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How many Trotskyists does it take to change a light bulb?

Well by the time they’ve formed a steering committee, drafted a resolution condemning capitalist light bulb manufacturers, gone out and tried to sell a few newspapers, condemned the resulting darkness as bourgeois oppression and then gone down the pub; none.

But never mind, come the revolution…

Comrades the proletariat are incandescent with rage

Motion passed. By.

When to drink tea or coffee

There are rules in life that dictate how you behave in certain circumstances or the way you conduct yourself. These rules are unwritten. You either instinctively know what they are or you don’t. They are based on logic. Those of us that know appear to be in the minority. Many, many people struggle with this logic. Get a grip you lot! 

Being the public minded citizen that I am I from time to time impart this crucial information via this blog. Today’s public service announcement is about when to drink tea or coffee:

• First drink of the day – this should be tea. No compromises here, tea and only tea. Ideally two cups before any other drink is even considered.
• Breakfast – it is acceptable to drink coffee
• Mid-morning – coffee
• Lunch – coffee, unless you are having fish ‘n chips when it should be tea, or when having a pub lunch
• After lunch – it’s perfectly acceptable to have a coffee after you lunch as long as it remains within the immediate post-lunch time frame
• Mid-afternoon – tea only. Coffee at this point would be a faux pas extraordinaire!
• Dinner – I would only ever recommend beer or a soft drink unless, again, you are having fish ‘n chips.
• After dinner – coffee would always be the first choice
• The rest of the evening/night – tea
• Supper – tea, a mug of cocoa or camomile
• If in doubt you should always drink tea as this is the default beverage
• At any point in the day tea or coffee can be replaced by alcohol (yes I have had beer for breakfast!). The one exception is the first drink of the day which, just to recap, must be tea.
• From lunchtime onwards it is perfectly acceptable to drink soft drinks. Fruit juice as an addition is perfectly acceptable at breakfast but does not replace coffee or tea at that meal.

There you have it an essential guide to help you keep on the straight and narrow. How have you ever managed without it?

Belonging to a cause

Vindicated

A certain amount of snobbery goes with the territory of owning a railway season ticket. As much as you try you just can’t help it. You have a tendency to look down on the occasional traveller. Those hapless individuals that are never quite sure of the rules of train travel. Those hapless individuals who get on the wrong trains and who when they get on the right train can’t understand the concept of sitting in the seat that has been reserved for them. The occasional traveller will stand out a mile. They are the ones with unruly baggage, unruly children or will have purchased a take-away coffee and or pastry from a station kiosk. Whilst I dislike all of them I find the last category pompous (I realise that there is an irony in that statement) and worthy of much ridicule. They think that getting on the train with a take-away coffee is ‘what you do’ no doubt they are trying to look cool, to fit in. Take-away coffee, I suspect, is seen by the uninitiated as a form of traveller chic. A must have accessory to facilitate blending in. A badge to say, “hey, look at me, I do this every day”. When in reality it says the opposite. Do you get the picture?

Today, part way on the journey from Norwich to Thetford, a twerp a few seats ahead of me chucked take-way coffee everywhere. The gormless one had clearly just taken the coffee out the brown paper carrier bag that reinforces the take-away status and had either squeezed it too hard or lifted it by the lid. The murky brown liquid went all over the table top in front of him soaking everything on it including the papers of a poor unsuspecting woman opposite him who was busy working away and minding her own business. He stood up, and as is usual with twerps, he just stood there not really knowing what to do. Finally his victim, the unfortunate woman with the coffee coloured work papers got up, went to the loo, and returned with some paper to mop it up. This then ‘inspired’ him to try and mimic the behaviour of someone with some common sense. Eventual the mess was cleared up and they settled back into their seats. Unfortunately my concentration had been broken and I found it impossible to go back to reading my book.

To be a bona fide twerp a person has to meet certain criteria. The list of possible attributes is as long as your arm but as ‘the twerp’ only has to meet a few there is little point in exposing the vast array of variables here. All I will convey are those attributes that qualified the above mentioned twerp to be a twerp. He scored heavily in the following way:

• Take-away coffee in a brown carrier bag
• He was wearing shorts
• He was wearing sandals
• He had no regional accent

I don’t like prejudice, and I know I shouldn’t really think the way I do about the person mentioned above, but it’s hard to think differently when you feel vindicated for holding such views.

Well it amused me!

Terry Wogan told a joke this morning that amused me. It's probably an old one, but I'd never heard it before. Anyway here goes:


Question: Who led the Pedants Revolt?






Answer: Which Tyler

Brave new world

I know that there is universal disappointment that we still haven't got the rocket packs, protein pills and robot generated infinite leisure time promised during the white heat of technology era. But all the boffins that are out there working on this important stuff need to cease immediately, and get onto an idea that I've just come up with to save the planet.

Climate change is probably the biggest challenge we've ever faced on earth. There's an awful lot of talk above reducing our carbon footprint, but not always the practical solutions. I've come up with a cunning plan to sort the world's energy problems and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels in one fell swoop. I'll explain:

The answer lies with the male gonadicus danglii. It doesn't matter how cold I am there is always one area of my body that is boiling hot, namely the underpants region. Now the science of heat exchange is a well-established one, and so is generating electricity from the process. I also read recently that scientists have successfully transmitted electricity by Wifi. So there we have it, the answer to all our energy problems. All that has to be done is to join those three things up issue all us men in the world with ACDC Wifi Y-Fronts and Bob's your uncle, lashings of electrically (as Catweazle used to say). Sustainable energy, well at least for 5 minutes at a time anyway. Should I patent it ?
Can I retire now ?

Perhaps the title should have been Pubic Service Announcement or How Green is my Valley.