Smith and Thell

Head Rambles Posted on by 4

Has anyone ever heard of Smith and Thell?

I hadn’t until yesterday.

Herself had the radio on and I caught a few seconds of a song. I really liked the guitar backing so listened for the artist at the end. As is normal these days, the announcer’s diction wasn’t the best so I had to do searches for “Smith and Smell”, “Sniff and Tell” and various other variations.

I eventually found them and found the track that had been played [along with a few extra tracks].

I like them, which is more than can be said for most modern “artists”.

A Significant Day

Head Rambles Posted on by 8

Today is a “significant day” for Irish society.

Or so our illustrious Minister for Health Simon “it will be fixed next month” Harris tells us.

People caught for the first time with drugs for their own use will be dispatched forthwith to the HSE for treatment.

Oh dear. What the fuck have they done to deserve that? The endless waiting, sitting on hard seats with only watery “coffee” in the dispensing machines only to be lectured and hectored by some underling? I think I would prefer a few weeks in The Joy. There is far less chance of coming out with some life threatening disease. Incidentally, the HSE just doesn’t have the resources for this so the would-be addict will just end up back on the streets again while he [or she] waits a few years for an appointment.

I presume they are working on the misguided belief that some kid who has been shooting up for years will have some kind of Damascus Revelation and will walk out swearing never to touch the stuff again. Fat chance of that. He’ll be straight off to shoot up again, and fair play to him.

Equally suppose I am caught with a few spliffs in my pocket? Do I get the same lectures on the evils of dope, despite that fact that I would probably be twice the age of the lecturer? Equally I would be straight out to light up a toke just to settle my nerves, and would probably do so on the hospital grounds just to piss them off.

I’m all for them telling us that this is bad for us and the other is bad for us and everything else is bad for us if it makes them happy. Frankly it would make me a lot happier too if they just left it at that. Tell us that smoking is bad and alcohol is bad and drugs are bad and being fat is bad and being unhealthy is bad, but for fuck’s sake leave us to make up our own minds after that.

Just stop criminalising things and “shaming” people or passing laws that may “help” a tiny minority but just discriminate against the rest of us.

Just leave us alone.

Eyes in the back of my head

Head Rambles Posted on by 8

I have seen something that few people have actually seen.

I have seen myself walking.

When you think about it, to see yourself walking is about as rare as seeing the back of your head, but I am one of the privileged few. I have seen loads of photographs of myself but this is the first time I have really seen myself in action in full glorious high definition technicolour. That’s what comes of having a damned CCTV camera.

Two things have become apparent. The first is that the old hair is beginning to thin a bit at the top. That doesn’t bother me too much. The other is that I walk with a fierce stoop. I walk as if I were constantly examining the ground in front of me for piles of dog shit [which in fairness I usually am]. I suppose it is one of the consequences of being over six foot tall? For example, Herself is a foot shorter so if we are walking together [in the good old days] I have to stoop to hear what she is saying all the way Down There.

I suppose I should have realised I had a bit of a hunchback from the photograph of myself up in the mountains that I use at the top of this site?

I’m not vain. I can happily walk around the village with my hair uncombed [or unwashed], wearing slippers and with my zip at half mast. But at the same time I don’t particularly want to look as if I were carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, even though I usually am.

So I have started retraining myself. I throw my shoulders back and walk with my head held high.

I keep cracking my head off the door frames now as the old doors here are built for midgets [or presidents?] and are considerably lower than normal.

Another reason I learned to stoop?

water water everywhere

Head Rambles Posted on by 5

I saw the most extraordinary item on the television news last night.

They sombrely announced that the world had run out of water and fresh air.

I kid you not.

Earth’s allowance of natural resources for 2019 all used up by today – report.

Now that was yesterday, yet I look out the window today and it’s pissing rain. So the rain must somehow not be fresh water? What the fuck is it? Is it piss? Beer? I notice also that I am breathing without any difficulty so I must somehow be breathing air borrowed from the future?

Now apparently we have been running out of resources since 1986, and have been using up everything earlier and earlier each year. How come no one has ever noticed things? Surely farmers would be bitching if their crops all suddenly failed? They tend to bitch about everything possible, so using up all their soil would make for a grand bitching session. Yet somehow this catastrophe is overlooked year on year.

I honestly don’t know what to make of this. I know the climate alarmists keep claiming that the world only has ten years / two years / one year / six months [take your pick] to go before we become extinct but this shower are claiming that we are actually running out of fresh water or fresh air every year?

I see they are based in California.

That explains it all!

A site to behold

Head Rambles Posted on by 12

A post by Simon Clark piqued my interest.

$20 million for this?!

Now web sites put up by the Tobacco Haters always deserve a visit so naturally I delved a bit deeper. After all, $20 million’s worth must be quite something? All singing all dancing? Using technology that hasn’t even been invented yet?

The site is apparently called STOP. I would expect that with $20 million at their disposal they would manage to buy a suitable domain. But they didn’t. They went instead for https://exposetobacco.org/ In the weird world of Tobacco Control I suppose that must make some kind of sense?

So having discovered their address I plunged in to see this wondrous vision.

It’s a WordPress site.

I have nothing against WordPress whatsoever and I use it all the time, but I suppose that with a tight budget they must choose free software?

Anyhows, as Simon has already pointed out, the site is a bit of a disaster. It must have cost them at least a couple of hundred, so that leaves plenty for nice fat salaries and bonuses?

One thing that struck me is that the site is crying out for a parody. I would do it myself, but I don’t have the time these days. All it would need is a database [easy to set up], but what to put in it? How about a database of all the characters involved in Tobacco Control with a list of their research and how that research was easily debunked. There could be league tables with stars awarded for the most ridiculous claims?

It would have to have a suitable name of course. Tobacco Control love their little acronyms so it would have to have its own one.

Can anyone think up a suitable name with the acronym CUNTS?