Wasting away

CJ appears to have purchased some magic scales.

In addition to telling you your body fat, body mass, H2O levels and horoscope for the next year it also seems to have the added benefit of informing you that you weigh as much as you want to.

On Saturday when she purchased them I weighed 12 stone 6, on the Sunday morning after a heavy night and a Chinese I weighed 12 stone 2, and on Monday I weighed 11 stone 12. I daren't weigh myself again as there may be a chance that I'll be less than I was at birth.

Almost half a stone lost in 3 days. Please send me money and I'll let you into the secrets of the Watski - 'Get pissed and have a take away diet'. There will be a video out soon.

I am now going to take this opportunity to bid farewell to you all as I am on a fast track to wasting away to nothing.

Dr DooWatski

"We'll just have one last look out in the garden" CJ said to the woman whose house we had almost finished viewing.

As we walked outside the back door I noticed a big black cat sat on the lawn

"Is this your cat?" I shouted.

"Oh yes, that's my lovely Sooty" she said as she peered round the kitchen door.

I resisted the temptation of anything more vulgar and instead just asked her why it was called Sooty.

She smiled as she ducked back into the kitchen, where no doubt she was explaining to me why a black cat was called Sooty courtesy of a few hand signals.

As we approached, lovely Sooty got a bit scared and shot off over the garden fence. It was immediately obvious why; in his wake lovely Sooty had left a bird, a very young bird, which on first inspection looked as if it had had it.

But as it lay on it's back I noticed it's claws twitching, then noticed it breathing sharply, then noticed it blinking. It was still alive.

I then became aware of the biggest commotion going off above me - I looked up and noticed what must have been its Mother squawking for all it was worth from the branch of a tree.

I picked the little bird up, checked it over and, but for a little wound on it's stomach where the cat must have caught it, it looked fine, if a little shocked.

I then wondered how I could get it back up to it's Mother, this thought didn't take too long - it was nigh on impossible, so I looked for a safe place to put it so it could get itself together.

I noticed that the house owner had a bird table at the end of the garden and walked over and placed it on that - it stumbled around on it for a few minutes but looked like it was going to fall off and I didn't want it to become a sitting duck in the cats lair, so picked it back up again.

"Does it want some water?" The house owner then said as she emerged from the house with a little dish of water and a syringe.

Before I could ask the obvious questions about the syringe and why a bird would want a drink of water, the bird took the initiative and decided that a toss up between death by cat or death by human was best pre-empted by a suicide attempt, and as the only viable, close option seemed to be drowning it proceeded to jump straight out of my hand into the dish of water.

Plucking it from the water I asked the woman if she'd got any ladders - I'd spotted a garage, the roof of which was at least closer to it's Mother than the ground was - I thought if I could get it somewhere safe then it's Mother may come down, calm it down and do something Motherly with it.

I climbed the ladders, checked that the roof was fairly flat and put the bird on it - I was glad to see that it was well enough to hop straight over in the direction of the overhanging branches - I was less glad to see the silhouette of lovely Sooty hiding behind the leaves that I'd just freed the bird to hop towards.

Lovely Sooty let out a hiss as the bird crashed through the branches almost into its jaws - the bird jumped back and just stood motionless.

I was dumbstruck, I had rescued the bird, twice, found somewhere safe for it to go then unwittingly served bird sandwich back to the very cat I'd saved it from - I was about to watch the bird get carved up, and could do nothing about it this time.

"This may seem an odd question - but have you got a pole or something that I could prod your cat with?" I asked the house owner the oddest question ever asked by someone viewing a house.

The woman complied and returned with a garden cane - luckily lovely Sooty was still shocked by my generosity and hadn't attacked it's gifthorse, which it no doubt regretted immediately as I prodded it with a cane and knocked it flying off the garage roof down through the branches the otherside. I then heard it run off when it hit the floor.

The bird turned it's head round and looked round - it was probably thinking the same as CJ and the house owner back on the ground.

"Well, I'm still undecided whether that's the luckiest or unluckiest bird alive" I said as I stepped down the ladders, before being ushered far, far away by CJ.

Only a matter of time

I'm beginning to look at CJ in a slightly different way. Suspiciously, out of the corner of my eye. Looking for the tell tale signs: the black clouds, the broom stick, the cat maybe.

CJ was in New York on 9/11 - she was up one of the towers on the last midnight they ever saw and CJ was also on a beach in Thailand a month before the tsunami.

CJ and I were also in Helmsley on the day it was almost washed away. On Sunday.

We'd been camping for the weekend in Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire, and decided on Sunday afternoon to pack up there and head over to the coast. As we travelled along the A170 towards Scarborough we were constantly being buzzed by loads of smelly bikers. We got to a small village called Helmsley, the gateway to which looked quite nice - I suggested that it might be nice to stop, see what the sites were like with a view to hanging about for a night.

Until we noticed that the place was where the bikers had been headed - it was full of about a million people who shouldn't be wearing leathers, wearing leathers. This gave us the impetus we needed to stay in the car and drive on through.

Luckily for us it seems.

Decisions, decisions..

I just can't decide. What shall it be?

I could tell you about my eventful trip into town, OR I could write in detail about an entertaining train journey I had the other day. Maybe I could tell you about my next door neighbour or something I've discovered about some people from Scotland. I could even regale you with my owl tale.

Oooh, I really can't decide - what should I do?

Setting the record straight

The local paper have issued a correction this week to an error they made last week - I'm happy to help them set the record straight:

"We are happy to make it clear that a man named in a court case last week when he admitted assault, posession of an offensive weapon and theft, is only suspected of attacking homosexuals and has not admitted it, as may have been implied by a headline in last weeks paper"

Thank God it was only homosexuals he was attacking instead of arbitrary people - it makes it so much better.

Modern living has yet to make it this far up North it seems.

Things I have learnt this week

I have learnt that Israeli researchers say they have succeeded in growing a date palm from a 2,000-year-old seed.

The seed was found buried during an excavation of an ancient mountain fortress - so they unburied it, sat around wondering what to do with it for a while before burying it again.

There is no truth in the rumour that upon discovering the seed the lead excavator said:

"seed? bloody seed?, we've spent millions searching for hidden treasure and all you can bring me is a poxy seed" before hurling it in temper into the deepest hole he could find, which was by coincidence the one that he was stood next to.

*******

I have learnt this week courtesy of the BBC's Springwatch programme that cuckoo spit isn't what I thought it was, i.e, the spit of cuckoos. This revelation has left me a little embarrassed. Why did I not realise this? It would have taken a moments thought to realise that birds don't go around trying to goz on people's heads - they aim with a much more toxic ablution than mere spittle. What other stories have my parents forgot to tell me the truth about? Oh, not the tooth fairy - please no.

I have gone through my life thinking - not everyday granted, that would be worrying - that the spit (not spit) found on the grass is that of phlegming motherhood avoiders. But no, cuckoos don't spit apparently - the ex spit is defined: as a frothy secretion found upon plants, exuded by the larvae of certain insects, for concealment.

Insects spit? Oh no.

*******

I have learnt that the prison service is set to end a 50-year-old tradition of distributing free newspapers to prisoners.

Sid Golder, 82, a former prisoner last released in 1971 after serving 15 years for bank robbery, said the few newspapers that found their way into prisons before the service was formally introduced in the 1950s were heavily censored. "Staff would black out any reference to sex in case our passions got aroused," he said.

"References to crime or penal issues, were also cut" he went on to say.

"We went for years thinking that The Sun was a blank A4 page" he should have added. But didn't.

*******

I have learnt that more than 100 cyclists have ridden around London naked in a mass protest against dependency on the oil industry

Riders were protesting at the "destructive effects of car culture" and celebrating "the power and individuality of their bodies".

It was unfortunate that no-one was around to observe this, as confronted with the sight of over 100 hippies riding bikes with their kit off, most of the population of London decided to hop in their cars and drive as far away as possible.

A landmark

Watski's World is 1 year old today.

In honour of this landmark and to keep up with the famous Watski tradition, I will be writing bugger all worth reading.

I have something to say..

"Oh is it me?"

"Yes"

"It's my turn?"

"That's right"

"Right, here goes. Ermm, my, ermmm..."

"It's ok, you're among friends here. Take your time."

"Ok, thanks. Ermmm, my name is Watski and I'm an err Aero bubbles balls addict"

*cheers from around the room*

"Well done, well done - you're among friends here"

"Sometimes I have 2 packs a day - I love them"

Things I shoulda said....

"Hello" I said as I answered the phone. I was annoyed that it was ringing in the first place, which makes me wonder why I should have a phone at all, but I was annoyed as I was just being handed over my bag of chips at the local chipshop and as a result, dropped a few.

"Hello, is that Jen?" said the male voice on the other end. As it plainly wasn't Jen - I hope it was plain - I just hung up. If he couldn't be arsed to press the right keys into his phone then I couldn't be arsed to tell him that I wasn't the woman he was after.

The phone rang again 2 minutes later.

"Hello" I said

"Hello is that Jen?" said the prey.

"No it's not still Jen" I replied.

"Is Jen from Brighton there then, this is Simon from Wiltshire?" he butted in.

"No, there is no Jen here, this is my phone, my name is Watski, not Jen. I don't have a Jen here and am not in, and don't have any plans to be in Brighton" I replied

"Ok, sorry mate" he said and hung up.

Damn, I wanted the last word.

Looking back though I wish I'd had more time, well I had loads of time at the time, but chips are a priority and I don't think he'd have hung on until I finished them. There are so many things I could have said:

"Yes she's here, who's calling? I'm her husband - I've just come in from wrestling alligators. What shall I say it's about?"

"Err, which Jen is it you're after. I've got 3 here, all from Brighton and they're all looking up at me from the jacuzzi"

"Yes, Jen is here but before you can talk to her please submit your credit card number"

"Are you sure you want to talk to Jen? She's a parrot"

"Yes my son, Jen is here - but before you speak to her can I ask whether you are happy? Really happy?"

"I'm sorry, your subscription to ideal partners has expired"

"Yes, but first can I interest you in a special 3 for 2 on Kleenex that we have?"

"I'm sorry, when I was just about to answer then phone Jen said to me: 'if that's Simon from Wiltshire tell him to go fuck himself'"

"Yes love, Jen is here, but are you sure it's Jen you want to talk to - you sound so manly"

Damned chips.

Tragedy in Garden Town

This is Cyril Slug. And this is the news.

The wildlife of Garden Town are waking up, or going to sleep depending on your nocturnal preferences, facing up to the true horror of yesterdays carnage. The skyline of this beautiful area is now very different from how it was yesterday.

A day that dawned much like any other in this quiet corner of the world was shattered when the 'big red bladed cutting machine' made another seemingly random foray into occupied wildlife territory, slashing indiscriminately at quickly retreating creatures and their protective habitat.

The early warning siren that sounded at 12.25pm yesterday afternoon for 10 minutes, sounded much too late for many creatures to be able to take adequate evasive action. There were unconfirmed reports however suggesting that many animals chose to ignore this sophisticated system, seemingly opting for the 'it wont get me theory'. Well that gamble seems to have seriously backfired.

2, 4, 6, 8 or no legs, it didn't seem to matter what type of animal got in the way of this brutish machine and it's accomplice.


Watski Towers

Some creatures managed to escape to the safety of the edges of the garden thinking they were out of reach of the 'Big red cutting machine', but the relief was to be short lived as the machine locally known as 'The Strimmer' arrived on the scene within minutes and proceeded to hunt them down.

Figures reaching us at East Garden today news put the missing creatures at 26, including 8 snails, 6 frogs, 4 slugs and a family of visiting spiders from next door neighbour ville.

Most of the members of Fiona Frogs family are missing, her son, Harry was last seen heading down Dandelion Way hotly pursued by the red cutting machine, he has not been seen since.

Selwyn Snail, a veteran of many incursions, watched the carnage helplessly from the relative safety of his vantage point in the rocks. He takes up the story:

"well I saw this big red machine go into the garden and start growling. It didn't move for about 10 minutes but you could tell from it's body language that it wasn't going to give in until it has removed every single blade of grass in garden town"

his wife Cynthia added:

"ooh, it was a scary thing wasn't it Selwyn? When it growled you could see that there were still lots of creatures going about their daily business seemingly thinking that it wouldn't happen to them. But it did and it was too late. I tried to shout to them but they couldn't hear"

We will have more on this story once we get it. In other news, Willam the Worm returned to East Garden yesterday after a 4 year journey from the house over the road.

Keep it GardenTV, after the news: 'When slug pellets attack'

Land problem

Is it reasonable to expect, after leaving the lawn mower on in the middle of the lawn for a period of 10 minutes, that all the wildlife residing in the immediate vicinity is aware of my intention to mow said lawn, and should be taking in the process of taking evasive action if they haven't already done so?

So, therefore, any accidental culling of the any of the aforementioned wildlife population reckless enough to still be residing in the lawn after this 10 minute hiatus, is actually their own fault and shouldn't be on my conscience at all?



Good. Glad we've got that sorted.

I feel like I've got my own little Israeli - Palestinian conflict happening in my own back yard. I'm cast as the bad guy for bulldozing my way through land I see as mine with my big bladed machine and all they want to do is live in the land they've adopted as their own.

Although that's probably trivialising the issue a lot. The frogs wont be happy with that.

The animals know you know

The animals seem to know something. And they don't appear to like what they know.

Amidst an hours drive across to CJ's house yesterday I was party to:

* 1 wood pigeon flying into the side of a van
* Another bird of some description meeting it's maker
* 2 rabbits committing hari kari by not abiding by the tried and tested rabbit rule of 'standing between the headlights'.
* A squashed fox
* 1 prostrate badger sat at the side of the road,
and a particularly determined squirrel who I observed jumping from the branch of a tree into the path of an oncoming bus.

Is the world coming to an end? Has there been some sign to the animal kingdom that time is not long for us and they're getting their shot in first? Is it some particularly brutal game of Chicken?

Or is it that they've leant that Bill Oddie has started Springwatch again and they can't bear to see his chirpy little face rustling through the undergrowth?



"Oh no, not Bill Oddie - don't let him tell us a joke"
"Where's that road?"

I hate work

Also replicated here. Which should save you some shit blog reading time on a busy Friday.
_______________________________________________________________

I hate work. Work's shit.

Which is a strange view to have as the reality of my situation is that l'm not doing much of it at the moment - I'm having a sabbatical. So there's not much 'work' to hate as such. But I remember hating work when I did work, so I pretty much expect that I'd still hate it if I still worked.

And other people I talk to who work, hate work, so the trend for hating work doesn't seem to have diminished since the time that I was at work and hated it.

Work shouldn't be allowed. We should actually get paid for not working. Which I'm sure brings it's own problems, but nothing that will stop me pissing about on t'internet I hope.

Being paid for not working would turn the tables on it's head a bit. And put those smug buggers who trill about how they love going to work in a bit of a quandry. How can you love going to work?

Smug fuckers. Let's see how much you love it now that I'm being paid to sit on my arse.

But, alas, 'twill never happen.

So I will continue to hate work. Without working.

I'm going mad...

I don't know what's the matter with me lately. I'm just angry for some reason. Things are getting to me. And I dont know why my sub-conscious isn't zapping things that it wouldn't usually let penetrate my usual calm exterior.

It's a brooding sort of anger that I can't shake, the kind of anger that wont suffer fools, the kind that wants to pick people up and give them a damn good shake. And I can't switch it off.

Opodo set it off. I blame them. It's their fault. Since their rude interruption into my otherwise normal (to a point) existence I've been on some sort of crusade to expunge shit service in all its incarnations, only now my mind has decided that it's expanding the family business to incorporate the role of a lone moral crusader.

The problem is that there's a downside to being a moral crusader and that is that you get labelled, or end up far deeper in something that would have passed by if you'd just counted to 5 and took deep breaths instead of getting het up about it. That's ok if you can count to 5.

I wanted to do something about the white van driver who pulled out on me this morning and then proceeded to hurl his McDonalds outer out of the window and onto the grass verge of the country lane. I saw his name on the van and the phone number and was going to ring. But then I worked out that it was probably his own business and he would have answered the phone and then what would I have got? Abuse? Which would have made me even angrier, except I could have done nothing about it this time.

I want to do something about the major food manufacturer I had an interview with in late April who told me that I'd hear within 2 to 3 weeks and who have so far, over 4 weeks later resisted all communication attempts by myself. I want to write to their Head Office and tell them what a mess it is, but I dont want to ruin any future career prospects with a employer I'd like to work for ultimately.

I want to do something about the major retailer with whom I had appointment with on a certain day at a certain time. It was an hour and a half in reception convincing myself that she must be in another meeting before realising that she wasn't actually going to turn up. She did email back to apologise and try and set another meeting up, but I've heard nothing now for 2 weeks. See above for similar reason.



I want to tell the recruitment agency guy who rang me yesterday to sort 'a point of order' out, (the point of order being that it was bad form to instruct other agencies to submit my CV for a job that he talked to me about over 6 weeks ago. Bearing in mind it was 6 weeks ago and he hasn't spoken to me since, and also that this agency has previous in letting me down by making me think it was submitting me for a job, which I'd subsequently turned down through other agencies only to find they hadn't submitted me), to piss off. I settled for putting my point across forcefully instead.

The dustbin men refused to take my rubbish yesterday morning for some reason only known to themselves, I saw them look in the bin and leave it. So, watching and ready for a ruck I shot off down the path and asked them why they weren't taking it. He muttered something about wrong type of rubbish before scuttling back to his van under a hail of expeletives from me. I want to write to someone who gives a shit about it. But who will ultimately do nothing.

A bolt on the plumbing of my Mums washing machine wasn't put on properly by the insurance company's plumbers who came out to replace my Mums other washing machine. Amongst other things, these plumbers referred to the previous plumbers as cowboys. This bolt is now loose leaving my Mums kitchen a soggy place. I want to get these exact plumbers back and beat them to death with an old copper pipe.

I want to tell the landlord of the people who rent the house next to CJ that I will personally come around and shove a large stereo system up his backside if he doesn't tell his tenants to refrain from: playing their music loud all day, slamming doors needlessly, screeching when talking would suffice and walking over CJ's garden to get to their house. But CJ tells me I have to be nice to him when he comes round to mow their lawns next.

I want to shake the estate agent selling CJ's house to within an inch of his life for a) not seeing the bleeding obvious and b) not relaying messages to the seller of the house that CJ is interested in as he doesn't think 'it will make much difference'. I want to tell him that I dont give a shit what he thinks as he's being paid by me (CJ) to do a job and to bloody well get it done pronto. Actually I did tell him that and I'm now barred from speaking to him.

I want to tell the driver of the van parked over the end of my drive that the space over my drive isn't actually a parking space and that it is actually a route used by me to manoeuvre my car to and from its place of rest on the drive. But then I think that I'm not going out for a while so he's not doing any harm. But then I think that parking over my drive is a bloody liberty and now I'm putting my shoes on as I type this.

And now I can't get a picture to upload to my blog. Oh it's worked now.

I have more. Believe me.

Please help me. I'm going to rage myself to death before long. And I don't even know what that means.

I've an idea that I don't think has been thought of before..

So here's the idea then. I think I'm on to something.

There's 15 people all in a house. To allieviate their boredom they are set a task every 2/3 days to fiddle about with. During the 2/3 days the people observing vote for their favourite person. At the end of the task the person with the least votes gets eliminated from the house. This carries on until there is one person left.

Sound familiar?

Rubbish. You're deluded.

In a totally original idea the like of which has never been seen before anywhere, Young Mr Lagomorph and I have set a little website up - well Mr L has done all the hard designy, shiny kind of stuff. I've just been the intellectual one standing in the middle of the room going 'can you put that there', 'err, no it's not right there - can you put it over there instead?'.

15 specially invited bloggers will get access to Mr Lagomorph's pride and joy on the first night, and the website a little later. Every other day or so they will get set a task which will involve them debating various issues, etc. At the same time as the task is set a poll will also go up on the website. The blogger with the least votes at the end of the 2 days will get eliminated and be laughed at for a while.

The blogger left at the end will be crowned the inaugural Big Blogger Champion. You never know, when I sell this to Channel 4 you may get to meet someone famous. I can see someone like, say, Davina MaCall wanting to present this.

Sounds boring? God yeah. But it's summat to do no?

Anyway, as Big Blogger I think I should have an identifiable accent. I'm thinking some kind of soft Geordie. What? It'll never catch on? We'll see. I'm off to perfect my Big Blogger voice anyway. And to try and sell the rights to Guatemala. I reckon it'll be a goer.

Please put your nominations for who you think should be in the house in the comments box. One nomination each please. I will draw them out of a hat at the end of some day in the future, ask the 15 if they would like to take part and get them to introduce themselves by way of a little spiel. Big Blogger 1 will start on Monday of next week.

Please email me with any suggestion for possible tasks for them to discuss.

You decide.

Hey I think I like that as a catchphrase.