rARsh!

Another one bites the dust

Santander agrees £1.2bn A&L deal
-BBC News

Oh well. Based on the fuckwittery now prevalent within Abbey I guess that’s another financial institution to avoid like the plague then.

If you’ve got any ties with A&L I can only strongly recommend you get your money out now, while you still can. Fuck knows it’s been a nightmare dealing with Abbey in the past eighteen months and the staff (being loyal company types) blamed Santander for having messed up their systems since the takeover.

You seem to have gained 7 pounds since your last body test. Do you know why?

I looked at the options I was being offered.

Ate too much?

No.

Drank too much?

No.

Not enough exercise?

Possibly.

The problem I had was that nowhere was there a button which said

My cat climbed onto the balance board while I was being weighed

A less than balanced approach

So, then. After last week’s clearing blitzlet (still lots left to do) there was enough space to finally set up the Wii Fit and have a go. Of course I prevaricated about this and didn’t actually get around to doing so until yesterday.

First impressions are favourable. Had a great time with the slalom skiing and especially the ski jumping but my first attempts at the tightrope walking we less than successful.

I also tried out a couple of yoga positions, the hula-hoops game and the step basic aerobics. Hell, I even went for a little “jog”. A very little job, but still.

Before I got started it did the necessary evil of the weigh-in and then, once it had depressed me, put me through a basic balance test.

The basic balance test isn’t your thing, is it? Do you often trip over while walking?

Cheeky bloody thing.

It did, at least, inspire me to have a healthy theme to my Big Shop today and I avoid all those lovely, fattening chocolately or fatty treats, replacing them with fruit and yoghurt. Mmmmm. Lovely. And that was before the program told me I’d lost a doubtful 4lbs between yesterday and today.

Let’s see how long this lasts, shall we?

Best. Headline. Ever.

Police suspect giraffe in circus breakout

I must say that circuses have certainly changed since my childhood (unless I’ve forgotten the pot-bellied pig acts … and the giraffes and llamas, now that I think about it).

Licenced to what?

This popped up in the RSS feed from Reuters:

“Brothel bus” makes last stop in Miami Beach

MIAMI (Reuters) - A “brothel bus” that detectives said cruised Miami Beach offering lap dances and drinks has taken its last ride, police said on Wednesday. (more)

The bit that amused me, though, was one of the charges:

Suspected operator Christine Morteh, 29, was arrested on charges of offering to commit prostitution, transportation for the purpose of prostitution and operating a business without a license.

I’m just wondering about the licence application process.

Tickling the ivories

When I got to the Arts Centre this morning for the last of my “Image Manipulation with Photoshop” lessons I noticed that there was an elephant standing outside it. This isn’t the sort of thing one misses, y’know. Not even at the ungodly hour of 10am.

Examining the beast further - it seemed benevolent enough - I discovered that this is Elephant #26 of a herd which have taken up residence in Norwhag for the next six weeks or so.

Norvic Meets Norwhag

Being quick on the uptake I deduced that there must be at least 25 more and decided to investigate further on my return home. It seems I had the correct digits but in the wrong order as there are, in fact, 53 elephants in all according to the GoElephants.co.uk website.

My mission, then, will be to get one of the brochure/maps and then see if I can visit and photograph all 53 elephants in one day. All the locations seem to be fairly central but I’m not sure how I’ll get on photographing those which seem to be indoors. Should be fun, though.

Oh dear

“Oh dear.”

“What? Oh. Yes. I was trying to sleep off a headache.”

“Yes, I thought there was something wrong when you didn’t hear me knock.”

“AND YET YOU RANG THE FUCKING BELL!”

I didn’t say that, of course, but sometimes I despair about my neighbours.

Taking it easy (without Cadbury’s Caramel)

It was almost a month ago that I got in touch with the glazier people that claimed they could fit a cat flap in a glass door in 3-5 days and it was back on the 20th of May that they sent two people round to take measurement.

So I rang them this morning and asked them what the bloody hell was going on.

“Give me half an hour to find out”, I was told, “and I’ll get back to you.”

That was over an hour ago.

Grrrrrrr.

Apart from that, how’s things with you? Sorry I’ve been quiet.