194.6
=================
I am having a poo
=================
192.4


202.2
=================
I am having a poo
=================
200

195.4
=================
I am having a poo
=================
191

Guest poo number two.

This is Rowan:



Today, Rowan will weigh his poo for us.

I weigh 200lbs precisely.

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

I weigh 198.2lbs, but now it is time for Rowan to have a poo. Rowan weighs 151.4lbs. If we say that men are, on the whole, larger than ladies and my wife is a lady, then I am twice the weight of my wife. Being that she is undeniably a woman and I am fairly confident that I am a man, if Rowan falls half way between our weights does that mean that I am twice the man he is?

No, it doesn't.

====================
Rowan is having a poo
====================

Now Rowan weighs a mere 149.8lbs. He reports that it was somewhat sloppy.

195.4
=================
I am having a poo
=================
187.2

Haggis poos!

Somehow, in all the excitement, I have not mentioned Burns Night at all.

We had an excellent evening, just 14 for dinner, and ate heartily of neeps, tatties and haggis. I would have liked to have made more, but it was more than made up for by the pudding, as provided by the lovely Mrs Boddy.

I feel that would be remiss to not thank Mr Smith for coming along and basically take over the cooking at the point where I began to fail. He can come again.

This morning there were enough of us to ring all 8 bells as well, so this has the markings of an excellent weekend.

Last night I siliconed the bath, which went badly. I have done a splendid and tidy job, but the children bathed and the silicone has lifted in a couple of places where they were less cautious than is required, so it looks like a job I shall have to repeat.

I am now about to partake of some bike cleaning, do some work which needs addressing, and take a van load of junk to the municipal recycling centre. I weigh 193.2lbs

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

I weigh 191.6lbs

In the words of my Geography teacher, Mr Ellis: 'Manley could do better'.

A trip to Bath.

Today I went to Bath with Matt, who is my cousin-in-law, I suppose.

Being entirely narcissistic, there are very few occasions when I meet someone and think 'there's someone who I respect', since nobody is ever as utterly wonderful as my Lordship, obviously. Matt is one of those exceptions, he is a church warden and nearly an accountant and has achieved all the sorts of things which I wanted to do when I grew up, yet is still thoroughly likeable.

Matt drove me up to the wedding outfitters and we tried on appropriate clothes (all of which fitted pretty much precisely my idea of what size I thought I might be, sadly) and then, after a couple of beers drove back down.

It was only upon arriving in Devon that I realised that I had to drive home from Matt's, so I had to sit about, drinking tea and chewing the fat at the farm, to let the ale subside. Damn, what a frightful strain!

I weigh 194.4lbs

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

At 189.6lbs I still had a nice day and am rather looking forward to ushering at Simon and Kate's wedding in May. I was rather flattered to be asked, since they hardly know me, but they are a lovely couple and I am uncommonly pleased to be of service. For me this is rare as I prefer not to leave the house as a rule of thumb.

Bum Dug

I think it is important to mention that Messrs Wenger and Angell want to bum Dug.

Why they want to bum Dug is something I would rather not go into at this juncture, but there can be little doubt that Dug bumming features very highly on their agenda at the moment.

I weigh 192lbs and, you will no doubt be pleased to learn, have no desire to bum Dug, whatsoever,

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

I weigh 190.6.

I am very hungry - I think I will go for some noodles now. And not to bum Dug.

Battling deliverymen.

Well, yesterday went better than I expected. I weigh 189.6lbs.

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

I weigh 188.4lbs.

On the road through Darts Farm I was overtaking the line of traffic and as I passed a small blue van the driver saw me, growled and deliberately swerved across the line and hit me in the leg. Being clipped in to my pedals I nearly came a cropper and slammed back into the side of the van hard, but managed to stay rubber side down.

The other three bikes passed me and there was an incident with Ben being deliberately driven into the side of a temporary traffic light which added to the enjoyment of the stretch of road no end.

Then we passed the van again and he tried to side-swipe me.

Then he passed us again as traffic cleared and cut in front of me and braked hard, then sped away. Half a mile later he was waiting in a lay-by and then pulled out on me in a manner which would have been disastrous, had I not expected it. At the next lay-by he pulled in again and I had to pass, so I allowed a car to pass me and tucked in behind it to pass. I then decided that enough as enough, so I pulled in to a gateway to let the van be where I was not.

The van pulled into the gateway and began to get out, so I rode on at which he drove pretty much through Matthewparker and then blocked the whole road and started storming down towards us shouting that all four of us had hit his van and that we should not be overtaking on bicycles.

I was sorely afraid for the fat pillock looked like it would take some stopping him and I could not see myself not getting hurt here, but he then changed his mind and buggered off.

Most scary. I weigh 200.2lbs

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

I weigh 197.2lbs.

The day in general was excellent, the play we wrote about penguins and polar bears, in the style of Derek and Clive meeting Monty Python, went down well and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Tracker, the host, was not of a mind to teach field-craft, but was actually an excellent example of the best kind of person to lead these motivational team-building days.

All in all everything was a little more positive than I am prone to be, but still relatively painless.

One can only hope that, in this environmental guise, Mr Brown would approve of my cycling expenses.

Open, honest, fair, fun, professional and unconventional.

That's what all 202.6lbs of Manley is

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

I weigh 199.8lbs and I am cycling to Woodbury Park for a conference on embracing our group's core values.

I wonder if I can claim MMA for cycling?

Tea?

I weigh 196lbs

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

195.8 and I want a cup of tea.

This is a Southern Crowned Crane (Balearica pavonina gibberifrons), of the kind I saw in Kenya, with Colour Sergeant Andy Butcher who was an odd sort of a chap, but one who I shall not forget.

Daffodil!

I weigh 194.6lbs

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

I weigh 193lbs

It would be nice to pretend that it is spring, but frankly I believe that the flowering daffodil in my garden is merely stupid.

I weigh 201.4lbs now, which is a little saddening.

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

I weigh 199.8lbs

Grout Grouch

I weigh 194lbs, and I am absolutely exhausted.

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

I weigh 192.4 and, sitting here, I realise that I really do have to grout the tiles. Grouting is not a job I have done before and it is already late at night, but if I am quick I can still get to B&Q in time for a grouting float.

I weigh 199.9lbs, which is very heavy, but I am plastered from head to foot in groat.

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

196.6lbs of Manley has completed the tiles and is very pleased, except that he has also broken the shower control off.

Making the bed.

I weigh 195.8lbs

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

I weigh 194lbs.

Today I built a bed for my eldest. Her bedroom is tiny, so I have taken out the normal sized bed and replaced it with a 2' wide bed which fits the gap beside the window and is high enough to cater for a chest of drawers underneath.

Entirely hand built from timber, it is the epitome of good taste and, surprisingly, easily wide enough to accommodate even a Manley.

Another day for you and me in paradise.

I have suddenly realised that I have almost no time left until the Christening of #3 and I have absolutely nothing ready, despite weighing 193.8.

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

At only 191.2lbs, I seem still to have no idea what I need to prepare.

Work, work, work.

I appear to weigh 200.6lbs, which is not good at all.

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

I weigh 198.4lbs.

I seem to have more work to do than is reasonable at the moment, so I shall get on with it. I really could do with some sleep.

Here are some of the windowsills near my house.

Dark Water and Hypochondria!

I did something last night which I have not done since 1992. I gave up on a film. Last time it was Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles at the Cinema in Barnstaple. This time it was Dark Water.

I weigh 193.4lbs

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

I weigh 191.4lbs.

The film is just so dull. After about 15 minutes Matthewparker and Ayse gave up and went home, but I don't ever give up, there is normally a redeeming feature to every film. After an hour of spooky music and no plot development at all I got bored and turned it off.

I asked the ever knowledgeable Pops what happens in the film this morning and, whilst it is not unexpected or that predictable either, I find that I just do not care.

If you want to know, just ask, but please, don't go and rent the US version, it is appalling. I am reliably informed that the Japanese original is much better.

I weigh 199.6lbs

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

I weigh 199lbs.

Last night my left arm became numb at the shoulder. It was a dull pain, as opposed to a shooting pain.

Given that I have broken my back twice, I am confident that I am able to give a reasonable account of the pain level and it was somewhere between a broken rib and sciatica, but without the stabbing sensation.

I took 400mg of ibuprofen, which meant I could not take any diclofenac, but I could take some paracetamol and a couple of valium if I needed to.

Which I did.

When I looked at the ceiling and then over my right shoulder (Maigne's Test stylee) I get considerably more pain, which lasts after the movement has ceased, so I assumed it was not my heart, loaded myself up with tablets until I rattled and thought to retire.

My hands were not cold, so I reckoned I would live.

Then I started to worry.

I have never had angina or a heart attack, but my mother was a hole in the heart baby
and has had a tricuspid valve replacement, so I have seen attacks and reckon that they might hurt less than on television.

I called the doctor who went through the murmur I had as a child and the one I had at Sandhurst and the muscle injuries I had recently and my back injuries and the fact that I developed so fast (I was 5'1" at 16 and 6'2" at 17) and possible effects of that on my bones and my Rheumatoid Arthritis and on and on and Ariston, until he decided that i was being a big girl with an injured neck.

Which was pleasing but slightly galling. When I finally decide to call the doctor I like to be sure that there really is something wrong.

It still hurts now, at 1100hrs the next day, but I suppose that a trapped nerve is better than a heart attack.

We have to go outside now, the fire alarm has sounded. Toodle-pip!

What is going on?

Last night the baby slept all night long.

Why then did I not?

I weigh 194.4lbs

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

I weigh 192.4lbs and have made a winking tit:




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


Update: I weigh 199.7lbs

============================
I am having an emergency poo
============================

I weigh 197.4lbs

Blimey!


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

Again?

I weigh 200.2lbs.

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

I weigh 199lbs

This has got to stop.

Back to Search

I am back at work again. I still have had no sleep at all, but I have a meeting today, so I have to be here.

It's so good to have a baby at home again. I weigh 197.6lbs

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

I weigh 194lbs and I wish that the air freshener in the loo would run out as I now smell like I have been drowned in sandalwood.

Anyway, I am far too busy to chat to you lot, I must get back to work.



[UPDATE:

Not too busy for a return journey, it seems. I weigh 197lbs

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

I weigh 194.8lbs and I really must get some work done.

Subsequent poos.

I have been happily painting the walls of the eldest daughter's new bedroom today.

She was meant to have moved in by the weekend, but the youngest being so unwell ha meant a postponement, but I have nearly got the room painted, with just the skirting board to do now.

I weigh 195.4lbs

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

I weigh 194.6lbs, less than a pound of poo.

Instead of doing the skirting board I am off out to get some underlay.

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

Underlay is quite cheap, but the room is tiny and the smallest amount I could get was huge, so I have bought instead some insulating foam panels with which to underlay the floor.

Having cut them to size and begun taping them together in a jigsaw pattern, I remembered that there is the wiring for the outside light under the floorboards in this room and have to tear up some floorboards.

I weigh 199.8lbs.

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

I weigh 199lbs.

Having torn up the floorboards I find that I do not own a drill long enough to reach the outside world, so I have to be happy with putting the cables down through the floor and attaching a junction box downstairs for now.

Somehow I have managed to get the underlay down, the carpet laid, the bed put together and the top and bottom of the door planed down. I have also put a secret panel in the window, which I shall not tell the occupant about, so that she can discover it for herself.

The room is too small, so now I need to make a 2' wide bed with a set of drawers underneath.

Not today though, eh?

Happy as Larry.

An almost entirely sleepless night cannot mean anything except that I have got my baby home at last.

I am going to go and look into building a bed for the eldest, but you may rest assured that I weigh 194.6lbs.

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

I weigh 192.6lbs and am happy as Larry.

Before you ask "Who was Larry and what was he so happy about anyway?", Larry was not a man. There are those who attribute the phrase to the successes of Australian boxer Larry Foley (who was retiring, undefeated, at about the time that G. L. Meredith, penned the first known instance of the phrase), but most evidence points to a further afield source for the predominantly Australasian phrase.

It relates to the Cornish and later New Zealand word for a hooligan or roughian, larrikin, a term which Meredith would certainly have been familiar with.

In 1868 H. W. Harper's Letters from New Zealand include the word larrikins, and is dated similarly to Meredith's coining of the phrase.

So either the New Zealanders bastardised the kernow word larrikin, or - more likely - the Cornish did so, but did not deign to record it, kernow being, at the time, an almost entirely rural and mining province.

So there.

Better news?

I think that, so long as I can get rid of the other two, they are going to let me bring my baby home today.

It looks like she will be able to have her antibiotics orally, so there is a reduced need to be in the hospital and I am very keen to have her back here where I can look after her.

I weigh 191lbs

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

I weigh 189.2lbs - a good weight.

I have been asked to comment on the way in which my weight fluctuates. At work I generally appear to weigh less than at home and I have been questioned as to the accuracy of my scales, particularly in the last couple of months.

The truth is that I tend to wear clothes at work, but to be merely garbed in a pair of Tesco boxer shorts or entirely buck naked at home. Additionally, in winter I wear more clothes, so the difference has been more marked of late.

I hope that this clears up any issues people were having.

Not much improved.

Once again, I am too busy worrying about other things to be too concerned about this blog today, so I am just going to include my email to work:

Loathe as I am do deprive such dear friends of a glimmer of light in their daily toil, I am nonetheless afraid that I shall once more be absent from your lives on the morrow.

My baby's health is not improved at all, and she is still on a fancy pumping drip thing which, reminds me of the machines that provide morphine on demand. We do not know what the infection is as yet, but poo, wee, blood, snot and saliva have all been taken away and we should discover the problem over the weekend - my best guess at this point is that it is a skin infection caused by bugs in her blood, following a bad reaction to her immunisation, but that is subject to change (first thing this morning we were being quarantined because she had meningitis, which means that we have a room to ourselves now).

To those of you with children, I would like to say that everything points to her suffering as a result of a specific infection which was either a reaction to her injections or which found its way in from her skin when she was injected. This morning there was, as I say, the suggestion of bacterial meningitis, but that is now discounted and the hospital have declared it safe for the 3 year old to visit and are confident that there is not a risk of contagion. If there is any change and there is any concern I promise to let you all know, but everyone seems certain that it isn't anything that you have to worry about.

I, on the other hand, do have to worry about it, so I am going to go and do just that. If you need anything then please email me - I shall almost certainly be awake most of the time I am at home, so please don't think that I won't want pestering, as long as you understand that I might just not do it.

Again, I should like to apologise for robbing you of my company and hope that you somehow manage to struggle through your Friday without me.

Cheers,

Manley

I weigh 200.8lbs

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

I weigh 198.8lbs

Baby very, very ill.

All not well ;( Can't be arsed to type it all, so will include instead a copied and pasted email to work I just wrote:

Manley not coming to work:

Good morning.

My youngest is really rather unwell and is in the hospital with various tubes in her. I had to hold her whilst they stuck three separate IVs in her earlier and have just left her after she had three lots of medications applied through the tube in her leg.

I know that this is irrelevant, but I'm just feeling a bit like her life's not much fun at the moment and it is frustrating.

What is relevant is that I am unlikely to be at work tomorrow - I need to get the eldest child to school and then look after the middle one, at least until I can get my mother here, and then will probably go to the hospital to be with Jim and the baby, so if you do see me you should consider it a bonus and probably buy me choc-ices.

Cheers Pops for last night and please note that I also have a dentist appointment on Monday.

Cheers,

Manley

================

It is morning now and I am just trying to sort out children.
I have taken the eldest to school, but the hospital is asking that I find someone to look after the middle one as whatever the youngest has got (and we don't know yet) might prove to be a bit nasty.

Bloody hell, I wish it was next week and this was all done.

In fact, I wish I was 63 and the children were married and I had a couple of children and I could remember all these hard times, but that I didn't actually have to go through them to get there.

I weigh 197lbs

==================
I am hav . . . sod it, you know what I am doing - I weigh 195.2lbs and I don't feel like I care.

Baby even iller ;(

My youngest is getting really quite poorly now, I am concerned. We will take her to the doctors again today I think.

In the mean time, I weigh 192.4lbs

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

I weigh 191lbs, precisely.

Have a picture of a happy galloping slug:

Baby ill ;(

Oops, an accidental posting!

I'll fill it out soon.

197.4lbs

196.4lbs

[UPDATE: The child became much worse on Wednesday and has been admitted into hospital, so I will not be filling this out after all, sorry.]



Please note that I added the people so well that they look like they were part of the source. I hate it when i am this goo ;)

Fat again!

I weigh 201.2

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

I weigh 200.2lbs

===============================
I am drinking a glass of water
===============================

I weigh 200.4lbs

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

I weigh 199lbs

===========================
I am drinking a cup of tea
===========================

I weigh 201.4lbs

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

I weigh 200lbs precisely.

I think that, with the current epidemic about, (As Philip who works for NHS Direct, tells me, they took 1.1 million calls over the 11 day Christmas period which was 61% over the expected call volume, "mostly due to winter vomiting virus" - go look at his quite outstanding biro drawings) I could be heading for trouble.

Scene of debauchery.

No poo yesterday, I built a tiled shelf around bath and put in a window sill in the bathroom, and daubed a couple of coats of paint on the walls in the new bedroom.

The show is broken at the stop cock, so I have had to struggle on with the water leaking, which is no fun at all.

I have had a lot of guests for dinner though, and I do like people, they keep me sane. We had a pheasant pie, which was superb (thank you Jim) and then Jim got ill and had to be taken to hospital, although it's not serious and some anti-biotics will cure her.

I weigh 189.4lbs

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

I weigh 186.2lbs - that's a nice healthy 3.2 pounder. I wonder if MacDonald would sell it by the quarter?

Either way, I have come downstairs this morning to a scene of abject debauchery. There is an unconscious body on the floor, glasses strewn across the room and more crisp packets than I can reasonably expect to fit into a single bin liner.

I feel young!

Friday feeling?

More like a next Friday feeling.

I am not sleeping at the moment, not at all. I think I might collapse soon, which might hurt as I weigh a massive 202lbs at the moment.

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

I still weigh 200.8lbs, which is simply too fat.

I think?

I am not a pheasant plucker.

No seriously, I am not. I hate the job.

When I was a young man of seventeen I worked for a season butchering pheasants, but we used a machine to pluck them. After I left the army I became involved with syndicate shoot and found, surprisingly, that I actually prefer beating (as long as I can carry a gun at the back of the line) to standing at a gun post. I also discovered that pheasants are far more easily skinned than plucked.

I don't really enjoy the taste of pheasant that much, preferring duck, pigeon, snipe, partridge or guinea fowl, but there are always far more pheasants to go around, so I put them in the pot anyway.

I tend to hang my birds for about 3 or 4 days. I have been known to leave them a week, but anything longer than a fortnight is ruined meat as far as I am concerned. I ideally like my birds roasted in a tin or a brick, but I do not favour the roast bird when it has been skinned and choose to plump instead for a stew or casserole.

Before I go on, I feel it is important whenever discussing game fowl, to remember ark Hanbury Beaufoy's The Father's Advice:

If a sportsman true you'd be
Listen carefully to me.
Never, never let your gun
Pointed at any one;
That it may unloaded be
Matters not the least to me.
When a hedge or fence you cross
Though of time it cause a loss,
From your gun the cartridge take
For the greater safety sake.
If 'twixt you and neighbouring gun
Bird may fly or beast my run,
Let this maxim e'er be thine;
"Follow not across the line."
Stops and beaters, oft unseen,
Calm and steady always be;
"Never shoot where you can't see."
Keep your place and silent be;
Game can hear, and game can see;
Don't be greedy, better spared
Is a pheasant, than one shared.
You may kill, or you may miss,
But at all times think of this
"All the pheasants ever bred
Won't repay for one man dead."

That out the way, let us press on with the post.

If you haven't already worked it out, this is intended to be a short 'how to' on preparing a pheasant for the pot. Much as with the rabbit preparation tutorial, this is not intended to be an authoritative lesson, but rather an insight into how Manley prepares birds. As I mentioned earlier, I have butchered, plucked and dressed more game than most (indeed, as a younger man the boast that I had once had 752 birds in the back of my camper van was one of which I was most proud, although I never made it clear that these were game birds, collected from Tapely Manor, near Bideford, on an occasion when we had to utilise my camper as the usual van had broken down). I know how to dress game, I simply choose not to.

Following my advice here will not teach the reader how to become an expert, but rather how to turn a dead bird into an ingredient. To start with, or course, one requires a bird.

I've got a brace of birds to deal with and I forgot about them, so it is quite late now, but if I am to have a casserole tomorrow then I need to get the slow cooker ready. I have already filled it with potatoes, stock, cranberries, apples, onions, carrots, peas, spinach, basil, some spices, tomato purée and so on. I would add a fair amount of salt to this normally as I feel that game needs it, but having three children under 7 I tend to add to taste after it is on my plate. This is not ideal, so if you don't have any reason not to load it up with saline then now is the best time to bang it in there.

Pheasant feathers get everywhere and, now that I have brought the birds indoors and they are warming up, blood will start to flow too.

Always put the birds on some newspaper or similar, so that it is easy to get rid of the mess afterwards.



Does Doctor Who not look a little like Giles to you? Anyway, take a good look at the bird. this one has been shot through the wing, so probably fell quite heavily - this is more likely to lead to bruised meat, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem.



Additionally there is a shot hole in the crop.



In a pheasant's digestive system, the crop is an expanded, muscular pouch near the gullet or throat which forms part of the digestive tract, essentially an enlarged part of the oesophagus, which is used to temporarily store food. All this is going to mean to me is that there is going to be a lot more mess than I would like, as the undigested corn will go everywhere.

What we are looking for here is entry wounds which show where a pellet might be lodged in the meat. A pellet can break a tooth and also, if it punctures an internal organ (in particular the stomach) it can leave the meat around the wound a little distasteful.

Now I am going to pluck a small section of the breast.



Normally I would pluck a far smaller section, just enough so that I can see flesh. Pheasant skin is very weak and hardly holds on to the feathers at all, so plucking these birds is an easy job. Where one might be tempted to plunge a goose or a turkey carcass into boiling water before plucking, the pheasant is no effort. The only downsides are time and mess.

I personally prefer not to pluck a wet bird as, although the mess is more confined, the job takes longer and is far less pleasant. As you can see, there is an entry wound here on the breast, so I shall inspect here for a pellet once I am in.



It isn't clear in the photograph, but I push a knife through a fold of skin and then draw it towards me, to leave a flap of skin. It is not necessary to do this - as I have mentioned, the skin is very weak on the bird - but it makes for a tidier job.



Once the flap or 'tag' of skin is free, grasp this tightly and wrench it headwards.



The skin will tear easily and you should be left with a naked breast.



From here the procedure is much like that with the rabbits. Removing the skin from the legs is simply a matter of undressing the bird, much as one undresses a baby, by gently but firmly pushing the leg up and out of the skin. This hen bird has a broken leg. It can be easy to cut a finger quite badly on splintered bone, so I am going to remove this leg at the knee joint, but it is normal to leave the leg intact. The softer, feather bearing skin will naturally separate easily at the join with the hardier leg. Additionally I want to show Ayse how the ligaments and tendons in a bird's foot work to compare with her recent injury.



Once the thigh is proud of the skin, it is a simple matter to tuck a finger behind the 'knee' and pull the leg clear. The bright yellow areas visible in this image are the bird's fat. I tend to chuck a little of this into the pot along with the meat. This way the fat mixes with the bird and keeps it moist, much as it does when the bird is roasted in a tin or brick.



Once the leg is clear it is simply a mater of repeating the procedure for the other leg. Wings and the lower back of a pheasant represent very little value and the lower thigh is often too muscular to make good eating, but the upper thigh is sometimes excellent. In reality though, the main thrust of a pheasant's use, when it comes to the pot, is in the breasts and these will account for almost all of the food gleaned from the bird.

Cutting the meat from the bird is done in two ways. The legs are butchered by literally tearing the meat away. It helps to have a knife to make starting cuts, but a pheasant's legs are so stringy that the only good way I have found to separate the meat from the gristle is manually.



The breast can be carved as one would with a cooked bird. It comes away very easily, but one must be sure to avoid cutting any organs.



There you have it, a complete guide to stealing the easy meat from a bird. If you have the time or the inclination it is better to pluck the pheasant and draw it. To do this one stabs the bird under the rib cage and removes all that is inside, then cuts away the crop and removes the head and neck by firmly grasping the body and yanking the head backwards until it detaches.

This method is preferable to cutting as it leaves no unattractive stump, although sometimes the bird will expel air through the beak, due to the chest cavity being held tightly, and open the beak, due to the motion of the neck, and it can be unpleasant to watch a gutted bird caw.

For now though, I am simply left with the task of removing the meat, checking for shot and putting the birds in the pot.

As a closing note, I mean this to be educational and ask that you maintain a level of respect for the bird. This is important to me, I kill to eat and I do have to butcher in an objective manner and there is no place for sympathy, but there is still a need for respect. I have met people who enjoy the act of killing, but I find it unhealthy. For me, it's just the procedure required to produce the food.

Personally I think that I would much rather be a pheasant than a chicken. A pheasant lives a free life and then it is suddenly cut short. A chicken's existence is pretty grim.

If you care about animal welfare at all then please, go eat more game.

I have never skinned my children.

Having a poo

What I weigh must reflect what I eat, so today I thought I would take a look at this.

I weigh 202lbs, which is unacceptably heavy, but then I did have mayonnaise and Jaffa Cake sandwiches last night.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 199.4lbs.

Every day I have the same thing for lunch. The quantity varies, but I have noodles every single working day. Yesterday I had 4 packets, but I normally only have two. As I did a walk-through of how to skin a rabbit and preparing placenta casserole, I thought I'd do one for noodles:

As I say, I have noodles every day. Jim tries to convince me that I need a more varied diet, but her selections (such as the ever delicious looking 'Mixed Vegetable Savoury Rice') do not match up to the convenience and MSG-goodness of instant noodles.



These take far too long to cook and, more importantly, bear the legend "fewer vegetables, still satisfying", which would put me off any foodstuff. I mean, really!



As you can see, even the word 'Noodles' cannot resist these delicious chicken flavoured delights.

Manley does not slurp them in this manner however. Not for my lordship, the delights of the longer noodle. Oh no, I like to crush them into tiny pieces and eat them as if they were a soup.



Once thoroughly crunched up, the noodles are mixed, dry, in a tupperware container. I always use the same pot as the noodle powder stains the tupperware in a most unattractive manner. Today I am having chicken chow-mein.



In go the flavours. Note the professional twin grip application method I employ:



Next we add hot water. Contemporary wisdom tells me to use the kettle, but I am a very busy man, so I tend to go with the 'hot water tap' school of noodle hydration.



Next we give the whole shebang a swift stir and pop it in the microwave.



Except that Mutant George is in there. Oh what a wacky lot we Search Consultants are, eh?



Out comes George



In go the noodles



and on goes the microwave. 1 minute on high should do it.

I note that the microwave is getting a bit dirty and wonder who I can get to clean it for me. Hmmm.

A minute is an annoying amount of time - what can I do that only takes a minute?

Look out of the window at the Christmas lights?



Hmm that wasted a brief moment.



Halfway through and I have already wasted 'looking out of the window'.



The sink isn't really as pretty as the tree. Still not quite there though.



The microwave really does need cleaning. Anyway, I'm bored now, so I am going to open the microwave early. Sadly all this entails is a quick stir,



and then back in for another minute.



Hmm, the microwave really is filthy. It definitely needs a clean. Now what can I find to do for a minute?



I suppose that I could clean the microwave. Or I could eat a muffin?



Mmm! Muffins!

Ooh! It's done!



And here is the cooked final piece.



Now, here is where I make the final twist which turns this average snack into the busy consultant's dream foodstuff.



Cold water.

This allows me to eat my noodles almost instantly, cutting a chunk out of my lunch hour and getting me back to my desk that little bit faster.



It looks delicious, doesn't it? Now for the taste test:



Now that hits the spot!

Noodly perfection.

Moving house

I weigh 193.2lbs

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 190.6lbs.

Today I am spending my bank holiday moving house for my daughter's friend's mother. I don't want to do this as I had only one day's holiday over the Christmas period, but it seems that I am a sucker for helping people.

I weigh 195.4lbs.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 193.8lbs

I am not going to go into it, but I am not going to rush to help people move again.

I now have to build a window in the spare room (which is about to become the eldest child's bedroom ready for my uncle to come and sort out some papering for me tomorrow. I wish I'd done that this morning, at least I'll be grateful.

In the mean time, look at this wine, which describes itself as poo.

Happy poo year!

Oh my, what a superb pun!

Last night Matthewparker, Ayse, Jimjam and kittikat came around and we ate, drank and played sticky-rizla, as is our tradition.

I weigh 193lbs precisely.

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I am having a poo
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I weigh 191.2lbs

I have been looking at a book which a friend and cow-orca has reviewed on his blog and I felt it was worthy of inclusion.

I have also been looking at bicycles. Should I get a Lemond or a Bianchi, or should I hack the Lemond site and mix the two?

Who can say?

One thing is for certain, it's all just meant to be a bit of fun.