The Perception Of Being Earnest

I sometimes wish I didn't work on Mondays and wrote a blog about Mondays instead. Reason being, I could write about putting the bins out. I suppose I could put them out on Fridays but that would mean a whole weekend of inconvenience, having to relentlessly shuffle, back and forth, through the back alleys with weekend rubbish. 

Recently I was putting the bins out and a lady walking down the street chuckled to herself as she walked past. Obviously, some would say this could have been a mere coincidence and she was just laughing about a clip she saw on YouTube of a sausage dog eating a sausage, but I reckon it was because I was putting the bins out.

It is funny. I don't know why. Perhaps it's the earnestness in which it is done. It's the epitome of 'dull'. The grey and black plastic. The sound of the wheels scrapping. The ridiculous amount of waste we create. The non-emotive expressions we adopt. The heavy handed lining up of bins against walls as if they are about to be shot by a firing squad. 

Or, thinking more about it, perhaps it was that sausage dog clip. She looked the YouTube type and it is one hell of a hilarious clip.

The sausage dog from off the YouTube clip,
when it was a new born.

It's Bacon Hot Out There

If there's one thing I love doing the morning after a good camp fire it's getting it alight again, without the aid of matches/chemicals/prayers, and then cooking breakfast on it. This morning's fire was no longer smouldering but the heat coming off the ashes gave me hope Joanna, gave me hope Joanna (Yes, Joanna was there).

I ferreted around for twigs and sticks and once assembled into a airy pile spent a good fifteen minutes poking, prodding and blowing. And then I tried to get the fire started. 

Nothing beats the feeling when that spark ignites and the flames rise. Apart from when you put on your overcoat for the first time in winter and find you'd left a tenner in the pocket from last winter. Or, perhaps, the feeling you get when you think a pub is closed only to discover it is actually open.

I showboated the bacon into the pan and placed it triumphantly on top of my fledgling morning fire. It simmered gently taking quite a while to turn from translucent pink to off-brown. In fact it took an age to cook through. We could have motored into Cirencester, had a full English and driven back in the time it took to cook.

Of course, that's the point. Camping takes the rush out of everything. Especially cooking bacon. With time to spare I idly read the cooking instructions on the bacon's packaging. It had instructions for grilling and frying but nothing for slow cooking on last nights fire whilst listening to bird song.

If I one day become President that's the first thing I'll do. Make it law to put 'camping cooking' instructions on food labels. That and a complete rebrand for bacon itself. I'd change its name from 'bacon' to 'Simon'. I realise this may cause confusion if you happen to be camping with a Simon but, let's face it, most people aren't called Simon so on most occasions cooking Simon would not be an issue.

Of Pipes and Pipe Dreams

Paid someone today to come and move a waste pipe 4 centimetres back into a wall so we can fit in a dishwasher. This cost £120 and that's before all the tea and milk costs (he didn't take sugar thank the Lord Sugar). 

That means we payed £30 per centimetre. If I charged that rate, per centimetre, for my graphic design I'd be so well off I'd be able to have all the pipes in my house moved a few centimetres just for the hell of it. I would also have enough to pay for therapy to try and curb my needless spending on pipe alterations and I would give £150 a month to a hypothetical bird charity set up in the event of birds losing flight and requiring treatment for the extra strain put upon their thin and spindly legs.

Legs Before Thickets

Doing a spot of ad hoc birdwatching today got me thinking. Our feathered friends have such thin and spindly legs it's a bloody good job they can fly. Otherwise they would be constantly knackered and their legs in need of regular treatment. I suppose birds in Egypt would have access to Cairopractors and ones in Australia, Ozteopaths but it's not just their legs that would suffer. Imagine the state of their feet and Chirpropodists don't come cheep.