I use the “reminders” app on my phone quite a lot, because I am forgetful. It’s clever because you can get it to remind you about something at a particular time, and then once you tick the reminder to say you’ve done it, it just disappears. Poof! Gone.
Except it’s not gone, it seems. If you open up one of the menus and tell it to show you completed reminders, there they all are. All of them. Mine go right back to 2011.
I had a scroll through and most of them are very boring. Some of them are not. Here are some things I have been reminded to do in years gone by.
I don’t know what most of these mean.
Go to bloody Richmond FFS Crisps Windy tomorrow Hotel????? Fg More wontons Dentist/ear/tip Post Ian a picture of a fist R4 debacle Go go go Listen to the thing Look for workman Brioche and food Family pictures sending please Ask about onion soup Friday The Hoodie Problem Mike is going to phone you at 4 Remind Steve to freeze three (3) breaded chicken breast fillets and retain one (1) chicken breast steak in the refridgerator AAAAAAAAAAAA Clean crap out of headphone jack Tinsel, silver: six metresworth Hello! Sorry for the slow reply, I was at work and then I was very, very asleep. Eyyyyyy mate Make some decisions UKIP weather Pester Kev Give Joe ten pounds Sterling Post to the Beans
I think this confirms that my transition to middle age is now complete. A few weeks ago I cleared out the garage, which had become a bit of a dumping ground, and decided it was time to finally put the space to better use. Every time there’s been a bit of DIY on the go, you see, I’ve ended up sawing and sanding and painting things on the garage floor. This is bad for my back, the floor and the end result.
My purchase of a small folding workmate bench a year ago has helped with this, but only so much. So I built myself a workbench, using bits of wood I’d pulled out of the loft when I boarded it out and some cupboard doors that were meant for the new kitchen but which had a paint defect.
I had expected it to be wobbly and uneven and possibly even end up rocking backwards and forwards if you touched it, but to my enormous surprise it is both level and extremely sturdy.
So this is just to say that I built a piece of very solid furniture from scratch, it was the highlight of my week, and I am now a middle aged man. Thank you.
Hey you, over there! Stop chugging that chutney and come over here.
You look spritely and young on the outside but how does that compare with your disgusting insides? How can we know that the you within reflects the you without… withunder… outside? That’s right. The only way that you can know how you you are is by taking this short and pointless test.
Aging is compulsory. There is no way round it no matter how many cups of water you drink, how many creams you smear on your face, how many plastic sur’gries you undertake and how many virgins you kill on the first full moon of the month. For each of the below that applies to you add one point to your score and then check your total at the bottom:
Getting into / out of a chair emits a noise you didn’t know was possible and you’ve never heard it before.
You can’t sit on the floor anymore without struggling to get up.
Your neck isn’t comfortable in any position and sounds like a cement mixer when you change angles too quickly.
If you sit too long, you feel tired. If you walk too much, you feel tired. If you get the right balance of both, you still feel tired.
Trying to step over a moderately-sized fence is akin to trying to push a buffalo into a milk bottle.
Drinking any liquids after a certain point in the evening means at least half a dozen trips to the bog in the night.
You’ve got more lines on your face that your average Hollywood script.
Your hair is more a memory than anything else.
People around you at work weren’t born when you were still in Sixth Form.
When you hear a song on the radio you like and realise you accidentally put on ‘Smooth’.
You now have to check the length of the hair in your ears and nostrils before you leave the house in case they need clipping.
For 0 to 3 points – You’re young, look at you, with your big shoes and your shiny eyes. Get out of my sight, you sicken me!
For 4 to 6 points – So you’re not quite as youthful as you thought you were but hey, we’ve all been there. It could be much, much worse (see below).
For 7 to 9 points – Oh dear, looks as though adult-sized nappies and 7pm bedtimes are on the horizon. Don’t make any long-term plans.
For anything 10 and over – We both knew this from the start. Get your slippers on, grandad, it’s time for your cod liver oil.
I don’t check the undertaker’s window very often, which means I don’t really keep myself abreast of all the latest undertaking fashions. That’s on me. It’s my problem and I’m doing what I can to address it.
Recently I paused at the window of an undertaker in Petersfield – a wealthy market town in the Hampshire countryside, so not exactly the haunt of the trashy or the tasteless. I expected that what I’d see through the window would all be sombre and reverent. But no: undertaking fashions have moved on, and I have been left behind. It turns out that even in the deeply traditional home counties countryside, picture coffins are now a thing. They had a window full of them.
We’ve crept into 2023. I side-stepped in a few days ago, crimsonly of course, and it looks and feels very much like 2022. There’s a distinct 2022 sheen over the whole thing. I expect this is how most years will be now, a smear of what happened previously, everything looking awfully familiar with only a few choice moments to differentiate the two. Yes, I know that does sound awfully bleak for the first post of the year. I’m fine with it and you should be too, so deal with it.
The good news is that based on the comments from my last post it seems like a great time for a poll;
What is the most ‘Ianiest’ thing ever?
We all know that the years have been littered with a lot of ‘Ian’ stuff from things that I’ve said to things that I’ve done or even things that I said I would do. Here’s a few that immediately come to mind:
The time I decided to eat a raw red onion and asked Reuben to film me doing it. It took about four attempts because of the strength of the onion. I couldn’t taste anything else for the next three days.
Sending letters out as audio tapes on a Dictaphone (aka ‘the Mackford Files’).
The time you were both visiting and we took Reuben out to the park. When it started raining (I hate this, why did I do this?) I took off my t-shirt and used it to dry the slide so Reuben wouldn’t get wet.
After a night out, standing in the queue for the takeaway behind some policemen, throwing up quietly into a plastic cup because I’d drank too much.
Trying to bring back the “finger wiggle dance” from the 1920’s and 1930’s to the 21st century with very little success (which, after a very brief look on the internet, may be called ‘Truckin’ – “The right hand is held up (as in a right turn signal) with the index finger extended and wagging.”) I’m still working on the Lindy Hop.
Getting half-cut off three pints, catching an Uber home, cooking Reuben’s tea, doing the washing up and then hopping on a bus back to town for more drinks.
Given that our subscription numbers are decidedly low, it will not be a vote and instead all submissions will be judged by myself and assembled into a numerical list in a future post. I will have the final say on what is the ‘Ianiest’ of all time although I will allow some general input once the top five (or three, or two if the cupboards are running dry) has been compiled. This therefore guarantees me a future post which is a win in my book.
I’ve done too many things to remember so I need your help to recollect because, as we all know, “Remembering is fun”.
We definitely need to copyright that at some point.
We bought our house from people who thought they’d be living there forever. They didn’t, because we sent them away so that we could have it all for ourselves. I regret nothing.
Anyway, last week we pulled all the wallpaper off the walls in what had been their baby room, and found a charming memento painted behind it that had presumably been intended to last for many years.
It lasted five years and we’ve painted over it. But here it is, a message from five Novembers ago, just to prove it once existed.
A year ago, when it was twenty years on from the founding of Zyurisizia, I wrote a post about the fledgling nation that Ian and I helped to birth, and we had a short conversation about what its flag looked like.
My contribution was only that I had “a feeling it involved triangles”. Ian dredged up slightly more detail, recalling “triangles and a red circle, a bit like the Chinese flag”, though in what way that resembled the flag of China, which has no triangles and no red circle, I don’t know. We then recalled that territory was claimed by fastening the flag to the longest pole we could find, and planting that in the ground in various places.
Luckily I have now found my Office Memorabilia CD, so after a year of impatient waiting, you’ll be pleased to know the answer is now with us.
The capital city, which was the Office, was claimed with a hand-drawn flag on a 30cm ruler.
We then moved on to claim the Wildlife Area a few days later, by which point we had a more professional flag on a metre ruler.
I haven’t visited the Scholars Gate housing development to check, but I assume the flag is still prominently flying there somewhere.
For your peace of mind, this is probably all the Zyurisizia nostalgia there is to be had, so next year you’re probably safe from a “twenty two years on” type post. Still, lots of fun was had by all concerned.
Look at me and be inspired. What have I done for the last 38 years of my life? Good question. Next please.
What I have done is devoted my life to the very simple practice of picking up a thing and playing an imaginary thing on it. Some people have chosen to call these ‘video games’. I refuse to adopt this because I do not believe it accurately describes the thing. I call them ‘gamebopolies’. Only the most hard-core and committed members of the gaming community follow my lead because, yes, I am a leader.
Today’s topic is something close to my heart. As a child I would spend hours upon hours upon more hours playing gamebopolies on this most sacred of systems. What am I talking about? Why, young scamps, of course I’m referring to the Gamestation. Pull up a Tiktok and I’ll spin you a tale:
Photos of the console itself are not permitted under the Geneva Convention
The Gamestation was released in April 1995 by the Icelandic tech giant, Pony. The Pony Gamestation was released as a direct competitor to Shintendo’s upcoming Shintendo 54 and Trega’s Shattern consoles. Nobody expected Iceland to be capable of manufacturing such a complicated piece of electrical equipment as prior to this they were only known for ice, ice cubes and the DNA double helix (both the physical structure that exists in the human body that contains the information for creating and operating living systems and also the bitchin’ sound system capable of producing 100 decibels of might that has caused the hospitalisation of over one hundred and fifty people).
The Gamestation hit hard. The games were cheap to produce as they used playing cards for games instead of cartridges tat the previous generations had adtoped. For example, if you placed an ace of clubs, you would be greeted with ‘Grand Theft Auto’ whereas a simple three of hearts farted ‘Bubsy 3D’ in your general direction. Shintendo’s choices during this era of gamebopolies was noted as being a little short-sighted and they lost the war for the moment. They would have to wait ten years before they regained the momentum of the previous decade. Trega had already been losing ground for months prior and the Shattern did nothing to persuade the casual gamers of the age to set sail from Pony’s hallowed lake of sweet, sweet goodness.
PC gaming at the time was expensive. Only billionaires could afford a PC and therefore what little gamebopolies were released could only be played by Bill Gates and whatever other billionaires existed back in the mid-nineties. Hugh Heffner? Yeah him. And the two women from the ‘Philadelphia’ adverts, they must have had a giant wad. For example, Doom II on the PC only sold fifteen copies. It was a brilliant game by all standards: brooding, dark, quick of pace and maliciously violent. The only way little Jimmy was playing some Doom II though was if his older brother was a rich Texan oil baron.
I remember coming home from school and reaching straight for my Gamestation control nodule. I would be lost in the realistic 3D graphics, amazing music and tight controls and gameplay. Sometimes my friend Chevin would come round and we’d play two player deathmatch on the Gamestation’s flagship title, ‘Carmageddon’, where you scored points for mowing down civilians and blowing stuff up. Occasionally we’d play ‘Grand Theft Auto’ where you scored points for moving down civilians and blowing stuff up. It’s a shame ‘Postal’ was never released on the Gamestation because it was so wildly different from everything else on the system at the time; you scored points for only moving down civilians, you couldn’t blow anything up.
It was a wonderful time in my life. If you have memories of these gamebopolies or any others, then do let us know. Let’s share and be together as one giant community (with me as the leader).
