|
|
|
May 2004
Grain Of Truth Publications presents:
Diary of an Ale-Fan
Philosophy from the bar, on life, the universe and everything. Ale-fuelled words of wisdom and benign bigotry - fun for all the family !
Defying convention, I produce my blog in ascending order. That’s the kind of crazy guy I am !
|
|
|
May 2004
Saturday, 1st May 2004
Biggles Flies Undone
Are you a frequent flyer ?
Are you plagued by high altitude wind ?
Yes & Yes - Then you need this boon to the weary traveller:
"Flatulence Filter
The Flatulence Filter is a breath of fresh air for you and your fellow passengers!"
Buy one today !
"I say, hats off to the Flatulence Filter, what, what."
"Toodle-pip to the silent but deadly !"
Monday, 3rd May 2004
D I Why ?
I bloody hate DIY !
With a passion !
Why would anyone want to do it ?
I only do it because I can't afford to get someone else to do it all. If I had the money it would be someone else sanding, painting, re-grouting, self-maiming.
I'm tarting up our shower room, while The Lady is stripping the bathroom ceiling.
We're having a new bathroom next month - we're paying someone to do that, along with the tiling, but there's the ceiling and the paintwork
that we'll need to take care of.
Bugger !
I suppose I could just take the approach that they did in the wonderful sitcom, "I Didn't Know You Cared", and just leave it to the women folk, whilst I sit back, relax,
enjoy a pint, and offer constructive criticism. But somehow I don't think that would go down too well - can't think why !
Bank Holidays. Don't you just love them ?
Sunday, 16th May 2004
An Englishman's Castle Is His Home
I seem to have perfected the art of ignoring my blog of late. Lots of excuses but I won't bore you with them.
Anyway, I've got five minutes to myself. I've got an extra large bottle of Old Speckled Hen (special offer in Waitrose). And I have a smile on my face.
Trouble is I can't think what to say.
So have a picture instead:
Normal service will resume as soon as possible !
Monday, 17th May 2004
Excellent
Anybody out there use Excel Spreadsheets ?
I use them a lot in my work.
I've often wondered if it was possible to write a macro in Excel, that as soon as you open the file it's in, it clone the file, several times.
Guess what - it is - I've just done it. Well work was getting a bit tedious and I needed a challenge.
Anyway, if anyone's interested,
here's the VB code. Just paste it into the Excel VB Editor and have hours of fun (mainly deleting files).
It's sad, I know, but it amuses me.
Tomorrow we might well be discussing beer, and then again perhaps not.
See you.
Tuesday, 18th May 2004
The Beer Of Kings
Budweiser is not a bad beer, admittedly it's pasteurised and therefore not
'real' but on a hot summers day, a cool one would be most welcome if there
were no real ale alternative immediately available.
What's the Ale Fan doing recommending lager, some of you are possibly
wondering ? (silence)
The Czechs brew very fine beer, in fact this style of beer was invented by
the in Pilsen. Hence pilsner beer. The original is Pilsner Urquel, still
available at a shop near you. Budweiser is a close second. A quality malty
full flavoured beer, produced as it should be, including lagering.
To lager in German means to store. Pilsner beers need to be stored/matured
over a period of several months.
Certain colonial upstarts seem to be making strange claims about 'fresh'
beer and putting the 'date brewed' on the bottle, with the suggestion that
it's best drunk sooner rather than later. This is folly. It's like saying
"why have a 20 year old single malt whiskey when you can have metholated
spirits". Cask ale is meant to be drunk soon after brewing, pilsner is
not.
So if you drink lager, make sure it's something decent like Urquel or
Budweiser Budvar, and not the horse-piss-chemical-stuff that's peddled by
the multinational brewers.
Here endeth the first lesson.
Be having zee nice day, vee are sinking !
Wednesday, 19th May 2004
The Colour Purple
A couple of 'Fathers 4 Justice' are arrested after they lob purple powder in
the general direction of his holiness St Blair of Sedgefield.
That'll mean more of a security clamp-down then.
Blunkett's secret
policemen will be having a ball. They'll be spending more than £600,000 this
time I'm sure. I was amused that in this BBC report they say "the dust
descended at 1218 BST" - so precise - who was standing by with the stop
watch ?
That's what I want to know.
It reminds me of the Beatle's film 'Help !', when this strange eastern
religious sect is hell bent on sacrificing Ringo, but couldn't do it unless
he was covered in a coloured dye (red or orange I think it might have been).
Do we know if Eleanor Bron has been seen lurking around the House of Commons
?
Has our Tone taken to wearing bling finger decorations ?
I think we should be told.
Cue Victor Spinetti.
Okay lads, when God's First
Lord of the Treasury speaks,
let him have it !
Monday, 24th May 2004
1 - One Ate.
I don't watch a great deal of telly these days, but did catch the Money Programme the other night on Beeb 2.
It was all about the replacements for directory enquiries - the new 118 numbers.
And it was quite an interesting programme.
I've never used any of the new services since the change. Mainly because I was totally baffled by it all, and certainly couldn't remember any of the numbers. In fact I couldn't even remember that the numbers began with 118.
It would appear that I am not the only one who is confused - seems that calls overall are down by around 50%, even though in most cases the cost of the call is less. Reliability is apparently a very big issue though. Wrong numbers appear to be the order of the day.
Most of the new services were run by biggish telecom companies, as you'd expect. But the one I'll use if I ever have the need is 118 453.
It's a service called GAY-LO, it's a gay and lesbian directory service but it does 'straight' enquiries as well.
Guess where it's based ?
Brighton.
Couldn't be anywhere else really.
It is run by a couple of punk-ish blokes who also run a kennels as well.
It's a very personal service as there was a shot of them in the pub with a laptop taking an enquiry on a mobile.
Their service accuracy was apparently not that hot, but you can't have everything.
Tuesday, 25th May 2004
Ball-Cocked
The law of the sods always seems to be enforced when you least require it.
What happens soon after I spruce up the shower room ?
Yes, you've guessed it. The shower expires.
Approximately £150 later we now have a new shower along with four new, not quite
matching, tiles around it.
Bit of a bugger, but it's good to have a shower again.
What made matters worse was the fact that we have a non-working cold tap on
our bath, so for about a week we've been jugging (is there such a word ?)
cold water into the bath.
Our bathroom suite is 1970's avocado. Not our choice I hasten to add. It's
going to be replaced soon, I hope.
I add the 'I hope' because the company
that are doing it had already put it back by a couple of weeks, and have now put it back a further month and a half. Which is
why we've not bothered having anything done about the tap.
The poor chap that was going to do it was rushed into with a suspected heart attack (+ 2 weeks). Now he's had to retire (+ 6 weeks).
Plumbers, it
seems, are more scarce than rocking horse shit.
Way past it's sell-by date.
Other Blogs:
If you like my blog, please link me from your website or blog (if you have one). Or just tell your friends, if you have any. Thanks.
|
|
|
Real Ale
Real Ale
Real Ale
|
