Chris Hansen’s blog

Unfortunately, only funny to Brits or those who follow British politics.

Q. How are John Prescott and an IKEA wardrobe alike?

A. One careless screw and the cabinet falls apart.

Well, you may find these covers appealing.

Or, of course, appalling.

…but make sure that they each stay where they belong. Toeprints are no substitute for fingerprints, as this Jamaican man found out.

If you go here, you can find a wealth of gift items from the Eternal City and environs, including this, to open your Polish pilsner, perhaps:

Well, ya see, I occasionally find websites that are like train wrecks to me. I see them happening, I know that if I go to it I’ll be fatally hooked, but I do it anyway. Ever thought you might want a large enough Oreo cookie so that you could say you only ate one but were satisfied with it? Well, this is the site for you. Amateur confectioners on the loose!

For non-Brits, local elections in part of England were held on Thursday. Labour took a drubbing and Blair, to show that he wasn’t worried, reshuffled his Cabinet so hard it screamed for mercy. In Southwark, the council has no party in overall majority: 28 seats each for Labour and the LibDems, 6 Tories (from Dulwich and that doesn’t count much) and 1 Green. Labour lost all three seats in my ward (which is fine with me as I’m a LibDem). However, I got a hint of why that was this morning.

I got stuff from the LibDems in my mailbox (I’m on their mailing list natch), I got a leaflet from an independent candidate. But nothing from Labour. I thought they’d decided (from the frosty reception I gave them when they called me a few years ago) that I was a lost cause to them.

So the elections were Thursday; I emptied my mailbox on Friday. Saturday I opened the mailbox and what did I find? The leaflet from Labour urging me to vote Labour in Thursday’s election!

Better late than never? I think not!

Two recent labels out of which I got a kick:

• Bought a pack of avocados recently. On the front, in bold letters: Wash before eating. I’ve never eaten an avocado peel; have you?
• Bought two duck legs this morning for dinner tonight. As I was opening the pack, I saw the ingredients list: Ingredients: Duck (100%). GLUTEN FREE. I’m glad to know that there is no bread filler in my duck legs.

From this story, in and of itself somewhat out-of-the ordinary (about a 104-year-old woman marrying a 33-year-old man [his first marriage, her 21st]), comes this paragraph:

Malaysian Muslim men are allowed by their religion to take up to four wives at a time, but reports of women who marry more than once are rare. Muslim women do not practice polygamy.

I was not living with the illusion that any Muslim women married more than one woman at a time. Obviously the reporter knows something the rest of us do not.

Well, I had an interesting week: tried to recover from jetlag on Monday and Tuesday, but Tuesday was really busy. I went to the foot quacks, and they pronounced my toe cured. Of course, it’s still swollen but not as badly as it was. I don’t suppose anyone will want to see me in sandals or flip-flops this summer, but TUFF. I’m very grateful, as it could have threatened not only my foot but also my life, according to the head quack. I missed being hospitalised again by the skin of my teeth.

My friend Bobby from HK was in town for two days with his former bf. Must be difficult: they booked a trip to Europe when they were still together, and then they broke up, but the trip was too expensive to cancel. So, they’re traveling together. Wednesday they went to Italy, then they’ll be back in London for a day before returning to Hong Kong. I really must get to Hong Kong this year or next: I’ve been away for 8 years and that’s far too long. I love Hong Kong: the sights, the islands, the hiking are all wonderful. I’ve missed it. HWMBO doesn’t like HK, though, so I suppose I might have to go alone…

Wednesday through Friday I taught a class in software testing. The last time I taught it, it was called the ISEB Foundation Course in Software Testing. Now it’s the ISTQB Certified Tester Course. There has been a change and update in the curriculum and it’s been standardised with the international curriculum. So it was new to me. Of course, lots of it is the same. However, there are still lots of typos (“affect” for “effect”, twice!) and some slides with which I disagree.

The delegates were all from a large consultancy which shall remain nameless. One was much older than I am; a few were about the same age and most were much younger. One Asian Muslim man who was quite cute. Always good to find eye candy in the course. There were twelve, and ten passed the mock exam.

I really need help in cabling our TV/VCR/Satellite box/DVD Player. I have all the power cords OK, but the other cabling defeats me. The DVD and the VCR have RCA plugs, the Satellite box has SCARTs, the switch has SCARTs and RCA, but the difficulty is getting the signal from the satbox to the VCR through the switch. I gave up and used the coaxial plug to go directly to the TV. What a pain! It looks worse behind the TV than it does behind the computer.

I haven’t updated much for a while because I just didn’t feel like doing it while I was in the US. I’m also going to lock this to friends-only as there will be some stuff about my brother’s divorce that probably should remain private.

The trip over was uneventful in a relatively uncrowded plane; there was a seat next to me and I had an aisle seat, just as I wanted. I wish that the trip back had been as good. Upon arrival my sister and her friend picked me up at the airport and I got back to Marblehead in quick-time. My brother looks about the same, as does my sister; we just don’t change very much, I guess. I finally got to see our old house on Elm Street; the contractor turned a three-flat building into a four-flat building, and added two porches to make four in total. They repaired the outside and painted it grey. I was impressed. Here’s what it looked like several years ago. It hadn’t had any work done on it for more than 50 years, I think.

and what it looked like last week (after many hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on conversion from a firetrap into 4 condo units):

Tuesday I arranged dinner on Thursday with my friends and , and went on my first shopping trip, to BJ’s Warehouse (no snickering in the back). My sister, bless her heart, works until 1 pm so is free after that as long as she can go to see and feed her horses. So I bought the usual Hansen stuff:

• Peanut butter (two large jars of Skippy Super Chunk). This is for HWMBO, as English peanut butter tastes like they cut it with sand;
• Irish Spring Icy Blue soap (16 bars, I think). I now have enough Irish Spring to last me until next spring. That does not mean that visitors should not offer to bring more;
• 12 V-neck undershirts;
• A large bottle of Tabasco Sauce (can only get small ones here);
• Razor blades (they’re much cheaper over there);
• Et alia…

I forgot toothpaste. Oh, well…

Since my brother doesn’t drink coffee, I had to get some coffee and filters for the coffeemaker that my soon-to-be ex-sister-in-law left in the house. I did so, and looked for the mugs. My sister-in-law left her dog and left her parakeet, but took all her coffee mugs. Go figure. My sister’s wonderful coffee-cake provided breakfast for a few days, along with coffee lightened with half-and-half (another guilty pleasure I can only indulge in in the U.S.)

Tuesday morning I went downstairs to the granny flat at my brother’s to greet my Uncle Dick. He is my mother’s younger brother but is now about 77 years old. I wanted to make sure he was happy, content, and thriving living at my brother’s house. He assured me that he was, and had bought a new computer! He was using a DOS-based computer until last year, when he discovered a new music-notation program, name starts with an “E”, I think, and found that he’d have to upgrade. He’s doing some fantastic stuff with it (he took a BA in music from Boston University) and showed some of it off to me. I’m thrilled that he’s thriving and keeping himself occupied. My other objective was to pick his brains about the Child side of the family. I managed to get copies of my grandfather’s birth certificate and my great-grandparents marriage certificate, as well as some names I had not yet nailed down. If you’re at all interested in geneology, make sure you talk to the elderly members of your family while they’re still around to answer questions.

Tuesday night my brother and I attended Philanthropic Lodge, AF and AM, in Marblehead. I was only raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason in February, while my brother was initiated, passed, and raised two or three years ago at a one-day class in Andover. I’d checked that the Lodge was in Masonic “communion” with the United Grand Lodge of England, and then arranged to attend, bringing a letter to identify myself. I found it really interesting; something like the difference between American English and British English: mutually intelligible but subtly different. Three candidates were passed to the Fellowcraft Degree, then we had dinner (steak, natch; see Wednesday night). Back to the Lodge for the business meeting and explanation for the new Fellowcraft brethren. I was recognised in Lodge and given a Masonic token from Philanthropic. I was really impressed and will probably affiliate with the Lodge (=become a member of Philanthropic as well as my own lodge, Goliath Lodge, #5595 UGLE).

Here’s the present they gave me: it’s their Lodge Token (token of their appreciation and welcome, I guess!)

Wednesday afternoon we went to see the lawyer who handled my father’s estate. It turns out that my sister-in-law had dealt with the estate by forging my brother’s name to cheques and generally using the money for items like massages and paying off credit cards. However, in addition to forgery and embezzlement she has now added perjury: she found some money in stocks and an old bank account that she had to probate on a “simple probate” form, in which she swore that those were the only assets and that the total value of the estate had been less than US$15,000. This of course was not true (it was probably closer to US$50,000) and thus she perjured herself when she filed that form. I don’t think we’ll ever see any of it again, but it was good to have all this confirmed.

That night we went to Outback Steakhouse: my sister, brother, my sister’s friend Linda who was so gracious to ferry me back and forth to Logan and to Wonderland MBTA station, Dick, and myself. I feel that beef in the US is so much better than it is here (I know, it’s treason. Sue me.). I had a prime rib, Prime Minister’s Cut, along with a blooming onion (for the table, not all for me). No dessert. I took a doggie bag back for my brother’s dog, Mickey, who is quite cute.

Thursday night went out to dinner as previously arranged with Robert and John ( and ) at Rendezvous restaurant on Mass Ave in Cambridge. While a bit pricey, the food was good (I had roast chicken) and the talk, as usual with Robert and John, scintillating. Robert took great delight in telling me of this entry in ‘s livejournal. I was suitably horrified and hoped that HWMBO’s admonition not to light the oven when alone was heeded. Daytimes I saw Uncle Dick and generally just walked around. Thursday I took a 2 hour walk from one end of town to the other; about 6 miles I reckon. My feet didn’t suffer, my heart was exercised, and I got a chance to just commune with nature and admire all the changes that happened in town.

Friday night I made Mother Hansen’s Spaghetti and Meatballs for the same group that ate at the Outback. Aside from burning the end of my right middle finger on the frying pan, it worked out very well and a good time was had by all.

Saturday night I had dinner with my friend Margaret from Boston, who co-owns the Luti email list with me. We solved all the problems of the world over…steaks at Outback.

Sunday, it was laze around, pack, and thank Linda for ferrying me to Logan. The flight back to London was not as good as the flight to Boston: there were no aisle seats available and I ended up with a lunkhead on the aisle who fell asleep and wasn’t about to move for a trip to the loo by me. These people also always have iron bladders that can hold 5 gallons of liquid. When he finally got up for the loo, I followed him (not for that, Blanche!) so that I only needed to disturb him once when returning. The food was…forgettable. I managed to get back to London by Heathrow Express and taxicab, even though there was about a 20-minute wait at Paddington amid people who had nothing better to do than smoke in the taxi queue.

Home again, jiggety-jog. I’m still jetlagged on Wesnesday night but am now conducting a software testing course. Hope I can stay awake for it.

I’ve met so many people who reacted the same way Dagwood and Blondie’s daughter (whose name escapes me) reacted here.

Yes, I’m back, but too jetlagged to blog much. Maybe tomorrow.

I thought I would be all packed by now. Instead I’ve been resting and reading all afternoon. Drat. Anyway, will be incognito until the 23rd or so as far as internet access is concerned, so especially Robert and John, I will get in touch on your mobile phone when I get in on Monday so that we can try to set up dinner. To everyone else, cheers for Easter Week and see you the day after Low Sunday.

…a seasonal URL for your delectation, here.

Compliment Of The Season. On a very good day. I am Amos Zongo Esq,The Manager of file / Debt recovery Department in African developent bank (ADB).

I wonder who or what he is on a less-good day, or even a bad day: we all have them.

It seems that some heathen or other may be sabotaging the Paschal candles used in most Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. See the evidence here.

I have seen a candle simply dribble out as the candle-follower gets close to the cup of the candle-holder. On one such occasion the candle-follower fell the the floor with a “clunk” during a silent moment in the service.

I am torn between enjoying the use of candles in services and dreading the mess and annoyance they cause for the sacristan (me).

From spacedaily comes this startling headline:

Venus Guides Stargazers To Uranus In April

I really and truly think that perhaps there’s one planet that needs renaming.

I decided to move my computer desk 90 degrees counterclockwise this morning. This was not a trivial task. The ostensible reason is that under the desk I felt that I was hosting a worm convention, which makes it difficult to plug/unplug things and move things around in general. Second, I had two rather unfortunate power strips that were three sockets short, thus necessitating outlet blocks, like this one:

The other problem was the dust. It gets everywhere. So the order I did things is:

• Removed everything from the computer area except the table itself.
• Vacuumed around and under the table, and in the well behind it.
• Removed the two old power strips, deftly unplugging the router and plugging it into the wall so that Derek wouldn’t be too inconvenienced.
• Drilled holes in the wall and installed the two new power strips (16 outlets in all), and tacked the leads to the wall so that they would be out of the way.
• Had lunch.
• Washed the window but discovered that the top pane is painted shut so I can’t wash the outside or open the window from the top. Wotta pain (pane?).
• Washed the inner curtain.
• Moved the table.
• Put everything back, while attaching the speakers to the wall rather than putting them on the desk. Instantly, more desk space! The sound is better too.
• Turned on the computer and, mirabile dictu, everything worked.

I can now look out of the window while I’m working, and feed the squirrel when he drops by. I have to make sure he doesn’t try to come in if I leave the window open. I can see who’s coming in or going out the front door without turning around. I’m certain that I looked very rude for saying “hello” or “goodbye” without actually turning around.

I don’t suppose I’ll do any more spring cleaning before I get back from Massachusetts, but I now feel very accomplished.

Remember…the Easter Bunny is just around the corner…

I missed this one in the Register somehow last month. However, they’re very helpful in pointing out previously-run stories that have new relevance. One hears about granny porn, but a 75-year-old Romanian man seems to be getting into the swing of things too, details here. Do note, however, that vampires probably need not apply as co-stars (see last paragraph).

I get a list which occasionally has personal ads posted to it. Although the usual language of the list is Spanish, occasionally there are posts in other languages. Thus today I saw an ad in French and, curious, turned Babelfish loose on it. This is what Babelfish translated:

“me 36/172/67 sportsman bogoss muscular dryness (old gymnaste teacher) currently roller, swimming pool, vtt my friend 37/174/68 sportsman bogoss, swimming pool, muscu peaks of him and me if interress

Bodega music conversation.

…to me is “anthropodermic bibliopagy”. Find out what it means here. You might be surprised.

I won a prize in French in high school–surprising at the time because I was more proficient in Latin, I believed. Some other snotnosed kid won the Latin prize, and I hated him for it.

Well, the first time I found myself on my own in Paris for a week in 1998, I discovered that almost all my school French had utterly disappeared. The only way I could order a baguette in a patisserie was to point at it and mumble something that sounded like “bag it”. I was devastated.

Well, there’s now a website for those of us who feel that, while French may not be the language of love, it certainly could be the language of obnoxiousness. Oddly enough, it’s not written by any of us rosbifs, but by someone in Australia. Good on him, I say.

Of course, the best page of the site is here. I’m trying to find a situation in which I would use the phrase “Le r

In the United States, the “#” character is usually called the “pound sign” or “number sign”, or for the musically inclined, the “sharp” sign, or nowadays, the “hash” key. Of course, here in the United Kingdom, the pound sign is “

We’ve been using Opera for a few years now. It was a real revelation (real tabbed windows, intelligent browsing, etc. etc. and so on) but had some deficiencies. For example, HWMBO and I read a variety of websites in varied encodings (including Chinese for him and Classical Greek for me) and Opera never seemed to be able to reliably auto-detect the encoding for a website. This may have been due to deficiencies in websites, but it resulted in a lot of gibberish, lost pound signs (I mean real pounds sterling, not octothorpes), and assorted weirdnesses around quotation marks. Our online banking website also didn’t work with Opera, nor did my BT webmail site. It was a pain having to revert to IE all the time.

So, I decided to try Firefox for a while. It imported all my Opera bookmarks (an important point), and it seems to reliably auto-detect everything. My banking website works well in it, and it seems to be a bit easier to use than Opera. HWMBO reports that his Chinese websites also render correctly.

I think that unless someone tells me how to fix Opera (and I don’t imagine anyone will) we’ll be uninstalling it and using Firefox as our default browser.

See ya, Opera. Nice knowing ya (most of the time).

I have been down with what I think was the flu since Monday night. While at first I thought it was connected to the antibiotics, these were the same dosages I tolerated pretty well the last time. I was useless Tuesday and Wednesday, but have rallied today.

There is nothing worse than having a flu that demands that you just sit in a chair watching daytime TV. This is possibly the worst fate ever. I even watched “Wine TV” for 1/2 an hour. I’m doomed.

On a brighter note, I’ve just confirmed a tutoring gig for the end of the month; my first paid work since January. I’m hoping it will be the first of many. After all, I want to live in the style to which I wish to become accustomed. And it’s not fair to HWMBO to continue to support me unaided.

If you are at work, don’t click on this link, unless you’re working at home. Thanks to towleroad for this one.

Went back to Kings College Hospital for a toe check-up. The doctor looked at it, said how much he thought it had improved, cut off a little bit of dead skin, and promptly said that I should go back on the antibiotics for another two weeks just to make sure that we’d “gotten all the bugs”. Luckily, this time I’ll only be on amoxicillin and flucoxicillin, and not on either the shot-in-the-bot or the tablet-with-which-you-must-not-drink-any-alcohol. I’ll just have to ensure that I take the flucoxicillin on an empty stomach.

I’ll be taking my last dose at breakfast on the day I leave for the US.

I went to the gym yesterday, nitroglycerine spray in tow. I did 1/2 hour on the stationary bicycle at about 1/2 the maximum resistance. I worked up a sweat, but the beta-blocker ensured that my heart rate never went above 110 bpm. No shortness of breath, no chest pains, no need for the nitro.

So, I’m feeling much bolder about it and will start going regularly again. That will make the GBP 42 I pay for it each month worthwhile.

Mobile, Alabama isn’t often in the news, nor is it often connected with the Irish. However, some people there seem to think that they have been blessed with an Irish visitor. This is a YouTube video, in case anyone is a bit short on bandwidth.

I then Googled for some newspaper reports so that I could offer that as an alternative. However, there are precious few, and I had to look through about 20 Google entries before I came up with this link to a non-video recounting of the tale. If it weren’t before April 1st, I’d suspect an April Fools joke. However, it’s more like a St. Patrick’s Day joke.

Ancient Egyptians had their worldly goods and sometimes their slaves buried with them in order to enjoy their afterlives. Here’s today’s equivalent.

I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for are close by:

• (250 – 300)
• (300 – 350)
• , , , , (350 – 400)
• , (400 – 450)
• , , , , (450 – 500)
• , , (500 – 550)
• , , , (550 – 600)
• , , (600 – 650)
• , , , , , , , , , , , (650 – 700)
• , , , , , , (700 – 750)
• , , , , , , , , , , (750 – 800)
• , , , , , , , , , (800 – 850)
• , , , , , , , , , , (850 – 900)
• , , , , , , (900 – 950)
• , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (950 – 1000)
• , , (1000 – 1050)

Created by ciphergoth; hosted by LShift.

TrustFlow II: Who is closest to your friends
list?

…I discovered this blog entry, which is absolutely hilarious.

I shall be hearing “the ahdwuk, the ahdwuk” in my head now for days.

From the “Washington Post’s” recent competition which asks for a rhyme couplet with a romantic first line and a least romantic second line:

Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss,
But I only slept with you because I was pissed.

I thought that I could love no other
Until, that is, I met your brother.

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl’s empty and so is your head.

Of loving beauty you float with grace.
If only you could hide your face.

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot.
This describes everything you are not.

I want to feel your sweet embrace,
But don’t take that paper bag off your face.

I love your smile, your face, your eyes.
Damn, I’m good at telling lies!

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you really screwed up my life.

I see your face when I am dreaming.
That’s why I always wake up screaming.

My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

My feelings for you no words can tell
Except for maybe “go to hell.”

What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime.

(seen in ‘s journal.)

I don’t get them anymore, after I listed my name and address with the Mail Preference Service here in the UK. However, I used to get them all the time, with my name and address helpfully filled in. I always tore them up and put them in the trash. It seems that tearing them up is not enough!

I bought a shredder a few days ago as my previous post mentioned, and I will now make sure that anything with my or HWMBO’s name on it or our address gets shredded.

I bought a shredder yesterday and have busily been shredding old financial statements and bills. This is quite fun and looking at the old bills and cheques is somewhat satisfying as I feed them into the maw of the shredder.

I also got a pile of cards out of the drawer and began looking through them. Unfortunately, there were lots of cards from my ex, Tom, who was professing undying love and the hope that we would be together for the rest of our lives. I took almost as much pleasure at feeding them into the shredder as I did when I cut up his portrait with a Stanley knife a year after he dumped me for someone fatter, richer, and in Singapore. Not that I’m bitter, mind you.

So, shredding can be therapeutic as well as tidy.

Finally got my last shot in the bot this morning. I am so glad that’s over. Now hopefully my toe will return to its normal size and the cardiologist will say encouraging things on Monday. My butt looks like a war zone, with bruises and plasters all over (I’ve gotten most of them off, I think…) However, if the infection is gone, it’s worth it. I may have a bourbon and diet Coke tomorrow afternoon to celebrate.

For those of you in the Boston area, I’ll be back there from Easter Monday through the following Sunday. If you’re amenable, I’d love a meeting for lunch or dinner some day.

has arrived and is now sleeping it off upstairs. We went to Tottenham Court Road for lunch and afterwards got him a mobile phone and together we went to Brick Lane to buy rye bread for tomorrow’s breakfast. Tuckered us both out.

Top Commenters on ‘s LiveJournal
(Self comments excluded from rankings)

1		65
2		52
3		38
4		35
5	Anonymous	26
6		25
7		18
8		13
9		13
10		12

11		12
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15		11
16		9
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35		1
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41		1

Total Commenters: 42 (1 not shown)
Total Comments: 621
Report generated 20/03/2006 18:29:06 by ‘s LJ Comment Stats Wizard 1.7

You’ll find the page to get this program for yourself here.

The erstwhile pet cat of three Prime Ministers has died in retirement. Story is here. Sad, really. Apparently Cherie Blair dislikes cats and so Humphrey was turned out of the home he’d known since 1989 when Margaret Thatcher adopted him after he wandered into 10 Downing Street.

Number 10 has denied that Cherie Blair doesn’t like cats but they denied that peerages were being sold, too.

I often look at the Subject: line of spam I get before deleting it from the server. (I recommend MailWasher Pro, by the way…it does a very thorough job).

Today’s gem is this one for one of those male penile dysfunction tablets:

The subject line is:

The fashion of newest creation
The further is ejaculation.

Would anyone like to try to complete this limerick? (Rearranging the first two lines to make them sensible is permissable.)

The body (minus the fake URL) is:

Wanna hold a brick on your dick? Try our Soft Cialis Tabs. (Warning: don