Coffee. Who was the first person to drink it and why? A contribution

Thank you Big Dave for this one (no that is not Big Dave above, that's my adopted father, drinking joe out of a jar. Go Pops!).

Back before captain Scott went outside for some time, captain Rott discovered the brown bean we know today as coffee. Known back then as brown god’s testies, they provided him sustenance during the long nights circling the south reading ring road (Obviously he was also famous for his complete lack of explorer’s guts, but was the first man to discover slough).

He stumbled across the beans when he was passing a local star bucks and ate from the little “taster trough”, and decided these were indeed amazing. From here on his travels he ate the beans (he stole his supplies from different cafes, never visiting the same one twice in one week).

It wasn’t until three years later that his son Scrott Rott, made the first cup of “joe”. He came across it when he was making instant noodles in a pan of boiling water tripped on some of his father leavings. By this point the captain Rott was horribly addicted to what he now called brown dark mistresses of glorification and gurning fun, and was in turn trying to hide the beans around the house but often left them strewn across the floor and in the path of any unwary on comers.

Scrott slipped on the beans and in a mad turn of events that followed. The beans being crushed by his foot flew into a coffee cup (which is ironic as the drink was named after the cup) and the noodles blinded the poor boy whilst the boiling water splashed into the cup making the drink we know and love today…which is strange as it wasn’t instant.

As a side note starbucks was not actually a coffee house at the time just a shop where people looked trendy and cool and looked at weird looking beans and scoffed at those less fortunate.

maths smaths

Something to help you while away your days (is that correct?):

3 Old ladies, called Doris, Helga and Xiangua go in to a shop to buy a TV together. They live in a 3 bedroom house and decide that they should buy a tv together so that they can save more money for their respective hobbies of knitting, croquet and assassination. The Tv they spy is just £30, so they each put £10 in and give the collected funds to Helga, who is the most trustworthy of the three, as she use to work for the local NatWest and knew everyone's salaries. Of course Xiangua may have been the most trustworthy, as neither Doris nor Helga knew what she did for a living so it could be argued that she was the most trustworthy for not giving away this secret. But Doris never trusted her for not being trusted with such information, so the two had not been getting on too well recently as a result.

So the 3 walk in to the shop and begin to look around even though they only want the TV. Doris spots some nice knitting needles that are £2 for 10, Helga eyes some lovely fishing rods at £15 each, and Xiangua eyes up the young boy at the counter, who's name later turns out to be Steven.

Helga, after her perusing reaches a close, walks up to the counter and speaks to the young man.

"That television, still £30?".

"Yes it is, and a fine example too. It has all the colours you could wish for, optional and variable audio and more channels than you collectively have eyes (19)".

"well that sounds wonderful. I'd like to buy it please"

And so the exchange between shopper and tv-monger is made and the three ladies leave in a column from tallest to shortest with their new purchase on point.

5 minutes and 12 seconds pass before the shop owner returns from his lunch break which was spent smoking a pipe and reading the middle 13 pages of the Daily Mail, and enquires as to the boy's time spent in charge.

"Good thankyou, I sold the tv".

"Did you reprice it as I asked?" enquired the owner. The boy said nothing but tried instead to give him a look of 'I know that you asked me but my silence my suggest to you that you never asked me, thus absolving me of my guilt'. Which failed miserably. "You didn't did you?". The question was rhetorical.

And so Steven Brangburger was given 500 pence made up of 8 50p coins and a pound coin by the shop owner due to his new role of intermediary to the tv owning ladies.

"Give this £5 to those ladies, quick! They can't have got far". Said the shop owner, unaware that two of the three ladies had run middle distances for the respective schools' sports teams.

And so Steven J. Brangburger ran out of the shop with half a thousand pennies lining his cotton pockets. As he caught sight of the three ladies, now dispersed from their initial ascending height formation, a wicked idea came in to his head. He could pretend that the TV wasn't the actually priced £25, but instead that it was £27. This way he could pocket 2 hundred pennies, and know that no-one would know.

Quickly he approached the ladies and explained the £27 mixup. Gratefully the ladies each received £1. Which at current exchange rate is about $2. It is here that we run up against the problem.

If the ladies have now spent £10 ($20) and each got £1 ($2) back, then they have each spent £9. If you add the nines together then you get £27 ($54). Adding the £2 that Steven Jarsbug Brangburger kept gives a grand total of £29 ($58). Given that this entire event happened in the USA, why has $2 gone missing?

ode to the obi

Sorry for all the regular readers, but a more serious post. Recent gradings at my martial arts club has left me thinking about the significance of the belt around our waist.

without our success, no belt but our white
tied on tight, pressed flat
worn with a smile, worn with pride
a symbol above just colour.

a sign for all, "I did this"
"This is my achievement", "this is mine"
though never more than cotton, sewn.
Our blood, sweat and tears now part.

though never a trophy forever kept
I remember where I stood
when my first belt, handed to me
and tied on with pride.

I did this.



Haiku -

Its colour like yours?
my belt fades in toil and sweat
no two are the same.

though our meetings short
before a new grade and belt
each one is special

Summerset call support line staff guide

This paper message is for all summerset staff to try and read. If you are unable to read, ask a member of management to provide a pictionary version.

This guide is for the talk-box 2.1 It comprises of 2x lead talk-boxes, and connected by 1 hemp rope (blessed in virgin tears 1.1). It is the latest in talk technology. Please note that although the phrase "technology" is a devil word, it is only used here to scare off evil imps from trying to eat this page.

This is written so that members of the support staff for talk-box inc. know how to answer questions from talk-box users. The questions must relate to talk-box products. If they refer to other issues (like "my 3 cows have eaten my badgers"), then please say the following line:

"well its all fronty like a wheelbarrow. Go and see Pete down at the crown and gate, he'll tell you all bout it."

Common questions:
1. Q.My talk-box has gone quiet.
A.Make sure the string hasn't gone slack between your talk-box and your talk-partner's.
A.If it is been raining, or you are in a river, then the string is wet. Pray to the pagan god of drying for 30 minutes, and try again.
A. Your talk-partner has died. They may have been a witch, or their sole might be trapped in the string. Push the string into the dead body, and set fire to it.

2. Q.The wife won't stop using the talk-box.
A.Put her in the lake outside of John's farm. If she floats, then she is a witch, and should be burnt along with the talk-box that she was using to communicate her devil voice, and anyone that she talked to.

3. Q.There is a voice coming through my talk-box. Is it the devil?
A.No. It is the gods carrying the voice of the other speaker through the blessed strings. However, if the voice is of a woman, then they are a witch, and should be burnt, because gods don't like women.

4. Q.How do I upgrade to get better range?
A.You need the stringbit-2000. It's about 30" long, and is just 7 half hape-crown shillings, (at current exchange rates that's 2 sheep).

5. Q.Does it use electricality?
A.No. It is approved to be used in Sommerset, so is free from electicals, plastic and reflective surfaces.

6. Q.How do I upgrade to get better quality signal?
A.You need to get a bigger talk-box tin can. The best is the Macro 5lb tomatoes tin which is sold for 6 and a half penny-shillings (or 2 and 1/3 cats).

7. Q.I keep hearing the devil whispering down my talk-box.
A.You have devils in your head. You will need to drain the skull of evil by drilling a 1/6" hole in your head using a narrow rock.

Cecil McGreggor - Man of Keys

Cecil was not born like you or I, and certainly not like you. He was the result of many hard years pained labours, the ultimate weapon, the ultimate solution. Cecil lead a normal life, but only as a cover. Like Clark Kent, but way less obvious that he was really the super-individual that everyone knew but politely ignored the obvious truth about. By day he was a key cutter. Whenever someone approached him, hey pretending to be cutting 10 keys simultaneously. Little did the onlookers realise, the weren't in his hands, they were his hands!

Cecil was born with 10 keys. One replacing each of his fingers. The use of the 10 keys were unknown to him, and the original plan of why someone would be genetically engineered to resemble a Caretaker's belt was known only to 1 man. The Great Marmaduke Sisemblade. T.G Marmaduke was a millionaire loner, who spent his fortune on creating things that only he could understand. Self drying raisins, Reusable eye-drops, edible sails. Cecil was his final creation, but Cecil was never told why he had keys for fingers, he just understood that it was all for the greater good (except for his left thumbkey, which he found out after about a month would unlock the front gates of the estate. Which was quite handy, because the gate stayed locked all the time, and it was a real nuisance to forget that particular key as it meant a 4 minute walk around to the hole in the garden wall which could be climbed over using a milk pail). But Cecil knew in his heart that the other 9 keys had far greater purposes, and he determined to determine what they were.

After spending 3 years working in the locksmiths, where he would spend every spare moment fingering keyholes, he realised that he could not just try every keyhole, but that there must be a quicker way.
"But there is" came a kitcheny voice from under a half-soled shoe "the winter man, he knows, he will tells".
"Don't you mean 'tell'".
"Yes." And with that grammatical deplurilisation, Cecil, picked up the half-soled shoe and its over verb-plurelicese of an owner and walked out the shop.
"I'm off to lunch now!" Cecil cried, forgetting that he didn't work with anyone, and wandered off down the busy shopper-packed road.

"You're very trusty" said the voice from the semi-boot.
"That's because your a very trustworthy individual."
"And howing did you known that?"
"I saw you completing a tax return form the other week. You couldn't remember whether to round your non returnable outgoings up or down, so you rounded up. That's very trustworthy".
"You saw that? Well, thankings."
"So where are we going?" asked Cecil.
"What did you meaning?" enquired Booty.
"Well where am I taking you? Where is this 'Winter man'?"
"YOU MEAN WE'VE NOT ARE IN SHOP NO MORE?!!" squealed Booty in shock.
"Well no, I need to go and see this Winter man so I can find out about my kefingers"
Slowly a small shape appeared through the darkness of the holey shoe. A golden eye appeared, like a copper coin glinting in a wishing well. "Brighting light?"
"So which way Booty?"
"Um.....through there." Said booty, directionlessly.
"What, the parked Volvo 440's boot?"
"....Yes."

So Cecil climbed in to the back of the estate, and sat there, under some old jackets, and rather overly read, worn copies of Nuts magazines.

"Now we are waited."

And so they did.....

The history of cork.

Cork is something that we are all endowed with possessing, whether it be for our recently scrapped bathroom scales, preserving our favourite wines, or embellishing garage doors. It has come to be an everyday occurrence that no-one is willing to stop for and think something along the lines of "Thank William G. Goldberg for this great invention".

And why would we? After all there was never anyone called William G. Goldberg, or not at least one who deserves cork-gratitude.

Cork was actually invented by the Romans, primarily as a mistake when they were actually trying to produce other things. Modern cork bears little resemblance to Roman cork (or Crokarium). Instead of the dark, bubbly matting, roman cork was infact made out of horse hair. Horse hair was known for its strength and attractive swatch of colourings. The tertiary reason for its ingrained attractivity was its apparent inability to be melted. Many roman warriors believed that the finest swords could be made by smelting horse hair.

This small time myth was made in to a big time legend, when roman leader at the time Chebreum Milnatxx stated that great riches would come from the man "qui preiumaauex gaudy horsey" (who span metal from horsey hair).

And so the chase was on. Many methods were tried. From simple iron smelting fires, to lava lamps, through to trying to pressurise them by putting them in an overinflated pouch of leather that was full of rocks and rolling them off roof tops. Though these ended with the rather serendipitous inventions of alloys, lava lamps and rolley-roofey, none of them could melt horse hair.

Until one day, when a horse was found frozen to death in the Alps. In an attempt to save it, it was set on fire. Sadly these heroic attempts failed. But what it did do was to turn the horse's lovely tail in to a puddle of pure guadyhorseyx. It seemed that in the haste to get rich, everyone had all made the same assumption, that all horse hair is the same. So when it came to cutting off a sample of hair, they all took it from the mane. We all know these days that main hair has no melting point, so they could never use it, but tail hair can be melted.

Once they had finished eating, the family ran the now cooled puddle down to the village elder. He looked at its weird colour and said "non quadus vivi logunberries" (it is without a use!). But as he stood up, his bare feet touched the frozen ground and he lept on to the roman cork. "Brashxlikeken! novi- fiesta!" he exclaimed, for his feet, though wet, were now gripped by this relatively warm material. It wasn't much use in the battle field, but roman cork was used up until the 1920's to line mountain paths, and bathroom scales.

Haikus aren't just for the Samurai

In an attempt to bring back haikus from the clutches of Japanese nobility and unclean intelligentsia, I've written some Haikus that can be used in more day-to-day situations:

snt u ths as txt.
Reed it on yr mobile fone
and learn to spell, dick.

Thought that this might help
to cushion the blow for you.
You're fat so you're dumped.

This ticket is for
thinking your hazard lights are
park anywhere lights

Happy birthday mate
here's a haiku `cause I'm poor
Where is the cake at?

I've heard that women
think that haikus are sexy
Can we go doink now?

An in depth report in to choking hazzards.

As part of a group study into choking on food (yes, an entire group of people and by that I mean two of us), we would like to release this important report into foods that are preferable when choking entitled: "What food is best to choke on?"

Firstly may I state that this study is based on theory. No one has choked on a foodstuff and had an enjoyable enough experience to tell me about it. Then again, I haven't asked anyone. Secondly, choking on a pound of cocaine does not count as "best to choke on". By best we mean most likely food to allow for survival, not which stuff will give you the widest girthed smile. And besides, cocaine is not a foodstuff.

So on with the study. First coming to mind is the humble olive. It has a built in safety device of having a hole all the way through. The problem is that the olive must be lined up correctly for its safety feature to work correctly. Given that in both axiseseses (how do you make that word a plurelacise?), there is only about 20 of the 90 degrees that are useful to breathing, so that’s 2/9 * 2/9 = 4/81. Not great odds.

Perhaps something that cannot cause a full obstruction. Polos? I've heard stories of St. John's ambulance (formally "Next stop, Heaven"), giving polos to heart attack victims. Apparently there is some lost panacial powers that Polos possess, they just forgot to tell anyone else. These sweets certainly would allow for better breathing, and would essentially dissolve over time.

Looking at the dissolving area, perhaps we want something that simply wouldn't survive long. Space dust? Painful, noisy and quite funny. But the embarrassment would be worth it.

Looking in to a more fruit/farm based view, is my associate Big Dave:

I would have to say something like bread, because of its ability to become mushy very quickly and as thus break apart easily, but hmm, would it stick inside because it can get sticky when its like that, very viscous….

Hmm, nothing crumbly because of flaking factor,

So in the report so far we have considered viscosity and flaking as factors that could prove troublesome, now pain might be a burgeoning incentive to work harder to dislodge, something like a chilli, but on the same hand could also damage the throat. All in all, we need a substance that is viscous enough not to dislodge the wrong way but not too viscous to become stuck and something that won’t crumble causing complications. Also pain becomes a factor in incentive but not in what makes it a good one to choke with. Now olives may prove to be magical food stuffs when it comes to choking but also similar items.

Blueberries, small and smooth, providing less friction but also may prove to be much too small and pose a risk in obvious size areas, now grapes may have a smoother skin but are about 5 times the size of a blueberry, the humble raspberry would seem good at first due to its hole and as thus the ability to draw breath, but at the same time it’s increased surface area due to it’s nodule like creation create friction, combined with the hole, which would also function as an easy escape for air during the dislodging procedure would possibly prove troublesome.

In all fruit seems to be ruled out due to an inconsistency in design and aerodynamics. We are in essence looking for something that allows passage of air from one direction whilst blocking it from the other, whilst also combining the above factors of viscosity, smoothness and lack of pain to an extent. I think some sort of hinged / valve operated, mild chilli the size of a raspberry would be the ultimate in ease of choking (is there such a thing O_o)

But failing this I believe the humble egg probably fried at a push scrambled (not a whole boiled one). The reason being that although not being a pleasure to look at afterwards (Although it doesn’t like part of your lung) it has a moveable side, a very flexible side if you will thus allowing the passage of air on the gentle in breath but will also provide adequate surface area for the powerful out breath! It also has viscosity enough to resist falling further into danger and also provides adequate lubrication for the out journey.

.

.

.

So that’s a piece of fried egg then.

Chicken and mushroom slice eating practices: A follow up report.

In my initial report I uncovered an unknown habit of orientating my chicken and mushroom slices so that they were chevron down (or "robus-originalus style"). This, I wasn't sure, my have been related to some evolutionary style learning based on bad experiences leading to the subconscious orientating of this particular midday snack.

I've now been fortunate enough to witness the disastrous events that follow a chevron away (the so called "diablos-sinistirus" style) positioned eating style. They were captured on camera phone shortly after the event, so that we can now bring these results to you as firm evidence of their occurrence, and how they seductively point towards a Darwinian theory of eating practice.

The result: As a left sided bite pulled away the chicken and pastry, the force quickly dissipated in to the higher up pastry. The higher up pastry (the pastry plateau), had little or no structural integrity in that direction, so swiftly it came away towards the eater. Thankfully my mind was on the food and not my work at the time, so my quick reactions allowed for a rapid cessation of eating and averted a culinary disaster. Next time I might not be so lucky.

Hangover - the diary

Good afternoon all. I'm feeling much better than I was about 5 hours ago. For those who haven't had a hangover for a while, I've kept a diary for this morning, so you too can understand why we should never drink to excess and expect no consequences.

9:10 coffee
9:15 nausea
9:35 ate mcCoys cheddar and onion crisps
9:40 sweating
9:47 starting eating chewing gum
9:59 headache
10:15 felt tired, put kettle on
10:20 worried about coffee tasting like mint, so got a glass of water.
10:32 tried to hold work-based conversation. Struggled.
10:56 weird cramp in legs
11:02 sweating
11:20 recollections of last night and oversleeping this morning is making me feel very guilty and remorseful.
11:48 realised my hand can't write properly.
12:03 stomach making lots of noise.
12:20 ate food. Feeling better
13:11 moved from coffee to tea
13:12 eating Jammie dodgers, feeling the sugar working.

The story of the sun and the wind

The sun and the wind were watching a man in a long coat when the wind said to the sun "Hey, I bet you that I get his jacket off". The sun, un-phased by the apparent brag replied "No you couldn't, but I bet I can!". And so the challenge was on. Firstly the wind tried. He huffed and puffed as much as he could at the man, but the man simply pulled his jacket around him as much as possible and clung on tightly to it.

"Ha!" said the sun, "now it is my turn", and the sun shone down on to the man. The man, now sweltering in heat, removed his jacket. The sun had won.

This is a dangerous children's story. I was told it in primary school and it has stuck with me. What I realise now, that I didn't at the time, was that it wasn't just suggesting that to get what you want, you need to bribe rather than blackmail, instead what it actually was saying to me and my 5 year old brain, was that to be able to get someone to let go of something, you should not try and pull it from them. To do this only demonstrates your desire to own it rather than them. Instead, by destroying the reason for them to have it, you are devaluing the item. Once they have little regard for it, they will be quicker to part with it. The sun also improved his chances by letting the wind go first, thus his change to warmth would have clashed with the man's body's ability to regulate temperature and caused him to make rasher decisions regarding his apparel.

So remember children, if you want something from someone else, first highlight a reason for them to have it, and then destroy the reason, finally giving them the chance to take it off their hands for a lower than reasonable price because of its now less worthwhile use.

I love children's stories

28 isn't cool

Reaching 27? Want to die whilst you're still cool? Then hurry up!
Just look at those who knew that popping your clogs at 27 was the right thing to do:

Kurt Cobain
Jimi Hendrix
Brian Jones (guitarist of The Rolling Stones)
Janis Joplin
Kristen Pfaff (basist for Hole)
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (Founding member of the Grateful Dead)
Peter Ham (Keyboardist/Guitarist, leader of Badfinger.)
Jim Morrison

So what are you waiting for?!

Drunken Angel Syndrome

When most people have moral questions, they often perceive the right and wrong answers as coming from an angel and a devil respectively. They sit on peoples' shoulders and whisper their advice in to the poor person's ear.

Unfortunately I suffer from a rare condition known as drunken angel syndrome (DAS). I say rare, I actually mean that I am the only one I know of. Despite trying to make my condition known, I usually end up writing abusive emails to people I don't like. The reason for this is as follows:

Say that I want to help someone up who fell down by grabbing their hand and picking them up. The devil will immediately appear on my left shoulder and whisper "Pssst....you should let go of him half way up so they fall again!". A perfectly normal thought, as having someone fall over repeatedly is undeniably funny. Normally there is then the counter argument by the holy one on my right shoulder. Something along the lines of "but that's your grandfather! You could injure him!". Instead when I wait for the response, I get "h..hey. Hey. ...Hey. You-you know what we should do? We should totally go the Threshers! Yeah! Its just down the road from here. Lets get some special brew. Could you, could you lend me a fiver. I'm going to throw up again." Out of the two options, its actually the devil's, and not the collapsed angel sounding like he's currently choking on his own vomit, that makes the better argument.

A look into shapes

A football. Spherical in its nature and appearance. Hexagonal to its smaller inhabitants that roam its seemingly flat tectonics. And to the inner beings; those who float the spherical gap between its leather walls?

Insperical? Unspherical? Perhaps an imploded sphere with all its walls turned out. A shape that encompasses everything that is all around you. An omni shape. But in the perfect darkness, it is not even that. A boundary to all movement but the space it occupies can be anywhere, though the air inside is always the same. The small pieces of dust and flaked leather that in-orbit the unsphere travel through the world that they can not see, sudden indentation a prophecy to travelling. A half a million eyes watch the ball leave a shoe and travel into white string and the contents know nothing except the noise that can travel through leather of their actions.

Autosnackorientation syndrome.

I've just realised that I always eat my Tesco's chicken and mushroom slices the same way up, so that the chevrons are pointing towards me. This way I get a great feeling of each time I reach a new "v" i bite the tip off and then devour the weakened lines.

Next time you eat a cake or savoury snack with a patterned top, see if it affects you. I will endeavour to try eating the next chicken and mushroom slice in the wrong way and see if aligning the v's with the shape of my mouth is more satisfying.

The Clapper

The clapper (the device where a clapping noise can be made to switch something on or off, not to be confused with some kind of evil bad guy...hmmm maybe more later), is a classic case of an invention to help save us time to do those all important things. I had a conversation the other day regarding some less-than-useful applications of the device. A classic would be a hands free method to turn off your computer, perhaps because your hands have been used for other things and to touch the keyboard now might be slightly...disadvantageous. Especially the next time you have to use the keyboard. So of course you could use the clapper! Great. Only when you start thinking about it, the last thing that you want to be doing with your hands after that is to bang them sharply together just inches from your person. Maybe no clapper there then.

Other bad places to use them to turn things on and off are:

1- Life support machines. Except for the joy of having a doctor wield wizard like power by saying "I'm so sorry..." then clapping loudly twice, like the Gods of old and ending the veggie’s life (human vegetable, not vegetarian. I know vegetarians are weak, but I don't think their that weak).

2- The epileptics' comedy stand-up event. A fundraiser for epileptics where a room full of epileptics are treated to a spot lit comedian. Just wire up the spot light to a clapper and wait for a great joke. Not very time saving methinks.

3- The burns ward wired to the emergency nurse alarm next to patients' beds. Just smack those hands together if you're in pain!

4- The gear change in a car. Now you don't have the distraction of reaching down to the gear stick. Of course you would have to have a way of both changing up and down gears. Perhaps a click sensor to go with it. Now every journey is a musical! Just don't change gears when going around a corner, or have over excited kids in the car (a general piece of advice for everyone who doesn't have kids anyway), or be eating that space dust stuff with your mouth open, or have "hey Mickey you're so fine" playing on the car radio.

So what an evil person the Clapper is. Attaching clappers to various devices around the world. This week the Clapper attaches his deadly device to a nuclear launch button and leaves a tape of "If you're happy and you know it" on the desk....mwaaahaahaa!

Statistics and the Lambubance service

Now I like to think that just because I'm writing on the Interweb, it doesn't make me a over-opinionated, belligerent know-it-all who thinks everyone needs to hear my views over everyone else’s.

Having said that, I will now have my 2 cents worth. Its regarding the BBC's recent news story about how obesity is "Contagious". I like to make my opinion here known. No it f%%%%ng isn't.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6914397.stm

Their argument is as follows: Statistics show that "Having a friend, sibling or spouse who is overweight raises a person's risk of being obese too". " the risk was increased by 57% if a friend was obese, by 40% if a sibling was and 37% if a spouse was." They are actually suggesting that because you spend a lot of time near fat people, you begin to mimic their lifestyle so you end up fat yourself. So....you look at a fatty, and think "hmmm.....they are pretty cool. I'm going to try and be like them by stopping exercise and eating fatty foods."

Brilliant. Thank you US researchers. You've clearly been brought up on the school of statistics prove whatever you set out to prove. Lets just ignore the other principles like common sense.

They must be the same people who fear travelling in ambulances because you are statistically more likely to die in one.

Perhaps, just perhaps its because fat people like to be around fat people because they feel more comfortable. Or because they can't date any thin, athletic people because the thin people might start vomiting when they look at them.

No, clearly the only answer is that obesity is a deadly disease, thus absolving all fat people from any responsibility. "I'm only fat because my friends are." So get some new friends tubby. Just not me.

Speaking of ambulances (I think I was a little time ago), I've come up with a new, cheaper option to the emergency services. Just dial 998 and you get the b rate emergency services. They may not have all the training that you might need to be a paramedic, or an IQ over 40, but what they lack in basic safety they make up for with determination, big hearts and really big hacksaws.

Just imagine, you in a big car accident but you can't get through to the 999 services because their too busy helping soggy northerners get their trackies off of their washing line made up of stolen car parts. Instead just dial 998. In a flash comes the lopice and lambubance, with fully staffed "special" crew. They'll have you out of that burning car in a jiffy, just as soon as Steve stops crying because he got too near the fire.

A sad day for average IQers

I like to think of myself as a person with good common sense, plus a firm understanding of mathematics and applied logic. This has all been proved false this week. By a tap.

It’s the tap in one of the toilets in my office complex. So that you may share in my frustration and mental misery, I will try to outline the issue:

The sink has one tap. It has one spout. At the top of the spout is a handle that sticks out 3 inches perpendicular to the vertical. When there is no running water, the handle is parallel to the back wall on the right. Diagram of top down and front view is below.

Now the problem is this. How do you get hot water from it?

A simple question. But the clues just don’t add up. The suggestion given by the weird red and blue crescent moon is that the hot water is around to the left. But alas no. Instead using the handle and turning in a clockwise motion only affects the power at which the cold water comes out.

Maybe there is a second control to this device. Again you’d be wrong! The handle only moves laterally, there are no other controls.

So here I arrived at my logical conclusion. There was no hot water, and the tap graphic was just some kind of logo. How wrong I was….

This state of happy ignorance was shattered when I wondered in to the toilet today and found the handle of the tap ON THE LEFT. And there was no water coming out. NONE!!! Every time I had tried to move the handle to the left in the past, the water just sprayed out harder and harder until I had to stop because it was soaking my trousers. Not a great look for a person coming out of a toilet. Now every time I move the tap around from its new position, I get soaked by hot water.

So my loyal readers, I have to admit my stupidity here. If you can think of a solution then please write in. Because I’m starting to feel like I never passed any of my exams and they were all just given to me because everyone else felt a bit sorry for me.

New Games

Back when I had a lot of free time, I used to write online games. In an attempt to inspire myself to write a new one, I've written a little program that comes up with a randomly generated game title.
Here are a few of the highlights:

• cuckoo bucket Tycoon
• spatula trebuche world
• surgeon bucket online
• orange space mmorpg
• plimsol stalker killer
• cooker star rpg
• stalker space
• pimp war
• pigs stalker
  

Bernard’s watch

An interesting kid's programme that had little Bernard have an old watch with a little button on the top that allowed him to start and stop time as he pleased. What a brilliant idea. I certainly thought that I could have had a lot of fun with something like that. Bernard unfortunately for the viewer, was one of the most well-behaved, morally upstanding individuals that the world has ever known.

A watch that stopped time, and allowed you to move through it all as if everyone in the world was doing their utmost to look like a statue would seem like a goldmine for miss-behaviour. Stealing sweets in shops, taking a wander through military structures, putting buckets of water over peoples' heads. Not to mention that you could carry out the world's biggest bank job over the course of about a day, and it would look like everything just disappears.

But it is around here that I think the problems start. Poor old Bernard, using his watch for maybe 6 hours a day (6 hours for him at least), would have lived 6 hours longer than anyone else did that day. That's 25%. So when his friends of the same birth year are all celebrating their 12th birthday, poor old Bernard will look suspiciously like he's 15. And when he should be 50, he'll be looking more like 62. Poor kid.

But with this particular logical can-of-worms comes a much larger and immediate danger for Bernard other than just his rapid aging. I don't like to use detailed logic to belittle what is essentially a program to make kids imagine possibilities and then have them undermined by the authors strict opinions on morals. In this case though I feel that they have brought this upon themselves.

In one episode, Bernard gets asked a tricky maths question. Bernard clicks his trusty watch and wanders over to a fortunately placed calculator. But oh-no! He can't use it when he's frozen time because it takes time for electrons to move! ELECTRONS?! I think they maybe have selectively ignored a rather large chunk of science. Is the author suggesting that everything stops down to a sub-atomic level? Surely he realises that this would mean that molecules would stop moving and therefore instantly reach absolute zero? Poor old Bernard takes one click of his watch and instantly dies of the environment freezing around him.

But from this gargantuan breach of the first law of thermodynamics, or perhaps a creation of a new type of "potential energy" that the watch stores, making it the single greatest battery in existence, capable of storing the entire universe's energy and transferring it out instantaneously without transmitting it through anything else, there comes another problem.

If all molecules stop moving, then pressure would instantly drop to zero atmospheres of pressure. There would be no energy in particles, so all bonds break, all solids become gasses instantly and who knows how this would affect gravity?

So in summary, Bernard gets told about this watch, gets very excited about all the things he can nick, or just the skirts that he can look up and clicks the watch. All surroundings suddenly stop moving. "Wow" Bernard thinks "its work..." at this point he stops as his entire body has all of its heat sucked out through whatever he is in contact with. This is luckily short lived, as he is then subjected to complete loss of pressure and his entire body is blown apart into a gaseous substance. We can only assume that the watch somehow survives by its design, and so the entire universe stops and all energy is held in a tiny pocket watch, surrounded by a shroud of gas in a completely dark universe.

Not so funny now is it Bernard?

Geography degree past paper

Geography Exam

SUMMER 2004

4 hours

REQUIRED – 256 pencils, ruler, answer sheet, chocolate

OPTIONAL - Calculators, text books, mobile phones and parents may all be used.

SECTION A

Answer any questions you feel like. Questions left blank will be given the benefit of the doubt and given full marks.

QUESTION 1

What is wrong with this image?

a) It has Cornwall drawn on it, which is not allowed by British law, as it scares the Cornish inhabitants, and many of them will try to climb into the map.

b) There is no water between Wales and Ireland.

c) The colours are incorrect.

d) This area has been selected for the establishment of a maximum security prison for 1000 inmates. This will require an approximate area of one square kilometre (100 hectares) and the employment of 250 staff and service personnel living in nearby settlements. Three locations have been identified as possible sites for development. Refer to these as Site 1 [GR270513], Site 2 [GR305485] and Site 3 [GR335516].

e) Nothing, I think that the notion of right and wrong is never objective and given such proves that the assumptions that you have on this subject are purely subjective. We must remember that all perceptions are merely actors on a stage and that only the stage itself is persistent. The basis of all reasoning is the mind’s awareness of itself.

QUESTION 2

What colour is missing from the official ASIRL (UK) guide primary mark II alpha pencil set shown below (Assuming that European Geographical statute c1995 par. 5 was still in effect)?

(pencils not actual scale)

QUESTION 3

The below image is not an actual photo. Given that you know the location, what do you think has been added? Those who have not been to London should be given the following extra information (if you have been to London please ignore, as the answer is contained within).

-There is no volcanic activity around London.

Those who are aware of London may begin reading again now.

a) London has no busses

b) The time is not 3:40pm

c) It wasn’t cloudy when the photo was taken.

d) Big Ben is on a 1 in 3 incline, and is therefore impossible for it to exist in real life

e) Onion peel weathering

f) There is no volcanic activity around London (Its this one).

Why Sean Bean is awesome

Sean Bean (to be pronounced seen been, or shawn bawn because you're not allowed both), dies in pretty much everything he has ever been in. There is one exception to this.

I can remember a little about "Sharpe" as a kid. Apart from the fact that he looked great in a brit-mullet, he was the only bloke with any common sense in the entire British army.

I only remember one episode well, but I think it can be applied to EVERY other episode. Sharpe and his band of "cross-section" brits come to a new area, apparently without any real orders or purpose. Deciding that the best course of action is to P**s off whoever is the highest rank in the area, Sharpe promptly sleeps with the General's wife (presumably by wooing her with his mullet).

The next day Sharpe forms line with the General's oh-so-green troops, including at least one 15 year old ready to demonstrate the futility of war by looking like he might make it, idolising Sharpe, and then getting shot in slow motion.

The General is, of course VERY English. Blue blooded, obnoxious, stiff upper lipped southerner with a complete disregard for everything and everyone. He is in charge of a bunch of soldiers that "Daddy" gave him to play with. During his 20 minute orientation to modern battle tactics that came free with his royal sugar puffs, he was taught to:

i) Form lines against cavalry.
ii) Show complete impatience.
iii) March his troops into narrow gorges, dense forest and dead ends.
iv) Completely ignore Sharpe and all other subordinates. Especially if they offering sound military tactics.

And so Sharp, watching the young, innocent infantry getting massacred, shouts "bluhdee ell luds, coom on!" (my impression of his northern accent), and runs in to save the day with as much bravado, invulnerability and coolness as possible. Though obviously not before the kid dies, proving that war is not nice.

As I have not added any superheroes on this page for awhile, I thought I’d blitz it and add as many poorly thought through characters as possible. Thanks to pops for some of these suggestions:

Captain Interesting - with the power of keeping people amused with small talk for several minutes.

Wonder girl - The ability to wonder about things.

Spider solitaire man - Can complete any game of spider solitaire in just 5 or less.

A-road boy - Can harness the power of A roads to drive to locations without the use of a motorway

Slough woman - Can harness the secret necromancing powers of the city of Slough

Emo-kid - Can drag everyone around him down in to a pit of apathy and mild depression by constantly reminding everyone that we're all worthless ants.

The chav hive - A powerful hive mind that can harness chavs and place them into a zombie like state to do its bidding (which normally involves hanging outside of alldays and bothering people).

Boy Racer boy - has the power to speed but only if being followed by a police Car through reading being filmed for the next series of Police Camera action

Side kick man – who every week has a new but usless sidekick

Powerpoint Man – who puts people to sleep with excessively long and pointless power point presentations, (normally found in Microsoft)

Arty bits

After playing around for a rather long time in my "free time", I've come up with a little app that takes images and screws around with them. One thing it can do is turn them in to pop art. Below is a few of the results:

Top Film Ruiners

I one day hope to publish these ideas in a little book that you can buy people you don't like. After reading it, they won't be able to enjoy another film again.

It was inspired by the large number of films that seem to have an otherwise lacklustre premise and boring first 3/4 of a file rescued by a completely unpredictable "Deus Ex Machina" solution that neatly resolves the whole thing and makes everyone go "ahhhhhhhhh...". I really don't like them, and so I propose to write a book that will include all of them, thus ruining them for all who read this.

A quick caveat, not all the films listed here are awful, far from it in fact. But given that I am a malicious bastard, I feel that given that you are going to give this book to someone you don’t like; ruining a good film for them is perfectly justified.

A little extra comment for the genius who designed the Planet of the Apes box cover.....don't you think that it is worth HIDING the Statue of Liberty until the end of the film, and not plastering it over the front cover??? Muppet.

Included in the book is the following "Quiz" section:

What films?

• He is his dad.
• He was a ghost the whole time.
• Its made out of humans
• He is Tyler Durton
• They all did it
• Its not Dean Keaton, its Verbal Kint.
• They are on Earth the whole time

If you can think of any more, please add them to the Comments section below.

A better crisp?

All of the worlds problems, all of its failings and flaws, can be summed up in one single issue. My bugbear. The "full" packet of Doritos.

I can't figure out whether when I was young, it was just that my hands were smaller, or the packets were smaller, or there was just more crisps in the packet, but I remember the crisps used to touch the top of the packet when you opened it. You used to be able to buy a packet of crisps and receive for your 2 and thrupenny-half tuppence a bag of crisps.

I think a better name these days is "a bag with crisps". Try it the next time you are in a bar. "I'll have a bag with crisps please". Obviously name which type of crisps you want as part of that statement. I have left my quote unspecific because with all of the many thousands of you that read this page, I might somehow tip the crisp market as a result of all you guys going, "Hey yeah, I haven't had XXXX in ages. Mmmmmm......XXXX". Now as a result of that particular statement, no doubt some of you are now hankering for a pint of 4 X. And there maybe a few of you now thinking about porn (a statistically reliable statement at the best of times).

So you get your bag of crisps and open it. This is where the marketing companies just stop caring. You have parted with you hard earned shillings and now they couldn't care less what you thought of them. Perhaps we should have all crisp packets made out of transparent plastic, and hung up on a crisp appreciation board to allow for comparison. In this situation you might realise. "Hey! There's sod all crisps in that!" But we don't. We look at the gargantuan bags with bright colours and made up flavours ("Tangy cheese"? I always know Doritos by "Orange" and "Blue" flavour), and select them based on how we remember one crisp tasting.

I think that the main reason behind the oversizing of bags, apart from to make them look like they could satisfy us more (which they never, ever do), is to protect the crisps. Yeah right. There is no way of protecting crisps, short of making the packets rigid, or making the crisps out of polystyrene (ie Monster Munch). There is always the crisp post-apocalypse at the bottom of every packet. A wasteland where the remaining, crippled crisp-ettes shelter in the corners.

So we come to my new invention. Its the reinforced crisp packet. I take my inspiration from staring up at a training hall recently. Its roof structure was a lattice of struts. Now I didn't immediately think, "Hey what a great storage area for crisps", but instead I saw the crisps this morning and think "That needs some roofing struts".

Imagine it. Bags of crisps, full, to the brim, with every one of them perfect. It may cost a little more per bag, but who wouldn't want to part with an extra Half crown hapen-shilling for this satisfaction?

Things about May that you never knew, and weren't about to ask:

1. May comes from the French Ma'ae, which means to warm with sunlight

2. May was originally the 3rd month in the western calendar, but people found that Christmas kept getting shifted by about 60 days a year and no one liked to have Christmas in warm weather. Those that did decided to build a massive ark and drove it to Australia.

3. May is made famous by the May pole. This originally was made out of a massive dead tree that stood next to the tower of London. Manned around the clock by children, they danced using 700ft long strips of cloth, weaving until they reached the May Pole. This signified the first day of May. From here, they would take off the knitted pole cover and begin again on their 365 day dance. The fully formed silk cocoons were used to bury the children in who had died during its creation.

4. May is the first month of the year in which wearing sandals does not make you look gay.

5. It is illegal for British weathermen to use the word "gusty" or "dingy" in weather reports that relate to May. This was originally a law created in war-time to help boost the morale by pretending it had better weather than Nazzis.

6. Yam is the only anagram of may. Though Jam can rhyme with it.

7. The May Yam Jam experience was an experimental Jazz/folk group in the 1960s.

8. Robert de Niro, Shane Ritchie and the King of Norway all have their birthdays in May.

9. The official colour for May is Moonslip Pink.

10.May was the first month that the English national anthem was released to the public in 1812. Before this, people were only allowed to hum the anthem or pay a fine.

Nursery rhymes are an insult to intelligence

#Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water....

up a hill....

UP A HILL?!

Surely the most amateur of writers would think a little more than this eejit did. But no, the poet decided that it was not important why they went up a hill, but merely that they were on the top of a hill at some point for a millinery/pail tumbling incident to occur.

Jack and Jill went up a hill before they realised what a complete pair of muppets they had been to expect that the best place for water to settle is in a LOW area of land, such as a valley or crevasse. Realising their mistake, Jill in a fit of rage struck Jack around the head with her pail, sending him tumbling to the ground.

"How could you do this to us you idiot! This is the last time you mess me around. DIE!". Jill swung the pail down towards a confused Jack's head. Jack threw himself to his left, the metal bucket narrowly missing his temple. His foot raised swiftly and landed into Jill's stomach. Buckling in a scream, Jill fell backwards, her hands already reaching down to her ankle holster as she fell. She drew and let loose 4 rounds, hitting a shrieking Jack twice in the leg. Jack drew his hunting knife a threw it towards Jill. His throw was true, and the blade shot deep into her chest. Her torso hit the ground with a heavy thump, before rolling slowly down the hill.

"You should have listened. You should have trusted me. Oh God, what have I don’t. WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!" Jack dragged himself to the used revolver, now soaked in his former lover's blood. Two rounds, good. He would only need one. One to take this pain away for ever. Gun pointed towards his ear he squeezed the trigger.

As Jill's body reached the bottom of the hill, a trail of her blood lining her path down, Jack came tumbling after.

The moral of the story is, if you're going to lie, don't lie about the rules of physics, because sooner or later, that person will find out. And they won't be happy about it.

Alternatives for the 5th "Planeteer"

As we all know, the fifth captain planet kid (Little "Heart" kid), was rubbish. Plainly, inarguably awful. Now yes he was weedy, foreign and young, but shouldn't that mean that he gets the most powerful ring? But no, he gets heart.

For those who have totally lost what the hell I'm talking about:

Congratulations!

You clearly didn't spend your Saturday mornings in front of the telly shouting "Go Planet!" and learning that all corporations are evil and are trying to pollute the world because its a bit of a laugh (I can not remember one episode in which a company polluted because the overall net profit could increased to the point where they could invest in better pollution controls in the longer term and bring increased standard of living to the local population and more jobs. Perhaps this is because it was aimed at kids who had just eaten sugar coated glucose breakfast products and couldn't concentrate on anything that wasn't exploding).

But for the benefit of these few non-TV'ers, a brief synopsis: Captain planet was the (American) superhero who could be called upon to beat up polluters of the world, thus solving the problem. Think of superman who had just had a big, messy fight in a primary colour paint factory. He had 5 disciples that each had an element of the earth to use as a weapon.

Unfortunately there are only 4 elements, and we FINALLY get to the point of this particular ramble:

Surely they could have picked a better fifth element than "heart".

I think what they were going for was that whole "fifth element" notion of human spirit being the fifth element in the world. But they really got a pretty poor power from it. From what I can tell, the writers sat around in the Ideas office in complete silence for about an hour until one of the staff said "Sod it, lets just rip off Mougli from the Jungle Book, no-one will notice; they'll all be looking at the explosions". Everyone else applauded and the man got a $20,000 bonus. And so the kid (whose name escapes me), had a slight "talking with animals" ability and that was about it. The other planeteers must have hated him. Whilst they were blowing stuff up or drowning it or making it collapse in an earthquake (by the "Earth" kid. Hmmm....racism anyone?), the stupid heart kid had to follow them around because they couldn't call captain planet without him. What a jerk. Why didn't he just give his ring to one of the others and go home to the jungle?

Perhaps a better power is needed, one that would complement the other ones. How about the power of finance? A big blinging $ ring that can summon millions of dollars to fall on people. Given that they were fighting evil capitalists, I reckon this would have been a pretty effective weapon. Plus given that the rest of them did sweet FA when they weren't saving the world, he could have paid for somewhere to stay and perhaps even a change of clothes (or maybe some paint-remover for Mr. Planet).

Why captain planet anyway? There was previously a Sgt. planet, but the army of the universe promoted him after the battle of Alpha Centari about 20 million years ago for bravery in the face of apocalyptic meteorites.

Maybe a ring of apathy? One shot and ZAP! You suddenly get no real satisfaction from killing sea lions and just go home.

My favourite is the ring of inevitability. One shot of this and any bad guy realises that they are the "bad guy" in a children's program, and have no hope of victory. Most likely they will have their stuff destroyed (an overlooked plot hole in many episodes where the fire kid helps blow up the evil oil refinery....hmmmm). So the bad guys just apologise and just go home.

Heart in deed...he must have turned up late in the ring giving out ceremony and been pretty damned pi**ed.

Scumm and Riffraph

DI Scumm and DC Riff-Raph. Two hard-nosed, crime fighting men of the law. Whose complete disregard for the way things are supposed to be done, not to mention disregard for presentability and fashion-sense, has had them kicked out of the force.

Now they must fight crime in their own time, between working for Co-Op and night security companies, they team up so they can once again hand out unreasonable force for the sake of keeping the streets safe.

This week, former DI Scumm finishes work as a security guard in his Local Co-Op, only to discover that one of his staff has been stealing cigarettes from the shop and smoking them round the back on their lunch break. Grabbing their crime fighting Ford Capri battlemobil, Scumm races towards the port authorities, where his former work partner, Riff-Raph is in the middle of tucking in to a Bacon and Egg Baguette and a styrofome cup of coffee. Kicking down the door to the office, Scumm bellows his war cry of a catchphrase:

"Come on you layabout scruff maggot, we've got crimes to beat on!". 10 minutes of driving montage later (including jumping the toll bridge queue by ramming several cyclists off the road), they're back at the Co-Op, baseball bats and half finished cans of special brew in hand, Riffraph and Scumm are ready to demonstrate why crime doesn't pay.

Alcohol - The hungoverd's guide

Alcohol. Love or hate, drink or abstain, we are all surrounded by it. I say this because last night, I got hammered. Not one pint more than I should have, but full on hammered.

I was on an empty stomach, in a late closing, cheaply priced pub and decided that the best course of action would be to drink as much as humanly possible.

And now as I sit here, wallowing in the repercussions, I'm force to admit one thing. I've been here before. A lot.

This is one of those moments when I have been sipping coyly at a cup of coffee and thinking "why?". We don't seem to directly benefit from drinking. Nothing incredible happens. In my experience though, its often the fallout of drunken acts that make life so interesting. Its those times you sit down with someone you got drunk with and take turns reminding each other of embarrassing moments and saying things like "oh god, I can't believe I did that". And here's the weird thing. We like to do this. Its actually enjoyable. And I can't figure out why. In any other situation that we fell in to a bush, made a hash of chatting someone up, threw up in someone's garden or stole government property we would try to cover it up. We would never speak of it again and pretend that it never happened. But not when we have been drinking. These moments become the centrepiece of anecdotes, where everyone else laughs along. If I had said to you "Yesterday I fell into someone’s hedgerow", it might make you say something like "Oh dear, were you okay?". But if I change the story to: "Yesterday, whilst so drunk that I couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of me, I tripped on my own feet and went head first into a bush and didn't even have time to raise my hands to break my fall", this suddenly becomes very amusing (and yes that's what happened).

Alcohol gives us a license to treat things differently. Not just what we do, but how we judge others who have had drunken revelries. Its an excuse, a reason behind stupidity. And it's socially acceptable. My parents if they ever read this (lets hope that they never do), would probably just tut and laugh.

We actually use alcohol. Not to get us drunk, but to allow us to do these things. How many of you have done something stupid when drunk and just thought "well I was drunk"? Its a free pass to the land of inhibitions. People often say that alcohol lowers your inhibitions, but I don't believe that its a chemical thing. You are actually expected to behave like a tit when drinking, so of course this is what you do.

Now that I have finished writing this, I feel much better. I have justified stupidity, and so I'm probably going to go out tonight and do it again. Because life without misfortune is just plain boring.

The Over-analysis of Jelly Babies

When people talk about Jelly Babies, they often discuss how terribly important and informative the way you eat them is.

Perhaps by eating the head first, you are being kind, and giving them a swift death. A limb-chomper may instead be considered sadistic, torturing the anthropomorphasised sweets. I find this all rather odd. To be able to tell what kind of person you are through your actions on the sweets would mean that there has to be some sort of relationship between the sweet and you to begin with.

Perhaps there was a falling out, an undercurrent of hate and mistrust. Perhaps you were overcharged in the shop, or perhaps you were disappointed that the bag was only half full when you opened it. It’s rather hard to believe that your relationship with the sweets goes much beyond this. It’s not a "you murdered my entire family, and now I will have my revenge!" type affair. Though the spin off TV series would be awesome.

D.C RiffRaff, a disgruntled cop, has an outstanding vendetta against the one criminal who he never caught; the one that never felt his cold justice. "Bigheart" Blackcurrant Jelly baby. Now its his last week in the force before his well deserved retirement, and he's got just one case left assigned to him. Someone murdered a young family on the West side, the MO...jelly overdose.

But perhaps I think that we're missing the point. Even if we anthropomorphise these sweeties to the point where they stand on par with our other relationships, we forget to take in to account what they would want. They have been put on the earth for just one reason. It is their goal, no their destiny to be eaten. To be enjoyed and to cause mild feeling of regret and nausea after eating an entire packet. To hate them, to really get at them, one only has to not eat them. Simply take them out of the packet, place on the edge of the table next to your bin and announce "You don't deserve to be eaten" and prod it off the end of the table to tumble into the bin. Make sure that as you do all this, the packet of Jelly Babies is open, so all the other ones can watch. Perhaps you could eat a bag of crisps in front of them too.

So next time some 2:2 psychology student asks you how you eat them, so that they can show off what they learnt in the last 5 months of full time education, just say: "I don't. I buy entire bags of them, then make sure they all watch whilst I throw them one after another into the nearest bin, laughing 'you're not good enough for my mouth, you sugary whores!' ... What's your analysis of that one Sigmund?"