Avatar Phrase phase competition – Hallosween edition

You know what’s great about October?

No idea. No, I’m asking you what’s great about October. There’s very little to go on given the state of the weather and the fact that the heating seems to come on every five minutes.

Only kidding! Everyone knows that October is FUN FUN FUN because of Hallosween. Bring out your monsters! Bring out your chaps! It’s killing time for all. Sween!

Time for an unnecessarily themed edition of everyone’s favourite monthly phrase competition.

Before we start, let’s get a bunch of tired, boring pun-based phrases out of our system so we can let the “good” ones breathe properly:

  • Bat’ll be the end of me
  • Phrases? You don’t have a ghost of a chance of coming up with one
  • I don’t know, erm, witches for breakfast?
  • Fangs for the suggestions, owl take them on board

There. Much better.

Creepadelica (?):

  • Bonearino cappuccino! – crack this one off shortly before doing something silly like skydiving or purchasing butter insurance
  • Reel in that pumpkin, you’ve scored a blinder – agreeing with someone’s point so candidly you catch them off guard
  • A black cat between the eyes is worth two up the Dundee – something your granny would say and you’d be too scared to ask what she actually meant
  • Where where wolf beware, smell your children if you dare – childhood playground taunt that could work with the primary school crowds
  • Leave me covered in slutty witches why don’t you – the disappointment in your tone will dispel any confusion as to what you’re on about

Now that we’ve all been suitably chilled to the bone, what are your efforts? Can you come up with anything better? I’d like to see you try.

No, I’d really like to see you try. We barely get any contributions these days.

Avatar The Tip

Look, here’s the thing. We are all now men in our forties. We all own houses and our houses have gardens. Our tastes have changed. We have left behind clubbing, recreational drugs and happy slapping. Our interests and pursuits now are more sedate. And it is time – in fact, I think if we’re all honest with ourselves, it is long past time – that we paid our respect to one of the great joys of middle aged life. I am talking about The Tip.

Nowadays, of course, it’s called a Household Amenity Recycling and Waste Compartmentalisation Zone, but nobody actually calls it that. I know that the council website refers to it by a long name and an acronym at least five letters long, but everyone just calls it The Tip.

What I want to know is, how good is your local tip? I’ve lived near some pretty average ones in my time but we lucked out when we bought our house. My local tip is excellent.

It doesn’t have a huge landfill next to it with seagulls constantly circling overhead, which the one near Swillington used to when I was a kid. It’s one of those little places that just has a line of massive skips and you back your car up to them, and presumably they get emptied and all the crap gets taken away somehow. But I’m willing to overlook that for three key benefits.

  1. Proximity. The Tip is five minutes away in the car. Discarding my worldly belongings is therefore very convenient.
  2. Friendliness. The Tip is staffed by four or five people who are usually having a laugh with each other and are very happy to direct you to the right place when you bring something unusual. Half the time they will do the unloading for you and wave you off with a smile. I did not know a tip could be like this.
  3. No queues. Previous tips I have known have involved a mile of queueing to get inside. Not round here. There’s a booking system, so you go online, book your slot, and when you turn up you get in straight away. You never wait. It’s a revelation. They should all work like this.

Filling a car with junk that’s been cluttering up the house, loft, garage or garden and then slinging it all away is one of the real highlights of middle aged life. You know it to be true, of course you do, but I have to admit I was doubting it recently, until I got home from The Tip and Kate asked whether she could come next time. So we’ll going together, because she wants to go to The Tip as well, and feel the rush of throwing all our old crap into a big skip.

Here’s to The Tip, everyone.

Avatar Sultry Robin swag

You know what all the cool kids are talking about these days? Ian’s “Face Uncle” YouTube channel. He’s gone viral. He’s taken off. He’s an influencer now.

Because I know Ian – like, I even knew him before he’d started the Face Uncle channel, back when he still had time to talk to the little people like me – I got in early with his merch. I’m delighted to say that my Sultry Robin swag turned up recently.

Obviously, I’ve got a beautiful Sultry Robin print to hang on my wall.

And I can look at my Sultry Robin print while drinking tea from my personalised Sultry Robin mugs.

One of them says “Sultry Robin”, and the other one says “Mr Kate and Mrs Chris” to celebrate my recent nuptials.

Thanks, Face Uncle. Now I’m nearly as cool as you.

Avatar The end of Zero

It is with a heavy heart that I pass on the bad news that my car, Zero, has gone to the big car park in the sky.

She developed a fault that was too expensive to repair and so she was scrapped like so many before her.

The process was long and annoying, so I won’t bore you with the details.

Nine years we were together. After the disaster of that black piss dispenser someone sold me that only lasted six months, and temporarily borrowing the “yellow peril”, with zany automatic sliding doors that could cut you in half, Zero was the big boy car I had always wanted and needed.

So long, farewell, some European goodbyes and I’m done.

Avatar excellent_logo.gif

The other day I was driving home from my nightshift and found myself sitting in traffic waiting for the lights to change. In my rear view mirror was a tipper truck from a company called Space Rubbish who do commercial rubbish clearance. Their logo caught my eye. It looks like this.

Obviously the Comic Sans lettering is eye-catching enough as it is, but the colourful logo on the left is what I found myself staring at. I knew that from somewhere. I’m pretty sure it was clipart that I’d used to make my own logos back when I first got a PC. I think – but after extensive internet searching and AI asking, I still can’t be entirely sure – that it came with Microsoft Publisher ’97. It looked a bit like this. (I had to draw it myself because I can’t find the original.)

I was just smiling to myself at the idea that this company had made their own logo in Publisher 97 using clipart and Comic Sans, and that they were still using it now, with versions of it plastered over all their lorries nearly 30 years later, when the traffic going the other way came to a stop and just to my right was a van owned by a company called Pride Installations Limited. Apparently they do electrical work and refurbish houses for landlords, that kind of thing. Anyway, the logo on the side of their van looked like this.

I don’t know if the drivers of the two vans saw each others’ logos, but I hope they did. Now I wonder how many more companies are using the same 1990s clipart as their corporate logo. I hope there’s loads of them.

Avatar It’s back

They moved the sign indoors before I could photograph it, but don’t worry, I got proof.

The rumours are true. It’s back.

Finally, after all this time, the Richoux Cruffin is back. You’ve been waiting a long time, I know you have. It’s been agony. We’ve all felt it. We have all felt the hollow feeling inside since the Richoux Cruffin left us.

You’ve been bereft without it. You’ve tried to satisfy yourself with other Cruffins – but all of them were inferior. Nothing was ever quite like a Richoux Cruffin. And on the rare occasions you managed to get some other Richoux products, none of them ever had that quintessential Cruffinniness.

You might wonder where the Richoux Cruffin went. Where did it go, and why did it have to leave us for so long? But that’s private. The Richoux Cruffin does not answer to you. It departs on a whim and it comes back when it’s ready. The only thing to do is be grateful that it has finally returned.

You have been dreaming of this moment for such a long time. So, go. Go now and get yourself the Richoux Cruffin. It’s back, and now you and the Richoux Cruffin can be together forever.