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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.

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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.

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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:

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Spotted on walk back from final checkout of old house.

 

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Daily since 19 January, I have trudged across town carrying or pushing loads of leftover shite the mile-and-a-half from the old house to the new one.  I have some moving company skates that got left behind by a company in Arizona that used them to move 1200 pound pieces of delicate equipment between buildings; on two separate and quite rainy occasions I steered these laden with 200-300 pound loads of boxes shrink wrapped onto the skates with large potted plants on top.  Other days, I had canvas straps holding hemp shopping bags all over me bandoleer-style, and I received uncharacteristic deference on the streets and pavements as, quite obviously, an insane person.

Today was the oddest trip yet while being the lightest load so far.  I stuffed a Bogen tripod, a crowbar, and just about anything else that would go in the backpack then grabbed the propane canister remaining from the ex-BBQ and headed off.  The shadows looked at times like a winged demon and at others like a ninja although as I passed the shops in Regent Street I could see clearly from the reflection in the window I just looked like a jackass with some sort of heretofore unheard of fetish (note, this may be true).

I thought this might make a crappy Kevin Costner movie, but I ran out of steam on the poster idea (“rated PG for Pansies and Geraniums which will winter over nicely with a bit of mulch” just seemed like too much effort to add).

All that remains are the Hoover, a rake, the strimmer, a fan (to dry the carpets post-cleaning) and some plastic planters and window boxes–more fucking garden shite.

Oh, yeah, that’s my street on the right side of the Beehive, and it is steeper than the picture let’s on (here’s the view down the other way from a few mornings ago–the yellow house halfway down is the one I’m standing in front of in the poster):

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So, four years now (or, rather, next week it will be…here’s the annual reports for years Three, Two, and One for historical perspective).

We just received our new visas valid until 2016 but plan to take the next step toward citizenship in a year, Indefinite Leave to Remain…sort of the British Green Card.  There is an exam, first, but in general it is all downhill from here.

The view from Western Street near the new house…also all downhill

Additionally, we are in the process of moving house (which is why I rushed the annual report a week forward) from just north of the Oasis over to Old Town to a house situated close walks to either the Beehive or the Castle or the Globe (recently reopened!)—three locals instead of one and all three of high quality—and dozens of others a short walk. The new house has three bedrooms each larger than its counterpart in the old house, the two receptions are larger and made into more of an open-plan configuration, the bath is larger and has a tub (not just a shower), and there is a finished basement; on the down side, the kitchen is a little narrower and more primitive as is the small garden but everything we do and everywhere we normally go in Swindon (save for the butcher) is so close.

The only races I did this past year were the London Marathon (5 pubs plus a can of Carling on the last mile) and the Beerathon (5 miles with a pint and a hefty food item between each) and the mileage run for the year suffered from this lack of focus—1950 give or take about 25 (most estimates pretty good using gmap-pedometer), while the last several years (except for the year of the wreck) were in the 2200-2500 range.

On the runs, I visited  255 new pubs with a stunning 67 new ones (steep part of the graph) in September when I took two weeks off work and ran at least 10 miles per day in new territory each day. The 1000th wasn’t as big a thrill as I thought it would be, but I saw some really nice places and met some really fine folk. The September holiday found me visiting Gloucester, South Wales, Slough (exotic, I know) and Exeter along with some nearer-to-Swindon trips. The 100 Yellow Beer Challenge was responsible for a lot of second visits to pubs I might not otherwise have gone to after an initial stop and many of these seemed better the second time around. Oh, and my Workingman’s Club appears to have failed or at least hasn’t been open the last several times I’ve popped by (I have a grand one scoped out for the new neighbourhood, though).

Best pubs in Year Four (reverse order by First Visit write-up):
The Southgate Inn, Devizes
Byron’s, Swindon
The Hop Inn, Swindon
Dicey Reilly’s, Teignmouth
The Brass Monkey, Teignmouth
One Eyed Jack’s, Gloucester
Ye Olde Red Lion, Tredegar
The Rose of Denmark, Woolwich
The Volunteer Rifleman’s Arms
The Green Dragon, Marlborough
The British Lion, Devizes
The Blue Boar, Alsbourne (for the Dr. Who connections)

Favourite write-ups:
Postboxes
British Citizenship Exam Prep
Risk Assessment-Bins
Oxford Tourists
Assize Court, Bristol

Cock Flavour
Paul Simon in Hyde Park
Edie’s Lawn
The hunt
The Bremen Musicians (German children’s story)
Sex Tourism in Wiltshire
Modern Algebra for Omid
Burns’ Day Lunch

There are others search for ‘made me laugh.’  The blog may or may not have made some of the over 100,000 visitors laugh, but the damn fools keep checking in (that’s you, that is).

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The previous post was better, but I wanted to showcase the screensavers pieced together by Squeezin’ (with my gratitude for these).  The pics, in order, are

Venue	Where	beer #
The Princess Hotel (done around 5 am New Year’s Day)	Swindon	1
The Bank House	Cheltenham	2
At the New Year’s Races in Cheltenham (watching my nag drag in)	Cheltenham	3
Midlands Hotel	Cheltenham	4
The Queen’s Tap	Swindon	5
The Four Candles	Oxford	6
The Turf Tavern (at the sign commemorating Clinton failing to inhale there)	Oxford	7
The White Horse	Oxford	8
O’Neill’s	Oxford	9
Ellington’s	Swindon	10
The Red Lion	Oxford	11
The Gloucester Arms	Oxford	12
Eurobar	Oxford	13
The Volunteer	Faringdon	14
The Red Lion	Faringdon	15
The Bell	Faringdon	16
The Lamb and Flag	Oxford	17
The Bird and Baby	Oxford	18
Far  The Madding Crowd	Oxford	19
Southbrook Inn	Swindon	20
The White Hart	Wolvercote, Oxfordshire	21
The Red Lion	Wolvercote, Oxfordshire	22
The Plough	Oxford	23
The Gardener’s Arms	Oxford	24
The Rose and Crown	Oxford	25
TP’s	Swindon	26
The De’s Cut	Oxford	27
The King and Queen	Longcot, Oxfordshire	28
The Woodman Inn	Fernham, Oxfordshire	29
The Eagle	Little Cocks Swell, Oxfordshire	30
The Wheatsheaf	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	31
Faringdon Folly	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	32
Salisbury Cathedral	Salisbury	33
The King’s Arms	Salisbury	34
The Old Castle Pub	Salisbury	35
The keep at Old Sarum	Salisbury	36
Wheatsheaf	Lower Woodford, Wiltshire	37
Bridge Inn	Upper Woodford, Wiltshire	38
Black Horse	Great Durnford, Wiltshire	39
Wilsford Cum Lake sign (heh, heh)	Wiltshire	40
Stonehenge (really a great disappointment)	Wiltshire	41
King’s Arms	Amesbury, Wiltshire	42
George Hotel	Amesbury, Wiltshire	43
New Inn	Amesbury, Wiltshire	44
The Greyhound	Amesbury, Wiltshire	45
Royal Oak	Oxford	46
The Red Lion	Marston, Oxfordshire	47
The Angel and Greyhound	Oxford	48
The University Club	Oxford	49
The GW Hotel	Swindon	50
Jude the Obscure	Oxford	51
The Victoria	Oxford	52
The Rickety Press	Oxford	53
Wahoo Sport Bar	Oxford	54
The Oxford Retreat	Oxford	55
The Grapes	Oxford	56
The Rolleston	Swindon	57
The Baker’s Arms	Swindon	58
The Dolphin	Swindon	59
Marsh Farm Hotel	Royal Wootton Bassett	60
The Cross Keys	Royal Wootton Bassett	61
The Old School	Oxford	62
The King’s Arms	Oxford	63
The Swan and Castle	Oxford	64
The Victoria Arms	Marston, Oxfordshire	65
The Black Swan	Abingdon, Oxfordshire	66
The Blue Boar	Abingdon, Oxfordshire	67
The Bowyer Arms	Radley, Oxfordshire	68
Zen Bar	Swindon	69
Sir Daniel Arms	Swindon	70
White Hart	Lyneham, Wiltshire	71
Sodom	Wiltshire	72
The Angel	Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire	73
Cape of Good Hope	Oxford	74
Rudi’s	Swindon	75
Burn’s Day Lunch (Haggis, Neeps, Tatties, Whisky, and 2 beers)	Oxford	76
Swindon Wildcats 3, Sheffield Steeldogs 4 (SO)	Swindon	77
The Longwall	Oxford	78
The Royal George	Purton, Wiltshire	79
Riff’s Bar	Greatfield, Wiltshire	80
Magic Roundabout	Swindon	81
The Three Tuns	Wroughton	82
The Havana	Swindon	83
The Lydiard	Swindon	84
The Savoy	Swindon	85
The Brewer’s Arms	Cirencester	86
The White Horse	Woolstone	87
The College Farm	Watchfield	88
The Horse and Jockey	Ashton Keynes, Gloucestershire	89
The Vale Hotel	Cricklade	90
Goldfinger Tavern	Highworth, Wiltshire	91
The Red Lion	Northmoor, Oxfordshire	92
The Bell Inn	Standlake, Oxfordshire	93
The Maybush	Newbridge, Oxfordshire	94
The Beehive (this is about 100 yards from the house we are moving to)	Swindon	95
Baker Street	Swindon	96
Steam Railway Company Pub	Swindon	97
The Pig on the Hill	Swindon	98
Long’s Bar	Swindon	99
near Parliament, with a Cuban cigar and a bunch of dirty looks (and after 5 pub stops)	London Marathon	100
The Bear	Oxford	101
The Old Tom	Oxford	102
The Crown	Oxford	103
The Beehive	Carterton, Oxfordshire	104
The Crown Inn	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	105
Romany Inn	Bampton, Oxfordshire	106
Talbot Hotel	Bampton, Oxfordshire	107
The George Inn	Sandy Lane, Wiltshire	108
The White Hart	Calne, Wiltshire	109
The now defunct King George	Calne, Wiltshire	110
Barrington Arms	Shrivenham, Oxfordshire	111
Groves Company Inn	Swindon	112
Revolution	Swindon	113
The Plough	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	114
The George and Dragon	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	115
The Fish	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	116
Great Western Railway Staff Association	Didcot, Oxfordshire	117
The Prince of Wales	Didcot, Oxfordshire	118
Tap and Barrel (good read goes along with this pic)	Swindon	119
Old Town Festival	Swindon Town Gardens	120
Cock Inn	Combe, Oxfordshire	121
Three Horseshoes	Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire	122
Swindon Pride 2012	Swindon (duh)	123
Wernham Hogg’s	Slough, Berkshire	124
The Myrtle Grove	Risca, Gwent, Wales	125
The Sirhowy	Blackwood, Gwent, Wales	126
Railway Tavern	Sirhowy, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	127
The Castle	Bryn Serth, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	128
The Coach and Horses	Ashvale, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	129
Ye Olde Red Lion Hotel	Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	130
The Tumble Inn	Pontypridd, Wales	131
The Maltster’s Arms	Pontypridd, Wales	132
Wyvern Theatre	Swindon	133
Byron’s Bar	Swindon	134
The Bear Hotel	Wantage, Oxfordshire	135
Source ot the River Thames	Kemble, Gloucestershire	136
Carpenter’s Arms	Lacock, Wiltshire	137
Mill House	Chippenham, Wiltshire	138
Sunny’s Pool Bar	Swindon	139
The Royal Oak	Marlborough, Wiltshire	140
The Lamb Inn	Marlborough, Wiltshire	141
The Crown	Marlborough, Wiltshire	142
IMS/TOF Mass Spectrometer	Oxford University	143
New Year’s Eve on Ferndale Road	Swindon	144

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Last Beavis and Butthead moment of the year:

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Every year in September, a bunch of carnival rides are parked in Oxford’s St. Giles Street for two days and every year we get the same security warning from our University Crime Reduction Manager (whom I imagine looks like the picture…he certainly sounds like it).  The best bits for my money are the warning to be wary of any “tailgater checking out your premises” (which I hashtag #not_a_euphemism, and as I’m no longer any spring chicken, would feel a bit flattered by, I should imagine), and the Dickensian phraseology like “ne’er-do-wells” and “ill-gotten gains.”  These rapscallions and blaggards know no bounds of civility!  An excerpt:

“During the fair days, please brief staff to be on the look out for the casual walk in thief, or tailgater checking out your premises. Those further away should also not be complacent; the ne’er-do-wells are known to roam far and wide in their search for ill-gotten gains…..

For those of you visiting the fair, do enjoy yourselves….”

If you dare.

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The venue for the Great British Beerathon was the Hoop and Grapes, a small house on Farringdon Street at the edge of The City.  Before the race was over, I would be well acquainted with this fine pub…small bar at ground level, and nice rooms on at least the first and second floors (the one on the 2nd floor served as my changing room when I arrived but I don’t reckon any of the race participants would’ve been shocked by nudity).

The name is one I’ve seen around (the Hoop and Grapes nearby at Aldgate East tube stop has been on my short list of London pubs for years, now, as it was a survivor of the Great Fire while the next one nearer-to-the-City was destroyed), but only found out today that it is an old way of saying “Hops and Grapes” indicating a tavern that does both beer and wine.  Something new everyday….

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Years ago, I went to a mass spectrometry conference in Palm Springs and it seemed logical that we should book the flights into Las Vegas and drive the rest of the way after a suitable period of time.  The in-flight conversation turned to gardening and I mentioned the herbs–the LEGAL herbs–I was growing.  Mike asked, “is it pronounced BAY-zill or BAA-sill?”  I said I don’t know for sure but the package seemed to indicate the first; “it says ‘Sweet Basil Ocillum,’ you know…like a pimp’s name.”  We returned to discussing our craps statistics and I forgot about the whole ridiculous gardening chat.

Minor luck at the tables meant we didn’t sleep at all and were quite drunk for the ride to PS, then the conference is always a big party so by the NEXT morning we were really hung over and exhausted.  I was going to sleep through the first couple of hours of talks and just show up for lunch but Mike was gamely getting ready for the day, doing whatever he does in the shower; the maid walks in and I look up from under the covers and see her step backwards from the bathroom door, stunned.  ”Uh, do I do you now?” she asked in a heavy Central American accent.

“Shouldn’t I talk to Sweet Basil first?” asked Mike.  I couldn’t sleep after that; and every time I see Sweet Basil has opened a new business I document it.

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I spent most of my misspent youth believing Jimi Hendrix said, “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy,” so it comes as no surprise that this was wrong, too:

“I’ve looked at clowns from both sides now,
from up and down, and still somehow,
it’s clown illusions I recall.
I really don’t know clowns at all.”

And, try as I might, I can’t understand ANYTHING on those early Roxy Music records.  By the way, if clowns frighten you, this might help:

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“It is our considered Judicial Opinion that Baby Got Back.”  Sign on building across from Bristol Crown Courts for a criminal court that no longer exists.

“All rise so the Court can check out your fine, fine behinds.”

“I like big butts, and I can not lie (because I’m under oath).”

There are probably more, but I haven’t had my coffee yet.

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It is rare, but sometimes I prefer an artificial flavour to the real thing:

 

Even more embarrassing, I ran out of home-made broth (even though there are several carcasses and bits in the freezer); yup, that’s a bouillon cube dissolving in the background.  So…very…ashamed….

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A friend of mine is in China on business and forwarded these tempting menu items:

I think this one has been on a Red Light District menu in Amsterdam:

 

Population control when you have 1.2 billion people:

[Thanks, Mike...good luck with the diet.]

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I took the Oxford Personality Assessment (not related to my employer in any way but, rather, to Scientology although I copped it off another site and it was named something else there to keep the Scientology lawyers at bay–see http://testself.org/index.html if you want to take it yourself, but read the instructions at http://testself.org/fca_instructs.html first). Even if you don’t take the assessment, spend some time reading some of the questions…for example, these were especially appealing to me for various reasons:

Do you speak slowly?     Is your life a constant struggle for survival?     Are your actions considered unpredictable by other people?     Do you have a small circle of close friends, rather than a large number of friends, speaking acquaintances?     Do you often sing or whistle just for the fun of it?     Do you enjoy telling people the latest scandal about your associates?     Could you agree to “strict discipline”?     Are you “always getting into trouble”?     Do you ever get a “dreamlike” feeling toward life when it all seems unreal?     Are you a slow eater?     Do children irritate you?     Would you make the necessary actions to kill an animal in order to put it out of pain?     Do you often feel upset about the fate of war victims and political refugees?     [Note, some of these are especially good for hashers--a 'circle' of friends, unpredictability, songs for no apparent reason, gossipy, everyone has wanted to hold a pillow over Fatty's face at one point or another, etc.]

I was prepared to blow off the results and have a good laugh at it because, like most other reviewers, I think it is designed to relieve your grip on your money. Still the initial results were compelling:

My scores showed me to be “Stable, Happy, Active, and Self-Assured as opposed to Unstable (some may question this one), Depressed, Passive or Submissive (and I am a bit surprised about those last two but it wasn’t that kind of test). On the downside, my scores also indicate I am Nervous (not Composed), Irresponsible, Hypercritical and Insensitive to Others (all of which seem spot on). My borderline scores indicated I’m Unpredictable and Withdrawn…spooky.

It also cross-correllates some of the results predicting correctly that I am subject to “Compulsive activity [and] unable to rest,” as well as pointing out that I “feel superior” and that I am “paranoid, hard to get along with.” Really, I’ve got no argument with any of that.

At least, that was the test taken “honestly,” with answers I believe to be true. I then resubmitted the test with the results exactly the opposite (yes became no, + became -, nothing answered ‘maybe’). I was surprised to see that this ranked Anti-Me as 100% (full-scale) Unstable and Depressed, and somewhat Passive and Submissive but, at least, these were about the opposite in magnitude to the previous results. My “Nervous,” “Irresponsible,” and “Hypercritical” scores went essentially unchanged, Anti-Me went from borderline Unpredictable to Highly Reliable and seemed to have gotten slightly more Withdrawn. At this point, we are starting to see ‘Horoscope’ and ‘Palm Reader’ like patterns although this opinion could be explained by my cross-correlation analysis that Anti-Me is “Prone to Angry Outbursts”.

The funniest results were when I submitted all “Maybe” answers (straight line right down the middle). Wishy-Washy Me ranked as 100% Unstable (although how much more stable can you possibly get than one answer?). While Highly Reliable (maybe), Wishy-Washy Me seems also to be Self Assured (oh, I dunno), and Hypercritical (it’s possible, but I couldn’t really say for sure).

Apparently this level of indifference also means that Wishy-Washy Me is Prone to Angry Outbursts but if they think that then they can go fuck themselves (if that’s alright with them, or not, I don’t know, sorry for bringing it up).

 

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Rarely does a day go by that the Swindon Advertiser fail to tickle my adolescent funny bone.  The Beavis and Butthead moment of Saturday was this:

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When dicking off in Bremen, there is only one place to be.  This could have been covered here, but I thought it deserved its own post (since the Bremen city fathers decided it deserved its own pavilion).

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I need to get back to the Hash, soon.  I’m even seeing hash lyrics in adverts in the local paper:

“Head? Who said, ‘head’?”

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I think they forgot the comma:

Swindon, twinned with Bukkake, Japan