Headless in Seattle!

*Under the BDP, there is now a Headless Pigeon which appears to have been gutted.




*There is also the beer barrel I mentioned before...


*And by it, a Pigeon that has no obvious injuries. Other'n that it's Dead, obviously.
We at Chez BDP suspect it got drunk and fell off the roof. That happens with beer, sometimes.


*And a broken egg.

Book Dilemma...

Now, I was reading 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd', then Matt got me a couple of other books, and because I'm rubbish at finishing one book before starting another, I dove straight into one of the new ones.

So I'm in the middle of both 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' (Agatha Christie, obviously) and 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace, author of 'Join Me' and co-author of 'Are You Dave Gorman?'

Now, I also got a book by a guy called Pierre Bayard, called 'Who Killed Roger Ackroyd', which is a sort of treatise on 'TMORA'.

I also have 'Crap Towns II' by Sam Jordison and Dan Kieran.
And A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down, the book of the website. Written by Nicey and Wifey.

So I want to read the two Ackroyd books together, but I don't know in what order to read these five!
Gyaaargh!

This is the sort of problem that no-one else has, isn't it?

PS: This is urgent. Help me!

Oh, and this morning the young Pigeons were still hanging around the BDP. Guarding their dead?

Rock the kazbah... er... the very foundations of the BDP

So, literally half an hour after I finished the last post, Matt and I discovered a huge, but clearly adolescent, seagull obviously and lumpily dead under the BDP.

There were also three other adolescent seagulls lurking on the pavement next to the Bridge. One of them was dragging its right wing.

Seems there has been ferocity at the BDP.

Young 'uns.




Injured 'un.




Dead 'un.

My dramatic life, links, BDP, books and horrible thoughts.

Saturday we went to see the Fantastic Four. It was quite good. Lots of pretty explosions and CGI. Even if the guy playing Dr Doom was the guy from Nip/Tuck. We had dinner at a place called International Starters where (you guessed it!) the whole menu is starters, so you just order lots of different ones. The Italian pizza bread with pepperoni was lovely, but the loaded potato skins were disappointingly bland.

Well, I was working on Sunday at a ‘Japanese’ event. That basically meant that we ran all the same crafts as last time, but instead of, for example, ‘Fairy Tale Pebbles’, it was ‘Japanese pebbles’. Adds up to much the same thing anyway. Kids paint rocks. Woo. It just means I get covered with paint and dust.

Plus, we have an invasion of spiders in our bathroom. They’re about an inch – inch and a half across, and they’re all speedy and leggy and scuttly. And they appear to live in the wall.
*shudder*

Right! Links!

Go to randi.org! And learn and laugh and l.. um... limp?

Dictionary.com FAQ. Strangely fascinating.

BDP!
Now, as for the BDP, there’s still the disturbing lack of actual Dead Pigeons. However, there are inexplicable beer barrels. Mostly by the caved-in door, but one is firmly under the bridge. I wonder how these fit into the saga.

Books!
I’m currently re-reading ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’. I bought a book by Pierre Bayard called ‘Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?’ which, rather presumptuously I thought, suggests that Poirot, and by extension, Agatha Christie, got the wrong person, so I thought I’d re-read the original before I got into that one.

Horrible thoughts ahead!
My brain appears to be missing that middle brain function which cuts out horrible ideas before they either appear as full-blown thoughts, or before I say them.
Ok, here goes.
Someone, somewhere, must have come up with Poirot/Hastings slash fiction.
Ugghghghghghhghghh.
And then I had thoughts about thighs, and moustaches, which I won't write here because it makes my brain convulse.

Links Akimbo!

Rinkworks is a special (not as in 'needs') site, especially this bit.

I have no idea where I got this one at all. This is not safe for work, or for children, or for anyone with a nervous disposition and/or a weak stomach.
Tee hee.

And I could probably do with learning cuss control.

In keeping with the publication of the new Harry Potter book, I dug up this cartoon from my favourites list.

This Littlest Hobo cartoon would have to come under the heading of 'what the dickens?'

Mr T respectin' his mother. And mothers worldwide, I'd wager. No further comments.

Finally, read this webcomic.
It's dead good, I promise. You'll kick yourself (with your extendable Mr Gadget leg) if you don't.

I'll leave it at that, for I have wine to drink, and websites to view.
I vow to do another links post soon, though, cataloguing some of the odd sites I have saved on my work computer.

Doom! Dooooooooooom! Doooom!

Update from the BDP.

And comments on the last BDP post:
From 'M':
And, oh yes, reporting today's BDP mission as a failure, target had left the theatre of operations...

Indeed, the cage was removed by the time 'M' went to the bridge, a scant 30 minutes after I had been past. I smell a cover-up!

On the way home, there was sad reminders of the carnage I believe occured.
Charybdis was right when he said:
The cage contained the pigeons newest weapon - a gigantic radioactive mutant pigeon, who has now escaped into the wild. A massive birdhunt is now underway to apprehend the rogue mutant pigeon before the authorities become aware of the danger to the populace and panic ensues.

Three things are left at the site.

Firstly, a small child's Thomas the Tank Engine cap. Tragic.


Secondly, what looks like an imprint of a Pigeon's foot in the brick wall.


Thirdly, the warehouse next to the BDP has a door that has been knocked in.


I think I can, with no fear of disagreement, say that there is no other explanation for these things.

'M' has posited a theory that the mysterious coil marks (see old post) may have had something to do with the use of wire in the original capture...

Word of the day.

Avoirdupois.

Good, eh?

All Things Bright and Beautiful

There is a cage under the BDP. Wait! Don’t panic! I shall describe it to you, and then you can panic. It is about my height (5’5”), looks to be made of aluminium (Merkins say aluminum, right? How odd!), has a two and a half feet-ish base (measurements are not my strong suit), wheels on the underneath, and a door hanging open, as though something got out. Ok, GO with the panicking!

I have sent ‘M’ out to take a picture, but it may not still be there… Mind you, he *ahem* or she may never come back.

In other news, I woke up this morning in an odd mood.

I had this song going round and round in my brain. Damn you, brownies! *shakes fist*

I've got a little baby bumble bee
Won't my mummy be surprised at me?
I've got a little baby bumble bee
Oo, ee, the bee stung me.

I'm squashing up my baby bumble bee
Won't my mummy be surprised at me?
I'm squashing up my baby bumble bee
Oo, ee, it’s on me.

I'm licking up my baby bumble bee
Won't my mummy be surprised at me?
I'm licking up my baby bumble bee
Oo, ee, the bee's in me.

I'm bringing up my baby bumble bee
Won't my mummy be surprised at me?
I'm bringing up my baby bumble bee
Oo, ee, there's my bee.


Also, today I am reading ‘Passenger to Frankfurt’, which is an Agatha Christie book written to commemorate her 80th birthday (15th September 1970). It’s so odd to see her mention the Beatles. In my mind, she and all her characters are 30s, 40s and 50s based.

It mentioned a Van Dyck painting, which immediately led to my thinking of Dick van Dyke. Let’s face it, a lot of things make me think of him, because the man’s a god. Anyway, it reminded me of this joke (seen here on Snopes)

A strikingly handsome young man walked into the office of a Hollywood agent with his resume and portfolio in hand. The agent reviewed the young man's slim resume and small portfolio with the care that was deserving of his fine young specimen.
"You have the very obvious good looks and excellent demeanor of an actor. Tell me, have you had any roles that I might be aware of."
"Other than the requisite high school and college plays, no sir," said the handsome young man.
"I dare say I know the reason why, with a name like yours," said the agent.
"Sir?"
"Your name. Penis Van Lesbian. That's not a name that will go far in Hollywood. I'd love to represent you, but you'll have to change your name."
"Sir," the handsome young man protested. "The Van Lesbian name was my father's, my grandfather's and his father's name. We have carried this name for generations and I will not change it for Hollywood or any other reason."
"If you won't change your name, I cannot represent you young man."
"Then I bid you farewell -- my name will not change." With that, Penis Van Lesbian left the agents office never to return.
Five Years Later: The Hollywood agent returned to his office after lunch with some producers and shuffled through his mail. Mostly junk mail, trade journals and the like. There was one letter. He opened the envelope and removed the letter. As he unfolded the fine linen paper, a check dropped from the folds and onto his desk. He looked at the check. It was for 50,000 dollars! He read the letter:
Dear Sir: Several years ago, I entered your office determined to become an actor. You refused to represent me unless I changed my name. I objected, saying the Penis Van Lesbian name had been carried for generations and left your office. However, upon leaving, I chanced to reconsider my hastiness and after considerable reflection, I decided to heed your advice and endeavored to change my name. Now I am a famous actor with many roles and known to millions worldwide.
Having achieved this fame and fortune, it is often that I think back to my meeting with you and your insistence that I change my name. I owe you a debt of gratitude, so please accept this check with my humble thanks, for it was your idea which has brought me to such wealth and fame.
Very Sincerely Yours,
Dick Van Dyke

And now that’s stuck in my head. Well done me.

And here's a new fact for you all (or at least, for most of you):

By his final appearance in Curtain (1975), Poirot was confined to a wheelchair, although his little grey cells remained as sharp as ever. Upon his death, Hercule Poirot became the only fictional character ever to be honored with an obituary on the front page of The New York Times.

How wonderful! I love that.

"Tra la la, the three cats sang
And then they heard the first big bang"
So, according to 'Mog and Meg', cats existed before the universe did.
Singing cats, no less.

Right, now leave a comment lest I kill you.

Oh, and read Snowy's blog.

Matt has kindly explained to me how to do links. I love Matt.

Right, now leave a comment. GO!

XXX hardcore update!

I have spent the whole afternoon working on a 27-page long 'Allotment Strategy'. My brain may be fried. So, if this update is odd, I blame that. I have another thirty pages to be doing tomorrow.
*sigh*

Anyway.

BDP:

* Still no new Dead Pigeons. Funny...

*Graffiti saying 'Long Live the Tender Trio'. Somebody trying to sound cool? Who can say?
*shrug*

*Spiral giant-worm marks still there.

BDP related:

We went up and round Arthur's Seat on Monday afternoon. The Pigeons had set up an ambush.






We ran away.

Non BDP:

I had a couple of free lunches at the City Chambers yesterday and the day before. A perk of my job is getting to attend that sort of function. Yesterday, the fact I got to listen to a barbershop quartet and watch eight elderly ladies dance (with feather boas!) to 'Hey, Big Spender' really made my day!
And today it's allotments. Oh well. I can't be a lady who lunches all the time, I s'pose.

What I did at the weekend.

Friday night: went out and got very drunk, fell over and scraped my knee.
Saturday: Watched TV and read. Ended up not going to bed until 6am. Bloody 'Sunset Beach'.
Sunday: Read, flew a kite at the park, climbed hills, finished watching 'Dead End', which is a quality film and creepy as hell (so creepy, I chickened out of finishing watching it the night before, so that I could watch it in the daylight). Went to bed reasonably early.

The BDP is much unchanged from the other day.
As to those valiant commenters who asked if it were something to do with cleaning under the BDP, I have checked, but all the piles of Pigeon poo appear to be intact and unchanged.
Mysteeeeeerious.

And from the BDP...

Upon our return, the following things were noted at the BDP.

*No new Dead Pigeons.

*Remains of Headless DP.


*Other remains in the centre of the road.

*Mysterious spiral marks covering all pavement under the BDP, but nowhere else.










Giant worms? Tremors? Giant slinkies? Feel free to offer suggestions.

*Not BDP related, but some interesting graffitti.


Thanks to the elusive and useful 'M'.

Camping Extravaganza!

Day One

We arrived at the camp site – not as small as we’d imagined, but the tree-surrounded corner for tents was very pretty. Nice and quiet, too, and right by the river. We put up the tent rather slowly, with lots of interruptions for looking-at-the-river and going-to-see-the-donkeys-in-the-next-field. Luckily, we had two mallets (or as they’re also known, my shoes), so once we got going the pegs went in quite quickly.







We did all the usual stuff; got water, made tea, lay about on a rug being covered with little green aphids… somewhat of a template for the entire holiday.







We were the only people there at that point, but then three more tents turned up. With people, obviously. They weren’t sentient. Hmm, sentitents. The latest in camping design!

Anyway.

A couple put up their tent opposite us, and we didn’t like them immediately. I don’t know why. Possibly it was because she was wearing white shoes. How shallow. But we then discovered that they weren’t very nice to the dog that was with them, so it was ok to dislike them. There was also a massive tent put up by a family with three kids. They had a TV and stereo in their tent. What the Dickens? What sort of rubbish camping is that?

Matt did the washing up and lost my favourite folding knife. Much beration followed.

We saw a flock – well, 4 or 5 – of what looked like buzzards. Do buzzards flock?

There were bats. Bats are so very cool.

Matt managed to make toast over our little gas ring. It was a very impressive system of pulleys and winches and… um… Spam tins and skewers and stuff. It was, as I said, very impressive, and the toast was lovely. Plus, we had our first taste (no pun intended) of wildlife, when we found a caterpillar in my dinner. Matt made his usual joke about protein.

We discovered the batteries we’d taken were shite. Just about the time it got dark. That’ll teach us to buy cheap batteries.

Flies in drinks today – 9
Total book count – 2


Day Two

We had Spam and bacon for breakfast, with ketchup and bread. Yummy. Outdoors. Yummy.



Spam when raw looks and smells like dog food. However, cooked it is yummy.



Then we went up to the little shop at the campsite and found that someone had handed in my little knife. Huzzah!

We went into bustling Peebles today. It truly is a pretty place, and very much enjoys and deserves its description as the ‘New York of the Borders’. If it had ever been described as that. Which I doubt.











We got back around mid-afternoon and spent most of the rest of the day lounging about.

We tried playing Frisbee for a bit, but within two minutes I had accidentally thrown it into the river and Matt had to go and wade up to get it.

Matt then spent quite some time damming the river. He does this anywhere there is a stream or river. It’s pathological.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a bit of damming, but he gets really into it.

We had a bit of a barbeque, lit some giant anti-midge candles, and watched some bats, and what we think were Swallows or Martins.



We then went and traded some wax sculptures (drips) with some of the children, who had given up their army game and were running a thriving market within the rhododendron bushes. We gained such exciting wares as berries, stones, and sticks.

Later on we met some boys with poi, and had a couple of beers.

There are bunnies living at the camp site. Yay!

Flies in drinks today – 11
Total book count – 4


Day Three

In the morning we went into Peebles again, in order to visit a car boot sale. Trust us – we’re camping with no electricity, and we buy videos and DVDs. We got Urban Legends 2, Dawn of the Dead, Blood Gnomes, The Sideshow, Blair Witch, and Children of the Corn. All for £6! Collecting horror films is a hobby of ours. Bad horror films especially. Which reminds me – if you get a chance to watch Voodoo Academy, TAKE IT! It’s hilarious.

I tried have a nap on the rug in the afternoon. It went well, up to a point. Every time I drifted off, I’d be woken by a beetle on my arm, or a caterpillar crawling across my foot.





I eventually retired to the tent, where I fell asleep and promptly had a dream about a friend of mine committing suicide in front of me, after which Matt and I went to see LaMa, who lived on a farm and ran a cottage industry.

During my nap, Matt was damming.

I am being eaten alive by midges. For some reason, they ignore Matt, but love me. I am all over bites. This is despite the candles and anti-midge cream. Thank the lord for Anthisan, that’s what I say.

We decided to have a go on the little kids’ play park whilst there were no children there. I was promptly beaten up by the netting, and limped back to the tent in defeat.

Luckily, there was a lovely sunset to cheer me up, and Matt spent a while trying to set fire to what I can only describe as a ‘big fuck-off stick’. Sadly, there are no pictures of this, as my camera can’t cope with that level of contrast. Suffice to say, it was very endearing.





Flies in drinks today – 6
Total book count – 7


Day Four

Matt has become crispy on the outside and tender on the inside (Yum!), thanks to his combination of sunburn and hayfever. I am becoming as tanned as toast. It was a very hot day.

We invented a new game today. The ‘games room’ had only a table tennis table, so we had to come up with something. We are also unable to play any game normally, and always have to come up with extra rituals and rules (remind me to tell you about Flameball).

So. Do you find Ping Pong boring? Do you feel that it has too many boundaries and not enough violence? Well, why don’t you try X-TREME PING PONG!

Equipment

X-Treme Ping Pong features a square-ish room with a ping pong table diagonally in the middle, and chairs, tables and video game machines arrayed around the edges. The floor should be made of wood. There is no net. Players, of which there may be no more or less than two, each have a ping pong paddle, preferably with the glue wearing away so the rubber bits flap about.

Rules.

Each player has an approximate half of the room. Imaginary lines may be drawn if wished, but are not necessary. Service starts in the same manner as normal ping pong. The idea is to make the ball stop bouncing – to either roll or stop – in the opposition’s half of the room, scoring you one point. Hitting it under chairs and tables is encouraged, as it needs skill to get it out whilst it’s still bouncing. Hitting it behind or beneath games machines is discouraged, due to the difficulty of retrieval. Bouncing it off walls, ceilings, doors, lights etc is considered good play. Hitting it in the opposite direction to where your opponent is placed is also considered worthy. The game ends at a pre-agreed number of points, or when one of you tears a ligament or drowns in their own sweat.

We hope to get this into the 2012 Olympics, where special safety gear may have to be insisted upon, as I’ve completely buggered both my knee and ankle whilst playing.

This goes well with my all over bruises. I hate the feel of bed rolls, so we’re just sleeping on the ground, but I hurt all over. It doesn’t seem to stop me sleeping, though.

Speaking of sleeping, I was having a quiet lie-down on the rug after X-Treme Ping Pong, sat up, and found a caterpillar on my forehead. Huh.

We went on Bunny-watch before bed. We saw 40 bunnies. Huzzah!

Flies in drinks today – 7
Total book count – 10


Day Five

We were supposed to go home today, but gave into temptation and booked another night.

We went for a walk along the river. The foliage was beautiful and lush, and it was a perfect Scottish day.







Matt sneezed constantly all the way along and back, and apparently had a lot of flem. At which point I asked him if he were a cobra, he agreed, and we gossiped about other cobras he knew.

Then we fed the donkeys apples. Well, Matt fed one of them, and I held an apple out to the other, who headbutted me in the hand until I dropped the apple, and then he ate it. Oh well.





We played another few rounds of X-Treme Ping Pong – probably a bad idea, considering how much my leg hurt. But it was fun nonetheless, and we both expended a lot of energy on it. The ‘games room’ theoretically has video surveillance, so I can’t help wondering what the staff thought of it.

We had another barbeque, went bunny-spotting again, and packed up all our stuff.

Matt's smudgy bunny photos:








And a smudgy dog photo.


I got a midge bite on my FUCKING EYELID!

It was a quiet day, but fun.

Flies in drinks today – 6
Total book count – 13


Day Six

We finished packing up, said goodbye to the camp site, and went home.

At one point we saw an injured baby bunny. It seemed like it should recover, though. I hope it does.

Matt wanted to me to take a picture of him by his dam, only to discover that some bastards had taken it apart to try and make their own dam, which sucked. Poor Matt.



On the bus, we saw a sign for a ‘fruiterer and florist’. Surely ‘fruiterer’ isn’t a word?

Some other, random, photos.





Who'da thunk? Planting leaves in Matt's navel does not produce a tree.


Matt being stern with a towel on his head.


A lovely picture of grass.




Me hating having my photo taken.






Up through the trees.


It was a lovely holiday, and I hope we go camping again soon.
Herein lies the end of the slightly boring travelogue.