Monday, June 15, 2009

Gave me a lift!



There I was standing in an elevator at Queen Mary's Hospital when an elderly woman tottered in and surveying the buttons for the choice of floor declared to the other passengers;



"I'm no good at lifts ~ mechanical"





Whilst the lift is indeed moved by mechanical means of gears, cables and counterweights the actual user interface is purely physical/electronic; push the button whose number corresponds to the floor number to which you wish to travel, and wait.

I smiled, I pressed the button for her in an artistic, rather than mechanical, way!

Friday, May 01, 2009

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue lives on . . .

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido : All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee , n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted , adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate , v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. esplanade , v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly , adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent , adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph , v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle , n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence , n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash , n. A rapidly receding hairline
11. Testicle , n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude , n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon , n.. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster , n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism , n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent , n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

I was tagged

by Brian Sibley
to reveal six things of relatively little importance. Quite hard to do as so many small unconsidered trifles often have far more important consequences in the future . . .



* During a game of ‘chain he’ a friend, at the end of the line, fell and broke his front tooth.

* A small child on a small bike swerved into my bike so that his pedal stopped my front wheel, abruptly - I went over the handlebars and broke my front tooth.

* I went to to a recording of ‘The Frost Programme’ and saw Cleo Laine sing.

* I learnt to drive on a series of old cars and vans and so became used to a variety of control layouts and conditions of vehicle necessitating various ‘tricks’ to keep the engine running.

* During childhood the TV broke down and my family lived for several years with no television, to the scandalous surprise of friends.

* A porter at a hospital where I once worked during the college vacation would often stand, staring into space. He was, he said, trying to work out why his own business, making packaging, had gone bust. He never did reveal his solution!

Updated Web Page


A new page containing; apart from some more pictures of me in action; a role call of spectators you may have heard of and a series of quotations from various e-mails that express good responses to my performances.




Visit page to see the rest...

Friday, April 03, 2009

Web-site ~ at last


After much time, well years actually, there is now more than just a 'holding page' at this address