Things you may not know

You can never have enough useless information stored in your head. You never know when a small piece of trivia may come in handy (therefore rendering it useful rather than useless). When making small talk it all so easy to run out of things to say and so below are a few facts for you to file away somewhere in the back of your mind to be retrieved when all else fails you. I haven't checked any of these facts so use them at your own risk.

A cat’s jaw cannot move sideways.

A Flemish artist is responsible for the world’s smallest paintings in history. It is a picture of a miller and his mill, and it was painted onto a grain of corn.

Me Myself and I

I live alone. I live alone by choice. Living alone has advantages like the freedom to act how you want and live the way you want. If I want to lie on the couch for days on end watching marathons of whatever show takes my fancy, I can and no one is here to pass judgement on me. I can turn up the volume as loud as I want on whatever type of music I want, without the worry of complaints (although I do have to have some consideration for the neighbours sometimes).

Ka-Chingmas

Christmas is an annual religious celebration commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed generally on December 25th..

So how many people out there celebrate Christmas yet don’t go to church or even believe in a god? I don’t subscribe to any particular faith/church/religious order, so therefore I don’t celebrate Christmas. It’s not because I’m a miserable old git , it’s just why should I glorify something I don’t believe in? I mean I might as well celebrate Ramadan if I’m going to hypocritical by celebrating Christmas, as I have a few Muslim friends and they are more “religious” than most of the people I know who celebrate Christmas. Plus I could do with losing some weight and fasting during the day for a month might do me some good as opposed to stuffing myself silly in the name of Jesus.

Pre Programmed Reality

What is the cause of the most heated debates on social networks sites? What turns ordinary mild mannered humans into frenzied, opinionated bigots, who are willing to argue their corner even if it means a textual confrontation with life long friends, neighbours and even their own family.
The Bulldog breed that once sustained the Great British spiff upper lip, and held true to the values of restraint and reserve, has been interbred with a rabid Pitbull.

Your child is ugly!

Of course I don’t mean that! Or do I?

We’ve all thought it when looking through somebody’s collection of snaps of their offspring. All babies are cute, they are babies, helpless bundles of cuteness. They gurgle and smell of talcum powder (mostly). They get wind and we capture a ‘smile’. They puke and shit themselves (not so cute then). They are babies, babies are cute.

OK we’ve established the fact babies=cute, mostly. And of course the cutest babies of them all are our own.
It follows on, when we look in the mirror in the morning none of us say “oh boy don’t I look ugly!”. I know I’m no oil painting, but I don’t consider myself ugly. Some people may beg to differ, like the old proverb says, “Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder” or something like that.

Addicted to Addiction

A few months ago I heard from an old friend of mine. Well I say friend, we were more like drinking buddies back in the day when I was young and foolish, able to drink the clock around over a weekend and still manage to make it to work on a Monday morning. My problem was that my weekend benders became a 7 day a week feature of my life. My drinking cost me a marriage, several jobs and of course a small fortune that I pissed up the wall over a few years.

Drink wasn’t the only demon that haunted me, I also put enough chemicals into my body to compete with ICI.  Everything came to a head  one day, while living on the streets as a homeless drunk I found another drinking buddy dead in his sleeping bag in the abandoned garage we shared. It shocked me so much that I woke up to the fact I was wasting my life away in a drunken haze and would in time end up being found in the same way. Thankfully I still had a network of friends who were prepared to stand by me and help me climb out of  spiral of self destruction.

The Music Nazi

I pride myself on having a pretty broad musical acceptance. That doesn’t mean I like everything, but accept the fact that just because a piece or style of music doesn’t provoke an emotional reaction in me, it isn’t bad.
Music is a very personal thing. Not every piece of music is written with the tears of a tormented troubadour. Not every tune is a reflection of the composers need to share with the world an emotional journey. Music is in the ear of the beholder.