End Of Year Update!

As you may have noticed, I haven't been posting for quite some time.

Let me rephrase that.

Remember when you read a few pages of that blog once, and it tickled you awfully with its colourful [No auto-correct I don't want to brutally tear out the U from colourful... just learn what I want from you based on the last hundred times I have spelled it that way! I know you only have one job in this world and that you take this position very seriously, following procedure to the letter with your coloUr coded squiggly lines, and usually I am very appreciative of being reminded how absolutely crap at spelling I am. All I am asking for is a teeny tiny bit of leeway from you to just think for yourself. You have data-banks of both American and British words. If I want to hybridize languages occasionally I understand that may upset your fragile sensibilities but just man up for once and stop throwing your shit at the wall every time I break your rules.] pictures and extensive tedious vocabulary. Then there was that period of time when you were reading this... now... this period of time reading these words here.
     Well the time in between those two points was when I had stopped posting.

I am currently doing teacher training because fuck it I'm clearly a role model. Which surprisingly involves a lot of glaring menacingly, learning to hate teenagers and stealing as many lesson plans and worksheets as possible because after one week you realize you cant be arsed teaching anything original, as apposed to the babysitting-meets-fun-science-story-time I somewhat naively expected.

Luckily it does involve a staff room with a near limitless supply of coffee. There is even a built in warning system for if I have had too much. As students will ask if I am okay with what appears to be genuine concern for my mortal well being... or simply mock me by shaking violently.

So with that in mind don't expect 2016 to be the busiest year for this blog, but I have backed up about a dozen unfinished drafts that I can complete at a much lazier pace.

Finally a huge thank you to everyone who reads this, despite my Craig Charles references and my general abuse of you all. I've said before I don't care how popular this gets but it makes me feel warm, fuzzy and bizarrely aroused to know that there are people out there who read what I write. A feeling that takes at least 3 cups of coffee to achieve otherwise.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

For the winter season, here is a picture of a Robin I took with my fancy new camera. LOOK HOW GOOD I'M GETTING!

Note: British robins are naturally blurry. It's to confuse cats

END OF UPDATE!

Conversations With A Lunatic

I don't think this blog is the place for gossip about other people. That is why this story is completely 100% fictional. Like climate change, or the Dalai Lama.


There once was a man named .... Ashbey? ..... Bashley? ..... Bashley... his name was Bashley.


Bashley worked in a dull factory putting pillows and duvets into bags. Bashley found this job a complete bore and so distracted himself by striking up conversations with a fellow employee named... Barry.


Barry was a marine biologist with an awesome beard and a super popular blog (that Bashley didn't know about) who was merely working at the factory because he was too cool to do anything else, rather than walking the fine desperate line of poverty and un-fulfillment that Bashley would have suspected if he were not a complete lunatic.


Bashley was a complete lunatic.


Barry was thankful for this fact. These conversations were one of the only things that made this job entertaining. It's the same reason that Jeremy Kyle is so popular. People can hear the issues, conversations and bizarre attempts at sentence structure made by the type of people who appear here, and suddenly feel far superior and content that at-least they are not unhinged to this degree.


As Barry soaked in these conversations and tried desperately to understand some sort of pattern to the subjects being raised. He thought to himself that a list of quotes from such an individual may be just the sort of thing that deserves a place on his blog....


Fictional Barry's fictional blog was full of gossip and nonsense so this was entirely appropriate.


Barry constructed the list over many months. He finally published the quotes under the title "Conversations With A Lunatic" which he thought may get him into trouble but had planned for this by changing the names of those involved to Shlashley and Shlarry.... so no-one would ever know.


Barry's list can be viewed below:


1. "I'm looking at a new flat Shlarry. Ive got to save up a 10% deposit though"
    "Well how much is that Shlashley?"
    "The flat is £80,000. So I need about £3000-4000 right?"


2. "So I went on holiday this one time by myself with some mates...."


3. "Shlarry..."
    "yes?"
    "What is your take on Hurricane Katrina?"
    "...... What?...."
    "I mean who do you think did it?"
    [some time and fruitless explanation later]
    "Shlarry you can't tell me that a hurricane just so happened to hit a city full of black people"


4. "Shlarry what is your take on Aliens"
                                                    Hitler
                                                    Money
                                                    Animals (!?)
                                                    Jesus
                                                    ISIS
                                                    Air (!?)
                                                    Loch Ness Monster/ Bigfoot/ 'that thing in Spain what sucks goats                                                         dead'


5. "I'm goin' on a diet, there's this guy right, who says that you shouldn't eat any acid foods, that's what got all our modern bodies messed up! You get me?"
"So what do you have to eat?"
"Natural things! Back to nature! like fruits and stuff"


6. "You don't have to correct me all the time Shlarry, you know I'm not the brightest star in the ocean"


7. "You know when a woman goes to the doctor to see how much her baby has dilated...."

8. "Why would someone have sex with an animal Shlarry? Tell me"
    "What..... where is this coming from?"
    "Well they found this woman with wings the other day, so some crazy fucker out there must have been having sex with birds"
    "I ..... I don't even.... there's so much wrong here"

I Are Established Now?

Oh Em Gee you guys!



You know what this month is!?



Damn right I knew you did!



It's my (blogs) Birthday!

It's been a super crazy year and it's amazing to see how this blog has developed from an unknown site that nobody cares about, to an unknown sight that nobody cares about with nearly 2000 views! AND a Facebook page (I did that.... thanks me)!



I don't expect this blog to ever get anywhere or be read, it's just fun to draw stupid things and amuse myself. I have promised before to make regular posts. I can now promise that, based on writing for a year, that will never happen. Producing this is a time consuming activity for someone whose usual measure of being productive is actually constructing a sandwich rather than crouching in-front of the fridge and eating individual ingredients (this picture took me 3 FUCKING HOURS! ENJOY IT!).



[other news] I have a new shower now and it's a special shower with a mode that can shoot water forwards at you from the wall. It's rather amazing, I feel I have discovered why bears scratch their backs against trees.

An Open Letter to Craig Charles

A Crispy Duck

When you're a child, food is nothing but fun. The closest thing to a traumatizing plate of food you could get was sprouts, or a desert that consists mainly of fruit.


Or so I thought.


Before I begin I will qualify that I am not a vegetarian. But I did consider it once... and this is the story of why.


You never really question where food actually comes from as a child. Sure you know the simple answer "beef comes from cows" but somehow that is all processed in your mind in such an innocent way.

I imagine the only reason there are any vegetarians under the age of ten is the result of heartless parents who explain the real truth to kids in graphic detail.


Now the most humane way for children to truly get their heads around what they're eating is a gradual educational process. My experience was more like learning where babies come from by investigating aggressive noises in you're parents room, only to find sweaty bodies, new and strange body parts, and a lifelong phobia of leather and horse-riding.


The Parents had decided to break the monotony of Friday night takeaways by going out for Chinese food. This was fine. We regularly decided to go crazy and change the nationality of our Friday meal, we were god damn mavericks about once a month... usually changing to Chinese food....


As such I was familiar with Chinese food. I would be having the crispy duck as I always did.


"Hey kid! Do you want to make your own food!? Using this selection of ingredients in fancy baskets which you can lay out on your plate in a finely tuned (possibly OCD) method and fold precisely to produce perfect ducky goodness packets!?"


"YOU BET YOUR BOTTOM I DO!"


This however was a new Chinese establishment. To satisfy my desire for neat and orderly food parcels, Parents ordered the 'whole crispy duck' to share, the only version of this on the menu. This was also fine, if anything it gave me a chance to demonstrate just how superior my wrap method was to the barbaric improvisation of my little brother.


Everything was completely normal. We played with the strange rotating plate (why is it only Chinese places that invest in this idea? They are the only cuisine that seems to encourage sharing with this, as apposed to all the others where ZER VILL BE NO SHARING OV ZE PLATES! ..... Sharing Nazi there) and dared each other to touch candle flames.


And then the food arrived...


It is easy to disconnect with most meat dishes. You can't see the harm that has been done when you look at a burger or a steak or a sausage because it's just a slab of meat.  Even a roast chicken is missing its head and feet. That's not a real animal. It doesn't look particularly upset about being eaten. I doubt it could look upset if it was... it doesn't have a face.


What I was presented with was something very different than what I was used to.


Here is what my  young mind assumed must have preceded this event.

I still ate it, which I know renders this story rather pointless. But I really REALLY considered thinking about not eating it. As a consolation to duck lovers, I have never ordered a whole crispy duck since then.


And that is the fantastical story of how a disturbing crispy duck caused me to momentarily consider becoming vegetarian.


On a side note. Mallard ducks have been known to mate through gang rape and to engage in necrophilia.... so... fuck 'em.


♫ HARRY'S NERD FACT OF THE TIME PERIOD! ♫  (You're damn right that counts!)

Vague Crispy Duck, Fog Youths and Eve's Prize.

Swashbuckling adventure over. Here are the updates you missed because I couldn't draw any pictures.


Message 1: Remember last time when I said that the next post will be called 'A Crispy Duck' ?

"The next post will be entitled 'A Crispy Duck' if that clarifies this blogs place in internetland any better."

See... I did say that.

Well clearly that was a lie.... but I was not to know at the time.

Essentially it has been three weeks since my last post. I came back today to start working on my next post and my notes for the next post simply consists of :

"A Crispy Duck : Remember that time with the crispy duck?!? "

Now I have no doubt there is an incident with a crispy duck... it may even be hilarious. But with my current amount of notes I have no idea what it is.

I assure you, for the sake of my integrity assuming I have gained some, the second I remember what it was you shall have your crispy post.



Message 2: I drove to Blackburn (or Blackb'n as it is known locally) over the weekend on a particularly foggy night in order to pick up a drum kit for a friend. As we arrived we noticed that we had stumbled upon a phenomenon that the locals of Blackb'n refer to as 'Fog Youths'.

Fog Youths are the result of a rare process (known only in Blackb'n) by which bands of youths are able to condense out of thick fog and then proceed to wander the streets of Blackb'n aimlessly. Presumably until they reach something to vandalize, or a high street sports clothing outlet, or the Blackb'n city limits, at which point they with evaporate and return to the fog.

It is for this reason that the citizens of Blackb'n go to great lengths to ensure that their home is airtight. Fog Youths are quite capable of entering under doorways, down chimneys or through windows left on vent, condensing in your living room ... and stealing your telly.

Meteorologists will tell you that Fog Youths are caused when a cold rebellious Scottish air front travels south and mixes with a warm air front emanating from the entrance of the Blackb'n branch of JD sports. This mixture reacts in a way that involves many big important words that I wont bore you with, producing the thick magical fog of Blackb'n.


Now... obviously these were just regular youths on a foggy Blackb'n night, with only semi-criminal tendencies. But it's a strange effect that anything appearing out of dense fog at night is instantly 286% more intimidating and somewhat magical. Even things that you would usually enjoy seeing become terrifying. Like if I bumped into my pet rabbit on a foggy night.

Message 3: One person has managed to not be an asshole and actually commented on my posts! (Love you really non-commenters..... just less....) Eve Estelle has therefore won herself a picture! Just to show you all that good things happen for people who DO AS I SAY! (phase 1: berate/abuse , phase 2 : encourage/reward) Eve chose to receive a picture of an Owl.. but I kind of already drew an Owl on here.... so for a bonus I made a poem too

So here is an Owl with jowls wearing a towel and a cowl.
It's standing next to Andie Macdowell with a strange scowl.
Who ate something fowl whilst out on the prowl and upset her irritable bowl.
The Owl has unwittingly stepped on a trowel which caused it to yowl in pain.
Hence the long stream of vowels.
The Owls name is..... Raul.... but you say it like it rhymes with owl....

Harry Is On A Swashbuckling Adventure And Doesn't Have Time For You

Ahoy mateys. Ye may be wondering in which murky depths I have been hiding.

Well never ye fear! Those of me harteys blessed with eagle eyes will have spotted on the bow of my blog that I am now an unsuccessful marine biologist who actually occasionally does do some work as a marine biologist... in Kent.... yar.

Ye will also notice that I have started talking in a manner which reflects my outstandingly full and shiny maritime beard! In which I can stash my shellfish, gull eggs and stolen dabloons.

I'll stop now.

I was planning on bringing my Bamboo tablet to complete some drawings for future posts but unfortunately I forgot... that's it... I just forgot. Not everything can be exciting, especially in Kent.

This includes the picture which I owe Eve Estelle for being the first to comment on my blog. (By the way, Eve Estelle is a rather talented poet and any fans of poetry should check out her blog at eveofnight.blogspot.co.uk) She ordered a picture of an owl but due to the long wait and the fact that I have drawn an owl on here before... the picture now also contains a significant portion of Andy MacDowell. As well as a tale about fog youths and a reminder that I still haven't written a post about a crispy duck.

I'm now going to talk you through a picture that was in my head but I can't draw it because I have nothing to draw it with. This blog is reaching for new frontiers!

I could be in Kent for between a week or a month but normal posting service will resume in time. I'm on night shifts and irregular days which is weird. It means that when I'm not working I end up awake all night watching early morning television. There's this new girl on BBC 3 or 4 or 5, I forget, that essentially goes on holiday taking a tour of all the best places to buy drugs, talking to dealers and cooks (usually in their own secret kitchen hideout) and finding out how they make the drugs and how much you can sell them for. She then leaves and hopes that the police can somehow find that hideout if only someone knew where it was.

One of the jungle drugs palace / tent hideouts was protected by bees, I thought coincidentally. But it turns out no they actually get some bees and put them around the hideout to scare people away. I couldn't help wonder how this bee collection and delivery system worked. Can you pay-per-bee? If I wanted to defend something small and precious like my favorite pencil or my penis can I just park one bee on there?

How do you get the bees to obey you? Someone... most likely you... is going to have to open the parcel of bees when it arrives. God forbid an unsuspecting curious relative feels the urge to open your buzzing box (you can laugh at buzzing box) and ends up with a swarm of African killer bees straight to the face.

Does a parcel of bees weigh anything if all the bees are flying? (yes)

There's a picture in there somewhere, until I return from the high seas I am going to require many of you to up your game and use your imagination. By the way if anyone ever starts a honey/bee business or is tempted to buy honey/bees, please use the phrase pay-per-bee at some point as it tickles me awfully.

This post lost all structure a while ago... I'll finish with this beautiful photo from Kent.

You guys are awesome... here is how to be more awesome (only slightly insulting)

So what has happened in the last two weeks?


I bought a car. I haven't driven since I passed my test... which was over two years ago. So my time on the road has been spent visibly shaking with the sort of expression you would expect to find on someone who has managed to blag his way into playing for Chelsea F.C. (for american audience .... the New York.... Lions.... or whatever..... some successful sports team) and whilst thrilled to be taking part, knows that soon enough he will be found out, set upon by angry hordes, and killed, and then shamed.


The car is from that brief period of about three weeks when humanity considered that cassettes and VHS tapes were equally as valuable as CDs and DVDs. Leading enterprising individuals to develop gigantic combi-boxes that could play both as well as fulfilling their final role, after quickly being unplugged, as footstools and coffee tables.


In more important bloggy news, holy shit on a biscuit I hit 1000 views last week!


This made me feel two things.


Firstly it made me realize how awesome you anonymous readers are. As the least regular blogger I know, with content of questionable quality and irregular themes, I am incredibly shocked and flattered that anyone would find my blog amusing enough to stick with it for the last nine months.


However it also made me realize that you guys ( bear with me on this ) are not being my audience very well.


DON'T LEAVE! I'M JUST TRYING TO HELP YOU LIKE ME BETTER!


Ok ok I will explain my disappointment in you here... I know this must be hard to take.


After 1000 views, I don't know who any of you are. As I made this blog to share my goofy thoughts with people and offset my monotonous life with fun new internet friends, it's kind of unrewarding to do when you receive no feedback.


It's as though I am writing my blog and leaving it on peoples doorstep. I know some people are reading it because the blog disappears from those doorsteps. But what is happening? Are people taking the blog inside and sharing it with friends and family? Are they playing a game of Shark with their friends? Are they laughing at the thought of Craig Charles (any thought of Craig Charles)? Or does the blog simply get taken in with all the other spam, sneered at and binned.


But I have realized... that it was obvious that this would happen! You didn't know what I wanted! I haven't taken the time to cater to your needs and explain in simplistic steps how to be awesome supporters of this blog.


So here goes..... don't leave.....


STEP 1! : Comment.

I assume that the lack of comments is because none of you have enjoyed any of my posts enough to read it all the way to the end and notice a comments section at the bottom.


Rest assured they are there. Scroll down. Now scroll back up... that doesn't work I know. But after you got lost in that barren wilderness down there I assume you scrolled back up anyway.


You know that barren wilderness.... the one devoid of life and hope.... the one I told you to scroll down to fifty words ago. That was the comments section. That is what I have to look at.

YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO READ MY POSTS! Frankly that is secondary to commenting on them.


Helpful comment topic suggestions! : How was your day? Did you like the bit about the thing? what is Danger Music Helps a reference to? (picture for whoever knows) Where did Sarah Michelle Geller go? This ISIS thing is scary huh? (relevant March 2015)


STEP 2! : Facebook.


If you are approaching this post through the blogs Facebook page, please advance to step 3. This does not excuse you from step 1.


This blog has a Facebook page.

Yesterday the likes count was 189.....


I recommend that anyone committing to 'liking' this page be willing to stick with it for the long haul. Read through a few posts and judge whether you like the content, I am aware that its difficult to gauge what theme this blog actually is. Especially if you have read as far as this.... some sort of aggressive instruction manual seems to be the best description. But there are better bits, remember that bit at the beginning about the car? That was light humorous stuff wasn't it?


The next post will be entitled 'A Crispy Duck' if that clarifies this blogs place in internetland any better.


To the person who left. What was it exactly that caused you to lose faith in this blog? Was it the sudden obsession with Craig Charles? "Oh well it was funny when he randomly mentioned him the first time but taking 2 hours out of his day to draw a vague resemblance of Craig Charles' face is just distasteful..... unlike". Or was it my genuine concern for my own health and metabolism that you didn't buy into? Perhaps you thought that there was no longer any value in following a blogger who is pre-occupied with dying.


...


Fuck you  (I assume they won't read that, but I will find them)


STEP 3! : Follow


Followers give me internet cred. All those other bloggers that you should be reading instead of me, have followers. And they all give me hate mail and shtick about how unsuccessful and lonely I am. They're all bastards really.... it's a cutthroat world here on blogger.


With followers behind me I can ride to the top of this blog tower on top of a flaming Ox that carries the visage of myself! And be happy and popular and buy ice-cream for everyone.... except that one person who left.... fuck you.


To follow this blog you can enter your email address at the top right of this page. I will then be able to forwards all of my car insurance and pornography spam to you.


Following these simple steps will take you from the mediocre readers you are now to the awesomer(er?) readers that I know you can all be!


So..... yeah..... bye and stuff

I WIN! (technically)

I finally feel good again! I beat the no caffeine blues!


Eight whole days of laboriously lumbering my aching body around like a zombie comprised primarily of car crash (it's hard to move a car crash), pinching myself in painful areas to stay awake, and trying to prevent my brain from squirming out of my nose, purchasing a gun and holding up a Starbucks are finally behind me.


I don't know how a brain would hold up a Starbucks, lacking the appendages to hold a gun, but it's a brain... it's smart... I'm sure it would find a way.


Although a smarter brain would use the money it purchased a gun with to simply buy a coffee at Starbucks.... an even smarter brain would get coffee somewhere else.


Anyway over the last few days I have attempted three different cures to make myself feel like a member of the living world. The first being ibuprofen... which does nothing.... if you have ibuprofens at home, either feed them to your local wildlife or send them back to ibuprofenland with an angry letter asking them why they are wasting your time.


My second attempt was codeine. I have a stash of codeine left over from when I was seriously ill last year (because I'm super healthy all the time to the point where God feels it is unfair for me to be such a prime specimen and occasionally decides to spite me with crippling conditions) which I save for emergencies such as this. Codeine works by making you feel awesome... it should pretty much say that on the packet. However what it also does is make you a blissful ball of couch jelly that is even less productive than the tortured caffeine-starved zombie you were before.


So I have finally settled on my third cure choice, coffee!

It's amazing how great of a cure for caffeine starvation coffee is. I would like to take this time to inform you how great coffee is. Coffee is a versatile drink that you can enjoy hot or iced. You can put Baileys in it for your Gran, or drink it from tiny little shot glasses and pretend that its a regular sized coffee and you are a giant who just happens to be fueled by coffee.


Coffee makes you feel 100% of everything, double coffee makes you feel 200% of everything and so forth. Coffee contains caffeine which is what the allies defeated Hitler with probably and coffee is also the reason cows invented milk, otherwise we would have to drink it black and nobody likes black coffee (pending source checks but take my word for it).


Here is Craig Charles without coffee.





Here is Craig Charles with coffee.

I feel that makes my point for me.


If anyone is thinking my title of I WIN may seem a little misguided. Firstly I feel awesome again now except for the crushing monotony and loneliness of my life and secondly I have probably extended my lifespan by eight days, which is exactly the sort of result the evil health inspector lady would have wanted for me anyway.

Scratch that. This is probably death approaching

I'm just trying to be healthy!!!


Remember how I posted the coffee scale and I was all like 'oh hey guys let's go drink a fuck tonne of coffee and get super buzzed until we can stop time and spit coffee grains from our ears!' Well, as totally harmless as all that sounded I have recently had a growing suspicion that my intake of caffeine may be at an unhealthy level.


The clues that pointed towards this included about as many trips to the toilet a day as Craig Charles has pictures drawn of him, as long as Craig Charles has a number of pictures drawn of him per day equal to about five times the average number of toilet trips per day (which he probably does). And whilst I do love going to the toilet of-course, it is the only sanctuary where I can draw up dastardly plans, this was growing tiresome.


What made me rather more concerned was my chest. I had a routine medical at my work, and the medical lady seemed confused when reading my heart rate. The sort of confusion where she may be wondering whether she had just monitored a human heart, or a PlayStation rumble pad (gamer audience outreach! BOOM).


She took a urine sample (which I could easily oblige) as she assumed I was on seventeen varieties of speed.


When it showed up clear she asked me if I had had any energy drinks that day.


I said "No. Just some coffee"


She asked how much coffee.


I said "......a lot?"


She asked how much that was.


"..... 7 cups?...."


"seven?"


"they're also big cups"


(I own a pint coffee mug that I got for free from somewhere. Real men drink everything in pints)


My answers cleared her suspicion that I was a speed addict, but her concern convinced me that I should at-least attempt to see what life would be like without caffeine. Which brings us to now.


I haven't had caffeine for three days and I think I am dying.


For anyone who thinks that caffeine is not addictive, I HATE YOU AND I WILL HUNT YOU WITH DOGS!..... ok I didn't mean that but you are most definitely mistaken. I can also confirm that there is a small possibility that I am one of the addicts.


I woke up on the first day without coffee with a crippling headache. I usually have headaches in the morning and it is usually a cup of coffee that makes them go away... it's astonishing I didn't connect the dots earlier.


My determination was strong to begin with, and I didn't let my crippling headache phase me for at least the first three hours. Thankfully after that time I had to go to work for eight hours, where I could do tedious repetitive manual tasks that require minimal brain function and, more importantly, have my access to coffee completely restricted.


It was in a headache daze, my body not understanding how a wake/sleep cycle functions without caffeine, that I survived my first two days.


I hadn't realized just how many different aspects of your body caffeine affects. Come the third day however, I noticed that it was not just my brain that was suffering.


I went to work on the third day and suddenly realized that my monotonous job of wrapping and moving many things had become infinitely more difficult. Every muscle and limb on my body felt as though it was now comprised primarily of concrete, and as concrete is rather heavy, this made every attempt at movement incredibly tiring. I spent the day shuffling around and leaning on things. It was too tiring to lift my feet as I move like normal coffee drinking people do. I'm not sure how I survived, eight hours is a long time to work anyway, but time in my caffeine zombie world had slowed considerably.


It is day four now. I know I said it was day three but I started writing this post and then got tired and shuffled off.


I don't know when this will end. I have read some discussions on caffeine withdrawal and people say it can take weeks! Weeks!


I don't know if I enough energy to keep shuffling to the fridge to sustain myself for weeks.


It's day five now... you see that up there. those three sentences between 'day four' and here... that's all I could be arsed to do yesterday. I'm not a terribly productive person when I'm not dying, but at this rate this may be the end of my blog and the majority of my bodily functions.


I'm rambling now. I would think of a good end to this but I'm too tired. I will write one if/when I survive and return to full mental capacity. It will probably have Craig Charles in it but I can't see how he is relevant right now.

That is all

Harry

I Know How I Will Probably Die

I have anosmia, which means I have no sense of smell.


I do not have animism, which spell check thinks I meant to say. Frankly I am insulted that blogspot refuses to recognize my affliction.


Before you ask me any questions about this. Here is the conversation I have to have at some point with everyone I know.


Person: Hey smell this (Offering to generously share their wonderful experience with me)

Me: Oh.... no it's ok I can't smell

Person: (assuming I simply have a cold or something) Oh no go on it's quite strong

Me: No I mean I don't have a sense of smell.... at all.... I can't smell

Person: (Person has never encountered this scenario before. Person is confused) What? At all?

Me: That's right

Person: (tries to imagine how such a thing would work) So..... when you breath in.... there's just.... no smell?

Me: Exactly

Person: (Person figures that I have probably just forgotten about some things that I can smell and decides to run through them) But what about like... cut grass?

Me: Nope. Can't smell that

Person: So you've never smelled bacon?

Me: ........No

Person: So if I farted... You wouldn't know would you?

Me: Sadly no.... It's a cruel world

Person: (Person smiles thinking of the freedom they now have) So even like..... really smelly things.... like a rotten egg.... with poo on it... and bad breath.... and it lives on a farm.... and the farm is also made of poo?

Me: Is that a smell?

Person: ........Yes?

Me: Then no


That is roughly how the conversation goes. I have been through that routine enough times that I am contemplating recording my answers on to a dictaphone so that I can play them back and save the effort of actually speaking. Even my close friends often forget that I lack this. This has resulted in the 'Harry-has-no-smell' stare when they offer me something to smell, this can take a number of minutes until the aforementioned friend realizes their mistake.


I don't know why people feel that not being able to smell surely doesn't include particular items. If someone told me they were blind (slightly easier to notice) I wouldn't question whether he was able to see a tree.... or the sun. You certainly wouldn't forget that they are blind! Maybe its the glasses... perhaps I will fashion a special anosmia nose-clip so that I can be easily identified.


But no. I have no sense of smell, never have. To be fair it is probably the easiest sense to live without. Except maybe for the 6th sense.... that's probably harder to live with.


As the title of the post suggests, I think this is probably going to be a factor in how I die. Experiences over the years have made me realize that there are certain things that it would really help to be able to smell. Namely gas, burning things, and food that has gone bad.


My nightmare scenario is when I try to turn on the oven, I can hear the gas coming out, I am holding down the make-gas-become-fire-sparky-click-button (an oven ignition?... that makes it sounds like the oven belongs to NASA) and it is yet to make the gas become fire. Then I reach a critical terrifying moment.... I know that I have made gas come out (LOL) ..... but I cannot smell the gas..... for all I know I have left it on so long that the gas is now all around me! ..... and if I were to press the sparky button again then I would be engulfed in flames. A great big screaming anosmic fireball and the only upside would be that I cannot smell myself. So what I usually do at this critical point is turn the gas off out of fear. Then I open some windows and start wafting a towel near the open oven. After I have left it about half an hour, or less if desperate hunger and need for fish fingers overpowers my fear. I assume that the air is now non-flammable enough to try again.


Even once the treacherous hurdle of turning the oven on has been passed, I am not out of the woods.


You would think that my increased risk of burning to death would make me more cautious when it comes to cooking my food with fire. But you would be wrong. Like many people I am prone to distraction. Once the food is cooking and my eyes rest upon my TV screen I quickly forget that I had any food steadily increasing in temperature and ash content. If the oven cared at all for my disability and desire for well cooked fish fingers then it would oblige by turning itself off and blowing on my fish fingers for me to save me the effort. But the oven does not do this, which only raises my suspicion that all ovens are maniacal killing machines that want me and my fish fingers dead.

The following is a depiction of events that have happened at least 3 times.

Luckily for me I usually live with other people who can put an end to events before they reach the 'Harry-is-sat-watching-TV-surrounded-by-a-wall-of-smoke-and-fire' stage.


Nonetheless the oven is bound to win one day. It's kind of a blessing knowing how you will die I suppose. It gives me the opportunity to avoid it, and all I have to do is avoid my oven for the foreseeable future.


But I really really like fish fingers...


P.S. People always bring up things they can smell that makes absolutely no sense to me. Like rain... how the hell does rain have a smell? Isn't that just the smell of water? So your glass of water would smell like rain?.... People with a sense of smell are confusing

Seriously I can't draw Craig Charles

Do you ever look back on something you have said and think "I'm pretty sure that sentence has never been said by anyone ever" ? 

I love when that happens. You feel like you have created something unique, and you now win at language and have earned yourself a bounty bar (bounty bars are the perfect prize treat to keep around because nobody else likes bounty bars). That is also exactly the sort of tiny victory that I need to convince myself that I have had a productive day.

It has to be unintentional as well. You couldn't just blurt out "I am going to Canada those curtains with face BBQ" otherwise you would quickly run out of bounty.

If you are a Canadian reader (apparently I have one..... who are you?) and you understood that sentence, I assure you that in the UK at least, it makes no sense.

So today I got my bounty bar for saying the words "Ugh, now I have to go and try to draw Craig Charles"

And I am pretty confident that has never been said. Unless he has a fan club somewhere with reluctant artists.

If you don't know who Craig Charles is. Firstly that amuses me to no end, as I am going to try and bring up Craig Charles as much as possible. Secondly, he looks very little like this:

It's a marshmallow frog....

Coaster Comics 4!

So it's time for one of those posts where I have some pictures lying around but they're not really ones I can put into a story or narrative... So I have to wait until I have a few and them put them together in a comics collection post under the illusion that this somehow counts as still having worked really hard on writing a good blog post.


Works for me! I'm going to chalk this day down as being 'abnormally productive'.


Well here goes. This is what I imagine when I hear that song on the radio, you know the one.... it goes

See that's just terrible. Firstly it's hardly original. It's pretty much exactly what the song says, I'm probably just branching into illustrating thoughts that you have all had already, and I don't really want to get too involved in that industry, what if one of you just kept having ideas about cheese? or Craig Charles? I cant draw Craig Charles.... that woman up there doesn't even have a nose.


Secondly that song is probably not on the radio anymore ( if you are reading this ten years later, it's definitely not on the radio, and radios were these machines that you had in your car or living-room, and you could turn a knob and it would find music in the air and play it to you..... And yes I'm sure one day you will be able to overthrow Belgium as rulers of Earth ) which highlights just how long I have to hold onto these pictures before I am in a desperate enough period to resort to using them... I don't think I even had a blog when that song was out. Not a waste of time now!!!


Moving on.

Yeah so..... there's that.


Finally this rounds winner for a Game Of Shark (Yes we are doing rounds now. Submit your ideas and I will attempt to make a movie poster for the winning film. The winning film may also be the one which has an easy poster to make... thankfully this rounds winner was) is! ........

It's exactly the same movie but with a much less imaginative title.... OK a slightly less imaginative title, Jaws was pretty bad. 

Mystery of the Rambalam

We all know and love 'Black Betty', the classic tune made famous by such artists as Ram Jam, Tom Jones and Spiderbait, played across the world at birthdays, weddings, funerals and other important events in our lives.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R044sleOW6I


But what is a 'rambalam'? Sounding like a catchphrase that belongs alongside 'yabadabadoo!' and repeated so often that one could assume the writers were encouraged to reinforce the phrase as much as possible by some outside force, perhaps paid for each mention.

You see that advert would completely make sense if Rambalam airlines had existed. Perhaps it never got off the ground......


Plane pun there


The song itself however does date back into the 18th century which makes my hypothesis unlikely. Apparently 'Black Betty' refers to either a musket, a whip or a bottle of whiskey. However as non of these items make the sound 'rambalam' then the word remains a mystery.


I have taken the simplest answer here as being most likely correct. Whoever wrote Black Betty was a lazy writer, had the beat and half enough words for a song, and improvised the rest with rambalams.


I have therefore taken it upon myself to improve on this 200 year old piece of cultural american history and finally finish the lyrics. The lyrics now require at least two singers but I think this means that it still fits with the original marching song roots. I think the new sound gives it a much brighter feel, surely a morale boost that those men have unfortunately never had the chance to use.


The tune is the same and the new lyrics in green are sang to the same beat as 'Rambalam' was.

Whoa, Black Betty (What's her name?)

Whoa, Black Betty (That's her name)

Black Betty had a child (How nice for her)

The damn thing gone wild (Ate a minister)

She said "I'm worryin' outta mind" (Stressin' out)

The damn thing gone blind (His own fault no doubt)

I said Oh, Black Betty (I'm glad he's blind)

Whoa, Black Betty (Gives me peace of mind)

Oh, Black Betty (What's her name?)

Whoa, Black Betty (That's her name)

She really gets me high (I'm sure she does)

You know that's no lie (We all know she's on drugs)

She's so rock steady (That'd be the drugs)

And she's always ready (Sir she needs help...)

Whoa, Black Betty (Where's she at?)

Whoa, Black Betty (Just follow the cats)

Whoa, Black Betty (What's her name?)

Whoa, Black Betty (Where's she from?)

She's from Birmingham (Where is that?)

Way down in Alabam' (Oh yeah that's right!)

Well, she's shakin' that thing (That's her cat)

Boy, she makes me sing (We've noticed that)

Whoa, Black Betty (And blind cannibal Tim)

Whoa, Black Betty (Let's not visit them...)

Nerd Facts 4! : ATTWSABNAETNBE! That's the only way I could shorten it into a reasonable title...

All the coolest people die young unless they are one of the many many exceptions that don't.


I'm sure the same applies to animals.


Therefore I bring you the Nerd Fact Of The Time Period! This time celebrating Awesome-Things-That-Were-Super-Awesome-But-Not-Awesome-Enough-To-Not-Be-Extinct.


Now I know you all love dinosaurs (If you don't love dinosaurs, please leave) but everyone knows about them. This wouldn't be an awesome nerdfact if I didn't attempt to find some new unknown awesome things. I have not made any of these up!



1. Name: Leedsicthys


Reason for awesomeness: Imagine a sardine....





Just a pretty boring little silver fish, swimming along with its mouth open trying to filter out some tiny morsels of food.


Now imagine a sardine THE SIZE OF A WHALE! and with a Yorkshire accent!


That's right folks. Before there were whales there were other things that do the same things as whales do.... it just happens that they were gigantic fish.


Leedsicthys was the largest of these, with sensible estimates of size ranging from 9-16m in length (a similar size to the Humpback Whale). It swam the seas during the Jurassic period and was discovered first in Leeds! Take that American giant dinosaur fossils... we have a giant sardine!

(Not actually a sardine, Leedsicthys was too awesome to leave any close relatives alive whatsoever)



2. Name: Odobenocetops


Reason for awesomeness: You look at a Walrus and you say "tusks are pretty damn awesome, if only more animals had giant walrus tusks"


And then you run through all the coolest options like a tiny frog with giant walrus tusks, or an angry badger with giant walrus tusks, or a deadly snake with giant walrus fangs.

Well there wasn't any of those... and I'm not even going to say an elephant either... that would be anti-climactic.


It was a FREAKING WHALE!


I literally know nothing more or this animal other than it lived 5-11 million years ago and was awesome enough to sleep with all of your  mums.



3. Name: Lystrosaurus


Reason for awesomeness: Around 252 million years ago at the end of the Permian era, there was an event colloquially known as 'The Great Dying'. It's a pretty apt name as 70% of all land vertebrates went extinct (worse than the dinosaur extinction event) and this essentially wiped the slate for the dinosaurs to rise to dominate the land.


But the Dinosaurs weren't the first to take advantage of the open world, that title goes to Lystrosaurus. Yes not even a group of animals like the dinosaurs, but just Lystrosaurus... on its own. Lystrosaurus spread so successfully that it is estimated that at its peak, 95% of all land vertebrates across the entire globe were Lystrosaurus! Imagine that!


Person 1: "We just went on a safari holiday to Africa!"

Person 2: "Sweet, what did you see?"

Person 1: "Mainly Lystrosurus....."

Person 2: "Isn't that the same as my European road-trip nature tour?"

Person 1: "Why what was that like?"

Person 2: "Mainly Lystrosaurus...."

Person 1: "Then yes"


Despite the 'Saurus' ending, Lystrosaurus was a Dicynodont, a link between early amniotes (reptiley-type-things) and mammals. It was these proto-mammals that dominated the land before the 'Great Dying' and were reduced to scraping a living and hiding until the dinosaurs finally snuffed it (except birds) 65 million years ago.


Lystrosaurus gets my awesome stamp by using the 'Great Dying' to be an enterprising motherfucker and become its own global super franchise!



4. Name: Opabinia


Reason for awesomeness: No-one know what the fuck it is! I'm not talking about regular folks who have never heard of it. But Paleontologists are genuinely rather baffled.


Opabinia is old.... very very old. It comes from a time known as the Cambrian when complex life was only just starting out and evolution was just throwing ridiculous designs at the wall to see if they would stick. Opabinia was one of these.


It has five eyes, a mouth that faces backwards, seems to swim with the use of strange fleshy lobes and has a long protrusion at the front reminiscent of "the claaaaaaaw" from Toy Story.

Awesome stamp for being a damn maverick!



5. Name: Therizinosaurus


Reason for awesomeness: Ok this one actually is a dinosaur. But on a scale of one to awesome, this one is at least a 17!


Therizinosaurus gets the awesome stamp for having the largest claws of anything ever! Whilst also being covered in feathers, having a pot belly and eating mainly plants.


Yep the most bad-ass daggers in natural history belong to a fat herbivore. This animal lived 70 million years ago in Mongolia and its remains were first thought to be that of a turtle.