"Haw! This Yin's Takin A Photie Of His Pie!!"

Apparently that's what the old lad in the cap and dirty raincoat standing by the red railing in the photo above thought I was doing. Alas, it wasn't the case. It's a tempting notion, but somehow I don't think theres much call for photographs of meat savoury products, no matter how good they are. I think the confusion came about because he saw me holding the camera downwards to look at the back-screen. The pie was in the other hand and it must have looked like I was going for a close-up on my lunch. Silly old buffer!

Still, it's not his fault, they just got colour tv in Kirkintilloch a month ago, digital cameras are bound to be a bit confusing...................*

The iLL Man is available to be lynched by people from small towns on most weekday nights, except Fridays. Thankyou.


*Just kidding. It was the internet they got last month. They've had colour tv since March.....

Look Into My Eyes

............No, better not come to think of it. Anyway, it's my new invention (Patent Pending.......) Ideal for those hideous conferences and 'roadshows' one is periodically asked to attend by the arseholes in charge of the company one works for.

Hello! It has come to my notice that there is a Paddington Bear movie in the pipeline. Hurrah! On the downside, it turns out it's live action. How the flying fuck will that work? A man in a bear suit? Tame bear cub on a leash? (No you twat! They'll use CGI!)

C'mon, it's either the Ivor Wood style 'stop motion' or nothing at all. Sacreligious cunts! Adding insult to injury, they've got everyones favourite Kodiak Peruvian eating Marmite sandwiches in a new advert. What the fuck is that about? Can I please have the waste of sperm and eggs that came up with that wheeze delivered to my door at some point this weekend so I can hoof him/her in the arse with my steel toe-capped winkle pickers. Paddington Fucking Bear does not eat vegetable extract butties! The bear I grew up with has impeccable tastes and eats marmalade sarnies and I'm sure would rather starve than sponsor what has to be the the most repulsive foodstuff in existance. You're fooling nobody you cunts! Fuck off and take your grot with you. You never know, it might come in handy if someone runs out of Polyfilla.

I hear the human mind is a wondrous thing, though I'm given to wonder otherwise at times. Apparently a good old fashioned smack upside the head is all you need to become something of a polyglot. It happened to Matej Kus, a Czech speedway rider. I was at the match and was witness to his accident. He lost control on the first bend and the guy behind him had no time to take avoiding action, so ended up running over the top of him. the resultant concussion saw Matej out for a fair while, and when he came round it was discovered that he was speaking perfect Queens English, as opposed to the few broken phrases he had demonstrated to the Berwick Bandits team manager beforehand. Now, one could argue that whatever English he had learned was locked away in his subconscious and the concussion 'un-locked it', allowing him to communicate in a language hitherto completely alien to him.

Failing that, he has pretty good English and he's decided not to let on for whatever reason, only to forget his deception when he came round from his knock. I think I'll be credulous in this one, if only because it's such a strange and wonderful story. Apparently he's forgotten his new language already and now needs an interpreter to communicate once more.

It seems the condition is known as 'Xenoglossy' and is extraordinarily rare. I'll let you make your own mind up.

The funniest thing is that my blog publishing page seems to be in German now. Needless to say, I'm a bit worried..........

View From My Desk At Work/Economic Models Explained With Cows

On a good day, the blue sky and the jet trails and the cloud forms and the sunlight on the glass buildings all seem to bring a little more energy to my movement. The traffic and the motorway and the noise can all go fuck themselves......

If it's chucking it down, if it's grey and foreboding, then it's no better than any other view in the office and I have to turn to double heaps of Nescafe to stop me crashing out on the keyboard.....

Guess what I'm more used to doing? Just have me potted and have done with it.

In other news....

That's Bock The Robber away over to Wordpress. Hell mend him.........I never seem to go a week without someone grumbling about leaving Blogger....Am I the only one who's not had problems with Blogger since it changed? People who were on Blogger pre-Beta will tell you how awful it could be. The amount of times I almost lost my mind with rage just because the stupid fucker wouldn't upload a photo or two..........Seven Days would be impossible without the beta version. That said, as long as everything works, I'm easy pleased. I'm led to believe that an 'all singing, all dancing' Wordpress site is vastly superior.

Anyway, I'm just bitchin because I have to to re-link. Och!

Someone sent me this at work today. It's probably fairly old to a lot of you, but it made my day.

Economic Models explained with Cows- 2007 update

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the
milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.

You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of
credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a
debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all
four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.

The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a
Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who
sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The
annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one
more.

You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving
youwith nine cows.

No balance sheet provided with the release.

The public then buys your bull.


THE ANDERSEN MODEL
You have two cows.
You shred them.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want
three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.

You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.

You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market
it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and
milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.


AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your
country.

You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a Democracy....

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

More suggestions welcomed.............

PNNC (Play Nicely Now Children) : A Code Of Conduct For A Brighter Blogging Future

..................Or The Truth About Blogging In Ten Easy Steps

After the hoopla surrounding this attempt to teach granny to suck eggs, I have taken it upon myself to fashion a more realistic and less simperingly smug set of guidelines for todays modern-day blogger of today. They principally concern the visitors to my blog and the interactions I have/might have with them. These are intended to be applied universally by all blog owners. Or possibly derided at length by a new strain of post-'post-ironic' bloggers I've never even heard of. The Fuckers!!!!!

Basically, there is only one rule:

1- Say what you want on my blog, but know the meaning of my responses and live by them.

i - No response -This means I'm ignoring you for the facile fuckwit you truly are. Or I'm really, really busy. Or your name is Professor Smile and you've commented on a blog post from about two years ago. If it's the latter, please refer to points (ii) & (iii) If you are unsure what category you fall into, please email me and I'll do my best to fail to let you know.

ii - General or non-commital response - You have just communicated with me in a way that defies general convention, I haven't the slightest fucking clue what you are slabbering on about but I don't wish to seem ignorant and rude. In this situation, I will either say something equally meaningless or try to figure out what you're talking about. Depends on how interesting you seem and how much time I have on my hands. See also point (iv) This response may also be used to subtly tell you to piss off, though it's rarely effective. It's always better to use a fairly blunt weapon such as the.........

iii - Foul mouthed and abusive response - You are a malodorous, malevolent and unctious little Quisling who copulates with farm animals, A watery cum stain on the face of humanity, A vile, mendacious shitehawk of the worst kind, A pox upon a pox upon a pox............ You may also be a close and personal friend who enjoys being spoken to in such a manner. I don't know...........

iv - Engaging and upbeat response - I am genuinely pleased to hear from you. You have probably been the first person to comment on my blog in about a week and I'm more than happy to answer your strange coded message in more depth than it deserves. You may also have agreed with something I said, which makes you a wonderful person.................

v - Verbatim (or rote) response - You have conveyed your salutations. They are much appreciated, but I don't really know what else to say other than "Cheers!" back. This single word response will usually take between ten and fifteen minutes of soul searching and an infinite number of drafts to come up with.

vi - Listed response - A wee gaggle of you have all left lovely, pertinent and quite flattering messages on my blog. I am more than happy to respond to you 'individually at once' as it were. Form an orderly queue..........

vii - Fisking response - You've said rather a lot and most of it isn't terribly complimentary. It's more than I can be bothered reading actually, so I shall simply lift the bits that can be quoted and made to seem fallacious, and say "No, thou art the liar"

viii - Delayed response - No, really, I've barely had time to scratch my arse. Here's a thought, why not provide your own responses? Pretend you're me. Go on, it'll be fun!

ix - "Calm Down, Calm Down" response - This means that I will not tolerate a bitch fight on my blog and I'm giving you five minutes to make friends or take it elsewhere. If the argument is particularly entertaining, I may defer wrist slapping for a few days though........ Or at least until someone starts throwing paedophile accusations about.

x - Deletion - Nothing personal, I just don't want to buy your cheap fucking tat.

Feel free to add to the list folks. Maybe, just maybe, one day the blogosphere will take notice of these edicts and "The World Will Live As One" *

One can but hope.

*Inspirational Lyric Quoted from 'Borstal Breakout' by Sham 69 (1978 Polydor 7" 2058 966)