Category Archives: other stuffs [sic]

just general stuff I post about the place

Raph Shirley (prophet)

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I was walking down the street the other day, and I bumped into this woman (I don’t know if you’ve ever met a woman, they’re basically mad hideous monsters, like men) and she’d got into her head the misguided idea to manufacture a person. Now, if it was me I would probably do this using a computer controlled 4D special laser printer but she considered the appropriate course of action to be to grow one inside her stomach.

I remembered how my mum, Sharon Shirley, had accidentally sacrificed her own innards to the nefarious purpose of creating a mutant hybrid between herself and my old man after placing too much faith in the stress resistance of polyurethane. I relayed my experiences to the wench before me and reiterated my belief in laser printing technology. We adopted a little Chinese girl as a compromise. She was a little two dimensional grey one from my HP LaserJet P2050 Series PCL6. I added a third dimension by spraying it with Impulse Jasmine (body mist).

“I’m confused by the word ‘this’, it’s like a piece of string between the world and the sentence” I said. She said that all words were like that and asked me why I was standing on top of the gigantic whoopy cushion I’d been gradually blowing up. The noise that followed was genuinely hilarious. We all laughed and had pancakes for dinner. Except our beautiful daughter who was killed in a tragic shredding accident.

The end,

A fair system for toilet use

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My mother, Sharon Shirley, recently made the unreasonable demand that I put the seat down after using the toilet. Here is my response.

Allow me to neglect poo-poo for the purposes of a thought experiment.

Imagine there are two social groups A and B who require the toilet to be in states A and B respectively, for wee wees. There is some effort incurred in changing the state one way, EA-B, which is essentially equal to the effort incurred in changing the state the other way, EB-A.

What system of use would be fair and proper? Is it the current system, where state A is considered to be philosophically superior to state B and that group B have to change the state to their required state pre-toilet and then change it to the opposite state post-toilet to spare group A the indignity of changing the toilet state? Pompous group A pricks.


Figure 1 A hypothetical, perfectly fair toilet for which equal effort is required of all genders and creeds.

I put it to you that group A’s position is entirely bogus, and I will no longer change the toilet state for them. There will be net lower indignity if this mode of operation is adopted worldwide. Moreover, there will be equal distribution of indignity between the two groups.

And what is a lid even for? Can we please get rid of that? Also, we are out of toilet paper and duck.

Now I will consider the impact of number 2s.

Of course, groups A and B agree on the toilet state for number 2s. This complicates matters slightly because some of group B will be saved effort by other group B members changing the state for them post number 1. However, you will see that net effort is still lower if my system is adopted because only necessary state changes occur.

I apologise for discussing this delicate matter with you. I feel the situation has come to a crisis point requiring brave men like myself to come forward and speak up against prejudice and hypocrisy.

I rest my case,

p.s. mum, could you give me a lift to the pub tonight around 7.04pm? and not Chicken Tonight tonight again please. I do not feel like Chicken Tonight tonight. I might be persuaded by Sausages Tonight…

… tonight.

An experimental investigation into the sleeping habits of my mother

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Introduction
Middle aged humans are a common phenomenon that can be observed at a wide range of locales. From the wine aisle in Waitrose to that at Sainsbury they can be identified chiefly by the appearance of moderate wrinkles on their faces and bodies and by their possessing an often timid demeanour.

This study is concerned with the development of a new methodology for measuring various character traits by the control and disruption of their sleep. Specifically, we observe the fifty five year old human female Sharon Shirley (herein referred to as SS Old Bean) by means of an observation deck concealed in its bedroom.

Methodology
Recent advances in toilet design (Figure 1) allow the scientist continuous access to the bedrooms of the middle aged for the first time. We employ such a shed/toilet approach using the older Prod With Stick (PWS) method for waking my mother.


Figure 1 Experimental setup.

Results and Discussion
The most striking aspect of this work is surely the violent reactions from Mrs Shirley upon being woken (See Figure 2).


Figure 2 Swear words per sentence as a function of time of sleep disruption. The red squares show a fifteen week average. Blue squares show the night of the burglary. The green square is clearly an outlier. The ‘leisure time’ shown in yellow was occupied with basic literature, tv and reminiscing about teenage sexual exploits.

Specifically, the PWS method produced massive eruptions of swearing and violence when repeatedly applied between the hours of 03.00 and 05.00 GMT. Indeed, the author had to resort to the hose to keep his mother at bay on three occasions. The first being coincident with the burglary, which was left to take its natural course in order to avoid any possibility of artefactual data. The other two showing no coincidence with experimental conditions but both accompanied by identical protestations relating to ‘work in the morning’. Clearly, the middle aged are a strange animal with complex behaviour and oral communication systems.

Conclusions
The middle ages are some of the toughest in our lives. Here, we show how a modern approach to them can increase hostility between family members under certain conditions.

Thank you,

Eating alone

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I love eating alone, but I hate being caught. The reversal of esteem when going from gorging on burgers at a bus stop to being joined by a waiting passenger is second in magnitude only to that associated with orgasm. Culinary onanism is a great joy, as intense as the sexual kind, but attached with equal feelings of guilt and insecurity.

If you go on holiday alone like me then you will be familiar with the troubles of eating. I once ordered fifty cheap ‘n’ dirty buffalo wings only to be caught stuffing them on the upper deck of a bus. I had to throw them away and pretend I was full. By the time I could try to relight our fire the relationship had grown cold and soggy.

I have a deep respect and admiration for someone who can eat at a restaurant alone. How can they do it? It is my greatest ambition to one day master that trick. If you can do that then you are at peace. And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son! Consider this: Pizza Express; Friday; 8pm; a man with a beer and a pizza, who is accompanied by a look on his face as simple as a labrador’s, is smartly dressed. He has actually dressed up to go to Pizza Express alone. He has desert alone. He has coffee alone. He tips moderately! Imagine slipping into a little Chanel suit, putting on a mink fur, and spending an hour applying make up, to wank.

Cheers,

Stephen Hawking: prick or dick?

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In which I offer a considered reaction to The Grand Design, the latest publication of Prof Stephen Hawking.

“We each exist for but a short time…”

That ‘but’ along with the other words in the book’s first sentence ensure that by the end of it you already have more than a little stomach acid at the back of your throat. However, this early pretension is but a preface to the imminent whirlwind of diarrhoea-ish shit hell. He rapidly progresses to such monumental glibbery as ‘philosophy is dead’. One can’t help but draw the conclusion this man is but a drunken precocious teenager stuck in the body of a great intellectual. but.

“It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God” – Yes, my mind has been (utterly) blown, but I think this should be attributed to Michael Smith et al. (Comment on Newsround website, 2005).

His book is part GCSE revision notes, part self help bog rag, but what is Hawking the man? Cynical publishing mastermind or genuine arse? Harmless egotist or mad, bad, and deeply offensive egotist? Prick or dick?

The title of Chapter 3 is “What is Reality?”.

Cheers,

The banana

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The banana in its sluttish yellow overcoat eyed me from across the hall. The way it draped its slender ripe figure provocatively across that pawn of an apple. The way it affectedly brushed past the orange. Oh that banana had it coming, and don’t let no one tell you different.

I pretended I hadn’t noticed. I went on about my business. I constructed a look of busy action at the computer face. Staring into the abyss of an excel spreadsheet displaying tawdry accounting jargon such as ‘costs’ and ‘total’ when all I could really think about was that fucking banana.

Tony Blair famously said education three times. And of course, I, in my way, am painfully aware of the simplicity of the mechanisms of it. The straight forwardness of combining two objects like this sickens me even as I spew it, although I must admit that that ‘even’ is out of place given the tautology.

But at least I stopped it in the middle, even if my intention was to disregard your generous attention and to thank you for visiting by flippantly giving you nothing of worth.

Unfortunately this is not a wedding and I can’t get one of the band members to give me a late, drunken, and drummed out joke announcer.

It has all fallen to pieces. I’m not quite sure where it happened but its lost now for ever.

Do you follow?

Creation

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One
It was morning time and I needed a shower bad. I realised that I couldn’t remember why I was dirty. Then God rudely came in my bedroom without asking and presented the most splendid tart. There were a load of weird animals like half-zebra/half-worms around. One of them came over to be stroked. Then it opened its mouth and out popped a Twix. I ate it because the sinning witch told me to with sexy looks. She looked like she was straight out of Zoo magazine except with bigger tits and vagina. It was a bit disappointing to be honest on account of the ephemeral nature of sensory pleasure.

Two
The mid morning brunch-lunch period was bloody pandemonium. At the end the woman handed me a note which said ‘I am a metaphor for sin’ which I thought was a bit sexist really and probably a simplistic interpretation. Anyway, it was all a bit of fun until about 5.30 when God came back to lecture us a bit.

Three
Come evening time I had a really bad stomach ache and very much regretted the Twix which seemed to be transforming into a bureaucratic machine made of my intestines. On top of that there were now a load of even weirder animals around playing elaborate jazz solos on things like a five piped saxophone and a one key’d piano. One of them started saying a load of totally crazy shit at me. It was really freaking me out but not as much as when I looked down and there were giant ants whose legs were dirty hospital needles and bees with senescent human faces and slugs vomiting maggots. Man this is shit, and worse than that, it went on, quite literally, for ever. I blame that stupid woman because the Twix and all the rest of it wasn’t worth this.

Yours, as ever, magniloquently,

Dance

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To some people dancing comes naturally. To me it comes supernaturally. That’s right, fasten your seat belts because this post is about to take a nose dive directly to a more academic style of prose.

“I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.” – Friedrich Nietzsche1

Dancing is typically thought of as a light hearted and fun exercise. Exempli gratia2 “Hey, I love to dance, it just makes me feel great”. But many people forget that as recently as 1518, it could lead to mass hysteria and death3. Dancing began around 50,000 BC when early4 man first started dating early5 woman. Cinema at the time had become staid and uninspiring and young people were looking for a more exciting pastime6. The gunpowder was there, all it took was a match in the form of a primitive dance called the ‘kick’. The dance involved a simple motion of the leg upwards and forwards and that was the end of it. Teenagers gathered in their ones to take part in this and so was coined ‘teenage kicks’.

“Never trust spiritual leader who cannot dance.” – Mr. Miyagi7

But we arrive now at the winter of the post and still a thrust to the argument seems as unfortunately absent as an erection on your golden wedding anniversary8. You no longer dance. The leaves are falling off the trees and there is a quiet sadness in your eyes as you sit in your chairs and watch each other slowly die.

Yours disingenuously,

Footnotes

1 The internet.

2 ‘e.g.’ or ‘for example’

3 See Wikipedia article, The dancing plague of 1518.

4 As in ‘with ears’.

5 As in ‘like an earl’.

6 Cinema in the early 50,000 BCs consisted mainly in staring at a rock. Only the French avant garde was so bold as to include such complicated allegory as the smashing of two rocks against each other.

7 The Next Karate Kid, 1994

8 Simile is often the shortest path to a joke.

2000, a great vintage

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Vague memories of literal and metaphorical squibs.

But there are other relics of the millennium and today I will be talking, mostly, about websites. If websites were rated according to their proper metric, that is, by number of fonts used per page, then my first foray into the internet would surely be the winner1. www.raphman.20m.com was a classic 2000. The obscure, fabulous fonts. The gaudy colour schemes. A continuing astonishment at the hilarity of incongruous photo captions.

Now of course, the wine has turned to creaking electronic vinegar. I feel genuinely let down by the internet. What do we have now?

T H I S

Spare a thought for Tim Berners-Lee. He must be just a little sour in the wee hours having given it all away for nothing only for it to be farmed and savaged by The Microsoft NetworkTM, AmazonTM, et ceterarumTM.

Send in your favourite classic websites. The best post will receive a special surprise gift2.

Good luck,

1When I was at school I wrote a two page essay using only one sentence. My teacher got pissed off about that and also because I copied it out of the Dorling Kindersley Science Encyclopaedia. I shall make no efforts to improve sir.

TMTotal Meanies.

2In the event of no entries I shall spend the equivalent cost of the special surprise gift on Tesco value microwave meals for one to be eaten in the corner of my damp and desperate flat. Their already oversalted meat lasagne seasoned further by a glistening, solitary tear.

Embarrassing man makes ok point in argument

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A deeply embarrassing man yesterday punched above his weight and made a number of insightful remarks in a conversation with friends. His long suffering buddies all commented on the unfortunate absence of people to impress when the socially awkward city worker wittily responded to comments made in an article in the Metro newspaper.

‘The article was about the average earning of Britons. I just thought some of the points made were a bit off the mark. So I criticised them.’ Shortly after telling the story to reporters he began to slip and his conversation returned to the deadening horror of a man with no purpose, no promise, no joy.

‘Usually I can’t bare to see him, but yesterday for a couple minutes he was all right’. When asked if the two shocked onlookers would consider meeting him more often the responses were less than optimistic. ‘To be honest, I think it was probably a one off’.

America

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America. Land of the free. But are they really free with their little lives, and is it a land at all?

America was founded in 1471 by Columbus. Sorry, I mean ‘found’ don’t I. It is basically the best country in the world but sort of not that great given the generally poor build quality of the world. Of course, barely a second goes by without hearing about the ‘USA’ or even the ‘US’. I don’t think popular culture can ever really recover from the invention of things such as rap music or music (which was actually invented in Africa ages ago).

America was built on the founding principle that Britain is sort of fine so lets basically keep things like that but maybe eat hamburgers instead of sausages. They eat hamburgers in England now too? Ah fuck that.

Britain on the other hand was found on the principle of ‘I’ll av that’. Sorry, I mean ‘founded’ don’t I? Britain has things like multiple zoos and a strong financial sector but lacks the more important aspects of a strong society like dictatorial government and an extreme regime of intimidation and humiliation. To be honest this post has sort of started out as some kind of idea and now descended into meaningless nonsense.

What are your thoughts?

America. Hero or zero? Country or concept? I can’t even be bothered to come up with a subverting third point.

How to get from where you don’t want to be to where you do want

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I can help you. And by you I mean me (to help you).

Hello. Breathe. And breathe good. For you are on your way to a happier you. Go on say it! ‘ME!’.

First off, the work place.
You know when you just feel like your boss sucks? You just want to run outside and scream about how your boss is always bossing you around? I’m like ‘No, I don’t want to get the Whitehead report done by Friday. Now get out. And don’t come back until YOU have done it. Good bye.’.

Now, the home place.
You know when you just feel like your boyfriend is no good or your girlfriend is also no good? Yeah? Yeah, I’m not really sure what to do about that. That is a serious problem affecting millions of people around the country. This is one problem best left to the professionals.

N! O! T!

Then, the various places in between work and home.
Commuting can be difficult when you’re a single mum with one foot in the homestead and one in a massive lump of cement. Kids nowadays have increasing access to industrial quantities of building apparatus and they are not afraid to use them. How does one get to work? It can be a literal mine field. Tick tick tick… BROOM eh housewives? No, but there are a number of serious issues relating to women in the workplace. Statistics show that as many as fifteen people have been tickled by the idea of being thirsty and needing a wee at the same time. I just don’t understand how that is remotely remarkable.

So, it’s that time again:

Time to…

Have Your Say.

Below is a selection of your comments

… moderated due to offensive content…
James, London

Taxes are our money! Also, who took us to Iraq in teh first place! Err, kettles and pots me thinks
Matt, Essex

In Iceland we generate the majority of our energy using ALL green.
Jhorgen, Iceland

Bankers bonuses.
Jane, Edinburgh

Another great post!
Raph, London

The repeal of the corn laws.
David, Manchester

This is exactly what the Nazis said in 1939.
Sarah, Bucks

Story time 3

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There is one thing that can be derived from first principles and that is that Squibble Bobble, the peculiar little alien, likes grub. He went in to the nearest grub shop which in this instance was a bakery. Gregg’s bakery. “Hello”. “What’s going on, who said that?”. Squibble Bobble is just two inches small and can not see over shop counters without his ham fisted stilts which were currently under repair after snapping instantaneously upon first use. “Any bananas”. “No”. Squibble Bobble wasn’t paying attention now because he had found a crisp. He’d just polished that off when he found another. They were all in a pile in a crisp bag that he had opened without permission. “No, you have to pay for that”. “Pay for what? Ah”. Squibble Bobble proceeded to build replacements from the assorted grime and fluff round the corners of the shop. “Good as new. Good as new? Goodbye”, and he disappeared in a fubbly squiffle of green fuzzle wuzz. The woman at Greggs wasn’t too bothered because she likes Squibble Bobble a lot and also knows the man whose house he lives in who always covers the damages which is always one packet of crisps.

Goodbye.

Story time 2

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Squibble Bobble is a strange little alien. He struggles to make friends and is a little simple alien. He walked up to an old man and gave him a buttercup. “What is that strange little alien doing giving me a buttercup”. That was a pretty standard response to be fair and truthful, and very common on account of him so often giving buttercups. “If someone give me a buttercup why then I’d be their friend”. Yes but Squibble Bobble you are a peculiar alien. No one of sound mind would consider giving a little flower to a littler alien. “dooooooaaaaahhh”.

Squibble Bobble woke up and said “I want to make a friend today, where buttercups”. The old man from before said “genuinely get out of my bed you can not stay here”. Squibble Bobble ignored said man and set off out the window leaving his things in a neat pile on the old man’s pillow. The old man tutted and set about his work of accountancy from home. He realised that his work was boring as anything and that the little alien was, while most peculiar, at least of moderate interest in being so most peculiar. He peeped through the key hole and saw Squibble Bobble peeping back. “You decided to come”. He opened the door and saw that Squibble Bobbble had built him a pile of buttercups. “Thanks mate”. “Yessssssss”. They walked to McDonalds holding hands all the way. McDonalds did not accept buttercups as payment despite Squibble Bobble’s insistence that they were “good”. They went to bed hungry.

The end.

Story time

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“Mister” said a little alien. A simple little alien called squibble bobble. “who is it?”. “It’s squibble bobble mister”. “What want?”. “Grub”. He threw a mouldy old banana out the window for the simple little alien. Squibble bobble gobbled it and hiccuped. “Thanks mister” said squibble bobble who threw the banana skin back through the post box.

Goodbye.

Grand designs

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Dear Grand Designs team,

I have designed what I believe to be the perfect house. As you are no doubt aware, this is a significant and historical turning point and I am sure you will be keen to check over the blueprints (above). Please call me ASAP RE getting this show on the road.

Also, I request that you destroy Kevin McCloud. He is not appropriate for this project.

I await,