This is the Modern World...

What kind of a fool do you think I am?
You think I know nothing of the modern world?

I spy with my little eye something that sounds like Pie....

I love a pie, everyone does, and being a thick northerner, pies play an important part of our everyday lives, very much like telephones...you really can’t live without one. 

So imagine my surprise when I heard that there was a new mobile on the market called an Android pie phone!

Wow...

“This is the modern world that I've learnt about...”

I must have missed that episode of ‘Tomorrows World’ when Raymond Baxter predicted this futuristic thing would happen in 2020...

...I needed to get one....at all costs...This was definitely the phone for me!!

“In Yorkshire slang a pork pie is sometimes called a "growler"

To be honest, I heard about these new phones second hand from a bloke who worked with another fella that I knew, and his missus used to work in the The Carphone Warehouse so knew a bit about this new technology. Anyway it’s a new, exciting thing, probably to do with this 5g gubbins that is the ‘fifth generation of wireless communications technologies supporting cellular data networks’....if I’m not mistaken!

Iv read that David Icke isn’t a great fan of it but he still thinks the Queen is a lizard so in my book I reckon he’s still a bloody crackpot!

But anyhow, did I mention it’s called an Android pie phone...Awesome!

I put my wellies on and set off down to Greggs for some essential shopping in my furloughed dinner hour and was really surprised there wasn’t a queue for them already, so, not wanting to look daft, I peered through the window first, to see if I could see one....nothing...well nothing but pies...and sausage rolls...damn!

You must have to order them online, I thought 💭 

Trudging slowly back I started to wonder what they would be like. I pictured like a round, meat and potato shaped affair with a stylish crust and a central keypad. I wondered if, when you left it charging up overnight, it got warm and you could slip it in your trouser pocket?

Of all the phones Iv had Iv never had one like this before...Wow...technology has moved on so much since the 1g day’s when the WAP protocol was to take some 2p’s 

with you to the local GPO phone box and shove them in when you heard the pips...

Long before all this fancy roaming and hands free telephoning took off!

Back home I cranked up the computer and typed in ‘Pie’ and pressed ↩️return...Ooh, I wish I hadn’t...just look at all them tasty, crusty, deep-dish, savoury, steak and ale, homemade, deliciously baked, shortcrust sensations....Mmmm....Pies!

But no phone pies..?

Who would make such a product?....Ah, I know....Apple!

.ok, type again...’Apple pie’,↩️

More lovely pies, but sweet crumbles and filo strudels as well...

I needed to be more specific, obviously, and include the word ‘telephone’

I got out my credit card in readiness and typed in ‘New Android Pie telephone’..↩️

🔝🔝🔝🔝Top hit🔝🔝🔝🔝

https://www.android.com/versions/pie-9-0/

Really!?

.........

It’s just a normal looking crap mobile telephone!?

Nothing resembling anything to do with pies?

Oh, the disappointment...

Smells like Teen Spirit...

angst

/aŋst/

noun

1. a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.

One thing Iv noticed that this lockdown has done 

is that it’s got everyone a lot fitter!

Iv never known so many people, who quite frankly were the quintessential lazy fat-arsed sods of the community, now seem sooo desperate to excercise or...to be seen to be exercising. We 

Why is this?

Before the restrictions, most folk couldn’t get up in a morning. 

Then, when they had hauled their lardy arses out of bed, they would set off reluctantly, driving half asleep to work, eating crisps and pies and then returning as soon as they could, on flexitime, to lie on their moth-eaten sofa’s and complain like hell if even an ‘advert’ came on for anything remotely active, like Peloton bikes or Nike trainers.

Since the old rubber-faced Michael Gove came on the telly and told them they were restricted they have sworn blind that it’s their God given humanitarian right to joggle around the park, dodging the hazardous dog doo’s, and nobody, but nobody is gonna tell them they can’t...virus or no virus, they are sticking to the constitution and they is going OUT.

So now, the newly ordered big daft headphones have arrived from Amazon and the old 

‘Fatbit’ has been dug out the drawer and charged up. Special anti-wobble licra fabric garments are then donned until they are stretched over all the folds and then the athletic-pathetic ‘look’ is completed with a jaunty baseball cap. 

“Hey, look at me...I’m going for my run”

MY run...all of a sudden??

⏱

A pink plastic water carrier is then filled with a sprout juice and lime zest combo and matching pink watches and alarms are synchronised in readiness....

...and then they are off...1 hour and counting...

⏱

On 59.45 minutes on the timer they arrive home, key in the door, exhausted and sweaty but elated at another PB...Stop the clock!

⏱

They have completed the 1.3km circuit around the trim track, up past the duck pond and even managed a chat with the postman while only stopping the clock briefly to nip in the SPAR to pick up a Daily Mail, some fags and a Kit-Kat for the way back.....

all this in under an hour!

...aren’t they just great?

Not only have they beaten their own personal best but more importantly they have got one over on the nasty Micheal Gove and the rest of the Tory Trotsky’s. So it’s now time for a celebratory fry 🍳up and a couple of cans of Strongbow in front of the telly with a pungent aroma of Ralgex and Deep Heat filling the room...

 

Well, they deserve it....they should really get the 👏CLAP 👏too...

...or maybe save that for next time they go out....🤔

Join me in my angst with this great track, amazing riff and off a classic album ‘Nevermind’ by a fella that went on to blow his brains because he got fed up of living in a delusional society.

Sound of the Suburbs...

“This is the sound,

This is the sound of the Suburbs...”

Self Isolating isn’t a new thing, Iv been doing it for ages.

Ever since I decided that the neighbours were a bunch of tossers and I planted a leylandii hedge that grew about 20ft a year for the last 10 years in order to give him a Seasonal Affected Disorder(SAD).

Last week their tortoise crawled into the garden so I rang them and they didn’t seem keen for me to throw it back over so I decided to take the chainsaw to it...not the tortoise, I hasten to add....the hedge!

It’s now only 2ft high about 10ft wide so ideal now for social distancing.

With the hedge gone, and the barrier broken, we are best of friends again now that we have re-connected thanks only to a global pandemic.

This morning I called over and waved to Malcolm as I could hear him practicing his cazoo. He was self- hibernating in his shed, as he was at a loose end, so was making a musical vlog about his screw collection to post on EweTube.

Now we get on really great again.

During this sunny weather he sits in his loose fitting underpants in a low deckchair on his patio and I can lay totally naked in my hammock, knitting a scarf and we chat away about old times. Recapping memories before his missus left him, his alcoholism and before his punk daughter stole our Volkswagen and ran off with the wife’s physio from the hospital.

We have now moved on from the dark days of our annoying neighbourhood disputes, of which there were a few.

Now we can have a laugh when we recalled the time when I threatened to ‘chop off his cock’ if he ever parked his car in front of my bloody drive ever again. He got me back though by sticking a potato up my exhaust pipe during the night....Oh, we did laugh.

“Remember when I caught you watching my new flat screen telly with binoculars?”

“...and how angry I got when I came back from Tenerife early and found you filling your paddling pool with my hosepipe....”

We giggled.

I knew he’d spent years putting his dogs muck in my bin and flicking his snails over into my veg patch.

 “Do you remember when you had that summer barbecue”, he asked....I did...

OMG...I did...

It was midnight on my 40th and he complained to the coppers about the loud reggie and the smoke but it all got a little out of hand when my nephew Derek was ‘wasted’ and ate all the seed out of his bird feeder for a bet and then went for a piss in his fishpond and fell in....

“You did get me back by cutting through my ariel with your hedge-cutters and posting that sex toy through my letterbox on New Years Eve...”

“Have you still got MY hedge-cutters?”

We cracked open another can and the conversation moved on to why he also still had my drill in his shed? I also 

quizzed him on the leaf blower that I lent to him and it never ever worked the same 

again!...still, that’s just water under the bridge.

“How is your son doing?”, I asked....

I wish I hadn’t, as it turns out his old habit of stealing ladies lingerie off the washing lines got steadily worse and he lost his job at Greggs and is now in Her Magesteys Service having been caught in bed with the vicar and a labradoodle one Sunday morning.

A quick game, over the hedge, with the frisbee soon cheered him up again.

“ I’m going to put a longer string on the swing 🎾ball so we can have a knock about” I told him.

...And then I noticed my bloody wheelbarrow propped up against his garage wall..

...not to worry, I bought a better one from B&Q!

We are thinking of having a quiz next week and a virtual run together and if we can remember we are going to have a clap together on the front porch next Friday...

I’m just not going to tell him that I’m still using his WiFi...

“Same old boring Sunday morning old mans out washing the car,
Mums in the kitchen cooking Sunday dinner

Her best meal moaning while it lasts
Johnnys upstairs in his bedroom sitting in the dark,
Annoying the neighbours with his punk rock 🎸 “

Hurt...

“I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair...”

GoodFriday is a very important day for Christians of every faith as they all believed that JC also known as the incarnation of God was horrifically crucified by the Romans on a hill outside Jerusalem. 

Nothing says Easter like a weekend celebration of torture and resurrection!

Jesus died for everyone. 

So at this time it is important to ask the question.

What have the Romans’ ever done for us?

Well you have to look on the bright side and also on the internet to find out, so as Im an agnostic doubting Thomas and not that au-fait with all things religious, I had to do a bit of research here....

They reckon that Easter started when Jesus invited all his mates round for a Friday Night Dinner but on a Thursday night in his crib in downtown Jerusalem. About twenty lads rocked up including Judas Priest, Sam Shepherd, Brian the messiah, Travis Perkins and brothers Zebadee, Dylan and Ermintrude. JC used his “Did somebody say Just Eat.....oooh!” App and ordered a massive curry banquet. As they settled down to eat, Leonardo Da Vinci, a local inventor and painter was asked to capture the party.

One of the lads, guitarist, Judas Priest, turned out to be the first ever vegetarian so, unlike his carpenter and fisherman mates, he wasn’t impressed with the spicy lamb Bhuna and a fight broke out. Neighbours called the authorities and the Roman carabinieri carted off JC for a night in the cells.

The next day was re-named Black Friday and JC was found guilty in the morning and marched up the hill for a flogging. On the way he helped a fella with a cross called Simon of Cerene but then sneaky Si promptly ran off and JC was left with the heavy burden to cart up Hamburger hill.

By 3’o’clock it was all over for the King of the Jews

Or was it....

It gets a bit sketchy with the detail after that so I researched Easter further for clues by watching the benchmark British gangster classic ‘The Long Good Friday’. I have to say it’s a great performance by London gangsta ‘Bob Hoskins’ who’s career went on to present the people of Judiah’s favourite teatime show, ‘Blockbusters’ through the eighties and right up to his death 

in 2012. 

“Nothing unusual,” he says! Eric’s been blown to smithereens, Colin’s been carved up, and I’ve got a bomb in me casino, and you say nothing unusual ?”

Great line from the film and a few more hours wasted but It didn’t enlighten me about the Easter risings so much....so back to Google!

The man on the cross. There was no Christ!

Really??

Can you see how I was brought up confused?

And still am at 54...

There are many disbelieving dropouts like Scientologists, Quakers and Jehovah’s that would argue that ‘Brian’ was the true messiah as he was born just one stable down but this was condemned as blasphemous when it was released in 1980.

Nowadays in nearby Ireland 🇮🇪 the Catholic faith healers take Easter a lot more seriously...

Them little fellas are condemned to a day of forced abstinence and they don’t let the women shave as it is most unlucky to draw blood on the day of the Crucifixion.

Blacksmiths, carpenters and probably Bin-men stay idle for the whole day while Joiners and brickies do not use a saw or hammer nor drive a nail on the day Christ was nailed to the Cross...I think power-tools are ok but I’d just check first!

They also believe that a child born on Good Friday and baptised on Easter Sunday is thought to have the cure for tapeworm and that anyone being barefoot at Easter is also guaranteed freedom from colds for the rest of the year....handy to know at this time! They go on to celebrate the weekend by washing their feet and tucking into a traditional dish of nettles, turnips, cabbage and herring....no wonder Bob Geldof wasn’t keen on Monday’s at his house!

In other flesh pots around the world at Easter, cigar smoking Columbians tuck into iguana, turtles and big rodents for lunch while in the jungles of Papua New Guinea they hand out fags to kids and in the Philippines self-crucifixion and self-flagellation is the order of the day and trending nicely on twittagram. 

Over in Finland they totally missed the point and celebrate Halloween 🎃 by dressing up as witches and at the other end of the world the All-Blacks in the New Zealand town of Otago grab their guns every year for the annual ‘Great Easter Bunny Hunt’....literally!

So whatever you end up doing, please remember to do it inside, save the NHS and save lives....or we will send round the new Messiah to sort you out!

 

My track today for the blog is an old ‘Nine Inch Nails’ song that was covered here and became even better than the original...just poignant and wonderful!

Joy Division Oven Gloves...

The situation has now got more desperate as the food is running low. It wasn’t good to start with as all the shelves are still empty in the coop but I did manage to come away with a some spuds, a packet of fish fingers and a bag of frozen peas but now Iv got home I haven’t a bloody clue what to make with them?

Not to be beaten I looked on’t’internet to see if there was some way that I could knock up a tasty meal using only the three ingredients and hey pesto...incredibly, there was!

There were loads actually but Iv narrowed it down to just 3 of my favourites.

Ingredients:

2kg Potatoes

1pkt Fish Fingers

1 bag of frozen peas

Recipe number 1 - EASY — Jamie Oliver

Method:

First you need to build a smoker in the back yard, put the fish fingers on a rack and leave for 3 days. While the fish is smoking, light your outside pizza 🍙oven and get the temperature to 207C before you throw in the spuds, unpeeled and whole. Next, defrost the peas over a pan of boiling water and then pulse gently in a liquidiser until rusticly sloppy. Here’s a great tip...if you don’t have a liquidiser then spread the peas on an olive wood board and ‘smash’ them with the palm of your hand or an old rolling pin and then sweep up from the floor.

Serving Suggestion:

skewer the spuds with a pitchfork and then finely 🔪slice then stand the fishfingers up on end on a wooden serving platter at jaunty angles and then drizzle the pea juice over  the top from a height....Bingo....Pucker!!

Recipe number 2 - QUITE TRICKY - Hugh Fernally Whittingdale 

Method:

First, check the packaging. 

It’s important to ensure that the potatoes have been grown in organic soil approved by the soil association and they are the correct size, shape and weight and have been harvested by hand by workers on no less than the minimum wage.

Next, smell the fish, it needs to have been ethically hand caught that morning by hook and line in British waters and comply with EU standards for sustainability and not be endangered to the point of extinction...🎣

The peas, or petit-poi’s, as I like to call them should have been picked, packed ,blast frozen and hermetically sealed within 26seconds or the whole lot needs to go in the bin...🍽

....Now return to the Coop!

Recipe number 3 - REALLY SEXY - Nigella Lawson

This romantic recipe is just oozing with plumpious excitement as we add a little Italian twist to produce this joy of joys, deep, penetrating pleasure...

Method:

First, take a deep breath and run your finger delicately down the side of the fish finger and then push slowly, but firmly, into the moist, white, flesh leaving a small but welcoming hole in which to insert your tiny frozen pea...repeat until all the succulent peas are nestled exquisitely in place. 

Then gently whisk the potatoes until they form stiff, creamy but elegant peaks and drizzle slowly with an expensive olive oil from the hillsides around Toscana. Bend seductively over and insert your creation into the bottom oven of your Aga for 30minutes until hard and firm to touch...

Serving Suggestion:

Lay the exquisite fish-pea fusion onto the cosy bed of creamy goodness and serve sensually with a soft, satisfying, salty tart...

...Hmmm...this isn’t Aldi food, this is top notch sexy Co-op fare..💋🤥

TOP TIP : For a tasty Tomato salsa you could look in the cupboard and see if there is a squeezy bottle of HP as an accompaniment and butter a couple of slices of bread.

Bon Appetito  🇮🇹 

Description

Half Man Half Biscuit are an English rock band, formed in 1984 in Birkenhead, Merseyside. Known for their satirical, sardonic, and sometimes surreal songs

A Time for Heroes...

Fantasy government 2020

At the moment they seem to be dropping like flies so it crossed my mind that if the situation gets much worse then we need to be prepared and have a contingency plan if all the current government goes down. I’m of the thinking that we should do it like I did my 6 Nations fantasy team and pick within a budget of only 100 million quid due to the state of the nations economy. It needs to reflect and support the diversity of the country and provide powerful leadership of the whole nation moving forward after Brexit. 

In my fantasy team Iv picked mainly strong English forwards with a token Scot, Welsh, LGBGT etc to avoid criticism to make up the front bench. Every 3 months you can transfer a maximum of 3 members in or out on form or for injury.

Extra Points will be accumulated for each member of the new cabinet that uses the words ‘unprecedented’, ‘self-isolation’ and ‘confident’ on the BBC.

So I propose...

Prime Minister Jim Bell

PM - Jim Bell (alias Mark Heap)

Foreign secretary - Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE 

Defence - Thomas Shelby (alias Cillian Murphy)

Defence

Chancellor of the Exchequer - Martin Lewis

Secretary of State for Business - Baron Alan Sugar 

Climate change- David Attenborough

Sport Minister - Eddie Jones 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 

International Trade - Paul O Grady

Work & Pensions

Work & Pensions - Brian Potter (alias Peter Kay)

Education- Joanna Lumley

Culture - Romesh Ranganathan

Environment & Food - Jamie Oliver

Billy Connolly - Minister for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 

Alun Wyn Jones - Minister for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 

Boy George LGBGT 🌈 

Add caption

It’s a ‘Time for Heroes’...by the Libertines.

Some Better Day...

Some Better Day...

Can you be bored to death?

bored to death

(also bored to tears/bored stiff)

Bored v Boring?

As my brain degenerates I’m starting to wonder whether I’m getting bored or getting boring?

So I turn to the psychology books to find out that “people will sometimes do reckless, stupid things when they suffer from chronic boredom”.

According to ‘Psychology Today’People who are easily bored are more likely to engage in dangerous sports, be sexually promiscuous and engage in drug and alcohol abuse. All of these things will reduce average life expectancy, but is that dying of boredom or dying of excitement?

The punditsat the big University College London go on to say that people who complain of “high levels” of boredom in their lives are at double the risk of dying from from heart disease or a stroke than those who find life entertaining...so that’s summatelse to look forward to!

Futher research shows that the boredom-death connection might have formed because bored people were more likely to feel unfulfilled, unmotivated, and unhappy, which could lead to unhealthy behaviors like excessive drinking and smoking, overeating, and drug use.....

Clearly, it is not actual boredom that is causing people to die...

If boredom kills, then perhaps cultivating curiosity heals.?

But if You are just plain boring then what are the signs? 

Maybe the problem is You?

Do your  friends, and co-workers seem not to want to be around you?

Do you suffer from Banality?

Do you have a slow thyroid? =feeling tired all the time, gaining weight and being sensitive to cold?

Then it’s probably You and should be automatically classed as a major bore and a drain on society so should stay inside to protect everyone.

Like me, if you find it very painful to be in the presence of people who are dull and lack energy and enthusiasm then there is hope as it’s been proven that Interesting people disclose more of their thoughts and feelings than boring people do.

Right, that’s that cleared up, I’m off to have a chat with the toaster!

I am Kloot