Olympricks

I think it's about time I wrote a few words about the Olymprick Games that we're hosting in the UK this year.

I'm very excited about them.  So excited in fact, that I did a little picture of the Olymprick Rings for you!

How cool are they?  All those pretty colours representing all the pricks in the world coming together.

I don't know what my favourite Olymprick event is.  It could be hurdling.  I do like to see lots of pricks trying to jump over little fences in order to beat all the other pricks to the finish line.  I especially like it when they fall over.

Look: here's a hurdling prick.  See how he leaps gracefully over his little fence, his hair streaming out behind him!

I quite like the swimming too.  All those pricks splashing about in the water!  They look like they're having so much fun!

And then there's the cycling. Wow! Look at him go. He's so streamlined with his shiny, purple helmet!

Most of all, I like the little ceremony at the end where the winner stands on the podium all tall and proud and erect with his gold medal gleaming in the sunlight.

You'll note that all of the events depicted in this blog post were men's events.  This is not due to any misogyny on my part.  Just think about it for a moment... ask yourself if you really want to see a vagina throwing the javelin or doing a triple jump into a pit of sand? Well, do ya?

Oh, you sick, filthy bastards!

They Call Me 'Three Castles' Morrissey

No, really. They do. 

Well... when I say 'they' I mean...  er...  me...

But I'm calling myself 'Three Castles' Morrissey this week because I went to see not one, not two but THREE awesome castles over the weekend.

It's became a bit of a tradition between Dr K and me to take each other on a little mystery trip to celebrate our respective birthdays.  And Dr K took me to Yorkshire.  And you know what?  You can't take more than  about three steps in Yorkshire without tripping over an awesome castle.

So, yeah.  We saw some castles.  Here's one:  It's Middleham Castle:

You can climb up bits of it.  So we did.  And here's a picture of the view:

It doesn't show, but it was hailing and blowing a gale when I took that picture.

Middleham Castle was home to Richard III.  I met him.  He seemed pretty 'armless, if you ask me.

Next up was Richmond Castle.  It had a full on tower, which was ace!  Here's Dr K being a monster, next to it.  Man, she's tall!

Since I'm not a humongous giant like Dr K, I had to climb up the tower to get up high. If you look really carefully, you can see me at the top in this photo:

Here's Richmond from the top of that tower.  It hailed on me while I was up there.

Finally, we went to see Bolton Castle which is in Castle Bolton.  Figure that one out.  Anyway - here's me pretending it's Moo Castle!

And, mostly because I've set the precendent with the other two castles, here's the view from the top.  In it, Dr K is taking a picture of me taking that picture.

 And here is the picture that Dr K took:

While we were up there, we also took a pretty rubbish picture of ourselves. We're a cute couple huh? It didn't hail on us, but damn, it was cold!

I'm not just obsessed with the top of castles though. Here's me in the very lowest point I could find. The beer cellar!

You will be pleased to know that I was able to locate a cream tea in the castle tearooms, which were a little bit like having lunch in a big stone refrigerator.

 We didn't just go to castles while we were there.  We also paid a visit to The Forbidden Corner which, it turned out was exactly the opposite of forbidden - they really wanted us in there. Almost as if it was a tourist attraction.

Anyway, The Forbidden Corner bills itself as 'the strangest place in the world'.  I dunno.  They've obviously never been to my house on a Tuesday evening, but there was a pretty odd collection of stuff in there.

Here, for example, is a creepy bearded bloke pointing the way.  And he's standing in front of a big bearded man carved out of a tree, who is also pointing the way..

And here's Dr K being eaten by...  well, I'm not sure what she's being eaten by.  But she came out of the other end just fine, so I guess she's pretty indigestible.

Here's the latest fashion in archways.  Fancy one of these over the door to your ensuite?  The dragons, I mean, not me.

 Here I am making eye contact with a naked lady. I'm very good at making eye contact as all of my female friends will affirm...  ahem...

Here is a pretty little garden with a pretty little Doctor in it.

And here is a fountain.

And here is...  er...  a... well it's obviously a...  nope... I give up.  I sat on it, anyway.

There was a Roman garrison there.  I don't think they were particularly pleased to see me.

As a point of interest, I had a very wet groin at the time that photo was taken.  There was a watery incident.  I will let you read into that whatever you like, but I can pretty much guarantee that you're wrong.

I have a lot more photos of the place, but I'm running out of time and space, so I'll quickly tell you about my curry:

It wasn't just any curry.  It had venison in it and it was delicious.  I only had venison because they'd run out of ostrich.

If I had one complaint about the weekend, it would be that Dr K managed to find the cottage with the most uncomfortable sofa on the planet.  Her side seemed fine, but mine was trying to kill me. I'm sure of it:

I will leave you with a delightful picture of Dr K.  She's so very pretty.

Stand By...

You're probably thinking: I've been waiting all week for a blog post and all I get is a crappy three line post.

And you're right. In a way. This is a short post. But in another way, you're wrong. As wrong as a nude centrefold of your mum, or a fat man (me) in speedos, or a curry made from fish.

You see, I'm on holiday this weekend and I don't get home until tomorrow. And, as is traditional, I shall be sharing my holiday experience with you. But as my holiday isn't finished yet, I can't finish the blog post.

So hold your horses, keep your pants on and unbunched and stop fretting. You will get an excellent blog post tomorrow evening.

Location:Yorkshire

I've Been Ruined

I wrote a lovely, long post earlier.  It was awesome.  It was a rant about a bunch of things that were annoying me at the moment.  Sadly, the Evil Cabal Of Evil had other ideas, and amongst other things, deleted my little piece of literary genius before I could share it with you.

Also, they somehow disabled the IR function of the wireless video sender that I bought this weekend shortly after I'd got it working perfectly.  And they made my computer crash every half an hour or so while I was trying to animate.

So that was nice.  At least I know they haven't left me, which is good, I guess.

Anyway, instead I have for you a few thoughts on Dr K:

Dr K is particularly lovely.  In fact she's so lovely that I've been ruined for all the other girls:

The come up to me an they're all like: 'Hey Dazza you're so handsome that bits of me tingle when I think about you.'

And I'm like 'Ew, no, you repulse me because you are not as lovely as Dr K!'

But when I see Dr K, I am not repulsed at all, on account of her loveliness. I could ogle her all day.  In  fact sometimes I do.

And that's it for this week.  Ta ta.

In Which I Make Excuses For The Lateness Of This Blog Post

It hasn't gone unnoticed that the blog post due on Sunday did not appear in a timely fashion. In fact I had no less than seven people point it out to me with varying degrees of indignance.

I have some excuses prepared, two of which may be true:

1. The cake-sale-athon that appears to be taking place in my office meant that I was hospitalised with cake-poisoning, on account of eating too many cakes. What could I do though? I have a moral obligation to support charitable events even at the risk of my own health. My problem is that I care too much.
   
   
2. I actually wrote and published this post in plenty of time, however it was pulled into a temporal vortex and has only just emerged!
   
   
3. I was busy panic buying products (including but not limited to: spray starch, lemon curd, paving slabs, shoelaces, filing cabinets, sticking plasters, Twixes and beetroot) the availability of which may, at some point in the future be slightly affected by strike action, despite a lack of any actual information to support the assertion.
   
   
4. I was waiting to ask for the bill in one of those restaurants where physics defying waiters managed to busily have their backs to me at all times!
   
   
5. I couldn't see my computer past my beard.
   
   
6. Hans and his band of terrorists took over the office block in which Dr K works. Fortunately, Argyle had just dropped me off from the airport and, with the help of a portly child-killing cop, I was able to uncover the bad guys plan to steal all the bearer bonds in the basement and kill them all (although not before they killed Ellis) without even wearing shoes. So I was a bit too busy for blog posting!
   
   
7. I was the victim of a terrible accident involving a buttered goat and a very sharp wedge of cheese, which resulted in the loss of all of my fingers and three of my toes. Therefore I've had to type this post with my nose, which has taken 3 days, so far!
   
   
8. I had a visitor over the weekend. By the time he left I had to make the difficult choice of either writing a blog post or watching the first episode of the new season of Dexter. Obviously I chose to write the blog post... NOT!!!
   
   
9. I went for a curry with my bosses boss and his boss. It went on quite late, and I was far too tired to write a post by the time I staggered through my front door. Fortunately my bosses bosses boss paid for dinner which made up somewhat for the rather unpleasant brown stain on the end of my nose.
   
   

You're Not A Celebrity, Get Out Of Here

So, a friend and I had a conversation (over tea and cake) about exactly what qualified a person as a 'celebrity'.

These are the first nine 'celebrities' named on the front page of the UK's OK magazine website:

Jorgie Porter
Matthew Wolfenden
David Walliams
Jessie J
Ben Kelly
Konnie Huq
Sam Faiers
Amanda Holden
Imogen Thomas

Hell, I've only ever heard of two of those people. That said, I'm probably not the best person to ask about celebrities.

Even so, if I've never heard of 'em are they really celebrities?

Naturally we ended up referring to a dictionary:

Celebrity
noun: a famous person, especially in entertainment or sport

Hmm. So, a celebrity is a famous person. But what actually makes someone famous? I wonder what the dictionary has to say about that:

Famous
adjective: known about by many people

Many people, eh? Qualify 'many'.

Many
noun: a majority

I think I know what 'majority' means, but let's check, just to be sure:

Majority
noun: the greater number

Righto. So by my interpretation, a 'celebrity' is a person who is known about by more than 3.4 billion people.

(I know, I know. You're gonna say that I'm casting the net too wide. I shouldn't be using the whole world as my base figure - that's way too divisive. But if we start limiting the pool to people who are likely to have heard of 'em, then we might as well say that I'm a celebrity on the basis that my cat knows me!)

I'm willing to bet that, Jeremy Clarkson notwithstanding, there's not a single so called 'celebrity' on the planet who's known about by 3.4 billion people.

I mean, perhaps George W Bush is. He got a lot of press. Elvis, maybe. But definitely not Matthew Wolfenden. Turns out, he's just a guy.

In Which Mother's Day Is Cancelled, Someone Shits In The Bed And I Develop A Craving For Cream Teas.

I'm really sorry, ladies, but those of you who were expecting cards and presents from your offspring today should prepare for disappointment.

Despite all the advertising by the greetings card industry, there is in fact no Mothers Day this year.

You see, there was a scheduling error. Those idiots in the the calendar department went and double booked the 18th March. Today is in fact Dazza's birthday. It's been Dazza's Birthday on the 18th March for the last 30-odd years and it's not about to change. Here he is with this year's haul:


I have my suspicions about how this horrible Mothers-Day/Daz Day mix-up occurred:


So if you've gone out and bought your mum a card, I'm afraid you're going to have to ask for a refund. They shouldn't have sold it to you in the first place. And if you have received one, try not to be too despondent about the fact that it's a hollow gesture.

Now, my mum puts quite a lot of emphasis on Mothers Day. So that she doesn't feel all put out and everything, I have in fact purchased a card. But I didn't want to fall into the Cabal's ridiculous little trap, so I bought her a card that was far more appropriate for the day:


Now I've set the world to rights, I shall move onto other things.
This week, Rochester has been very poorly. He has kidney problems and they sort of got the better of him. Turns out that he had no potassium in him, which was causing him to be lethargic and dehydrated. Kinda like a hangover...


Anyway, the vet kept him in for a couple of nights, shaved bits of him for some sort of kinky ritual, poked him with all the stuff she could find, charging me a small fortune for the pleasure, and now he's much better. So much so, that when we got him home, he thanked us by coming up to bed with us and liberally sharing his lovely diarrhoea.


There's nothing quite like having to change the bed, clean the carpets and shower at half past eleven at night.

So basically, Rochester has spent all of my savings and then shit on me. Thanks, mate. You're very lucky to live with people who still love you despite being covered in your shit!

One last thing.

When I turned on the telly yesterday morning, James Martin was making Cream Teas. Guess what I had a craving for all weekend?

Luckily, I was able to indulge it...

The Stalky Owl

I've been having quite a traumatic time of it this week. You see, I have acquired a stalker.

It's disguised itself as a really creepy owl, but really it's working for the The Evil Cabal Of Evil. I'm certain of it!


It stalks me when I drink tea in the garden.


It stalks me while I sleep.


It stalks me in the shower.


It stalks me when I use my computer.


It stalks me when I drive.


It stalks me in the kitchen.


It stalks me when I read.


Sometimes it gets it's friends to stalk me.


It stalks me when I watch Telly.


It stalks me when I go for walks.


It even stalks me when I drop the kids off at the pool.

I'm at my wits end. I haven't heard anything from the Cabal all year. They must have something big planned...

When was the last time you saw me eating meat?

Are you sure? I think if you looked carefully, that was actually a bean-burger. Or a veggie burrito.

In fact, my last meaty meal was on 31st January. It was a slightly disappointing steak baguette, and I had it with my good friend Mr Berry.

Veguary was quite a success last year, and people had been asking me if  I would be repeating it this year.

So, I thought I'd try it again. But with a twist to make it more interesting: Covert Veguary. Or Invisiveguary if you prefer.

I told no-one. Well, actually, I did tell one person because I'm basically incapable of keeping a secret. But no-one else knew. Especially not Dr K who, when I told her over a celebratory plate of hot chicken wings at Nando's on the 1st March, was astounded.  Look, here's her astounded face:

She didn't really say that.  She's far too nice a girl for that sort of language.

For the record... here's that plate of chicken wings:

Somehow, I managed it. For a whole month, I ate nothing but vegetarian approved fayre. Blimey, it was hard work doing it in secret. Covert curries. Sneaky sausages. Fajita facades. Falsified feasts, Camouflaged Chineses. All manner of alliteratively ambiguous... er... food...

There were a few tricky moments.  For example, my friend Jo very kindly offered to make us dinner one evening.  She was making chicken fajitas.  Yum.  This presented me with a bit of a dilemma.  I'd either have to feign some sort of illness, or hope that no-one noticed that I was only stuffing my wrap with cheese, onions and peppers.  I kind've imagined the conversation going like this:

My luck was in however and on the day we were supposed to be going over, Dr K contracted a horrible chest infection (no, not my hands...) which had her in agony!  So we couldn't go.  I have to say, I've never been so pleased to see Dr K in such excruciating pain!

But no-one noticed. Well actually - during the course of the month, the lack of meat in my meal was the subject of comment by just two people. But not even they made the connection between that one meal and all the others!

(And before you start claiming that you knew what was going on all along - stop deluding yourself.  If you didn't pipe up then, you can't pretend you'd noticed, you fool!)

I suppose this calls for some profound insight into how people are so wrapped up in their own little lives that they don't have a clue what's going on around them.  They are, but who wants to read a post full of smugness?  There's plenty of other people around being smug about their perceived superiority without me adding to it.

Instead of smugness, how about a picture of some steak:

I love steak and plan to go and eat one really soon.  Who's with me?

Working With The Thunder God

Not content with keeping this blog going, I now seem to be supplying regular articles for The Perturbed Dragon's website.

Here's the one I wrote today about the animating process:

Working With The Thunder God.