Ashmash

Latest Entries

I Am Alive

Thursday, 10 September 2009 11:08 P GMT
Angiogram. Cool machine. Two pretty nurses. Wires in arm. Heart on screen.  

"Much to ponder."
Bypass leaflet. Drugs. Waiting.

More Nonsense

Wednesday, 5 August 2009 10:41 P GMT

They say women go for men in uniform. I have comprehensively disproved this theory having spent the last week dressed as a traffic warden.

I did have my uniform torn off. But it wasn’t a romantic affair, more a scuffle. My assailant, who resembled a tattooed pork pie in a jump suit, evidently resented my giving her parking tips. Perhaps she’d intended to park her 4x4 on top of the confused elderly man in a mobility buggy.

It took the poor devil seven minutes to pull himself from under the wheels. If only he’d done it in five, then I wouldn’t have had to give him the fixed penalty notice. Rules is rules.

I Am A Commuter

Sunday, 2 August 2009 7:21 A GMT

Every weekday morning at 6.48 you can find me shivering on the platform, waiting for a train that will always be four minutes late, until the day I am too, when it will run on time.

Four minutes is a long time when you're freezing to death. The railway staff cheer us up by distributing hot chocolate and staging impromptu fire-eating competitions. Last week one over-enthusiastic passenger accidently set herself alight and, in her panic, stumbled into the path of the fast train to Dover. I bet she regrets paying for an annual season ticket now.

Onboard we crawl through the Kent countryside at the speed of a Victorian bicycle, but in less style. Tinned sardines have more space (and benefit from being soaked in a tasty tomato sauce, the lucky devils). 

Just outside Sittingbourne there's a bump that sometimes causes passengers to spill their coffee or tumble into a stranger's lap. I've written to the train company requesting they make the bump big enough to fling us all out of the windows. 

If they agree they'll probably make it the subject of one of their Infinite Pointless Automated Announcements. 'This is carriage four of 12'; 'Please mind the gap between the train and the platform'; 'Would passengers sitting in the rear four carriages please be aware that you will shortly be flung out of the window'; 'Please remember to take all of your personal possessions with you when you leave the train'.

Which Type of Human Are You?

Wednesday, 29 July 2009 10:24 P GMT

Broadly speaking, humans fall into two categories. You can determine which category you belong in by selecting the paragraph (below) that best describes your views and aspirations.

Category A
You are worthy and strive to live a better life. You are compassionate towards animals, worry about the environment and dream of world peace. You may own books by authors with unpronounceable names and you enjoy going to arts festivals, the theatre and/or shopping at Waitrose. You know a vegan and someone with really bad allergies.

Category B
There’s nothing better than a really cheap pie. It is your right to litter the world with unwanted children and you dream of owning a really big car. You don’t have a ‘character’ as such; rather your personality is a facade of prejudices and ignorant assumptions. You know someone called Darren.

I have taken the test. Disturbingly I was more B than A. But to be honest I’m not that bothered and the pie was lovely.

What Animals Think

Thursday, 23 July 2009 8:42 P GMT
Have you ever wondered what your pet dog, pony or hamster is actually thinking?  Well now you can thanks to my latest amazing invention, The Animal Thought Probe.

Obviously the science is pretty complex, but basically it involves shoving a probe into the animal's head and reading out its thoughts on a laptop.

I get better results when the animals are put in a mildly stressful environment, that's why I do my experiments in an abattoir. I had to slaughter nearly 500 pandas just to calibrate the machine. But their sacrifice is more than worth it. I have already gained many revealing insights. For example, cats think we’re stupid, dogs are stupid and frogs think in German.

Occasionally nature throws up uniquely gifted specimens, such as the stoat who was composing an opera and the pigeon pondering how long God's beak is. Perhaps these remarkable creatures represent evolutionary progression; fortuitous abberations destined to liberate their species. I sort of regret killing them now. Oh well, that's science for you.

Leaving Home

Wednesday, 8 July 2009 10:17 P GMT
On the day I left home mother embraced me so hard that three of my ribs snapped and I had to stay for a further four months to recover.

During my bedridden captivity she tried to equip me for independent living by giving me the benefit of her own experiences. But as she'd spent her entire adult life as a U-boat commander in the Norwegian Navy and I was planning to open a Pork Pie shop, I found no practical use for anything she said. Not least because I don't speak Norwegian.

When finally I was well enough to leave she wasn't there to see me go.

Perhaps the emotion of seeing her last child leaving the nest was too much for her. Maybe I'd been such a disappointment to her that she couldn't bear to be near me. Or possibly it was the fact that I ran away secretly in the middle of the night whilst she was asleep.

I guess I'll never know for sure.

World record attempt #4: Trampolining

Wednesday, 13 May 2009 11:28 A GMT

Tomorrow I hope to bounce my way into the record books by trampolining higher than anyone in history.  My target height is 200 feet.

In order to gain sufficient momentum to achieve this amazing feat I shall be leaping out of a hot air balloon half a mile up. The key to success will be actually landing on the trampoline.

I have taken safety precautions. Should strong winds blow me off target Uncle Patrick will be on hand to throw grandmother underneath me to break my fall.

The current world record trampoline bounce is held by Hilda Wilcox, a 96 year old from Hull. She inadvertently smashed the previous record when she tumbled drunkenly from her fifth floor balcony whilst demonstrating the Lambada.

Her landing on a neighbour’s trampoline was fortuitous to say the least, and breaking the previous record even more so. Sadly her luck ran out as she was bounced into a sewage reprocessing plant where she drowned in vat of excrement.

Fingers crossed the same doesn’t happen to me.

Management Theory

Tuesday, 7 April 2009 11:42 A GMT

There are four levels of employee in any organisation:

Juniors
The lowest rung of the corporate ladder is populated by hordes of graduates who get paid a pittance but do all the work. What they lack in work status they more than make up for in parties and shagging opportunities. Thus they are simultaneously despised and envied by everyone else.

Supervisors
These are ambitious juniors who can’t get laid and who live under the naïve delusion that they are building a career. They tend to take themselves very seriously and are extra hard on the juniors, especially the good looking ones who get a lot of sex.

Middle managers
These grey-faced depressives alternate their time between pointless meetings and hiding in toilets. They are going through a divorce/mental breakdown/midlife crisis and wear the pained expression of a wounded gazelle who knows the game is up. On rare moments of glory they might get lucky with a junior at the Christmas party. 

Directors
Directors are the least competent people in any organisation, who through a series of promotions given to them ‘just to stop them from ruining everything’, find themselves being in charge of things that they don’t understand. They get paid the most and have the most benefits, but are the least productive or accountable. Directors are the most likely to die suddenly and don’t get any sex at all.