Featuring car wasing, or not and a new film rating system

To wash or not to wash, that is the question
I'm a bit concerned about the recent rain that we've had, much more of it and it will ruin my water shortage excuse for not washing the cars. I'll have to fall back on the, "If you leave them long enough, eventually they start to clean themselves" excuse. I've tried driving quickly through local fords and clean looking puddles but that’s just not working. My last hope is smothering the cars with cat food and letting McG at them. If it works, I could start him on two cars a day, one at morning feed and one in the evening. It could become a lucrative little earner for him and as far as I know the first ever "Tongue cleaned car service in the UK"**. If only the program Nationwide was still being broadcast, I'm sure we could have got him a mention. I guess the Shopping Channel could probably get a good 3 hour session out of it. That however is unlikely to yield sales, since I don't know anyone who has not been paralytic before purchasing anything through the Shopping Channel, which would of course leave them in no fit state to drive the car over.

* This doomed to failure, rather like the iCat 2000 Dishwasher. McG had no problem licking the plates clean; getting him to eat the dishwasher tablets beforehand was always a bit problematic.
iCat 2000 Dishwasher developed a number of early problems including, sleeping on the job and a tendency to leave lots of ginger hair on the dishes and plates. Attempts to sell this as a special "Fuzzy Finish" feature failed to impress the buying public and they demanded their money back

Film reviews, a new rating system
We finally got around to seeing "The Da Vinci Code", Mrs B gave it 3 mins before zzzzing out, leaving me to suffer alone. This must be some sort of a record. Normally Mrs B makes it to about half way, even for the worst of films. The advantage of the “Mrs B Snore rating system" (patent pending), is it lets me know if I've made a good film choice, apparently this time I didn't. I guess we won't be going to see the follow up "Da Vinci Code II : I know what you did last supper".Looks like a three snore rating.......
Garage clear out, a bit like a historical dig, without Tony Robinson
Once you get to the point when the footprints of the cars is the only space available in the garage, it's time to either get a smaller cars (I'm not sure I could face swapping the Mini for a Smart Car) or clear out the garage. Rummaging through stuff that is around 8 years old is quite an eye opener. You could probably get an entire quiz worth out of :-

"what is this for?"

"why did we keep this?"

"Animal, Mineral or Vegetable"

I've now decided to localise the problem and have put lots of little, "looks like they might be useful items" into a tin. This leaves me with the dilemma, do I take the tin straight down to the dump** or bury it in the garden, like a time capsule. Sods law dictates that whenever any of the items contained in the tin would be of use, the tin will be unavailable, only appearing again once, the requirement had gone away – a bit like Hogwarts – Room of Requirments, only in reverse. A final discovery was that McG had been doing some excavations of his own and had evidently hit the jackpot, the large hole in the side of one of the cat feed bags being testament to his success.

** Going to the dump is an interesting experience and could almost become a spectator sport. It has now got so complicated as to which bin your items should go into that the government are thinking of introducing an Open University course in identifying where items should go. There is no point approaching the mini Hitler's in charge of the dump as their sole existence is to prevent anyone from adding an item to the particular bin they are responsible for "No sorry chum, that can can't go in the wood bin, it's only 99% wood try in the 1% unidentified section". When you sit down and think about it, it's nice to know that you are also joining the world of recycling, even if it is unintentional. Half of the stuff you chuck away will be appearing at a car boot sale in the near future, only to be returned to the dump shortly afterwards, when the chump who purchased it, realises it is actually rubbish after all. If this process builds up ahead of steam, within a few generations the UK will have stumbled on the mother of all energy sources, perpetual motion between Home, the dump, Car Boot Sale, new home, the dump, Car Boot Sale ad infinitum. We could also include it in the UK’s Annual Recycling Returns, rocketing us to the top of the World Recycling League......

That’s it for another BlackLOG - historical – if you have enjoyed it please pass it on to anyone you know who might also enjoy it or to anyone you don't particularly like and would like to see suffer. You can also tune into the up to date version BlackLOG.

The one with the Country Fair

Mrs B decided we should take a trip to Hatfield House (birth place of McG, for fans of the little porker) to attend a Country Fair, this did not sound totally unreasonable at the time so I obediently tagged along. Things were not going to badly, I spent a small fortune on some sausages (but nothing that our overdraft couldn’t handle), until an accident of location saw us eating lunch next to where the Sheep judging was taking place (aside 1)

The first sheep came out and strutted confidently into the centre of the arena, to the announcement from the compare that it was part of the lesser shaggy four footed rare woolly mountain something or other category. Said sheep was fully inspected and after some deliberation and heated discussion between the judges awarded first Prize? I can tell you I wish I’d put money on that result.The clear winner in the well hung category

The second category had more of a contested feel about it and comprised three, yes count them three sheep. Two black & white and just a plain white one, I can only presume that this category was the “Daz sheep challenge” category as the white sheep waltzed off with first prize.McG attempting his ginger sheep impression, in truth he makes a more realistic pig

All three sheep were led from the ring, only to return a few moments late under a new category, (I’m sure the white one was now wearing a wig), this new category was obviously not the bad wig category as the result was reversed.Mischief, the black sheep of the family

Things were getting way too exciting for Mrs B and myself so we made our excuses and left before any non sheep animals turned in the arena covered in cotton wool or the judges were forced to make a difficult decision over a category with no actual entries.
Top tip :- if you are going to attempt to pass your animal off as a sheep, at least make an effort and apply some Cotton Wool.

Still it could have been worse; we might have been at a Craft Fair. Very much like a Country Fair except the strangely dressed country folk (farmers I believe they are called, who are eager to show the results of some weird interbreeding programs), are replaced by some extremely untalented people. These talently challenged individuals sit around a marquee trying to embarrass other people, (who should know better than to have attended the event in the first place) into spending their hard earn cash on hand crafted dross. This stuff is so bad that even the shopping channel would struggle to flog to its most drunken viewers. Otherwise sensible people, who attend these events (so clearly not that sensible), seem to lose control over their wallets and return home with rubbish that your average dustbin men would refuse to take away. Once the hypnotic effect of the Craft Fair has worn off the only option left to them is to take the purchased item to a Car Boot sale (at this point there is a real danger of them getting dragged into the even more sleazy world, that of the ebay user)(aside 2)

Midlife crises continued.
Following previous revelations of my midlife crises I have discovered that I am not the only person who has entered the dangerous world that is open top motoring. Just in case there are others of you out there risking your very lives going topless at the drop of a switch, here are some survival tips for you. Use ear muffs, blankets, flying goggles, ski gloves, long johns and spray your entire body (including the crotch area) with deep heat. This can get you through most journeys of up to a mile or so. i.e. your local Tesco’s, as long as you don’t purchase anything from the frozen section. If you don't have enough self control to keep out of the freezer isle then you might need to set fire to the blankets on the return journey. If you are very lucky you might just make it home with some of your extremities still attached. I now know why Captain Scott did not take an open top car to the pole, or if he did then Oats probably borrowed it to nip to the local supermarket, which would at least explains one mystery ….

Well done, you have survived another BlackLOG - historical – if you have enjoyed it please pass it on to anyone you know who might also be lacking a life. If you tune into the BlackLOG on Monday morning I will be revealing just how stupid I can be.......
























(1)I felt slight pangs of guilt as I tucked into my minty lamb baguette (Like a sandwich with the ability to bite back, if you don’t eat them carefully you can end up with lacerations of the gums, equivalent of chomping your way through a barbed wire fence, boy those French like to make us suffer).
Wwwwooouuuullldd yyyyouuu lllliiikkkeee mmmooorrreee mmmiiiinnt sssaauuuccee

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(2)If you or anyone else you know have experienced addiction problems covered in this weeks blog please contact the writers of East Enders, don’t expect a reply or to even have your story feature in an episode it’s just the East Enders story lines are so depressing the writers could do with a good laugh.(Return to text)