Grown (Groan?) Up Joke

This woman walks into a bar, and she has the hairiest armpits in the history of armpits. She sits down, raises her arm, and says:

"Bartender, I would like a drink."

There's an old drunk sitting next to her. Slurring, he says:

"Barkeep, I would like to buy the ballerina a drink."

She accepts, drinks it, raises her arm again to get the bartender's attention, and orders another. The old man says:

"Barkeep, you just keep giving the ballerina anything she wants."

Finally, the bartender goes over to the drunk and says:

"Sir, that's nice of you, but how do you know she's a ballerina?"

The old man answers:

"Son, you don't get to be my age without learning that only ballerinas can lift their legs that high."

Headache

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You can see [sic] the gag by the second frame and perhaps the final box is unnecessary, but this is nice.

Lolly Stick Laughs

Q: What do you call a lesbian dinosaur?

A: A lickalotopus.

That was funnier the first time I read that. Honest.

Dexter Season Two

After a slowish start to the second instalment of the serial killer series, it's falling nicely back into the groove. It's a bit grittier than previously and there is less humour as Dexter begins to understand more about himself, but it is still engrossing and extremely watchable with the cast all putting on credible shows. Good characters, plausible plots (as you get with a psychopathic killer working for the LAPD) and sharp writing, even with Dexter's sister repeating "fuck" as an apostrophe in every sentence.

Refreshing, and I love it- my current favourite viewing option.

Toon Tosspot

Newcastle football club appear to be heading down the final straight, as it seems that they now have at least two firm offers from potential buyers- both from Asia, with one from Malaysia and the other from Singapore. Hopefully that will be resolved soon as the start of the season is not far off and once they appoint a full time manager (Shearer still favourite) they can kick out that thug Barton. He has said he wants to stay at the club, but he conceded that if Shearer does return as manager then the decision could be out of his hands*.

Good. There is no place in football for people like Barton who is truly nasty piece of work and nothing more than a pub player, with a pub brawler's mentality.



*They had a row after Barton's sending off at Liverpool in May which led, once again, to a dressing-room bust-up. Barton also received a four-month suspended sentence for assaulting a team mate in a training-ground incident while both players were at Manchester City, his club before he joined the Toon. He was banned by the FA for 12 matches- six of which were suspended, and fined £25 000 after admitting a violent conduct charge in relation to the incident.

He also spent two months in prison after admitting assault and affray. Nice chap, isn't he?

Day Two and it's Same Old, Same Old

With England all out for a reasonable 435, they had a great opportunity to put the Aussies under pressure by taking quick wickets. Y-E-S...

Close of play on the second day saw the team from down under on top at 249-1, with Simon Katich and Ricky Ponting both hitting centuries.

It's going to be a long, long summer.

More at the BBC.

Inventors Inc

Since the creation of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, August of 1794 is the only month in which no US patents were filed.

Landed in Thailand

Bruce & Pete Round The World ("This blog is to document our round the world bike trip, when we can find the time and the means to post pictures and updates...") is rightfully part of our Hall of Fame, as this wonderful husband and wife team take a couple of motorbikes around the world.

We recently got a message from them as they arrived in Bangkok asking us if we knew of anywhere they could stay. Naturally we recommended the Imm Fusion and we got an email from them saying they'd booked in (and received a hefty discount when they mentioned us) after a 26 hour transfer from South Africa.

I bet the bed felt like Heaven.

Welcome to South East Asia people, you have our travel schedule and hopefully we can hook up somewhere in the next few months. :o)

Eureka

We finally got a response back from the Nationwide following my repeated complaints on our account getting locked up when using the ATM. For some reason, the "complaints department" felt the best policy was to ignore my messages (this has now dragged on over the last two months) until someone drew the short straw and got back to me personally, to try and sort out the mess.

What they don't seem to realise, is that I am a firm believer in not shooting the messenger and that the person actually making the effort is never at fault. This is only the beginning but I am really pissed; and the senior management is about to find this out as this saga continues to unfold...

In the meantime, the £100 "compensation" paid directly into our account is a rather welcome bonus. It's never about the cash, but if it's going, I am happily up for some. :o)

Clothes Maketh The Man?

"Experts" have found that on average, women spend 16 minutes every weekday morning deciding what to wear and around 14 minutes on a Saturday or Sunday morning. This equates to 287 days rifling through their wardrobe in their lifetime.

The study (based on an adult lifetime from the age of 16 to 60) also found most women will spend around 20 minutes deciding what to wear before hitting the town on a weekend night and week nights out can take up to 20 minutes a time.

It takes me less than than thirty seconds to decide what to wear, put my stuff on and be out the door. When you only wear three items of clothing at any given time (one of those being a pair of flappers), it really ain't too difficult.

Never Ending Story

According to the original plans, the Great Wall of China was never finished.

Spectacular

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Anyone have any idea where this is? Not that it matters as this is some picture.

Cyclo Ride

We had a couple of beers in our newly found Indian bar last night and started cracking on with the locals (although there were still no women present). It was a good night and when it was time to head back to the gaff, a passing cyclo-cab wobbled past.

As we'd already imbibed enough Dutch courage to risk a cruise on the Titanic, we jumped aboard and we're treated to a white knuckle ride extraordinaire, as he cycled up the busy main road towards our hotel with traffic whizzing past our ears in the dark. Of course, lights are merely an unnecessary luxury on these things.

Anyway, a quid later we're in front of our hotel and it was a right good laugh, which I'm sure we will do again another time.

Sod That- Can't Be Bothered

Langkawi is going to have to wait until next year. We've had the run around, the places we fancied are way too expensive or don't have the facilities we expect, and so we're cutting our losses.

We're extending our stay at the Bayview in Georgetown and will now leave here, directly to Kuala Lumpur on the 29th July. A night in the Tune Hotel at the airport and then it's an 08:00 flight straight to Vientiane in Laos on the 30th.

It means cancelling our flights from Langkawi to KL, which we have already paid for, but new flights from Penang (G'town's nearest airport) to the capital are a piffling MYR 105 (£18 all in, including taxes and luggage), which is even cheaper than our ferry from here to Langkawi (MYR 120).

We can do the island next year, and instead we can live on in luxury for another week. :o)

Take Two

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What? It's only a sheet of paper...

Cause for Confusion

Drivers in South Africa drive on the left in the western part of the country, and on the right in the eastern end.

How odd- and why?

Stupid People

An "elixir of life" biochemical has been discovered in the soil of Easter Island, prompting suggestions that an "anti-ageing" pill could soon be produced.

Scientists believe the anti-fungal agent rapamycin, found on the South Pacific island, produced by soil bacteria, has life-extending properties and they predict further research on the compound could lead to a genuine "anti-ageing" pill that keeps people young.

Utter bollocks, but I can just see vain and desperate women buying bucketfuls of this solid snake oil at hugely exorbitant prices. There's one born every minute.

More at TTel.

A Toast

I have been involved in Vodka taste tests for many a year due to the generosity and availability of our pals Dovey & Ira, his Russian wife. I even used to be quite competent at tasting the different strains of this death juice from various parts of Russia- although my partaking is usually curtailed far too early due to my passing out.

However, here we have some experts from TTel and their top ten tipples, but I wonder what the guys think?

1st: Glen's (£8.69)

2nd: Russian Standard (£13.29)

3rd: Absolut (£14.99)

4th: Wyborowa (£15.99)

5th: Finlandia (£14.19)

Joint 6th: Smirnoff Red (£12.19);

Stolichnaya (£14.99);

Belvedere (£30)

9th: Grey Goose (£30.79)

10th: Smirnoff Black (£15.99)

My personal favourite from the backwaters of Siberia strangely wasn't mentioned...

Mars Were Bounty Lose

That title will only make sense if you read it in a Geordie accent. :o)

While Bounty is perhaps the most famous chocolate-covered coconut bar, its shape is not special enough to warrant a trade mark, European judges ruled in refusing Mars permission to register the shape of the bar as a trade mark. The European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg declared:

"The allegedly distinctive characteristics, namely the rounded ends of the bar and the three arrows or chevrons on top of it, cannot be sufficiently distinguished from other shapes commonly used for chocolate bars."

Which will keep the Germans happy. Ludwig Schokolade, a German chocolate maker, challenged a decision taken by the EU's trade mark office in 2003 to approve Mars's application to register the Bounty's shape as a trade mark across Europe. The German manufacturer has been making chocolate-covered coconut bars for British supermarkets from 1990, including the Romeo bar for Aldi and the Ludwig bar for Asda and Iceland, making 14 million a year.

More on this at TTel.

Sobering

The number of women dying from alcohol-related causes increased by 32% and male deaths rose by 43%. In 1999 there were 5 287 deaths in England and Wales due to alcohol which rose to 7 341 in 2008, according to Government data. There has also been a 24% increase in deaths in people under the age of 40.

Waving the Flag

We do a fair bit of travelling and I have always had a small fascination for the flags of the countries we visit. Here's a nice article which looks back at some that have sadly been forgotten. If the pictures are cropped or missing, try here or viwe the Blog with Google Chrome, which seems to cope with the formatting and looks well impressive.

Don't just wave a black flag... consider your options

"There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum"
-- Arthur C. Clarke

In recent years, we have seen a number of countries disappear, along with their flags. The Soviet Union came to an end, to be replaced by a multitude of new or revived republics, all with their own flags. Czechoslovakia split into its two component parts, while Yugoslavia splintered, as the individual nationalities all asserted their independence. All this happened very recently, but many states have vanished from the map before over the centuries. Here’s a look at some flags of those long gone - and in many cases forgotten - kingdoms and countries.



"Avenue of Flags" - 1933 Chicago World's Fair, images via 1, 2, 3

The Holy Roman Empire, which existed from 962 to 1806, was famously said by Voltaire to be neither holy, Roman nor an empire. It was an attempt to revive the Western Roman Empire, which had collapsed during the 5th and 6th centuries and replaced with by independent Germanic kingdoms. At its peak in the 12th century, the Holy Roman Empire comprised most of the territory of modern-day Germany, Austria, Switzerland, eastern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, western Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy. By the end of the medieval period, the emperor was mostly just a figurehead, with real power based at the local level, with all the emperor’s vassals being virtually independent. This flag was used from 1400 until the empire’s dissolution during the Napoleonic wars in 1806 -



In 1473, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was one of the wealthiest and most powerful nobles in Europe, rivaling many royal families. His territory stretched from Switzerland to the North Sea, incorporating large parts of eastern France, Belgium and the Netherlands. He had ambitions to transform his lands into a real kingdom, but his plans to become a monarch ended with his death in battle in 1477, so this flag of the duchy also represents a country that might have been -



A state that lasted for over a millennium was the Most Serene Republic of Venice, one of the superpowers of its time. The republic existed from the late seventh century until 1797, when Napoleon conquered the city.



The Byzantine Empire, or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the medieval period, although over the centuries, it gradually became primarily Greek. The capital was Constantinople, now known as Istanbul. For a thousand years, the Empire was a powerful force, despite military setbacks and territorial losses, but entered into a lengthy decline after the twelfth century, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.The imperial flag featured a double-headed eagle to symbolize the empire’s interests in both Europe and Asia.



Refugees from Constantinople in 1453 helped fuel the Renaissance in Italy, but Byzantine churchmen and nobles also ended up in Moscow, which shared the Orthodox faith of the now defunct empire. Around the same time, the rulers of Russia adopted the title Czar, meaning Caesar or Emperor, and Moscow began to be referred to as ‘the Third Rome’, after Constantinople was the second. The Russian Czars thus saw themselves as the successors to the Byzantine Empire and so adopted the double-headed eagle, using this on their flags until the revolution in 1917:



Imperial Russia wasn’t the only major casualty of the First World War. The Habsburg family was one of the most prominent dynasties in Europe from the fifteenth century onward. Their empire covered almost 250,00 square miles of central Europe, including what are now Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, parts of Poland, Romania, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro. With a population of around fifty million, the multi national Austrian Empire was one of the great powers of Europe. However, military reverses in the mid-nineteenth century led to a loss of territory and influence in Italy and Germany, and the Habsburgs were forced to come to a new arrangement with the Hungarian half of their empire in 1867. Henceforth the country was known as Austria-Hungary, until its collapse in 1918 -




The kingdom of Prussia was also a great power in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, playing a major role in the war against Napoleon. Prussia was located mainly in the northern portion of Germany, although it also held territory elsewhere, such as in the Rhineland. The eagle was used as the symbol of the country -



In 1870, Germany was unified under Prussian leadership and the German empire was born. This was the Emperor’s standard from 1871 until the end of the empire at the close of the First World War in 1918 -



(image credit: Martin Grieve)

Napoleon’s flags and coat of arms were seen flying all over Europe in the early years of the nineteenth century -



Napoleon III, ruler of France from 1852 to 1870, clearly used his uncle’s previous flags as an inspiration for those of his own empire -



Although the first Napoleon transformed the map of Italy, for much of the first part of the nineteenth century, Italy was often said to be just a geographic expression and there was no united Italian nation. The peninsular contained a collection of small states and duchies, the largest of which was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies:



The kingdom comprised the southern part of Italy and the island of Sicily, with its capital in Naples. In 1861, it became part of the United Kingdom of Italy, whose royal flag is shown here -



Yugoslavia disappeared, along with its flag, in recent memory. And yet between the two world wars, Yugoslavia was a monarchy with, you guessed it, a two headed eagle on the flag:



Spain is one of the countries in Europe to still have a monarchy, but from 1931 until 1939 the country was a republic and displayed this flag to symbolize its new direction:



Unfortunately for the republicans, the new direction was short lived and after the Spanish Civil War, this flag was illegal during the Franco Era. Possession could lead to execution or at best an extended prison sentence. After the civil war and until shortly after Franco’s death in 1975, this was the flag of Spain -



Outside of Europe, the Mexican flag has undergone a lot of changes since the early nineteenth century, but this one depicts one of the short lived emblems of the Mexican state, the second Mexican empire, which ran from 1864 to 1867. When President Juarez suspended payments of interest to foreign countries, Spain, France and Britain, Mexico’s main creditors, united by sending a fleet to Mexico to force the government to pay its debts. Britain and Spain soon withdrew, but France, ruled by Napoleon III, remained with a large army and proceeded to conquer the country. With the US still engaged in the Civil War and unable to intervene, Napoleon III helped establish Maximilian of the house of Habsburg, brother of the Austrian Emperor, on the throne of Mexico. The empire faced civil war right from the start and in 1867 Emperor Maximilian was executed by firing squad by the victorious rebels:



Mexico wasn’t the only monarchy in the Americas. The Empire of Brazil, under the rule of Emperors Pedro I and Pedro II, existed from 1822 until 1889. After the occupation of Portugal by Napoleon, the royal family fled to exile in Brazil, their most important colony. After the fall of Napoleon, Brazil became independent of Portugal, but kept a member of the royal family as the head of state -



Also in South America, when the area threw off Spanish rule in the early nineteenth century, one of the early republics was Gran Colombia, which included much of northern South America and a small portion of southern Central America from 1819 to 1831. It later split up into the countries we know today as Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela -



In Asia, the Qing Dynasty ruled China, Manchuria, Tibet, Taiwan and Mongolia from 1644 to 1912. This flag dates from the period from 1890 to the establishment of the republic in 1912 -



Iran, of course, was also once a monarchy, which flew this flag until the late seventies -



In Africa, Ethiopia is the oldest independent country and also has one of the longest recorded histories in the world, including a long list of monarchs. Here we see the Imperial flag of Haile Selassie, the country’s last emperor -



And finally, also in Africa, a country often in the news today is Zimbabwe. However, after declaring independence from Britain under Ian Smith in 1965 until 1980, the country was known as Rhodesia, which had this flag at that time -



So there you are, flags of forgotten countries. Hopefully for some of you, these images may have helped jog your memory.

BONUS:

Speaking about cool flags... Turns out that Greater Tokyo Area, Japan, has a flag for every city and ward inside of it - and they are quite unique and stylish:

Men Are Useless?

Not according to TTimes, and here are their 101 reasons why not:

1 Whistling at you in the street on your 41st birthday (this should be a state-funded initiative).

2 Model railways, the running and maintenance of.

3 Pigeon fancying.

4 Particle physics.

5 Eating up the elderly tub of coleslaw in the back of the fridge after an evening at the pub.

6 Opening all those terrifying brown envelopes that the bank will insist on sending you.

7 Catching spiders.

8 Bringing you tea in bed in the mornings.

9 Forgetting your anniversary, but then wildly overcompensating with a completely over-the-top gesture, preferably involving diamonds.

10 Making your limited capacity for grooving look positively Madonna-esque by dancing around you wildly, arms and legs jerking like a demented puppet.

11 Lending you (often without knowing it) a razor.

12 Parking.

13 Ensuring that the children learn to play happily on their own by applying special male method of childcare, namely sitting on the sofa reading the paper while they set fire to the house.

14 Keeping Coleen Rooney in handbags by continuous funding of endless, dreary football games.

15 Explaining the rules of cricket, slowly and in words of one syllable, every two years.

16 Baring his bottom on stag nights.

17 Helping to keep you fit and supple by generously leaving towels, socks and other items of personal attire dotted around the floor for you to pick up.

18 Supporting the luxury car market with the purchase, on his 50th birthday, of a meno-Porsche.

19 Patronising you at parties.

20 Being the Pope.

21 Cartography, and all its many delights.

22 Trying very hard to distract you in the delivery room by telling you about the time he got really badly constipated and had to go to hospital and, you know, the consultant said that sometimes the pain can be almost as bad as the agony of labour . . .

23 Using the last drop of milk before, very helpfully, putting the empty carton back in the fridge.

24 Looking nice in a dinner suit. Every man has an inner James Bond.

25 Stocking the iPod with obscure (albeit largely unlistenable) punk music from the 1970s, even though he went to a nice grammar school and has never even owned a pair of DMs, let alone used them to stamp on a hippy’s head.

26 Driving up very close behind you on the motorway and flashing his lights repeatedly. So sweet to notice your new highlights . . .

27 Being a rock star. Florence and the Machine is all very well, but no match for, say, the raw guitar strut of Caleb out of Kings of Leon (silly name, silly beard, very sexy boy whichever way you cut it).

28 Loading all the glasses the wrong way up in the dishwasher.

29 Overfeeding the dog.

30 Saying, “Oh, so that explains it” in a cryptic voice the day you get your period.

31 Making the inventor of the electric nose-hair clipper very, very rich.

32 Doing lots of very important pointing and shouting.

33 Hunting — and gathering — on the wild Burgundian plains.

34 Catching man-flu.

35 Feeding your children raw barbecue sausages (“It’ll build up their immune systems!”).

36 Removing dead mice from the house.

37 Losing the keys for the roofbox.

38 Blaming you for losing the keys to the roofbox — then finding them in his coat pocket.

39 Making sure that every last pot and pan in the kitchen gets used to its full potential when cooking special Daddy spagbol for Sunday lunch.

40 Building large, pointy metal tubes, filling them with explosives and firing them into the air.

41 Encouraging Britain’s thriving shed manufacturing industry.

42 Insisting that only he can be trusted to drive on the right-hand side of the road in a foreign country and then going the wrong way round the roundabout at the exit from the airport, careering into an oncoming Fiat Panda, arguing furiously with the police and ensuring that the first night of your Italian holiday is spent in a Sicilian jail.

43 Not calling when he says he will.

44 Doing those really strange man-bonding handshakes.

45 Alphabetising your record collection.

46 Being able to wear the same pair of shoes for 25 years before buying a new pair.

47 Accidentally stroking your bottom while directing you to your chair.

48 Codpieces, the wearing of.

49 Eating full-size Mars bars.

50 Inventing Prog Rock.

51 Drinking warm fermented hops.

52 Listening to Wagner.

53 Being a murderous despot (go on, name a female murderous despot).

54 Letting the lawn grow free and wild. It’s not a lawn, it’s an eco-meadow!

55 Warming the bed.

56 Making those trips to Ikea such a stress-free delight.

57 Reading, and actually understanding, instruction manuals for small electrical devices.

58 If not exactly fixing the car, then at least looking purposeful until the AA turns up.

59 Ordering a lovely big bowl of chips in a restaurant which you then eat most of — without, of course, having actually ordered any yourself.

60 Mixing the perfect gin and tonic.

61 Remembering the rules to Canasta.

62 Standing behind you for emotional support as you creep downstairs to investigate those strange noises . . .

63 Remembering the relevance of minor characters in The Sopranos

64 Constructing your son’s 10,000-piece Lego Death Star.

65 Doing price comparisons for car insurance.

66 Setting the sat-nav.

67 Finishing off that glass of wine you poured an hour ago but never got round to drinking.

68 Having more hair on his legs than you.

69 Working out how to fold up the wretched double buggy.

70 Doing up the zip on your dress.

71 Keeping the local Indian takeaway in business.

72 Eating the children’s leftovers (it makes the eco-wash on the dishwasher much more effective).

73 Sky Plus-ing The Wire. 74 Making sure there’s always enough party ice in the freezer.

75 Sweetly buying you size 12 underwear when in actual fact you’re at least a size 16.

76 Helping the children with their trigonometry homework.

77 Always having at least three glasses of water in the vicinity of the bedside table – even if two of those glasses are at least a week old.

78 Going to the dump.

79 Eating cornichons.

80 Delivering a rip-roaring best man speech.

81 Leaving all the drawers and cupboard doors in the house very slightly open.

82 Being Father Christmas, and beards in general.

83 Opening jars (as loosened by you).

84 Regularly contracting obscure and incurable tropical diseases (as diagnosed on Google), only to recover miraculously just in time for the cricket.

85 Snoring.

86 Carving.

87 Watering the toilet seat. What is it, a plant?

88 Doing the Atkins diet. Fried eggs, sausages, lard: what’s not to like?

89 Wearing comedy swimming trucks.

90 Loving his mummy.

91 Making fire.

92 Putting things very helpfully in the general vicinity of the washing machine – but never switching it on (or hanging the stuff out afterwards).

93 Managing to ruin a perfectly plumped-up sofa within precisely three seconds.

94 Keeping all those lovely old gentlemen-only clubs from going under.

95 Going up into the loft.

96 Making sure there are at least four radios in the house that are tuned to John Humphrys at any given time.

97 Presenting Top Gear.

98 Doing air guitar.

99 Suddenly remembering a very pressing telephone call whenever there’s even the whiff of a dirty nappy.

100 Diving, in exotic destinations.

101 Never (or only very occasionally) wanting to borrow your favourite dress.

Spam Bam, Thank You Mam

The anti-virus specialist McAfee has just released its July 2009 research report, which identifies the top ten key spam trends across 15 countries. Interestingly, it appears that different countries and cultures respond to subject messages in a different way. Here are five subject lines that piqued our interest the most:

1. “Hello”
Users in 15 countries were analysed, and in nine of these, people were fooled into opening messages with “hello” in the title, including the US, Taiwan and Brazil. Simple, effective. It’s a spam classic.

2. “Call us for a masters degree”
Germany and Belgium fell prey to the highest amount of diploma scams of the 15 countries. France and Chile also featured such “diploma opportunities” in their spam lists, though not as many. In barbarous Britain, for some reason, the promise of further education seems to hold no allure at all.

3. “RE: DISCOUNT 80% OFF on Pfizer!”
Not sure what Pfizer is? Well it’s the pharmaceutical company that produces, among other things, Viagra. This stand-up scam featured as number one on both China and Taiwan’s lists, though users in France and the UK were also tempted.

4. “Your house switched off”
No, you read right, “Your house switched off” did indeed feature on one country’s spam list. Just one. Can you guess which one? That’s right. It’s the UK. What are we thinking of? What’s next? “Your diesel-powered dog”?

5. “Super Obama’s pants”
The funniest celebrity-related spam comes from France’s top ten, with Canada’s “Eminem’s buttkissing interview” coming in second. Australia’s top ten reflected a slightly seedier approach to celebrities, with “Naked Rihanna in bath” coming in at number five. Nice.

Cheers to TTimes.

12:34:56 on 7/8/09

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At this time yesterday, we were sitting in a hospital, waiting to see the doctor. It's not my watch, but it's still a good shot- it's just a shame the year can't be seen.

G8

Currently in the news. G20 was in the news. Apart from 12, what's the difference and why do we need both? Or either?

I Spy With My Little Eye

Another hit counter.

Just below our cumulative total of visitors to this site (which was only introduced toward the end of 2007 and thus not completely accurate), we've added a monthly tracker. Obviously it won't be of much interest to many, but I like to keep an eye on our viewing scores and this makes it dead easy.

I'll just have to remember to reset it at the beginning of each month...

Football Shirts

I used to collect them back in the UK and probably had at least thirty odd- most of them in the German colours (I had them pretty much all from 1990 onwards). I never bought them at full price, usually waiting until they became last season's designs and saved a fortune, but even a few years ago, an official adidas shirt could cost you around forty quid.

I was astounded to find out that Ronaldo's shirt was being punted out at £69 a time. Unjustifiable, but if the fans are stupid enough to shell out on merchandise, serves them right. But seventy quid a time? Rip off.




(£69 x 15 shirts x 120 minutes = £124 200 in total made from R's shirts sold at the Bernabeu.)

Ronaldo Lands at Real

Apparently 80 000 fans turned up just to see him wave his arm, make a little speech and slick back his hair. Like him or not (I don't) he has certainly revitalised the fans and it was reported that they were buying his number "9" shirt at a rate of fifteen per minute for an entire two hours.

You Couldn't Make It Up

The term secret sauce was created during the coldwar, in order to help discontinue the use of the term "Russian" dressing.

A bit like Freedom Fries?

Seaview Hotel, Langkawi

This is the joy (?) of keeping a Blog- one can write what one wishes to a slightly larger audience of just one. (Anyone out there?)

We hope to spend a week by the beach in Langkawi to suss out possible holiday spots for the bro/sis-in-laws and their next visit early 2010. It is a duty free island about 3-4 hours by ferry from Georgetown with reputedly sandy beaches, clear blue seas and offering just about everything anyone would need for a fortnight's break from the English (Geordie) winter.

Wifey has been checking out accommodation there but it's difficult as we seem to be in peak time and there is not much available. However, dedicated to the cause, she eventually found an ideal option, the above mentioned Seaview Hotel, which keeps within our budget and offers us all the facilities we need.

We sent off the enquiry on the weekend, they replied saying they had one room available and we accepted within two hours of receiving their offer. Job done- or so we thought.

Yesterday, they sent us an email saying that they had cancelled our booking and when I asked why, they said they had since had a business booking for eight rooms and they had let our room go to them.

So, as this is our Blog and we can say what we wish, I suggest that if anyone wants to stay at the Seaview Hotel in Langkawi, DON'T. They are unprofessional, greedy, unethical and clearly shysters, who are only interested in the money and not keeping their word.

ktelontour- not impressed with the shits at the Seaview.

You're Not Going to Believe This

We took a cab to the hospital yesterday and it was the expected MYR 15 for the trip. Unfortunately, all we had was a fifty and the taxi driver didn't have any small change either. So he only charged us MYR 10, saying that if we were still around at the hotel and we happen to see him, maybe we could pay the difference as and when.

A taxi driver reducing his fare? Blimey.



And yes, we have paid up the outstanding amount as soon as we got back.

Colours of the Rainbow

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The most awful disease known to man and still we lack the knowledge to combat this lingering and vicious killer. Why?

And a Few More For Good Measure

Because as we all know, we can't have too much of a good thing...

• One attributed to any number of players over the years, but we'll put this one down to the time that, after beating the bat on a number of occasions Shaun Pollock told Ricky Ponting, "It's red, its round and weighs about 5 ounces." Ponting hit the next ball out of the ground. He jibed, "You know what it looks like, go and find it."
• Eddo Brandes, the chicken farmer who batted at 11 for Zimbabwe, was surviving in entirely haphazard fashion. The exasperated bowler wandered down the pitch and was drolly asked: "Eddo, why are you so fat?" Brandes promptly replied: "Because every time I make love to your wife, she gives me a biscuit."
• Sri Lankan skipper Arjuna Ranatunga was not the most popular figure on the international circuit, and was perhaps most unpopular with the Australians (perhaps because he did rather well against them). One occasion, the great spinner Shane Warne was trying to lure the comfortable figure of Ranatunga down the pitch and was being frustrated by Ranatunga's unwillingness to be tempted. Wicketkeeper Ian Healy piped up: "Put a Mars Bar on a good length. That should do it."
• South African Daryll Cullinan became famous as an easy wicket for Warne and as he once came to the crease, Warne taunted him by saying he'd been waiting two years to have another crack at him. Cullinan retorted, "Looks like you spent it eating."
• Mike Atherton, a rather more robust victim, remembered: "I couldn't make out what he was saying, except that every sledge ended with 'arsewipe'."

And that's now that. :o)

The History of Sledging

Douglas Jardine had appeared at the door of the Australian dressing room, objecting that he had heard himself described as a "bastard" on the field. Vic Richardson, the vice-captain, turned to his team. "All right, which one of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?"

It is a vignette that unravels every tangled strand of the bitter "Bodyline" tour of 1932-33. As always, there are variations on the tale. Some claim that Jardine was actually complaining on behalf of Harold Larwood; others attribute the sublime response to Bill Woodfull.

For what it is worth, the Australian captain would never have used such language – unlike the salty Richardson, whose own grandsons, Ian and Greg Chappell, would themselves serve as a conduit for the same, viscerally competitive spirit that will doubtless animate this, the latest generation of Australians to engage the old enemy.

But if the practice has become definitively associated with one nation, it would be disingenuous to pretend that their hosts will be no better versed in "sledging" than the Jamaican bobsleigh team. It is just that modern Australian teams seem to have given the craft the same attention as any other dimension of the game that made them tougher to beat. In other words, no less than in batting, bowling and fielding, it has been difficult for other sides to give quite as good as they get.

Test cricket depends exorbitantly upon mental strength. Concentration must be sustained through five days of attrition, and the batsman is in a constant state of isolation. Sledging is simply the crudest tactic in the strategy of "mental disintegration" successively identified with Allan Border, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting.

The term is credited to Carl Rackemann, at The Oval in 1989. With the series long sewn up, Border was pondering a target to set on its final day. Rackemann persuaded him to keep England on the rack with another, unexpected morning in the field. The tactic left less time to get 10 wickets, but guaranteed that only one side had any chance of winning – and the mental and physical "disintegration" of the English fielders, in the meantime, was such that it looked like sufficing had the weather not intervened.

Waugh himself always disparaged the sledging debate. Those who were unsettled, he reasoned, lacked the necessary fortitude to succeed anyway. A lot of players, in fact, almost seem irritated by prying, squeamish concerns that sledging is "not cricket".

The game's guardians, of course, are chronically prone to melodramas of conscience, perceiving themselves as a bastion against the decaying mores of the world beyond the boundary. As Messrs Jardine and Richardson demonstrated, these anxieties are scarcely novel ones. Those of us who play the game at a frivolous level do probably hear more insidious mutterings behind the stumps than was once the case. But it's a chicken-and-egg situation, a behavioural osmosis between broad trends in society, on the one hand, and the example of elite players, on the other.

In claiming autonomy to keep sledging within reasonably civilised limits, however, the players ensure that when matters do get out of hand, it can be too late for officials to salvage the situation. The most infamous recent example was the Australian tour of India in |2007-08, when an orgy of insult and sententiousness between individual players sparked a test of political muscle in the global game that was no less unseemly.

The consensus is that you can say pretty much what you like "so long as it doesn't get personal".

That series showed what this really means. Namely, that you can say what you like, so long as the relationship between particular players or teams has not been poisoned. Words that might be forgotten over a beer in one situation will cause a diplomatic incident in the next.

As is so often the case in cricket, sledging is really a test of class. If you show humour, subtlety or character, even "personal" insults can intensify the sense of mutual engagement that ultimately sustains fellowship, even goodwill. In the same way, an essential decency will alter the nature of other, more blatant tactics of intimidation. If a fast bowler decks a batsman, and then shows gentlemanly concern, none need doubt his sincerity if he promptly bowls another bouncer. Stalking indifferently back to your mark, however, will often be recognised as insecure posturing.

There was very little class, for instance, in a puerile exchange between Ramnaresh Sarwan and (not altogether surprisingly) Glenn McGrath, during a Test at Antigua in 2003. After going for 21 runs in two overs, McGrath came up with an ingenious question for the young West Indian vice-captain. "What," he wondered, "does Brian Lara's dick taste like?" Fighting inanity with inanity, Sarwan promptly retorted: "I don't know, ask your wife."

McGrath went berserk. Having started to walk away, he spun round and towered toe-to-toe over his diminutive antagonist. If Sarwan ever mentioned his wife again, he roared, he would rip his throat out. It was well known that

Jane McGrath was being treated for the cancer that finally claimed her life last year, but even the Australian fielders seemed to acknowledge that Sarwan had not spoken maliciously. The bottom line was that McGrath had ignited the spat, and when Sarwan reached his hundred three overs later, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer sheepishly shook his hand.

Allowances might be made for his emotional vulnerability, on that occasion, but there was a broader sadness to see McGrath, of all people, protesting to David Shepherd about a rival's want of decorum. No umpire better embodied the game's soul, wry but dignified, eccentric but dependable. When Shepherd retired back to Devon, a couple of years later, he will not have missed moments like these. That same evening the chief executive of the Australian Cricket Board telephoned Waugh, and urged his team to examine their conduct when things were not going their way.

The trouble is that the margins between gladiatorial intensity and rank bad manners can be very precarious. After all, perhaps the most cherished sledge in history apparently concerned none other than Mrs Glenn |McGrath. Everyone knows this one. Eddo Brandes, the chicken farmer who batted at 11 for Zimbabwe, was surviving in entirely haphazard fashion. The exasperated bowler wandered down the pitch and drolly enquired: "Eddo, why are you so fat?" Brandes promptly replied: "Because every time I make love to your wife, she gives me a biscuit." The Australian slip fielders succumbed to paroxysms of laughter.

That is the story, anyway. Exactly who said what tends to become frayed with each rendition of all the classic sledges. But one man seems to finds his way into the cast far more frequently than anyone else. There can be no mistaking Merv Hughes as the greatest "sledgend" of all. That monstrous moustache of his always seemed to be flecked with venom. |Hughes certainly had a role in the "mental disintegration" of Graeme Hick. "Mate," he would say, "if you just turn the bat over, you'll find the instructions on the other side." Or: "Does your husband play cricket as well?" Mike Atherton, a rather more robust victim, remembered: "I couldn't make out what he was saying, except that every sledge ended with 'arsewipe'."

Atherton made a point of getting to know Hughes, off the field, and learnt to laugh him off. And, of course, that is the whole point. Hughes only got under your skin if you made

the mistake of taking him too seriously. On one occasion Hughes was being hit all round the ground – in some versions by Viv Richards, in others by Hansie Cronje. Hughes stopped halfway down the pitch, and broke wind lavishly. "Let's see you hit that to the boundary!"

Then there was the time Javed Miandad for some reason got it into his head to call |Hughes a "fat bus conductor". A few balls later Hughes had him caught, and galloped past shouting: "Tickets, please!"

Ian Healy, the Australian wicketkeeper, once advised Shane Warne to put a Mars bar on a length, to tempt the portly Sri Lankan batsman Arjuna Ranatunga out of his crease. And Rod Marsh is supposed to have greeted Ian Botham at the wicket one day by asking: "How's your wife – and my kids?" Botham is said to have replied: "The wife's fine. The kids are retarded."

The last, epic Ashes series here, remember, was played in a magnificent timbre throughout. Perhaps some Australians wonder whether that contributed to their defeat. Given good judgement, however, nothing fortifies the spirit of cricket better than getting beyond its hollow pieties. Perhaps the best sledge in history, after all, was reserved for a team-mate.

Raman Subba Row had spilt a catch between his knees. At the end of the over, he meekly apologised to the bowler, Fred Trueman.

"I'm sorry, Fred," he said. "I should have kept my legs together."

"So should your mother."

The Joy of Sledging

From the same source, the Independent, once again proving that cricketers have a bit more wit and intelligence than your average football player:

• Michael Atherton to Ian Healy
  Atherton showed an agile wit in response to a bit of fairly blunt abuse from behind the stumps on tour in Australia. After the Lancastrian was given not out after edging behind, Healy piped up: "You're a fucking cheat!" "When in Rome, dear boy," was Atherton's riposte.
• James Ormond to Mark Waugh
  Ormond is mostly famous for being a bit, well, fat when he played for England but he was involved in one stunning piece of sledging. Arriving at the crease on his first innings for England, he was met by the incredulous Mark Waugh, who said: "Fuck me, look who it is. Mate, what are you doing out here? There's no way you're good enough to play for England." Ormond's response? "Maybe not, but at least I'm the best player in my family."
• Fred Trueman to hapless Aussies
  Trueman did not mince his words: upon seeing an Australian batsman closing a gate behind him as he entered the field, he said: "Don't bother son, you won't be out there long enough." On another occasion he had had enough of batting with a close ring of Australian fielders."If you bastards don't back off," he said, "I'll appeal against the light."
• Robin Smith to Merv Hughes
  Hughes always seemed to be at the centre of any mouthing off during his days in the Aussie side, but he didn't always get the better of things. Once, after Robin Smith had played and missed at a ball, Hughes snarled: "You can't fucking bat!" Smith kept quiet but after dispatching Hughes's next ball to the boundary, he couldn't resist. "Hey Merv, we make a fine pair," he said. "I can't fucking bat and you can't fucking bowl."
• Paul Nixon to Michael Clarke
  Nixon has the knack of getting up opponents' noses, as Clark found out during the one-day series in 2007. "Badger" suggested to Clarke that his form had suffered since he changed his bat sticker. Clarke responded: "Nixon, you're a club cricketer." This was too good for Nixon to miss. "How's it going to feel, Michael, to be caught by a club cricketer?" he asked. "How. Is. That. Going. To. Feel? You know what, you're going to make a club cricketer's day."

Wonderful.

Some Cricket Stuff

Useful links, interviews, opinions and insider stuff from the Independent, all you neeed to know to get you through this summer's test series:

Alastair Cook: The first among equals

Alastair Cook is the best young batsman England has ever produced – and he has the figures to prove it. But openers never get an easy ride in the Ashes. He tells Stephen Brenkley why singing in a choir as a boy, and worming lambs on his girlfriend's farm between Tests, are the secrets of his success.

Who can decide the Ashes?

The Independent's cricket correspondent Stephen Brenkley gives his guide to the key players battling for the urn.

David Gower: 'Strauss can be very good, but there are few greats in this game'

David Gower speaks to Brian Viner about what makes a natural captain, the bottle of wine that ended his feud with Graham Gooch, and what happens when old grudges arise in the commentary box.

How England have regained previous Ashes

England have regained the Ashes at home only six times. Each series was hard-fought, many were controversial, none was dull. Stephen Brenkley tells the heroes' stories.

James Lawton: Australia are a ruthless winning machine

The Independent's Chief Sports Writer on what makes Australia such a successful team on the world stage.

Angus Fraser's key steps to winning the Ashes

Former England cricketer Angus Fraser pinpoints five key areas to target if you're to lift the famous urn.

Mike Hussey: 'I've waited for this since I was a kid'

Once billed as a new Bradman, Mike Hussey has struggled recently – by his own standards. But as he tells Stephen Brenkley, nothing could dampen his enthusiasm for taking on England.

Angus Fraser on Ashes mind games

Twenty years ago, Angus Fraser made his Test debut in the midst of an Ashes series. He looks back on the intensity of competition, the agony of watching England bat, humiliation at the hands of Aussie fans and the tears he shed along the way.

Phil Hughes is Australia's danger man

Phil Hughes is the unswervingly confident batting prodigy who has England's bowlers sweating. Nick Compton, who has been his team-mate and flatmate both Down Under and during his time at Middlesex this year, reveals the Australian's talents on the pitch, and bad habits off it.

Six rules for watching the Ashes this summer

From catching David Lloyd's musings on Sky Sports to paying due respect to the Welsh, James Corrigan lays down a few ground rules for watching this summer's sporting spectacle.

Ashes to Ashes

It's that time of year again, where Wimbledon's home-grown hysteria turns to the cricket in the vain hope that this time we will retain the Ashes against yet another mortal enemy; Australia. Unusually, the first test match started on a Wednesday as opposed the more traditional Thursday but I guess that is down to the venue, which is at Cardiff. Wales for the first time.

Andrew Strauss's decision to bat first on winning the toss was expected, and he made a positive move in going with both spinners- it was the first time England had done so in a home Ashes Test since 1993. His decision seemed validated as the home team finished on a solid 336-7.

If you're a fan, you can follow the full action at the BBC. If you're not, we'll have some snippets and tidbits on here.

20/20

People with blue eyes have can see better in dim light than people with brown eyes.

Beer, A Great Leveller

Pretty burds make blurks buy beer, fugly burds make them drink it.

All Clear

It wasn't the best of visits to the hospital yesterday.

An unfortunate two hour wait to get seen by the doctor who was way behind his schedule, was compounded when he made the briefest of inspections before concluding all was well and we were charged ten quid for the privilege of his precious three minutes.

However, all is well and we shall be heading poolside with great haste soonest. :o)

Quickie

Today, I'm afraid as we're back off to the hospital to get the final all clear following wifey's op. Not expecting any problems, just another opportunity to pay for the privilege to hear the doctor say "yes, no concerns. All healed and you can now get back into the swimming pool."

See you later or tomorrow. :o)

Price of Passport Gans Up

As of 3rd September, 2009, the cost of a British passport is to rise from £72.00 to £77.50. The Home Office claims the above-inflation increase is due to the recession as the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) had "lost revenue" and it marks the third rise under the Labour Government.

Travellers have now seen the price of a passport jump from £18.00 in 1997 and if the cost had risen in line with retail prices, it would now cost just £24.55. Instead we get fined for their shortcomings once more. The chief executive of the IPS guffed:

"This year demand has fallen and we must ensure this lost revenue doesn't affect our ability to deliver a quality product and excellent customer service. However we were still faced with an increase in net costs that risked undermining our high standards of integrity and customer service. The increase in fees will ensure that the service customers have rightly come to expect can be maintained."

Utter cobblers, nothing but spin, hot air and banal sound bites that have little reflection on reality. Any takers on the thieves trying to recover the cost of billions lost on the now defunct ID card scheme?

In the Year 2525

As of 2007, the average wind-up toy required 4.7 revolutions to be fully wound, approximately 50% fewer revolutions than what was required in 1997.

I wonder what the kids of 2017 can expect? Ah yes, more battery operated toys.

Uncanny

Yesterday I wished an old pal, Brant, a happy birthday, who also happens to be my dentist. At least he was whilst we were in the UK. Last night, I was munching on something and I chipped a bit off a tooth. How's that for coincidence?

IT Tip

Yes, I can't believe it either, but I've stumbled across a site which is brilliant at converting files from one format to another. There a dozens of conversions available and you can either join for free as a member in a few seconds or just enter your email address to receive your converted data directly to your in box.

Have a look see at Cometdocs and you can't say I never give you guys owt for nowt on the 'pooting front.

Yes, The Beer-o-meter

Is now on its fourth version (see previous post) and hopefully a little more user friendly to update and manage, as and when we travel on to new countries.

It can always be reached via the little widget on the RHS, towards the bottom of the Blog, to allow you instant access and price comparison on the beers we've supped along the way. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Beer-o-meter Mk IV Ver 4.02

Click to Enlarge

Up in Smoke

Click to Enlarge

Above is what is left after a fire knacks a Lamborghini Gallardo, worth about £130 000. The super car burnt out in just four minutes after it pulled over with smoke billowing from under its bonnet. By the time the fire brigade turned up it was all over.

We saw a couple of these in Bangkok in a showroom on the third floor of a massive shopping mall (Paragin) and they are rather nice indeed. I still prefer two wheels, but I wouldn't be in any hurry to pass the keys back if anyone were foolish any to lend me a set.

Forked, Um, Tongue

The average person says "um" or "uh" once for every eight other words they speak.

That's nothing- every second word spoken by a politician is a lie.

Tax on Beer

One of the downers of living in Malaysia if you're a fan of the beer, is how expensive it is.

An identical bottle of Tiger will set you back 50 pence in Vietnam, yet here it costs a whopping £2.40. How can that be justified; an enormous jump of almost five times as much? The government takes it, that's why.

Duty on beer is the second highest in the world here, only less expensive than Norway. Shocking and it's costing the tourism business, which is extremely short sighted.