One purpose of the blogs is to express your opinion. Quite a few just post videos or cut and paste articles; which is not so much expressing an opinion as just agreeing with someone else's. I think there is a case to be made that, if you are not capable of articulating your opinion yourself, then you are not really qualified to have an opinion that deserves sharing.
We know when something is funny, but, if asked to explain exactly why it is funny, we would be hard pressed to put the reason into words. Not everyone finds the same things funny; a state of affairs that makes it even harder to come up with an explanation.
I don’t usually find s*xual innuendo particularly funny, but I often find instances of impropriety funny; thus making the overall funniness of a particular situation dependent on the proportional mix of these two elements. In a Carry On film, for example, s*xual innuendo is not very funny, but in a religious discussion it can be hilarious. Being someone who appreciates things that are funny, I regard this as fortunate; after all, Carry On films have had their day, whereas we are still waiting for Jesus’s second coming.
As I stand here outside the prison gates, breathing in the air of freedom and feeling grateful for my early release, I am reflecting on my crime and the justness of my punishment. I have learned my lesson; from now on, whenever I am tempted to refer to another member, I will put far more effort into making their identity clear without actually mentioning their name.
And now, let the celebrations of my return commence.
An entity has appeared in my room twice now; on the second occasion I managed to capture its image. I don't know what it is but I sense it means me no harm.
When I walked through the park the other day I was left wishing I hadn’t. It’s some years since I was last there and its deterioration was depressing. It had the appearance of being given just enough attention to stop nature reclaiming it but not enough to stop it from looking desolate and uncared for. I hear they don’t even bother to close and lock the gates at the end of the day any more; there’s no one there to close them and there’s nothing left in there for the vandals to damage.
There used to be a full time team of keepers at work in that Park. We kids were the bane of their lives; keeping them on their toes when we would climb trees and make dens in the bushes, and play football on the meant to be kept off grass. We had nicknames for some of them, and they had curse words for some of us.
Near the entrance to the park there were facilities: Six tennis courts that were mainly empty for 50 weeks of the year, yet still kept in good order. During Wimbledon fortnight people queued to get onto them. There were four assiduously tended and pampered bowling greens in front of a long, roofed pavilion. They were in constant use. Retired men, mostly old miners, spent their afternoons on them, taking their games very seriously. One old fella used to make us laugh; he would trundle his bowl down the green and then trot along behind it, following it to its destination; watching over it as if to supervise its progress. And, for the duration of the short journey, he would maintain the body position prevailing at the time the bowl left his hand: Bent forward at the waist, in a stoop, and one arm stretched out with an upturned palm of the hand.
I once heard of strange goings on in the toilets; things beyond a child’s understanding, or at least beyond a child’s understanding of the reason for them.
Long gone are the well kept flower beds with paths running through them and a fountain in the centre. They were mostly filled with wall flowers and snapdragons. I remember there were lupins and red hot pokers somewhere; I would never have suspected that I would one day even feel nostalgic about those. There was also a rose garden with heavy wooden trellises between high, brick pillars. There were four benches in the rose garden and four cherry trees, set out in a square. All that’s left now are the cherry trees, looking a bit out of place just standing there on there own.
I wish I hadn’t gone into the park the other day; I wish my memory of it were still the one I had before I did. I don’t think I’ll be going there again. I could say that park is a metaphor for my life but it wouldn’t be true. My life never really had a heyday, and I always ignored the weeds in my flower beds.
As I was saying; people often ask me, “why aren’t you rich and famous?” I just tell them it’s because not enough people want me to be rich and famous. You can’t make yourself rich and famous, other people have to do it for you.
Mister Godley’s gnomes
Mister Godley is very proud of his garden. He is especially proud of all his gnomes, he collects them and can’t understand why all the other gardens in his street are not full of gnomes.
Mister Godley has got gnomes with fishing rods, gnomes with wheel barrows and gnomes doing almost anything you can think of. He even has a gnome with its trousers down and showing its bottom to the people who walk past the garden. There used to be a gnome with its trousers down that wasn’t showing its bottom, but Mrs. Godley accidentally broke it with a hammer.
Mister Godley is very friendly and likes to talk to his neighbours. Whenever one of Mister Godley’s neighbours is walking past the garden, Mister Godley always seems to be standing at his gate. Sometimes Mister Godley’s neighbours walk home a different way and don’t have the chance to chat with Mister Godley.
Mister Godley likes to talk about lots of things, but his favourite thing to talk about is his gnomes. Mister Godley’s neighbours know all about all of his gnomes and where they all came from. There is only one neighbour who doesn’t know all about Mister Godley’s gnomes and that is the lady who lives next door to him. She is always too busy to talk to Mister Godley, even when she isn’t busy.
The lady who lives next door is a little bit like one of Mister Godley’s gnomes because sometimes when it is sunny she goes into her back garden and uncovers her bottom, but she doesn’t show it to the neighbours. Sometimes Mister Godley accidently sees her botom when he is rearranging the gnomes next to the bit of fence that has a hole in it. Mister Godley usually rearranges his gnomes when Mrs. Godley is out shopping.
Mister Godley’s other next door neighbour is called Mister Flowers. Mister Flowers also likes gnomes but he thinks one gnome is enough. His gnome is holding a spade and looks like it is digging a hole. Mister Flowers only ever talks about his gnome if somebody asks him about it, and nobody has ever asked him about it.
On the other side of the road from Mister Godley’s garden there is a garden with no gnomes in it at all. That garden belongs to Mister Sharpe. The only thing in Mister Sharpe’s garden is a big plant pot with a pretend tree in it that looks more like a brown stick with a big green ball on top than a tree. Mister Sharpe and Mister Godley don’t chat to each other very often. When they do chat they both stay in their own garden and they have to talk very loudly so that they can hear one another. When Mister Sharpe and Mister Godley are chatting the other neighbours like to come out to listen to them. Once, even a policeman came to listen to them. That was on the same day that Mister Godley went out into his garden and found that someone had put all his gnomes in his fish pond.
Did you like the story about Mister Godley and his neighbours? They all live on Connecticut Street, which is named after a place in America. All the streets in Mister Godley’s neighbourhood are named after places in America. There are lots more stories about the people who live in Mister Godley’s neighbourhood.
I have spent the last 15 minutes dashing around causing harmless mischief on several threads, yet no one will take a blind bit of notice.
Do I have to get nasty?
What relevance or significance does the crucifixion of Christ have to mankind? I’ve always been puzzled by this and even asked the question several times on this site. I’ve never heard an answer that makes sense.
I got a leaflet through my door today; it had a website for the “Life Changers Church” printed on it. On the website I found this nicely concise answer to the question”
Christianity is a RELATIONSHIP... That’s why He sent Jesus Christ to the earth, to die on a cross as a substitute for you and me; for our sins; and the sins of this world. Jesus paid the price to create a bridge between God and man. A perfect man, Jesus, took the place of imperfect man—you and me; and He exchanged His innocent life, for our guilty life.
As neat as this answer is I’m afraid that, as far as I am concerned, it answers nothing. It seems a totally arbitrary exercise on the part of God. If mankind was guilty of something, and Jesus was innocent, how on Earth does contriving his gruesome death exonerate mankind? There’s no logic to it; absolutely no rationality.
I am not responsible for anyone's “sins” but my own.
There seems to be a school of thought within Christianity which maintains that what you believe is more important than what you do in this life. As long as you believe in God, and love God above all else, any wrong you may have done, no matter how bad, can be forgiven. Well forgiveness is within the gift of the wronged, and is a matter for them. If you want to depart the World without sin, don’t commit any. But, if you are merely human and can’t manage that, just learn to live with what you’ve done wrong and try not to do it again.
Believe in and love God as much as you like, but don’t go thinking that lets you off the hook when it comes to how you behave towards your fellow man.
.. Just consider: if God loves mankind as much as it is said he does, and he is not really the praise demanding narcissist that he is treated as, he may well think that way too.
Happy Easter.
I have an e-cigarette and it’s doing my head in. I am constantly having to fill the damned thing with liquid. This is because there is an EU ruling that e-cigarettes must not have a tank capacity of more than 2ml, which is a minuscule amount.
As e-cigarette manufacturers also sell their products outside of the EU, they make them with tanks of a higher capacity than 2 measly ml. So, in order to be able to sell inside the EU, they modify them. This typically involves incorporating a volume restricting object into the tank, usually a cylindrical insert pressed onto the central column going up through it.
It occurred to me that this cylindrical, capacity reducing object should not be too difficult to remove, or at least tamper with. I do have a predisposition to tamper with things. My first idea was to drill holes in it, assuming that it would be hollow and the holes would allow the liquid to occupy the inside of the cylindrical, capacity reducing object, thus giving me increased capacity.
I tried six different drill bits on that bastard and even broke one in the process, but made no more than a tiny indentation in the surface. What that Mother Kisser (self censorship) is made of I don’t know, but I’m sure it doesn’t need to be that tough.
Next thought: angle grinder. I had an angle grinder, and I can think of no reason why I wouldn’t have brought it with me when I moved into this place, yet find it can I not. It’s almost enough to make me believe in God, and fancy he is having fun at my expense.
Am I the only person living in the EU who cannot -nay, will not- accept a paltry 2ml restriction on the capacity of my e-cigarette?
The inside of my car is a disgrace. The dashboard is thick in dust and the floor is covered in grit; I can hardy see out of the windscreen when the sun is shining directly onto it. I’ve tried to make myself clean it but my pleas keep falling on deaf ears; I simply can’t be persuaded. I know I could have the car valeted but I refuse to pay somebody to do a job that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself. I’m at my wit’s end; what can I do to make myself clean my car?
Harbal Blog (115)
