All 24 entries tagged Misc

Woodpeckers

I would like to coin a new deffinition of a word.

Woodpecker: n, A foul up, mess or general misfortune of the slightly humourous variety. See also, SNAFU, FUBAR.

This comes from a story I heard on Home Truths on Radio 4 ages ago, when John Peel was still presenting it.

The story went like this: Two new parents have a small child of about 2 years old, still learning to talk etc. Suddenly, one day, small child starts coming out with the phrase “ooh bugger.” Parents devastated, shocked, accusations and pointed fingers fly over who has been swearing in front of small child. Until parents suddenly notice that small child is actually pointing at a porcelain figurine on the mantelpiece of, you guessed it, a woodpecker. Small child was intending to say “woodpecker” but being only small could only mannage “oohbugger”. Hilarity ensued.

I am therefore determined to use the term “a woodpecker” to describe some sort of accident that might elicit the phrase used by said small child.

Such as, for example, this morning when I confused my Monday and Wednesday Shakespeare lectures, and arrived at the lecture theatre at 2, only to find the lecture was at 1.

Woodpecker.

: 29 Nov 2006 15:28 |  Tags: Journal Misc |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Bored…

Find your Celestial Choir

What type of Fae are you?

Take the Role-Playing Stereotype quiz.

Take the Villain quiz.

: 28 Nov 2006 22:44 |  Tags: Misc |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

One of the funniest things in the world…

... Is listening to a clanger faking an orgasm.

And just to clear it up, this is what I mean by a clanger:

: 22 Nov 2006 18:50 |  Tags: Misc |  Comments (16) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Something to Say?

It's now August.

I've been at home now for the longest period I've been anywhere since April. The first time, in fact, since April that I've spent more than two weeks in the same place.

They've got me eating propperly again.

I've been thinking, and writing, and fretting a bit too.

Oh sod it.

Nothing to say.

: 02 Aug 2006 09:38 |  Tags: Journal Misc |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Balance Sheet

Good: I have finished Exams
Bad: I have nothing to do.

Good: I have the time to do something new and interesting
Bad: I'm ill, so want to do boring things like stay in bed.

Good: I'm going home this weekend!
Bad: All my stuff is home already.

Good: I'm eating chocolate.
Bad: It hurts when I swallow.

Good: I have a driving lesson later
Bad: I may, as always, crash and die.

Good: My Dad took me out for dinner last night
Bad: We got home to find the washing machine leaking.

Good: It wasn't my washing
Bad: It was my washing machine.

Good: I'm listening to "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue"

I think it all balances out.

: 15 Jun 2006 10:24 |  Tags: Journal Misc |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The good, the bad and the downright ugly

Isn't it odd how things that are gross can fascinate you, and things that are fascinating can gross you out?

Two things that are on my mind at the minute can elicit both responses.

The first is the fungus that is growing on the wall next to the washing machine. That stuff is vile. It's a kind of red–orange colour, and wouldn't look out of place growing on a tree in a forest somewhere. On a wall inside it looks deadly. And yet I can't stop obsessing about it's presence in the house. It's like the gory bits in horror films – you know if you look you'll get nightmares for a week, but your eyes are irresistably drawn to the screen…

The other thing is more the other way round, instead of something disgusting that I can't forget about, this is something genuinely cool, but which makes my skin crawl when i think about it.
I've been reading a bit of Gerald Durrell lately, and have come across something called a Surinam Toad (Pipa Pipa). It's from South America and it looks like roadkill. Seriously. It looks like it's been flattened and left in a ditch. But that's not why it makes my skin crawl.

Have a look at this

The pictures on the other end of this link show the really fascinating thing about this amphibian, which is the way it breeds. You see, when the female lays her eggs, the male spreads them all over her back. Then a thin layer of skin forms over the eggs, and they actually hatch and go through all the tadple bit under her skin, before wriggling out about 3 months later as minature adults.
That's damn cool, but looking at the pictures gives me the shivers.

: 16 May 2006 22:21 |  Tags: Misc |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Wild about Wilde

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple"

"To fall in love with oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

"I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner: the buter would probably get on my cuffs."

"Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever."

"I do hate people who are not serious about meals. it is so shallow of them."

…

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

: 15 Jan 2006 13:54 |  Tags: Misc |  Comments (7) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

4000

My Creative writing assignment is exactly 4000 words long.

This makes me very happy.

: 13 Jan 2006 21:46 |  Tags: Journal Misc |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Meditations on a Pot–plant

Palm fronds
In the afternoon
Cast shadows like fingers
Reaching for something.
Who knows what the shadows
of plants want?

: 05 Jan 2006 16:45 |  Tags: Misc Poetry Writings |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Quote of the Day

Writing about web page http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/pwolfendale/entry/the_wonderful_world/

Writing about an entry you don't have permission to view

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be
– Douglas Adams

Kudos P.W, on whose Blog I found this. Just shows what following up people's comments can dig up. :)

: 12 Dec 2005 02:53 |  Tags: Misc |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem