Know what else is annoying?

Because being annoyed is my theme at the moment...

Clichés.

Seems no-one can open their mouth recently (especially on TV) without spouting a whole load of tired old phrases that have been so over-used they've lost all meaning. They might as well have said nothing at all.

Just a few examples: I'm over the moon, it's a dream come true, I'm doing this [i.e. trying to win a competition/sporting event] for my kids/mother who brought us 12 kids up single-handedly, it means the world to me, we'll just see what happens, at the end of the day, I gave it my best, if X happened it would just change my life.

Can't people be just a little bit imaginative??

Michael's often said that if you use a word/phrase (he's referring to swearing in particular, but the point still stands) all the time it loses power. Like if everyone said "fuck" in every sentence it would stop being offensive. I don't 100% agree with him, but in general he's right. New language please.

And while I'm on the subject of 100%...

Evidently when people trot out their clichéd phrases, they also lose the ability to understand basic maths.

I'm so sick of hearing "I'm going to give it 110%!"

Er, excuse me? You mean 110% of your effort/time/strength? I think you're misunderstanding a basic fact here.

100% is EVERYTHING. All of the money in your purse is 100%. Every book in your house would be 100%. And every last drop of effort you possess is, guess what, 100%!

Perhaps people get confused when they hear that, as a made-up example, the price of oil has risen 200%. This just means that the original price has tripled - and all of the new price is still 100%. Because percentages are relative, not absolute.

All this is quite apart from the fact that if you actually managed to put 100% of your total energy into some insignificant sporting event, you'd drop dead - because you'd have used up all your body's reserves (including that stored as muscle and organs). There would be no oxygen or glucose available for your brain (if the brain had mysteriously managed to not be converted into energy, that is).

You often see people on shows like Gladiators (okay, I know, if I watch Gladiators I deserve what I get - but I kinda like it) who are understandably very tired after they've finished whatever the last big challenge is. And they say things like, "Well, I did my best, I couldn't have done any more, I gave everything", but if their baby son was trapped in a burning building and they were the only one that could save them, they'd somehow find a bit more speed, be able to run a little further.

Apparently I'm also a maths Nazi.

Tune in next time, when I rant about how people completely fail to understand probability!

Or maybe I'll post pics of my garden and a recipe or two. Vote now!!

Not quite so crappy

Okay, I'm better than I was. Not so tired, and I've actually been able to make beads rather than just moping around. I'm considering a "how I made these" sort of blog. Wonder if anyone would be interested?

So anyway. I'm currently being wound up by bad English/grammar/punctuation. Not that mine's 100% perfect, but I'm pretty good generally*. It's not that difficult, surely.

Adverbs. When a descriptive word is applied to an action word (verb), almost all of the time it ends in LY. Like a person is graceful, and moves gracefully. Cold wind, wind blows coldly. Can someone please explain this simple rule to Tempest from the new Gladiators, who said on at least 4 occasions the other night, "She did amazing." By the second time I was actually talking to the television.

"LY! AmazingLY! It's an adverb, you silly woman!" or words to that effect.

Misuse of the reflexive. I'm so so sick of hearing, "I spoke to yourself last week", by people who are obviously trying to be polite and don't realise that the word you is perfectly polite, and in fact correct. Similarly, "Who's in charge of this department?" "That would be myself." You use the reflexive when someone's doing something to themselves, i.e. they are both subject and object of the sentence. Such as "I'm proud of myself" or "She accidentally hit herself with a hammer".

And for this next one I blame Facebook. Over the last few months a lot of people I used to know at school have friended* me. Fine. And like a foolish person who doesn't check out Facebook more than a couple of times a week, I subscribe to the feed of my friends' status updates and read it in Bloglines along with all the blogs I like, so I don't miss something important.

Which means I'm getting stuff like this:

"*Insert name here* is guin 2 sheff 2mrw 2 spend sum money"

Not even going to comment. But this kind of thing didn't happen when Facebook was just students, let me tell you. I was going to trawl around and fine a few others for you to enjoy/laugh at/cry over/fail to read at all, but in the end it was just too annoying.

And old school friends (in general)... aren't they DULL?

* I know my writing style isn't textbook, but that's for effect. Not sure what effect, admittedly. Like when I start a sentence with a conjunction such as but or and - I know it isn't correct but I like to do it anyway. I'm a rebel like that.

And I also miss out punctuation because i'm lazy. Like the comma that should come before a set of quotation marks in some sentences. He said, "I is crap at grammar."

*As far as I'm concerned, friend is now also a verb...

This is what happens...

...when you take one batch of choc chip marzipan cookie dough, one set of alphabet cookie cutters, and two very immature adults.

Pimpin' ma bro again

This is funny. Don't think I need to say much else.

I'm so childish

I have to suppress a snigger sometimes when I sing in Latin.

Mostly it's the word fac.

The "a" in fac is pronounced pretty much like the "a" in "father" (not quite, but close). The "f" is as in English, and the "c" like in "cat". It means something like "do it!"

Say it to yourself. Go on.

Snigger.

It's especially amusing when you have to sing it loud.

I remember Fraser conducting Ladies' Choir the other year (we were doing Pergolesi's Stabat Mater if I remember correctly), and telling us something like, "You just have to go fac, fac, one after the other. See who can make their fac the loudest." He then followed it with, "Imagine you're singing fuck. But don't sing that."

While I'm here, and in Latin mode, I thought I'd share this page with you. It made me laugh. And add a Latin phrase to my blog description.

My brother...

... is kind of weird. If you'd told me 10 years ago that one day I'd think he was weirder than me, I wouldn't have believed you.

Of course now I'm a lot more conventional than I was. And he's essentially now occupying my old niche of "weirdo of the family".

He's 22. Lives in Derby studying psychology and making music and abusing various substances. He's a vegetarian and a pagan and an insomniac and pretty much a communist (although he'd deny the communism because he's probably got a different name for it). Plus he has dreadlocks and piercings and generally looks like a hippy. His screen name is Spudfairy. No need to ask why, because I'd tell you.

Worryingly we are very similar in our liberal attitudes, and awareness that we both need more out of life than most people, our sense of humour, our sense of not being accepted into general society (which neither of us sees as necessarily a bad thing), our desire to make the world around us a better place. We're both into psychology and creating music and reading.

We disagree on religion, as I'm an atheist. I'm much more cautious about such things as drug-taking (haven't done anything other than very occasional grass since I was a teenager), he's much more of a worrier. I care about damage to the environment and extinction of animals and destruction of ecosystems, he cares about exploitation of people. I'm not a fan of bitter, he doesn't like white wine. He winds my parents up, I calm them down. He phones me for advice, I give advice. He's considered cool in his circle of friends, I'm the old-but-nice one who can cook and has nerdy hobbies like birdwatching and roleplaying and takes care of hedgehogs. I'm a scientist with creative tendencies, he's an artist with analytical tendencies. My eyes are blue, his are brown.

Despite all that, there's no doubting that we're related - everyone comments that although we don't look much alike you can tell we're brother and sister.

I'm talking about my brother because I've just watched all of his YouTube video blogs, finally. I laughed a lot. He told me months ago that he plans to become a minor internet celebrity, as his blogging persona. Have a look, seriously. You'll either think they're really funny, or not funny at all - I have to just note that he isn't really like that!





And while I'm here I'll pimp his music too. His band Turning Hollow is on MySpace, and his new collaboration with our mutual friend "Mystic" Mike is on there too.

So yeah. My brother. He rocks. More than me.

Some more searches

Because these are amusing.

Enid Blyton's audiobook downloads
bruckner choral "mr bean"
"can't run" "tight skirt"
pergolesi alleluia
"pie wedgies"
"warhammer porn"
I wish to know what is an alternative spice for rosemary
intersex breasts

And these were image searches:

free willy 2
free willy
little penis
hedgehog penis
hog penis
penis hog

There must be some disappointed people out there.

How the hell did you get here?

I thought I'd amuse you with a few of the searches that lead people to click into this blog. Because I'm bored.

I hate spiders kill - was that you Nikki?
pie wedgies - Jon??
squeamish fruit fetishes
Pergolesi's Alleluia recording - How did that lead here? I didn't even know Pergolesi wrote an Alleluia.
download Ecce Homo Theme from Mr Bean
I hate flies
cat prosthetics LARP uk
Warhammer 40k porn
sexy snails
sex with dog
dog sex
out door sex
"ladies loo" pee wiping - I really hope this was a cleaner. Really.
basil for ticks
mr bean videos
Mr Bean sings in church choir
joe & hayley - Um... yeah. "Hey, you're English, right? You must know my friend Joe, he went to London once... with his girlfriend Hayley. He's about so tall?"
dog sex - Again.
boyfriend mike anna - Pretty vague search terms...
bruckner "locus iste" "mr. bean"
sperm in alium and tallis and free music download - This one amused me in a childish way... it's "Spem in alium" not "Sperm". Spem means hope. Sperm... generally doesn't. Plus the "and" is completely redundant.

Sorry, more sex...

I've had another visit from someone looking for "dog sex". Fantastic, makes me smile when that happens. ;)

Reminds me of an amusing story. Here goes - be prepared to be shocked...

I have starred in a porn film.

Okay, breathe. Because there's more.

It was a fetish porn film.

Breathe again.

This happened a few years ago (about 5 I think, but don't quote me), when a friend of mine (Jon, of the "Warhammer 40k porn" search fame) told me about his desire to make a food porn film, basically involving a girl getting covered in food. Weird, I though, but different strokes for different folks I guess - Jon's a roleplayer, so being a weirdo pervert's just a small step from there.

A while later he'd actually organised it - he'd got cameras, set up his bedroom as a studio (with everything covered in wipe-clean plastic), sent housemate Adam down to the cash&carry for supplies, and booked a prostitute to act in the film.

Unfortunately on the day of the shoot, his ho didn't turn up. And refused to answer her phone.

So he told me about this the next Friday night at the roleplaying club, somewhat disappointed that all his hard (no pun intended) work was going to be wasted, and jokingly asked me if I'd consider starring in his film instead - I wouldn't have to actually do anything sexual, or even get naked if I didn't want - it's just the girl covered in food that the target audience get off on apparently.

It really shocked him when I said yes.

So he lent me a video (Pie Wedgies) so I could get the idea of what we were aiming for, which turned out to be hilarious. And the next weekend we bought clothes and prepared the food (cheesecake mix with food colouring on paper plates, porridge, strawberry and chocolate sauce), and spent the afternoon filming.

Basically I sat there while Jon threw plates of cheesecake (like custard pies) at me, and pretended to be enjoying it. Actually it was fun, in a silly kind of way - not in the slightest bit sexual but in an sort of innocent, childish way. I got naked as far as topless - no-one wants to see my stomach! The cheesecake was actually really really cold so I did enjoy the warm porridge quite a lot when we got to that, but I discovered that chocolate sauce really stings the eyes.

It was an experience, certainly. I got paid for it, and a cut of the profits too. And Jon says I'm a natural, because looking like you enjoy it is the key thing.

And afterwards I imagined the scenario of the three housemates watching the film, and their thoughts.

Steve - "Mmmm, half-naked girl..."
Jon - "Mmmm, half-naked girl covered in cheesecake..."
Adam - "I could have eaten that."

I know, I know...

... you all think I'm obsessed with sex.

I'm not. But this entry does concern sex, and for that I apologise.

It also concerns my dog, Summer. But it's not what you think!















Summer just finished the bleeding part of her season a few days ago, so she's now in the "receptive phase". And recently we had a woman move in next door who has a rather handsome golden retriever dog, Toby. The two dogs have met and made friends, and enjoyed playing together, and now that Summer's so "attractive" she's taken to forcing her way through the hedge into the orchard, then going through the next hedge into next door's garden so she can play with her new friend.















She was whining to go out earlier so I opened the door for her and being distracted, forgot to keep an eye on her.

Two minutes later when she didn't come in when I called, I heard her next door again. I went round to collect her to find them playing, with Toby occasionally trying to mount. And she's such a ho, she was even standing and lifting her tail for him!

Luckily he's been neutered, but he doesn't know that!

Also luckily our new neighbour is very nice and didn't mind Summer being over there - we were laughing about how they seem to have fallen in love, following each other around and Toby licking Summer's ears and face.

I'm a bit annoyed at Summer for ignoring me when I call, but I guess she's just following her instincts so I couldn't shout at her or anything - besides, Toby's obviously encouraging her! We often refer to her as the "ho dog" because she'll roll over and let anyone tickle her belly, and it amused me that now she really is a ho dog.

I suppose the point of me telling this story was partly to see if I get a visitor to my blog who's navigated here by Googling "dog sex". I've had one who Googled "sexy snails", so why the hell not? And a friend of mine says he had a visitor to his site who was looking for "warhammer 40k porn". The mind boggles.

I watched an episode of The Law of the Playground at the weekend (taped from Friday night, very funny and well worth watching) and masturbation was mentioned. It reminded me of a snippet of conversation I overheard in a shopping mall few years ago.

A group of kids walked past as I was coming out of a shop. It was a mixed group of boys and girls, maybe seven of them, around 12 years old. I didn't hear the context, but the bit I did hear was a girl saying this:

"She can't masturbate, she's a girl!"

I had this almost overwhelming urge to catch up with them and explain. But then I realised how wrong that would be.

It struck me as strange that a young person of that age, old enough to know the correct terminology rather than the playground "wanking" which is more common, should know so little about the actual act itself.

It also scares me. If they lack such basic information about sex then they probably think that you can't get pregnant the first time, or if you do it standing up, or if you're having your period. Or if the boy pulls out in time.

It's about time we sorted out the sex education in this country. Kids are having sex younger and younger these days, and they won't be persuaded not to do it by a lack of knowledge, so we might as well arm them with the information they need to protect themselves from both pregnancy and STIs.

I also think that if sex was discussed openly and explicitly in PHSE lessons at school, girls in particular could be less easily pressured into penetrative sex as they'd know the alternatives, and they would be less likely to fall for the old "If you love me..." argument.

Quite apart from the fact that if they don't know about clitoral stimulation, they're gonna have a much less fulfilling sex life anyway!

"Little hog"

You know what? Basil's a lucky boy.

I don't just mean in that his injury could be a lot worse, and in us finding him on two separate occasions when he was in trouble.
















I mean in the trouser department.

Of course I've had the occasional look down there to check everything's okay, and I've noticed what I thought was the penis. Have a look at the picture - these are African Pygmy hedgehogs but they are pretty much the same as their European counterparts.

Last night when Basil was looking particularly ill and floppy I was shocked to see something huge and pink and cylindrical under his belly - my first throught was that it was a prolapsed intestine until I realised how stupid that thought was.

But it turned out that what you can see on the picture was not the actual penis - the 3-inch long, 1/2-inch wide pink object that I saw was the penis.

To give you an idea of scale, Basil's body nose-to-tail is probably 7 or 8 inches. And a quick google tells me that 10% of an adult male hedgehog's weight is in his penis. That's pretty impressive if you ask me.

I'll leave you with this picture, which I found amusing. As I'm obviously in a penis mood.

Snail orgy

My landing now resembles a snail brothel.

I came upstairs earlier to find not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR snails engaged in group sex.

And we're now up to four lots of eggs, presumably more are on their way, and I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I don't want to kill the eggs, it feels very mean, but if they all hatch we'll be overrun with baby snails soon and I don't know how many I'll be able to flog to the local pet shops. There are already at least 4 tiny baby snails in the nursery tank.

Anyone want any snails?? Seriously?

On a related note, my Site Meter tells me that someone came to my blog by searching Google for "sexy snails". Er.... right. Because that's a perfectly normal search.

Love is...

Michael can be very sweet at times, bless him.

We were in Padley Gorge this morning - for those of you who haven't been there, it's a wooded gorge with a stream at the bottom, huge gritstone boulders everywhere, dippers and pied flycatchers - we took the dog for a walk and tried to find me a dipper. I got one, yay, but I digress.

Being a wood in summer, there were wood ants everywhere, thousands, millions of them. I foolishly hadn't thought about it and wore my sandals. And as I was navigating a tricky little stream and feeling a little less than secure in my footing, I felt a sharp pain in my foot and looked down to see the jaws of an ant embedded in my flesh. It felt like a needle. A big sharp needle.

Michael had to seriously swipe at it to get it to let go. Maybe it was karma, I'd probably squashed loads of them as I was walking. But it hurt and I didn't like it.

And Michael (who had been sensible and worn trainers and socks) gave me his socks to wear so the ants didn't get me again.

He didn't even laugh at how stupid I looked wearing socks with my sandals, and still managed to keep a straight face when I tucked my jeans into the socks to stop the nippy little buggers from getting inside them.

He's a star.

Please note, my legs aren't really that fat, I'm just wearing very baggy jeans. Honest.

Fun with words

You know how it is when you're taking a long car journey with your other half. It's hard to find something to pass the time which both of you agree to.

Sunday we were coming home from Minsmere (was a great weekend by the way, 14 lifers) and we were at a loss for something to do for 4 hours. Neither of us could read, because it makes me carsick and I was having to navigate anyway, and him because he was driving. We both hate the adverts on the radio as well as half the songs, and we'd already listened to the two CDs we both like (he's a fan of ELO and I'd rather eat my own liver, and he feels pretty much the same about A Perfect Circle). An audio book would have done the job but we don't have any, and didn't think to download one. Oh well.

But we did find a solution - we created a word game. You've probably played similar things - basically we made up clues for the names of birds, for example "female relative that is not empty" = fulmar (geddit? full ma?). Similarly "curried female relative" = cormorant (korma aunt). The other person had to guess the bird. This kept us busy for hours, a great game which could easily be modified for place names, films, whatever.

Comedy moment was when I gave Michael the clue "someone in a sexual relationship with urine" (I was referring of course to a plover) and he guessed I meant pee-shagger. WTF? Actually that would make a great bird name!

See if you can get any of these. Some are easy, some very ahrd.

1) A bird you could use as a fuel when it's raining a lot.
2) To follow someone obsessively.
3) Small orange.
4) Bond film.
5) Magician.
6) Pasttime.
7) Pear wine the same colour as grass.
8) Almost a very poor person, a gift, or quite nice.
9) Noise a dog might make.
10) A hard penis.
11) Conversation with rock.
12) Cat stops sleeping.
13) Rotation of a lunch-time snack.
14) Shaving implement which must be paid.
15) Fast. (An very easy one there!)
16) Eats bees. (I was trying to give him a chance, okay??)
17) Part of a large house which got too close to a candle.
18) Taking something which doesn't belong to you.
19) More grainy.
20) Fantastic breast.
21) Gone completely mad.
22) Not a real FBI agent. (I couldn't get this one. Even with the next clue.) Quiet ovine.
23) Hay cut into lengths of 2.54cm.
24) Half of the act of something discovered by accident.
25) Annoyed William.

On being misinterpreted

Ever have one of those moments where you're doing something perfectly innocently then suddenly realise how dodgy it looks to everyone else?

It happened to me on Friday night.

I'd been at the roleplaying club and we'd congregated in the car park afterwards as usual for our post-game chat where recent topics have included zombies and whether they could really exist and how their nervous system would work (I maintain that if the flesh is dead, so it the nervous system therefore they wouldn't be animate, but I digress), chocolate, the best kid's TV shows, Star Wars/Trek and Serenity.

Several different conversations were going on at once. Jon, knowing I'm involved with hedgehog rehabilitation, asked me how hedgehogs have sex so I explained that the female of course has to be 100% willing(!) and she lies on her tummy with her back curved to allow him access without danger of pricking his, er, prick.

This then lead me to demonstrate how the male persuades the female (I've seen this on Nic's X-rated hog cam so I'm now an expert). I stood to one side of him and gently pushed him with my head. "Have sex with me!" I went round the other side. "Go on, please, have sex with me!" I pushed him again. "Come on..."

And them I became aware that the other conversations had stopped and everyone was staring at me. Including my boyfriend. Having caught only the last part of the conversation.

Oops.

No LARPing Matter...

I have a confession to make.

I'm a roleplayer.

I voluntarily choose to spend my Friday nights in a room with 14 or so other people(mostly guys), pretending to be someone else.

I've been a samurai, a wizard, a vigilante in mech armour, a pirate, a priestess of the god of magic, a woman who evolved from dogs, a fighter, a pixie, a vampire, a werewolf, an elf, a prostitute, a drug addict, a cartoon kangaroo with a pouch which contained an almost infinite number of items (some of which were larger than she was).

Friday night games are quite tame. We describe what our characters are doing and saying and roll dice to see if we succeed or not.

But I have also ventured further into this dark world and become involved with LARP. LARP (pronounced larp, to rhyme with harp) involves you acting as your character. This usually means you dress up and speak like them, perform all of their actions, and if necessary fight each other with rubber weapons or toy guns. It's so much fun.

The biggest LARP in the UK is a fantasy game run by the Lorien Trust. Their main event is The Gathering which runs over a weekend in August, and is attended by up to 3500 players. I don't go to LT events anymore (for various reasons) but I have a funny story relating to them which I'd like to share with you.

The LT events are held in a little village called Spondon, which is near Derby. Of course, all that running around in armour and casting spells is thirsty work, and players often need to go into the village to buy more alcohol (sometimes even food). The locals are used to the mad people in costume by now, and don't bat an eyelid when a guy in chainmail with a huge rubber sword goes into a shop for a case of beer and a Pot Noodle.

A friend of mine gave me a lift to the shop one time - I was in a long red flowing dress with a sword and a bow on my back, with pointy elf ears and James was dressed as a troll, green makeup, prosthetic horns, padding, scary contacts, huge axe, the lot. We were perusing the drinks aisle when I noticed a small boy of about 3 or 4 staring at us. I smiled at him and he looked a bit scared. Then he pulled at his mum's skirt and pointed to us.

"Mummy, there's a monster!" Obviously not used to this roleplayer thing.

Mum glances over. Obviously used to this roleplayer thing. Without missing a beat she replies calmly,

"Don't worry son. Even monsters have to shop."

Bean and Latin

When I was a kid, the TV show Mr Bean was compulsary viewing in our house.

We all loved it, the daft facial expressions, the novel way of solving problems, the interactions with other people and the much-abused Teddy, and the Mini, the undoubted comic genius that is Mr Atkinson. Even my mum, known in our family as She Who Has No Sense of Humour, was known to crack a smile at particularly funny moments. And as for my dad and younger brother, they'd regularly laugh until they cried. We got all the videos one Christmas, and spent the rest of the holiday watching them over and over. One of the few programmes I remember we all approved of.

So why this post? Bear with me.

I was listening to a CD yesterday, one of my prized possessions, the recording of In Paradisum, my first concert with Socii Cantorum and the Ladies' Choir back in October. Mostly this was Fauré's Requiem and Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, but we did other pieces as well, including Bruckner's beautiful Locus Iste (you can listen to our recording of this piece and some others at my Multipy site).

I've played the CD hundreds of times because every piece on there is so wonderful to sing - I often use it to practice and warm up. Poor Michael is probably sick to the back teeth of it by now, but he doesn't say anything, bless him.

Anyway, back to the point. After a few times of hearing it, Michael commented that Locus Iste sounds a bit like the theme tune from Mr Bean. And he's right, the first couple of notes do indeed closely resemble it.

I remembered this last night, and decided to find out what the song was that was used as the theme tune - so today I started with Wikipedia and this is what I found.

Music
Mr. Bean is unusual amongst comedy series in featuring a choral theme tune, written by Howard Goodall and performed by the Choir of Southwark Cathedral. The words sung during the title sequences are in Latin:

• Ecce homo qui est faba – "Behold the man who is a bean" (sung at beginning)
• Finis partis primae – "End of part one" (sung before the commercial break)
  Pars secunda – "Part two" (sung after the commercial break)
• Vale homo qui est faba – "Farewell, man who is a bean" (sung at end)

That really is the coolest thing I've seen today. I'm fascinated by Latin anyway, but I'm very impressed and delighted that the "church music" I remember from the programmes actually means something meaningful within the context.

I also love the idea of using a Latin choral piece to express something other than some kind of religious sentiment. Like how cool would it be to have your shopping list sung in Latin, the instuctions for assembling a piece of flat-packed furniture, or maybe your old school report? Everything sounds better in Latin!

It almost inspires me to learn Latin specifically so I can write choral pieces about mundane things.