Share this, mofos:

A nice day on St Aldates, Oxford

I followed David Tennant‘s career since Early Doors, then Shameless, and his film career including Last King of Scotland and I even tolerated Wanted…hang on, a colleague has just pointed out I’m thinking of James McAvoy.  Oh well, David Tennant is okay, too.

A friend’s daughter (Stateside) seems fond enough of him, though.  Her dad, a photographer I met at the Meet Rack (and who shot the otherwise unacknowledged photo of me during my CNN interview for the 30 Pack Marathon), used the ‘Buy Me A Beer’ page to put in a compelling request for assistance for her birthday present.  Needing someone with access to Royal Mail, I was tapped to send the SASE mentioned in this letter:

The Helen Mirren Stamp is the £1.88 overseas postage; the other is domestic 1st Class and just added on for the birthday girl

Knowing this guy, it could just be for a stripper.  In fact, I rather hope that’s the case (he says her ‘mother’ is going to shoot some video).  In the meantime, I don’t really care since he sent along enough Paypal pounds to buy the office supplies and postage and a few beers (the first one of which, at the Bear, Oxford, can be seen just above the souvenir stamps…I threw in the Dr. Who stamp of Tennant and kept the rest for my own use).

Pre-lunch half pint of Chiswick for the Doctor (that is to say, me)

So we can call it at 11:55 British Summer Time the 19th of June 2013, the request and supporting materials were posted to the Victorian postbox on South Parks Road.  Godspeed.

Share this, mofos:

[Note: Tesco had 4 beers for the price of 3 and Funny Names was the first theme I spotted; previous entrant here.]

Ahh, if any beer name is good for a juvenile chuckle, it would have to be Deuchars. On the other hand, it has a smoked malt mouth that really earns the respect of a mature drinker. As an IPA, it has floral hints that are like honeysuckle but the hops also strip the fats of the snacks from the tongue. Consistently one of the best beers on the shelf or, now that the amusing name beer fest is over, I should say USED to be on the shelf. Time to restock.

Share this, mofos:

[Note: Tesco had 4 beers for the price of 3 and Funny Names was the first theme I spotted; prior entrant here, next one here.]

Butcombe ales always make me snigger like a 13-year-old.  The Brunel 200 IPA was very good, though, floral and citric with a bitter aftertaste like furniture wax solvents (the palate wants what it wants).  With only one more left in the amusing name beer fest we have already done Old Peculiar Lech Butcombe.

Share this, mofos:

[Note: Tesco had 4 beers for the price of 3 and Funny Names was the first theme I spotted; prior entrant here, next one here.]

The sofrito for the paella was cooking down (I let it go for 3 to 4 hours) and the movie, No Country for Old Men, was harrowing. The appetising odours, the west Texas landscape and the dramatic tension demanded chorizo and lager and, as luck would have it, both were hiding in the fridge. The lager, chosen for the amusing name, was Lech, a strong and bitter Polish brew.

So, thus far, it looks like Old Peculiar Lech are the theme for the day.

Share this, mofos:

[Note: Tesco had 4 beers for the price of 3 and Funny Names was the first theme I spotted; next one here.]

Settling into an afternoon watching No Country For Old Men and cooking a pan full of paella, I cracked open a lovely bottle of Old Peculiar out of respect for my new place in racing society.  How àpropos that this was the first beer of the amusing name beer festival.  As viscous as milk and dark like swamp water, the flavour is complex and satisfying.  At times like a mild and at others like a lighter bitter, this is one of my favourites to chop onions and crush garlic to.

Share this, mofos:

Something strange caught my eye as I cut through a car park on my way to work the other morning.  After the double yellow line fiasco, you would think the traffic planners would have seen this coming (zoom in on the above):

Share this, mofos:

It is surprising to most foreigners (even the violent Americans) to see signs everywhere–but particularly on buses–pleading with the reader not to assault the employees.  You might think this is an indication of an especially sick society with no self-control; conversely, you could think that the employees uniformly must be complete assholes.  However, the populace isn’t as bad as the press might have you believe and, on the whole bus drivers seem to be courteous and professional (even affable) folks.

So, the plea to leave body and dignity intact must be caused by some very specific dickheads’ behaviour.  Take, as an example, this drunken–and quite possibly drugged–twunt on Arriva:

If it were just his substance abuse and erratic driving, I would merely have considered the ride an adventure (my own besotted and quite psychedelic years as an Atlanta taxi driver in consideration…pot, kettle, etc.).  But, this fat, steaming pile of shit was in a genuine rage from the moment I boarded till at least my exit a moment or two later.

So the “Please Don’t Assault Our Drivers” adverts Arriva mounts in their buses must be placed in his ride with a wry wink and nod.  I’m sure no one back at the depot would care if a member of the public handed him a right kicking; likewise, there certainly couldn’t be a Mrs. Twunt at home that would care (or, if there were, would probably cheer the effort).  The disadvantage to handing him his teeth is the impact it would have on the coffers of Greggs The Baker as he would be forced to step away from the pies for a couple of days–shops would close across the South East.

Note that I am not, in any way, promoting violence against this piece of congealed bile.  Indeed, it is pleasure enough that he will die soon, alone in a takeaway strewn flat, with some device purchased off an Internet porn site firmly attached to his fetid genitals.  But, keep taking public transport, folks!  [Of special note, there are other buses passing through constantly...I arrived back in Oxford a couple minutes ahead of this bus, safely and with nerves intact; he must have taken similar attention with other riders along the way allowing us to overtake.]

6pm 5th June 2013 (if Arriva wishes to drug test this cocksucker)

Share this, mofos:

Email newsletter came in (haven’t read this article) that reminded me of the many instances of Surprising Things That Ruined A Run.

Actual examples from my past (some more than once):

*Fresh mountain lion tracks spotted in a box canyon (Tucson)
*Unseen open manhole cover (Atlanta)
*Stopped by Savannah River Site security and some military helicopters (nuclear reservation, South Carolina)
*Sudden outbreak of gang turf war (Tucson)
*Arrest (Athens, GA)
*Tornado (Alabama and Southern Illinois–not the same tornado)
*Pot farm (North Georgia mountains near Cohutta…decided it might be prudent to re-plot my route through this one)
*Wildfires (California, Colorado, and Arizona)
*Flooding (Missouri, Arizona, Oxfordshire, and Wiltshire)
*War games (on the tank tracks around Ft. Stewart, GA, then again more recently in the Salisbury Plain)
*Struck by falling tree (Cook’s Trail, Athens, GA–required several stitches in forehead and caused massive changes in sense of smell and taste for about a month, as well)
*Armed robbery (Decatur, GA near Emory: guy looks through wallet while holding the gun on me and demands, “Credit cards…where are they?”; I laugh and say, “look at me, dude…do I LOOK like I have credit?” at which point he flings the wallet back at me and tells me to run which, ironically, is what I had been trying to do at the time)
*Struck by golf ball (Griffin, GA)
*Alligator in road (Brunswick and Savannah, GA) [also, venomous snakes on trail more places than I care to remember in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas]
*Dead Family acid (surprising, everytime, just how quickly it hit and how clean it was, Atlanta and Athens, GA)
*Jumping Cholla cacti (Tucson–newby surprise)
*Lock maintenance 14km across the Afsluitdijk (had to turn around and go back)

And, most frequently: the pub at the turnaround point of a long run is closed for the afternoon or closed down completely (happens too often to keep up with).

Share this, mofos:

Logged off the pc with this many:

Back on for some coffee next morning with this:

Quarter of a million (plus a shitload of phishing hits); and, most of the posts have an intended audience of 7-10 people.  The net is baffling.

Share this, mofos:

Daydreaming on the bus ride home I suddenly realised how the truck ahead of us was labelled:

Good…they’ve finally found a use for the fuckers.

Users of Emo Oil claim it is darker than other oils but rarely accept that it is, in fact, made from Emos; confronted with the obvious fact that it is, they tend to just shrug and say, “oh, right, what EVer,” or start to weep.

Share this, mofos:

Yates’ pub chain does this and it annoys me no end…they put an extra “s” after the possessive apostrophe (see here for an example).  Here’s a similarly egregious punctuation error at the Spar in Pewsey:

 

And, don’t even get me started on the shit wine for which this offer was made….

Share this, mofos:

Board here for the Magical Mystery Tour:

 

[In honour of Albert Hofmann, a couple of days after the fifth anniversary of his transcendance (January 11, 1906 – April 29, 2008)]

Share this, mofos:

We named a visitor  ”Gentleman’s Relish” at Mr. Happy’s Hash in Tucson after he used the term in a fantastic story from his early days with the Royal Ulster Constabulary.  The definition I know is here, so you can imagine how surprising it was to find it tinned on the shelf at Sainsbury’s.  Yuck.

Share this, mofos:

When it turned up in the local newspaper, I recognised the alley as one of my regular cut-throughs on runs in the neighbourhood.  Later that same day it turned up on the BBC nightly News so the next morning I decided to go back for my own document of the boondoggle.

Double yellow lines limit parking from the center of the street to the kerb (curb) on the side of the street they are painted; you can stop to load/unload but otherwise the space must be left clear for emergency vehicles.  So, when a fire engine needs to get through the area above…see what everyone is on about?

My own photo really adds nothing to the debate and only serves to show that I need a few more sit-ups and lot less alcohol on a weekly basis (the gut alone would block an ambulance’s passage).  Here’s the same photo with two vehicles illegally parked, scaled to the alleyway’s dimensions:

Everyone wants a picture of this alley, now.  While there setting up my own camera two different citizens with SLRs popped up at the wide end and another at the narrow bit.  I posed with my arms partly stretched to the walls for one of the photographers.

Share this, mofos:

I was having lunch when the first Thatcher joke hit my Twitter account and I thought I might do an obit detailing some weird Thatcher-related, fetishistic fantasy from my youth but I just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for it (at least not the kind of enthusiasm the Brits, pro and con, seem capable of in their widely varied tributes).  I already did Betty this honour, anyway.

After all, I lived through Reagan and have listened for years to nonsense about him ending the Cold War, making America great again, saving capitalism, etc, etc.  Yet even though I have less direct experience than the locals do, my feelings for the Blue Lady are similarly visceral to those I have for Ronnie.  Lord Byron, felt much the same about Castlereagh…so, I might do no better than to paraphrase the one’s tribute to the other, here:

‘The end result we finally see
Of Mammon over me and you.
Here sits the urn of Mrs. T:
Squat, brothers, and poo.’

 

 

……………………..

Okay, for you Philistines out there who keep asking…Byron penned this out of his great respect for the late Castlereagh and all he did for the Irish:

‘Posterity will ne’er survey,
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveller, and piss.’ — Lord Byron

Share this, mofos:

I only knew of one pub in Tidworth, although as it is surrounded by a large military installation there MUST be more, so the Ram was my choice as a stop on the course this time.  They had Coors Light and  Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch Budweiser, not the Czech stuff) and a load of other lagers so I opted for a Fosters (which was on special according to a banner out front).  I was the only patron in this cavernous and dark and eerily quiet early-20th-century structure so it was mine to explore.

With Jackie sick, I was just going to do the minimal run rather than make a whole day of it (the return bus was every two hours).  On the short but hilly jog to Ludgershall I spotted this nice but ineffective bit of signage vandalism:

Share this, mofos:

[*kpw = kebab per week for 2013, as noted in an earlier post and the 15th entry for the 2013 Challenge]

 

The photoshopped text is an old, Beavis and Butthead style bit of silliness I do every time I see this dealership but can’t help myself (very immature).  The kebab was picked up at Caner’s Kebab stand down a road resembling an auto salvage yard just behind Dick Lovett and was quite a find.

I am nursing an inflamed iliotibial (IT) band and off running for a week or two and decided to find a few trails on my other project, covering Every Trail in Old Town when I spotted this little treasure…friendly staff, cheap, and some of the tastiest döner yet.  It especially benefits from getting thrown on a hot griddle from the steam table thus carbonizing a portion of the sliced meat.  I would score it down for the appearance of the chilli sauce but it was actually fantastic.  Love it.

Share this, mofos:

{The following is a reply to a business cold-call email…enjoy}

Dear Kenji,

Thanks for your email; it has given me much to ponder. Are these special seals for ordinary plates or seals for special plates?

Indeed, the problems I need to solve are legion. For example, can I use these seals to redesign my email filters?

M.V.G.,

DOBorodin

________________________________________
From: Kenji Kimura, Bio Chromato, Inc.
Sent: 11 March 2013 11:16
To: Denis Borodin
Subject: Message from Japan

Dear DENIS O. BORODIN,

This is Kenji Kimura from BioChromato, Inc.  I sent you our products information last week. Have you had a chance to check my e-mail?

We have special plate seals that might help you solve problems.  If you are interested in testing our products, please reply to this e-mail.

Best regards, Kenji Kimura

Pinpoint Solution
Bio Chromato, Inc.
1-12-19 Honcho, Fujisawa,
Kanagawa-ken 251-0053
Japan

http://www.bicr.co.jp/e/

Share this, mofos:

There was little exercise and fuck-all going out for anything aside from bare necessities this week as fever, aches, and blinding congestive pressure took hold.  To have something new for the blog this week, I did what I always do when ill…I scanned the news.  Here are some highlights from the week.

The Crufts Dog Show started this week and will continue for much of the next 8 months.  I used to think that the BBC should dedicate a channel exclusively to darts, snooker, and Crufts but a friend pointed out that they already have one called BBC 2.  It is interesting to see the odd breeds that have developed over the years, though.

Rest in peace, brother Chavez.

Once, me and Hugo were out drinking and, boy, could he put it away!  I overdid it and puked all over myself, covering my shirt in filth.  ”What am I going to tell Jackie?  She hates when I embarrass myself in front of heads-of-state.”

Thinking quickly, Hugo stuffed a 20 peso note in my shirt pocket: “tell her a guy at the bar did this and gave you the note to pay for the cleaning.”

I got back to the hacienda and she hit the roof and I told her Hugo’s story at which point she calmed right down–Hugo was a genius of crisis control.

Then, Jackie said, “hey, Bun…why are there TWO twenties in your shirt?”

“Oh, that other one is from the guy that shit in my pants.”

North Korea severed musical relations with Seoul during the week.  Here we see evidence of Pyongyang’s development of prohibited Boy Band Technology.  Worrying though this may be, few experts believe that this is Da Bomb.

Share this, mofos:

I don’t even know if this place is still in business, but the Google Street View really recommends it:

And, check out the unit on this guy…talk about your large kebab.  With a package like that, who needs sit-ups (or soap)?

[The 50 Burger Challenge, which prompted this ever widening search for kebab shops, is going well though with a bit more enthusiasm among the participants than the beer challenge had last year.  It is a good site to fulfill all your burger porn desires...check it out here.]