Friday 30 November 2007

Art!

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Tonight I am off to the opening night of an unusual exhibition. On Red Lion Lane in Exeter is Exeter Art Spaces, where one of the directors is Ruth, a good friend of Jim's from art school.

It was a little like visiting a final exhibition for an A-level or University course. The variety was huge, but so was the standard, ranging from GCSE standard daubs, through to some really well formed sculptures.

I weigh 194.7lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 193.5lbs.

A boy who went to school with my sister was there - I must remember to tell her. Also, there is a man in town who I see quite often who looks like a chap I served with in 1RHA. He looks enough like him that, the first time I saw him, I approached him with a hearty 'hey-ho there Kitkat!' and, on the strength of this, have greeted him ever since.

It is nice to know that he has a real name, which is Sam.

I weigh 196.4lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 194lbs

The highlights for me were Adrian Scragg's work, which Jim tells me I am not allowed to buy until I put up a picture rail, a splendid piece of celebrity art which was priced at >£60,000 and made me chuckle for some time, and some rather splendid little sculpted 'stones' by a gentleman called Rolf who seemed a little put out that anyone exhibited who was not in the studio every single day and thus presumably was unemployed.

Oh, and the giant stainless steel head must get a mention as well, so: 3.6lbs of poo and a goodly load of art.

Ideal.

Here's an updated version of the Bert image from Tuesday:

Thursday 29 November 2007

What a palaver!

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I am desperate for a poo. This wouldn't normally be a problem, but I have no idea where the scales are. They are suspicious in their absence from the old exec. office, they are clearly not in the board room and the conference room and pods are all devoid of mass calculation hardware.

In short, I cannot poo.

I have asked around and everyone denies all knowledge. Actually, that's not true, everyone denies knowledge of the whereabouts of the scales, but they are being coy about whether they might know who does know. Who would tell a direct lie here?

David bloody Gregory!

I have found the scales on Old Greg's lap and now weigh 195lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 194.6lbs and now realise that, if I am to put up with these kind of shenanigans, I am going to have to up my game.

Tuesday 27 November 2007

Jenkem goodness!

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Young David Tapp alerted me to a new drug craze, sweeping the nation.


Information Bulletin
New Drug - JENKEM

On 09/19/07 Cpl. Disarro received and email from a concerned parent regarding a new drug called
"Jenkem." The parent advised their child learned about this drug through various conversations with
several students at Palmetto Ridge High.

Jenkem originated in Africa and other third world countries by fermenting raw sewage to create a gas which is inhaled to achieve a high. Jenkem is now a popular drug in American Schools. Jenkem is a homemade substance which consists of fecal matter and urine. The fecal matter and urine are placed in a bottle or jar and covered most commonly with a balloon. The container is then placed in a sunny area for several hours or days until fermented. The contents of the container will separate and release a gas, which is captured in the balloon. Inhaling the gas is said to have a euphoric high similar to ingesting cocaine but with strong hallucinations of times past.

Once ingested the onset of the high takes approximately 10 seconds with the most severe hallucinations happening in approximately 20 minutes. Several articles indicate that the subject immediately passes out after ingesting the gas then regains a magical/hallucinogenic state within seconds of regaining consciousness. The high has been described by subjects as a feeling of "being out of it" and talking to dead people. The feeling of being "out of it" may last for several hours or days.

All subjects who used the Jenkem disliked the taste of sewage in their mouth and the fact that the taste continued for several days.

Slang terms: Winnie, Shit, Runners, Fruit from Crack Pipe, Leroy Jenkems, Might, Butthash, and Waste.


Now Snopes calls this Urban Legend False, but then goes on to provide a nice slack handful of evidence to suggest that the story is true, including the fact that this information bulletin is genuine.

Snopes often jumps to its feet at the chance to debunk something, but this is exceptional, even for the website, basing the False verdict on the fact that jenkem is not a popular drug in American schools and the words of a school student, over a whole heap of stated sources over 17 years, including a rather nice BBC article on the subject.

Looks to me like kids are getting high on poo. I suspect that they'd get a similar result by holding their breath for a while or sucking a car exhaust, but there we go - I do enjoy overzealous debunking though, it smacks of a level of hypocrisy which makes Manley smile.

I weigh 196lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 189.2lbs

What a little ripper!

UPDATE: Within 20 minutes of posting this, Pasty Muncher sent me a link to a ThisIsntExeter.co.uk article on the subject, which links to a nice video:




Migraines and ankles

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I've got a migraine. Frankly this is arse.

The ankles refer to the youngest member of Team Manley, who's dressing is now covering mere scar tissue, with no open wound at all and a lot of healling going on.

Clearly I have actually got ankles as well.

Struggling to make sense, I weigh 194.8lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 192.8lbs, so a nice round numbered poo today.

I leave you with this:

Monday 26 November 2007

Back to normal

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First of all, I should like to apologise for yesterday's post, which covered the entire weekend.

I spent Saturday ripping out the kitchen and putting in a new sink, followed by an evening with guests and parents and Chinese food.

On Sunday I spent the day with my family (nuclear, that is) and then had other guests and Chinese food in the evening.

I did take the time to weigh myself and to record my excretions, but I was not in a position to write very much as I was busy. In other news, my laptop is partially mended, which was a nice result.

I have just realised that my MOT ran out several days ago. I weigh 194.4lbs

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I am having a poo
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I have now booked my MOT for TODAY at Alphington Fast Fit and dropped the old Delica off, so at least I won't get fined.

I'd better check the tax and insurance later on, eh?

I weigh 191lbs

Saturday 24 November 2007

The two day blog post.

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Saturday, sink:

205lbs

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I am having a poo
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199.5lbs

Chinese food

Sunday

200.9lbs

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I am having a poo
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200lbs

Friday 23 November 2007

Jumping in the ocean.

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Today i shall fling myself into the sea.

I weigh 193.6lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 192lbs

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I am going to work
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I weigh 196.2lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 193lbs

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I am flinging myself in the sea
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I am cold.

Very, very cold.

Cold and Wet.

Thursday 22 November 2007

Mad woman, why dost thou assail me?

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A disabled woman, looked like an octogenarian, pulled across in front of me as I approached the office, causing me to get stuck against her wing. She then shouted abuse at me for several minutes, whilst my colleagues watched and, on occasion, cheered.

Choice moments include:

"I didn't pull out in front of you, you were far away!"
I am ashamed to admit that I had suddenly stopped being far away, in order to suddenly be on her wing, using my quantum bicycle.

"You think you have the right to the road!"
Strangely, I always have thought this. I can only remain eternally grateful that she pointed out the error of my ways.

In response to my saying that I had right of way, as dictated by the white lines across the end of the road she had exited:
"Yes, and you should be on those white lines."

In response to my "Did you not hear me shouting?"
That's just the problem, you were shouting and not keeping out of my way.

Indicating the road:
You shouldn't be on here, this is for cars.

I ended by saying Please, please don't go away from this thinking that some oik was in your way in the street. Please learn that today you pulled out without due care and nearly killed a cyclist.

Sadly I was angry with her, not for pulling out on me, but for being so dim, and added: Now go away and think about it, you silly little girl. If you were any younger I'd put you over my knee and spank you.

I weigh 195.6lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 191.2 - It didn't seem that big, but I'm not complaining.

Rather than leaving you with another 'Manley angry with world' shocker, who wants to see a seventeen year old in the shower?

Also, I made a thing:

Wednesday 21 November 2007

Pony!

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I stumbled upon this YouTube video documenting the plight of the Great Apes of Borneo. Just before the thirteen minute mark it begins to detail the life of Pony, an orang-utan who was used as a sex-toy. Pony was shaved every couple of days and sold in a brothel which also offered human whores. In Borneo palm oil production (for lip salve, ice cream, chocolates, and cheese crackers) which, pretty much equal with soya now, represents the largest destroyer of habitat on the planet, already accounts for more orang-utan suffering than elsewhere. Now those who destroy that habitat and rape the land seem to want to rape the refugees as well.


Presumably less hair made for more custom

I managed to dig up an interview with Michelle Desilets [Director of the Borneo orang-utan survival foundation]:

Pony is an orang-utan from a prostitute village in Borneo. We found her chained to a wall, lying on a mattress. She had been shaved all over her body.

If a man walked near her, she would turn herself around, present herself, and start gyrating and going through the motions. She was being used as a sex slave. She was probably about six or seven years old when we rescued her, but she had been held captive by a madam for a long time. The madam refused to give up the animal because everyone loved Pony and she was a big part of their income. They also thought Pony was lucky, as she would pick winning lottery numbers.

When asked whether the 'clients' realized that they were in fact getting an orang-utan, rather than the more traditional Great Ape, the human, Michelle's response is astounding:

Oh yeah, they would come in especially for it. You could choose a human if you preferred, but it was a novelty for many of the men to have sex with an orang-utan. They shaved her every other day, which meant that her skin had all these pimples and was very irritated. The mosquitoes would get to her very badly and the bites would become septic and be very infected, as she would scratch them constantly. They would put rings and necklaces on her. She was absolutely hideous to look at.

It took us over a year to rescue her, because every time we went in with forest police and local officers we would be overpowered by the villagers, who simply would not give her up. They would threaten us with guns and knives with poison on them. In the end it took 35 policemen armed with AK-47s and other weaponry going in there and demanding that they hand over Pony. It was filmed by a local television crew and in the background of the film when we are unchaining Pony you can hear the madam crying hysterically, screaming, “They are taking my baby, you can’t do this!” There is no law enforcement in Indonesia so these people didn’t face any sentence or anything for what they had done.


Pony is now back in the jungle, free from rape

From what I can glean off the internet (and most of it is, as you might expect, the ramblings of those who find delight in this sort of sexual perversion or the ravings of the vegan right) Pony was more popular than her human counterparts.

I found this surprisingly alarming, but mostly it amazes me how much sex dictates the way we, as a species, act and also how much emphasis we, in the West, put on the treatment and welfare of animals. I have no doubt at all that the human prostitutes in that village were treated far worse than Pony. Indeed, according to Unicef:

In Indonesia, it is estimated that 100,000 children and women are trafficked each year. Child prostitution is on the rise, and one third of the sex workers are being under 18 years old. The underlying causes of child trafficking include poverty and lack of economic opportunities for young people, the low status of girls, high demand for commercial sex, cheap labour, weak law enforcement, discrimination and conflict. Surveys on trafficking and sexual exploitation conducted in East Asia, including in Indonesia, show that trafficking of children is lucrative, well organized and linked to criminal activity and corruption. It is also transnational, often hidden and therefore hard to combat.

I have to wonder exactly why we are focussing on the orang-utan. I weigh 195.4lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 193.8lbs. I think I need to diet.

I heard a complaint from the chap who runs Binary Dinosaur that a rather rummy sort of chap on the locomotive was shouting into his mobile telephone. I offered the suggestion that he answer the telephonist's every word, thus:

Him:"Hi!"
You:"Hi!"
Him:"Have you spoken to Ellie about the audit yet"
You:"What audit? I don't know what you are talking about"
Him:"I need it by tonight."
You:"Well then, you've hardly given me sufficient warning, have you?"
Him:"Sorry, some nutter is shouting at me on the train."
You:"it's annoying when that happens, isn't it?"
Him:"I'll call you back."
You:"I don't remember giving you my number"

I also sing opera loudly and badly when I experience chavcasts. This generally gets a response along the lines of 'Shut up, you can't sing' to which I retort 'And your 'phone speaker cannot handle that volume', shrug and continue.

Since I'm on a roll, I always say 'you're welcome' to people who fail to say thank you.

Tuesday 20 November 2007

Yay!

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Having travelled up to Bristol yesterday to see the plastic surgeon and the burns consultant, it looks very much as though the youngest member of Team Manley shall not have to an operation just yet.

I have pressure dressings for her, which look like clear neoprene and make a synthetic puss to soothe the burn for now. We have these changed every couple of days and then go back in 2 weeks, but the crux of the matter is that I had no need to stay in Bristol last night after all.

Generally this is all positive stuff and the burns look much less concerning now. I weigh 196lbs.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 193lbs and now, having wasted two days holiday on a sick child (I had already booked the holiday for Jim's birthday weekend, before the baby got burned) I am suddenly up to my ears in work again, so i must return to the grindstone and try to plumb deeper the mysteries of search.

Monday 19 November 2007

Today's the day the baby goes to Frenchay

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Busy morning.

199.8lbs.

Poo

198.1lbs.

Bit fat.

Other things to worry about.

Sunday 18 November 2007

Simone Manley; Birthday Girl.

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Fortunate, as I am, to share my house with the ever lovely Jim, yesterday I got to play host for her birthday meal.

With all the ruckus which has been going on of late, the large party wasn't really in keeping, so we settled for a few of our closer friends and a curry.

I made 5 quarts of vegan curry, a gallon of rice, two wok lids full of poppadoms, a dozen or so naan breads, some yoghurt, mint, cucumber and lemon dips as well as providing plenty of chutneys, including the rather splendid Tiptree Hit Gooseberry, as recommended by the ever lovely Mr Giles Patterson.

We had fairy cakes in the afternoon, with visitors of the parent variety (that is to say, friends with children, rather than our parents) followed by finishing the shelves in the kitchen (and they are rather super, if I say so myself, and I do) rebuilding the French Windows and making more food.

Eventually we just settled down with just a dozen of us and got properly stuffed. Kev brought some cider, which Manley is not normally allowed (it goes by the moniker 'Angry Manley' around these parts) and I managed to vaguely behave despite this, for most of the evening.

After all that food, I weigh a, frankly gargantuan 199.7lbs

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I am having a poo
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Wow! 194lbs! That's a 6.7lb poo! Not my largest, but certainly weighty and a little bit of a burner at that.

I still need to lose a little weight, if I am going to get back down to the ideal weight I have arbitrarily chosen for myself. The rain is bad enough that the birthday visit to the car boot sale which Jim was after has been cancelled.

All is well with the world.

Saturday 17 November 2007

Paris Thatcher

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I weigh 190.6lbs and I am wondering what Paris Hilton would look like with Margaret Thatcher's face.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 189.7lbs and am wondering how to forget what Margaret Thatcher looks like with Paris Hilton's body.

Friday 16 November 2007

Happy birthday Jim!

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I am married to a 29 year old lady and I weigh 193.7lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 191.7lbs, but I am still married to a 29 year old lady.

Thursday 15 November 2007

Manley needs to sleep.

Digg this

I weigh 198.1lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 192.6lbs and I am going to have a bath now.

Worry seems to be incredibly tiring.

I went for a client meeting on Monday, before discovering that the baby had been taken to hospital in Bristol, and it was one of the best meetings I have been to. Generally I outline issues, present solutions and then the exec I am meeting with goes away, tells what they remember of it to the CTO, who mumbles something, writes down what he thinks is actually important down and it is ignored by the programmers. It's irritating in the extreme, but there it is.

On Monday I made a few quite heavy suggestions from a corporate perspective, including a fairly serious re-brand, but the CTO was in the meeting, as was a programmer and the MD just said 'Okay, shall we do that?' they said yes and it was settled. Assuming the changes are implemented, I shall be a very happy bunny.

The only strange thing was that, even though they are a serious company, not Firebox or IWWOOT, but a grown-up company for grown-ups to work in, there was porn in the gent's.

I mean, it's artistic porn, but it's porn, none the less.


Now wash your hands

The image by the sink was merely erotic, displaying as it did a lady(?) on her knees, facing away from the camera, wearing elements of undergarments.

Down the corridor, beside the lone urinal, was a different matter. This nubile young thing is wearing only panties and these are pulled in at the sides, displaying all.


Please be careful where you point that.

I don't mind, I was just surprised. It was, all in all, a surprisingly good meeting all 'round.

Wednesday 14 November 2007

Bicycle abuse.

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I'm getting pretty much entirely over-run by stress concerning the baby now. Quite aside from scar management, they think that the burn on her joint may affect mobility if it isn't operated on, but we find out on Monday.

They'll operate on Tuesday if they can, they're worried about TSS because of the size and depth of the burns, but I can't help been terribly afraid of the outcome when one mixes general anaesthetic and 5 month old babies.

I walked Jim and the younger two up towards the surgery at lunch time and popped into the bike shop to explain that I have now received a cheque for £135 less than the invoice from the van who ran me over. They asked if I wanted my frame to spray and said that they could strip her down in 10 minutes.

No, having stripped a bike I know that 10 minutes is too short a time and was most amused. Ben took 9 minutes, but used unusual methods:


NOoooooOooOoo0000!


And the 9 minutes included everything, from wheels to lugs


Clearly this is not the normal approach taken at Sidwell Cycles

And now I am back in the office and weigh 195.8lbs.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 191.4lbs and I have parked up my 'bike' ready to take her home for a Brooklands Green paint job.


Traditional Liverpudlian cycle storage scene.

I can still remember when I bought my first guitar.

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I remember just how good the feeling was, although sadly I did not have my car with me at the time, so I had to carry it home.

It was a tuska and it was later stolen by a Gunner in E Bty RHA who took it to Nottingham and never returned.

I miss that guitar. I bought it in Nethergate in Dundee, one of the only two material purchases from my university years, the other being a Brando style leather jacket, which I still own.

I am utter exhausted from worrying about my baby and think that I need to sleep. I weigh 195.8lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 190.2lbs. I cannot bring myself to care at the moment, but I know I will regret it if I stop half way into the experiment and this was a pretty enormous poo.

Tuesday 13 November 2007

'Popping in' to Frenchay.

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I have to take the baby to Bristol again on Monday 'so we can have a look at her' and then again on Tuesday for an skin graft.

Getting to Bristol is a sod for me - Jim can't drive and is such a mess at the moment that she really needs me there for this, I have two other daughters that need looking after and take to school, I can't keep asking people to drive Jim about if they want to change dressings every two days (seriously, yesterday we had to go all the way to Bristol because they don't have the dressings with silver in them anywhere else this side of Gloucester - for my mother this meant driving 200miles with us, and another 60 miles just to get to us from her home).

There is (obviously) a limit to how much time Jim and I can take off work without it becoming an issue (Jim works from home, so her hours are very flexible, but at the moment all our time is taken up with this - which is fair enough - and being able to pop into the local hospital, a pretty major hospital and in the capital city of the second largest county in the UK, to get dressings changed would be nice) and I can't imagine I am alone in this. With this in mind I asked:

'There must be other people in a similar situation to me?'
"Yes, we get this sort of thing every day, it is a real problem for a lot of people."
'What do people usually do then?'
"Struggle".

Why have the pre-op consultation the day before when you know that most of your patients are having this sort of problem? Why in the name of all that is holy do these specialist burns dressings (at least one or two) not exist in Exeter?

Jim left the RD&E hospital at 1230hrs yesterday and got to Bristol Frenchay at 1735hrs - if you can't drive it's not just an inconvenience, it's a nightmare.

'Can you pop in so the consultant can take another look?'

No, I can't 'pop in', I can spend £100 travelling and let down work (who are very good about this sort of this) and the days of two other people to collect one child and look after the other and do it, and of course I will, because it's my baby we are talking about, but 'popping in' isn't an option when I'm a hundred miles away and the breast feeding mother cannot drive.

How about, next time, the consultant takes a proper look the first time?

/Manley bitching blog.

I just stirred my fish tank with a chopstick and Bruce is in heaven, he seems to think that the dirt from the stones in his tank are cocaine, by the looks of him.

I weigh 192.6lbs.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 191lbs.

I am also very, very stressed.

Plastic surgeons and no poo at all.

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What a bloody awful day yesterday was.

On Friday the smallest member of Team Manley (at 5 months old) managed to grab a cup of fresh peppermint tea and pull it over onto her leg, resulting in some pretty horrendous burns.

I dealt with that at the time, spoke to the duty doctor and decided to monitor her, keep it clean and covered when it might rub and then Jim would take her to the doctors on Monday, whilst I was in Oxford for a meeting.

When I finished my meeting (which went very well, thank you for asking), I had an answer machine message. Jim had gone from doctor's 'phone calls to drop in centres, to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and was now on her way to the plastic surgery team at Frenchay Hospital, in Bristol.

It looks like the less severe burn on the baby's foot is, after all, the more severe one and a mixture of plastic surgery and/or a wet-suit like pressure dressing, worn for 23 hours a day for, in answer to my question 'Weeks or months?' 'Maybe years'.

Needless to say I didn't really have time to defecate once I had got to Bristol and the man on the barrier who told me that I would be charged a further £127 for the train ticket I couldn't find to get out of the station probably spent much of the evening telling his wife, boyfriend or girlfriend all about the nasty man he met at work that day.

We've got the baby back at home now, but it looks like a few journeys up and down the motorway. If you are my sister or parent then thank you for looking after children and driving around the country for us yesterday.

Regardless, I woke up this morning weighing 192.5lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 189.7lbs and am so tired from worrying all day that I think I might just give up on daytime now.

To cheer things up a little, another leecher is stealing our images, so if you watch the background of This chap's YouTube page (NSFW) for 15 seconds the televisions will show you a nice picture of Goatse. If you do not know what Goatse is then PLEASE read up on it before you click, be sure that there are no children around and preferably be blind from birth. This is seriously NSFW so please don't blame me if you look at it. I have warned you and it is your own fault.

I also have a nice picture of the Dagnall's eye, much healed, but still fairly nasty:



Cheerio!

Sunday 11 November 2007

Not quite a remembrance poo.

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I weigh 194.5lbs. I am quite excited by this. Should I do a 0.6lb poo then I'll have managed to go to 1939 from 1945, which is very much in keeping with the theme of the day. Should I manage a 2.7lber or a 3.1lber then I'll be taking the Great War into account as well.

I am shocked to recognise that I am tempted, as I sit pondering this upon my porcelain throne, to lie a little to pervert the results of this experiment, already six months old, just for this purpose.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 189.3lbs. The Matabele War or maybe the The Franco-Siamese War aside, 1893 was not a terribly important military occasion. As far as I know the Franco Siamese War was only really British in its mercenaries and, whilst the Matabele war was against the British, I can't really bring myself to include a company army, engaging in battle against peope who it would enslave to work in its mines, in the same class as the more recent conscription wars on mainland Europe.


Matabele warriors. These men would all die or end up in a mine

Anyway, I am off to church now to ring for remembrance. I never wear uniform or medals or ribbons, but I shall have medals in my pocket and a poppy on my chest. I have been discussing this a lot recently, I may comment further on things later on.

Yesterday I:
  • looked after the baby with the burns,
  • went to a children's birthday party,
  • Stayed in bed throughout the whole of a ballet class.
  • Did two poos, amounting to over 7lbs in weight.
  • Took delivery of a simply enormous sink (nearly 5' wide)
  • Built some rather splendid shelves out of floorboards.
  • Had amazing sex which was interrupted annoyingly.
  • Managed to recover from an annoying interruption.
  • was told that all my efforts are not good enough and I now have to go and clean up 'and you'd better bloody hoover as well!'.
  • That last one referred to work in the kitchen
  • watched "Cool Runnings" with the girls.
I can't explain why, but I never get weepy at films, I just don't, I am not a crying person really, but Cool Runnings always makes me cry.

Anyway, I have only cried twice as an adult, once when my first was born and once watching Cool Runnings some time ago.

Get near the end, just before the crash, and I'm blubbing like a baby.

The girls have never seen me cry, mostly because I haven't, and they are really quite taken aback. The big one is all quiet and the middle one keeps berating me for 'pretending to cry'.

Jim mercilessly ribbing me helps none in the situations, I find.

Saturday 10 November 2007

Proverbial needle eyes.

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Jim has taken the eldest and the youngest to ballet, whilst I stay near the John.

I weigh 197.1lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 190.9lbslbs.

That was massive, but I am feeling a little dodgy and I want to be utterly voided before I go to a children's party in, damn! 10 minutes and I'm still in my dressing gown!

Here, I made a picture of Musslini being somewhat troubled by a bee:

Burn baby burn

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The baby got some tea on her tights last night. You can make judgements about that later, but for now, the burns were about the size of an elongated 50p piece on her calf/shin and about the size of a 20p piece on her foot (and another as small as can be on her tiny 'big' toe).

I put her leg under a running tap and then in a sink full of cold water for about 7 or 8 minutes and then put a cold pack in a sock on the burn whilst she had some milk, as she was getting rather cold in the sink and I didn't want to have hypothermia on top of a burn.

She's got a blister on her foot and a blister which lifted all the skin off on her calf as soon as I removed her tights, but apart from this, her skin was just red and it doesn't look too bad.

After a feed I took her back to the bathroom, where the shower head appeared to be the most interesting thing, in the world, ever! and she sat with it spraying cold water on her leg for a further 15 minutes or so, as happy as could be.

After this I placed some cling film over the blisters to keep infection away and, after trying to get hold of my tame internet doctor, the real doctor finally called (in fairness, it only took about 20 minutes, which is pretty good on a Friday night for a non-emergency).

On his advice I cycled off to Boots and got some low-adhesive dressing and micropore taped it over the burns to keep infection out. It is only a shame that she is too young for anything more exciting than milk and baby rice, because she deserves a treat for being so brave.

This morning the leg looks very sore, but she doesn't seem to care tuppence about it and is in a better mood than usual for this time in the morning. She seems fine and I'm content to just look after her and keep an eye on it.

The two things I learned last night.
  1. A Google search for [burn baby hot water] turns up a lot of lyrics by Adam Sandler, to say nothing of the whole Tina Turner thing
  2. It's much harder to deal with a mother who is feeling guilt and distress than it is to deal with actual injuries
I did eventually get my cup of tea.

I weigh 194.7lbs

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I am having a poo
=================

I weigh 192.8lbs.

Ballet and then a Birthday Party today. I have to try and get some shelves up too, but we shall see about that.

Enjoy your weekend.

Friday 9 November 2007

BIGGER!

Digg this

I weigh 194lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 192lbs

Neat, tidy and predictable.

The hot tap is so tight that I cannot turn it on and I am not a weak man.

It also still says 'Wee' on the wall above the urinal, 4 weeks after I first stuck the blue-tack up.



I have also been producing lobsters, which are rather better by virtue of [a] not being stuck to a non-stick wall, [b] Not being 4 weeks old and [c] Something else, I expect.

Thursday 8 November 2007

World Toilet Day

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Whilst I am on a roll with these good causes, let's have a look forward to World Toilet Day which is coming up on Monday week.

I have already booked the time off work and I hope you will too.

5,700,000,000 people are without proper sanitation, that is 95% of the world's population excreting directly into the environment – on the land and to the receiving water bodies.

It's an odd organisation, but a valid one. The situation in Victorian London is not so long in the past that we cannot empathise with the typhus elsewhere.

I weigh 195.8lbs.

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I am having a poo. In a toilet
============================

I weigh 193.8lbs.

I have a letter from AXA regarding my being run over by a van they insure. I don't want to discuss something which might go to court, but I feel it's not too bad to mention, in passing, that AXA are evil.

Wednesday 7 November 2007

Bog Standard

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There is a campaign for better standards of toilets in schools which I have been asked to support.

The fact that I have been offered absolutely no money to do so, or even a nice packet of Izal, is not going to stop me as I think this is a just cause.

As a young man I had a somewhat privileged schooling at first St Michael's Pre-prep, who asked me to leave, then at St Michael's Prep School, who expelled me just after my Common Entrance exam, and finally at Millfield, where I got my first and thirds rugger colours, before being expelled. During this period I had no problems with the facilities.

Admittedly I had a less than savoury house master at Millfield and my headmaster at St Michael's was put away for Gross Indecency, but we always had clean porcelain upon which to rest our laurelled bums. I was then, after being referred to a behavioural specialist in Exeter by the name of Anita Diamond, who made my mother cry and could frankly have done with some behavioural lessons herself, allowed, somewhat grudgingly, to attend Chulmleigh Community College, who kept me until I was 16.

We were never allowed toilet roll as boys. I understand that there were some who wet the paper and threw it around, but I really cannot, now that I am an adult, understand how the powers that were failed to grasp the concept that removing toilet roll for all pupils encouraged the rowdy few.

Either way, if, for example, I had a stomach ache or I was at a school disco (and thus attending the school during my normal allocated evening defecation time) and I wanted a poo, I had to ask Mrs 'Dolly' Reed (who was in no way affiliated with the school, but a kindly old lady, none the less) or Susan Smith, that bastion of anal depravity that is a school secretary, all of whom appear to be drawn from the same recruitment pool as the medical receptionist, for some paper.

Invariably this would be a request met with hostile suspicion. Clearly by their advanced years these ladies had forgotten that, as young women, they had to excrete. Presumably they believed it was something that only crept up on them in later life. As such they were certain we wished to make trouble with our lavatory roll.

We were, once it had been ascertained that we had no plans for resurrecting the horrors of Nagasaki in Andrex white, given our allotted single sheet. No amount of reasoning would increase this, so we always asked for a sheet of paper every time we visited the John. Accordingly there was a stockpile in the lavatories for those who needed it or, on occasion, those who wished to cause mischief.

I cannot help thinking that the novelty of throwing a piece of wet loo roll at the ceiling would have worn off much more rapidly, had we had full access to the ingredients in the first place.

As an adult I find that there is a tendency for companies to use cheap paper which, frankly, is a false economy. Firstly it is less effective (so one uses more of it) but secondly, when paper is so rough as to induce bleeding, morale is lowered and productivity suffers.

For all these reasons, I support the Bog Standard campaign, as requested, albeit from the huge weight of 198lbs.

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I am having a poo in a poor-paper facility
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196.6lbs, eh? One would have thought that all this reminiscing would have worked more weight off my frame.

No matter. Cheerio!

Tuesday 6 November 2007

FIRE!

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Remember, remember, the fifth of November!

It was amazing. We had a firework maker turn up with a few dozen home made devices and a box of charges which were fantastic, as well as about 15 people's versions of the £200 load we took.

Ben's 24 rocket launch device got lit on its side and fired rockets which got lodged in a fence.

We had a fire 30 foot high and we danced on bales on it, probably a 45 minute firework display, some fire breathing and plenty of dead deer to chew on.

It's great blowing stuff up!

I weigh 197.6lbs.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 195.6lbs.

It was probably the best fireworks night ever, I still can taste paraffin in my mouth and the girls loved it. I took no camera and don't know what more to say than 'it was amazing' because I just enjoyed it, rather than taking notes, but . . . Woh!

Monday 5 November 2007

Bike vans of the stars.

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Yesterday was a day of art and Team Manley made its meagre way around some of the Exeter Open Studios exhibitions.

I woke up with a hangover after the rather splendid vegan party and put down some skirting in the kitchen and quadrant around the door. It looks somewhat ''laminate' in the very worst way, which puts me off. Strange how fake flooring can make me less inclined to lay real flooring, but it'll soon grow on me.


Veronica Gosling
We started with Veronica Gosling who's work I love for its childish humour. We spent far too long at Gallery 36, but I did get some good ideas for the shelves above the radiator in my kitchen.

I could have spent far longer there, I really like to freshness of untrained artists - Whilst there is a requirement for some form of education if one is to move forward, rather than just keep up (I am not generally a fan of outsider art), there can be a stifling quality to over exposure to training and I do find that every final show, A-level exhibition and GCSE coursework display contains the same style of work, or rather the same group of styles of work.

From here we moved on to the Double Elephant print workshop, where we had a lot of fun with the girls. Print making is excellent to play at. I think that I'd find it a limiting medium before long, but in the short term it's a joy to mess about with.


Gail Strong
We stopped off at Exwick Mill to see some work by Gail Strong, who I have not heard of before, and of course to have a cup of tea with Dick and pester people into playing with my hordes of offspring, in the impossible hope of tiring them out.

As well as life drawings, Gail Strong uses loose paint effects to produce some stunning visual assaults. There were some really exciting material usage, but sadly I have no imagery of the more vivid work.

Finally we visited an exhibition of Brenda Lambert's work, where I came very close to buying this painting:


Brenda Labert

but thankfully it was already sold and I was saved money I don't actually have.

We had pasta and pesto for supper, but I did go on to have a few bowls of cereal, some sandwiches and a tin of grapefruit segments after I returned from visiting our friends from the other side of the river in the evening.

If you don't care about art, and why would you? here is a van I have seen:


I want me one of these!

I weigh 194.9lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 193.3lbs. I am not sure what this portends, it doesn't seem overly large, but I am mostly just ha[sic]

----------------------

At this point I was clutched by a stomach cramp, which was particularly poignant as I was about to mention how Benji and the Dagnall have the squitters and how I was ha . . . ppy that I was not excreting through the proverbial needle's eye myself. I did have time to weigh myself at 194.8lbs before I fled, but I wonder how well I will be able to continue this experiment if the proper bum-wees kick in.

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I was having a poo
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I weigh 194.2lbs. I suddenly feel like I should eat 50 eggs, Cold Hand Luke style. Hopefully this will pass.

Sunday 4 November 2007

Barbados rum

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Normally we go up onto the hills in Redhills, from where we can see all of Exeter and down river as far as Topsham on the Saturday nearest the 5th.

Last year we took a load of fancy meat (impala, kudu, boar, zebra, crocodile, buffalo, kangaroo, ostrich, that kind of nonsense) and had a splendid barbecue whilst watching a couple of dozen professional displays and a few thousand amateur ones as the city slowly became hidden behind a cloud of cordite.

On the 5th itself we all traipse out to my father's where we burn everything we can find in his field.

This year our vegan friends had a party on the Saturday, with a caterer and everything, where we went instead. Anderson had brought some bootleg rum from Barbados and I took a load of kosher wine.

Damn, that stuff is sweet and drinkable, but I feel like a firework war is in my forehead this morning.

I weigh 190.6lbs.

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I am having a poo
=================

I'm not normally political, but am I alone in wondering why the Mexican state of Tabasco can handle a major rescue operation, whilst New Orleans was basically left to rot by Bush? I weigh 190.3lbs, somewhat disappointing after my exertions, but then vegan food must be low in mass, for all it's flavour.

All of team Manley has been ill with a vomiting bug, but Benji didn't turn up last night due to diarrhoea and I just received a text message from the Dagnall, who was with us yesterday, to tell us he has fallen foul of the same, so .3lbs it may be, but at least it was of a robust consistency.

Saturday 3 November 2007

Tattooing the Dagnall's eyes.

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As I mentioned previously, the radiator has been leaking, so the Dagnall and I went off to get some ptfe and mend it. We haven't really succeeded, but I did get to tattoo the Dagnall's eyes in the interim.

We drained the radiator, took it off and wrapped ptfe on it, then reattached to find that one end was sealed, but the other was leaking from behind the joint.

The draining of the radiator involves isolating it and then releasing the pressure through the bleed valve, before placing a basin under the join and letting the contents out, controlling the flow by means of regulating the air going into the bleeder valve.

That worked well the first time and, in the interests of testing things properly, I turned the heating on and upped the pressure in the closed system to around 2.5 bar.

The second time we drained the radiator all went fairly well.

The third time we (I) forgot to release the pressure. I turned the adjustable spanner one full turn, dumped a radiator full of water under my floorboards and shot a stream of boiling hot water, with corrosion inhibitor, straight into the Dagnall's eyes.

As near boiling water was shooting everywhere in my kitchen I sent the Dagnall upstairs to fetch some towels whilst I wrestled with things and, whilst it was no surprise that he was somewhat itchy in the ocular region, we left it at that.

It was not until we were at the party later on, examining the bizarre cupboard which is only 2" deep, but the size of a normal door (and later discovering the vents which have nothing but unpainted wall behind them) that he started to complain again.

Bathing eyes involves, in many cases, a mirror and it was now that the Dagnall realised that, below each lower eyelid, he has a perfect circle of gore in each globe. If shown the damage and asked to assess what might have caused it, I would no doubt guess at a masonry drill to the eyes.

I will ask him to photograph himself at the earliest opportunity, but I am very pleased to have caused perhaps irreversible and permanently disfiguring damage to the eyes of a good friend.

He'd better not say that I never do anything for him.

[Update:I have a picture of his eye now - it's much healed but still a bit nasty.]

Firefox Tourettes.

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I'm lying in bed reading the B3ta newsletter and I am relatively pleased to find that one of my links is in there, namely this, slightly nsfw, video.



The extension itself is available at fffff.at and has caused me some small amusement.

This is clearly nsfw.

I weigh a fairly pleasing 190.3lbs, so as long as I can manage a .3lb poo I should be fine.

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I am having a poo
=================

And it was a .9lb poo as well, so that I now weigh 189.4lbs. It's nice to be back the right side of 'fat mess' again.

Last night I cut the bottom couple of inches from the bottom of one of my tables and added half an inch to the bottom of the other, so that they now match perfectly. They've been abused for a long time, so that it took me a couple of hours work with some Lord Sheraton Beeswax to get them back to approaching serviceable.

Now I'll look at the sideboard again and actually just put some ptfe on the radiator I fitted on Thursday and stop it leaking and maybe consider putting in the windowsill, if I can decide what wood to use.

Enjoy your weekend my poo aficionados, and I shall report back on the Sabbath,

Friday 2 November 2007

If it doesn't leak, how do you know there is water in it?

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I am of a mind to plumb in my radiator today. Something I have always been extraordinarily bad at is attaching things directly to walls. How is one to know where the batons are behind plasterboard where the house is refurbished and how on earth can one get a screw to hold in the inch and a half of horse-hair plaster which covers the walls where it is not?

Since I know it is only half inch baton on the wall in question, I drill through the plasterboard and then into the wall behind the cavity, pushing a solid wall Rawl plug through with a thin screw an a hammer and fixing it behind, in the style of a home made frame fixing (I used some heavy duty frame fixings to attach the joists to the floor and they are splendid).



Once I've got the radiator hung on the wall (and it's pretty much perfect - level as can be and lined up with my plumbing precisely - I am not really this good, it's just chance) I simply screw it all together and then turn on the central heating.

Plumbing is easy.

I weigh 196.5lbs - a little tubby really.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 190.3lbs, that was huge, but stil .3lbs too small.

Also the radiator is leaking, so I, being Manley, turn it off, isolate it from the ring (it is on a spur, so the ring is still intact, although it would still work even if it wasn't) and leave it for another day.

It is Campanology Thursday, after all.

-------------------------

If anyone is interested, our plain hunt doubles was quite good, until we started swapping bells over beforehand.

Thursday 1 November 2007

Freeze that poop!

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There is a limit to how far I am willing to go in the pursuit of art.

It's quite a long way off and I am fairly open minded, but I am aware that, whilst I'd be willing to play along with this idea, most of you would eschew reading about it.

I weigh 192.3lbs.

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I am having a poo
=================

191lbs of soft, warm and decidedly unfrozen poo later and I present to you the answer to these problems.

May I present to you the Poop Freeze:


CFM


The possibilities are, well, limited but entertaining.

I shall give this some serious thought.

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I weigh 195.6lbs now.

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I am having a poo
=================

And now I'm back down to 193lbs. I do need to lose a little weight, but I suppose that, for this to happen, I'll have to eat more lard.