On finding out more about pain

To the pharmacy in Emmer green to get something for my head, and - after elbowing half-term hangers-on out of the way - find myself face-to-face with this sign. As vaguely-threating in-store promotions go, it's a cracker.

I'm not too keen, to be honest. And frankly, hitting yourself on the thumb with a hammer is the last thing you want when you're in the chemist for a packet of paracetamol.

Or, on second thoughts, it might exist as a warning to shoplifters.

But pain can be visted upon anybody. Just ask that crazy fool Mr T.



Let's hear it for pain!

DROP BEARS: A WARNING

Look at it, the vicious bastard

It's a known fact in Australia that if an animal even so much as looks at you, you're dead already.

And this is particularly true in the case of the DROP BEAR, an animal so foul and vicious that it has been banned from any encyclopedia of the world's fauna. While it may look like the koala, one of the sweetest, loveable and serene creatures on the Earth, the drop bear is bad tempered and has a particular liking for fresh human meat, particularly that of the head and neck.

While it will do anything to get its sharpened fangs around a human face, the general modus operandi of the drop bear is to wait in a tree and drop onto its prey from above, gouging out eyes and tongue first, so you cannot see what killed you, nor can you scream for help. Sated on your blood, the drop bear returns to its perch, awaiting the next victim.

You can see why - even in a country where cruel and painful animal death lurks under every toilet seat - why Australians are loathe to talk about the drop bear. With its docile cousin the koala being the symbol of all things Australian, the drop bear is an embarrassment that could single-handedly destroy the tourist market, mostly by ripping its face off and eating it.

A photographer died getting this picture, as did the first three people sent to retrieve the camera

So, how do you defend yourself against a drop bear attack? The terrifying answer is that after the events of 1974, the police will not respond to drop bear emergencies. You are on your own against these curs.

Australian urban myth says that spreading vegemite over your head and neck will prevent an attack. However, drop bears look upon vegemite as little more than a condiment and will attack you regardless. Others say that you should speak with a loud, exaggerated fair-dinkum Aussie accent, but all this does in alert the murdering bastards to different flavours of fresh meat.

The only defence is the humble golf club, but anything less than a sand wedge is a waste of time, and you'd better be prepared for a good five minutes of thrashing, all the time the drop bear criticising the shape of your backswing. Shooting drop bears is illegal because of health and safety gone mad.

How serious is the drop bear threat? Let's put it this way:

In 1997, a drop bear managed to get across to New Zealand, where it ran amok, catapulting sharpened kiwis at people's faces before it was caught and destroyed in a battle with brave New Zealand armed forces, many of whom lost their faces and their lives. They're still rebuilding after the authorities embarked in a scorched-earth policy which destroyed thousands of square miles of forest and grazing pasture. All that bloodshed and fiery destruction from just from a single drop bear.

In 2003, a zoo in Singapore was accidentally sent a pair of drop bears instead of koalas as part of an animal exchange programme. By the time the cargo plane arrived in Singapore airspace, all the crew were dead and fighter jets were scrambled to shoot it out of the sky. The authorities are still trying to track down these murderers who are now the owners of a pair of fully-armed F-16 jets somewhere in the Asia-Pacific.

BE WARNED, these creatures are SHITS.

This little bastard has killed before AND HE WILL KILL AGAIN

DOG UPDATE

Good news everybody! Temporary foster dog Archie is to become permanent adopted dog Archie, because we couldn't bear to be parted with the little barrel.

Archie be like:

 "ZZZzzz..."

Meanwhile, Wilson be like:

"HWHAAAAAAT?! Why are you doing this to me?"

In other news, Archibald needs a proper name if he is to continue the daft naming tradition of Wilson Blue Rabbit and previous pets Lucy Minogue, Lily Minogue, Harry Minogue, Ryan Minogue and Crackers Aguilera. Any ideas?

Book Review: The Garderobe of Death by Howard of Warwick

Now, it was several months ago that Mr Howard of Warwick asked me if I would like to review his latest page-turner, a witty little tale about a chap getting killed to death while sitting on the lav. Naturally, I replied in the affirmative, but being a notoriously slow reader it has taken me this long to get round to The Garderobe of Death.

One of a number of titles by Mr of Warwick set around the Norman Conquest, he has gained a bit of a cult following with his Brother Hermitage murder mysteries told in a - errr - not quite 11th Century style. You probably know from my Pepys writings that I like a bit of faux historical drama, so this one was approached with relish. With a bit of ketchup, as well as horseradish, which goes with everything.

The Garderobe of Death centres around the sudden demise of Henri de Turold with an arrow up his rear-end while taking his ease late one night, and the rush to uncover the culprit before King William turns up later that day, finds out one of his best friends is on the crapper with an arrow up his arse, and gets cross. It is - of course - down to Brother Hermitage and his rather more intelligent sidekick to find out the truth, for better or worse.

Yes, it's a more-than-competent murder mystery, but it is also very, very funny and worth £2.39 of your hard-earned cash money if you download it for your Kindle device. In fact, I think it's deserving of a few call-out quotes for future editions:

"So funny, I forgot I had the plague until my arm swell'd up like a pig's bladder and burst forth blood and flesh and green foule-smelling pus all over a pass'ng mendicant."  -- Alexander of Fleet

"My children read this book, and now I cannot use the garderobe for fear that I too may expire from an arrow up my rear. How we laugh'd!" --- Sir William of Alder-Shot (Dec'd)

"Thou needest not be a learn'd monk vers'd in the powers of deduction and bless'd with the ability to read to enjoy Howard of Warwick. But it helps." --- Friar Kelp de Kelp

"I LIKE RATS" --- Stupid Dave

In summary: Eight arrows up the bum out of ten.

Buy Howard of Warwick books: "Now in paper and everything"

Everything that's wrong with Prometheus

Noomi Rapace reacts after hearing there's going to be a sequel

 We watched Prometheus last night. It still sucks.

In fact, we saw it in the cinema, thought it sucked and vowed never to watch it again. So we watched it again, and this is my mission to list everything that's wrong with Prometheus.

Then I realised that it would take so long, so here's a TL;DR version:

Everything is wrong with Prometheus.

Luckily, there's a video that covers the major sins:



But still...

* Why did they get a young actor to play an old man, then cover him with old man make-up when they COULD JUST HAVE CAST AN OLD ACTOR?

* Why did somebody program the android to be a mental?

* "Hey! That's a Rubik's Cube!"

* Why didn't Charlize Theron just run sideways when the giant alien ship was about to crush her completely to death?

* The "No... FATHER" reveal is the worst reveal in the history of cinema

* Why did the geologist and his pal go off on their own like Shaggy and Scooby Doo, only to get lost in the space ship THEY MAPPED THEMSELVES?

* Everything else

Would watch again, on a day that I truly hated myself.

The Worst Job You Ever Had (Slight Return)

I was a teenage supermarket trolley boy IN THE PITS OF HELL

Now, going round the car park and bringing the carts back to the store sounds easy. And, in truth, it had its perks, such as standing on the top floor on a Friday evening to watch two people doing the sex in the office block opposite when they should have been a) designing oil rigs and b) hoovering.

But the car park was ten storeys high and attracted large numbers of tramps huddled round an air conditioning vent for warmth. They drunk a lot of cider, and there being no public convenience, pissed it out all over the concrete floor and kept their belongings in supermarket trolleys. The more cultivated among them pissed in the lifts as well, while others found a hideous, dark corner for other toilet functions. The result was the famous Reading River of Piss, which flowed directly into the Thames, and gave the Friar's Walk shopping centre its distinctive smell, not to mention a distinctly low-brow clientele.

And it was my job to wade in there and get the trolleys back, because they disappeared at such an alarming rate that there were never enough trolleys for our six customers. The tramps, by and large, didn't want to surrender their hard-won shopping carts, and who could blame them?

So, for my CV: Teenage me had to wade through piss and fight tramps for supermarket trolleys. For two quid an hour.

ELECTION ANALYSIS: Keeping the 'One man, one owl' promise

Dear Conservative voter

I expect you're feeling pretty damn smug this Monday morning, and frankly I don't blame you. Five more years of your chosen government, and I'm not going to moan because that's how participative democracy works.

However, I voted Labour because Ed Miliband promised me an owl. And Ed delivered. He may have been on the wrong end of a ballot box drubbing, but he still came good on One Man, One Owl. (Mainly because he had a warehouse will 11 million owls, I should imagine)

Yeah, you've got control of the political agenda until at least 2020, and good luck with that. But I've got my owl, so WHO'S THE LOSER HERE?

You are, that's who.

And you will note from the background of the photo is that it's Rabbit Awareness Week. Those bunnies are all Lib Dems, and they're going to shit you up.

Your pal, etc

Political neutrality disclaimer: Other parties are available.

Introducing Archie

New foster dog Archie is here. Let's hear it for Archie!

BEN KENOBI: Massive Jerk

We don't celebrate Star Wars Day round here. May the fourth is just like any other day. The reason? We don't like rebel scum, and Obi Wan "Ben" Kenobi is a massive lying jerk.

Here's all the proof you need, in meme form.

And I ask you: Who's on the Dark Side now?

Sugar-free Gummi HELL BEARS

This HELL BEAR is now dead

"Oh look," said Jane on a Sunday afternoon visit to Hartley Wintney - the poshest village in all of north Hampshire - "I wonder if the old fashioned sweet shop does sugar-free sweets?"

She is a Type 1 diabetic of 30 years standing, so this kind of thing is important to her. And they do stock sugar free sweets. Loads of them.

Now, I spent most of the previous week in fits of laughter at the reviews here, where punters describe the devastation caused by sugar-free Gummi Bears. And then there's this glorious Reddit story. Moral: Don't eat sugar-free Gummi Bears, they fuck you up.

"Don't get sugar-free Gummi Bears!" I shouted through the door. Well, Jane has never had any trouble with sugar-free Gummi Bears, so - amongst other things - she bought sugar-free Gummi Bears. Then we sat by the duck pond and ate sugar-free Gummi Bears.

I swear I only had about half a dozen, but the murderous sugar substitute soon got to work on my insides, and before long I was so bloated you could have tied a string found my ankle and flown me like a novelty balloon.

And then the farts. So many, many farts. They sounded like people in another room moving heavy furniture, whilst farting constantly. We suffered together, but consoled ourselves in the fact that we had not eaten so many as to move onto the next stage of the SUGAR-FREE GUMMI HELL BEAR infliction, for eg: The Attack of the Brown Laser, for which we were both thankful.

Those stories about SUGAR-FREE GUMMI HELL BEARS? They are all true. Do not try for yourself.

Clickbait books

So #Clickbaitbooks was trending on Twitter, and I had to have a go at describing books in the Upworthy style that makes scrolling your Facebook timeline a misery. In fact, had lots of goes.

- Dentists hate this one weird trick to get yourself a free chocolate factory

- This man was shipwrecked on an island for 28 years. His one great life hack will blow your mind, and you can use it too!

- This guy claims God sent him ten commandments carved in stone. When I got to number 7, my jaw dropped

- Find out what you're the Lord of in our quiz (32% got "the flies")

- You won't believe where they found the Catcher!

- The 22 catches that make serving in the air force HELL. The last one blew my mind!

- Marley was dead, but it was just the beginning of this businessman's yuletide nightmare. You won't believe what he saw!

- You won't believe what this boy found at the end of the lane! (by Neil Gaiman)

- They thought their pet Dalmatian was grossly overweight. What happened next will make you angry, then make you smile

- Forty-two things that will make you question the meaning of life

- What's underneath the four elephants will make your day!

That's enough Clickbait Books.