Head Rambles

Grandad September 20th, 2010

I had to go out yesterday, but before I got there I had to pass through the front door.

I found this lying on the floor under the letter-box.

It gave me a little turn as my first thought was that it was a suicide note, and I had this uncomfortable feeling that I was going to open the door and find a corpse, either hanging from the gutter, slowly twisting in the wind, or else lying on my lawn with its brains spoiling my nice crop of nettles and thistles.

On closer inspection I realised however that it was a pamphlet from some bunch of God Botherers.

Jayzus but it was miserable reading! 

“For thousands of years, the human family has suffered greatly from wars, poverty, disasters, crime, injustice, sickness, and death. The past hundred years have seen more suffering than ever before. Will all of this ever end?”

Their wee missive was a morass of this misery.  For a bunch who claim to be so fucking happy, they sound pretty miserable to me.

Their idea of perfection has me a little confused too.  Do I really want to spend eternity living with a couple of indeterminate origin but politically correct people?  Do I really want a fucking moose shitting all over my lawn?  Quite frankly, it looks a bit American to me and I don’t really want to spend eternity listening to American accents and moronic American idioms [doubtless the couple spend their days telling each other how awesome heaven is?].

I have one little problem with these God Botherers.  For as long as I can remember they have been telling me that the world is about to end and that I had better mend my ways immediately.  It reminds me of the “jam tomorrow, jam yesterday but never jam today” bit from Alice in Wonderland.  For sixty years, the world has been ending tomorrow, and it hasn’t happened yet, so they can fuck off.  I’m going to carry on having fun.

I have reasonably well defined beliefs of my own.  I won’t bother you with my philosophies, as there is nothing worse than someone inflicting their religious zeal on others.  It has taken me six decades of soul searching, debate and argument to get to a point where I am content with my own little ‘religion’.

I can’t imagine how they expect a piece of paper to change all that?

• Religion?
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Grandad September 19th, 2010

I don’t think I have mentioned John before.

He came to live with us a few years ago.  He just turned up one night, and has been here ever since.

He’s an extremely quiet chap.  In fact, Herself has never even seen him, and I only see him occasionally.  He pootles around the place at night, and I have never seen him during the day.

The only time I know he is around is when Sandy finds him.  I put her out for her last piss of the night and next thing there is an almighty racket from the garden – a sure sign that John is on his nightly perambulations.

Sandy is an extremely intelligent dog, and quickly cops on to most things in life.  John however has her baffled.  She sees him as a tasty bit of prey and goes on the offensive.  John, being also quite intelligent, goes on the defensive.  And when John goes on the defensive he is pretty much indestructible.  Sandy hasn’t learned this yet, so she dances around him and then lunges.  The resulting sound is a sort of “woof woof woof YIP!”  This is repeated ad nauseam until I go out and rescue her.

You see, John is a rather large hedgehog, and when on the defensive, he is essentially a large ball of pricks.  Pricks don’t feel very nice to a sensitive nose, apparently, hence the YIP part of the bark.

I tried to photograph him the other night.   This wasn’t as easy as it sounds as it was pitch black out there, and it was a case of shooting off the camera in the general direction and hoping I caught him.  After several attempts, I eventually did.

Now, I know the photograph looks a bit like one of those colour-blindness tests, but I can’t help that.  If you are colour blind you probably won’t be able to see him, but take my word for it – he’s there.

Why do I call him John?

Well, I was all for calling him Sonic, but he took grave exception to that.  He told me his name was John, and who am I to doubt him?

So John he is.

• The Family
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Grandad September 18th, 2010

The world is in a bit of a state of chassis at the moment.

There are mutterings about the chance of war in Iran or North Korea.

The banks have brought the world to the brink, and things are only just beginning to stabilise.

Famine is running rampant.  Millions of Pakistanis are homeless because of floods.  There are earthquakes, famine and pestilence everywhere, apparently.

And what is the world worried about?

I took a quick gander at Google to see what people were seeking enlightenment on. 

What did I find?

“Lindsay Lohan Twitter”

I confess I had to look her up to see who the fuck she is, she being so incredibly important.  Apparently she is an actress, a model and a pop singer.  I had heard the name before, but I never bothered finding out who this person was – I have more important things to do.  But apparently the rest of the world doesn’t.

A million years of evolution leading to concern about a third rate actress?

Fuck!

• Rambles
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Grandad September 17th, 2010

Those of you who have been around for a while will know my attitude to Christmas.

I love it, provided it is only celebrated on one day of the year in Outer Mongolia, and I never have to listen to sleigh Bells, Bing Crosby and fucking Slade. I fucking hate and despise that Slade song. I fucking hate the ghastly advertisements, the tacky music and the plastic veneer of jollity that is imposed on us, but for sheer tacky, teeth grinding, nauseating crap, that Slade song wins hands down.

Yesterday I got an email.

It was from some shower of wankers telling me to get my order in early so that I could enjoy a perfect Christmas.

For fuck’s sake! This is September. Our Gubmint are still on their Summer Holidays. This time last year I was in France on my Summer Holidays. Christmas is still over three fucking months away and they want me to get my fucking order in early?

Of course I wrote back to them.

I thanked them for their early reminder, and told them how much I appreciated their concern that I should have a perfect day. I told them I was placing a huge order of their stuff and that it was attached to the mail.

The attachment contained a particularly virulent virus that at the very least will wipe their entire database, and hopefully will keep them off line until the New Year.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

• Rambles
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Grandad September 16th, 2010

Yet another “study” has emerged.

This one really intrigued me though.

According to this “study” in Scotland, the rate of hospitalisations for children with asthma in Scotland has dropped by more than 18 per cent year-on-year since the introduction of the ban on smoking in public places in 2006.

The study even comes with graph to illustrate this startling decline -

Naturally various prominent sites in the UK have taken this “study” to task, and have correctly pointed out that the supplied figures show no such decline.

Out of curiosity, I tried replicating the graph above using the supplied figures.

That is the nearest I can get, which only bears a passing resemblance to the original.

Of course, the pro-choice lobby are up in arms about this and are screaming that once again figures are being distorted out of all recognition, and graphs are biased, loaded and just plain incorrect.  I take a different view though.

Just suppose for one nanosecond that the figures are showing a decline, then what conclusions can we conclude?  The Nazis are claiming that the smoking ban is the cause of the decline, but how do they come to this conclusion?

The study refers to children, so we must look at the children’s environment in relation to smoking.  Where are children most likely to encounter smoke?  Do children frequent pubs and bars?  I don’t think so.  They are usually to be found at home, at school or in the open air.  I think we can safely take the open air out of the equation, and also schools.  I can’t imagine that all teachers smoked heavily in the classroom before the ban?  That just leaves the home.

Since the ban was introduced, it is widely recognised that attendance in pubs has dropped dramatically.   One must assume that the majority of the population has not suddenly decided to give up drinking because of a smoking ban, and judging by the increase in off-licence sales, we can only assume that people are now drinking [and smoking] at home.  But home is the only place where children are likely to encounter significant smoke, which [if the study is correct] indicates that an increase in smoking in the home has led to a decrease in the levels of asthma in children.

In my travels around the Interweb I have come across quite a few anecdotal reports of asthma sufferers discovering that smoking reduces, or even clears their asthma, so the above conclusion may not be quite so outlandish as it first appears.

Leastwise, the Nazis have produced their “study” and analysis therefore can only point to one of two conclusions.  Either they have cooked the figures, or they are indicating that smoking reduces the incidence of asthma.

Which is it?

One way or another, I think they have nicely shot themselves in the foot?

• Smoking
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