Seen outside a cinema in Clapham:

HANCOCK

WANTED

SEX AND THE CITY

NARNIA

FEMALE AGENTS

Almost haiku like

A contribution from Liz in exchange for me writing her presentation on bottoms:


Nick says:
so what are you putting in my blog
Ed Balls says:
i don't know yet
Ed Balls says:
something about nakedness
Nick says:
k
Nick says:
off you go
Ed Balls says:
k
Ed Balls says:
Yesterday was my day off, and, as the weather was particularly fine, I decided to pay a visit to Epping Forest
So, mounting my trusty steed, I set off down the road with a happy song going through my head
Nick says:
good so far
Ed Balls says:
I arrived at the forest in good time, and tripped off down the nearest path, which was actually quite unfamiliar to me
Suddenly, in a clearing, I espied a group of people
Upon closer inspection, they were completely naked
As I got closer, I realised to my joy that they were all of the female persuasion
Blah blah
Nick says:
ta
Ed Balls says:
someone at work was looking
Ed Balls says:
will continue in a sec
They seemed to be performing some kind of ritualistic dance
'What the hell' I thought, and flung off my raiments
Joining them in the clearing
But something was wrong
They were looking at me with their bleary eyes, and cackling under their breath
So I legged it out of there before they could chop my balls off
THE END

TMFFFTTM 15

It was one of those things that my father failed to tell me about, like not counting your sausages before they're in the bag. On Tuesday, I got up, abluted, moved my trusty steed onto the balcony and stared gloomily into the rain, as it descended like a sheet of frosted plastic in a cheap shower. After rummaging through the pannier, I retrieved my waterproofs, put on some waterproof shoes (ones without a webbing upper and cracked soles) and put my overtrousers on..... took off my overtrousers, took off my shoes, put on my overtrousers and then put on my shoes. Jacket. At the bottom of the stairs I ventured into the steady downpour and headed off for work, halfway there the jacket started to let in the rain, and dampness crept down from my shoulders with all the determination of snot leaking from the nose of a two year old. As I arrived at work, literally at the front door, the rain stuttered, then stopped. I stabled the bike, dripped my way to the office, and dug out the spare trousers and socks, the office festooned with drying garments like a laundry Christmas.
On Tuesday night I washed the jacket to within an inch of its life and then treated it to a liberal douching of waterproofing.

On Wednesday, I got up, abluted, moved my trusty steed onto the balcony and stared suspiciously out at the banks of cloud scudding overhead. I compromised and donned the jacket leaving the overtrousers in the pannier. Five minutes later it started to rain. This time it did not stop as arrived at the front door. Once again the office looked like Primark on a Saturday afternoon.

On Wednesday evening, I released my trusty steed from its stable and approached the front door of the building, outside people walked with umbrellas, the puddles were dotted with bullseyes. I returned to dig out the overtrousers, which I donned with much swearing. I reemerged, people were furling their umbrellas, the puddles displayed a mirror-like surface. Disdaining to profane the air of the sacred halls of academe any further, I set off, still sporting my torture trousers. As I approached home, I looked to the south and west, a bank of cloud was rolling in like a tsunami on a hapless fishing village, under normal circumstances this sight would have filled me with joy, sadly I had to buy some bread.

As I left the supermarket, the heavens, as they say, opened, the sort of deluge that would have warmed the cockles of General De Gaulle's heart, luckily I was wearing my freshly waterproofed waterproofs. As I turned into the drive of the flats a few minutes later, the run-off from my waterproof trousers filled my trainers, running out through the crack in the sole. The run-off through my helmet trickled down my brow after dissolving all the salt accumulated since the last monsoon, the resultant brine putting the Dead Sea to shame, the sort of brine that could pickle a herring at forty yards, or slough off a grown man's cornea in under a minute. So it was I carried the bike up the four flights of stairs by Braille, and then sat down to my bruschetta, admiring the way that my hair had been sucked up through the vents in my helmet by my speedy passage and had then set into the trichological equivalent of the enchanted forest, the Sleeping Beauty one as opposed to Smurfland.

Moral: Some people are lucky and some are unlucky, if you're the latter you're fuc..... not in for a great time.

It's often said that men think with their penises, you may be interested to know that my IQ is well above average.

It's Spring, no it is, really. IT'S SPRING and the magnolias are in bloom. I quite like magnolias but think that they're rather like Kate Moss on an evening out. They start off all neat and gorgeous and end up looking raddled and blowsy.

There are times in a man's life when he goes to bed secure in the knowledge of his Godhood. I would say that these times -sex apart, were based on booze. Light spirits confer a degree of Bacchanalian deification that is rapidly dispelled at about 4 a.m. when a hangover of Hadean proportions muscles its unsubtle way into your (un)consciousness. You go to bed revelling in the light of angels, and come the dawn the Devil drives his rusty pickaxe in somewhere between your Temporal Lobes and tries to lever your eyes out.

TMFFTTM14

It was one of those things that my Father failed to tell me, like if you are going to dress as a pirate make sure you know where you are, and don't be too convincing.
I had been surveying my surplus fat, more had been accumulating as I'd been off the bike for a month, due to the ravages of some form of tuberculosis and malaria combined (the women amongst you who have a male partner will recognise this as a cold), this with my dismal failure on the girlfriend front prompted me to leave the couch and go for a walk in the country, my first steps to a leaner and meaner me.
My thoughts were for a perambulation around the Chilterns, probably ending up at Ashridge Forest, I consulted the travel news on the Text service: Freight train has shed load at X, fear not your tickets will be valid on other alternative routes, number of alternative routes - none. I hoicked out the maps and decided to head off for East Grinstead and a mooch around the borders of Ashdown Forest instead. Back to the Text, everything seems to be working! So off I go to the bus stop to pick up a 48 to London Bridge Station.
There are no 48's scheduled for the next 20 minutes (it is at this point that readers familiar with my fortunes will be loosening clothing prior to a fit of chortling) so I decided to get the next 26 (5 minutes) and get the tube/metro/underground at Bank. Shut - engineering works. No matter, another bus will get me there - it does.
London Bridge Station at 10.50a.m, approximately 100 people are trying to buy tickets from the four ticket machines (two of them hidden by the queue of people for the two open ticket windows) I opt for a machine queue, failing to take account of the tumble in IQ of a person faced with a piece of machinery that asks them to make choices. While queueing I turn and scan the slightly out of focus departure board; "East Grinstead - see posters" this is a bad sign, I get the map out and rescan, "Haywards Heath 11.11" check map, too big, have to walk a couple of miles from the station to get out of town, let's backtrack up the map a way, Balcombe, looks ok, check departure board, hmm departure board now further away and on the limits of my myopic resolution but I think I can just make it out, "Balcombe 11.01"
So it was that I drew into Sevenoaks station half an hour later and started the trudge up the hill to Knole Park. On the way I pass a market, a rather twee market but a market nevertheless, there is a sausage stand, I peruse, they have Mergeuze, a personal favourite but I decide not to buy just yet as I really don't think that hauling a pound of sausage around, in a pack, in the sun, is going to do them any good.
I stroll around the park, taking in the air, the still-bare trees, the German School Trip, I manage to find two Roe deer amongst all the Fallows, I always think that Fallow deer look cute whereas Roes look menacing, the difference between a Standard Poodle and a Bull Terrier.
After a circumnavigation, punctuated with a brief chat with a father of two small boys on bicycles, who had discovered that the hill they didn't usually go up was steeper than the one that they did. At least I think that's what he said, it was a rather gasped conversation peppered with moments of sibling rivalry and five year old spleen.
Where was I? Oh yes leaving. As I left I decided that with my mergueze I would have sliced new potatoes cooked with lemon and olives to carry on the Moorish theme of my repast. I got to the market, there was a gap in the stalls, the buggers had gone.
Moral: After a morning of adversity, don't plan your supper until you have actually have it in the bag, this may avoid a wealth of disappointment, and make a saving on saliva.

Due to the uncertainty of future employment I have decided to enter the Country's biggest growth market:

The NIXCO Care Home for Retired Academics:

Welcome to Ivory Towers.

Nixco Ivory Towers is a special care home for the Ageing Academic.

Life getting too tough?
Young Turks ruining your life and stealing your grants?
Modern research too complicated?

Then come to Ivory Towers.

At Ivory Towers you may feel free to harangue your colleagues in our special non-pc zone.

Your own chair for life - guaranteed!

When the final call to the Great Steering Committee arrives we can assure you of a comfortable spot in our adjoining after-life facility :- Scholarest. Alternatively your ashes may be tastefully ensconced in The Stack of Remembrance.

Nixco Ivory Towers - Guaranteed Tenure for the lifetime of the Grant.

nb. Due to the demands of our trustees (Crusty, Oldbass and Tards) Ivory Towers remains a strictly male preserve. NIXCO are negotiating to build a similar establishment for the "Gentler Academic" ; Pankhurst Pavilions, but at the moment regret that they cannot find adequate funding.

The other day I met a dog called Chris, in the park. Chris was one of those rarities, a dog with taste, not for him the blind charging through the flocks of crows and pigeons, no, Chris would fixate on one individual, charge and then run under the flying bird, head held up to hold it in sight, would track him to the tree that he came to rest in, and then firmly stay, harassing the tree until the bird moved off. At this point he might get bored, run to his owner for a little chat, until a bird of such gorgeousness, ripe for a bit of chasing, would catch his eye, and he'd be off again. I spoke to his owner,
"At least he's got ambition."
"Saves throwing a bleedin' ball, Mate!"