Author: Ian “Toasty” McIver

Avatar “You can’t mack it, old timer”

This is what we used to say prior to attempting a jump in the video game ‘Driver’. You’d be flooring the accelerator, trying to make your car somehow leap over a truck the length of a swimming pool or some other ridiculous feat. The other person sat with you, because it was a communal thing, would look at what you were attempting and read the line. We were both 17 or 18 so it was funny because neither of us were old. Hilarious.

I have done a lot of ill-advised things. The list could probably run into twenty plus items, however I did a similar post covering this ground before, so we won’t go through that again. What I am trying to set up is the problematic approach when you decided to do too many things at the same time because that is always ill-advised.

I have moved into my new job but the induction and proper training doesn’t begin until the first week of September. I am also due to purchase a house shortly, meaning next month will be spent moving our possessions into the new house, researching carpets and paint colours, getting a new garage door installed, painting the downstairs and assembling the furniture etc. I know neither of you two have bought a house before but these are the kinds of jobs you will expect to complete.

A few days into joining my new team, getting to know everyone and watching how it functions, someone asked me if I had any interest in running and I said that I did. Indeed, it is the only “sport” (if you can call it that) that I seem to be good at and don’t mind doing twice a week. This then led to an invitation to joining the team charity event happening in September and, wanting to make a good first impression, I accepted. It was then that I realised that I had misinterpreted what was expected of me.

The blurb said that you had to run 100 miles over the course of September. I took this to mean that the 100 miles was split between however many people there were on the team, therefore the reason for asking me to join was to make more money for the charity and ease the burden on the other people doing the running. What it actually said though is that every participant has to run 100 miles. There is no sharing. That’s 100 miles over 30 days amounting to roughly 3.3 miles a day per person.

As a running potato, I have at best managed 2.5 miles with two days rest in-between and then another 2.5 miles. I now have a week in order to get better at running to somehow achieve this magnificent feat. What I want from you though is your cold, hard cash to help ease my September because I’m going to be busy every day and my sorry ass needs all the help it can get.

Ian’s Giving Page (cancerresearchuk.org)

I’ve already had several very generous donations so there’s no backing out, this is definitely happening. Time to chug my chutney and get out on the streets in my shorts and sweaty t-shirt.

Avatar It’s got CBA written all over it

There are times when we all have good intentions, when we’ve set out to do the best or the right thing only to fall at the first hurdle. “Yes, I intended to sit down and set up that subscription to support the homeless cats in Greece but there’s a repeat of ‘Changing Rooms’ on that I cannot miss.” Things like that.

Laziness is apparent in human beings more than all the positive traits we got going. It’s all too easy to wave off your obligations with a swift, “I can’t be bothered” because it’s Friday night or it’s Sunday morning or it’s three weeks to Kwanzaa and I still haven’t figured out what I’m wearing. We’ve all got excuses in spades.

Recently I was browsing the World of Books website to see what games they had in stock. It seems as though madness has taken over because their prices are even more laughable than the stuff on Ebay. I’m not sure who’s been doing their pricing but they need to calm the chuff down. What did make me do a double take though is contained in the image below:

Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know what bloody game this is. It looks to be Chinese or Japanese, beyond that I’m lost. Clearly the person doing the listing had the same problems because rather than translating the title or looking it up on Google, they chose to set it as the wonderfully-named ‘????????? 2’.

Beautiful. Don’t change a thing.

This is a phoned-in job if ever I saw one. I only hope they get the first ‘?????????’ game donated in too so they can be sold together as a set.

Avatar Newsboost – Consider me considered

The July 2024 ‘Consider Me’ movement released by unsuspecting labouring footstool peddler, Chris Marshall, has seen momentum over the last few weeks and things seem to be getting more and more interesting.

By the end of July, three new people had already considered him. The day after, two more people had thought about considering him and after a few arguments it was decided that thinking about considering something still counts as considering something.

A couple from Pitsea read the article and were more than happy to consider him and did so with great gusto.

Hebburn Town Women’s football club were rumoured to be considering Chris but only if the weather allowed it. Reports have since come in that they turned down the idea of considering him after considering a weekend away in Amsterdam instead, which seemed the better of the two.

Experts have predicted that at least a dozen more people have considered or will be considering him over the next few days, with figures expected to double by this time next week.

How far will this ridiculous campaign go? Only time will tell.

Avatar Good deed o’clock

What’s a modern day hero to you? Is it someone who saves your life after getting your tie caught in a printing press or is it the person who hands you your sandwich and wishes you a good day? What even classes as a good deed anymore when the tiniest thing can be misconstrued or misunderstood?

It’s a good job that I’m such a good egg, ready to put all of you to shame with the sheer wealth the SHEER PLETHORA of good deeds that I’ve knocked up this month. My days have been brimming with altruism that I don’t even know where to start. I suppose I’ll have to cut them down to, I don’t know, a list of three, the three main ones, so that you don’t all die of embarrassment.

Don’t tell me that I never do anything for you.

  1. Package save – when I was out walking the doggo one afternoon-o I chanced upon a package in the street-o. The delivery truck-o must have dropped it-o when they were doing something else. I took it back home and checked where the address-o was and, thankfully, it wasn’t too far away-o. Later on that day-o, I posted it through the person’s letterbox so that they safely received their goods.
  2. Pigeon save – when I was out walking the doggo one afternoon (again?), we turned the corner and I went to put the doggo’s poo bag in the bin. What I wasn’t expecting was a pigeon to be staring back at me from inside the bin. It looked a big manky and had green stuff smeared on its wing, as if someone had thrown a drink and showered the poor thing. I ran back to the flat, picked up a few items and then carefully (hands wrapped in empty poo bags) scooped it up and placed it on the floor. After a drink of water, it looked a lot better. I was reluctant to give it food in case this was some kind of pigeon grift and a thousand pigeons all flocked towards me as soon as I brought out a bag of breadcrumbs.
  3. Spoon save – I gave a friend at work a plastic spoon so they could eat their breakfast.

Personally, I think the last one is the most important because if you don’t have the right implement, how are you going to eat your oats? Think about it.

Avatar One from the Archives – “Lyrics”

What do you do when you have a habit of keeping almost every scrap of paper that either someone wrote something on or drew a silly picture on? Eventually you have no choice but to sift through that paper and determine what stays and what goes.

As a parent, I was duty bound to keep a lot of Reuben’s pictures. Some were merely because they were cute and reminded me of simpler times, others were because they were downright weird and prompted referring to a psychiatrist for confirmation as to whether it was time to call the men in white coats. Shame you can’t call it a looney bin anymore because it’s not politically correct. It’s not a real bin full of loonies, how would anyone ever confuse a large building full of crazy people with a bin? Silly. I suppose looney building doesn’t have the same ring to it. “I’m going to put you in a looney office,”

Mixed in with some frightening scribbles of monsters ripping people in two and an invention of mine called the ‘Scuba Umbrella’, I found some hand-written lyrics for two of the Papples most played / most requested / best loved songs of all times: ‘Mincey Beef’ and ‘(Do it)’, the latter of which is a lot harder to type at 11pm at night.

Does it offer an insight into the collective minds at work? Does it share the rare genius hammering out the hits during a prolific time in their career? Not really. The top left-hand corner reveals what I think I was trying to crowbar into the song: mince, beef (obviously), nen tosh, Shergar (?), Aberdeen angus and no neddy beef. The rest is pretty much the lyrics of the song verbatim with the odd tweak here and there, no doubt as a result of hours of sweat and toil in the recording studio working out the best arrangement.

Let us not forget the immortal words: “Beef is back, meat attack.”

‘(Do it)’ is less interesting because there was only two strips of lyrics and nothing on the back. These were probably used as the starting blocks of the songs because they were transferred to somewhere more permanent, a larger piece of paper or a notebook, or maybe even a word document. It’s hard to remember the long ago times as we all know.

Avatar Dangle a dongle

A dongle is a gay wooden jigsaw puzzle designed to hang on the wall.

It comes with your own initials carved out of it.

And you can choose whether you have a bird, cat, dog, Christmas tree, train or flower motif at the bottom.

Directions: use paper and an envelope. Enclose 80p for each letter of your initial or name.

Ask for: a dongle. State the initials and motif that you want.

Write to: Dept FSFK, Puzzleplex, Stubbs Walden, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN6 9BY