Secondary Stream?

Edited: US Rice link replaced with one that doesnt need a subscription after 24 hours!

What do you suppose is worse:

• finding out that the local river is full of cocaine, or
• finding out it got there from users' urine, pumped straight into the river from the sewage system?

People in the Po Valley in Italy (now there's a pun there somewhere, if you know English slang) have had to face just this discovery. Here's the news which closes with a report that the team responsible for this diagnosis are looking for ways to measure the heroine in the water, also. Knowing how many people are in the area allows them to calculate the true quantities consumed prior to the waste, um, going down the Po.

Still it beats poor America - finding out that US rice has the highest arsenic content, courtesy of residual chemical soil treatments.

Great. Its in the tap water, it can turn up in seafood, table salt and beer. Now, apparently, if you consume 500 grams of American rice a day, its definitely in you too, most likely at higher than the maximum recommended levels.

Eat American rice? Feel increasingly tired and foggy? Might be time to detox.

The Man On The Clapham Ambulance

After watching Supermarket Secrets, we decided to shop at the local greengrocer's instead of the supermarket.

Our old neighbour across the road had long ago scornfully told us that the huge bananas we were buying weren't bananas at all, but plantains. He said they were a con, and tasteless, but we just smiled at him and put it down to more of his opinionated, geriatric ranting, which was an occasional flaw.

However (yes there's a point) when we bought a tiny hand of Fyffes from the grocers this week, the taste was like stepping back in time. They are incomparably sweet and wonderful and reminiscent of bygone days.

Now the bit where I explain why The Man On The Clapham Ambulance compares to a proper banana.

I never thought of my dad and uncle Leslie as having a 'type' of humour. They were (and pardon a daughter for hero worship) simply blessed with the dryest, quietest, most gentle and delightful sense of lunacy. They were silly - silly with straight faces and their attitude was my heaven.

I'd forgotten what proper silliness was, just like I'd forgotten proper bananas.

And then I left a compliment on The Man's blog, and got this email back:

Dear Cheryl,

Thank you for your kind words of appreciation; it's most
gratifying to learn that my little stories amuse you.

I was terribly sorry, however, to hear about your father: a
career as a mental nurse followed by a spell as an
ambulanceman; how awful - he must have been quite profoundly
mad by the time he retired. I hope and trust that he found
some small comfort in his washing machines.

All ambulancemen turn for solace in their twilight years to
tinkering with inanimate household objects, often finding
great consolation in the innards of an old wireless or a
prized collection of broken kettles. A shed and a bicycle is
really all that most men ask of life.

My own father developed a deep and abiding love of
refrigerators in his latter years, eventually, when he judged
the time was right, climbing into a chest freezer and simply
shutting the lid. I can think of no finer way for a man to
pass on; indeed, we'll probably bury him in it one of these days.

It's certainly a theme that warrants further investigation and
I thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Best wishes,

The Man on the Clapham Ambulance

And I really can't add anything to that - fantastic.

Men and Doctors

They hate them, don't they?

All that bravado and falsely inflated gruffness and machismo is just a way of trying to cover, when in truth the idea of being sensible, of getting things sorted, makes them feel like timid little boys.

Speaking of being falsely inflated I bet that's just how this guy felt, when he finally gave up on DIY cure attempts and went to hospital.

I don't know whether to laugh or wince.

Housewife Blues

Drip, drip, drip, goes the leaky kitchen tap

Where is all my energy? Sap, sap, sap.

I wonder what the point was, I’m sure I used to know

But I have been too long indoors and all things go.

Tick, tick, tick go the seconds of the day

Save me God, save me, I pray, pray, pray.

I used to want to save the world, to play in the parade,

My kitchen coffin suffocates, and so I fade.

(Rescue me from envying the love of fellow man,

Rescue me from caring what they think.

But most of all I’m begging, yes I’m pleading, if you can,

Then rescue me from this, the kitchen sink.)

Panic Attack

Did you ever keep on going

When there was no reason why?

Doing nothing, meaning nothing

As your life meandered by.

Did you ever keep on thinking

There’d be time for all your dreams,

That it wasn’t quite polite to stop

And voice the inner screams?

So you keep on being patient

And you keep on being kind

And you keep on being mother,

As you slowly lose your mind.

Holy Pancakes, Batman

OK Batman has nothing to do with it, not unless Chris Cope over at Dancing The Polka With Miss El Cajon has a job on the side that he's not mentioning.

He certainly likes dressing up.

All that aside, today Chris posted a link to a news article (can you believe it made the news?) about a family whose pancake resembled an angel and is being taken as a sign from God. Maybe next time my carton of apple juice is yellow I should take it as a sign from the toilet fairy, but I digress yet again.

No I am not going to post a link to this marvel of Divine communication - Chris has the link right here.

I am a long time fan of a sarcastic, witty, practical and no-holds-barred Christian-with-a-brain site called The Ship Of Fools.

The front page alone is a delight to those of you who like to extract the, umm, apple juice. Oh dear that analogy will have to go, not least because, until I get it out of my head, I won't be able to (go.)

Anyhow - they are short of pictures of Holy Mary on a potato chip etc at the moment but well worth a look for:

Gadgets For God (Check out the talking Jesus action figure with sample audio - but they are all funny and the write-ups are classic)

Fruitcake Zone - yup, the title says it all

Signs And Blunders - two lists, of printed and verbal slip-ups

Finally there are the proclamations of Reverend Gerald Ambulance.

Heres a plug for his new book, lifted straight from the site

You too can be an international soulsaving superchristian!

At last, a handbook for anointed ministers and spiritual celebrities. Learn from my years of humble service and miraculous triumph, and follow me in mighty paths of blessing.

Find out how to:

• Write worship songs as inspired as "O God you're really Lord"
• Keep a hold of your flock with incense addiction
• Preach hilarious sermons on the boring bits of the Bible
• Do hit and run baptisms
• Combine exotic beach missions with naturist outreach
• Deal with over-enthusiastic and under-clever laity
• Bluff your way in tongues

My Favourite Quote

Jody Leila over at Come On Pilgrim does a quote of the week. This week's offering from Albert Einstein had me chuckling at his dry wit and sarcasm and trying to imagine what person or organisation he had crushed with his jewel of a remark.

Not being as clever as Jody, I hold only a few quotes dear to my heart, one of them, by Dorothy Parker (I thought it was Tallulah Bankhead - blush) is "Ducking for apples, change one letter and it's the story of my life". Priceless. Check out Ally's blog of the same name, if you appreciate that level of humour as I do.

I am lucky to have my most favourite quote on a T-shirt. I love it.

My mother will be seventy-five this year and I am simultaneously guilt-ridden (a la seven year old - how do mums do that?) and peeved and yet jolly impressed that she loves it too. Up to this point she has never in my life nagged me for clothes swapsies but she has now begged me for this T-shirt.

I can see myself losing it shortly, if I can't find another one.


The quote?

"I used to be Snow White ........... but I drifted"

Mae West.


Anyone else got a favourite?

Are They Black?

Some days I thank God for email

>A male patient is lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen mask
>over his mouth and nose.
>
>A young, student nurse appears to give him a partial sponge bath.
>
>"Nurse", he mumbles, from behind the mask. "Are my testicles black?"
>
>Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, "I don't know, Sir. I'm only here
>to wash your upper body and feet."
>
>He struggles to ask again, "Nurse, are my testicles black?"
>
>Concerned that he may elevate his blood pressure and heart rate from
>worry about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment and pulls
>back the covers. She raises his gown, holds his manhood in one hand and
>his testicles in the other.
>Then, she takes a close look and says,
>
>"There's nothing wrong with them, Sir!"
>
>The man pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her and says very slowly,
>! "Thank you very much. That was wonderful, but, listen very, very
>closely......
>
>A r e - m y - t e s t - r e s u l t s - b a c k?
>