Saturday Satire : The Brothel

The madam opened the brothel door in Winnipeg and saw a rather dignified, well-dressed, good-looking man in his late forties or early fifties.

'May I help you sir?' she asked.
'I want to see Valerie,' the man replied.
'Sir, Valerie is one of our most expensive ladies. Perhaps you would prefer someone else', said the madam.
'No, I must see Valerie,' he replied.
Just then, Valerie appeared and announced to the man she charged $5000 a visit. Without hesitation, the man pulled out five thousand dollars and gave it to Valerie, and they went upstairs. After an hour, the man calmly left.
The next night, the man appeared again, once more demanding to see Valerie. Valerie explained that no one had ever come back two nights in a row as she was too expensive. But there were no discounts. The price was still $5000.
Again, the man pulled out the money, gave it to Valerie, and they went upstairs. After an hour, he left.
 
The following night the man was there yet again. Everyone was astounded that he had come for a third consecutive night, but he paid Valerie and they went upstairs.
 
After their session, Valerie said to the man, 'No one has ever been with me three nights in a row. Where are you from?'.
 
The man replied, ' Ontario '.
 
'Really', she said. 'I have family in Ontario .'
 
'I know.' the man said. 'Your sister died, and I am her attorney. She asked me to give you your $15,000 inheritance.'

The moral of the story is that three things in life are certain.
1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Being screwed by a lawyer

One Year Anniversary

One year ago, I brought Tre Agan and have been happily living here ever since. Despite the upheaval and downsizing (well posessions anyway) not to mention gaining two black labradors and all of their tack/bedding etc it has been fun and interesting.

I can definitely recommend moving house as a real boost to getting rid of things that have served their purpose and make note of this, I am not going to stop just because I have moved in. I still have boxes which have stuff in that may never be used and need to be pruned. I don't think I will ever embrace minimalist living style, I like my comforts too much. Having said that, I have no need of more jumpers than I can wear but I will explore turning them into something else before I recycle them.

Rules of Posession

1. If it has served it's purpose then it should be got rid of, ebay, freecycle, charity shop, recycling
2. If I don't see the point of keeping it, then refer to rule 1.
3. If the upkeep is too expensive, then refer to rule 1.
4. If you can manage without it, then refer to rule 1.

What else could be added to the above, or do you think that is enough?

Mid Week Musings

Here we are on Wednesday, where does the week go? Well a couple of long days and then my last appointment of the weekday was this morning in not so sunny Penryn. The two other appointments this week are on Saturday morning in Truro so I am hoping that there will be some parking left for me.

I have some admin to do prior to the course I am running on Friday, and a lesson plan to prepare. I have a scheme of work so half the work is already done. This means a lot to me and I really want the session to go well so keep your fingers crossed.

Once home, it was get on with some baking, another madeira sponge cake to be filled with buttercream and jam, a madeira marble tray bake for lunchboxes, and a refridgerator chocolate biscuit cake for those naughty moments when nothing else but something sweet will do.

Just the ironing left to do, but that can wait until tomorrow. The chicken for dinner is gently roasting in the oven and will be served with some jersey royal potatoes and vegetables before we watch the second half of the Pirates v Worcester rugby match which the Pirates need to win by a minimum of 10 points if they are to keep Worcester out of the premier league. A toast to you brave lads in red and black we will be cheering you on tonight.

Busy Weekend

Saturday afternoon, I was doing some sewing of the long hexigon shapes while watching St Ives play Holman's club and the sunshine was beautiful and warm with just a hint of a breeze to keep you cool while the men and boys ran around the pitch getting hot and bothered with their leather ball.

The pitch is on the salt marsh estuary, and next to the St Ives railway and it was a pretty area. We had decided to leave the boys at home, but there was enough space to have taken them; something to note for next season.

I didn't even take photographs while I was there which was bad of me, but I did manage to put together 20 shapes ready for putting together.. sorry Kath no hints as yet but I do now have a plan and as soon as I have a bit more done I will be posting some pics.

Sunday was an early start, as SOH had won an item on ebay for 99p but it meant collecting it from Devon.. no problems we thought a nice day out in the car and a chance to visit Trago Mills at Liskeard en-route to home. We took three sat-navs with us (no not because we needed them lol) to test out the maps on them, we got to nearly our final destination when one said turn left and the two newer ones said turn right... guess which way we went?

Yup we turned left and immediately all three chirped up with "turn around when possible" and the one that got it wrong was intended for the bike but will probably just want the maps updating on it.. but we have plenty of time before we need to worry about it.

Sunday night was roast pork loin with new potatoes followed by a rice pudding made with non-fattening cornish clotted cream lol

Saturday Satire: Paddy & Murphy's Hunting Trip

Paddyand Murphy flew to Canada on a hunting trip.

They chartered a small plane to take them into the Rockies for a week hunting moose.

They managed to bag 6. As they were loading the plane to return, the pilot said the plane could take only 4 moose.

The two lads objected strongly. "Last year we shot six. The pilot let us take them all and he had the same plane as yours."

Reluctantly, the pilot gave in and all six were loaded. The plane took off.

However, while attempting to cross some mountains even on full power, the little plane couldn't handle the load and went down.

Somehow, surrounded by the moose bodies, only Paddy and Murphy survived the crash.

After climbing out of the wreckage, Paddy asked Murphy, "Any idea where we are?"

Murphy replied, "I think we're pretty close to where we crashed last year."

On How the Cornish Pirates Fared against Worcester Warriors Part 1

It was a great evening, warm and just the hint of a cooler wind.

We arrived in good time, but already the ground was filling up rapidly, SOH and I decided to leave our 'normal' space in favour of sitting with friends (something we came to regret quite quickly).

It was an exciting match, but for all the wrong reasons. Worcester played well but not brilliantly, Pirates played under par for the first half and picked up during the second half, but too many mistakes, balls fumbled and good defending by Worcester meant that the Pirates could not claw back all of the points needed and the final score was 12 to the Pirates but 21 to the Warriors and so onto part 2 next Wednesday.

Pirates have the bit in their teeth, it just needs to translate into a win, with a margin of at least 9 points to beat the Warriors.. it is possible, just difficult.

We were on television, so we were told, at about 30 mins into the match. The seats were good, and if the action had been in our corner we would have had good views right in front, however it didn't and whenever something happened at the other end of the pitch the crowd to our left stood up and our view was zilch. The other problem was the language of the people around us and considering there were some young children sitting closeby it was not appropriate. Needless to say, next season we will be reverting back to our normal seats which are up at the main entrance and behind the posts. The view is better but distant but you don't get the traffic walking in front of you nor the language issues.

The Mennaye tonight

Watch it on Sky TV tonight and see if you can spot me in the crowd! lol... not likely I'm afraid although I will be there cheering the Cornish Pirates on against Worcester Warriors and I desperately would like the Pirates to win convincingly.. so come on you Pirates!

Saturday Satire : Honda

BM rider goes to see the Doctor.

The Doc asks him what's wrong and he says,

"Every time I fart it comes out saying Honda. It's very embarrassing."

The Doc gets him to drop his trousers and bend over, and has a look.

"Ah, I can see the problem, you have a large abcess just inside your anus."

"What's that got to do with the sound?" the BM rider asked.

"Well, it's really quite simple," said the Doc. "Abcess makes the fart go Honda.........."

The Assignment is Done

Actually I had to submit two essays, one on educational theorists relating it to a problem encountered in my teaching role and the other a literature review of an area that I want to develop later on in the second year.

The latter choice was easy, I wanted to look at e-learning and blogs in particular; how might they be used to support distance students as reflective practice but also to maintain better communications.

Also needed was

• 20 hours of lesson plans along with the relevant coding of revised teaching standards, and reflective statements on what worked well etc. 
• End of module reflections * 2
• Breadth of Practice
• Individual Development Portfolio with target dates
• logged teaching hours

It is done, now I just have to wait for some feedback on whether it was enough or whether I need to do more work but in the meantime I plan to catch up with some much needed housework, and craftwork not to mention the odd book.

My favourite Historian

I was sad to hear the news yesterday of the death of Richard Holmes, a prominent war historian who used to work for the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham; a part of Cranfield University.

I first heard of him when the BBC commissioned War Walks, Richard had all the love of the various different aspects of the battles and was able to demonstrate that to the audience. Richard rode his grey gelding Thatch to scenes of battles in both the UK and France and gave us the viewpoint from the enemy positions.

Some of the battles he covered, were : The Somme, Crecy, Hastings etc. I loved it, brought the books, planned my visits (which never happened) but my imagination was challenged by his delightful delivery and unassuming manner.

I had the pleasure of meeting Richard a number of times, both for work and pleasure. He gave talks around the country, and was an old boy of Bedford School where he presented a lecture on Churchill, from his early army days up until late in life and one day when I have the money I will get the book. My second lecture attendance was to the Bedford Historical Society and he delivered a riveting lecture on the First World War. You could have heard a pin drop while he was talking such was his impact on the audience, and the applause afterwards was long and avid.

Richard would always sign books at these events, and would willing chat to one and all about his love of history of warfare.. wanting others also to be enthused.

I met Richard professionally, while I worked for Cranfield University. We were involved in the Research Exercise of 2008 and Richard's works were included in the assessment package so I had to contact his office and arrange to collect the volumes required. He was a charming person, and lent us his personal copies of books where we couldn't acquire them through other means such as the University Libraries. He even offered to sign all my books I had, although I never quite managed to get them down before I decided to leave.

The world has lost a great man, and a great historian far too early for Richard was only sixty-five when he died and my sympathies go to his family for although the world mourns we cannot imagine their loss of a husband, father, and grandfather.

Thinking Back

Over the last month of April, I have blogged every day, with either an A-Z Challenge post or a Saturday Satire and while I have found it a fun thing to do, I have felt contstrained by the need to have a post and not to be free to choose when to blog and when to have a break.

Having said that, the A-Z challenge was fun and interesting as my background being Welsh but my new home country being Cornwall it was entertaining to look at the Cornish language and compare it to the more established Welsh and Breton forms. I learnt a lot at the same time, that there are no words in Cornish (that I could find) that started with Q, X or Z but that swear words have been converted into Celtic from the Anglo Saxon forms, and thanks to Hogday I was inspired to find this out :-)

On another plus point, the other participants in the A-Z challenge were very supportive and I gained a number of new followers and people to follow as part of the process.

Most of all, I would like to thank my good friend, and blogging colleague, Dickiebo who awarded me a rare and very valuable dickiebouquet which I have proudly put on my sidebar. I can't tell you how much I treasure this award, as Dickiebo would be highly embarrassed but believe me when I tell you that it was a great honour and experience.

Saturday Satire A to Z of Essex English - on a Sunday of all things lol

A -Z of Essex English

ASSA COMMONS - Our Parliament Building.

ART ATTACK - Extremely perturbed, as in "Don't tell Sharon, She'll have an art attack."

ARST - Past tense of ask. "Jordan, I must've arst ya free fazzund times to clear up yer room."

BANNSA - A person employed to deny access or eject troublemakers at a club."Dave's got izself a job as a bannsa."

BANTY - A chocolate and coconut snack bar.

BAVE - To wash oneself.

BOAF - The two. "Oi Dave, ooja fancy most, Sharon or Tracy?" "Boaf" is the reply.

BRANSATCH - Motor racing circuit in Kent.

CANCEL - Administrative body of a town. "Darren, wive ad annuvva letter from the cancel."

CANTAFIT - Fake, as in money.

CHOONA - An edible fish purchased in a tin and usually prepared with mayonnaise.

CORT A PANDA - A big hamburger (smaller than an arf panda)

DAN TO URF - Sensible, practical.

DANNING STREET - Where the Prime Minister lives.

DANSTEZ - On the ground floor , where the biggest telly is.

DREKKUN - Do you consider? as in "Which dog drekkun'll win the next race?"

EFTY - Considerable. "Ere, Trace, this credit card bill's a bit efty."

EJOG - A small, spiky animal (hedgehog).

ERZ - Belonging to her.

EVVY - A big geezer who protects a smaller and more intelligent geezer, usually for money. "My name's Frank and this is my evvy, Knuckles."

EYEBROW - Cultured, intellectual.

FANTIN - A jet of water for drinking or ornament.

FARVA - A posh way of saying Dad.

FATCHA - Margaret, British Prime Minister 1979 - 1990.

FINGY - A person or object whose name doesn't come to mind. "I ad it off wiv fingy last night."

FONG - Skimpy undergarment.

FOR CRYIN AT LAAD - Mild expletive showing annoyance or surprise. E.G."For cryin at lad, Britney, if I say Yes will you give it a rest?"

GAWON - Go on. "Gawon Darren, eat ya granny's cabbage, it'll do yer good."

GIVE IT LARGE - To be thorough or enthusiastic.

GRAND - A football stadium. "It all wennoff atside the pub near the grand."

HAITCH - Letter of the alphabet between G and I.

IBEEFA - The Spanish holiday island.

IFFY - Dubious. "Ere, Trace, I fink this bread pudding you made last munf's a bit iffy."

INT - Indirect suggestion. " I gave Darren a sort of int that it was time to wash iz feet."

IPS - An unknown area of a woman's body to which chocolate travels."That Mars Bar will go straight to me ips."

JA - Do you, did you. "Ja like me new airdo, Sharon."

JACKS - Five Pound note. "Lend us a jacks, wilya?"

JAFTA - Is it really necessary? "Oi mate, jafta keep doing that?"

KAF - Eating house open during the day.

KAFFY - A girl's name.

LAD - Noisy. "Jordan, turn that music dan, it's too lad."

LARJ - Enjoying oneself.

LEVVA - Material made from the skin of an animal.

LOTREE - Costs £1 for a ticket.

MA BLARCH - An arch near Hyde Park.

MAFFS - The study of numbers.

MANOR - Local area.

MINGER - An unattractive person (usually woman).

NARRA - Lacking breadth, with little margin. "Mum wannid to come rand but changed er mind. That was a narra escape."

NARTAMEAN - Do you know what I mean? (sometimes used as janartamean).

NEEVA - Not one nor the other.

NES - National Elf Service.

OAF - A solemn declaration of truth or committment.

OLLADAY - Time taken away from home for rest and adventure.

ONNIST - Fair and just, without a lie. "I never did it, onnist."

OPPIT - Go away , as in "Oi you, oppit."

PADDA PUFF - Soft, lacking aggression. "They're alright up front but they got a padda puff defence."

PACIFIC - Specific.

PAFFUL - Having much power or strength.

PAIPA - Sun, Mirror etc.

PANS AN ANNSIS - Imperial weight system.

PLAMMANS - A pub lunch usually made up of cheese and bread.

QUALIDEE - Good, as in "West 'Am's new striker's qualidee."

RAND - A number of drinks purchased for a group.

RANDEER - Locally. "There ain't much call for it randeer."

REBAND - Period of recovery after rejection by a lover. "I couldn't 'elp it. I was on the reband from Craig."

ROOFLESS - Without compassion.

SAFF - A direction of the compass, opposite north.

SAFFEND - An Essex seaside town.

SAWTED - Done, arranged, resolved.

SEEVIN - Very angry. "I woz seevin when I urd wot 'e sed."

TALENT - Attractive members of the opposite sex. "Dave's gan dan tan to eye up the talent."

TAN ASS - A modern terraced house.

TOP EVVY - A woman of plentiful bosom. "Ere look at that, Darren, she's well top evvy."

UG - An unattractive person. "Sharon's new geezer's a bit of an ug."

UMP - Upset, as in Got the Ump.

VACHER - A document which can be exchanged for goods or services. "I got a vacher to get in cheap at Forp Park."

WANNED UP - Tense. "I'm all wanned up at the moment."

WAWAZUT? - I beg your pardon.

WENNOFF - A fight commenced as in "It all wennoff".

YAFTA - You must : "Even if yer guilty, yafta av mitigating circumstances."

YOOF OSTALL - A place where holidaymakers can stay the night.

ZAGGERATE - To suggest something is better or bigger than is true."Craig, I must've told ya a fazzund times already." "Don't zaggerate, mum."