimation could result in such a wide disparity in the reported number of lifetime sexual partners.

In my day, it was called bullshitting.

I'm losing my touch. I was at a meeting this morning where there were three people named Richard sitting next to each other. "I suppose this is what you call an embarrassment of Richards," I remarked amusingly… Not a sausage; not even a snigger.

Then, to make matters worse, I meet Carolyn for coffee, and she tells me that she's told all her kids about my farting the first note of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, and they all think it's incredibly funny. So much so that her two-year-old daughter now refers to me as your Richard who goes pump.

So, in summary: my colleagues didn't think my rather sophisticated pun was in the least bit funny, whereas a two-year-old child is extremely amused by my farts.

I guess I've finally found my audience.

My dad's favourite gardening fork broke recently, so he asked me if I could try to get him a new handle from the local hardware shop. Yes, that's right, this morning I finally got to walk into a hardware shop and ask for "fork handles".

The woman behind the counter smiled knowingly. "Would that be four candles, or handles for forks?"

I don't know which of us was the most amused.

Nobody I sent post cards to from Barcelona over a fortnight ago has received them yet. Friends, I sent them, honest I did - although I'm beginning to suspect that the yellow postbox I wasn't too sure about might have been a Metro air-conditioning vent after all.

Me: "Did you know that Stense is a Buddhist?"
Dad: "What, by choice?"