Goodness Gracious Great Balls Of Ice!

I have been thinking for a little while that perhaps now is the time I should be changing my car. My current chariot is a modest 10 year old Ford fiesta which I bought when it was just two years old. Unfortunately it is now due to have its timing belt replaced which petrol heads among you will know is an expensive job as it is a 'wet belt' so requires a lot of labour to do the work. Obviously given its age, I have to decide if it makes financial sense to fork out lots of cash to ensure it keeps running effectively or trade it in for something newer. It's tricky though as it's been a very efficient and cheap to run motor, giving me much pleasure on longer runs where its smoothness shines through. This is in stark contrast to what went before when I had a small Mazda 2 which although fine for a while, developed an irritating fault after I'd had it about a year where the air-con periodically switched from ' pleasantly warm environment' to 'couldn't care less' and resulted in the freezing of my nether and all other regions, and in winter caused my gentleman's assortment and bric a brac sundries to shiver uncontrollably inside of my designer boxers despite my frantic efforts to keep warm by furiously trying to de-mist the windscreen with a cloth, thus allowing partial vision and ensure the car did not leave the road and plunge into a ditch!

Now I can almost hear the outcry from sections of the readership of Jap-crap but that would I feel be unfair because before this fault materialised the Mazda had been by far the best car I had owned, even if that was not a difficult honour to achieve when compared to the likes of my Fiat Punto mk1 which just about went from nought to sixty in the same day, my other little Ford which never went above 38 mph according to its faulty speedo and countless other wheelie bins I have had the misfortune to drive. I say drive, though for some of them that may be a little misleading, As you can imagine at my age I have been the proud owner of some vehicles which now fall very much into the vintage class. So it was more like being the helmsman aboard a Trans-Atlantic yacht, caught in a force 9 gale. In fact one of my previous vehicles had a steering wheel of such huge dimensions it would have been better suited to an eighteenth century Tea Clipper and it was more than a little disconcerting that despite having 'size' on its side it still failed to have much impact on the aim of the wheels no matter how many heaves I made on it. That and the drivers door window which would periodically shake itself down and in winter expose me to the gale force south-westerlies that this area is renowned for carrying enough rain to irrigate the Sahara desert and allow rice to be grown in the passenger footwell!  A friend of mine, who incidentally wears corduroy trousers, has leather elbow patches on his jacket and earns an obscene amount of money investing other people's money, has recommended a Volvo for my new wheels, an incredibly unhelpful suggestion when the German cars are out of my price range and the Volvo is a pound more! Of course the Volvo has more stars for safety than Alan Sugar has apprentices and looks like a very lovely car but I'm not sure I need 5 airbags to deploy every time I burp at the wheel so for now the search continues, for as long as it takes, through the long and very hot summer and on into the autumn.

No problem though, I've got the perfect car for sweat free motoring, thank heavens for the fiestas air conditioning!

                                                                       jealous or what!

Chirps, There's a b in dumb you dumby!

I like to consider myself one of life's lifelong learners, which I suppose is just as well as I am destined to never accrue enough knowledge to ever feel completely at ease when dealing with all the movers & shakers that I meet on countless occasions while roaming about the Tamar valley happily whistling "the only way is up" so I was pleased recently to acquire some information which should ensure that I never make myself look a complete plank when encountering these people and also will be fairly handy should I ever have to take a cognitive assessment, as it seems fashionable to take these all the time these days if you really want to stand out!

Now, I know what you're thinking, why would someone with a do/1 degree in smugness from Horrabridge university need to take a cognitive assessment? well you just never know when you're going to need to prove your vanity to the world do you? I mean listen up, The president of the United States himself takes these assessments regularly to prove his fitness for office so why wouldn't I take one to show my complete unfitness to write this absolute pile of diaper dung Huh? Only a dumocrat would think it was a bad idea to offer myself up to take an assessment and have my results revealed and scrutinized by all so that great mirth could be had when it is realized that I possess all the cognitive dexterity of the average sideboard!  I'd have to be a complete dumby.................Wouldn't I ? ...................

Anyway, I have contacted a neurological physician , a Dr Killum, to conduct my assessment at his earliest opportunity and look forward in the meantime to ending a few wars, overturning a few red cards and possibly building a ballroom onto the end of my 2 bed house so I can entertain my friends and neighbours before boring everybody shitless on Struth social when my results are revealed as I just know that I am going to ace it! oh yes, they will never have seen a QI so big! They'll want me to give all kind of motivational talks, team talks, pep talks, Ted talks, you name it they'll want me to talk about it! I bet you'all can't wait or contain your excitement can you? Well take a breather as I have booked a holiday for next week, a Luxury cruise on the strait of Hormuz!! It was incredibly cheap, any cheaper and the travel agent would literally be paying me to go! Well I thought I can't go wrong here, I would literally be a right Dumby if I turned it down and you all know that I'm not a Dumby right? .......................

RIGHT??.........

Ah forget it!

Authors note:

•  No democrats were harmed in the making of this post. 
•  Dr Killum would like to point out that despite his unfortunate name he has never actually killed anyone...............deliberately.  
• Calamity cruises report that the Strait of Hormuz Cruise has sold out.