Raw Rats Arse.

In our kitchen there has lurked for no small while a petite jar from ‘Deli Continental.’ It contains, ‘Shiitake, Paddy Straw, Nameko and Porcini mushrooms in vegetable oil.’ Someone paid good money for it and gave it to us as a present. I can see why. It has the familiar look of a Bush-tucker Trial. It wouldn’t take much to convince me it contains lambs eyelids, rats pituitary glands and assorted baby eagle offal. We’ve never found the right occasion to open it. Presumably if we ever do get around to opening it it will also taste like the latter. So Mark out of Towie is, this very pre-recorded moment, in the Australian jungle in a Melbourne back garden attempting to eat his own Deli Continental fare. Good luck mate, good on yer. I like people with arrogance, it’s a much misunderstood virtue. I admire someone honest enough to say, “bring it on, sure I’ll do it, up for anything me, what? Fuck that” followed by “ It’s not humanly possible”, after watching Freddie Star down a bowl of raw rats arse. Granted Freddie was hospitalised as a result, so technically Mark was right. No I won’t have anything said against mark, he’s as translucent as a wet t-shirt and I prefer a wet t-shirt any day to Teresa May’s murky obfuscations. OMG I’ve just imagined Teresa May in a wet t-shirt! Give me that Deli Continental jar.

Teachers Attractive Bottoms.

Teachers have two failings, enthusiasm and optimism. Other than that they’re lovely people. This unfortunate condition attracts a Pied Piper-esque following of people trying to shaft them. If it’s not the Department for Education, pupils and their adoring or neglectful parents it’s members of their own profession. My sonmouse, graciously saved by his ironic humour, lasted two years and recounted this example. His deputy head, obviously with an already firm grip on the greasy pole, asked a group of pupils for their helpful suggestions on how the school might enhance their educational experience. They duly offered, “lessons should be fun not boring, to be treated as adults, more group work, and more learning of all this fascinating material than stupid tests.”  Duly noted this Dephead offered his findings to the whole school in the following day’s assembly. This thoughtful initiative was roughly the equivalent of getting teachers to bend over so he could spread jam over their bottoms. It’s like the management of Costa Coffee coming back with the results of a customer survey. “So you want us to serve topless, spill milk on our breasts, lick it off, give them free use of the privilege stamp and trust them to come back and pay the following day after they’ve done a runner?!!” It seems climbing the greasy pole takes one out of focusing distance of reading between the lines. Then there’s in-post training to continually refresh and invigorate a teachers skills and commitment. Where sonmouse came out expecting a conversation of hearty derision after an hour of banal stupidity, which in itself would have been a much needed moral booster, he was met with, “Mmm, interesting. Informative yet provocative.” What! Page seven of my IT handout covered ‘how to hold your mouse.’ With helpful diagram!” No doubt if I assiduously read further chapter two will go on to cover the tricky situation of wanting to go further left after reaching the edge of your mouse mat. ‘Carefully lift your mouse, gently slide the mat to the left and then lower your mouse again.’ Somewhere this very moment there’s a teacher practicing this delicate maneuver. Sonmouse went on to explain what he did during his ten-week course in Craft, Design & Technology. “Sanding.” Sanding? “Yes, it allows you to drift around and chat to all your friends.” So there you have it, the current state of education, ten weeks spent making a bit of wood slightly smaller.

Economics Again.

Well Radio 4 has just hosted a lecture by a famous economist, Richard Kean, who outlined his new ideas to get us out of this mess, i.e. Variable Income Pricing, which, yes, you heard here first on Stiffmouse. Buoyed up by this coupe I’ll go further. Richard talked of Darwin as an economist, that natural selection, though it could favour the individual or the species, chooses to favour the species. In other words where slightly bigger breasts might favour an individual female’s capacity to attract a male partner evolution hasn’t allowed them to continue to grow to the size of weather balloons because copulation would become impossible lying on a bouncy pair of Space Hoppers. So evolution is directed towards the benefit of the species not the individual. Now it’s widely recognised the rich/poor income ratio has grown out of hand lately and our system has mutated towards favouring individuals, and that regulation of some sort is needed. But what sort of regulation? Currently as the best salaries are paid to the regulated it likely they will find ways around regulation put in place by the less well-paid regulators. So we can’t keep these horses in by regulatory fences. What we can do is create rules that are in the brightest minds best interests to follow, i.e. the brighter they are the better they will follow them. Where a strong horse will jump out of a square coral it will run to its hearts content between two circular fences. Variable Income Pricing is a case in point. Another more subtle approach might be to enforce a simple rule that one must take a day’s holiday for every £2,000 worth of income. That way not only would high earners become increasingly non-productive, they would have an increasing amount of leisure time to find a better meaning to their life. These type rules attempt to bend the economic trajectory of all layers of society towards the common good rather than building more and more complex fences that will inevitably be jumped. Then of course there’s electric fences. I wonder how they would work out?

Goodby Food Friends.

Stop doing this to me! Providing irresistible blog material. Today Mothermouse gets a letter in the post offering us friendship with a tea bag! That’s right, two young women (pictured) from Yorkshire Tea are offering us two free teabags (enclosed) in exchange for our friendship with a teabag. That’s just one each. If one of my existing human friends offered me a teabag on my birthday I’d be offended and they’re not, well they’re not teabags. My friendship cannot be bought with a teabag! And besides that how am I supposed to have a meaningful relationship with one anyway!? Is it going to forgive me for pouring boiling water over it and, when I’ve thoughtlessly extracted what I want from it, throw it in the compost bin? No it wouldn’t work, we’d drift apart, cite musical differences and come to hate each other over who’s going to get custody of the children. What would they think of me breaking up the family for an illicit relationship with a small bag of leaves? And then said young ladies go on to recommend I add it as a friend on Facebook! What’s it going to do, post me pictures of comical teabag t-shirts and tell me it’s just been for a lovely walk? They then go on to suggest I can follow it on Twitter! Follow a teabag on Twitter?!!!! What like, “I’m going in….I’m coming out… oops now I’m lying in the remains of yesterday’s cottage pie.” I’m not interested in the private lives of teabags, I don’t want to be their friend, and I’m definitely not going on to You Tube to follow the hilarious exploits of one. In fact I’m so incensed I’m going to delete all my Face Book foodstuff friends. I have my pride. 

Struggle.

I was not enlightened by Melvyn Bragg’s quizzing of four philosophers yesterday so I feel I must step in where centuries of debate have patently failed to get a grip on our relationship with reality. The core of the oneness of all things is struggle. Rocks struggle with gravity and weathering, plants with getting nutrients and Japanese Knotweed, and animals with digesting other animals and/or plants. Humans though are in a class of their own having a forehead brain extension to aid our struggle. Imagine if you will, being in a darkened, soundproof room alone. You put on headphones, turn on a 3D monitor and plug in an olfactory/gustatory transducer into your nose and mouth. You feel in the darkness for joysticks connected to your manipulators. With the aid of these inputs you begin your forehead brain extension’s struggle with what appears to be an external environment. This isolation booth defines the parameters of our cognitive Matrix-like struggle. And that’s it. The so-called philosopher’s struggle is just the same as David Beckam taking a free kick. It doesn’t address the root of our relationship with reality, it’s just another aspect of our struggle because that’s what we’re programmed to do; it’s all we do. It’s called 'struggle.’ Then of course there's the other old question. "Is there anyone in the room with you?"

My Football Mouth.

Having a mouth like the Somme battlefield after a heavy night’s shelling I’ve just returned from another visit to my dentist. I realise now there are some who watch Strictly giving marks out of ten for dentistry. Brucey, 9.5- top and bottom sets by Revis and Hughs Labs, Epsom, excellent work; Russell Grant, 8.0- front four incisors  slight mismatch with own canines, Robbie Savage, 11- Oh my God, get a room! etc. And that’s with their mouths closed; God knows what he makes of the X Factor contestants with their molars exposed in full gob extension! He’s probably mentally toting up the cost of the work they need doing while they’re singing, “I need your vote, god speed your vote, god vote for me, my y y yy y y love” for survival on a Sunday. But I have to admit, Russell Grant has been a surprising find, managing to combine the attributes of a Tele-Tubby with the spirit of Martha Graham. No dis Russell, you’ve got what it takes, incisors aside, whereas I, falling into the trap common to all commentators of saying they’re useless at everything, am useless at everything. My score for dancing would accurately reflect my dentist’s opinion of my mouth, “abysmal Garry.” (as in Alan Hanson’s view of Chelsea’s back four) But at least now I’ve got a presentable front four; I’ve named them Belotelli, Rooney, Drogba and Hernandez, nestling between my own canine stalwarts of Scholes and Giggs. But then it’s still the back four molars, Vidic, Ferdinand, Smalling and Brown who do all the hard work. I had Ashley Cole out. 

Bernard the Prick.

OK now here’s another world-beater, I like this one: VIP. We’ve had VAT so how about VIP, Variable Income Pricing. It’s very simple. We each have a taxable income worked out by the Inland Rev. This simple information is added to the data on our credit cards. Then, when you go into a shop to purchase an electric toothbrush or flatulence tablets etc the base cost of the item is multiplied by some factor related to your income. Thus flatulence tablets would cost 65 pence to an unemployed cosmetic surgeon but only £5.95 to a hedge fund manager who’s just got out of his Ferrari parked on a double yellow line. Yes it taxes the rich more than ordinary people but only if they buy something, they can still have low income tax. I mean they love buying expensive cars and houses and jewellery so lets increase their enjoyment by making them even more expensive. “Oh yes Sid, this Lambo cost me ten times what you’d pay for it, but you see I can afford it, unlike you.” “Well Damian that’s amazing. I’m so impressed, I never dreamt anything could be that expensive!” “Oh it’s nothing Sid. Work hard and one day you’ll be able to spend money like I do.” They’ll love it. Bankers who’ve fallen on hard times will get depressed, ashamed by the low prices they’re being changed. “So how much did that Nigella Lawson cook book cost you?” “Don’t remember.” “Oh come on you’re just avoiding the humiliation of paying £6.95. Mine cost me £87.80. Bernard got his for £127.95 but he’s a prick. Ha ha ha.”