THE CURMUDGEON EXPRESS

THE CURMUDGEON EXPRESS

Monday, October 30, 2017

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE WAY BIRDS POOP?




I was watching a sparrow this morning.
It was out on our deck, hopping about, pecking and rubbing its beak on the garden furniture (which fortunately hadn't blown over in the high winds we had during the night) when suddenly - poop!



Just like that. Out shot a stream of poop. It didn't appear to have ben planned. The bird didn't take up any specific position. No, it was just going about its normal business and then did its business without changing tack.

Humans (except of course for babies), cats, dogs and most other animals plan on taking a dump and position themselves accordingly.

Birds don't seem to give a shit ..... er, well they do give a shit, lots of them but they don't seem to care where or when they do it.

What's that all about?

Monday, October 23, 2017

PARENTAL SKILLS - WHAT PARENTING SKILLS?

We went to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017 at the Auckland War Memorial Museum yesterday.



This is outstanding and I hope that you get to see this.

If you do go on a week day when there are no kids there. We went on a wet Sunday morning - bad decision. I'll go again next time when I'm in Auckland at a quieter time. Kids were running amok and showed very little interest in the displayed photographs. When they did show interest it was invariably misplaced.

At one point a kid was jumping up and slapping his hands against a photo. He (about 7) did this several times. His gormless dad was standing about 3 feet away and watching. I had enough. I stepped forward and said to the brat "That's enough you can stop doing that". The kid stopped and slouched away. Gormless dad did and said nothing.

Friday, October 20, 2017

MAJOR ARSEHOLE



ASSHOLES

GRRRRRR!





Hearing that the David Byrne concert in February was cancelled made me go "GRRRR".

This made me think of The Old Girl. She says "GRRRR".
Grrrr is an onomatopoeic word. It's funny because you don't think of people actually using it as it's normally just written but she does.

When I hear her going "GRRRR" it's best that I disappear. I was in the hallway the other day when I heard the "GRRRR" from the bathroom. When I poked my head around the door I got the full blast of "Why can't you put the top back on the toothpaste properly".

Other triggers for the "GRRRR"are: me not stacking the dishwasher properly; me not emptying the dishwasher; me not hanging out the washing properly; me not folding the washing properly; me not tucking in the sheets properly .................. etc.


ROAD TO NOWHERE






Bummer! I received the New Zealand Festival 20178 catalogue through the post yesterday and was delighted to see that David Byrne was scheduled to perform in Wellington on 28 February.



I immediately checked Air New Zealand for cheap flights and was just about to book but then, wisely, decided to book the concert tickets first. It turns out that Byrne's New Zealand trip has been cancelled.


Wednesday, October 18, 2017

I'M HERE

The Swiebodzin Jesus (Poland) that I mentioned in a previous post -

YOU CAN'T BRING THAT IN


 - has been completed.



It started from the head



with the body in segments added.



Robert will no doubt be pleased.

A REAL BREW

Richard thought that by doing some painting he deserved a beer afterwards.
He probably had a bottle of some pansy lager.
What he needs to try is some real beer in a man size glass like you get in Yorkshire:



It helps, in that neck of the woods, to wear a flat cap.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

STONED AND HAPPY

I looked for Willow this evening as she hadn't come in for her dinner.

I found her sitting in the pot of Catnip I planted. She was looking most pleased!


THIS IS HIGH

Too bloody high for me to paint.


Photo changed to please a pedantic old schoolteacher



Monday, October 16, 2017

GETTING OLD AND DO-LALLY

The Old Girl's favourite film is Bladerunner so she happily saw the 'sequel' Bladerunner 2049 the other day and enjoyed it. I will go to see it soon.



Bladerunner was loosely based on Philip K Dick's novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which she has read, so, when we saw that Netflix were going to be screening a new series - Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams we tuned in last night. I clicked on what I thought was the link and we watched an hour long programme about computer hacking and political intrigue. It looked a bit futuristic so all was good. When the programme rolled over to the next in the series with a continuation of story-line and the same characters The Old Girl said "I thought that this Philip K Dick series was going to be all one-off stories". I checked and sure enough we were watching an entirely different series named Mr Robot.




Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams doesn't even start until next week.

Sunday, October 15, 2017

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF CRAP


We went to see Kingsman 2 The Golden Circle today as it was a grey Sunday.



Boy was this crap.
The special effects are outstanding but it left me with an overwhelming feeling of a huge waste of money - not just the money we spent going to see it - no the millions of dollars spent in creating a load of crap.

I think of all the great novels, old and new that haven't been made into films because of lack of funds or worse, ones that have been made into films but have been done badly and on the cheap.

Unfortunately filmgoers today aren't interested in quality they just want a lot of stupid violence and effects.