Are you running a recent version of Firefox? ((where recent is defined as “has built-in spellchecker”)) Yes? Then try this…
1. Go to the comments form for this entry.
2. Type buckinghamshire into the text field (with a space at the end)
3. Note the red squiggly line – this means that the word is not in Firefox’s internal dictionary.
4. Right-click on “buckinghamshire” to see what words *are* in Firefox’s internal dictionary.
5. How rude!
Charlie Brooker on nightclubs…
> Even if you somehow avoid reproducing, isn’t it a lot of hard work for very little reward? Seven hours hopping about in a hellish, reverberating bunker in exchange for sharing 64 febrile, panting pelvic thrusts with someone who’ll snore and dribble into your pillow till 11 o’clock in the morning, before waking up beside you with their hair in a mess, blinking like a dizzy cat and smelling vaguely like a ham baguette? Really, why bother? Why not just stay at home punching yourself in the face? Invite a few friends round and make a night of it. It’ll be more fun than a club.
I occasionally find myself in a nightclub. I wouldn’t say that I enjoy it, but sometimes I come away with an amusing anecdote. And at the end of the day, what would life be without amusing anecdotes? More to the point, what would this blog be without amusing anecdotes? (Yes, I know, just a series of 500×375 photographs).
There’s a cricket in our bedroom. It appeared overnight, to give us a little private gig.
We’re wondering if it will have moved on to the next venue by this evening, or if it’s going to be in residency.
I believe that this pale green specimen in a crab spider. It’s the first time that I’ve seen a spider this colour.
This plant has been at the bottom of the garden, spreading its ugly leaves wider and wider, and Karen and I were slowly appreciating it less and less. Then, suddenly, flower buds appeared – dozens of them. And we like it now.
A butterfly on my son’s sand-and-water play table.
The other day, I beat up a CD with a drumstick in order to set an excellent example to my son. The results were beautiful.
Driving home from work on Friday evening was an ordeal. My main route home was impassable, and my second choice was even worse.
My third choice involves a very narrow country lane, but I figured that I might as well give it a whirl, because the alternative was a very, very long detour.
Things were looking promising, and I encountered three cars coming the other way, in quick succession. This was a good sign, because it meant that the road was passable. If it had been impassable, then these three cars would have either been reversing, or much more spread out. I reached the very lowest point on the road, where a large, deep puddle crossed my path. I slowed down, but not too much, and went through.
As I drove through the puddle, I became aware of two things.
Firstly, a quantity of steam coming off the bonnet of my car. This was a little worrying, but I kept my faith.
Secondly, a motorcyclist coming in the other direction, with a look of terror on his face, hollering something incomprehensible. We must have entered the water at about the same time.
It wasn’t until late that night, trying to get to sleep, that I cast my mind back to the motorcyclist. With the clarity of hindsight, I could now picture him in my rear view mirror, totally submerged by the wall of water being thrown up by my car.
And I racked my brains to try and figure out whether he had entered the water before or after me. Because my conscience really wants it to be the latter.
For the record, I did get home eventually. My third route was impassable, as was my fourth, but by this point I was close enough to home that I could park the car on high ground, roll up my trouser legs, and it was only a five minute walk home. All in all, it took me an hour to get home, where it normally takes me 10-15 minutes.
There is no exact right time to start toilet training. 12 months is almost certainly too early, but Karen and I figured that there’s no harm in assembling Bernard’s awesome Seat-A-Kid and plonking it on him every now and then.
This morning, I was changing his nappy, and put him down on it for a few seconds. He looked at me, smiled briefly, and then attempted to dismount.
However, his dismount was clumsy, and the yellow insert (see the picture in the link above) was flipped through the air behind him, spraying a quantity of urine all over the carpet.
“Hooray, I think!” I called, gave him a brief smattering of applause to show my approval, then grabbed a couple of flannels to sop up his little puddle.
This task completed, I rushed through to the bedroom to awake Karen, who was in the middle of a totally pointless nap that would be ten minutes long, at most, as it was nearly breakfast time. I told her the story, and she shared my enthusiasm.
Bernard was excited too. So much so, that he had another wee, and I grabbed three more flannels and a change of clothing.
Lots of these growing by the sides of the roads in my town, and also in my garden.
This is pretty insanely close-up, by the way. Each of these little flower heads is just a few millimetres across.