Orang Utan Nonsense

Who are these ridiculous people they put on the telly?

 

I caught the second half of tonight's programme on BBC 1 on Orang Utans. They are following the work of an Orang Utan sanctuary in Borneo where they find baby OUs and so on and rehabilitate them then release them into the wild.

 

So this goofy woman took a baby OU for a walk through the trees and she was AMAZED when the OU climbed a tree. How did it know what to do?, she asked.

 

Then they came across a fully grown OU that had spent its life in a cage, poor thing. They released it into the wild immediately and then went back for a look see the following day. This woman was ASTONISHED to see the thing up a tree behaving as if it had been living there all of its life.

 

I'm sorry, woman, but these are wild creatures and they just know these things: sheep dogs know how to look after sheep without being told; snakes know how to eat mice without being told and turtles born on a beach with nary a mother nor a midwife anywhere near, know that they need to get into the sea and then do their business.

 

Can they put more intelligent people on these programmes? People who are neither AMAZED nor ASTONISHED when wild animals do what wild animals are meant to do.

 

DW

True story

How about this for a bit of nannyism?

Mr X was shopping at Tesco and when he was asked at the check out whether he wanted the vouchers for schools. He said no but the lady behind him in the queue could have them. That lady declined so the check out operator pointed at someone in another queue and said he could give them to her.

Mr X replied, 'Look at what's in her trolley. I'm not giving the vouchers to anyone who can buy that rubbish.'

I kid you not!!

DW

Vienna

So, I was in Vienna airport yesterday and because I had around five hours to kill I wanted to use their CAT train to get to the city sentre within 16 minutes. The instructions were entirely in German so found it a challenge. A knight in shining armour coming towards me: a member of the local constabulary.

Me:     Sorry, do you speak English?

Plod:   (Head goes down, pace of walking increases) Nein! (Walks off!)

That sorted that then.

I wandered on and found two more machines nearer the station but neither of them worked so I took it as my cue that I shouldn't bother. So I didn't. Pity; but I'll go next time!

DW

Dubai Story Two: Tarts in a Bar II The South African in our party had been with his wife and parents in law to an Indian Restaurant a few months ago and they said we'd enjoy the experience as it was fascinating. We went: he, his wife, the news reader, the psychologist and me. Excellent food. Horrendously loud singing all night from two men and a woman. An enthusiastic backing group too. Some catchy tunes but all of the songs were all in Hindi or Urdu so following the lyrics was a challenge. Then around a dozen very attractive ladies paraded onto the stage in a line: none was ugly and some were stunning beauties and all from the sub continent. The singer called out three names at a time and those three girls would remain on stage and would then dance, almost in time to the music, for the duration of a song. Then they would call another three girls to do the same. And so it went on. Then a chav approached the front of the stage and threw what looked like a fistful of business cards all over the stage. A man went onto the stage and swept them all up. Our psychologist announced that he knew which of the girls was sleeping with which singer!!! More singing and dancing and the odd bout of business card throwing. We all cackled at the thought that we were in with a chance with our favourite young lady ... usual man's rubbish talk. The news reader announced that he was in love and so was his chosen one. At some stage we started referring to her, perhaps uncharitably. as number 19. The South African sought out the owner of the bar and asked what was going on: who were the girsl, what was the chav doing (he had the baseball cap with the sinble biggest nib you've ever seen, by the way!) by flinging the cards ... The girls were ladies of the night and in order to spend some time with one, you had to remain there until the show was over and you had to throw your card onto the stage generally and one or even more of the girls would call you to arrange a date. Alternatively, throw your cards at your favoured girl, let's say number 19 for example; and if she liked the look of you she would call you. Good food and good company and the girls were lovely but we left at a commodious hour and as alone as when we arrived. DW

So I've done another successful stint and then in a hair raising dash to somewhere else to present a three day Train the Trainers workshop that went well too I believe. I am going to give you a few stories from that trip that include

• Tarts in a bar I
• Tarts in a bar II
• The quiz that was fixed
• It's only 16 minutes to Central Vienna ... Oh no it's not
• Thick with dust Tarts in a Bar I

There were seven or eight workshop leaders this time and one wife of a trainer. We went out for the evening to a bar/restaurant near the airport: eat all you can, drink all you can ... I think Lions would have been over faced by the amount of meat on offer to be honest. Veggies like me had little to choose apart from their glorious puddings. There really was an endless bar too but that was of no interest to me either. So I was happy with the ambiance and the company: apart from the loud and outrageously gay men on the table next to ours. Why do these kinds of gays have loud and lispy voices and mouths the size of the Channel Tunnel? Trouble is, although we were there until late, so were they!

There was a grump bucket in our party, sitting next to me of course, who tried to get me to leave with him at 11 pm. Not that he's gay, just that he wasn't enjoying himself and being far too tight to pay the entire £5 taxi fare, wanted someone to share it with. I stayed and so did he: like a cat on hot bricks he was too. There was a mainstream psychologist in our party and at times like that, it's best to put on a brave face on your personality can be laid bare once you've left the room. Wonder what he really thought about me? Paranoid perhaps?

Anyway, everyone left apart from three of us: we decided to go to the bar next door for a night cap and I had my first alcohol of the evening there: a pint of lager type stuff. The room was wall to wall ladies of the night with the saddest collection of flabby, old, foreign men I have ever seen. The girls were all in clumps of Russians, Chinese, Filippinos and others. One or two were very attractive but others were aggressive, not so pretty and were smoking like chimneys.

One young man found a very pretty young thing to dance with him but as he listed first to port and then to starboard, she resisted his attempts to maul here. I suppose he felt he was being amorous and as he might be a paying customer, it was fine by him. She clearly wanted his business but not his advances and whilst she left him soon after that eposide, she did go back to him but his neck was still listing at 45 degrees from the vertical so she left again.

One of our party declared he was in love and she was in love with him: the news reader we called him as he reminded us of a news reader from BBC World! The psychologist gave us a running commentary on what was happening hither and yon and I was eagle eyed at never having been in such a situation before.

The newsreader was in no fit state to test his hypothesis although I did try to teach him a few key phrases in Russian so that he could communicate with his would be paramour but his mouth lost consciousness! So we left and headed back to the hotel with the place still heaving: we had to pay to get in too but that included a free drink.

The news reader staggered from the car to the hotel with, believe it or believe it not, one of his leather flip flop type sandals on back to front. A miracle! You try it!! He headed off to the bar for yet another night cap astonishingly and he did make it to his 9 o'clock start seven and a half hours later.

See next messages for further instalments!

DW

The cheesemakers have arrived

Remember the Monty Python team lauding the cheesemakers? Blessed are the cheesemakers they said: Life of Brian, wasn't it?

Now, you might not believe it but it's true: there are two web sites that will allow you, I kid you not, to watch a cheese maturing in the way that it is sometimes said to be more interesting to watching paint dry or grass to grow or listening to a coffin warping.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVMt9ECdOjA (this is time llapsed and is over very quickly) and http://lbx.cheddarvision.tv/ as far as I can tell this is real time television on the web. At the time of writing the cheese has spent 103 days and seven and a half hours maturing.

Ifyou're mad enough you could even find out about the cheese making going on over in Ambridge as Oliver and Helen try to come up with their own brand new cheese from the milk from Oliver's dairy herd.

It's all go isn't it!

DW

Steve McLaren

Steve McLaren as the England football manager. Now let it be said again that he shouldnever have been appointed to the job. They shouldn't call him head coach: head case more like.

It's dreadful to have been proven prophetic in a case like this but I was right and he will go next week if England fails to rout Andorra: let drew 0:0 with Israel last night and that's another team they should have routed.

 

DW

Stupidity don't you think?

Correction the doomsday clock is at five minutes to midnight at the moment, 24th March 2007.

DW

Stupidity don't you think?

Let me tidy up that last post.

There is something in economics and finance called the efficient markets hypothesis that contains a massive get out clause for the wary amateur: don't expect sudden changes in the prices in the stock markets because you think there ought to be. The efficient market has probably already taken account of everything you and I can imagine.

So how stupid then that as a result of the holding of those 15 Bitish servicemen by Iran:

Oil prices have risen to their highest level this year after 15 British navy personnel were seized at gunpoint by Iranian forces in the Gulf.
(See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6485529.stm)

So a raging inferno is about to unfold? Universal conflagration? I don't think so.

End of that rant. New rant.

Now, what about that doomsday clock: currently set at seven mintues to midnight. Midnight represents armageddon. Now isn't that stupid? They initialluy set the clock around 60 years ago at a stupidly late place on the dial and every times something happens such as a Middle East crisis and global warming, the panic everyone into thinking armageddon is imminent. They out to have set it at around 2 am in my opinion and even now it should be no later than around 2:30 pm.

Who are these clowns?

DW

Scaps III: reminder

Finally! Older readers will remember that for my fiftieth birthday I was taken by my family to Harry Ramsden's original fish and chip extravaganza near Leeds as I'd asked for an experience that I could have enjoyed on the day of my birth. Fish and chips at Harry Ramsden's filled the bill.

The point is, that I asked for and got scraps with my dinner. Not just scraps but an entire plate of scraps all to myself. A side plate of scraps indeed. I must have a photo of them somewhere if Bill Gates didn't do for it when he did for the laptop I used to own!

Ah scraps! Are they really illegal now? If they are, no wonder we lost an empire.

DW

Scraps II: the sequel

Well, I'm shocked. Hot on the trail of my recent expose on scraps, as in chips and scraps, I have found an article on the web with the heading, This is 'Ull (This is Hull!) and in it they reveal the demise of scraps in that fine Northern city but they also reveal the shockng truth that scraps were on sale there too. More than that, just listen to this:

"Scraps have also been a popular tool for bartering with the local prostititutes. As elderly resident Arthur Handmill says : I remember when you could get a decent bit of how's- your- father for two shillings and a scrap buttie."

Now it may be that this article was initially published on 1st April so it might all be a bit of codology (pun intended ... chips shops ... fish ... cod and chips ... codology ... oh, forget it!) but just imagine that it's true. The suffereing we would have gone through if we'd had to pay. Then again, the affections of a young lady for the price of two bob and a mere scrap buttie!!!

Take a look for yourself at http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.thisisull.com/humour/img/scraps.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thisisull.com/humour/hullnews1.html&h=164&w=140&sz=6&hl=en&start=23&tbnid=1A09l5G92yCgBM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=84&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchips%2Band%2Bscraps%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

You'll see a photo of some scraps there too: nostalgia!

DW

 

Scraps

Now, I imagine that many of you have never had scraps, as in chips and scraps. I bet that even fewer of you have had scraps and pea gravy. They were the stuff of life in a small Northern English town of the 1960s when we used to frequent the chip shop once or twice a week.

 

Now that I am inhabiting the nancy South of England, scraps are hard to come by. I am using a Chinese chip shop in Bicester at the moment and not only are their chips good by Southern standards but they serve huge portions: one bag of chips being enough for two or three people. Seriously, try it! Anyway, every time I go in I mention the scraps and am told they don't keep them. I then wax lyrical about them and am working on the outcome that one day they will relent and serve me with some scraps.

 

Someone in that chip shop told me last week that when they got scraps at their local chippy, they had to pay for them. Canyou believe that? Not me! As demonstrated by the Chinese, they are a waste product and the way they got into a bag of chips when I were a lad is that they were dumped into a container at the end of the frying range to be emptied into the bin once full. However, if anyone asked for scraps with their fish and chips, they got them ... FREE OF CHARGE. If no one asked for them, they were wuzzed.

 

I let it be known last week that scraps with pea gravy was a delicacy that impudent people like us used to ask for from time to time: again, completely free of charge even though they were served in a bag as in bag of chips! How about that: take a small ladle of liquid from the pan of mushy peas and add them to a bag of scraps? Marvellous! Beats chicken tikka marsala any day. I love curries, too, of course; but the old tastes can't be beaten.

 

DW

 

 

Oatcakes

If you are not Scottish or someone who likes oats, you may not appreciate oatcakes.

I am half Scottish by blood and I love oatcakes. For years I have wanted to have a go at making my own oatcakes and coming across a packet of oatmeal in the supermarket today I decided to give it a go and I am extremely glad I did.

I have eaten half of the batch of oatcakes I made with cheese and they are fantastic. I have to confess that I ate them with Brie: Somerset Brie, that is! I like the oatcakes that are sold in the shops but mine were outrageously good.

Well done Rose Elliot for including the recipe in her book!

DW

Accounting Information System

There are times when one simulcast in a day just isn't enough; but both of my blogee communities need to know the following.

 

Late last year I was contacted by a publisher in the USA asking for my permission for an author of theirs to use something from my duncanwil web site. They showed me what they wanted to use and I agreed. I didn't ask for payment, of course, but did ask for a copy of the book when it came out and yesterday it arrived!

 

Go to pages 26-27 and 28 to see what pearls they have used from my page http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/code.htm

 

By the way, this is not the first time that page has been used. A very famous academic accountant, Germaine Groer, borrowd the same page a couple of years ago and said to me that it was the best thing he'd read on coding for accountants anywhere. It also led to a very good friend of mine from over 25 years ago getting back in touch as he was looking for things on coding for some training he was doing. We chatted by email for a while and then I had my monster computer crash and I lost his email address ... Barry Clayton, please write again!!

 

Anyway, the book is by Robert L Hurt and is called Accounting Information Systems: basic concepts and current issues, published by McGraw-Hill Irwin ISBN 978-0-07-319555-1. I'm not sure when it will be generally available and I will review it on my duncawil site in a week or so, all being well. I have skimmed it already and it contains some very nice features.

 

DW

Putt's Law

Simulcast again. This time to announce that I've just heard of Putt's Law:

 

Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

DW

MENSA here I come

It's official, I'm really smart!

 

Well, you knew that anyway but now it's official!

 

When I was a late teenager, I bought a few IQ test books and found that my IQ varied according to those tests from 120 - 170. Of course, those tests weren't entirely reliable and although I tried to be honest, I'm sure I tweaked things a bit from time to time. So, let's discount the outliers from my scores: my IQ was probably nearer 170 than 120.

 

OK, OK, that's a joke, it's highly likely to be at or near 120.

 

Today I read a newsletter that sent me to someone's web site that took me to the MENSA pre membership entry test and I scored 80%. They told me I am probably eligible to be a MENSA member.

 

Thought you'd like to know that.

 

DW

The petrol saga

I managed to get some petrol yesterday morning so was able to complete my journey to Bicester.

I know you'd want to know!

DW

Petrol, what petrol?

My petrol tank was at a low ebb this morning so I needed to get it replenished first thing. No problem, things like that happen.

However, I got to the Esso station ... No petrol. I went round the corner to the Tesco station ... No petrol. I couldn't face getting embroiled in the queues to get to the BP station, so I worked from home today.

I will go out shortly to see what the story is now but modern Britain, eh?

DW

The best laid plans of ... me!

So I decided the other day to resurrect my tapes and play them in the car. I selected my favourites and carefully laid them on the front passenger seat ready for use. I would have organised them a bit better once I'd thought about how I could do that.

Then on the A34 on way to Bicester for the first time in goodness knows how many weeks or even months, I had to slow down all of a sudden. So you are being treated to what's left of the before and the definite after ... on the floor scatterd as you can see!

Why does one bother?

DW

How was it for you? Did you make an effort to see the first lunar eclipse for over three years?

I did and I took a picture of it with my phone camera and I was astonished to find that the picture turned out rather well. As you can see here.

I took the picture a few minutes after totality.

DW