I was at the pub where I work last night and while collecting some glasses, I picked up the ripped up beer mats left by one of our younger female customers. I chucked them on the bar meaning to bin them when I got back but forgot. A little while later,Viv one of our regs, asked who'd ripped them. We started saying how annoying people's nervous habits are,
"Some people build geometric structures with them," says I, "at least that's a little more creative".
"There's probably a name for it like origami," says Viv.

By the time we'd finished the conversation we'd already got the first "world" championships sorted, and even thought about building a website to promote it.
So, if you want to enter the first Annual Matagami beermat challenge, drop us a line at:
3rd Barstool from the left,
You Know, the one with the funny stain on the cushion,
'Nam.


We were discussing some of our, shall we say, more unusual customers the other night.
One of our oddest was a chap that we affectionately nicknamed "Bullshit Bill" [name changed to protect the innocent]. Bullshit knew everything, he only had to read a pamphlet on table knives to be a weapons expert. He had been, among other things a racing driver, champion disco-dancer, faith healer (no, really) and medium. His spirit guide was none other than Elvis Presley!
Unfortunately, he changed his story - it wasn't Elvis but "Elvis". Turns out his guide was an Elvis impersonator! I wonder if he impersonated a spirit guide?

Kiting for Boys

The 3rd anniversary of my new life looms: my personal Road to Damascus occurred when I bought myself a kite for my birthday, a small two-line foil which I naively thought would drag me around and maybe even lift me off the ground. Not a chance!
On the Sunday I took my family "up the hill" (now my mantra) to try it out and was shocked when my neighbour whizzed across in his kite buggy and offered to help me set it up. I had no idea he engaged in such a glamorous hobby and was suitably impressed. It was that moment when I contracted a serious, and so far incurable, case of "kite fever", and within three weeks of that fateful Sunday, I had bought myself a "real" kite.
This was a 2nd hand Flexifoil Blade mkII, 3 square metres of pure evil! Read my review here if you can be bothered.
The Blade lived up to my expectations of a power kite, dragging me - and especially my son - across the common, and scaring the crap out of us.
Since then my love of kiting has gone from strength to strength, particularly since I bought a buggy back at the end of 2006.
I was "up the hill" the other day, a couple with their young family were watching from a short but safe distance. When we pulled up at our kit, the father came over with his little boy of about 5yrs old. It was obvious that the interested party was the dad! He had that look in his eye that I'm sure I had all those years (well, not that many but it seems like for ever) ago.

It just grips you like that.


Auction Sniper

Move Over Princess Di there's a new corpse in town- A Eulogy

It would seem that I was wrong about Jade Goody.

You see, I always thought she was a self-serving, self-absorbed, fat, ugly, irritating, racist and foul-mouthed Essex girl.

It turns out that not only was she the standard bearer for every other fat, ugly, irritating chavette with a rare command of expletive English, but she was also a saint in the making, whose canon will surely be fired by Pope Ratzenburger himself.

Surely we can number her among the great philanthropists - after all, she had the looks of Mother Theresa. Unlike Mother Theresa she tirelessly self-promoted all the way to her deathbed to give her children a decent education (or enough money to employ Max Clifford to enable their own self-promotion), and her husband the opportunity to shine in her reflected tarnish.

This glorious polished turd, this beacon of mundanity, calls to the celebrity in all of us:-

put down that gutted fish, remove your uniform of corporate deprivation and heed the gospel according to Saint Jade.
You too could be a rich A-lister if only you were just a little more irritating, just a little stupider, and - dare I say, just a little more pikey.

Amen.

In the words of the great Daniel J. Boorstin (no, I don't know who that is either), "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire PR officers."

Oh and by the way, when people go on about how her plight has brought the need for screenings to the general public blah blah, remember the money she has earned in exchange for her very public demise would probably go a long way towards curing cancer if it was donated to a research charity. Even Jordan, the most famous non-celebrity in the British Isles found Jade Goody's publicity uncomfortable

Edit: I hear Jordan has been barred from attending Jade's funeral. What I say is: meh.

Auction Sniper

Welcome gentle reader

I once found a book in my local library called "How to Overcome Indecision" but I couldn't decide whether to take it out or not.

A bit like whether to write a blog: is it like the diary of your life that starts out on January 1st with a 200 word essay entitled "my day", and by February 1st already has 30 empty pages apart from an entry that reads "dentist 3pm"?

Okay so I've made my first decision - write a blog; next decision - what about?
Hmm, what am I interested in? Well that's easy: kiting and ranting.

Kiting is my joy in life, it's what makes me buzz and what calms me; it makes my heart race and adrenaline pump, but it also has a Zen quality about it that stills my soul.

That's enough of that: attempts at discussing this fascinating(?) extreme sport normally brings on a look of quiet desperation amongst my non-kite friendly friends, so I'll maybe only mention kites once or twice - per sentence!

So it's decided then: welcome to my rant!