An occasional post serving the dual purpose of sharing some of the darker corners of wibblyverse and to act as padding until I can be bothered to write something interesting. Yes I know you’ve been waiting a long time. No it’s unlikely to be anytime soon.

Firstly something good from those whose corporate philosophy is either “don’t be evil” or “Capitalism and Capitulation” – I can never remember. The Pedometer builds on their mapping to provide a nifty tool for calculating routes and distances anywhere in the UK. I nicked it off a Cycling Plus thread where it had gone Nova and everybody was sharing their route with nobody who cared. For me the joy of finding my computer under-reads by 10{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} instantly upgraded my cake intake by the same amount.

Now something not quite so good – Car Crash InternetVision. Possibly the dullest man in the world resides here. A rather unbecoming mix of hocum management maxims represented through the medium of sports, and righteously anal offerings on snow shovelling and how to pack your wallet. It’s either very very subtly ironic and self parodying or it’s pretentious nonsense. Since he’s a wannabe sci-fi writer, my money’s on the latter.

By the power of dull, I invested further time in winkling out sites with far more content than hits.

• London Road Signs
• Amazingly another site dedicated to road signs and junctions
• The unmissable world of concrete
• Boring postcards what I have collected
• And the incomparable Sand Lovers collection site

Take time to browse in these chambers of horror; you can learn stuff. Did you – for example – know that a sand collector is actually called am arenophile. Well it sounds close to what I thought one might be called.

All these and more are available at the dullman site where you can lose hours of time better spent doing almost anything in slack jawed amazement at the vast array of special interest and no interest at all groups. I know Mountain Biking can be a bit obsessional and geeky but we’re not even on the radar of a bloke measuring grass length.

I don’t want to judge but let me say this; in the bad old days there was only so much damage you could do with a slide projector and open toed sandals. The Intenet has changed all that. And maybe not in a good way 😉

Stolen from the BBC website. An Ig-Nobel is defined: “The Ig Nobels – the guiding principle of which is to reward research which makes people laugh and then think – celebrate the unsung highlights of academic research” says Mr Abrahams.

He continues: “There are 10,000 academic journals out there which publish original research and which are mostly ignored by everyone except those who wrote them”

This year’s winners include papers revealing in depth information on:

• Salmonella Excretion in Joy-Riding Pigs
• The Effects of Unilateral Forced Nostril Breathing on Cognition
• An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep Over Various Surfaces.

And my personal favourite:

• The Effect of Country Music on Suicide

This is clearly research money well spent. A further quote caught my eye:

“Every prize winner has a story worth telling but they wouldn’t get that attention from anyone were it not for these,” he says. He draws on the example of John Trinkhaus, an octogenarian Ig Nobel winner who had rigorously written more than 80 detailed academic reports about things that annoyed him”

So essentially an Ig Nobel is a prize for scientific blogging. It appears my stuff meets all the criteria of uninteresting, unread nonsense so I should be a shoe in for an award.

Ace. The last award I won was a bronze swimming certificate. My mum is going to be proud.

I promise I am not making this up – from the venerable BBC no less.

Just fantastic 🙂

I can offer impeccable working class credentials; an outside toilet, hand-me-down everything and a spider infested coal cellar. But for incontrovertible class warrior providence, look no further than my strictly limited eating out opportunities.

Pub lunches were a much vaunted occasional luxury and the main dish was always served in a wicker basket sometimes garnished with the Chef’s discarded fag end.

But hey that’s fine. I’m not in therapy or anything. Well not for that anyway. But it did leave me a little undercooked when faced with proper big city restaurants. The first time Scampi – having escaped the deep fat friar – aggressively wiggled it’s proboscis at me, I didn’t know whether to fight it, fuck it, eat it or run away screaming It’s alive¦.”

So the whole car keys in a basket swinger scene kind of passed me by. I’d always assumed it was either an extravagant tip or some kind of executive valet service.

It is fascinating though. I can easily picture myself selecting the keys of some unfulfilled petrolhead fantasy. None of those awkward silence for me; oh no I’d be straight in with so the Audit Quattro 2.8 V6 with the leather interior “ how does it handle on those swoopy ˜b’ Roads?”

Not wishing to be parted from this fantasy, I’d include the keys in a three in the bed scenario and attempt to sequence the main event with the flashing of the remote locking. It’d be like Jean Michelle Jarre’s electronic harp. Only possibly slightly more cheesy. Vorch Sprung Technik Baby!

Lights on, off, on, on, on, oh yes on, (pause, remove pants), offffffff, on, off, onnnnnnnnnnn,off,on,off,on,offfffff (sorry about the elbow), on, on, on and then it’d all go Fibonacci strobe off on off on off on off onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn and ˜lock’

If we could remotely fire up a blast of Aretha Franklin on the 6 speaker stereo, then that’d be about as classy as you could hope for.

And then wouldn’t it be great if the entire swinging party took the same approach? That’d guarantee an audience and possibly a police presence. Pre-dogging dogging perhaps?

I’d love to write some more but Google has offered some fascinating opportunities that’ll need some frantic Ebaying for chest wigs and medallions for me to fulfil

This seemed a lot more amusing when it was composed. There are two likely, and possibly, interlinked reasons for this. First up is the pub based context in which it originated roared on by quite a few people having already had quite a few beers. The second is trainwritingâ„¢ which reduces transcription to something akin to a inky spider with broken legs perambulating sideways across the page before entering some kind of operatic death sprawl.

It’s frankly incredible the words form actually sentences. Oh. I see. Right. Thanks for letting me down gently.

I have no problem with direct taxation. No really it satisifies my wishy washy liberal thinking.

The goal is wealth distribution between rich and poor. And a laudable goal that is. In my experience that’s all it is with the rich paying accountants to get richer and the poor getting screwed by the evil of indirect taxation. And what’s left is spunked away with such grandiose incompetence it takes your breath away. According to a friend of mine, we’ve doubled the spend in the NHS within the last 8 years. Is it just me thinking well where the fuck did all the money go then?”

And after direct taxation, we get national insurance and then council tax. And then Car Tax, Airport Tax, VAT (originally a post war tax to boost regeneration capped at ten years), tax on Fuel, tax on books, etc.

The fuckers get you coming and going. And yet as minority shareholders in this incompetent monolithic organisation, we have no vote or right of reply. Oh sure, every four years there is beauty parade that parodies an enterprise AGM, but it leaves me cold and disenfranchised. With less than 40{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} turnout, we’re our own worst enemy but nowhere on the ballot paper does it say “none of them, I’d like a beneveolent dictatorship”

Your vote is essentially worthless and even if a change of talking heads appears to offer representation, this is merely a honeymoon period where talk is cheap and taxes continue to be expensive and misused.

I remember why I don’t do politics. I can get enough of this impotency feeling at work.

This morning, I have suffered the greatest affront to democracy since the traitorous Stanley’s switched sides at the battle of Bosworth Moor. Some direct descendent of that false King, Henry VII, has performed an underhand trouserectemy in the lockers.

The usurper has only gone and moved my kit from a locker that is forever England and exciled it to some lawless region that for the sake of this metaphor can be thought of as Bolton. Now there’s an unwritten law for locker-space where newcomers fit in where they can and respect the heirachy of those of us who came before. Yet this full blooded Lancastrians’ approach has the appearance of ethnic cleansing with all his (and it has to be said rather nasty pink shirt and brown shoes) stuff anchored against a prized wall while my belongings have been banished far and wide.

This will not stand. There are battles worth fighting and battles worth running away before re-writing history to your advantage. So this is where the shifting sands of personal space stop shifting. To this end, I’m prepared to upgrade this minor border skirmish to total war including the use of archers and siege weapons. I’ve re-established the correct front line garrisoning my clothes with a damp towel. His stuff has been roughly re-housed squeezed between other locker users moist smalls. Stretching the metaphor yet further, while my trousers are enjoying an elevated view of the Vale of York, his garments are treading water in the Wigan outfall.

For his sake, this had better be the end of it. Otherwise the changing room will split down regional lines and inevitably an all out conflict will ensue. Except, I expect the southern softies shall mince around in their Calvin Klein underwear whining oh no don’t hurt each other, I’m sure we can resolve this by talking”. Like hell we can. It may have been 550 years since Richard III was wrongfully deposed but that’s a mere chronological bagatelle to a card carrying Yorkshireman. There’s unfinished business and after this outrageous slur to my personal space, I’m the man to finish it! He’s thrown down the gauntlet and I’ll be picking it up to both accept his challenge and give him a good slapping.

For those unknowing of the Vietnam of the middle ages”, I can recommend the tragically impartial War Of The Roses site. Others prefering a somewhat more partisan summary of that conflict, let me offer up the line taken by my History teacher back in Yorkshire: It was a lucky draw and we didn’t want the throne anyway. Plus those cheating b@stards ended up with Manchester so that’s all right then“

In other news I’ve been offered a Full-on Tax Simulation from our payroll department which has the hallmarks of a low budget porn movie. Probably worth attending then.