saintbletch

Just checking papster, but you do know that you said all this out loud, don't you?

Yeah, so true Wurzel. I often channel the voice of Hughie Green and the dexterity of Bernie the Bolt in such situations. My best mate growing up was born on the "wrong side of the tracks" according to my Dad, and as a result of that (and a couple of court appearances) my Dad didn't like my mate. My mate was a fairly sensitive type and so for years he'd avoid coming to my place if my Dad was in. Anyway, one night, I think it might have been my 18th, we got pretty wasted and so my mate stayed over. I got woken at about 4am to the sound of a commotion, so I turned on the bedroom light to see my mate sitting on the end of his bed with his knees against his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around his legs. He was swaying back and forth looking pretty sorry for himself. He looked in a bad way so I asked him if he was alright. He said he was so I turned the light off and went back to sleep. In the morning it turned out that my mate had pissed on the landing outside my Mum and Dad's bedroom door. My Dad woke up mid-stream and went mental. He never did forgive him.

OK pap, two questions immediately present themselves: 1) Are you a flannel or sponge man? 2) When you have guests, do you have guest flannels or guest sponges? Oh and BTW, the wife and I can no longer make it next weekend. I know we'd planned to stay over, but something's come up.

No pap, as I tried to make clear to Toke, it's only the first of that day that "usually" sees me having a "brown piss". But as I shower in the morning, this advice from UEA has left me conflicted; I'm desperate to look after the planet, but not at risk of leaving a Balti Stench in the bath.

If this is the solution, what on earth was the problem?

An interesting response to this thread, and I've learned a lot about my fellow posters' morning habits. Who'd have thought that Wurzel would have a fetish for using veteran, female opthalmist urine in the stead of his favourite "wetting solution"? I think I've seen that film by the way, Wurzel. "Golden Girls' Golden Showers" wasn't it? And who'd have believed that Whitey makes a habit of following men into (presumably) public conveniences, where he covertly watches their bladders leak so that he might collate sufficient data to be able to confidently make the claim that most men miss? But Muppets, you've made a leper of me. I'm left looking like the only Muppet in TMS that has to fire the machine gun whilst dropping bombs on Dresden. Just me?

By shitting in the bath? Aces!

Wait until you reach a certain age, Bear. You'll stop mocking our stretched sphincters when you've joined the club.

I feel your pain, Bear. Did Toke pierce you too? One of his other victims gave a description to the police and said that he's so full of piercings and metal "down there"... ...that he pisses like a lawn sprinkler. When talking to the police afterwards, she described her metal-adorned attacker as being half Japanese and half robot. This is what the police artist put together: Oh, and before the attack he asked her if she had been spade, and then he took her to a modified dog kennel that he keeps under his house. Police are on the lookout for a Scotchman who goes around picking up "females" by rhetorically asking them "Who's a good girl, eh? Your are. Yess you are. Yess you are. You good girl. Sit!"

Good question Toke. Just the mornings. I know you've got one of those undercarriage piercings so that you have to sit down to have a lady wee, so how do you get on?

Dear Aunt Agony Muppet, We're now being told that we could save the planet as well as some cash if, instead of urinating in the loo each morning, we urinate in the shower. But I'm not sure they've though this through. Now, I don't want to put anyone off their mid-afternoon Pot Noodle or anything, but each morning the act for me is, how can I put this delicately, well it normally requires some degree of multi-tasking. Let's just say that I hear "splash", "crackle" and "PLOP" most mornings. When Mr Micturate knocks the door, he's usually accompanied by a darker friend. I think you know what I'm saying. So if I followed the advice of these green-students to the letter, Mrs Bletch would think I was carrying out an IRA dirty protest. So Aunt Agony Muppet, I'm keen to do my bit for the environment, but don't want to get a "messy" divorce. What can I do? Bletch.

I'd agree. At the Tory Party conference Cameron tried to position a vote for UKIP as a way of ending up with a Labour government. He said "go to bed with Farage and wake up with Miliband" or similar. I thought this was pretty smart piece of positioning at the time. Farage this morning pointed out the opposite - that in the north if you vote Tory you'll get Labour; suggesting that the Heywood vote proved that the only way of unseating Labour is a UKIP vote. Another smart bit of positioning there.

That's a very insightful observation. You can be sure that Labour will focus on their overall increase in SoV though.

Watching the coverage this morning, and it's exciting and depressing in equal measure; great to see a chunk of the electorate engaged and truly excited about something, great to see the "Westminster" parties on the back foot, great to think that UKIP's rise might mean that we see a change in the way we're treated by careerist politicians. Farage said that the result represented a sea-change in the way we do politics in the UK; a message to Westminster career politicians that are out of touch with real people. Things will never be the same again he promised. He and Carswell were both full of smiles, shot-from-the-hip remarks, sound-bites and bonhomie. Then the next minute you see Carswell and Farage being hounded by the press about an apparent contradiction between Farage's position on immigrants with HIV trying to the enter the UK, and Carswell's own father who was at the forefront of research into AIDS. The press, rather lamely I have to say, tried to show a difference in their respective positions. The result? Farage went off on one about it being a ridiculous question from "a state broadcaster" and Carswell clammed up and saying "I agree with everything my leader just said and I have no further comment". It was an instant return to the traditional politics of Westminster where our politicians are afraid to debate things and offer an opinion. That isn't me having a particular "go" at Farage and Carswell for their apparent hypocrisy, instead it's more damning of the press and how their approach to grilling and trying to trip up our politicians has led to them becoming on-message puppets, driven by focus groups, and controlled centrally by party spin doctors. Having said all that, I thought Carswell came over very well indeed in his acceptance speech, as well as the off the cuff interview he gave this morning in the middle of a media scrum. He somewhat unexpectedly told the UKIP faithful that they must be inclusive of others so that they do not appear xenophobic, and then just as the media took these comments as a sign that he was interfering in party strategy and therefore might be positioning himself as a future leader, he promptly ruled himself out of ever being leader in the most unequivocal and self-effacing way. He said something along the lines of "I don't want to be leader of UKIP. I will never be leader of UKIP. I don't have the right personality or skills. If I were to be leader, it would be bad for me, bad for my family and bad for UKIP". It "seems" as though he is a very principled man. Larger questions remain: Is UKIP an ephemeral phenomena? Is this just a protest vote? Will we see the same UKIP performance in a general election? Will the traditional parties listen/learn/change?

More dodgy kids' playground attractions.

Toke out "walking the dog".

7. Fecundity.

OK Halo, I give up. You got me. What's the question? If you're thinking of exchanging any form of bodily fluid, the answer is a qualified "probably not".

Umm, this is embarrassing Halo. I didn't mean for you to become the recipient of the award, I just meant for you to take it from Wolfy LD on his way to Coventry*. Sorry mate. Umm, this is embarrassing Halo.** Don't rain on my parade Owly, you forgot plain an simple. 6. Very good. You can have the award back. Halo, please take it out of the TMS safe and hand it to Wolly FD. It should be between Bear's well thumbed copy of The Story of O and Toke's phallus-shaped dog toy. BTW I've never read any Runyon; other than the odd passage that will forever continue to demonstrate his unusual use of tense, but I can assure you that there was seldom anything tender about the loin of Pete the Meat. Despite your best efforts y p'turb (Spanish for making people feel unsettled and worried - and killing threads. Probably.), this thread was mortally wounded, but has crawled back through enemy lines and is currently in the ICU awaiting a tall, blonde nurse to come and massage its purple heart. 10/10 for the popular beat combo reference though. *Fowllyd was literally on his way to Coventry. **I know that's harsh given the crap I foist on our TMS brethren.

It was Viking Warrior. Sky did report it late last night. They simply reported the facts then, and obviously didn't mention their role in the situation. I haven't seen Sky this morning, but they certainly should cover it as a news item, and I'd be surprised if they didn't. Then again, they'd be damned if they do and damned if they don't. They'd be criticised if they didn't add any more detail from their perspective, or speculate about the role that their own Martin Brunt's exposé may have played, but as they may well find themselves answering legal questions over this, or potentially called to address a coroner's inquest, then they might have been advised to leave it alone. Very sad all round.

Yeah, and only t-shirt and socks, Toga Yob.

OK Wolfy D, I've looked at this for hours, but I can't find a Japan song hidden in there. Please point it out, or hand back your lifetime achievement award to Halo at the door on your way out. I feel I must also correct the temporal error, I say temporal, but it may well be an error of tense regarding the dying of my fringe. Alas I no longer dye my fringe. I could do, but I've found that nylon doesn't take the colour like a normal thatch. Talking of dyeing hair, and as I start to type this anecdote I've realised that I have dyed a mate's hair on two occassions - both worthy of retelling here. Firstly, my mate Trev asked me to peroxide his fringe (a la David Sylvian) which I duly did. He wanted a white fringe as opposed to that orangey blonde that you can end up with. So we planned on doubling the time and quantities, however he left it on for much longer and when he washed it out his hair had turned a pinkish sort of colour. It was very odd. It gave the impression that you were talking to some sort of 6'2" albino rabbit. We never did find out what made it go pink. It later went very brittle and snapped off. Not a good look. The other occasion involved my mate Pete the Meat (long story). A bunch of us in our late teens had gone done to Devon on a driving/camping holiday. Eight of us were travelling along the A30 just outside Okehampton in two cars with me driving the second car - a lowered Ford Escort MkI with Mexico World Cup arches belonging to Pete the Meat. We were coming down a steepish hill as we rounded a corner to find that the traffic had built up and stopped, so with Pete the Meat sitting alongside me in his car I proceeded to drive his shocking yellow pride and joy into the back of another mate's Capri. I can remember to this day that as it happened, at the very moment of the impact I said "Sorry Meat". Still cringe now thinking about it. Anyway, we rolled down the hill to a garage forecourt where for some reason 3 empty caravans were parked. We stayed there in the caravans for the rest of the week whilst repairing Pete the Meat's car. We'd been into Okehampton for a beer one evening and upon arriving back at the caravans another mate Nige revealed a Boot's bag containing a hair dye kit, and proceeded to get a mate to dye his hair. It was one of those kits that has a cap with tiny, tiny holes in it through with you use the supplied crochet needle-like thing to tease a small amount of hair through - which is then coated in the dye. The effect is to give you streaks on the hair outside the cap, leaving the hair inside the cap the natural colour. Pete the Meat, or more accurately the somewhat drunken Pete the Meat decided that he wanted me - a somewhat drunken me - to dye his hair using the remainder of Nige's peroxide. But as Nige still had the supplied cap on his own head, the Meat told me to use the Boot's bag that the kit came in. This I did, but I have to say that I struggled somewhat to make the holes in the bag small enough, and as I went about my task some of the holes ripped further and joined to make larger single holes. Pete the Meat ended up looking like a leopard - without the fangs or tail, but he was actually quite happy with the unconventional look. There's a moral in here somewhere; probably that us wig wearers have it easy.

Serious question before you get too rampant, Rabbit... ...Putting to one side the utility of a building and it's functional value, and concentrating purely on the aesthetic, is it possible for someone to tell someone else that a building is ugly, or that certain colours work or don't work? As an architect I understand that you have a trained eye, but what makes everything you've written here "right" (from an architectural "science" perspective) instead of just your, albeit highly trained and respected, opinion? You must surely present work to clients who tell you that they want it changed even though you "know" they are wrong and your are right. What makes something timelessly "right" as opposed to something momentarily fashionable, but that will date quickly and age badly? And what makes something that appears momentarily fashionable that is likely to date, but goes on to become the new standard for design? Aren't we just talking about our opinions here? Corral enough opinions and you've got a verdict of sorts, but surely no one opinion is "right" when matters of taste are concerned. As I say, serious question as I recognise that I have a defective colour/design gene. I have little appreciation for colours and colour combinations, as you'd instantly know if you looked at my t-shirt and sock combination today. To me colours seem to go or not go, without rhyme not reason. It's like it's some big secret that others understand, but is hidden from me. However, my brother-in-law, who is a designer, has explained to me that there is a science to colours that "go" and colours that "clash". And having used colours in software designs previously, I now use a number of sites that construct complementary colours for me.

I guess this all went into the pot before I determined it unworkable, papster. Affordable rental property in London, without increasing the minimum wage? Laudable objective, perhaps I should have said not in my lifetime?