Elementary, my Dear Watson.

In these politically correct, health and safety conscious times I have been thinking about pipe smoking. Surely the pipe smoker must be a dying breed? It's a shame realy, I always think a man with a pipe has a certain authority. A woman with a pipe, well that's seriously old school, i'm thinking a shawl, possibly cockling or swigging gin while the kids pick some pockets.
I must admit the ritual of pipe smoking seems a bit complicated, not to mention the variety of tobacco. What do you do, warm your pipe, half load up with the finest 'ye olde kipper shag', gently toke with a match until you've got a few embers alight? Then load up some more?

Anyway, must be great when you're on full burn, the smokes flowing. Gently stroking your chin, arm cocked, great past-time for pondering the Universe........No shit Sherlock!

Pipe smokers out there, name your favourite brew and supply some pipe specifications!

Womad 2006 Update Part 2

Here we go with another update from WOMAD 2006. Some great pictures from my on-location photographer! I'm green with envy!
Sunday is a great day when they have the parade in the main arena. The kids, parents and anyone really can spend a bit of time during the weekend making carnival costumes for the parade. Good fun, amazingly colourful, samba drums......

More Battenburg, Vicar?

It was my Mum's Birthday today so went round to catch up, with a present and bunch of flowers....some stories, mild hangover, tea drinking legs and an empty stomach. Anyway, a Sunday afternoon always involves an un-naturally large amount of tea drinking with cake.
Today's offering was Battenburg cake. You either love it or hate it, personally I like it but the sugar rush is beginning to kick in and I have a mild fear for my health tonight.

Have you really looked at a slice of it though. Maaan, it's ingenious, who invented that! Can you imagine someone sitting down and thinking, yeah a chequered pattern, two colours, bonded with jam and a marzipan coating? I salute them! If i get this right, you need to cook two loaf shaped sponge cakes, one pink, the other yellow then cut them into perfectly square cuboids then stick them together with jam. Then finally wrap the whole thing in marzipan, leaving the ends exposed so people can marvel at your handy work. You must need the patience of a Saint. I tell you it's goddamn edible art, that's what it is!

I'm trying to think of another cake masterpiece but just can't think of one to match it?

Womad 2006 Update

An image sequence from WOMAD 2006......almost Live!

Womad 2006

I've just been reminded that yet again i've missed the WOMAD festival in Reading.
Bugger! I wanted to go but already been on holiday this month and the cash just wouldn't stretch that far. Anyway I'm getting updated with pictures, from my friend on location.

If you don't know what it is then check this.... BBC.co.uk Womad2006

It's superb, I never know any bands but always come away with a big smile on my face. Which reminds me of the days in Reading going to the infamous Rock/Indie festival? The only tips I have for this is never, bite a glowstick, confuse bushes for people, converse with decorated tents or trade fire wood for a can of Special Brew. Oh, and wear warm clothing at night.

Keyboards

Today i've been thinking about keyboards. Well, not all of the day as that would have been quite boring, not to mention weird!

From talking to people I think this is a common problem. A lot of people these days eat at their desk. When at work I tend to get a lunchtime baguette and sometimes eat it at my desk whilst typing inane emails to friends and surfing the internet.
The only trouble is the issue of crumbs, these tend to fall and lodge between the keys of my keyboard, most of them end up in the no-mans land at the bottom of the casing.

I picked up my keyboard the other day and it sounded like a Maraca! Very tuneful but not very hygenic. The only cleaning solution is to take my waste paper bin, turn the keyboard upside down over it and shake/hit it to try and dislodge the crumbs. Much like banging an old carpet against the back wall it's just not that effective. I only ever manage to get rid of half a baguettes worth of discarded food matter not the full ammount. Incidently the accidental ketchup and coffee spillage will never be removed but serves as a useful reminder against repeating that particular accident.

Ok so I had this brilliant idea. Why not develop a keyboard with a pull out crumb tray. You've seen toasters, they have a little tray at the base that you can remove and dispose of the crumbs.
What a fantastic idea, crumbs fall through the keys straight into the tray, ready for easy and safe disposal. The tray doesn't have to be that deep, what the heck if that's a problem why not an opening flap on the base of the keyboard. Over the bin, open the flap and watch the crumb storm.

I'm hoping someone out there can take this invention on? Or maybe it exists already? Might work up some drawings in the near future!

Dreams

Ever wondered about dreams and where they come from? Personally I never remember mine, although even when conscious I have a hard time remembering things.

Isn' t it a theory that dreams are a cognitive process?

Check this out.

I went into work today and my colleague told me about a dream he had. He told it like this......

Me and you were both together at work and the boss came up to us and said that we had to deliver a package down the road. Ok so we both decide to take the bus as its a fair old walk for the delivery . At the bus stop, you changed your mind and said "F&*k it, let's go to Stansted for the day". I wasn't too keen, worried about geting fired but you were very persuasive. We asked the bus driver and he said "No" but miraculously we ended up on the bus driving to Stansted.

Anyways, I then decided to go to Cambridge to visit a lady friend so we told the driver to change course as it was just down the road. So there we were in Cambridge. At this point you said, "While we are here let's go and see Syd Barrett".

Syd Barrett was in a nursing home so we went in and had a chat with him. The strange thing was he was actually a small Eric Sykes. After chatting with Syd for a few hours he then decided that we should both go round his house. We stole a car from one of the nurses and drove to Syd's house. His house happened to be on a run down council estate in Cambridge. We took ages to find it as Syd's directions were bad. Anyway we finally got there and all had a cup of tea.

Flippin' 'eck!!! What the hell was that about? Seriously people out there can interpret dreams but this has got to be beyond interpretation. The only justifiction was that my colleague had had macaroni cheese for dinner with a particularily mature english cheddar.

So I guess that makes any interpretation null and void?

Welcome to Mucho Danger!

Señor Tronosco's frequently asked questions?

1. Ok, so what's this?

Another Blog. I'm going to keep it simple, think before I blog and as James Brown once said, "We're gonna have a funky good time!"

2. Anyway, what's with the title?

Mucho danger (pronounced. moo-cho dan-jair) -An exclamation when faced with peril. I said it once in a state of multi-lingual confusion, obviously whilst facing a perilous situation.

3. What's it all about?

Lot's, nothing, anything, tomatoes, ideas on a postcard please.

4. Isn't this just a load of old blogglers?

Yes and No? It's what you make of it. So as, em, James Brown once said "I wanna get into it man....".

5. I'm disgusted/excited by this load of Old Blogglers, how do I make a complaint/get into it man?

To voice praise, disgust or downright confusion just comment me, link me, email me, bookmark me. The last one is a big wrinkly tomato, so come on don't be shy.

6. I've noticed your grammar and spelling is really shocking!

I would like to apologise for this but offer some form of justification(excuse). As you may know i'm a part-time practising multi-lingualist, as a result I feel my 'english skills' have become somewhat diluted. It would appear that my language memory only has a finite capacity and in order to learn more I have to shed a few english grammar and punctuation rules. Old age, work commitments, I dunno I just can't remember things like I used to!

7. What is the Search Engine Random Of The Week?

Well, my fancy web counter gives me information on the hits I get via Google. It also gives me the search words used, often with hilarious results!

8. The Perfect Tomato and I don't get the Competition?

Yep I love em. Check out my post for further information by linking here. Oh and don't forget the competition, the best picture judged by me wins. Yes, there is a prize, and the glory of seeing your masterpiece posted. Judging bribes accepted!

9. Some of the words are screwed up and don't display properly?

With my feeble knowledge of t'internet and HTML i'm guessing this is about page encoding. It works with Unicode(UTF-8). For IE users go to View->Encoding-> and select Unicode.

Hasta la pasta, niñas!