McDonalds

Was amused to see The Man That Would Be King slating McDonalds recently, saying it should be banned. He and I don't tend to agree on much, but our opinions certainly converge on this one. And here's a nice little gif just to ram that thought further into your brainboxes..

nowt really

my damn courtesy car went back today, so am back without wheels. Frigging bastards! That twat that drove into my peugeot has STILL not contacted his insurance people, meaning that I still cannot get back the £250 excess that is driving the price of the insurance payout to a measley £550ish. I paid £1400 for the car a little over a year ago and it was still in really good condition, so this undervaluing by the insurance company is not amusing me in the slightest.

I am also caught in two minds about whether to get another car. I don't really need one at the moment as I (like the bloke in the 60's tv drama series The Prisoner) am living working sleeping drinking and other ing words all in the one town - in my case bleedin Croydonia. But what chance for escape from this locale without a car? Ok yeah there's the trains system and cabs of course - but look we are getting away from the point here. Basically I like a car. I really like to drive, and although I could hire a car or a van for important occasions, there's nothing like having a car outside waiting for your random whim to kick in.

There was vague talk of going to see "the illusionist" at le cinema ce soir with a small group, but this has apparently been forgotten in a smoky haze. The adverts look pretty good - Edward Norton of American History X fame as some kind of magic man in the past. Look to Jonathan Ross for a better synopsis - I'm sure he might tell you that is is a gwipping tour de force.

Haven't really got much more to say here, oh apart from "myspace". Apparently there are 158 million people on myspace - that's one hell of a community. I did set up a myspace last year, but found it incredibly frustrating and formatted, and so deleted it in anger. My mate Dave has just started a myspacesite http://www.myspace.com/tony_harrison_outrage so I thought I might set up one myself to see what the fuss is all about, though to be honest I was kind of wavering a bit as a recurring thought in my earole kept asking the question "... is it only for teenagers, celebrities, bands and nerdy geeks?" If this was the case then due to a simple process of elimination that would make me a nerdy geek." But I had a look, zoomed about a bit here and there and it seems like it's all the bleedin rage, it's just another way for modern folks to swap whatever they want to swap. Inane chat, nonsense and so on. So I conspired to set up a new page. Guess what? The bastards said that due to some nameless whatever I am "ineligible" to join up. So until they reply to my "what the fuck are you on about" email, they will not be 'avin the pleasure of my company.

spinach and garlic curry

Every since I had a fantastic spinach and garlic curry at a local curry house I have been craving this dish again like a murderer craving a victim. It was so ridiculously healthy and tasty that I actually seemed to get a high from it.

Which was nice.

I don't actually have a recipe for it so am going to make one up. At the moment I have these two key ingredients already, but just need some rice and maybe a peshwari naan. If it is any good I may be so kind as to offer up the recipe.

Farewell chums!

Henry Ford's hemp car.

car-nage II

I am surprisingly calm now about the whole car crash thing of Friday morning. Almost as if it was a dream or something. No aches and pains any more, no fretting about the insurance etc - it's out of my hands so no point worrying about it eh? But what does go through my mind is how easily the steel of the front of the car crumpled upon impact with the lamppost - bringing the damage and danger perilously close to my sexy footballers legs. They could have been crushed. This got me to remembering old facts about the very first cars being constructed back in the days of Henry Ford being stronger than the steel used today. So the car industry for all its flash advances, is at a very basic level more dangerous for people in a crash. And after a little bit of web rummaging, I found the following:

Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONSTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.

Why was my car not built of this same stuff? Why were my sexy legs not offered the maximum protection technology can provide? It is not that the cost is prohibitive - hemp is well known to be the fastest growing of all plants, and can grow pretty much anywhere, making it ridiculously cheap if an industry wished to invest. It would be a fantastic boon to American farmers - resurrecting an industry in the US which used to be thriving - George Washington even calling upon everyone to grow hemp for the good of their nation. Can it really be that governments are still confusing hemp with cannabis sativa? Surely they are not that stupid. Why do we not have car manufacturers investing in hemp built cars? Is it because they last longer and longevity is not an attractive trait for manufacturers in a capitalist world since if all cars last forever there is no future market?

I would genuinely like to know, because as it stands we seem to be a species of retards.

Voice recognition bitch

Ok, so I have recently moved. There are lots of tedious chores to do following any move, one of which was changing over my TV license to avoid getting led away in chains for criminality. So I call the centre. As is so often the case, this company value me so poorly they refuse to greet me with a living person, instead offering me a female robot voice with an incredibly patronising tone. I then have to converse with this dead thing. "Please give the tv license number", it said. So I did. In very clear and precise tones. "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that", said the voice, for all the world sounding as if it was addressing a child or someone with severe learning difficulties. So I repeated the number - perhaps with a little more volume and venom than before. After all I am only human and am entitled to get angry with inanimate objects. "I'm sorry, I still cannot understand you". Despite knowing that the robot woman was incapable of comprehending even the most rehearsed and measured phrases I found myself shouting "...THEN WHAT'S THE POINT OF YOUR EXISTENCE?" down the phone at her. This shit never happened with C3PO.

Skintus

Money situation.

Rewind to a couple of years ago. I had bags of cash. Buying myself suits aplenty and cabs here there and everywhere. Going out to restaurants and all sorts of malarkey. Forward to these sorry days of poverty. Ok lets be clear we aren't talking about poverty like homeless beggars in slums who don't know where the next meal is coming from. Oh fuck it I wish I hadn't begun this. Basically I haven't got as much cash as I used to have, and therefore wish to bleat about it a bit. When I split up with my ex 8 months ago or so I immediately moved out and after being put up for a couple of weeks my my fantastically supportive mates Dave and Melissia found myself a one bed flat to rent which drained all of my cash to the point that I couldn't have done one single month more, credit cards and bank account drained to the point of death. Luckily the long term plan then kicked in, and I finally got to move into a fantastic two bed place that I had discovered - moving in with my sister, who is also just out of a relationship. Things seem to be turning around a bit, though this month will also be a bit tight. I am just waiting until I have some cash to take girls out. At the minute I am too skint to go down that road. And now I'm without a fucking car too.

Croydon drivers

Hello there folks -

Was finally compelled to join the bloggers today by the sheer rage of having my car written off by some bearded muppet in a car. There I was, innocently driving to work at 08.50 am, turning left from St James Road into Lansdowne Road. There he was - a stationary vehicle stopped sideways in the opposite lane. I had just turned a corner and had only just noticed him when I was upon him. I continued onwards expecting to pass behind him, confident that nobody would reverse at this point into the opposite lane without looking, in the same way that I am confident that nobody would randomly attempt to headbutt the front of an intercity 125. As we all know when you are undertaking a three point turn you are supposed to stop and look at each point of the manoeuvre before moving. I know this very well as I failed my first driving test on the three point turn and was given this exact reason as the cause of the failure.

What happened next? Lo! He reversed without looking. Not just a little, but right across the road, the fucker. He hit my drivers door and kept coming! I naturally swerved in an attempt to avoid him and smacked straight into a lamppost. He got out of the car and we swapped details - and he actually said "I didnt even see you". Yes mate, that's fairly obvious. You need to be actually looking out of the car window to acheive this.

Now I have no car - and I love my car! It's my bloody first car. Now, even if the insurance people find in my favour all I'll get is a bit of cash - but certainly nowhere near what I paid for the car, and I'm temporarily skint and so not able to get another.

GRRRRRRRR.