Lochness Monster Eats Two Divers and a Dog

Today Google has put up a novel search page, telling us the search for Nessy has so far taken 81 years. 

Clicking on the submarine then treats the viewer to a video of a very English gentleman, with a grey unkept beard, stating he had lived there for 41 years and was still looking for Nessie. If you ask me he should of been doing something better with his time. Perhaps visiting a hairdressers, buying two dozen razor blades or even taking up lessons in speaking with a Scottish accent. Because it is a little more than disappointing to have Nessie Anglicised by a English man speaking, I'm sure in Scotland there are a lot of Scottish people available who could of said something about the most loved of creatures. In Rome do as the romans do, which is not to speak with an English accent. I am more than sure this man didn't hear about the episode of 1918.

Yes, although Google had elected to say the search for Nessy has been 81 years, the actual legend of Nessy has been going on for a considerably longer period.  It was in 1981 that Doug McGregor and his friend Fraser McDonald decided to do a little bit of their own searching for Nessy.  It had been a long beautiful summer this year which had touched the latter part of August as well. Which is surprising for Scotland because generally speaking the weather in Scotland is always colder, wetter and more miserable than it is in England.  Hence the dour outlook many Scots possess, not to mention the tendency to have pale skin and red hair.  Which is altogether a different subject, not related to copper.  Fraser and Doug were 15 and 16 respectively, they lived not far from Lochness and would often fish there, taking their dog Harry along with them.  This August however there had been five aledged sightings of Nessy. It might of been because of the gloriously long summer and on account of the water level dropping slightly.  However, for what reason it was we shall never know, just that Nessy was being quite active, or brave or maybe even because the Loch had become a place for people to spend time and staying cool. Hence it was more likely Nessy would be spotted. 

Fraser and Doug decided to swim in the Loch and they took with them some fishing tackle. They had been successful and caught a number of fish but Fraser decided he would now fish for Nessie. He hooked one of the fish on his line and swam out. Doug also thought this was a good idea and it is said they were both competitive lads so was not unusual for them to try and out fish even for Nessie.  Their dog Harry stayed at the shore. We know this because later on after the search for the lads a butcher's bone was found with a number of teeth marks in it.  Unfortunately neither lad returned home and Harry to was never seen again. Their clothes were left on shore, with shoes and bags they had put food into.  There were also several fish in a bag.  They had worn plumsoles and these were never recovered as was their underwear.  The entire village of Drumnadrochit, came out in search, the police were called in from Inverness and for a two weeks they rowed boats up and down.  They based themselves at Castle Urquhart from where the search was centralised.  But this was nearly a century ago and searching was not as professional as it is nowadays. They threw hooks in the Loch and just pulled them along hoping they would catch onto something. But it was like searching a haystack for the Loch is no small thing (24 miles long) and it is exceptionally deep. A stone is now place not far from where the lads went missing and their families mourned.  It was a sad time and this episode did not get into the papers of the whole of the UK because newspapers in those days were not as tabloid in nature.  Or it may well of been because of the saturation of news around the Great War.

It is said, Nessie did take the bait and eat their fish, but it is also though Nessie may of eaten Fraser and Doug as well. On late August nights the laughs and voices of teenage lads can sometimes catch the breeze as it rolls off the Loch where the last moments of these young lads and a dog called Harry were had.  Sadly though Nessie has become a phenomenon of comedy and crackpot monster hunters this event is forgotten.  Except of course for the little known bounty which was put on Nessie's head by the local priest, which still has not been collected. A small statue of Harry could of been seen until 1983 when it was removed or stolen.

Hairy nose and political ukuleles

This morning I felt a little spike on my nose. It wasn't a spike as in a real spike but a stubborn stubble, again a reminder it is time to get the tweezers out and check for the little blighters. They have become more frequent with age, it is a little like a tree. The age of the tree being told by the rings it acquires and similarly my age can be told by the number of dark hard hairs growing out of my nose. I don't mean those from the nostrils I mean my actual nose.  For it is a hairy nose.  This leads me to a self awareness of checking my appearance a few times each week and seeing whether they are noticeable. The last thing I need at the fish factory is to be chatting to a colleague and find their interest is

transfixed on the hairs growing out of my nose. Fortunately the weak uni brow is now kept under control also by lots of diligent work. I really am one of those fortunate chaps who is actually waiting for this fashion trend to become the in thing. Unfortunately rather than being a dedicated follower of fashion (Kinks) I've become a leader.  Except sometimes there are trends no one likes to admit to or be part of, on account of being different from the norms of the crowd. But I guess as you age you actually care a lot less about what the norms of society are and follow your own fashions.  My hairy nose is here to stay, all I can hope for is the rest of the world starts to suffer from the same short sightedness I'm suffering from as well. Yet another reminder of being old, getting old and of there being no point in turning back something you can't turn back unless you happen to be a celebrity.
Such as the late Joan Rivers, or the alive and kicking Slyvester Stilone, but then hair nose face could well be a bit more preferable from being plastic face.  Sparkling loves me, Princess J, Rock Chick love me and the few important people in my life love me and they don't stand there pointing at my hairy nose making jokes.  I can do that all by myself and thank god for the tweezers, my luxury item I would take with me on a desert island. I honestly could not do without them in any kind of emergency.


I had to take a double take this week it was when I caught an article on the news. The General Election 2015 is a few days around the corner, which I'm finding absolutely compelling viewing. it is so close so hard fort and we all have a good idea it will be a hung parliament. So there it was, Mr (Feck-the-poor) Cameron out and about doing a publicity thing to drum up votes having to face the ire of a ukulele strumming protester with a wonderful little song. Being I'm a ukulele playing crackpot myself and a harbourer of complete detest for anything which is Tory I loved watching this comic episode. Here it is ex-Prime Minster Cameron getting a little comeuppance from so beautiful small instrument the ukulele.

It is good to see a little extra in this clip and hear the views of people who equally see the Tories as evil basturds who have managed to increase the level of child poverty to a higher rate than any government has previously. In defence they will say there are more people in jobs than every before, yet the rate of productivity in the UK is no different than when they began their term. In addition GDP per capita has shown such little change it simply means the UK is going backward or is stationary at best.  The complete lies of Cameron and his multi millionaire pals on the government front bench have hoodwinked the British people only so far, mark my words they are going to be kicked out of government very shortly. However, the ukulele is not a thing which should be used for evil, and in this episode the power of the ukulele for the good of the people of the UK has really come through.  It is a secret sexy weapon of great, great value.  In this episode a moment of time has been captured which in my mind I will cherrish and keep in a closet to be pulled out when needed. Feck off back to Eaton, with all your Eaton chums Mr Cameron.

Well I must get out and do my Sunday walk, because if I didn't I'd be stuck here playing my ukulele and driving the neighbours spare.

Love from the hairy nosed man.

It all began with a drip and then a plumbing disaster

A few years back Sparkling had a external tap installed, to allow her to water the garden. It was put in using a kit bought from a large DIY store by her brother L & B man.  However, the pipe was made of a tough plastic, it ran under the kitchen mains, through the wall and out onto the back garden wall.  It  had been taped into the mains probably by some kind of self tapping screw device.  When I saw it, I didn't like the thing. Outside taps should be permanent things attached to copper piping in my mind.  Then one day last year something happened and it began to leak under the sink. A constant drip, over time the entire kitchen lino floor got soaked. Sparkling had said to me it was squigy. It certainly was.  I pulled up the lino and all the floor boards were wet. Then to try and stop this I turned the valve off on the DIY bodge up version of an outside tap.  It stopped leaking and the kitchen was left with no floor covering for a few weeks in order to let the wood dry out.

However, even though I had said to Sparkling the tap should not be used because it needs to be repaired she decided to turn the valve on and use the hose.  Coming back into the house she turned the valve back off yet it did not stop dripping again.  She sent me a message asking where the adjustable spanner was because she was going to tighten it up.  After which I rang her and we had a conversation.  The spanner was probably lost, I said she should not touch the valve.  Sparkling on the other knew all it needed was a little tightening and it would be OK. I got chastised for being negative.  I advised she might need to get to the cock stop and I said this also wasn't properly working so it might mean getting a T bar.  In turn her reply was it would be unnecessary and it was silly to think the water had to be turned off.  I said she will probably need to ring the fire brigade if she didn't have a T bar. Which I knew she didn't.  Advising the best thing to do would be to call a plumber in because the pipe fitting should never of been put in anyway. Her response was how absurd was I being saying she'd need the fire brigade to come and turn the water off for the street. I was over exaggerating.  She could not understand the mains outside was just for her house and not and in comedic fashion laughed at me.  In defence I asked who knew more about plumbing myself or her.  This question was battered away like an irritating fly, with did I know how much it was going to cost to call a plumber on a Saturday.  I had an idea it was going to be expensive but I also knew Sparkling was going to do whatever she was going to do with or without my permission because whatever I said was of no meaning or value to her.  Now it was a matter of her being right and me being wrong.  She went next door and got a spanner.  I thought to myself, I'm going to stay out of this and let her get on with it.  In a couple of hours time I would text her and see how it went.


Sparkling enlisted more help from her neighbour and from L n B man, as she and they went at the valve with an adjustable spanner and tightened it up. The leak had stopped.  I sent a message asking if she needed to book a seat on the Ark.  She thought I was being cheeky and said it was all fine.  So the pessimist was wrong.

Two hours later.  Instead of a dripping valve it had become a gush.  Fortunately, Sparkling was still in the house, she had intended to go out but sat reading some political debates on her tablet.  It was during this restful period,  the bodge up fitting had exploded because she had over tightened it.. About this time I was watching a youtube videos and was overtaken by a Tango flash mob in Spain and sent a text to Sparkling saying I wanted to be in a flash mob.  There was no reply.  I left it at that wondering what more had happened.  In turn Sparkling called L & B man who came in record time.  She answered the door, she looked a mess, drenched, wet towels in her hands, very stressed out.  She'd already had 7 towels on the line and it had broken under the weight.  L & B man rescued the day, he stopped the water and rushed off to get the plumbing parts to fix it.  Somehow the washing machine also had to be re-plumbed back in and fortunately there already were some fittings left in

with the tools. 

I was glad that little Princess J was not there at the time. For she has some kind of affinity with water and when she says the word she says it in holy reverence, pronouncing it as Watt-eeerrrrr and inevitable awwe.  She's the kind of  2 year old who likes to do the washing up so she can play with the washing up water and also drink it even though it is dirty, and soapy.  It would suggest she might be a late developer but it is hard to tell at such a young age.  Maybe the brain cells will kick in at some point and she'll stop drinking the stuff and leave the poor cat alone rather than run after him shouting at the top of her lungs MOW.  Thinking of cat, I'm sure he made himself scare at this time.

Later in the evening I rang Sparkling and found out it was all my fault.  For I was the one who should of got the thing fixed, I was the one who should also have put up a new washing line and if I made any kind of a judgemental comment on the phone she was going to put it down on me and that would be the end of the conversation. She'd had an awful day.  It was difficult but I was as sympathetic as I could be and had to bite my tongue to stop myself saying the inevitable words "I told you so." I'm glad I didn't for Sparkling would of killed me when I next got the chance to see her.  For as always she says I get brave when I'm on the end of a telephone and not in person. The other thing about being on the phone is she would be able to tell I was smiling.  Memo to self, start watching more plumbing videos on Youtube because the flash mob ones will not be of any help next time this happens.

Fallon's dastardly comment - 2015 UK Election

It's underhand, it's backstabbing, accusational, disgusting, sexist, racist, uncivilised, non Marquis of Queensbury, spat inducing, tribal and arse licking.  But, we all love it, or most of us do. The end of one government has taken place and the transition of another undergoes an election.  What is there not to enjoy about this time, for once it is as though the politicians are vulnerable and have to show a very public face.  Each attacking the other, sometimes in underhanded ways such as the recent comments by Michael Fallon about Ed Milliband's character.  Michael Fallon has gone beyond what is good taste and now is a devious character.  He is the Dick Dastardly of Whacky Races, the nasty bloke who will scare monger and do anything to get back into power.  Now some people will say that awful things are said at PMQs, indeed they are!  Which is a charade and mockery of the political system. However, when spoken at PMQs they are face to face.  Fallon has acted in a very un honourable way.  Whereas Ed Milliband's reply (also in this video) was polite and measured, we see Ed being the true diplomat and true politician.  His response is without doubt admirable. Ed has done himself nothing but good by acting in this way.  Fallon's comments border on slander and the worse thing is Cameron backs him up, but politicians are gangs and they always support each other. It is their leader who directs them and political commentators have said Cameron new about this before it happened.  He directed it.  This picks Cameron out as a weak individual, who yet again shows his aggressive bully side.  The statement was meant to shock, to shock vacillating voters to vote Tory.  The swing voters who are likely to be intelligent people and not idiots to be sway opinion because of this remark will have their own opinion.  Were I such a voter, this tactic is so obvious it would add to the negative items used in weighing up a party.  Furthermore, were a voter in Sevenoaks now I would be unhappy of Fallon's behaviour, it would not represented me or the values of British society held so dear to the Tories. I am sure voters of Sevenoaks will take note and ask themselves should such a person continue as your next MP?

It is said the UK is no longer in recession and is actually one best recovering economies, but we are still running at a deficit. Each year the actual debt of the UK gets bigger and it is now at 1.5 trillion GBP.  Over the last parliament it actually doubled.  It was the Torys who screamed and shouted the previous Labour party had taken the country into a recession, however they purposely did not mention there was a world recession at the time.  As a voting UK tax payer it seems to me there must be a time when the debt gets called in.  There has to be a moment when the bailiffs come knocking at the door.  We are importing and using more in goods from abroad than we are able to produce.  This also does not make sense.  The Tories say there are more people in work than there ever has been, if this is the case surely productivity would be higher than it ever has been? Yet it is not. So clearly the UK is more inefficient than any other country, it is unable to hold its own and does not have a manufacturing industry to compete with the rest of the world.  Certainly not anything like the German's who remarkably have gone from strength to strength since the last world war.  The UK has a lot of capital and it is in property.  Here because properties are so scared their values have skyrocketed, investors around the world are finding bank are unable to give them a decent return for their dollar, so the rich ones buy properties in London. Properties which over the last year have shown capital grown in the double digits.  What fires this growth is there are not enough properties to home the people of the UK so they are at a premium.  The worst part of this is that successive governments have not addressed the issue and homes are not being built fast enough and certainly not at the numbers required.  We need at least 200,000 new properties a year for the next 5 years to support our ever growing population.  Take a boat ride up or down the Thames and you will see empty flats easily recognised at night because they are the ones without light.  They are the ones who have been bought by overseas investors.  In the mean time people who cant afford their rents because of their low pay and high rent apply for benefits.  Consequently in work benefits have significantly increased.  When governments say they are going to reduce the Welfare Benefits bill this must also mean reducing the money ordinary working folk need in order to live.  There is something terribly wrong about this, and terribly wrong politicians have not done enough to combat it.

No doubt though as the days tick over and the chance comes for the electorate to sack their MP we get to see more dastardly behaviour.  There are many MPs who do not deserve to be in parliament for they no longer represent the people they should.  Michael Fallon mate, your one of them.

Sherlock - The Old Git's got Insomnia

Maybe it is something to do with age and not exercising enough, but as the years pass and my hair becomes more grey sleep is a problem. It's like sleep deprivation and grey are correlated statistically. I can prove it hell look at me.  Not so great is the fact it takes longer to look good. Or should I say to make the best of the assets I've got, the charmingly good looks are a shade less charmingly good looking.  With lack of sleep the bags under my eyes seem to have moved from small handbags to large longhaul, overnighters.  I got to be careful I don't trip over them. Being a man I can't get away with extra make up, there is no additional layer of plaster over this craggy face. However, probably the worse thing of all in age related insomnia is when you realise it is nothing to do with yourself.  It is everyone else around you.  Like they have formed a small secret society, have a log book of my sleeping habits and coincide their activity so they hit me right in the middle of a REM sleep. Induced insomnia that's what it is.  Just as the old git is about to enjoy a dream about chocolate or cheese someone goes to the toilet.  This time it was my neighbour.  At 4:28 a.m. I could hear the echo of a toilet roll as it was pulled from it's holdler, the little wheel it was on squeaked round and round. At first though I didn't recognise what it was, it just plane woke me up.

So there I am laying in bed gradually coming around because there was a noise. It is somewhere in the back of my conscious mind, in the bit between sleep and wake, it's kind of pressing on my brain because the noise could of been anything.  I also realised I was hot. Bloody old age and hormones were now kicking in, they both were hitting hard. If I'm not getting up in the early morning it's crying like a baby at youtube videos of rescued dogs. The normal sleep mind now was evaporating, I could see it like water in the sahara desert, just disappearing. I changed position, I removed some covers, I altered the ear plugs which are nearly permanently in my ears. It didn't work. Thoughts strayed as to what the hell the noise was which woke me up. It was almost like the roof tiles clattering when pidgeons used to wake up with the morning sun, but the room was dark.  At this moment a saying came to mind, something Sherlock Holmes said:

"...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth..."

I thought to myself, shit Sherlock you can work out what the noise was, now lets just think about it. Of course the thing is sometimes all the possible solutions are not thought of, then it is the one you could not figure out which is the answer.  I came up with the following:
1. A mouse
2.A rat.
3.A pigeon
4. A fox.

I examined them in detail, we only just had a mouse and mice make a scurrying around noise as the tread lightly but noisily over things, and scrape them.  As for a rat I sure hoped it wasn't one of these but the noise was actually louder than what a mouse makes.  I thought if there was a rat then I'd of heard this earlier so it was unlikely to be a rat.  The pigeon was a good option but it was still dark out and I know they come out when it is light, there would of been a hell of a lot more of tile clatterings as well.  A fox, now this was possible but it dawned on me the noise was internal.  So my list had eliminated four possibilities of which it was none in all likeliness. I lay on the bed having removed th ear plugs just being still listening and hoping in part the beautiful princess of sleep would come and kiss me gently. She obviously didn't because she must of thought that old bugger looks a bet rough, must be the bags under his eyes.  Then I heard another noise. It was the neighbours. The always shouting at his kids neighbour must of got up to evacuate his bowels.  There was movement as the thud of footsteps through our waffer thin walls went down stairs.  If only this house were built in the 1920s then it would of been propper quiet. But it wasn't.  I heard him go out the front door and then drive off.  It was about 5:30 a.m. when I did decide to get up.  So in all I've had about four and a half hours sleep. 

I now know why old men are generally called grumpy old men, because nobody will let them get a decent night's sleep!