Some chief bigwig of the Metropolitan Police was on telly this morning suggesting that a spell of what he called "Compulsary Non-military National Service" would sort the youth problem in the UK.
Short of breeding controls, I think it's a damn good idea. Especially as now I'm not a teenager. I would suggest that "Compulsary Non-military National Service" could be geared toward 14-16 year olds. During this period of National Service the youths would be encouraged to do community tasks (ie visiting old people; doing environmental jobs such as sweeping, litter picking, graffiti cleaning; and the like). Their toil would not go unrewarded as they would get payment in the form of a vouchers which they can then spend on vocational, further or higher education.
Of course such fantastic ideas never come to fruition and I imagine that in my old age the youth problem will still be in existence.
News Article
Monday, 14 July 2008
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Vista
Dear Microsoft,
I have worked with computers since 1995 in various technical capacities. I think it would be nice to be able to do things on my own computer without having to confirm everything every five minutes.
Yours,
Gnomepants.
Dear Acer,
Thank you for my new computer. However, you do bundle a lot of crap with your computers. Maybe you should offer the customer the option to install them should they think they need it rather than having the stuff preinstalled.
Ta
Gnomepants.
Monday, 7 July 2008
Waste not Want not
Our beloved and most glorious exhalted leader of the Great and Holy Third British Empire, Gordon Brown, says that we waste food. We do. We waste like the selfish ignorant fat westerners we are. Often I muse on how times have changed (in parallel with the growth, surprise surprise, of supermarkets), how we take far too much for granted (space, food, air, the environment) and how we are all, not just us Yoropeans but Merricans and Ayzians alike, heading for a massive crunch. In our own life time. Miserable as it sounds and reads, there is no escaping from this fact. The people we "elect" into power in order to find solutions to our problems think, quite rightly or not, profit before benefit and tell us, fickle unworthy peasants that we are, what we can and can't do to alleviate the issue. Such is the way of modern life.
I remember my nan would try to use everything, and I mean absolutely everything, that came into the house food wise. Stale bread - Bread & butter pudding. The fat from bacon or beef - dripping. The plastic bags from bread - handy little rubbish containers. Even the little metal tin casing from pies would be reused. I look at my world now and I see waste. I see perfectly edible food being thrown away. I see sacks full of rubbish where there need be none. Even when I take a trip to the tip with rubble or wood from the house I see evidence of this sickening throw away culture in which we reside. But for the purpose of this rant I will point in the direction of food.
When I roast a chicken. I pick off all the uneaten meat and use it for sandwiches or salads. The carcass I boil away and make into a stock. Even the vegetables, when they look limp and gay go to become a tasty soup rather than join the rotting peels at the bottom of the compost bin. In this day and age, it is obscene that people waste food. Really. No SERIOUSLY. There is no need to waste food AT ALL. If you throw away a bag of spuds because they've gone mouldy WHY THE HELL DID YOU BUY SUCH A BIG BAG IN THE FIRST PLACE? There are people starving in Africa. There are people who are malnourished in your own country. Yet what do you do? Chuck away quantities of food. You really should be ashamed of yourself. I am. I waste food sometimes. I feel dreadful about wasting food. The only food that should be wasted is parsnips and marmite. And even then that is only because they are foodstuffs in the loosest sense of the word. No. Food is as precious as water and electricity. We should cherish it while we have it. It won't be long before we will be thinking wistfully at the days when we could chuck away a whole goose just for the sake of it.
People are overweight. Yes. People are fat fat fatties because they eat too much. They eat and eat then throw away whatever is left. People have high cholesterol, high salt intakes, really bad diets and are putting a strain on medical resources. I know. I'm one of them! Yes. I am a fatty fat fat. I use the scales at Newton Abbot rather than the ones in my bathroom. We eat shite. We waste it. We do not deserve to sit at the top of the food chain. We are but a pestilent slug like cancer upon this planet.
So after this announcement from Mr Brown (the Most Beloved Great and Glorious Emperor of the Third Holy and Magnificent British Empire) it got me thinking what better way to lose weight, regulate peoples dietary intake and solve the impending food crisis than imposing rations onto the populace once more. Wouldn't that be great? When I was on the dole back in 1995-1997 I learnt how to manage on £140 a month. These monetary skills I carried on into later life and, yes I know I cock up sometimes, now I still try to manage my funds in a similar fashion. Indeed, living on a pittance with naught but beans and something labelled "bread" which clearly wasn't, teaches one to make food stretch. So yes, rations would have the same effect. Of course, since the war people have become more fussy. All sorts of allergies and intolerances are abound but with medicinally approved dietary control watching what we eat there would be no need to worry. You would still get your rationing like everybody else, just the equivalent of such. Of course there would not be any need for draconian measures such as powdered egg and powdered milk because there wouldn't be as much as a shortage of such (during the war animals were seen as draining of resources so a lot of the live stock were culled).
Nobody would need to go hungry, nobody would need to worry about wasting things. We could all sit round the radiogram singing along to Vera Lynn and take shelter in the Anderson. It would be like the 1940's all over again. :-) Thinner, wealthier and smelling of carbolic.
Of course it's not going to happen like that, but still, I believe a short 5 year spell on rationing is what we in the western world need to remind ourselves how damn fucking lucky we are to be where we are.
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
What to write about poll: <lj user="mostcurious"> and Cottage Pie
Cottage pie is one of those home comfort foods. It is highly adaptable and the recipe has a habit of being completely different depending on the chef.
For those in doubt cottage pie is beef or pork mince with vegetables in a rich gravy topped by mashed potatoes. If you use lamb mince it is called shepherds pie. And don't let anyone tell you any different.
Stegzy Gnomepants' Amazing Cottage Pie
You will need:-
500g Minced beef or pork (for a vegetarian alternative use beanfeast or quorn or shredded cardboard)
1 onion (chopped)
2 carrots (chopped sliced or diced)
Hendersons Relish (or Worcester sauce)
1 heaped Tblsp Tomato puree
1 chopped tomato
6 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
2/3rds of a pint of beef or vegetable stock
Herbs (I used sage, oregano and rosemary)
Potatoes
Butter
A splash of milk
Salt and pepper
Method
- Take your onion, half the garlic and carrots and fry in a large sauce pan until colour changes.
- Add beef and fry further until brown.
- Add tomato puree and tomato (add also a sprinkle of sugar to bring out the tomato flavour)
- Add herbs, Hendersons relish and stock.
- Season well and bring to the boil.
- Simmer for 20 minutes
- Meanwhile boil your potatoes until soft.
- Drain potatoes and mash them adding the butter, the rest of the garlic and a splash of milk. Season to taste.
- Pour the beef mixture into a casserole dish
- Top with the mashed potato. (at this stage you might like to add some parmesan or grated cheese)
- Bake in the oven 190° for 30 minutes
- Serve with cabbage and other fart inducing vegetables
- Eat
- Fart like a bastard.
- Don't apologise.
Gardeners Questiontime
According to the packet of seeds this plant
Is lettuce.
Now, there is some lettuce in this part of the veg patch but I'm buggered if that is lettuce. It has furry leaves with a prickly texture. Can anyone identify it for me?
Dentists
Is it me or are there no television shows or books about a crime fighting/ murder solving dentist?
Monday, 30 June 2008
Hairdressers I have known
Those that read may recall I did a post a month or so back requesting details of what you would like to read about. The winner was "Hairdressers I have known"
People ask me " How do you get your hair to look so fine and bountiful?"
"Easy" I reply "I leave it the fuck alone"
Some people are shocked by such a response and end up moving away muttering to themselves under their breath but others quiz me further until I move away muttering to myself. I'm a firm believer in letting nature take it's course. Nothing goes on my hair other than water, the occasional bit of shampoo, air and a bit of finger grease. I wash it when it feels mucky. I tend not to brush it vigorously and I never apply any gels, oils, creams or poultices. I leave it the fuck alone.
The same goes for having it cut. For really special occasions and that I'll have it cut if it is required. So I go for the natural look. Nothing artificial goes on it, plain and simple. Though it hasn't always been that way. Indeed, there was a time when I used to frequent hair dressers or barbers on a regular timetable. I'd happily part with my £5 for 20 minutes under the scissors of (an often) camp chap while they gave me a short back and sides a la my dad in the 1950's. Of course I didn't know any better. Easy money for no work at all imho. (Apologies to any hairdressers that read this)
Initial Visits - Norman
I can't remember my first excursion to a hair technician. I imagine it was probably what used to be called Norman's. Owned, surprisingly, by a chap called Norman, Norman's was a traditional barbers shop. As far as I can remember it has occupied the same little shop at the Grange Lane crossroads in Gateacre in Liverpool. It could be that a barber has occupied that shop since it was built. I have no idea, but I do know that I've only ever known it as a barbers shop. The shop may have had a red and white barbers pole on the outside and it may have had a horrid interior. It was so long ago I can't remember.
Norman was a typical scouse bloke. He was always cheery but he had a reputation as being a bit "close to the scalp". Indeed, such was his reputation as a scalper my friend at the time Guy would often relate to me stories about how Norman had decapitated a man during a Number One all over.
Such stories were unfounded as Guy frequented Tuzios in Hunts Cross and Tuzio had a reputation of bumming little boys in the back room (again unfounded).
What I do remember of the shops interior was that the barber’s chair was an awful cranky uppie thing upon which Norman would place a plank of wood for small boys to sit on. Upon the walls there were black and white photographs of men with various stylish hair styles. None of which I actually saw being achieved by or asked of Norman. The pictures had you wanting to be stylish and they had you wanting to be swarve because the guys in the pictures were obviously swarve and stylish. They probably drove fast cars, wore white socks with their black brothel creepers and generally lounged about looking cool. Though they were probably not.
Norman continued to be the barbers of choice for several years of my childhood. Ceasing to be such by the time I was in my early teens and my eldest brother decided that the side parted mummy's boy geeky look was probably not doing me any favours.
Millionhairs - Corny 80's hair
My eldest brother used to insist that shellsuits were the dogs knob of fashion and that the brighter the colours the better. Indeed he also advocated the vogue of spiky Bros like flat tops and copious amounts of styling gel. My eldest brother was also insistent that a VIC 20 was far superior to a Spectrum 48k and that XR3i's were better than Capris. In effect my eldest brother was a victim of the 80's in a big and embarrassing way. He lapped up the latest trends like a dog laps water after a very long walk.
So it comes as no surprise that as a susceptible teen I was taken by him to a stylish hairdresser rather than a God awful barber like Norman. He whisked me off to the clichéd Millionhairs in some dirty back street of St Helens in Lancashire (near where he lived). The hair dresser, whose name I forget now, was as camp as Butlins, Pontins and Stalag Luft 44 all merged together and sprinkled with a bit of Xray and baked in an Auschwitz case.
The exterior was nothing special. No barbers pole this time. The inside of the shop was like something out of an 80's cop show. All pampas grass, plush leather couches and the like. I was given a diet coke(!). I had my hair washed (first time at a hairdressers ever). I had it styled, sculpted and preened. I felt great. In fact when I got home my mum looked so pleased to see her new style boy with his turquoise track suit and gelled Bros hair cut.
But try as I might, even with all the Brylcreme in the world I could not make my hair go like it did that day. It would flop, go too crusty or make my head itch. Furthermore, this new look did me no favours and in fact the taunts got worse. Bollocks to that.
Herberts of Liverpool
My brother moved from St Helens to the newly growing new town of Runcorn. What an awful place that was too. As a consequence of him being away from the town of St Helens it meant that having my hair cut again at Millionhairs would prove to be tricky. Instead my dad encouraged me to try Herberts in Liverpool. What a fucking travesty that was. I had my hair cut by a trainee. I looked a right sight.
The more observant of you will probably know Herbert as being a bit of an E-list celebrity. He had a TV show in the 80s/90's and has a reputation as being the best hairstylist in Liverpool. Pity about his trainees really. I think my experience there was so bad I've blocked it from my mind entirely. In fact whenever I see Herbert on the telly I start rocking back and forth, humming to myself while foaming at the mouth. I think I even went back to Normans a couple of times.
Boy's and Curls
Dear God. It gets worse. The Eldest brother (do you see a pattern here?) moved once more, this time to Belle Vale in Liverpool. Being nearer to the family home meant that his choice of hairdresser was the choice we all had to make. So it was Boy's and Curls.
Boy's and Curls was originally a barbers shop. It was were all the Netherley scrotes and Lee Park Scallies went to get their nit infested heads shaved. Worried about the reputation of being a nit shop, Boy's and Curls reinvented themselves as a stylish boutique with black and white checkered flooring, bright lights and mirrors but held onto that "Come 'ere lad while I chop some of your girly hair off" feel. But trapped like a rat in a corner I would reluctantly attend the shop at the bequest of my mother. "Goangetyeraircut" she would screech at me.
Old habits die hard - His and Hairs, Sheffield
Then I became a student in Sheffield. As my 20's are now mostly a fuss of misshapen memory I will relate what I can remember of my one and only hair cut in Sheffield.
I'd been away from home about a month when my mum said to me that I must remember to get my hair cut. I mulled over this for weeks until one day I'm doing my laundry and I noticed that the shop next to the laundrette was a Unisex Salon.
Having made a foolish mistake in the past of going into a Unisex Salon and expecting the people there to cut my hair only to be told "We don't do men" I thought what harm would it do to nip in and ask while I waited for my crusty bedsheets to finish their wash.
"Do you cut men’s hair?" I asked and was answered by a fit of giggles and a rather jovial Jamaican woman hairdresser. I had my head pulled from side to side, the ends of the scissors stabbed into my scalp and I'm bloody lucky to still have ears I can tell you.
Fortunately the last I heard about that shop was that it had caught fire. Bloody good job I say.
The present day - From Tony & Guy to Highlights
So as you can guess, my experience with hairdressers and barbers has been one of chaos and discomfort. In the early 90's when I'd returned to Liverpool I met Min. Who told me that he hadn't had a hair cut for years. I idolised Min, he was the youth I wanted to be. Carefree, pot smoking, rocker type. His hair was so long it put Rapunzel to shame. Using my new found confidence I put my foot down and refused to get my hair cut.
Of course refusal is often fraught with times when you just give in to protests of "Get your hair cut". So in order to maintain a quality head of hair I only allow highly qualified stylists near my bonse, meaning I have to go to Toni & Guy's. Indeed, I had to have a couple of knots cut out before then and a visit to Highlights in Grimethorpe was called for on the recommendation of Mrs Gnomepants. But I resent paying large sums of money for hardly any work. I find it obscene that some people (mainly women) will gladly fritter away upwards of £50 for less than an hour under the scissors. Indeed, if such people would like to save half that money, come to Brierley and I'll cut your hair for you.
And so drawing this post to a close (thank God I hear you cry) I'd like to thank for the excellent trim she gave me a couple of months ago. She did a damn fine job. For free. And in less than 20 minutes.
People ask me "
"Easy" I reply "I leave it the fuck alone"
Some people are shocked by such a response and end up moving away muttering to themselves under their breath but others quiz me further until I move away muttering to myself. I'm a firm believer in letting nature take it's course. Nothing goes on my hair other than water, the occasional bit of shampoo, air and a bit of finger grease. I wash it when it feels mucky. I tend not to brush it vigorously and I never apply any gels, oils, creams or poultices. I leave it the fuck alone.
The same goes for having it cut. For really special occasions and that I'll have it cut if it is required. So I go for the natural look. Nothing artificial goes on it, plain and simple. Though it hasn't always been that way. Indeed, there was a time when I used to frequent hair dressers or barbers on a regular timetable. I'd happily part with my £5 for 20 minutes under the scissors of (an often) camp chap while they gave me a short back and sides a la my dad in the 1950's. Of course I didn't know any better. Easy money for no work at all imho. (Apologies to any hairdressers that read this)
Initial Visits - Norman
I can't remember my first excursion to a hair technician. I imagine it was probably what used to be called Norman's. Owned, surprisingly, by a chap called Norman, Norman's was a traditional barbers shop. As far as I can remember it has occupied the same little shop at the Grange Lane crossroads in Gateacre in Liverpool. It could be that a barber has occupied that shop since it was built. I have no idea, but I do know that I've only ever known it as a barbers shop. The shop may have had a red and white barbers pole on the outside and it may have had a horrid interior. It was so long ago I can't remember.
Norman was a typical scouse bloke. He was always cheery but he had a reputation as being a bit "close to the scalp". Indeed, such was his reputation as a scalper my friend at the time Guy would often relate to me stories about how Norman had decapitated a man during a Number One all over.
Such stories were unfounded as Guy frequented Tuzios in Hunts Cross and Tuzio had a reputation of bumming little boys in the back room (again unfounded).
What I do remember of the shops interior was that the barber’s chair was an awful cranky uppie thing upon which Norman would place a plank of wood for small boys to sit on. Upon the walls there were black and white photographs of men with various stylish hair styles. None of which I actually saw being achieved by or asked of Norman. The pictures had you wanting to be stylish and they had you wanting to be swarve because the guys in the pictures were obviously swarve and stylish. They probably drove fast cars, wore white socks with their black brothel creepers and generally lounged about looking cool. Though they were probably not.
Norman continued to be the barbers of choice for several years of my childhood. Ceasing to be such by the time I was in my early teens and my eldest brother decided that the side parted mummy's boy geeky look was probably not doing me any favours.
Millionhairs - Corny 80's hair
My eldest brother used to insist that shellsuits were the dogs knob of fashion and that the brighter the colours the better. Indeed he also advocated the vogue of spiky Bros like flat tops and copious amounts of styling gel. My eldest brother was also insistent that a VIC 20 was far superior to a Spectrum 48k and that XR3i's were better than Capris. In effect my eldest brother was a victim of the 80's in a big and embarrassing way. He lapped up the latest trends like a dog laps water after a very long walk.
So it comes as no surprise that as a susceptible teen I was taken by him to a stylish hairdresser rather than a God awful barber like Norman. He whisked me off to the clichéd Millionhairs in some dirty back street of St Helens in Lancashire (near where he lived). The hair dresser, whose name I forget now, was as camp as Butlins, Pontins and Stalag Luft 44 all merged together and sprinkled with a bit of Xray and baked in an Auschwitz case.
The exterior was nothing special. No barbers pole this time. The inside of the shop was like something out of an 80's cop show. All pampas grass, plush leather couches and the like. I was given a diet coke(!). I had my hair washed (first time at a hairdressers ever). I had it styled, sculpted and preened. I felt great. In fact when I got home my mum looked so pleased to see her new style boy with his turquoise track suit and gelled Bros hair cut.
But try as I might, even with all the Brylcreme in the world I could not make my hair go like it did that day. It would flop, go too crusty or make my head itch. Furthermore, this new look did me no favours and in fact the taunts got worse. Bollocks to that.
Herberts of Liverpool
My brother moved from St Helens to the newly growing new town of Runcorn. What an awful place that was too. As a consequence of him being away from the town of St Helens it meant that having my hair cut again at Millionhairs would prove to be tricky. Instead my dad encouraged me to try Herberts in Liverpool. What a fucking travesty that was. I had my hair cut by a trainee. I looked a right sight.
The more observant of you will probably know Herbert as being a bit of an E-list celebrity. He had a TV show in the 80s/90's and has a reputation as being the best hairstylist in Liverpool. Pity about his trainees really. I think my experience there was so bad I've blocked it from my mind entirely. In fact whenever I see Herbert on the telly I start rocking back and forth, humming to myself while foaming at the mouth. I think I even went back to Normans a couple of times.
Boy's and Curls
Dear God. It gets worse. The Eldest brother (do you see a pattern here?) moved once more, this time to Belle Vale in Liverpool. Being nearer to the family home meant that his choice of hairdresser was the choice we all had to make. So it was Boy's and Curls.
Boy's and Curls was originally a barbers shop. It was were all the Netherley scrotes and Lee Park Scallies went to get their nit infested heads shaved. Worried about the reputation of being a nit shop, Boy's and Curls reinvented themselves as a stylish boutique with black and white checkered flooring, bright lights and mirrors but held onto that "Come 'ere lad while I chop some of your girly hair off" feel. But trapped like a rat in a corner I would reluctantly attend the shop at the bequest of my mother. "Goangetyeraircut" she would screech at me.
Old habits die hard - His and Hairs, Sheffield
Then I became a student in Sheffield. As my 20's are now mostly a fuss of misshapen memory I will relate what I can remember of my one and only hair cut in Sheffield.
I'd been away from home about a month when my mum said to me that I must remember to get my hair cut. I mulled over this for weeks until one day I'm doing my laundry and I noticed that the shop next to the laundrette was a Unisex Salon.
Having made a foolish mistake in the past of going into a Unisex Salon and expecting the people there to cut my hair only to be told "We don't do men" I thought what harm would it do to nip in and ask while I waited for my crusty bedsheets to finish their wash.
"Do you cut men’s hair?" I asked and was answered by a fit of giggles and a rather jovial Jamaican woman hairdresser. I had my head pulled from side to side, the ends of the scissors stabbed into my scalp and I'm bloody lucky to still have ears I can tell you.
Fortunately the last I heard about that shop was that it had caught fire. Bloody good job I say.
The present day - From Tony & Guy to Highlights
So as you can guess, my experience with hairdressers and barbers has been one of chaos and discomfort. In the early 90's when I'd returned to Liverpool I met Min. Who told me that he hadn't had a hair cut for years. I idolised Min, he was the youth I wanted to be. Carefree, pot smoking, rocker type. His hair was so long it put Rapunzel to shame. Using my new found confidence I put my foot down and refused to get my hair cut.
Of course refusal is often fraught with times when you just give in to protests of "Get your hair cut". So in order to maintain a quality head of hair I only allow highly qualified stylists near my bonse, meaning I have to go to Toni & Guy's. Indeed, I had to have a couple of knots cut out before then and a visit to Highlights in Grimethorpe was called for on the recommendation of Mrs Gnomepants. But I resent paying large sums of money for hardly any work. I find it obscene that some people (mainly women) will gladly fritter away upwards of £50 for less than an hour under the scissors. Indeed, if such people would like to save half that money, come to Brierley and I'll cut your hair for you.
And so drawing this post to a close (thank God I hear you cry) I'd like to thank
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