More family than I thought

Posted: May 29, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I’d love for ‘family’, in my context, to mean a little more mafia it currently does.

My family are simply my family, of the traditional context – father, mother and a brother.

But I wish it meant people were worked in the concrete shoe shop.

Perhaps it’s in the enunciation: “The Fairmily”. Maybe then people would give up their train seats for me, or when I enter their homes unexpectedly (I’m joking, don’t enter stranger’s homes).

And I’d have a plethora of brothers instead of the embarrassingly singular sibling I’m stuck with, and their names would be ‘Paulie’, and ‘Joey’, ‘Tommy’ and ‘Mikey’. My brother’s name is Ben.

And we’d have nicknames. Like ‘Sam the Nose’ – which would be appropriate because of what I’ve got.

My brother would likely be ‘Big Ben’, because he is enormous. But that wouldn’t make me ‘Little Sammy’, because I’m only really slightly less obese.

Anyway.

Family. I’ve come to realise I’ve more of them than I previously realised.

I have long disliked large crowds, which I presumed was due to coming from a small family. Both my parents were a single-child, whilst both my brother and I are both single-children too according to how we feel about one another.

But at a family dinner yesterday, my father invited his only living blood relatives (aside from me and my brother, which is weird as one tends to picture a ‘closet living blood relative’ as being an appropriately distant and appropriately many-times-removed grandmother of an ancient generation, instead of it being me).

And there was a pile of extra family, all ages, many types of clothes, basically all one colour, and they all had no idea who each other was, least of all me.

“Here’s Sam, the less obese one I was telling you about” says my father, “and his equally less obese wife and two kids – both of whom are also single-children”.

And everyone looks at me and my family, each of them agreeing vaguely and approving the description. There’s some handshaking and pecks on cheeks, and then I left the room because I’ve got a problem with large crowds.

I didn’t feel any kind of interest towards these people and so didn’t engage (nobody’s loss), but my father was keen to get to know them, because he really didn’t know them, nor they him.

As I played with my kids, I saw him leading them in comparing old photos, the black and white ones, followed by the later coloured photos that have now gone a 1970’s shade of nicotine-brown.

And then, my father told his stories to the new lump of distant family we’d discovered, detailing his upbringing (some family remembered his childhood address – which was nice), his family and career.

I was listening and realised something I’d suspected before.

My dad is really, really super-cool.

He’s a cockney-rebel, a cage-shaker, and the next new big thing in the classic style, a rebel with many causes (in fact, he’s a Rotarian), but he’s always been willing to do what he can do get jobs done and to achieve doing so with flair. He’s my hero. And looking through the photos, the variety of hairstyles and scenarios in which he had those hairstyles, were astonishing.

Meanwhile, I have a blog, and literally piles and piles of distant family that I’m about as related to as everyone else is related to the Cheddar Man.

I’d best look to emulate him. My dad I mean, but also the Cheddar Man a bit too.

They’re both fairmily after all.

Sam

Perpetually IN – a solid handshake and lava

Posted: May 15, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Perpetually IN | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I noticed that some things are invariable and persistently popular.

It’s easy to forget, because it’s all so everyday, but when it comes up in the everyday, it is lovely to remember that it’s happening right now.

Remembering the present?

Makes sense to me, but then again – maybe I ‘get it‘ because I can’t be bothered to dwell on it any more.

And frankly, I’ve other things to be confused about.

Not this though. I do feel like I’ve understood this following topic brilliantly.

Good, solid handshakes.

You’ve got to have good grip strength to have a reliable handshake.

Ballerinas have excellent handshakes, so I’ve come to understand.

It’s probably all the tiptoeing.

Tiptoeing, which is also perpetually IN by the way, take a lot of grip strength.

Try it. Try to tiptoe without holding your hands in a slight pantomime-creep manner, pinching nothing but your lack of dignity between your index finger and thumb.

Impossible. In fact, it is also impossible to tiptoe without thumbs.

Toes aren’t essential for it, however.

And that pains me to say, as I’ve a fondness for toes – they’re harmless and dopey. And I’d hate to take tiptoeing away from anyone, least of all an innocent toe. A promising young toe. A toe with gumption.

Toes are admirable as they’re the silliest body part after genitals, and therefore the second best.

And whilst we know toes aren’t essential to tiptoeing, we should appreciate that a penis or your favourite labia, ‘tween index finger and thumb, is indeed entirely vital to the procedure.

That being said, we should also remember that having a penis can debilitate your grip strength due to adolescence.

Thus, things have gone somewhat full circle with this initial premise, but with a lot of sudden corners.

I guess that’s my writing style, which is a ‘sudden corner’ in and of itself, as I had no clue I had a style.

I haven’t even started talking about handshakes properly yet, let alone lava.

“Let alone lava” – lovely.

A nice phrase, a little like the words ‘tiptoeing’ or ‘after genitals’.

I suppose the handshake could be improved via other means, such as living a long gritty life in a grey gritty part of a flat gritty country, raised by simple gritty parents.

But if you don’t have all that going for you, and you really want to improve your handshake, you’re going to have to start tiptoeing.

And I can understand why you’d want to improve your handshake – because a good sturdy (gritty even) handshake never wanes in popularity.

Even if they don’t shake your hand, folk like to know you’ve got a good handshake. It’s like hearing positive credentials of other people.

“Have you heard about Sam’s quality handshake?”

“Yes, I have, stop going on about it, it’s not news.”

But maybe even more perpetually IN is the dislike of a weak handshake.

I shook a chap’s hand once, though it wasn’t so much a ‘handshake‘ as he put so little effort in I may as well have just grabbed his wrist and waggled the hand so the fingers flapped about in the breeze I was causing.

The shake was so bad, I think other people could overhear the flapping and started to stare.

Fair enough though, as I was starting to stare too.

His hand was so limp, it felt wet.

Flaccid to the point of liquid – that’s a negative and no mistake, especially in the realm of body part functions.

‘Body part functions’ – sounds like there are galas and dinner parties taking place across your body. I might suggest to my wife, “say, darling, I’m having a bit of a shindig in my groin area – fancy bringing a bottle”, and she’d say “no” because even in absolute fiction I have the capacity to revolt my most beloved with utter nonsense.

However, a banquet in the hand – that’d be superb for your grip strength, and if there was music and dancing afterwards, you could even squeeze in some tiptoeing.

So, yes a mighty handshake is what the people want, and they never shan’t.

A bit like volcanoes.

Great for the garden is a volcano, and really super duper if you’re in need of some very new rocks.

That’s a thought, as how often do you encounter a rock that is a matter of a few minutes old, depending on how long it took to cool?

That’d be excellent for the Pet Rock industry.

Visit Hawaii, wait for the regular traffic of lava to make it’s way down your street, don’t touch it (just don’t touch it) and once it has stopped and begun to cool, you can actually witness your Pet Rock being born.

By golly that’d be a tradition I’d heartily invest in. Perpetually, in fact.

All the best,

Sam

The 1970s – it was all the rage at the time.

Posted: February 26, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

You know what I mean, even if I’m not too sure of it.

That’s because you’re instinctual, and this is a compliment.

This isn’t though, fuckface.

In the 1970s, ‘Fuckface’ was just coming to fruition. A little more socially acceptable, to fuck a face, have a faced well-fucked, and a great term to call people. People like you, fuckface.

And if you didn’t know, you probably should, there was many a fuckface in the 1970s. That was their decade.

In the 1960s, Small Faces, the 1980s, the Talking Heads, the 1990s, The Spice Girls – the latter of which was a true revolution of retro-reversion for feminism, in which people from Princes Diana to the Pope (same thing at the time) realised that women could be fuckfaces too.

I like a motif to a blog, but its possible I’ve extended ‘fuckface’ as far as ‘fuckface’ can take me.

So from here, its a matter of talking about what I thought I was going to write about before ‘fuckface’ inspired me.

It’s still about the 1970s (which, as I say – were extremely popular at the time), and it’s still about faces.

Essentially, I want to talk about a 50 year-old photo I saw in my hometown newspaper, which celebrated the win of a pub darts team in some kind of regional league.

10 or so chaps, with the variety of haircuts, facial hairs and fuckfaces that you’d see commonly back then.

And what a time to look suspicious! ‘Suspicious’ was in vogue.

Not to mention that the fuckier your face was, the more iconic of the time you were.

This blog didn’t proceed last night, as my wife wanted to watch Mission Impossible II on my laptop. I’m not going to enter a fuckface argument with my wife and new millennium Tom Cruise, and nor would you, so I fled.

Bravely checking my wife is now asleep, and considering I’m now well rested (being 12 hours later), I shall continue, though I do miss Cruise.

Accordingly, I’m playing some ABC News footage from the Fall of Saigon. 1975, the heartland of the fuckface decade.

Would I, however, be willing to write-off the whole Vietnam/American War as a fuckface combat? Probably not, as people who took part in that war, or were just near enough for war-crimes, really have fucked faces to the degree of whatever literal or metaphorical extents you’d be willing to consider, quietly, so as not to wake my Mrs.

“Vietnam fucked my face” sounds the sort of script you’d read on a found Zippo lighter in the Da Lat jungle highlands.

But I was talking about a darts in an English pub in the 70s. Black and white an image, being printed in an old local paper, but being from the 70s there is also a strong beige feel, maybe even corduroy. And cigarettes.

And you can zoom in on these ten or so faces, of young and middle-aged men, and suddenly you’ll hear a distant voice saying calmly “he was a respected member of his community, worked hard at the brown cigarette factory, and once got a bullseye. But nobody knew he held a secret so terrible, that it wouldn’t be till years after the case closed that the truth became known. For in fact, John ‘Cigarette’ Brown, was a closet fuckface. Even his wife didn’t know. And his children are coming to terms with it to this day.”

Or something criminal, not in a good way.

It’s now been two days since I started writing about this nonsense. But I’ve persevered, and all I need was three breakfasts.

The benefit to taking several days to conjure up a piece of writing such as you’ve endured reading (you’re lucky, you didn’t have to write it) is that you can look back on where you began a couple of days ago, what you went through, and where you are now, and consider: ‘what the hell am I doing here?’

And I like thinking that.

Because, what the hell am I doing here?

A blog, apparently, whilst watching a vast amount of news footage from the 1970s.

And breakfasts.

Sam

Wasting time, reasons to live, and eating surfboards.

Posted: January 17, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure Forever | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

My favourite thing is to waste time. I struggle with it on the job. I think it’s because I’m still aware it’s my time, and that I’m officially required not to waste it due to company policy.

Company policy says wasting time is bad for your back due to desk ergonomics, and if you’re not willing to improve your desk ergonomics then they’re going to part ways with you, which is fine until they mention this’ll include ceasing paying me money each month.

Another option is to die on the job. This would be a great way to escape the boredom and depression of working, but it would seriously inhibit my free time after work, which I’d prefer to spend having fun with my wife and kids, instead of being dead at my desk due to a bad back.

But then, it’s my own time and perhaps it’d return some ownership to me, so why not die on the job?

Because the chair’s uncomfortable? I agree.

But, that’s really because it’s a chair with a purpose, and that’s to waste your time, but not in the way that you really want to waste your time. There’s better things you can do with a chair, sitting aside.

You’d rather waste your time more appropriately, such as by inventing that new thing nobody knew they wanted, or writing that blog everyone knew they didn’t want but you really wanted to write it anyway.

And don’t forget jumping – as this is a marvellous way to waste your time.

‘Off of’ things of varying height and with varying confidence in the safety harnesses, or lack of them; ‘on to’ things which are preferably moving with speed, gusto, and sexy people already onboard; ‘into’ things, the wetter the better; and lastly ‘through’ things, which is perhaps best reserved for the more athletic time wasters amongst us.

Jumping ‘behind’ things is weird, don’t do it. And don’t tell me about it if you did.

Then of course, we must consider the more industrious ways of wasting time, the sort of time wasting that really takes a lot of effort, guts, and time.

Like opening that surfboard shop in the west coast of Devon, getting to know weird people with campfire and starlight, watching the wife and kids laughing a lot, and somehow making either a comfortable living out of it or discovering an ingenious way to find, craft, sell, live underneath and eat surfboards, for free.

This takes a lot of hard work, and is of course a waste of time, because most people would not do that (despite 90% of the UK having this exact secret dream themselves, with the other 10% being busy that day) and would rather make more sensible use of their time with grown up activities, like making appointments with their bank managers for fun, or simply spending some really solid time calming down following that overly exciting bowl of cornflakes.

And then there is wasting time unexpectedly, when you didn’t see it coming. This can be hard to deal with, wasting time out of the blue, letting it get in the way of those bank manager catch-ups or becoming nice and bored in some other way. One way of doing this, as we know, is simply saying “yes” to opportunities as they come.

How do we source the best questions to say “yes” to? Just keeping saying “yes” and you’ll work your way to the questions you want to say “yes” to, eventually.

And does your job, your career, your 9-5, provide you with those questions you want to say “yes” to?

Mine doesn’t.

Mine makes me want to say “no” a lot, regardless of the question.

Really, I want to waste my time in my own way. Perhaps worse paid, and with ‘attitude problem’ noted by recruiters next to my professional profile, but still my own.

All it takes, is finding that way to monetise me being me – ensuring that wasting time with writing blogs, parenting, and seriously, seriously enjoying my wife, can all be something that pays the bills until we can find a way to eat surfboards for free.

This is making me hungry and melancholy, because I’m still at work right now and I look forward to escaping to lunch.

But I must remember to say “yes”. It’s a great way to waste time in ways you can look back on with happiness, and it’s also an even better way to round off an overlong blog.

Sam

New year’s resolutions and the apocalypse

Posted: January 2, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

I’m not the sort to bask in the failure of a long-deceased civilisation, but I’m not half pleased that the Mayans were off the mark with the missed prediction of 2012.

A famous miss, quite the ‘swish’ to echo through the eons.

Perhaps, it’s an error in translation? Rather than ‘apocalypse’ – they meant ‘low chance of showers’? In which case, they were bang on – as I distinctly remember that there was a low chance of showers that particular year.

It’s also a fantastic way to stay relevant – doom braying.

And that’s what I’m bringing to 2023 – predictions for the end.

So here it is.

You’re all going to die.

So you’d better put the cat out and leave a note for the milkman or the paper boy – or any other 1990’s chores you choose to turn to in your time of time-cessation.

Of course, most of you will have realised this years ago, which is nice, but you forgot to keep yourself relevant by reminding people.

It’s not just for selfish reasons that I do this though, as a healthy dose of daily death can be invigorating. Very.

Knowing you’re going to leave life inevitably, and potentially suddenly (especially you), should influence your actions. It might not, but it should – because you’re going to die.

And it’s best not to be religious about this, even if you use that to guide your morality. Not just because I’m agnostic, but it’s hard to play the odds well in picking one God out of the thousands there have ever been – you’re likely to choose the wrong one and then comes heavenly vengeance – just like what presumably happened to the Mayans.

Zeus is the only God I’ve seen mighty evidence for, thanks to all that lovely lightening, but I don’t want to believe in him because if I could impress and terrorize the world with tempests and lightening, maybe I’d want to fuck a fish too since, at a certain point, humans won’t cut it any more when you can seasonally fuck the sky. I don’t know how that could guide my morality, but I know I don’t want to fuck a fish this year.

A new year’s resolution is dandy, good for you and yours, but you were supposed to die via apocalypse (or potentially a dangerously low chance of showers) over a decade ago.

You were mortal last year, and it’s the same again this time.

Remembering this, and that it might happen at any moment, is a fantastic way to start the year.

To die preferably is all we can aim for, really.

That being said, Merry Christmas! May Zeus be with you (but not standing too close).

Sam

Bananas are the punchline fruit. Give them a break.

Posted: October 10, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sometimes a thought enters your head, and then you hear yourself saying it to someone.

In some of these ‘sometimes’, you might find yourself muttering it aloud, causing others to get off the bus quickly.

Other ‘sometimes’, the preferable ones (unless there were no spare seats on the bus), mean you do what I did, which was to say it to my wife. In a museum. There were many seats.

In fact, there were so many seats, you could tell that some people weren’t sitting down, but not due to seeing anyone standing. Just, lots of chairs really.

You might also find yourself typing such things on a blog, causing people reading it on smart phones to get off of buses all the same, but perhaps it’s still best to revert to my what was going to be my original point.

I said something to my wife. And now I want to share it with you.

“Jenny, which fruit looks best in mid-air?”

My wife has a wonderful capacity to both humour and wither me with a look. She doesn’t do that for just anyone, but perhaps not many other than myself can draw such infuriated pity. Especially in a museum (lots of chairs).

Choosing the ‘humour-him’ route (there were children present), she indulged me, saying “I don’t know Sam. Bananas?”

I had hoped she wouldn’t say that, because I worried she might be right, which meant I was too with my first thought.

Bananas.

The punch-line fruit.

A very applicable fruit, certainly, but still the go-to fruit in the historical contexts of people using a fruit for something a fruit shouldn’t be used for, and for things that don’t actually need to be done.

I think it’s a blend of the shape, colour, peel, consistency and pronunciation. Everything else is just legend.

Certainly over-relied upon, and as such, I didn’t want it to be the answer to my question; I didn’t want banana/s (singular or plural it really doesn’t matter at this point) to look good in mid-air.

But, damn it, they do.

I expressed this all to my wife, who by this point had chosen her well-practiced alternative to humouring me.

“Pineapples?” she ‘fuck-offed’.

Unfortunately, perhaps more of the same with Mr Pineapple. Certainly not the jobber of mid-level fruit expectations, but they’ve at least been put forward for their obvious attributes.

Pineapples, really are just trying too hard.

A silver-placed friend with the wacky green hair-do, trying to talk to women at a party where women are really in-to fruit but getting ignored in favour of his friend shaped like a big penis with a healthy yellow glow.

I wanted to tell my wife this, but she’d been through enough today, even though earlier we’d practically had a bus to ourselves.

So I continued my thoughts and settled on a fruit (phrasing you can’t use in reference to bananas or pineapples because it is inappropriate and, more so, already been done) with a degree of subtlety.

The lime.

Bear with me.

A lime, emerald green, backed by the bluest of baby boy skies, suspended in mid-air, just for us to see.

I thought that was nice. I told my wife that I’d concluded, and this cheered her up immensely.

Then again, maybe all fruit are pre-determined to look good whilst falling. If they drop from a branch, with few-enough leaves, on a clear autumn noon with strongly sunlit blue skies, any fruit looks good, because they’ve been doing it for centuries.

Bananas, pineapples, limes, maybe even a tomato.

A sense of style, doing as the ancestors did it. Dropping, and looking good.

THAT is good museum conversation, but I couldn’t continue as my daughter needed help eating her apple.

It was a good one. You should have seen it go.

Sam

Kids say the darndest things, thank god spiders don’t.

Posted: June 17, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

So, with two young children running around and beginning to say things (my one year old daughter said “Love you” for the first time today whilst I put her to bed, whilst my son sought me out in the kitchen whilst washing up to tell me “Daddy, two of The Beatles are DEAD”), I’m reminded that having something to say is a matter I really enjoy talking about.

It wasn’t long ago that I noted publicly (as public as a blog can be…public if any cares enough to give a damn to look at it) that sometimes all you need is something to say.

This has served me well, with interviews, romantic dates, speeches, parental lessons, and perhaps most especially when I would like to blog but don’t have anything to write about.

It’s akin to penning a novel about how nice it would be not to have writer’s block.

Writer’s block.

That’d be a woe far more begrudgingly acknowledged if it was a granite block in the center of the town, which writers could bang their head against to clear the haze. That’d have miners and sailors nodding across the pub at writers, heads heavily bandaged, but at least now having something to write about.

OH MY BABY JESUS (I love that baby) MY WIFE JUST CALLED ME OUTSIDE TO OUR GARDEN SHED TO SEE A SPIDER SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN OUR GARDEN SHED.

We’ve locked all the doors.

If that spider wants into my house, it’ll have to learn to climb up the drainpipe or something ridiculous like that.

I don’t like spiders.

They don’t like me, but that’s usually ‘afterwards‘.

This one in the shed was a big bulky bugger too. One of those ones with a lot of body – like its got some sass.

It’s sassy-sense was tingling. BBW – Big Black Widow.

It wasn’t really a black widow, just a common-garden-terrifying-spider with mandibles it appeared to be able to lean on.

Then it moved. And at once the whole world felt as though it was made from spiders, where even the concrete beneath my feet felt like the suspicious tickle of WHATTHEFUCK…ITSINTHEFOOTKILLTHEFOOT.

‘Tickle’ is a good description of how a spider moves. Combine ‘tickle’ with ‘stalk’, and we’d be hitting the nail on the head. Or we could just hit the spider and just make do with ‘splat’. Maybe ‘tickle’ is how they feel when there aren’t actually any around but you’re still dwelling on them.

I don’t like spiders.

And they still don’t like me.

Maybe because they’ve read this.

Maybe they can’t read.

Spiders are illiterate, sure, but I wouldn’t throw that in their face. That’s what my slipper is for.

My wife kept calling the spider “he” to begin with, before each time quickly correcting (wrongly) to “she”, whilst I had been quite happy to make do with “it”, then to do away with “it” and never think or worry about “it” again from behind a locked door.

However, my thinking towards pronouns changed too as I kept watching it. It was so big, I feel like only a collective noun would really be appropriate for this singular “them” of a spider.

Crows are known as ‘murders’, hyenas are a ‘cackle’….this spider in my shed should be an ‘punchitinalegtwice’.

I don’t know if their legs are the worst part, nor the mandibles, nor the eyes. I think it’s the silence.

‘A silence of spiders’. That is way, way too eerie a collective noun than I’m going to permit then, no matter if it is perfectly appropriate.

Something isn’t appropriate if I’d rather it wasn’t.

I’ve seen bigger spiders before this one though. Not just seen them. Heard them.

This might counter my earlier point about silence (also in turn upsetting my second point about appropriateness – making it inappropriate, which according to the flip of that exact point might make it appropriate….going on and on about this same point just isn’t….now’s not the time), but I did once encounter a common-garden-terrifying-spider that was so huge I could hear it coming.

It ran around the corner of my windowsill and waved its legs at me, like a yobbo. I shut the window sharpish, but could still see it waggling its oh-so-too-many limbs at me.

I don’t like spiders.

Spiders don’t like me, most evidently.

I do like writing this way, reacting to what is occurring – like my wife calling me outside to see a spider.

I’d better make sure the doors are still locked. It might try to get in, plus my wife.

At the start of this piece I began by sharing something that my children had said to me today. Here’s another:

My wife went to get a tattoo today, a real beauty – a snowdrop flower on the back of her neck. I never thought her neck could get any lovelier (why the hell would anyone thing such a thing about necks?), but now it is, and it is forever.

I told my son this, that his mummy was going to the tattoo shop to get a new tattoo, and he replied with concern: “are her other tattoos broken”?

All you need is something to say, but sometimes its nice to have something said to you too.

Sam

All the conspiracy theories are true – I’ve checked.

Posted: December 13, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I’ve been doing some reading on YouTube and I’m sorry to break it to you but whilst Covid-19 is undoubtedly a hoax designed by Bill Gates for some unconfirmed reason, it’s also real and it’s all Bigfoot’s fault.

Criticism of this argument can at the most be that Bigfoot doesn’t upload regularly to YouTube, but any other criticism should be dismissed as irritatingly-informed.

More importantly, Bigfoot did it.

I’ve also some bad news about Priests being infected by flying saucers with monkey-aids to benefit the illuminati. That’s if you ‘believe’ in bad news.

I could go on about 9/11 and what I’ve studied on Twitter about the involvement of the Bush family, but it is actually more bizarre to know what you’ve already been told by journalists and those that were there at the time.

It is extraordinary to consider that Jihadi Extremists hijacked commercial flights, having been trained by a Saudi millionaire that had in-turn be trained by the CIA to fight Soviets, and flew them into the New York skyline with an ambition for total death.

That is completely unbelievable.

Perhaps that’s why there are so many conspiracy theories surrounding it in the first place.

The real word and history and exceptionally odd, with so many random mechanisms bouncing off one another, like bubbles – some popping instantly whilst others swell and swell to a point that Donald Trump is elected President and then rather suddenly isn’t.

It’s already absurd enough for reasons that, albeit not good, are at least what make sense when we follow the breadcrumbs and listen to the people present.

My only real worry is whether Bigfoot is going to listen to my advice, or if he’ll instead go-off the deep end, arrange a UK-tour, swing by my house, eat and insult me profusely, close my front door whilst bidding my wife a ‘bon soir’ because he’s a gentleman and surprisingly French, and return to the North American tall trees with some new must-share insights into why UK bloggers like me funded the Nazis to build the pyramids. A long sentence, but a better one than this.

Also, whilst I did fund the Nazis to build the pyramids, I now donate to numerous anti-pyramid schemes and consider myself absolved and the matter closed.

Another area to address would be a matter to be seen to by the postal service.

Otherwise, it’s a pleasure to be back on the internet and hope to return with more; more.

To quote Bigfoot: “Bon soir.”

Sam

My son is my lightbulb

Posted: November 4, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Matters that Matter | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My son is my lightbulb.

It’s not his fault, but he exceeds in illumination and has effect on my life in which I feel as though I’ve had a bright idea whenever I’m in his presence.

He’s like being on a diet.

When dieting, I’m perpetually stuck with the ingenious prospect of keeping at it, head down and mouth hollow and shut, or to indulge in that enlightening option of gorging until I realise the need to diet again (which is a brilliant solution as dieting is should really be encouraged).

When I hold my son, or when I come through the front door, poke my head around the corner to see if he’s there, to be met with the inquisitive tilt of the head and resulting smile of a little fellow who loves me, I have the idea of making everything perfect, just for him.

It’s a good idea, no?

I thought so anyway, and so I surveyed the globe for things that need tidying.
It seems, I’ve quite a task ahead of me.

It occurred to me that religious people have been looking to correct the wrongs of the world since the dawn of things like dawns being given names, but to no long-term success. Considering they had God on their side (according to press releases), and bearing in mind that I’ve distinctly less divine powers than the average kids party magician, I feel any ability to introduce a white rabbit from a hat is unlikely to see things peacefully concluded in Syria.

Certainly, I could overload each opposing force with white rabbits until all combatants were incapacitated with the drowsiness brought on from gluttony of a certain delicious stew, and all armies were made unidentifiable from one another owing to the shockingly speedy new trend of all clothing being made from cosy white fur, but despite my being a carnivore, I wouldn’t want to send a billion bunnies to their war-ending ruin.
Just imagine the emails I’d get.

Rather more, if I were to engage the electives from either side in a simple magic show, I think I’d be amongst those shot, my wand being nothing more than not really a wand.

There would be those who would argue that despite all my previous promises of world-revolutionising changes to the planet in the name of my son, this is all clearly bollocks as I wouldn’t send a billion rabbits to die in the Middle East.

To which I’d say: “fair enough, I guess I’ll have to then”, and would proceed to load myself comfortably into the back of the latest air-strike capable bomber and then go about vomiting white rabbits from out of my hat at the speed of magic.

Why doesn’t God do this, I don’t know, and neither do you.

Either way, I’ve still an urge to improve the world in every manner I can.

I feel that will include fighting for changes and fighting for traditions, which are all going to be according to what I deem best for my boy anyway.

I’d produce one rabbit perhaps, from a pet shop rather than from one of my hats (which I’m actually going to wear later and don’t want smelling of a rabbit with stage fright), and give this to him so he can hold it and smell it and feel little life in his little hands.
I think that would help him in some way.

We’ll stay clear of Syria until it gets too close, at which point we’ll go away from it, because I don’t ever want him to go through what children and the children-grown are suffering over there.

I’m not divine, and can’t change too much around Earth. I’ll love my son until I’m gone, hoping only that he’ll have known how much I loved him, tried to keep him happy and safe, and to remember that when the times like those in Syria come to him, he remember the preciousness and wonder of life before he takes his next step.

He is my lightbulb. On.

Sam

How to Arm Wrestle with your Legs

Posted: September 29, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

To begin, it is crucial to develop a thorough understanding of the rules of arm wrestling, so as to be able to disregard them and apply one’s feet to your opponent.

Of the crucial rules to be appreciated, the fact that it is illegal in arm wrestling to use your feet unto your opponent is paramount. This is because they are essentially not expecting it.

Whilst you, reader, may be expecting me, writer, to get stuck straight into kicking your opponent in the face, you’re mistaken; as prior to that I am going to finish this prolonged sentence any moment now.

Kick your opponent in the face as soon as possible, the results of which will become obvious a moment after impact.

However, be sure to kick their face towards their own arm so as to achieve victory, otherwise you’re just kicking them in the face – and there’s frankly no need for that.

This is not about kicking them in the face, it’s about arm wrestling with your legs.

Having kicked them in the face, plus having aimed their face towards their own arm, be sure to capitalise on this by slamming their hand down towards the matt. Do this with your feet.

It’s quite simple when you remember your ability to jump.

To put it at its most simple, post-kick you must stand upon tip toes, leap as though looking to bounce, become mid-air horizontal over your opponent’s hand, and land with maximum gravity.

It is at this moment, upon regaining your feet (you’ll need those for later rounds) that you must assume that stance of victory whilst maintaining a visage of absolute innocence.

Indeed, you must fuse your victory roar with a hint of “Who me?”

A key factor in this tactic of using your legs to win at arm wrestling is this: when asked if you kicked you opponent in the face and then landed like an ironing board upon his hand, you say “No.”

And that’s the long and the short of it.

Feel free to bring a Legs Coach to the competition, only remember that instead of them shouting “Now’s the time to kick them in the face!” – they’ll need to translate this to “Use your legs!”

If anyone at the competition has a problem with this tactic, state plainly that they’re against evolution and whatever your ethnicity, gender, or religion you happens to be.

I hasten to add here that this isn’t exactly a tested technique of mine, but I wholeheartedly support you in utilising it (feel free to say I said it was ok – I gave you permission).

Remember to use that using methods such as these is only fair for those who want to liven up and evolve what is otherwise a traditional practice; at least it’s not cheating.

Sam

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