bits

Ent

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:20:00 +0000

Spotted near Llangoed 11th november

Bird Shit

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:55:00 +0000

Here is a picture of me today sitting on a beach in Tenby. Yesterday I was looking at some photographs taken by my facebook friend Vikash among which was was his picture of a piece of bird shit on a wall which he entitled 'Guano'.
Here on the beach in Tenby I am trying to work out how I might comment on this picture that is to say I am actually thinking about Guano. Would you believe it that 10 seconds later a large dollop of the stuff landed on trousers from a passing gull. Of course I immediately bought a lottery ticket.

Vive la France

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:17:00 +0000

Just had a visit from the Breton town with which Brecon is twinned and our guest told us the following.

“the lady Mayoress (she came with them) … ..her father he is ill and she tell them if anything happen to Papa put him in the cold room until the weekend.”

Oh the humanity..

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Today I left the house and crossed the road into the field opposite and began climbing up the side of a hill. For the next hour and twenty minutes I didn’t meet or see another human being . Here is a snap about 2/3rds up.

I remember in the sixties there was chap called Stan , who like the Rev Dr Donald Soper used to appear regularly at Tower Hill not far from the Tigers Head. Stan would loudly sing ‘Joy, Joy , my heart is full of Joy’ as if it really were and hand out Christian tracts to the unbelievers.
Not seeing another human for more than an hour gave me an inkling of old Stan’s ecstatic state. Last week on another walk I came across a house on the corner, in the village of ‘Three Cocks’. When I was 16 and came by bus from London to visit Ann you had to change buses at Cheltenham and finally get off at Three Cocks. The bus continued its long journey to Tenby. I was trying to find the right bus and asked one of the drivers wandering about the depot.. He called across to his mate “Hey Dai there’s a bloke here wants three cocks!” and no useful information was possible until they had both stopped laughing.
This house on the corner in Three Cocks had a skull and crossbones above the porch and written beneath it was ‘Go Away’ . Much better than a welcome mat I thought.

...and deflate

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:18:00 +0000

Once again I have slipped the surly bounds of obesity and am now well ensconced in the land of the ‘moderately overweight’ . Thus in the words of a group that may perhaps once have been known as ‘10 fluid ounces ‘
I'm not obese
So don’t forget it
It’s just a silly pie I am working through

www.insuranceage.com

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:49:00 +0000

From the Brokers Forum
Tue 13 Jan 2009 @ 19:33 I dont believe it... Post #1

Douglas Mcleod
Alan Johnston once said that I read more and more like Victor Meldrew - I fear he could be right.
This morning I went to get my eyes tested and by this afternoon I had received the following letter by email.

Dear Mr McLeod

Unfortunately, during the course of your recent appointment with me, I consider that the patient/practitioner relationship was irretrievably broken down and I felt unable to continue with that examination. Without mutual trust, it is impossible for me to fulfil my role as your optometrist.

Accordingly, therefore, I would suggest that it is in your best interests to seek your optometric care with another practitioner. I will be happy to forward copies of your records to any optometrist of your choice.

To which I replied Dear Mr Round,

Thanks for the advice to go to Specsavers. They were able to see me the same afternoon. This gave me time enough to upload my photograph to their website and try out 100’s of different frames. I was able to buy two pairs of varifocal spectacles for the price of one!!

Thanks again I would never have thought of them without you.

Nothing to do with insurance of course but its nearly Friday, well its Tuesday anyway and these days thats nearly Friday to me.

IP : Logged

Posts : 626 This author :

Wed 14 Jan 2009 @ 9:28 Re: I dont believe it... Post #2

alan johnston

Unfortunately, during the course of your recent appointment with me, I consider that the patient/practitioner relationship was irretrievably broken down and I felt unable to continue with that examination. Without mutual trust, it is impossible for me to fulfil my role as your optometrist.

i can only imagine the level of indignant abuse you must have dished out to be sacked as a customer of an optician.
domestic confusion leads douglas to seek new gregories:

...Probably the Best Insurance Broker in Hamilton.

IP : Logged | Edited: Wed 14 Jan 2009 @ 9:28

Posts : 754 This author :

Kent News

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:53:00 +0000

The Rev Canon James Tipp, 63, received the life-long ban after abandoning his wife and his Snodland parish in February 2008 to set up home with Elaine Northern, 54.

Northern was given a 12-year ban for her part in the scandal, which left the congregation at Christ Church stunned.

At a disciplinary hearing, Mr Tipp, who was also Rural Dean of Cobham, received the life ban because of his higher level of responsibility.

The father-of-two has hit out at the ban, citing the case of Rev Teresa Davies who was barred for just 12 years after holding church services while drunk and having sexual intercourse with strangers.

One can imagine the Reverend Davies after the service.
“so did you like the shervice service ?..shorry.. sorry about that little buishness , bishness, business with the wine – tell me are you just passing through?”

feets too big

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 15:13:00 +0000

The Wye at lunchtime today frozen over by the Horseshoe Bend. Today I was walking round Boughrood Brest to 'Heroes of British Jazz' and particularly liked Kenny Balls rendition of 'Your feets too big'. "....your pedal extremities are colossal, they always remind me of some old fossil"

...to all my readers

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:37:00 +0000

Une danseuse de tecktonik ultra-rapide

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:34:00 +0000

Understanding Shakespear

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:32:00 +0000

Yesterday 22nd November with heavy snow predicted for London I understood perfectly the line in the sonnet But thy eternal summer shall not fade. Ann made me mow the grass. Perhaps he could have added If I've got anything to do with it just to make it crystal clear.
Erica , who is 89, was telling us about a pig from her childhood called Horace and how intelligent he was but they still ate him. I couldn't resist 'Alas poor Horace they chewed him well'
Went to Cardiff last Wednesday we were going to see Haley Westenra but it was cancelled This big wheel was quite impressive though.

Cila

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:11:00 +0000

Absolutely nothing to do - pretended to do something in a notebook for the last hour of the day in the hope I wouldnt get spotted.
Tomorrow I might try,
'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' a few thousand times. Perhaps I could take an axe to work in my briefcase

I curse Freecell you mouse the X and scream silently dive , dive, dive but another window pops up and asks if you are sure you realy want to move the bloody game off the screen!.
I dont think they saw it though.

Even tried to start a novel last Friday. All I managed was two small paragraphs that I might include somewhere in something. Notice I say 'a novel' and not 'the novel'

Rocky Whelk

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:51:00 +0000

High above the Wye on the way to Builth Wells just beyond Erwood there are some very small quarry like cuts into the exposed rock. Break off a piece of this and you will find it contains a fossilised seabed which is now several hundred feet above the river valley twisting below. Here you will find some Silurian whelk intact after a brief and uninteresting life on the seabed 400 million years ago. However I cant find any evidence of the lives of my own parents beyond the barest essentials. Those who research their own family history penetrate a few years into the past and at best come up with a ‘history’ that has all the appeal of a telephone directory. This ancient creature slimes his way across some prehistoric sea bottom and is immortalised in stone.
I found this journal by somebody called Mrs J N Noakes containing details of two holidays she had in 1961 and 62 by coach to Denmark and Italy. They are not very interesting although there are plenty of photographs, equally unexciting. Nevertheless I think I will use them to build a website and try and give Mrs J N Noakes, whoever she is/was a little bit of Rocky the Whelks longevity and the website building should be a useful exercise. So I am giving up blogging.

bog standard

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:35:00 +0000

I cant get into the office toilet at present because there is a resident rat which has not yet moved on.
Why cant I get a job at Google

this year it was their turn

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Day 2 of twinning trip Brecon to Gouesnou in Brittany near Brest. To mark 20th anniversary a tree planting ceremony. Anns friend has not turned up and Ann is worried as she is not in the best of health and this is her first trip with the twinners. Ann speaks to Phillip one of the local organisers. The ceremony continues to the end and then the microphone stutters again and Phillip's voice graveley announces. "We have big news about Shirley Evans...." long pause "she is at the hairdressers".

Drinkers 'ignorant' about alcohol

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:28:00 +0000

Three-quarters of drinkers do not know a typical glass of wine contains three units of alcohol, a survey for the Department of Health suggests.

And how many commentators including the fellow who wrote these reams know what a ‘unit’ actually is? I don’t know and I don’t care but these people are taking it seriously so might be expected to know of what they are talking.
a typical glass of wine contains three units of alcohol they will say.
But what does this glass of wine contain in 3 measures?
Why units of course!!
What is a unit?
You get 3 of them typically in a glass of wine!
But what do you get?
Alcohol of course.
But what is 3 Alcohols?
3 units stupid.
I give in.

Functions of Music

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:18:00 +0000

This year I have mainly been cutting the grass to the accompaniment of ‘Deaf School’ following the recommendation of Icedink. However for the making of beds I find Bonnie Tyler , ‘Holding on for a hero’ very hard to beat.

A different Boris

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:31:00 +0000

At Hay Literary Festival they occasionally have events that interest me.
This year Boris Spassky is to play a simultaneous exhibition against 20 people and so I applied as directed on their website.

Email to HLF
26th April 2008
Good morning,
I would like to play Mr Spassky.
Thanks

No reply

Before the brochure had been published and distributed I noticed on the website that the event was full – no further places. I thought this was a bit much closing an event before the brochure had been issued and so I wrote;

Email to HLF

2nd May 2008

Are you going to bother to reply to this or had you allocated all the places before you advertised it which seems most likely and cant be bothered to answer?

Then on 7th May I get the following from the Festival Director Peter Florence

actually, you were going to get a place as one of the most local applicants, but you're also the rudest, so you won't

To which I replied 10th May 2008

Odd is it not that you were going to allocate me a place when, before you had got round to publishing a brochure, your website said that this event was fully subscribed and there was no point in applying?
But I whole heartedly agree with you that the last thing we want in a chess player is rudeness! Its a pity you were not in charge of world chess when Boris lost his title in Reykjavík it would never have happened.
I do not claim to be a Bobbie Fischer either in ability to play chess or in achieving the necessary level of rudeness, in fact I am struggling now to avoid directly quoting Bobby Fischer for fear that you will not recognise it as a quotation from the master and think I am merely being foul mouthed.
Anyway it would have been nice to play Boris but it is no lifetimes ambition so I am not 'sick as parrot' and to be frank I think your email shows that you have probably been reading some textbooks from the Lifemanship, 'Early Learners' series.
Still good luck with the Festival - Kenn Dodd looks good - rest of it though I am not so sure.

I know the last line will annoy him I am pleased to say.

No wonder I am so cheerful

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:22:00 +0000

Saturday before last we were sitting in Oscars at Hay on Wye having a coffee. As I sat there I remembered that an ex customer named Adrian lived round the corner. I hadn’t seen him or even thought about him for 10 years but 3 days earlier he had suddenly come into my head. Adrian was a good musician and I thought he would be the one to recommend a local band or DJ or whatever they call them as we were going to need one. So I said to the others “I am just going out to have a word with my friend he knows all about local music – that’s if he isn’t dead” As soon as I said it there was a terrific bang in the otherwise practically deserted restaurant like something toppling over and crashing to the ground. I got to the house and his son answered the door and you can guess the rest. Adrian had suddenly and unexpectedly died 3 days earlier.
I don’t myself attach any supernatural explanation to this but he was younger than me and it gave me the rather unpleasant idea that my life was like being in an enormous queue , sometimes standing for ages in a single spot , sometimes shuffling forward a few paces. With Adrians death I fancied the queue moved a bit faster for a bit longer and I think I might have caught a glimpse at last of the counter to come and something behind it.

five star

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:26:00 +0000

I like trip adviser and there are some great reviews in Top 10 Dirty Hotels. Really loved the English number 1 in Oxford. I am tempted to try it for a night.

One for the road

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:47:00 +0000

So they intend reducing the permitted blood alcohol level further for drivers.
I remember when the evidence for road accident frequency and alcohol was first used to justify a law change.
The published graphs showed an exponential increase in accident frequency compared with individual alcohol consumption. But on the far left of this chart, before the accidents and the alcohol started mounting up there was a tiny dip, like a tick, a little valley before the graph took off into a large hill, practically unnoticeable.
The only interpretation is that 1 drink makes you a safer driver. I can’t find that graph now maybe it has been forgotten about. More likely it is unthinkable in this ‘free’ society of ours.

Put it in the Curry

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:17:00 +0000

I can say Deoxyribonucleic without a conscious thought but Cardamom I cannot say without my face screwing up in concentration and spelling it first in my head and then reading the image phonetically. Why should this be?

Press

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:01:00 +0000

Me to the Brecon & Radnor

Please advise - have you got a new editor yet ?

Who is it?

I hope its not that awful fellow who took my letter - changed the heading, inserted a photograph and a cartoon and manufactured a letter which was about logic into an anti Welsh piece for his own purposes. Citizen Kane he was not.

I need to know to see whether it is safe to send anything in.

Brecon & Radnor to me

Pleased to advise that Julie Chappell is the new editor, not the poor man’s Citizen Kane, and it is presumably safe for you to resume contributing to our letters page.
However I must add I didn’t change the text of your previous letter.
Yours
Twm Owen
News editor

Tel: 01874 610111
Fax: 01874 624097
------------------------
The Brecon and Radnor Express Ltd is a limited company registered in England
and Wales. Registered number: 2677142. Registered Office: The Old Court House, Union Road, Farnham GU9 7PT.

Me to Brecon & Radnor

No just as Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman you did not change the text of my letter. Other than the heading, the Polish cartoon, the photograph and the deliberate misdirection of emphasis, other than that you were a model of journalistic integrity.

He hasn’t replied.

Guilty M’lud

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 09:57:00 +0000

But with extenuating circumstances – I only wanted to play chess not to have to listen to another awful american going on about how good he was.

Dear stanfordlehope ,

Your Electronic Arts Pogo account has been issued a warning for
violating the Terms of Service for Electronic Arts Online.

Violation: Use of inappropriate language
Transmit or facilitate distribution of Content that is harmful,
abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, vulgar, sexually explicit,
defamatory, infringing, invasive of personal privacy or publicity rights, or in
a reasonable person's view, objectionable. Hate speech is not
tolerated.

Chat Log:
StanfordleHope 21:09:35 do fuck off

Mothering Sunday incident at the Rhosgoch Golf Club

noreply@blogger.com (MacDuff) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:09:00 +0000