...humour for the weekend
Hair removal
My neighbour found out that her dog (a Schnauzer) could hardly hear, so she took it to the veterinarian. The vet found that the problem was hair in the dog's ears. He cleaned both ears, and the dog could then hear fine. The vet then proceeded to tell the lady that, if she wanted to keep this from recurring, she should go to the chemist and get some "Nair" hair remover and rub it in the dog's ears once a month.
The lady went to the chemist and bought some "Nair" hair remover. At the register, the pharmacist told her, "If you're going to use this under your arms, don't use deodorant for a few days."
The lady said, "I'm not using it under my arms."
The pharmacist said, "If you're using it on your legs, don't shave for a couple of days."
The lady replied, "I'm not using it on my legs either. If you must know, I'm using it on my Schnauzer."
The pharmacist says, "Well stay off your bicycle for about a week."
One liners that arn't especially funny but I am busy at the moment...
I get on extremely well with the lesbians next door. They asked me what I would like for my birthday. I was stunned when they gave me a Rolex. It was very nice of them, but I think they misunderstood me when I said, "I wanna watch."
Why is it when your wife becomes pregnant, all her female friends rub her tummy and say "congratulations "but none of them rub your dick and say "well done"?
Honestly some folk will take offense at anything....I met a bloke with no legs this morning while at the bus stop and all I asked was "How are you getting on?"
Paddy was in the delivery room when the midwife handed him a black baby "Is this yours?" she asked. "Probably." said Paddy "She burns everything else!"
Sex therapist claim that the most effective way to arouse your man is to spend 10 minutes licking his ears!! Personally I think its bollocks!!
They reckon that Beer contains female hormones and I think they are right. After 8 pints I talk sh it and can't drive!
Whats the difference between Basil Brush and a Terrorist with a rucksack? The Terrorist with a rucksack only goes "Boom" once.
Vicar booking into a hotel asks the receptionist "Is the Porn channel in my room disabled?" "No," she replies "it's just regular porn you sick bastard."
A mate of mine has just told me he's shagging his girlfriend and her twin. I said "How can you tell them apart?" He said "Her brother's got a moustache!"
A biker goes to the doctor with hearing problems. "Can you describe the symptoms to me?" asked the doctor. "Yes. Homer is a fat yellow lazy bastard and Marge is a skinny bird with big blue hair."
30 April 2010
29 April 2010
28 April 2010
This is Planet Norway - Wednesday movie
If you want to know more about life in Norway then this weeks Wednesday movie is for you.
The first is an excellent introduction to my chosen country of abode
The second an introduction to the langauge can be found here and you can see Norwegians having fun on holiday in London here.
And finally if you want to know more about Norwegian girls, then this clip from a Norwegian TV show highlights the very best of "bungalow blondes" - nice to look at but nothing upstairs. Fantastically stroppy and self obessesed as well*.
*In order to survive tomorrow I must stress that not all Norwegian Girls are like this- it's a very special subset...
The first is an excellent introduction to my chosen country of abode
The second an introduction to the langauge can be found here and you can see Norwegians having fun on holiday in London here.
And finally if you want to know more about Norwegian girls, then this clip from a Norwegian TV show highlights the very best of "bungalow blondes" - nice to look at but nothing upstairs. Fantastically stroppy and self obessesed as well*.
*In order to survive tomorrow I must stress that not all Norwegian Girls are like this- it's a very special subset...
26 April 2010
Lost in Spain
The year is 1986, the place is Huesca a provincial city in northern Spain. I am sitting in the town square wondering what to do. I am here to work as a field assistant to a geology PhD student in her final year of fieldwork. I have just finished the first year of my undergraduate degree and have that fantastic arrogance that comes from knowing nothing useful about the world. And now I have a bit of a problem…
I travelled down through France on the train. I speak no Spanish and virtually no French. This is only my second time out of the UK and I firmly believe that I don’t need to speak any other languages because I will make myself understood. How hard can it be?
My well planned route had gone to shit when I got to the border and was thrown off the train at gun point. I have no idea why but at least I was not alone, there were four of us, two clean cut german boys and a scruffy, older American. The Germans kept themselves to themselves but the American was friendly. He was patient and forgiving of my arrogant attitude and told me that I would need some Spanish if I was going to spend any time in Spain. He tried to teach me a few key phrases – Key-Aero is “I want” and Key-Aero Ear is “I want to go to”. Donday is “where” and with that he tells me if I spend any time in Spain and if I fall in love with it, I will remember his name forever. He was called Don and he was correct, 24 years later I still do.
We spent the night sleeping outside on the train platform in Hendaye and next morning I continued my passage. As I approached the final part of my journey on the train I tried to call ahead to the hotel where Liz was staying. Each time the phone was answered I would insert the coins and say. “Hello Key-Aero Liz ”. Each time the elderly woman at the other end hung up so I enlisted a guy on the train to help. He was Spanish and dressed in white, I am fairly sure he was gay and hitting on me, but he spoke bad English, which is better than no English and was happy to help me. At Huesca we used the phone box in the station to call the hotel and he got me through the old lady to Liz. She was pleased to hear that I was alive and in the area but her van had broken down. She told me to grab a hostel for the night and then catch a bus in the morning.
I didn’t tell her that I had no cash left and the banks were closed for the day. That was my problem and I loved the idea of being destitute for a while. I used the small amount of money I had left to buy some bread, cheese and a bottle of wine in the tiny supermarket and I sat in the square, surrounded by short old people dressed in black who come to pass the evening with the friends they have shared since childhood. Once it started to get dark I headed to the park and lay out my sleeping bag in a flower bed behind a small hedge. The evening was warm and I was enjoying the vagrant life. This felt like an adventure.
Through the night I was disturbed a few times, mainly by inquisitive dogs, who found something new and interesting to smell on their late night exercise. Even later a couple made noisy love in the bush next to me, oblivious that I was lying there silently listening, complicit in their stolen moment. After they finished and stumbled off giggling, I drifted into a deep sleep and dreamt of long train rides, boarder crossing and old hippies.
I awoke suddenly as water splashed my face. I sat up to see that the rain came from a hose pipe, in the hands of a park attendant 10 m away. When he saw me he was less than pleased. He sprayed me with the hose as I swore back at him and stuffed my things into the old, ex army rucksack. I beat a hasty retreat as he chased me out of the park swearing in colourful Spanish I didn't understand.
I headed to the bank and changed a travellers cheque. Feeling rich I splashed out on coffee and a croissant for breakfast. Then things started to go bad. Over breakfast I suddenly realized that the address and phone number of the hotel were missing. I searched every pocket repeatedly, as if the piece of paper would magically appear in my pocket the third time I looked. Then I searched my bag, no joy. I had had it the previous evening, where could it have gone? Was it in the floor bed with the angry gardener? was it in the super market, dislodged as I pulled out my last few notes? I thought to myself, "where ever it is, I am in shit!"
So I took stock of the situation! I was in a town I didn't know, infact until 2 weeks ago I had never even heard of; in a country where I didn’t speak the language. I did not know where I was supposed to be going but I knew its about an hour away. I had no way contacting the person I was supposed to meet and no way of getting home for the next 6 weeks. I was also pretty sure that nobody else who I could potentally call would have any more of a clue than me. Things were not looking great.
I had a vague recollection that the hotel was called “Jabali”. So I searched the phone book in a phone box until an irate woman, who wanted to use the kiosk shouted at me. I am not sure what about but I left. Then I headed to the bus station and tried to ask someone. “Ollar, KeyAero Hotel Jabali”. I pronounced the J in the English way so it sounds like a boxers jab. Nobody understood me, but a crowd gathered, keen to join in. One guy figured I must be French and two French students were enlisted to help. This did not help it just meant that there were people shouting at me in two languages I don’t understand. So after 10 minutes I gave up and forced my way out of the crowd. They carried on arguing, oblivious to whether I was there or not.
So now I am back sitting in the square, pondering my next move. I am in shit! Despite this, things don't feel too bad and at least I am having an adventure. This is kinda cool in a very fucked up way. I laugh to myself but I have to admit I don’t see a solution just at the moment.
I look up and I look around at the square with its big shady trees and it's old buildings. I am just contemplating the Spanish Civil war and what may have gone on here when suddenly I see a white ford escort van drive past. I notice the yellow of a rear UK number plate and stand up. Could it be? Surely I can’t be that lucky but I don’t wait to think too hard about it, I throw the sack on my back and run into the road. The van is indeed real and british and by now it is stopped at some traffic lights 200 m down the road. I sprint through the traffic which honks and swerves and honks some more. I ignore the irate drivers because I know that I only have one chance…
I reach the van as the light goes green and I open the door and jump in. Liz’s immediate reaction is one of shock. It’s not every day that a 6’2” hippy with long greasy hair and cheap imitation aviator sunglasses, who literally has just slept in a hedge, jumps into your car unannounced. She recovers quickly when she realizes it is me and says “hola chico”.
I have no idea what she is talking about, but I have arrived…
I travelled down through France on the train. I speak no Spanish and virtually no French. This is only my second time out of the UK and I firmly believe that I don’t need to speak any other languages because I will make myself understood. How hard can it be?
My well planned route had gone to shit when I got to the border and was thrown off the train at gun point. I have no idea why but at least I was not alone, there were four of us, two clean cut german boys and a scruffy, older American. The Germans kept themselves to themselves but the American was friendly. He was patient and forgiving of my arrogant attitude and told me that I would need some Spanish if I was going to spend any time in Spain. He tried to teach me a few key phrases – Key-Aero is “I want” and Key-Aero Ear is “I want to go to”. Donday is “where” and with that he tells me if I spend any time in Spain and if I fall in love with it, I will remember his name forever. He was called Don and he was correct, 24 years later I still do.
We spent the night sleeping outside on the train platform in Hendaye and next morning I continued my passage. As I approached the final part of my journey on the train I tried to call ahead to the hotel where Liz was staying. Each time the phone was answered I would insert the coins and say. “Hello Key-Aero Liz ”. Each time the elderly woman at the other end hung up so I enlisted a guy on the train to help. He was Spanish and dressed in white, I am fairly sure he was gay and hitting on me, but he spoke bad English, which is better than no English and was happy to help me. At Huesca we used the phone box in the station to call the hotel and he got me through the old lady to Liz. She was pleased to hear that I was alive and in the area but her van had broken down. She told me to grab a hostel for the night and then catch a bus in the morning.
I didn’t tell her that I had no cash left and the banks were closed for the day. That was my problem and I loved the idea of being destitute for a while. I used the small amount of money I had left to buy some bread, cheese and a bottle of wine in the tiny supermarket and I sat in the square, surrounded by short old people dressed in black who come to pass the evening with the friends they have shared since childhood. Once it started to get dark I headed to the park and lay out my sleeping bag in a flower bed behind a small hedge. The evening was warm and I was enjoying the vagrant life. This felt like an adventure.
Through the night I was disturbed a few times, mainly by inquisitive dogs, who found something new and interesting to smell on their late night exercise. Even later a couple made noisy love in the bush next to me, oblivious that I was lying there silently listening, complicit in their stolen moment. After they finished and stumbled off giggling, I drifted into a deep sleep and dreamt of long train rides, boarder crossing and old hippies.
I awoke suddenly as water splashed my face. I sat up to see that the rain came from a hose pipe, in the hands of a park attendant 10 m away. When he saw me he was less than pleased. He sprayed me with the hose as I swore back at him and stuffed my things into the old, ex army rucksack. I beat a hasty retreat as he chased me out of the park swearing in colourful Spanish I didn't understand.
I headed to the bank and changed a travellers cheque. Feeling rich I splashed out on coffee and a croissant for breakfast. Then things started to go bad. Over breakfast I suddenly realized that the address and phone number of the hotel were missing. I searched every pocket repeatedly, as if the piece of paper would magically appear in my pocket the third time I looked. Then I searched my bag, no joy. I had had it the previous evening, where could it have gone? Was it in the floor bed with the angry gardener? was it in the super market, dislodged as I pulled out my last few notes? I thought to myself, "where ever it is, I am in shit!"
So I took stock of the situation! I was in a town I didn't know, infact until 2 weeks ago I had never even heard of; in a country where I didn’t speak the language. I did not know where I was supposed to be going but I knew its about an hour away. I had no way contacting the person I was supposed to meet and no way of getting home for the next 6 weeks. I was also pretty sure that nobody else who I could potentally call would have any more of a clue than me. Things were not looking great.
I had a vague recollection that the hotel was called “Jabali”. So I searched the phone book in a phone box until an irate woman, who wanted to use the kiosk shouted at me. I am not sure what about but I left. Then I headed to the bus station and tried to ask someone. “Ollar, KeyAero Hotel Jabali”. I pronounced the J in the English way so it sounds like a boxers jab. Nobody understood me, but a crowd gathered, keen to join in. One guy figured I must be French and two French students were enlisted to help. This did not help it just meant that there were people shouting at me in two languages I don’t understand. So after 10 minutes I gave up and forced my way out of the crowd. They carried on arguing, oblivious to whether I was there or not.
So now I am back sitting in the square, pondering my next move. I am in shit! Despite this, things don't feel too bad and at least I am having an adventure. This is kinda cool in a very fucked up way. I laugh to myself but I have to admit I don’t see a solution just at the moment.
I look up and I look around at the square with its big shady trees and it's old buildings. I am just contemplating the Spanish Civil war and what may have gone on here when suddenly I see a white ford escort van drive past. I notice the yellow of a rear UK number plate and stand up. Could it be? Surely I can’t be that lucky but I don’t wait to think too hard about it, I throw the sack on my back and run into the road. The van is indeed real and british and by now it is stopped at some traffic lights 200 m down the road. I sprint through the traffic which honks and swerves and honks some more. I ignore the irate drivers because I know that I only have one chance…
I reach the van as the light goes green and I open the door and jump in. Liz’s immediate reaction is one of shock. It’s not every day that a 6’2” hippy with long greasy hair and cheap imitation aviator sunglasses, who literally has just slept in a hedge, jumps into your car unannounced. She recovers quickly when she realizes it is me and says “hola chico”.
I have no idea what she is talking about, but I have arrived…
24 April 2010
Accretionary Wedge 24 - Geological Heroes - John Wesley Powell
This month's accretionary wedge is hosted at Mountain Beltway with the theme "geological heroes". I gave this some consideration, there are just some many to choose from. Geology is a subject made for and indeed, made by, heroes. So moving away from the obvious Victorian giants such as Lyle, Sedgwick and Lapworth, it is hard to ignore William Smith, the father of the geological map. One also has to consider Mary Anning, who made a huge contribution to palaeontology at a time when women were supposed to just sew, read and entertain. In the 20th Century there is Arthur Holmes who resurrected Wagner’s continental drift hypothesis and provide a driving force for plate motion. Closer to my open heart are people like Heno Martin who spent the 2nd World War hiding in the Namib Desert from the British Army and since he was bored started to map it. He later went on to be the director of the Namibian Geological Survey. How about Ian Wilson who rode a motor bike out to Libya and studied aeolian landforms? He sadly died young, but penned my favourite article title "Ergs". Not "Large aeolian sandseas: examples from modern Africa" or anything woolly like that - just "Ergs", a word most people wouldn't even understand. Another aeolian giant, all be it of small stature is Ken Glennie. In 1967, the year I was born, Shell having discovered gas in the Southern North Sea and realising that the reservoirs might be aeolian dispatched him to North Africa with the instruction "go and learn about deserts". Which he did. Most significantly I think his work ushered in a new era of understanding reservoirs from a geological and sedimentological perspective.And of course it is impossible to ignore the biggest geological hero of all time Charles Darwin a scientific giant without peer. But I moved away from all of these to a man who's work is very close to my heart - John Wesley Powell.
Powell was born in New York in March 1834 the son of a poor preacher. Powell failed to graduate from college and instead undertook a series of expeditions down the majors rivers of US including the Mississippi and the Missouri. He was a keen observer of natural history and taught himself geology. When the civil war broke out he signed up to the Union army and served as a Major. He lost an arm to a musket ball at the battle of Shiloh.
After the war he became Professor of Geology at Illinois University but he was restless and looking for a new challenge. While mapping and exploring the Colorado Plateau he pulled together a team of veterans and set off on an expedition to map the uncharted canyons of the Colorado River. Setting out from Green River Wyoming in May 1869, the first journey quickly turned from a mapping trip into a battle for survival. The expedition covered 900 miles and emerged battered but not beaten at the Virgin River, present day Lake Mead, 3 months later. Despite the hardship of the trip Powell returned two years later and re-did the trip, this time with a bit more preparation and planning. He wrote up the expedition in his classic book “Exploration of the Colorado River” which was published in 1875.
After the Colorado trips Powell became the second director of the USGS, a most which he held until 1894. He also had a very strong social conscience and was dedicated to supporting native American culture and development. He died in 1905.
Powell's expatiations opened up the western US. He could hardly have known the geological significance of his trip which starts in the Tertiary and traverses virtually every stratigraphic unit to the PreCambrian, but his expedition led to the settlement of the Colorado Plateau.
I have been working in the Colorado Plateau for 15 years. I have run all of the major rivers, including the Grand Canyon and I have feasted on the fantastic geology that the region has to offer. Despite spending a lot of time in the region it is almost impossible for us to imagine the challenges that these people faced. There is nothing equivalent to it now not even the exploration of space. When Powell headed off down the Colorado river they had no idea what was around the next corner, huge rapids or a 200 foot waterfall. This degree of uncertainty simply does not exist in a world that is completely mapped and covered by Google Earth and QuickBird. The isolation of being in the Canyon without a mobile or satellite phone to call for help when things go wrong. The total isolation of the situation and the self sufficiency of these people who lived there field work is something that is sadly lost to us now.
23 April 2010
Friday Joke
Predictably here are so Iceland Volcano Jokes...
It’s a bit early for Iceland volcano jokes. We should wait awhile for the dust to settle.
I see that America has declared war on Iceland. Apparently they are accusing them of harbouring a “weapon of ash eruption”.
It was the last wish of the Icelandic economy that its ashes be spread over Europe.
Iceland goes bankrupt, then it manages to set itself on fire. This has insurance scam written all over it.
Iceland, we wanted your cash, not your ash.
Waiter, there's volcanic ash in my soup. I know, it's a no-fly zone.
Richard Curtis is working on a new rom-com about people stuck in an airport who fall in love. The working title is "Lava Actually".
I came out my house yesterday and was hit on the head by a bag of frozen sausages, a chocolate gateau and some fish fingers. I realised it must be the fallout from Iceland.
Volcano in Iceland. What next, Earthquake in Asda?
Woke this morning to find every surface in the house covered in a layer of dust and a foul stench of sulphur in the air. No change, I’ve been married to that bone-idle slob for 20 years.
It’s a bit early for Iceland volcano jokes. We should wait awhile for the dust to settle.
I see that America has declared war on Iceland. Apparently they are accusing them of harbouring a “weapon of ash eruption”.
It was the last wish of the Icelandic economy that its ashes be spread over Europe.
Iceland goes bankrupt, then it manages to set itself on fire. This has insurance scam written all over it.
Iceland, we wanted your cash, not your ash.
Waiter, there's volcanic ash in my soup. I know, it's a no-fly zone.
Richard Curtis is working on a new rom-com about people stuck in an airport who fall in love. The working title is "Lava Actually".
I came out my house yesterday and was hit on the head by a bag of frozen sausages, a chocolate gateau and some fish fingers. I realised it must be the fallout from Iceland.
Volcano in Iceland. What next, Earthquake in Asda?
Woke this morning to find every surface in the house covered in a layer of dust and a foul stench of sulphur in the air. No change, I’ve been married to that bone-idle slob for 20 years.
22 April 2010
Harem Pants
Those very baggy Plus-4s looked stupid on MC Hammer and they look even worse on you! With the possible exception of a eunuch in a medieval brothel or a transvestite actor in pantomime, there is not a single person on this planet who looks good in them. The especially applies to middle aged women, going to the office and steroid pumped, gym monsters going clubbing.
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