Head of beheading

From the Times
Four men pleaded guilty today over a plot to kidnap and behead a member of the Armed Forces from Birmingham city centre. The group, headed by Parviz Khan, a 38-year-old unemployed charity worker, was arrested in February last year……………

What does an ‘unemployed charity worker’ do for a living when he is working.?

How high is the water Mamma ?

January 13th and river is highish. You can just about see our garage here.

Not enough pearls before the swine

15000 police officers marching for more pay.
I don’t think they are going to get much sympathy this time.
Ive been trying to think of something commendable they’ve done in the last 12 months but I cant.

I recognise the teeth

From thetelegraph

The drawings were based on the account of holiday-maker Gail Cooper, who said she saw the same man of north African appearance acting strangely on three different occasions around Praia da Luz in April last year.
On April 22 she said he was lurking by a group of children who were on a trip to the beach as part of the Mark Warner kids club - an excursion Madeleine joined in with several times before she went missing.
A second time she saw him walking alone on the same beach when it was pouring with rain. On a third occasion, he knocked on the door of her villa, claiming to being collecting money for charity, while her eight-year-old grand-daughter could clearly be seen swimming in the pool at the house.

I am the last person to require any kind of legalistic proof before reaching a conclusion about the guilt of somebody but this chaps strange behaviour seems to amount to;
1)on one occasion standing (or lurking as the Telegraph says) in the vicinity of some children.
2)walking alone on the beach while it was raining.
3)collecting money while a child was visibly swimming in a pool.

I did recognise the teeth though they belong to a local star of karaoke and they keep cropping up in unexpected locations. I am haunted by these teeth. In February of 2007 I met them on a cruise ship on the way to Morocco they were then occupying the mouth of a rather dumpy passenger who belted out "Be my love" in the mode of Mario Lanza.
I was fascinated both by the power of his voice, he declined the microphone, and by the strength of the dental fixative he was using. Had those teeth blown they could have taken an eye out in the gallery. I have seen those teeth on other occassions too. Sometimes a person walking down the street will stop and turn his head towards me for no reason at all and as I look at him the teeth will emerge rodent like and begin to intimidate me.

endgame

What a terrible day Bobby Fischer dead and tonight Vera Duckworth.

PS Ive just realised Bobby was 64 , the number of squares on a chessboard.

Like pulling teeth

Went to the dentist in Brecon today in quite a good mood so you can judge what yesterday must have been like to bestow cheerfulness upon such an appointment.
Ive been going there for 20 years or so and we have never said much to each other, indeed anything.
This time to celebrate the fact that today was not yesterday before going I looked up on the internet and committed to memory the name of the particular tooth that had become chipped.
My plan was as I lay down on the dentists chair and he asked as he always did “Any particular problems?” I would reply “Lower right first bicuspid chipped”
This would surprise him and he would make some remark to which I had intended to lie , “I have always been interested in teeth”.
I went in and as I lay down he asked “Any particular problems” and I immediately replied, “Lower right first bicuspid chipped” ;completely unmoved and in his normal deadpan manner he said “Ill have a look at it later” as if it were quite common for his patients to discuss their teeth in such an esoteric manner. He made no further reference to my contrived entrance.

Correction

Ive just checked on the definition of 'outrageous' because in a sense two hydogen atoms walking down the street could be construed as 'outrageous'.
When I typed into Google 'Define:outrageous' I got; Outrageous" is the fourth and final single released from Britney Spears' album In the Zone released during the second quarter of 2004.

Atomic Theory Confirmed

Had a calender for Christmas which allegedly contained 365 Outrageous jokes. The following is in no way outrageous but its the only one that has made me laugh so far.
Two hydrogen atoms walking down the street. One stops suddenly and says "I think I just lost an electron"; "Are you sure?"; "Im positive"

office party

Annual Office party last Saturday at the Seven Stars Aberedw.

dont think about it

Had to go and see a urologist a week or so ago. After the event as I sat in reception awaiting a blood test I shuddered violently at the memory of the examination which had just taken place. Ann said ‘I don’t know what makes them take up that line of work’ to which I found myself answering ‘ Yes it’s a bit of a niche market’.

not so special delivery

There was a knock on the door and when I got there I found this bloke had opened it and was a slouching silhouette in the doorway filling in his electronic delivery book. Without looking up he said, “Come along young man”. My inclination was to say “Give me the package and Fuck off” But it occurred to me he might well be one of the hoards from ‘off’ seeping into the area like raw sewage in which event I didn’t really want to engage in a prolonged feud. So I said nothing at all. I took the package with the faintest hint of a snatch, signed his electronic book in an almost contemptuous manner and silently closed the door on him just fractionally too fast for good manners. I am not sure he got the message

Horses for courses

Peter the Painter’s heart is really in showbiz. For his latest pre Christmas production, ‘Country Christmas’ at Talgarth he needed a donkey in the nativity scene. Local children in traditional nativity garb would sing the song ‘Little Donkey’. Peter set off to find one and came up with ‘Gentle’. Showbiz was not in her blood and despite pulling, pushing and persuasion with carrots she refused to enter the building. The small crowd that gathered was amused especially some idle builders who offered advice in the traditional manner – but nothing worked.
The show must go on and Peter came up with a replacement that was a little easier to handle. So it came to pass that the nativity part of the show began and Mary & Joseph entered leading the noble beast and the children began the ‘Little Donkey’ song. The Shetland pony was a magnificent actor.

I discover a Pulsar…….sort of

Regularly, every so often, Sky television would splutter a little burst of sound interference.
I tried turning off the central heating, the computer, the cooker , mobile phones and every other electrical appliance I could find but it made no difference. Suspicion turned to the neighbours as mine invariably does. But first I timed the regularity of the pulses of interference and found them to be 40 seconds. I searched the internet using terms like Sky, interference, 40 seconds etc but again came up with nothing.
Then I had an idea. We have a little weather station powered by 6 AA batteries which receives data from sensors in the garden and the garage. I looked up the manual on the web and found that it communicates this data every 40 seconds. Mystery solved.
The reason I am so pleased with this outcome is that my normal methods are not so subtle and if ever I do have any success with technology its usually because I switched it off and when it came on again it was cured.

unfamous last words

Here are some beautiful obituaries Polk County Georgia Obituaries . I cant quite work out why they should not be possible today but that they are not is a matter of regret.
I could not even bring myself to laugh at the sherrif who accidentally shot himself in the head so movingly was it written. (Mr. John Hutchings if you cant read through them all)

What has he done?

For some strange reason I have suddenly had a spate of Googlers looking for Ulick Murphy one of the odd names I have collected. I wonder what he might have done to bring about this sudden attention; when I bagged him he was working for an insurance company as was my personal favorite and the star of my collection
'Dashita Dave'.

Feynman again