A blowy drizzle in a (recycled) teacup

Welcome to my first proper blog. And by ‘proper’, I mean I’ve remembered to press the spellcheck button and stuck a couple of pictures in it.

I’m aiming for the BBC Reithian principles to Inform, Educate and Entertain, except I’m not that keen on informing and educating. And I don’t see much room for entertainment. Other than that, exactly the same.

Anyway, I’m gonna keep it short as I’ve nothing to say as the old expression goes ‘keep your audience wanting more’. I’m not sure how that expression works if you haven’t actually got an audience. Or anything they wanted in the first place. ‘Find an audience and subject them to something causing indifference’?

The main theme for this blog is storms, as we’re currently under storm Ciara and being British any variance of weather from ‘grey and not particularly warm’ causes us to misplace our faeces. Where discussing the weather is concerned the British are like a mildly depressed moth drawn to a non-PAT tested electric heater, its just something we gotta do.

Its about time storms got more accurate names like; ‘storm big blowy bastard’, ‘storm umbrella fucker upper’ and ‘storm you’ve got no chance of public transport getting you to work tomorrow mate’. Instead we have ‘storm Audrey’ (416 deaths in 1957) and ‘Hurricane Camille’ (256 deaths in 1969). “Quick get out of here its Camille!”, just doesn’t convey the necessary level of danger as a warning.

Incidentally, Manchester ice hockey team is called ‘Manchester Storm’, presumably at the focus group meeting the more honest marketing people (is there such a thing?) were overruled on ‘Manchester drizzle’, ‘Manchester constant grey’ (Have you seen the Manchester sky colour chart? More grey than a Conservative party conference held in a 1940s TV set) and ‘Manchester for fucks sake will I ever actually see the sun again’.

Manchester Storm are not alone on having a name with tenuous (at best) connections with the area. Other ice hockey teams in the UK include; Nottingham Lions, Telford Tigers (and thusly David Attenborough finds himself regularly in this Midlands big cat hotbed), Bracknell Bees (a bit more honest with their animal monikers in Bracknall), Hull and Slough are known as ‘The Jets’ (presumably as that is identified as the mode of transport that gets you away from there quickest?), Glasgow Clan (seems appropriately aggressive enough) and finally Coventry Blaze, which taken the history of the city during the Second World War may be of questionable naming, it’s a bit like an Ice Hockey team being called Dresden Carpet Bomb, or Hiroshima Mushroom Cloud.

Segueing from storms to more specifically wind; the Sun produces solar winds that reach speeds of 250 to 750 kilometers per second (the current British storms are at about 120 Kilometers per hour) and is supersonic. So from this we can deduce if there are aliens out there, (And lets face it, this planet has produced Findus Crispy pancakes, Naked Jungle {unless you really want to see Keith Chegwin naked, I would not recommend looking that one up} and Donald Trump, then all bets are off on extra-terrestrials), they are using privately funded transport or their public transport is more robust when faced with anything less than temperate conditions.

I dread the day we colonise other planets, simply as I don’t fancy the bus replacement service I’ll have to take to get me from Earth to Mars when my shuttle is delayed due to ‘the lack of availability of staff’. Given this shortage of staff, I believe there is an intense breeding program going on at Northern Rail to ensure people who check your ticket don’t dwindle into extinction. At least I think that’s what was going on in the toilet of the train…

On the space life forms issue, do you think the Extra Terrestrials from ET and the Aliens from Alien ever have foreign exchanges, like we did at school? And would that exchange be more awkward than the average French child being subjected to English ‘customs’ whilst over? I mean sure the Xenomorphs may spit acid and implant their offspring into your chest, but they don’t consider a slice of Vienetta to be a sophisticated cultural treat.

On another note (D hashtag minor I think), it’s the Oscars tonight. There is a row about the lack of diversity and that is probably important to keep in focus as we’re a long way off getting that right. Still we’ve moved on from the days of Oscar winning film Breakfast at Tiffany’s with the ‘Japanese’ character of Mr. Yunioshi played by Mickey Rooney (see picture below for evidence).

And while we’re on it, John Wayne as Genghis Khan

And just to get a Highlander mention in (as no opportunity for this should be passed up), the French actor Christopher Lambert as the Scotsman Connor Macleod, but more important The Scottish Sean Connery as the Spanish/Egyptian/ Who the fuckery dresses like that? Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez.

Last and by every means least, it turns out the people who are suspected of having the Corona Virus have been quarantined (fair enough) in Milton Keynes (are they not suffering enough?!). I guess if you can survive that, you’re not truly ill?

Peace out, enjoy your Sunday and watch out for them storms, if they ask you if you’ve paid your dues, you tell them the cheque is in the mail.