Brooker Love

i LOVE Charlie Brooker.

there. I've put it out there for all to see.

when he just wrote the saturday guardian's guide feature screenburn for all those years i felt like he was my little secret and only a few were in the Brooker Love Club but recently he's gone BigTime and now i have to share him with the rest of the world.

this is a little annoying but i am glad he's doing well. like a proud aunty or something haha

he is mostly marvellous on twitter. especially when narrating XFactor on a saturday night. too funny. what a legend.

Gush over.

For now!

the day i should have stayed in bed

there are some days in life when it feels like anything that could go wrong will go wrong.

i am still suffering the emotional scars of such a day because i had one just recently!

let me tell you what happened...

i was in Yorkshire to stay with a friend in a lovely lodge in the Dales, it would have been for the whole weekend but another friend had booked me in the Midlands for the Saturday night...

So after a very fun Friday night in the pub (we even stumbled across an Ale Festival! pun intended!) and a quick whizz round the local castle and theatre on Saturday morning i set off back down south...

apart from the 50mph zone with no actual road works being done (why do they do this to us?!) it all started off ok... but then a warning about a closed junction on a motorway up ahead made itself known and since i wasn't familiar with the area i pressed onwards figuring there would be a diversion signposted.

then nearing said junction i tried to get creative and got off on an A road that probably went in the same direction... only for SatNav to make me nervous and turn me back around... after 20 mins sat in traffic avoiding the motorway problem... why i thought i best turn back i have no clue.. i was tired and wanted to get home asap i guess... so back to the motorway i went and immediately hit on a problem on the slip road...

an RAC van had parked infront of the right hand lane and i assumed there had been an accident and drove onto the slip road... but then all the cars in front of me - all of them mind - started doing u-turns to try and leave the slip road, hence the traffic facing the wrong direction being held up by the RAC man... i put my window down and asked a older guy what was happening and he told me the motorway was blocked off and 'you can't get on'

my next mistake was to take this man at his word. what he meant - or had been told himself by another numbnut was the motorway was fast becoming a carpark due to the closed junction a few miles up ahead... but hindsight is a wonderful painful thing isn't it.

i thought i couldn't get on the motorway so i also did a u-turn. it was about this time that the traffic police turned up. i thought well they'll sort things out and tell me where to go. no they just took my number plate and shouted at me for facing the wrong way and 'you knew what you were doing. it's illegal to be faced this way on a slip road.' really? in all scenerios? like if you wouldn't get on the motorway because of an accident? really? i doubt it. but a policeman never told me to move so i made a mistake. the worst thing is the guys behind me knew that he was toruble and did a bunk before he could show up and get their numbers so i was one of the lucky few who actually waited to speak to him about what was happening. what an idiot!

so i turned around again and headed onto the motorway - sorry car park - and waited 90 minutes while they dealt with a 'police incident' on the closed section of the road. after an hour i was beginning to need a wee but luckily i held onto it haha or there would have been another thing they could punish me for! the call of nature must be obeyed right?! not on the motorways apparently!

so now i wait. will they punish me to the letter of the law or realise it was just a mistake and too much paperwork to deal with. or perhaps they have a target i just helped them reach? who knows. i guess i'll find out in the next few weeks. but it was truly an awful experience and not one i wish to ever repeat!

finally a footnote. just after i escape my traffic jam my friend who is meeting me in the Midlands calls it off sick due to a hangover. so it was all for nothing.

there's no justice. i had to write it up as a learn. don't try and do too much stuff in one weekend! you'll only get a numb bum! haha

google mindbender

today i confused the google account with a google mail account. i think. i'm still confused.

i almost couldn't log in and frankly their pages of 'help' was anything but helpful. i'd offer that it was in fact just more confusing!

they want me to log in using a google account and yet the user name i have is for another mail account... this seems to be okay... sometimes... i may never figure out how to log in again, if so, so long, and thanks for all the fish!

i don't mind having a google mail for my user name but somehow the system they have put in place doesn't allow me to amalgamate the two... which is just confusing.

i had intended on writing about my truly awful day on the British motorway system yesterday. but that seems pointless if i'm going to have to give up this blog due to google's inability to have a simple 'contact us' button... i guess they don't make enough money to pay for that service.. oh.. except they're one of the richest companies in the world.. oh.. oh well..

40 Years of Silliness

Happy 40th Birthday to Monty Python!

After watching re-runs of Monty Python's Flying Circus on TV all week I've been reminded how very funny they are... I'm particularly enjoying the Colonel who stops sketches for being far too silly!

The Life of Brian is possibly one of the best films ever made and should be shown every Christmas Day on British telly in my humble opinion!

I once went to a Life of Brian themed NYE party - there were women in beards, romans, Peoples Front of Judea - all brilliant characters!

And we've not even mentioned the funny songs! It's more difficult than you can ever imagine to get a funny song right (sorry Mitch Benn) but these guys had so many silly ditties, if you haven't already get on youtube and check out the Monty Python Channel...

ps. If you're into that sort of thing John Cleese regularly Twitters and just yesterday offered a poll in which you could vote for how he might top himself on his 70th birthday...