Does a Cabin Shit in the Woods When No One is Around to See?

I have been going running for the last week, it's the first time I've done it since I lived in Dublin. I lived next to a park then so it was easier to do, as I have spent a career on my knees, running on roads is a bit dodgy for them. But needs must and I have been running around the streets of York, so if you see me running past you, red faced, clutching a MP3 player and sweating like the proverbial pig, then you know why. I'm not being chased by the Police. Not yet anyway.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!! THE MARTIANS ARE COMING!!

As part of my get fit drive I have decided to go vegetarian. I am going to drive out all the toxins of my body and return it to it's temple like status when I was born. So to help you with getting fit I am going to provide some recipes for the vegetarian meals I have been preparing. I was always scared of vegetables but have found that they are a diverse and versatile food group, so I am educating you lucky readers with my discoveries.

Cheese and Onion Delight
Serves one
Preparation time less than two minutes
Ingredients:
Two slices bread (Brown or White)
One Packet Cheese and Onion Crisps
Butter or similar working class margarine spreadable substance
Method:
Open Packet of Crisps, put to one side to allow to breathe.
Spread Butter/Margarine on both slices of bread.
Lay crisps over one slice of bread.
Bring other slice of bread over the top of first slice.
Crush down with hand until top slice is flat.
Serve immediately.

Beef and Onion Delight
Serves one
Preparation time less than two minutes
Ingredients:
Two slices bread (Brown or White)
One Packet Beef and Onion Crisps (Make sure they have the 'V' symbol, if not, make the meal without them)
Butter or similar working class margarine spreadable substance
Method:
Open Packet of Crisps, put to one side to allow to breathe.
Spread Butter/Margarine on both slices of bread.
Lay crisps over one slice of bread.
Bring other slice of bread over the top of first slice.
Crush down with hand until top slice is flat.
Serve immediately.

So there you go, vegetables are your friend. Have five of those a day and you'll be as fit as me.

What a friend we have in vegetables

I went to see Cabin in the Woods the other day with Nathan. I went on He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named's recommendation. He told me he'd have given it 3. I asked him  out of what and he answered 1,000,000. My dad had also said it was the worst film since Avatard, which I thought was a bit harsh as I would genuinely rather have paving slabs dropped on my feet than sit through that pile of shit again. Strangely enough it had got really good reviews universally, so I thought they both were trying to be cool.  I have to agree with He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named's score though, even though I think he was being generous.I really cannot be bothered to break it down why it is shit, but I think ultimately it comes down to the fact that it was so self-satisfactorily smug. It was as though it was giving you cheeky little winks and nudges all the way through (ey, ey, see what I did there? Ey?)  and that just annoyed me. Cabin in the Woods? Shit in the Woods more like. Nathan liked it, but then he would, he's an idiot.

Oh! There's a massive twist at the end that you see coming before you've even walked into the theatre!

Nerdism Squared

He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named was whining about seeing more photos from the Stormtroopers, so here they are some behind the scenes shots:

Band of Mothers

I was in a junk shop the other day and came across a US Serviceman's diary from the Second World War. Here is an extract:

'May '45, back in the Sherman; Howlin' Nancy. Been a few months since I was back in control of this baby, ever since that last 'disturbance'. We had that big heartless bastard from Upstate New York Rodriguez on the gear sticks, Chester Beaty on the radio; Brooklyn born, Brooklyn raised. The only one not from Eastside was Jimmy Spoons on the .50cal and big Bertha. Little Jimmy comes from Shithole, Idaho. The boy had never seen anythin' bigger than his barn, so the buildin's of Paris put the zap right on that little son-of-a-bitch's head.

We was in Southern Austria and we was on point. God-damn Helluva place to be, what with the war windin' down and all. Top Brass knew o' reports of some secret Nazi trainin' camp in the area and we had been told to find and destroy 'em. Always at the shitty end of the stick, me and the boys in Howlin' Nancy.

The shit kicks off early one mornin' as we were approachin' Wüsterbürsterbürg or some other damn Kraut shithole. All Kraut names sound the god-damn same to me. We hear a rattlin' against the side of Nancy and guess we are takin' fire from a Hitler's Saw. Why they are firing 7.92mm at a fucken tank? Fucken dumb Nazis.

Jimmy sees it first, at the end of the main square, the friggin' trainin' camp! It's fenced off and we can see the concreted trainin' ground out front where dem poor Nazi bastards practice their goosesteppin'. A big sign over the entrance says Grundschule, Rodriguez has a bit of German picked up from them whores in Innsbruck and he assures me it says 'Nazi Training Camp'. It's what we was lookin' for so I order the first rounds to be loaded up. Jimmy is a s quick as ever; bang, bang, bang! In seconds we get the roof blazin' with incendiary, then turn the attention to the windows. Dust and shit is flyin' everywhere, we're makin' a real mess o' the place when the Nazi bastards wake up and start pouring out o' the front door. 

All uniformed and obviously out for our blood, they come screamin' at us like fuken' devils, I tell ya. Jimmy gets on the bow .50cal and I jump up on the cupola cannon. I'm shootin' and shootin', so is Jimmy. We musta cleared off three thousand rounds at least. The smoke clears and they ain't no sound comin' from any of the Krauts so we clear out of the God-damn place as fast as the Nancy'll take us. 

 
We were all hauled over the fucken' coals on that one.The rattlin' wasn't from no Kraut machine-gun, it was a busted exhaust on the Nance. Well, anyone can make that fucken' mistake. Mind you, that wasn't the worst of the whole story. We though that the Nazis looked a little young, but by that stage them fucken' crazy bastards were throwin' anyone into the fight. What did we know? We was just some dumb boys in a tank. Anyway, turns out none of them girls was older than eight or nine years old.'

TK Max

I just got back from Waltham Gunpowder Mills where I was working for Easter. A while back I got an email from Dr David Kenyon asking me if I'd like to spend my Easter weekend dressed up as a Stormtrooper. I thought it over for a full three seconds before replying 'YES OF COURSE I FUCKING WOULD!' So as you all sat eating your Easter Eggs in celebration of the mythical Iron Age necromancing zombie warlock I was chasing kids around an ex-secret nuclear facility dressed as the Galaxy's finest. What could be better? Probably only doing the same dressed as a member of SS Wiking...

The Gunpowder Mills were playing host to a Space themed weekend and as with last year Dr David was asked to play Darth Vader because he is as tall as Everest, give or take a few metres.

He wanted some assistants, hired in two Stormtrooper costumes and asked Douche Bag and I if we were in. Mostly so he could get us both semi naked in his office...

Gerrem off ya!

Anyhoo, this was the first time I had ever dressed as something from a Sci-Fi film, so I decided to use this weekend as an education. What did I learn? I learned that children are totally fascinated by Darth Vader yet completely frightened stiff of having their photo taken with him. The amount of hiding behind daddy's legs was hilarious.

Not that scary...

As the Stormtroopers  are supposed to be the elite of the Emperor's military we decided to make a study of what they can and cannot do and the results may surprise you:

What a Stormtrooper can do:

• Look fucking cool:

What a Stormtrooper can't do:

• Sit down on a chair
• go up stairs
• go down stairs
• step down a single doorstep without looking ungainly
• have peripheral vision
• lookup
• look down
• wear glasses under the helmet
• walk quietly
• do anything quietly

Basically, if you are ever in a situation where you are faced with an army of Stormtroopers, not only will you hear the fuckers coming from about a million miles away, but you will just have to come at them from ANY direction other than the one they are looking in for a successful attack. If all goes to rat shit, simply run down or up a flight of stairs. Or indeed, a doorstep.

I make this look easy, but believe me, it wasn't...

As we were wandering about having our photos taken with various kids one of them asked me 'Are you a clone?' I answered 'I'm not, but' indicating Danny 'he is.'

The Clown Wars

Animal Farm

This weekend was filled with me writing an essay and going to see The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! Go and see it, it is great! Aaaaaaar! I also watched Casablanca for the first time ever, that is also great. But the other thing I did this weekend was go to Sam and Matt's house warming party. I had been invited by Sam approximately three weeks ago. Bare that in mind. Three weeks notice. On Saturday, about five o'clock she rang me to ask if I was still coming. I said yes, I was looking forward to it, in fact. Then she said 'I don't remember if I told you or not...' 'Yeeeeees?' I enquired uneasily. 'But it's fancy dress!' She replied.

what kinda fucking party is this?

No. No she hadn't told me it was fancy dress and had left it until the last minute when all the shops would be closed to tell me it was a fancy dress party. It was fancy dress with an animal theme. Given that their house is a menagerie (dog and snake) I guess that's where the idea came from. I told her I had very little time to prepare, you know, three weeks previously would have been ample time to sort something out, but two hours? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!! I mentioned that my costume may only stretch as far as a Wolves in the Throne Room t-shirt, but suddenly realised that I could dust off the old bear skin rug and go in that!

Come on, Yogi, we have a party to attend...

So I did. The thing was, I only knew a couple of people at the party and the door was answered on me by a complete stranger who looked askance at me draped with a dead bear. I was, thankfully, at the right address and saw all the old faces, mainly Jimmy and Claire, whom I have not seen either of since I worked for Humber Archaeology back in about 2006. Jimmy is still eating curry and Claire is still a farmer's wife. I also met some new people, who's names I knew but had never come across before and watched Matt dance like he was on fire to Rammstein.

I was cordially invited back to their place on Tuesday night for dinner, so took the offer. Free food is always enough to draw me to any event! I texted Sam on Tuesday evening to inquire that we were still on for the evening and she replied in the affirmative. I was slightly worried due to the forgetting the whole 'fancy dress party' thing, so I thought I'd better jut check. I set off around seven and as I was hitting the Hull road I got two missed calls from Sam. Pulling over (safety first), I called her back wondering why she could have been so desperate to call me as I was on my way.

She asked if I could do her a massive favour and my first thought was that she'd forgotten to buy food for the dinner and could I pick up a chicken on my way. But no, it was a different problem. Matt had earlier taken the dog out for a walk, the first time daddy had been allowed out with Chester alone, but in his fuss to get Chester's harness on had dropped his car key and locked himself and the dog out of the car. In the rain. I was asked by Sam if I could pick up his spare key from Matt's folk's house, which, fortunately, was on the way to Beverley. I arrived with said key, to find Sam still in her work clothes and mild panic about the dog being locked out of the car. Not Matt, mind. The dog. Another night, another adventure with the Sam and Matt show.

Anyway dinner was lovely, and I got to play with Matt's snake for the rest of the night. Fnar fnar.