OBlog Archives

I got sent this link and a song from someone. It's quite clever, you enter a sentence/phrase and it sings it back to you using lyrics taken from other songs.

http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/Src/sing/sing.asp?key=undefined [edited - link doesn't appear to be working anymore]

In this day in history:

1982: Mary Rose rises after 437 years
1958: Grandstand first broadcast on the BBC

Oh, I was born a long long time ago.

I also share a birthday with people such as Dawn French, Luke Perry and Bergerac himself, John Nettles.

If you are interested in knowing what was No1 in the charts on the day you were born, try this website out. Not only does it give you the UK chart, but those of the US and Australia.

ThisDayInMusic

Happy birthday to me, I'm off tonight to quiz some country bumpkins.

Yesterday was Mascot Grand National day at my local horse racing track, Huntingdon. There is nothing like the site of 50+ 6ft tall mascots stampeding down a racecourse jumping over tiny little hurdles. This year it was won by Wacky Macky Bear from Saffron Waldron FC, although the course commentator kept calling him Wacky Backy much to everyone's amusement.



The race now in it's 9th running is so famous it was shown live on Sky News. Hopefully you'll find the coverage at Sky News (link removed as Sky removed article)

The best thing is that you can bet on the race itself.

After the mascot race, they have a full set of races for the rest of the afternoon. I managed to win enough on the first race to cover my bets for the rest of the afternoon, which was a surprise as my horse came in second, however the bookie made a mistake and paid out for a win, shame.

Last week I went to visit a client's site (nothing special in that). However as part of the visit I got to go into the secure area where money is kept. As part of the various security measures they have these plastic tube things. It's like a big clear plastic tube, where one half slides round, you step into it, it closes back around you, you wait a couple of seconds and then the other side slides back and you step out the other side.

It all seemed pretty straightforward as I watched my colleagues go through until it came to my turn. The door opened and I stepped in, and then the door closed behind me. There I was enclosed in this plastic tube when an automated voice said "one at a time please". It turns out that there were pressure sensors on the floor and it had triggered an alert thinking that my weight was that of two people combined. So now I'm stuck in this tube thinking how I could get out. After about thirty seconds the other door opened and I was safe again. The security guard trigger some kind of over-ride.

It turns out they get at least one fat bastard a week who encounters the same situation so didn't feel quite so bad. At least the guys back in the office got a laugh out of it when I told them the next day.

Whilst watching Soccer AM this morning, they ran a piece about David Beckham possibly being in the Simpsons and showing what he may look like. They also mentioned a website that you could use to Simpsonize yourself, so I gave it a go.



Ok so it's not brilliant, but not bad. You can give it a go yourselves at 'http://www.simpsonizeme.com'

Disguised as the mysterious Mr O I decided to go out and use my share of the winnings from the "bumpkin" quiz last night to buy a new car. Ok the sum total of £5 didn't exactly go that far towards the cost but every little helps.

I have now joined the elite 4x4 gas guzzling brigade, well that's what the government thinks, but if you look at the picture, it's not exactly a Range Rover.



I'm picking it up in a couple weeks time, and no doubt my licence will be garnished within four.

I happened across the rugby world cup game between New Zealand and Scotland this afternoon and must admit that I was finding it difficult to tell the two teams apart. Well eventually it was obvious which were New Zealand as they were the ones scoring all the points. What was confusing was that the All Blacks were wearing a light bluey/grey top. I always thought that they were called the All Blacks because they wore all black! Incidentally the New Zealand badminton team are known as the black cocks, not sure if that's due to the ethnicity of the team or some kind of disease they picked up in the changing room.

Also, whatever happened to Sundays being the day to go car shopping. I went out this morning to find that both my local Scooby garages are shut on Sundays. What's the point of that? Sunday is the best day for it, most other dealerships are open, so come Subaru, find yourselves a half decent local franchise.

I'm hoping to catch up with the webmaster this week, so I'll let you know whether the slide show is worth sitting through, judging by the quality of some of the pictures on the site, the answer is probably yes.

My tirade against television continues.

Bizarrely ITV decided to show Beverly Hills cop at 3 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. A film that contains at least 20 uses of the word fuck in the opening action sequence in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, you know it's either going to be cut to shreds or very badly over-dubbed. Yes, it was both, totally ruined. Admittedly it didn't help that every time the main theme came on I kept thinking of the crazy frog, which made me want to smash the tv.

So move onto 10 pm and ITV 2, they start showing Shaun of the Dead, and they even badly over-dub that. In the first few minutes Ed asks the guys in the pub if "he can get any of you cunts a drink", except that tonight they are now cocks not cunts. Why, it's well after the watershed, it's an obscure digital tv channel, what was the reason for cutting that word? BBC 3 had an entire documentary on the word and it's acceptance in modern society. Apparently there was a street in Oxford that was called Gropecunt street, which in the olde days was where the prostittues hung out, however in the 18th century they changed the name.

So why is it that cunt is fine on HBO in the States but not fine on ITV2? TV executives in this country have lost the plot, what happened to freedom of choice, it's becoming more of a nanny state with a load of loser sports teams.

For those of you who know me and my driving style well will know how badly I have taken the news of Colin McRae's death in a helicopter crash this weekend. It was his driving of the early Subaru Impreza that switched me onto the scooby as a car to aspire to. It's a tragic loss to the world of British motorsport, especially as our other top rally driver, Richard Burns, sadly died of a brain tumour nearly two years ago.

McRae was one of the best pure drivers this country has ever produced, but because he was in the lower profile sport of rallying, he didn't get the praise he deserved. It comes just a week after the fantastic result in the Indy championship and his fellow Scot Dario Franchitti picking up that championship as well as the Indy 500 in the same year.

Colin McRae RIP

The following is a link to a story about an old couple who have spent the last 20 years living in a travelodge (Best Western I guess is a good equivalent)

Travelodge couple's 22-year stay

An idea for all of you who hate making your bed in the morning. I wonder if carpenters hate making beds?