On another loser

We had pictures of people with wrecked homes and farms on a Philippine island on the TV news yesterday, and one bloke was complaining the damage had cost him $30,000. But if they were all living on a small island with an active volcano, what did they expect? Miraculous immunity?

On a loser there

“When it comes to equity release, where can we get some advice?”
    From some bloke on the telly who’s being paid to bamboozle us? Probably not.

We can all relax

What’s the news of the day? Global warming killing everything? The Chinese virus killing the world’s economy? No, it’s Canada won’t pay for armed guards for Prince Harry and his tribe.
    No news day, then?

Strength of 10 needed!

“To open, break off tab” is said on the ice cream tub, which got me reaching for the kitchen pliers to get the job done. The pliers live next to the kitchen scissors, which I reach for on seeing “Tear here” on a plastic-wrapped packet of Sainsbury’s biscuits, which seem to have specially welded seams in the tear area.

Weird people, journos

Can a woman who was dumped for ballooning to 17½ stones be said to have got revenge on the dumper by shedding 8 stones and winning a beauty contest? Only in the twisted brain of a journalist. In the real world, she owes the dumper a big vote of thanks for his reality check.

Prince Privilege pronounces

Prince Harry isn’t going to make too many friends in the tourist trade with his claim that the masses are destroying the world’s attractions by going to gawp at them, and the implication that this should be something reserved exclusively for rich people, like . . . Prince Hairy.

Is it here yet?

We’re still trying to work out if winter has caught up with us at last. There was a good battering of hail yesterday afternoon, and an outbreak of sleet this morning, and it has been going very black and threatening at times, but the Sun keeps coming out and making everywhere look cheerful. V. confusing.

Call me a cynic . . .

. . . but seeing “expert warns public not to pay over the odds for hearing aids” in an advert makes me think it’s setting mugs up for telling them they’re a special case that needs special treatment. [Which will cost a bomb.]

Rule Number One

There was an article about a cat expert in yesterday’s Sunday Post which failed to mention Rule No. 1 for cats – it has to be the cat’s idea. You think the cat wants to go out, you open the back door helpfully. She just sits there, looking at you. You close the door and start to walk away. Suddenly, the cat is scratching at the door. Now, it’s her idea to go out.

Long live the weird fan

A sold-out stadium in St Louis for a match between the Battlehawks and the New York Guardians is a good omen for this incarnation of the XFL. Especially if the fans keep buying the daft accessories, like guy with the Battlehawk wings!

Menace Cats

TigerCats, BearCats – what other sorts of cats are there in North American sports? It would be great to have a team called AlligatorCats – a hockey team, maybe?

Maybe next year?

They should definitely have called the Houston XFL team the Driller Killers if they’re recycling the Oilers’ drilling rig logo. Roughnecks also works but it’s not tough enough to fit in to the XFL philosophy as originally drafted by Vince McMahon.

Tripe by the ton

What a load of baloney we’re hearing about PM Boris not going to flooded areas. As someone pointed out, there’s just not enough Boris to go around. And the meeja circus joining in will be absolutely no bloody help.

More electric weasel words

Is an electric car an upgrade? Not if it does the same job as a petrol or diesel car and costs more to run. If you can’t buy new petrol or diesel cars, it’s the only option. It’s the default and to claim it’s an upgrade is a black lie. (Can you say black lie any more?)

So good they showed it twice!

That’s The Outlaw Josey Wales last night – lasting 2 hours 50 minutes on ITV4 but only 2 hours 45 minutes on TCM.

What every laptop needs

A rigid, hinged flap, which covers the on/off button except when the computer user wants to operate it. This will prevent a cat from shutting down the laptop by treading on the off button whilst marching across the keyboard, like they do.

No escape from alternates

Talk of the Devil! After Sunday’s Star Trek: Destiny trip, Deep Space Nine had another outing for the sex-mad despot Kira in a bum-hugger plastic suit last night when Cisko was taken Through The Looking Glass. And Charlie’s Angels were ripping off the plot of The Producers in their alternate universe.

That’s me educated!

One of the Sherlock Holmes by other means stories in my current book is set in 1893 and talks about New Scotland Yard. Which set me wondering if this is another piece of disinformation. But no, the police in London moved into a new headquarters in 1890 from a range of premises, including Great Scotland Yard, and the new HQ became known as New Scotland Yard. Author one, me nil.

Fair’s fair

The taxpayer, especially sensible people like me, should NOT be required to spend BILLIONs on defending all the premises built on flood plains. All that would be reasonable is help and encouragement to move to somewhere more sensible.

Angels not that bright

Charlie’s Angels are a bit dim at times. The audience spotted that the night club hypnotist in the Angel on the Line episode was a crazy female impersonator half an hour before Kelly; and a right nutter he turned out to be!

Cliché Point

How many episodes did it take Star Trek: Discovery to reach the one with an alternate universe containing bad counterparts of our fave people; e.g. an evil Captain Kirk and a nymphomaniac psychopathic Major Kira?
    Ten.

Inventing a false past

I have just started reading a book of Sherlock Holmes stories written by people who aren’t Sir A. Conan Doyle. The first one contains the proposition that a coal fire of the sort enjoyed by Holmes & Dr. Watson would ‘hiss and spit’.
    My own experience of coal fires, and that of other people who would know, is that they don’t. Which leaves me wondering what other bits of fiction about life in Victorian times the book will have to offer.

Feeling deprived

Are we at the Mansion going to end up suffering from flood guilt after being by-passed by Storms Clara & Dennis? We’ve had a bit of noisy wind in the night (natural, not human) but nothing dramatic in the way of rain. And the sun keeps looking out. In fact, the weather has been quite pleasant so far this month.

No doom here

Went out for a paper this morning – pavements dry even though we were threatened with a month’s rain last night, and not cold or particularly windy. Storm Dennis might have frightened Scotland and the south of England, but here in the middle, we got away with it.

Is there any rain left to fill this promise?

They’re off again, the doom merchants. We were promised 5" of rain from Storm Dennis yesterday. Today, we’re up to 6". What’s that thing about crying ‘Wolf!!’?

Subtext

Is the current series of the BBC show Death In Paradise (21:00, Thursdays) supposed to be a comment on the current state of policing in Britain? Making the visiting inspector to the Caribbean island such an insane hypochondriac certainly seems to be giving that message.

What a difference a few miles make!

I’ve just been reading that the city of Paris has closed all parks, squares, cemeteries and large public green spaces in anticipation of a storm this afternoon of Armageddon proportions. Here, the sun is shining intermittently and it’s not at all windy.

Something rotten

There’s something badly wrong with the police if a retired senior copper sounds off about a wise guy copper getting away with doing 101 mph in a 30 mph area and serving top coppers have nothing to say about it and are doing nothing about the nutter on their payroll.

Where the XFL went wrong

If the XFL is so keen on encouraging kick returns, it should have abolished the fair catch and gone with the Canadian system, my sports experts reckon. Give a player a 5-yard halo to catch the ball and do something with it, enforce no-yards penalties if the halo isn’t granted, and give the kicking team a single point if their opposition lets a punt or kick off end up in their end zone.

XFL not Xtinct!

One of the sports fans at the Mansion was surprised to see XFL in the BT Sport schedule at the weekend. Vince McMahon’s answer to the No Fun League is back after its single-season outing in 2001 and giving fans of North American Crunch something to watch until the Canadian season opens in June.

Wot the people want

There’s a pub about 10 miles from the Mansion which used to be called The Rose & Chalice. Then the brewery got cute and renamed it The Rodent Chalice because that’s what all the locals called it. The locals now call the place The Rathouse. No sign of the brewery going along with that, though.

Design failure

Our culinary whizz makes what he calls Halloween Cake by anointing a rectangular slab of fruit cake with blue curaçao to make it look like some alien creature with blue-green blood has dripped all over it.
    Anyhow, the De Kuyper brand of this liqueur has fancy plastic gadget instead of a cork or a screw cap, and it left our whizz emitting lots of bad language, at great peril to the ozone layer, when it just turned and turned and refused to come off.
    The whizz had to attack it with a knife, pliers and a skewer. He ended up totally destroying the fancy cap so that he could replace it with . . . a cork. Maybe if De Kuyper had settled for this simple solution, the ozone layer could have been protected from all that bad language.

Go like that and go wrong

You’d think a TV continuity announcer would have to know how to deliver lines, and know that the Clint Eastwood film is called Play Misty For Me, not Play Misty For Me.

No chance

Record chasers around the country are busting a gut to get a 100+ mph gust out of Storm Ciara, but my weather expert reckons they won’t manage it honestly. All that water being moved around with the air – is it 4 inches or 4 feet of rain we can expect? – slows the wind down considerably. In fact, if you venture out when it’s not raining, it’s surprisingly not cold despite the howling winds.

Yawn!

The nation is aghast because some TV presenter has come out as an exhibitionist to deflect attention from allegations that he is a bit of a Berko. Members of the luvvie tendency might have been left wondering what they can do to get the spotlight back on them, but the rest of us? Not all that bovvered.

Daft sayings No. 43

“In for a penny, in for a pound” If you owe a penny, you have some chance of being able to repay it and avoid being beaten up by enforcers. But if you owe a pound, you could end up with all your arms, legs and ribs broken, and still owing a pound.

Reverse ageing?

A pal of mine, who’s a bit of a philosopher, reckons money ages in the opposite direction from people. The crisp tenners out of the cash machine become tatty fivers, which decay to battered change and then empty pockets. Which makes a trip back to the cash machine necessary to stock up with more crisp tenners and start the cycle over again.

Bad news for the Beeb

I find I watch the BBC mainly to catch up with the news of the moment but I find myself going to the English Al Jazeera channel instead because it does a better job of covering what’s going on in the world. So opting out of the BBC, if the licence is converted to a subscription, won’t be much of a wrench.

Something else from my current book

Newton’s Cradle, the executive desktop toy with the suspended ball bearings, was invented by Robert Hooke in 1666. And Newton didn’t invent the reflecting telescope; that was down to the surveyor Leonard Digges well over a century before Newton became someone in 1672. And it was James Gregory’s idea for the mirror, perfected by Hooke, which was used in the Hubble Space Telescope.

I can do tripe with the best of them!

If the Pet Abolition League wants us to stop having pets, I intend to describe myself as the host of members of a family extended to include the animal kingdom. I’m sure that will impress the hell out of the Mansion’s resident cat.

No Highway

Dave the ex-Leader’s bodyguard leaves his gun in the toilet of a plane which is about to take off for New York, the flight is delayed for an hour because some hissy git refuses to be in the same part of the universe as an authorized firearm, and the gun has to go back to the bar to await a new owner.
    You couldn’t make it up!

Good show in Miami

The fans of Canadian football tell me the motto of the CFL is ‘no lead is safe’. Maybe someone mentioned that to the Kansas City Chiefs, or not having won a Super Bowl for 50 years, instead of a mere 25 years for San Francisco’s 49ers, made them twice as desperate to win.

Things you find out from extensive reading

The polymath Robert Hooke discovered the Great Red Spot on Jupiter in May of 1664, and it was known as Hooke’s Spot for some time afterwards. Not a lot of people know that.

A day of contrasts

On one side of the Atlantic, the Super Bowl jamboree in Miami. On the other, the aftermath of some Islamist nutter running riot with a knife and getting his clock stopped by his police escorts. The curse of interesting times.

Surprisingly good

Some of the Star Trek films have been a bit (or a lot) iffy. But In Darkness (2013) is actually pretty good entertainment and well worth watching on the way to a Super Bowl. Even if it does recycle the death and revival of Spock as the death and revival of Kirk rather shamelessly. Vootie! Daft ending.

Back to the original

I’ve just read a paperback reissue of Dr No and I have to say the story in the book is a lot better than the film they made with Sean Canary as Janes Bond. Especially Ian Fleming’s ending for the Chinese weirdo. Worth tracking down and exploring.

How do you make a cat appear?

Open a tin of tuna. Before the tin opener has completed its circuit of the lid, a cat who was upstairs asleep before you started will be sitting nearby, watching your every move.

Unflappable

We were quite pleased that our efforts to get the cat indoors succeeded. Then we were amazed to see her sitting on a windowsill, watching the Brexit firework display instead of dashing off to her secret hiding place. When it was all over, she had a quick snack and went out for half an hour.  You never know where you are with a cat.

A weird world got weirder

What exactly is Sci-Fi about a film version of The Sweeney starring the Cockney spiv who bets responsabli, which was on the SYFY Channel last night? Answer on a PC to the usual address.