You're a beard with an idiot hanging off it!
My hands are about to fall off.
Summer is, evidently, over. It was on the 22nd of August this year and, having come to a rather abrupt end about four hours after it started, was... er, a particularly short one. Even by our standards, which is pleasantly impressive! But, there you go, I suppose. I'm expecting Tony Blair to make a speech about it any minute now, actually! He'll probably claim that the blame for Britain's ever-shortening summers lies entirely on the shoulders (well, head) of Charles Kennedy (leader of the Lib Dems, the party which will never win the election, but turns up every time in the hope of getting a shiny "Well Done For Trying!" certificate), because his hair has clearly absorbed all of the Sun's energy and is not leaving any for the rest of us. It would, by the by, be really awesome if Labour's new campaign slogan were "Vote for us! WE'RE NOT GINGER!" (how do I contact Tony to make this suggestion? Email total@wanker.com?).
Then, once the whole nation's stopped laughing, the Conservatives will probably have some sort of nice press conference, wherein it'll be revealed that Blair's been giving away all our excess sunlight to George Bush, so he doesn't get his lunch money nicked so that the rest of the free world never happens to stumble across the whopping great weapons of mass destruction the Queen's been secretly hoarding at Buckingham Palace for the last fifty-odd years (we affectionately refer to them as Prince Charles' ears - no one would ever guess). And then, not to be outdone, the Monster Raving Loonies (don't laugh! They're a real party!) will probably make some sort of a statement explaining that national dewarming is clearly being caused by a shortage of decent inverted pineapples in Outer Space. While standing on their heads.
It will all probably seem worryingly plausible.
Anyway. Summer is over, and it is now winter, because we skip autumn in this country. And spring, actually. SPRING AND AUTUMN ARE FOR PANSIES! The thing is, one of our biggest (and, hugely ironically, most successful) hobbies over here is failing miserably at stuff (well, deferring success, anyway) - and, after years of hard practice, we've discovered that it's infinitely easier to feel sorry for yourself when there are troops of three hundred pound polar bears committing mass suicide outside your front door because they're so bloody cold. We've never really got the hang of snow, but we're awfully good at rain, so winter basically comprises of huge buckets of freezing cold rain being emptied on people's heads when they're looking too happy about things.
It's beautiful this time of year. You should totally visit!
And, as everyone knows, winter is a time for new beginnings and change and little lambs being born, and... actually, it's not like that at all, but I've just alienated spring, and I needed a decent link.
Hey, talking of which (see, Mr Sides? My signpost language is IMPECCABLE!): in other (but equally scintillating) news, we've finally ditched our NTL cable TV, and invested in one of those rather nifty Sky+ boxes... which, if my wild stab in the dark is right (and they're normally not, which leads to some rather awkward situations and a worryingly large pile of bodies in the spare room), is our version of TiVo. Except with a less jaunty name.
We didn't really want to desert NTL for pastures shiny, because... well, it wasn't really so much that the service was bad - I mean, it was bad, and you'd get better reception on your TV if you sent a hamster with Parkinson's disease onto the roof and got it to hold the aerial still while doing the YMCA and snorting speed - but you could get used to that! There was a sort of reliability there, because you knew that, whatever you did, your TV would still implode every fifteen to twenty seconds! There was consistency. But then my father, fool that he is, managed to get himself assaulted by the Sky man in Epsom, and came home with the look of a gutter cat who has just mauled your prize-winning rodent in the street and knows that he's going to be on the receiving end of a really pointy stick because of this, but is blinded by the pride and excitement, and WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TAIL ON THAT THING?
(My dad, incidentally, is going to be really flattered by this comparison).
As soon as he slunk home, though, tail between his legs (metaphorical tail! METAPHORICAL TAIL!) and waving the contract excitedly, my mother and I started shaking in fear of what we knew was coming next: the unbelievable guilt! The NTL salesman on the phone started crying over our lost souls and threatened to smite my our firstborns dead for making the company lose their only customer. About three hours later, we managed to calm him down enough to promise to tell his boss that the destruction of the company wasn't entirely his fault, and ensure him that we'd go over to his for tea some time, and hang up the phone before he could ask us why we actually wanted to leave.
Seriously, though, we did have to leave! For four long years, in order to get the TV to work, we had to sacrifice a chicken. Every single time. We weren't really sure why. And it's harder to find chickens for the sacrificing than you'd think! It all got a bit awkward when the RSPCA started sending us decapitated Quorn burgers through the post; we had to start downgrading to turkey nuggets before they moved on to the big guns (a rather menacing herb-filled sausage up the backside, I'd assume)! And then, by the time we'd been banned from Sainsbury's for man-handling their poultry one time too many ("Never again covet our giblets!", they cried), things were getting decidedly complicated. The man who came round to remove the box was probably wondering why it was lightly covered in bread-crumbs and marinated in a spicy tomato sauce.
We've got rid of it now, though, and we've got our nice new Sky+ box (although the day of the installation was not without its problems, what with my mother in the background mourning the loss of her video recorder, and the NTL rep weeping and reciting bad emo poetry that went along the lines of, 'Leaving Our Service Left A Footprint On My Aortic Valves And I Am So Blue And You Are So Red And Red Rhymes With Dead Which Incidentally I Am Also (And The British Are All Bastards)' (he was Irish), but I hid in my room, and it was over a few days later)! It's hugely exciting, because it records programmes as if at will, and it does so while being very white and flashing like a pinball machine! My mother keeps trying to persuade me that the point isn't actually to tape every single show that's shown on every channel at every single second on the day just because I can, but there's nothing she can do! Okay. Admittedly, when I ignored her, she did ban me from touching the remote control if I enjoyed having fingers. And then chopped a couple off, as a deposit. And locked me out of the house. In my underwear. All night.
But, point is, she'll be laughing on the other side of her face when the revolution comes, and anyone who hasn't got 14 hours straight of the Christmas Channel recorded is sentenced to an untimely doom!
We'll all be laughing!
P.S. Remind me to never accidentally tune into This Morning while they're performing a live vasectomy again. Cheers.
P.P.S. Who watched No Direction Home?
P.P.P.S. I'm ill. (glitterfaeiry - the Open Evening thing was a LUCKY COINCIDENCE).
Summer is, evidently, over. It was on the 22nd of August this year and, having come to a rather abrupt end about four hours after it started, was... er, a particularly short one. Even by our standards, which is pleasantly impressive! But, there you go, I suppose. I'm expecting Tony Blair to make a speech about it any minute now, actually! He'll probably claim that the blame for Britain's ever-shortening summers lies entirely on the shoulders (well, head) of Charles Kennedy (leader of the Lib Dems, the party which will never win the election, but turns up every time in the hope of getting a shiny "Well Done For Trying!" certificate), because his hair has clearly absorbed all of the Sun's energy and is not leaving any for the rest of us. It would, by the by, be really awesome if Labour's new campaign slogan were "Vote for us! WE'RE NOT GINGER!" (how do I contact Tony to make this suggestion? Email total@wanker.com?).
Then, once the whole nation's stopped laughing, the Conservatives will probably have some sort of nice press conference, wherein it'll be revealed that Blair's been giving away all our excess sunlight to George Bush, so he doesn't get his lunch money nicked so that the rest of the free world never happens to stumble across the whopping great weapons of mass destruction the Queen's been secretly hoarding at Buckingham Palace for the last fifty-odd years (we affectionately refer to them as Prince Charles' ears - no one would ever guess). And then, not to be outdone, the Monster Raving Loonies (don't laugh! They're a real party!) will probably make some sort of a statement explaining that national dewarming is clearly being caused by a shortage of decent inverted pineapples in Outer Space. While standing on their heads.
It will all probably seem worryingly plausible.
Anyway. Summer is over, and it is now winter, because we skip autumn in this country. And spring, actually. SPRING AND AUTUMN ARE FOR PANSIES! The thing is, one of our biggest (and, hugely ironically, most successful) hobbies over here is failing miserably at stuff (well, deferring success, anyway) - and, after years of hard practice, we've discovered that it's infinitely easier to feel sorry for yourself when there are troops of three hundred pound polar bears committing mass suicide outside your front door because they're so bloody cold. We've never really got the hang of snow, but we're awfully good at rain, so winter basically comprises of huge buckets of freezing cold rain being emptied on people's heads when they're looking too happy about things.
It's beautiful this time of year. You should totally visit!
And, as everyone knows, winter is a time for new beginnings and change and little lambs being born, and... actually, it's not like that at all, but I've just alienated spring, and I needed a decent link.
Hey, talking of which (see, Mr Sides? My signpost language is IMPECCABLE!): in other (but equally scintillating) news, we've finally ditched our NTL cable TV, and invested in one of those rather nifty Sky+ boxes... which, if my wild stab in the dark is right (and they're normally not, which leads to some rather awkward situations and a worryingly large pile of bodies in the spare room), is our version of TiVo. Except with a less jaunty name.
We didn't really want to desert NTL for pastures shiny, because... well, it wasn't really so much that the service was bad - I mean, it was bad, and you'd get better reception on your TV if you sent a hamster with Parkinson's disease onto the roof and got it to hold the aerial still while doing the YMCA and snorting speed - but you could get used to that! There was a sort of reliability there, because you knew that, whatever you did, your TV would still implode every fifteen to twenty seconds! There was consistency. But then my father, fool that he is, managed to get himself assaulted by the Sky man in Epsom, and came home with the look of a gutter cat who has just mauled your prize-winning rodent in the street and knows that he's going to be on the receiving end of a really pointy stick because of this, but is blinded by the pride and excitement, and WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TAIL ON THAT THING?
(My dad, incidentally, is going to be really flattered by this comparison).
As soon as he slunk home, though, tail between his legs (metaphorical tail! METAPHORICAL TAIL!) and waving the contract excitedly, my mother and I started shaking in fear of what we knew was coming next: the unbelievable guilt! The NTL salesman on the phone started crying over our lost souls and threatened to smite my our firstborns dead for making the company lose their only customer. About three hours later, we managed to calm him down enough to promise to tell his boss that the destruction of the company wasn't entirely his fault, and ensure him that we'd go over to his for tea some time, and hang up the phone before he could ask us why we actually wanted to leave.
Seriously, though, we did have to leave! For four long years, in order to get the TV to work, we had to sacrifice a chicken. Every single time. We weren't really sure why. And it's harder to find chickens for the sacrificing than you'd think! It all got a bit awkward when the RSPCA started sending us decapitated Quorn burgers through the post; we had to start downgrading to turkey nuggets before they moved on to the big guns (a rather menacing herb-filled sausage up the backside, I'd assume)! And then, by the time we'd been banned from Sainsbury's for man-handling their poultry one time too many ("Never again covet our giblets!", they cried), things were getting decidedly complicated. The man who came round to remove the box was probably wondering why it was lightly covered in bread-crumbs and marinated in a spicy tomato sauce.
We've got rid of it now, though, and we've got our nice new Sky+ box (although the day of the installation was not without its problems, what with my mother in the background mourning the loss of her video recorder, and the NTL rep weeping and reciting bad emo poetry that went along the lines of, 'Leaving Our Service Left A Footprint On My Aortic Valves And I Am So Blue And You Are So Red And Red Rhymes With Dead Which Incidentally I Am Also (And The British Are All Bastards)' (he was Irish), but I hid in my room, and it was over a few days later)! It's hugely exciting, because it records programmes as if at will, and it does so while being very white and flashing like a pinball machine! My mother keeps trying to persuade me that the point isn't actually to tape every single show that's shown on every channel at every single second on the day just because I can, but there's nothing she can do! Okay. Admittedly, when I ignored her, she did ban me from touching the remote control if I enjoyed having fingers. And then chopped a couple off, as a deposit. And locked me out of the house. In my underwear. All night.
But, point is, she'll be laughing on the other side of her face when the revolution comes, and anyone who hasn't got 14 hours straight of the Christmas Channel recorded is sentenced to an untimely doom!
We'll all be laughing!
P.S. Remind me to never accidentally tune into This Morning while they're performing a live vasectomy again. Cheers.
P.P.S. Who watched No Direction Home?
P.P.P.S. I'm ill. (glitterfaeiry - the Open Evening thing was a LUCKY COINCIDENCE).