Today, legislation came into effect that outlaws businesses to either manufacture or import of 100W light bulbs, or frosted light bulbs of any wattage. And despite the fact that if having to make do with a 60W light bulb is the biggest problem in your life, you don't have the right to complain about a single fucking thing... people have still been complaining.
Mostly this is all just background noise; a combination of people's inherent distrust of EU policy, fear of change, and love of grumbling.
So I was surprised this evening when, as I explained the situation to a customer, she came out with the phrase, "Oh good lord Jesus, save us from this wicked world." With not even the slightest hint of sarcasm.
I felt that this was maybe a slightly over-the-top reaction to being forced to use more energy efficient bulbs that might help delay the complete extinction of the human race by a few weeks. But, as a mere till monkey, I know better than to express an opinion; so I got on with scanning her stuff, put it all in a bag and said, "That'll be £16.55 please, madam."
Which she took as her cue to explain to me how Jesus would return to us one day, and show us the way forwards, but the Antichrist would try to make us all believe that he was lying, and that we had to put our faith in him, and something about how one day everything and everyone will be wiped out and the world will be returned to all it's original beauty and splendour, and she wasn't exactly sure how it was going to happen, but it definitely would...
I quickly started to glaze over, an instinctive reaction to stop her rampant insanity from infecting me through the pores of my skin and warping my fragile little mind. She could not be stopped, not even slowed down, no matter how many times I said stuff like, "Really?", "That'll be nice", and "So, how about that £16.55 then?"
A European ban on 100W and frosted incandescent light bulbs was the herald of the rise of the forces of evil, and prelude to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This woman was consumed, irrational, capable of anything.
FIRE IS THE ONLY CURE
A couple of weeks ago, Matt "Say What You Want About The Tenets Of National Socialism, At Least It's An Ethos" Smith and Laura decided to go to Bristol's annual Italian car show (rather than accidentally stumble upon it, as they have done for the last few years), and they were kind enough to invite me along too. Unsurprisingly, the Italian Car Show consisted mainly of Italian cars... (click each picture for more photos)
Ferrari...
...Maserati...
...Lamborghini...
...Alfa Romeo...
...Lancia...
...and Ascari, which is actually a British car, but is named after an Italian racing driver, so that's okay.
Apparently only 17 of those Ascaris were ever built; and only 9 of those are still in existence, the remaining 8 having been "destroyed" (presumably by overenthusiastic owners who ran out of talent at some key moment). You'd have thought the owner of this one might have bothered to clean it...
The day after I found myself in London with the family, visiting Dr Sister in her nice new house. Well, some of the time was spent in her shiny new house; the rest of it was spent racing around the neighbouring town of Pinner.
In a wheelbarrow.
The rules were quite simple; each team must consist of two people, and one of them must be in the wheelbarrow at all times. The other one gets to push. There are five checkpoints, and you must each down half a pint at every checkpoint. The first team to arrive at the car park of the Queens Head is the winner.
As it happens, we were the last team to arrive at the car park of the Queens Head, but we at least retained some small amount of dignity by not being sick at any of the checkpoints.
And the next weekend, Matt and I got dragged to some weird ass shenanigan by Alan and Dory. Dory didn't give much away about the details of said shenanigan; but our suspicions were aroused by the presence of men in faceless masks, riding impossibly tall bicycles and jousting against imaginary foes whilst we queued...
Turns out we were queuing up to get into Carny Ville, a moderately insane steam punk Victorian freak show apparition.
And it was freakin' cool. Here's a tiny bit of what happened.
- Some chick put a spoon in her nose and served tea.
- Dory played on a severed head coconut shy.
- Lobotomized twins messed about on silks.
- Matt played ping-pong with the devil.
- I got summoned onto stage for a dance-off against a guy called Barry in front of, like, a thousand people.
- Ghosts walked down the side of a building.
- The whole thing ended with an apocalyptic turn-off-the-century outdoors dance party.
More (crappy) photos here.
Amazing.
