Underneath my car 2

It’s almost two years since we all joined hands and took an emotional journey underneath my car. Two years of laughter, tears and general wear and tear. Two years of usage in all weathers.

There has, naturally, been a clamour from people of all nationalities and faiths to know what’s become of the underside of my vehicle in the intervening time. And who am I to stand in their way? So a couple of weeks ago, I returned my car to the same garage who made the first weird video and asked them for a full service.

Service completed, another weird video of the underside of my car was duly texted to my phone, and I have spent an afternoon trying to download it from a website that has been very specifically and cleverly designed to prevent videos being downloaded. I then set it to stupid music.

Here we are then. Join me once more as we go… underneath my car one more time.

Underneath Chris’s Car 2020 FAQ

Q. The tread depth looks a bit low on the front tyres, is that OK?

A. Yes, I know. But they have at least another half a year on them so it’s fine. I’ll get them sorted later.

Q. Why was there no Underneath My Car video in late 2019/early 2020?

A. I don’t know. My car had a service but they didn’t make me a video. I was genuinely a bit disappointed about it.

Q. How did the MOT go? This was its first MOT wasn’t it?

A. Yes it was. You’ll be pleased to know that my car passed with flying colours.

Thank you.

Spying on nature

Ages ago, we got a transparent bird feeder that attaches to a window with suckers. When birds come to have some lunch, we can see them. It’s nice.

Lately I’ve been on a quest to get a picture of one of them and it’s harder than you think. If you move too much, they dart away, so you can’t just grab your phone and walk over. And if you’re not up close, they’ll be too small in a picture anyway.

Anyway, the other day I left my phone propped up by the window and set it recording, and then just left it for about 45 minutes. The downside was that, half an hour later, I spent some time swearing copiously and scouring the flat for a phone I thought I’d stupidly lost. The upside was that (once I remembered I hadn’t lost it and had deliberately left it recording) I found that I’d captured our robin friend paying a visit.

So here’s the video of our robin. It’s not very funny or silly but I think it’s pretty cool. I like him. I’m glad he enjoys dining with us.

Splashing out

I don’t like Black Friday. I don’t like that it’s an American thing that makes no sense here, and I don’t like that it’s a ridiculous incentive to buy stupid crap I don’t need, and I don’t like that it causes stampedes of morons to trash shops in the hope of getting a bargain on a games console. I don’t like Black Friday.

So when Black Friday rolls around I take a principled stand and refuse to take part. My morals are stronger than my desire for bargains. Or so I thought.

This year I happened to be doing some Christmas shopping online when I hit on the Amazon list of Black Friday deals, and something turned my head.

I couldn’t resist. I was weak. I bought it.

I splashed out a totally unplanned £5, and now I have a pack of five adhesive cable clips in a range of sizes to keep all my wires tidy at the back of my desk.

Im not proud of it. But at least, when my standards slipped, it was for a just cause.

Frothies

I recently discovered something I didn’t know, which is that there is a word in the English language that breaks my brain. I can’t process it. Something about it just doesn’t fit inside my head.

The word is “froths”.

This came up the other day when I needed to describe something frothy to someone. I attempted to say that it “froths up”, but every time I tried to say it, my head got stuck and the word that came out was “frothies”. I made four attempts to say “froths”, all of which were “frothies”, and then I gave up and started a new sentence that avoided using the word altogether.

I don’t know why this is. I don’t know how long this has afflicted me. I know the word “froths” exists, of course. I can sit here and type it. But each time I’m approaching the point of typing it, my brain first suggests “frothies”, and even now – even knowing that this is a problem, and that the word is coming up, and being conscious that I might get it wrong, I still can’t say it right on the first attempt.

I have decided that, from now on, I’m just going to stay away from any bubbly, foamy or otherwise aereated liquids as a way of avoiding the problem completely. That’s definitely the answer.

Bank holidays

There’s a serious problem that we have all been completely failing to address, and it’s been going on for too long now. I have decided to fix it. The arrangement of bank holidays across the year is inconsistent, unfair and stupid.

Just look at this chart showing where all the bank holidays fell in 2020. What a mess.

Just spacing them out evenly wouldn’t bring an end to this madness, because there’s only seven of them. That would mean a wait of 52 days between free days off work, a barely acceptable waiting time.

The solution is obvious. More bank holidays, sprinkled evenly throughout the year, so we get one about every two weeks. That’s a massive win. Here’s my suggested list.

New Year’s Day
Blue Monday
Pancake Day
Box Set Thursday
Spring Cleaning Day
St Patrick’s Heavy Drinking Day
Good Friday
Easter Monday
First T-Shirt Day of the Year
Eurovision Day
The Other May Bank Holiday
Boxing Day (relocated)
Wimbledon Finals Day
Beer Garden Friday
Barbecue Day
Holiday Packing Day
Summer Bank Holiday
DFS Sale Day
Steak Pie and Mash Day
Winter Coat Day
Wellies and Leaf Crunching Day
Bonfire Night
Pyjama Wednesday
Christmas Shopping Day
Christmas Day
New Year’s Eve

This results in a much better spread of bank holidays through the year, as shown below.

Please consider this the start of my campaign to enshrine these new bank holidays in law, and also the start of my campaign to be Prime Minister. Thank you.

Four Word Reviews: The Colour of My Love

Ah! Celine Dion. Sometimes the random albums that arrive on my doorstep are a bit of a mystery, but we all know Celine Dion. One of the most popular artists the world has ever known, shifting more than 200 million albums worldwide, she isn’t just one of the biggest selling English acts of all time (although, yes, she is), but she achieved that having only learned to speak English around the age of 20, four or five years before The Colour of My Love was released, and continued releasing French-language albums in between her English releases. She also speaks and performs songs in Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. (Thanks, Wikipedia.)

What we have here is her second English language album, released in 1993, and the source of several of her biggest hits, The Colour of My Love.

Badvert

I don’t know if you’re familiar with Toffifee. It’s a sort of over-packaged nutty caramel confection that a distant relative might buy a grandparent for Christmas, or that might be the only product you recognise if you visit a German supermarket.

In a move common to all European confectionary when it’s advertised in the UK, Toffifee released a new TV advert a couple of months ago that has somehow made it on to the airwaves without anyone involved realising that it looks at least 30 years out of date. Presumably nobody involved in the entire campaign had any sense of irony.

This post isn’t really about anything other than my need to share with you just how naff the whole thing is.

Down

There’s a button labelled “down”, but it’s not a lift. In fact the button appears to be attached to some sort of horn or flange.

Pressing the button must, therefore, do something down related using the flangehorn.

I concluded that a push of the button would result in large amounts of feathery duck down being sprayed out of the hornhole into my face.

I declined to push the button.

Pouring
Beans

Author: Chris5156