You know, the good folks of my adoptive county are so full of themselves sometimes…'Appen today is Yorkshire Day.
The meat-eating, pro-smokers'-choice, windmill-tilting cat-haters amongst you might be pleased to learn that I'm not dead; I've just been very busy both at work and at home, trying to get stuff sorted out before last Friday, when I finished work for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! It seems almost superfluous to add W 0 0 T !
As I'll be based at home for most of the next two weeks, expect more frequent updates in the near future.
In the meantime, here is a photograph of Dame Maggie Smith:
As today is Stense's birthday, what better way to mortify her than with a slideshow of photos starring her? Gentlemen feast your eyes, and ladies eat your livers:
With friends like me, who needs enemas?
- hold a pencil between my top lip and my nose (the beard put an end to that—facial hair is far more slippery than skin)
- hop spectacularly fast (ever since I broke my right ankle)
- run 100m in under twelve seconds (ever since I discovered real ale)
- remember the name of that girl everyone in the Durham University physics department fancied (including the women)
- play a mean game of darts
- perform complex integrations
- ride a bicycle without using my hands
- recite the entire story of Ferdinand the Bull by heart
- beat a computer at chess
- read very small print in poor lighting conditions
Sign spotted on the back of a van carrying golf clubs today:
How's Your Driving?
This is exactly the sort of thing they invented the internet for:
BBC: Saudi judge condemns 'immoral TV'
The most senior judge in Saudi Arabia has said it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes.
It's great to see our Western liberal values beginning to rub off on our allies in The War Against Terrorism.
(Yikes! Did I say rub off? No offence intended.)
BBC: Sir Cliff fails to top UK charts
Sir Cliff Richard has failed to top the UK Top 40 single charts with Thank You For a Lifetime, which debuted at number three instead.
Had it reached the top spot, it would have given the 67-year-old a number one single across six consecutive decades.
The real hoot is that the rather prim Sir Cliff was pipped to the post by a tracks called Sex On Fire (by The Kings of Leon—great band) and I Kissed a Girl by a young lady who is presumably on the bus to Hebden Bridge.
If Sir Cliff really is that desperate for a Twenty-First Century number one, he could do far worse that re-release his all-time classic, Devil Woman:
Short poem inspired by the view towards Pen-y-Ghent from the B6479 between Selside and Ribblehead, 17th September, 2008:
Drumlins
Basket-of-eggs topography
Is something we did in geography.
I hear the Poet Laureate job is up for grabs in 2009. Don't want Cope and Armitage to think it's a two-horse race.
"Hello, can I book a table for two for 7pm this evening please? Preferably over in the corner next to the loud-speakers."
The following phrases led visitors to Gruts from assorted search engines recently:
- blind elvis
- fat ladies tits
- pictures of nurses in full uniform
- how to keep house from smelling like a cat
- my finger turned white and no feeling
- electrical mains meter bypass
- chief export of bolivia
- seducing doctors
- rhino rodney slater
- crying anal
- what is a dirty name for a fish?
- onge andaman island smell
- the mystery of margot fonteyn
- what happens when there is no water in the woods
- why does my fish stick its mouth out of water
- fingers under arse
- nooooooooooooooooooooooooo
- turn your foot anti clockwise and say carrot
- women in jodphurs
- the phrase as dead as a door mouse
- cock taglines
- lesbians
To all of my new visitors, I trust you didn't find what you were looking for. The really disturbing thought, however, is that maybe you did.
BBC: Bernanke demands bail-out action
US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke has urged politicians to "act quickly" to support the proposed $700bn (£378bn) bail-out of the financial markets.
Disclaimer: Interest rates can go up as well as down. Your financial institution is at risk if you loan money to people who can't afford to pay it back. You will be charged £50 for the processing of this advice.
(My grandad fought the Nazis, you know.)
I went for a walk on the moors yesterday. The grouse-shooters were out, so I took their photo. I don't think they were very pleased. They probably thought I was some sort of animal rights nutter.
The tactics employed by grouse-shooters are tried and tested. They set themselves up in a line of little dugouts (the technical name is butts, but let's not go there), and employ people with sticks (the technical name is beaters, but let's not go there either) to walk through the heather, driving the grouse towards them. The low-flying grouse are literally sitting ducks. (I use the word literally in its non-literal sense.)
I had no desire to witness the impending blood-bath, so I continued my walk.
Then I got to thinking: what a shame our lads didn't employ similar tactics on the Somme. How many British lives might have been saved had our chaps in the trenches employed beaters with sticks to drive the Hun towards them? It really could have been all over by Christmas. Instead, there were to be another two years of mindless carnage.
It kind of makes you think.
BBC: Airship's Channel crossing fails
A French amateur pilot's attempt to be the first to cross the channel on a pedal-propelled airship has failed.
All those professional pedal-propelled airship pilots must be laughing their heads off.
She's put it on eBay apparently. It's in excellent condition, but it's out-of-keeping with the rest of her decor—or so she says.
Buyer to collect.
