Get well soon Richard Hammond

I made this as a sort of get well soon for the little Top Gear bloke. It frontpaged on b3ta and a few of my mates have had it sent to them via e-mail. Which kind of sums up the popularity of the bloke. Cars are ace and despite the mess they make, I hope are around for a long time, 'cos I love driving mine, even though it's a bit bobbins.

Anyway. it said on the news tonight that the Hamster is out of intensive care, so get well soon, small Top Gear bloke.

Ray Mears

I have a bit of a thing for Ray Mears. Not in a homosexual way. I just think he's ace at what he does and quite happily gets on with it. I wonder what it could have been like if things had been a bit different. Would he have been the same?

Never trust a man who loves his job too much...

Fred Aylward

Dave and Fred Aylward
Originally uploaded by Baggage Reclaim.

I found this picture on Flikr. The man on the right purports to be called Fred Aylward, better known as Les out of Vic Reeves Big Night Out.

Is it the Fred Aylward? I am going to do some advanced CSI style image reconstitution to try and discover for myself. Also, I've asked the photographer if he knows.

My CSI style reconstruction.

It looks more like Adam Clayton out of U2 to me, but there you go.

Cakebab shop

I have made an image to accompany my previous post.

And thinking about it now, as an idea. Yes. Even more yes. Cake washes down the gutter easier than kebab meat, too.

You want Raspberry Sauce on that, mate?

I have had an idea for the most perfect post pub food ever. I call it:

 

The Cakebab Shop.

 

We're on a winner already, I'm sure you can tell. But think about it, because it's a winner in so many ways.

What better after half a dozen pints or several bottles of Bacardi Breezer than a nice slice of gateaux? Instead of a kebab, the shop would have a huge black forest gateaux revolving slowly for the shopkeeper to carve slices off, before adding cream. Flans would replace pizzas. For cold nights, what better than a hot slice of apple or cherry pie to warm the cockles of your heart? For blowout types, hot chocolate pudding could be served. For healthy types, fresh fruit salad, all helping to boost your sugar content after a night on the ale. And it's seasonal too. Imagine a slice of Christmas pudding with custard on your way home from the festive office booze up, or strawberries and cream to cap off the piss up following the traditional Henman ejection from Wimbledon... And of course, an ice lolly helps calm your stomach if you're feeling queasy. Summertime Special? Certainly sir!

 

You could have Cakebab shops catering (!) for all tastes and nationalities. I can see Sara Lee opening franchises, up against small, local apfelkuchen stalls outside nightclubs and street corner vans selling sponge pudding and custard to chilly revellers across the nation. Cakebab shops could even deliver. How many times have you fancied something sweet at midnight and can't be arsed driving to Tesco? I know I have.

 

On now to the more unsavoury aspects of late night post pub food, where the Cakebab again scores highly. After all, a fight is less likely to happen if the protagonists are full of jam roly poly and custard. There'd be less fighting, with everyone feeling good and buzzed up and full of sugar. And if someone is nasty enough to throw food, a slice of battenburg to the head is more welcome than a handful of greasy, shredded meat. At least it would still smell good in the morning. (You might even be tempted to pick it out and eat it). And horror of horrors, should you be unfortunate enough to be ill, bringing up sweet stuff has to be less unsavoury (!) than throwing up half a curry.

 

I haven't done a search, or indeed any research whatsoever, but I'm willing to bet no-one has thought of this before. So if you're a budding young entrepreneur looking to rake in the cash, give me a call. Lets face it, we all regress when we drink, and we all like eating the sweet things when we're kids. It's 2:30 a.m. and you're half cut, you're going to pay what it takes to get that cake your mum wouldn't let you eat when you were little, because "you'd had enough." Where's mummy now, eh? Nowhere, pal. You're a grown man on the piss and if you want that cake you walk in that shop and damn well order a slice. In fact, order two. What the hell, make it the whole cake. Yay! Mummy can't stop you now!

 

A venture like this might seem like novelty, but all it needs is to get the British drinking public hooked on sweets. How hard can that be? Let's face it, they already are most of them, it just needs a little attitude adjustment to get them used to ordering a blueberry pie instead of a steak and kidney pie after eight pints of lager. Look how quickly we've adopted curries and pizza alongside the more traditional fayre such as chips and gravy. We're a nation of desperate, sad consumers and we'll bite anything that's thrown at us, especially with a few pints sloshing around inside.

 

I tell you, it sounds like a licence to print money to me.

 

My fungus weekend

Fungi 4
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

I don't quite know how it happened, but I seem to have spent a lot of this weekend coming across fungi of various shapes and sizes. Click on the pic to go to my Flikr page and you'll see what I mean. First we went for a walk in the woods near where we live, then today we went to Haigh Hall, which was positively bursting with shaggy caps, horns and brackets.

My family were very patient while I photgraphed them all.

Visit to the dentist.

I called the emergency dentist this morning. My face feels like a skeletal hand has worked it's way under the skin and is slowly contracting and releasing my face. To my horror, the receptionist said I could go straight there.

 

You must understand, my dentist died about 10 years ago and I pretty much decided there and then that that was that with me and dentists.

 

The dentist I saw today noticed immediately that something was wrong by the way I was skirting round the chair, making polite (polite as possible, when facing raw, animal fear) conversation. When I couldn't put it off any longer, I finally sat down and was lowered into place. (I blame this on a work colleague, who cheerfully reminded me that you have nothing to fear until you sit down.)

After another few minutes of cajoling, I finally opened my mouth far enough for her to have a look inside. Not bad, was the verdict, but that didn't solve the problem of where the pain was coming from, so it was off to the x-ray machine.

For anyone who hasn't been in one of these before (and I'm pretty sure there must be a few wusses who like me, haven't) It's basically a bit which you bite down on, while two curved panels whirl round your head. Weird and futuristic, it almost took my mind off the pain and the fear.

 

The result was inconclusive; my now irradiated head failed to reveal it's secrets.

 

The dentist said it could be sinus infection or a tooth and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. I was rather too quick to latch onto the idea that it could be sinus related. She told me not to be so bloody soft and register with a dentist, pronto. So I have, with the same dentist my wife and kids go to. Can't wait 'til we all go for a family checkup and the kids get to see dadfear up close. The more I think about it, the more illogical the fear seems, in the face of massive agonising face pain, but the more I think about it, the more I have to think about dentists and the fear returns with a vengance.

 

There's probably a moral in all this, but right now I'm going to eat a Green and Blacks 70% Dark chocolate bar and then spend 45 minutes rinsing my mouth out with water, just in case it eats a final, terrible hole in a tooth and my not bad teeth cave into my jaw, shortly before my whole face collapses inwards.

Garden Breakfast

Garden Breakfast
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

It was about now that I realised I was going to have to visit the dentist.