MonkeyVarnish

Giant dog turd wreaks havoc at Swiss museum

2008-08-21T05:10:00.000-07:00

Giant dog turd wreaks havoc at Swiss museum

2008-08-15T04:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/12/3

Brobdingnag

2006-07-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

You may have not noticed a lack of posting for while, apart from that last one.

I've been very busy hunting far and wide for large things to report.

Here's what I found...

Big People

Booker T &the MGs. And Bruno's Organ

2006-07-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

I was driving to the dentist one sunny day, enjoying a bit of Booker T and the MGs, when my enjoyment of the Hammond organ stylings were disturbed by a barely perceptible but horrible warbling sound. As I tried not to crash I gradually realised what was happening... The cheap and horrible kids keyboard Hels had bought me for my "Bruno from Fame" fancy-dress costume had chosen that time to switch itself on in the boot of my car and was playing all its demo tunes at manic speed. "London Bridge is Falling Down" and "Happy Birthday" were clashing with all those nice tunes about onions. Spooky.

Song Dong Makes City Out of Biscuits

2006-02-20T09:36:00.000-08:00

Genius!
Link

Ahaaaar Me Hearties!

2005-11-19T07:46:00.000-08:00

Possibly the best Accordian/Saw/Typewriter Pyrate Dance Band I've ever heard. They sing songs about drinking rum and slitting throats, and do a fine version of a traditional tune called 'Moonshiner'. Go to their website where you can dowload their tunes for freee.

Banjo Joke

2005-06-15T16:39:00.000-07:00

Q: What's the difference between an onion and a banjo?

A: Nobody cries when you cut up a banjo.

(Except Rence)

I'm home. I have mostly been playing banjo and drinking too much bitter. If anyone can let me and Dan know what we got up to on Sunday night we'd be grateful/mortified.

Oh, and I've taken up pig-wrestling

Photos

2005-03-31T01:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to some photos of big people, little people, normal-sized people, normal-sized vegetables, and facial hair.

MonkeySing

2005-02-24T18:03:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Sha for this link

Maze

2005-02-12T18:35:00.000-08:00

I'm about to pay good money to go in a maze. This is silly. I frequently get lost for free.

The Boss

2005-01-08T19:19:00.000-08:00

There's a new link on the right there for your convenience. It has nothing to do with Bruce Spr*ngsteen cos he's really really rubbish. It has everything to do with Jerome. It is supposed to be his blog, but instead we all use it to take the piss out of him. Nobody seems short of material.

Not Even Near the Board

2005-01-06T01:07:00.000-08:00

Estimated MonkeyVarnish readership has risen by 100%!

Dan has blessed us all with the latest instalment of The Kiwi Diaries. It's like Christmas! Click here.

Tunes of the moment:

(More) Led Zeppelin
Tangerine
A lovely tune, and the most satisfactory fruit, too. Easy to peel without getting all juicy, consistently tasty when in season. Sometimes a bit pithy I spose. Not to be confused with the nectarine, which is inedible. Marv?

The Stone Roses
Ten Storey Love Song
All the "cool" people at Sixth Form liked the Stones Roses, which put me right off. I was too busy listening to Eric Clapton. Oh dear. But 15 years later, they were the soundtrack to The Shoogventure. I like this one for the lyrics, and the way the chorus sort of ebbs and flows and sounds real irregular, but in fact it isn't really. Waterfall is nice too. It has the word "brigantine" in it, which Dan explained is a type of ship.

Loyal Subject

2005-01-01T23:00:00.000-08:00

Since I've been away I seem to have deliberately become some sort of stereotype of a grumpy old Englishman. (Or maybe I was before.) I insist on owning a large box of PG Tips teabags, and found myself boasting that the suncream I brought with me was by appointment to The Queen. So on Christmas day I got quite excited about the prospect of The Queen's speech, and made everyone try to guess what colour she would be dressed in. I think Adam won.

It was nice to get some Xmas greetings from Her Majesty, and the "everyone should try to get along" theme is obviously good. But I thought the "focus in on all the non-white kids in this choir" was very unsubtle. The really funny bit was the footage of Prince Philip being diplomatic.

A quote from Phil:

If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it

More gaffes here, as reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation.

MonkeyReappear

2004-12-26T20:09:00.000-08:00

Just a random rant to see if I can get this blog thing going again. Am on holiday in Oz from holiday in NZ. Spent a week in Sydney which is best described by the following links: 1 2 3, then took a 12hr bus trip (flew by somehow) up to Woodburn to see the rellies. Spent a very pleasant Xmas with them, living life at a very sloth pace, with many tinnies, and shrimps and steak and kebabs on the barbie. Have done some very successful surfing. (Success = not drowning). The water is lovely and warm tho.

Tunes of the Moment:

Led Zeppelin
The Girl I love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair
Some sort of unfinished out-take type thing. Probly just a throwaway thing for them. Crap production so you can hear what they're all at: Fierce riffing, a vocal to match, an incredible groove, and arrogant fretwanking. Marvellous.

Led Zeppelin
Travelling Riverside Blues
Another probably not very rarity. Very apt. I'm travelling. And by a river. Tis real neat cos the first time round this nice slide phrase is played really sketchily. Then drums and bass come in and it's all suddenly perfect. And stays that way. Lyrics are all the usual bollocks about evil ladies, lemons, riders and stuff. Evil lemons? In case yer falling asleep towards the end, John Bonham keeps doing something impossible with a bass drum pedal to remind you not to be so stupid. A brummie also appears from nowhere inviting you to "come in my kitchen". Surreal.

Bob Dylan (Makes suprise appearance)
Buckets of Rain / If You See Her, Say Hello
What a truly expert sulker.

Sixto Rodriguez
Sugarman
This is the best tune ever. Ever. Apart from some others maybe.

I wrote something evil at www.jackonjack.blogspot.com. Sorry Jack, we love you.

The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra

2004-11-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm bored, and I've decided you need to know about the 1VVO, as their true fans probably don't call them.

Sound clip

Crap Green Parrot

2004-11-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Marvin for introducing me to this wonderful creature:

It's a parrot that looks like an owl, but which cannot fly. It can hop like a sparrow and growl like a dog. And it has a smell unlike anything else in the world - except perhaps the smell of flowers or honey!

Ladies and Gentlemen... The Kakapo!

The Road Trip

2004-10-31T13:38:00.000-08:00

Had an excellent couple of weeks touring the North Island with Big Dan. I don't know where to start describing it, but you can read all about it in Dan's words. I did attempt some photography along the way. If you want to see beautiful scenic shots try this link . If badly-composed pictures of oversized fruit and veg are more your thing, try this one, then click the "Slideshow" button. Enjoy!

Rainy Days and Mondays Cancelled for Two Weeks

2004-10-07T18:15:00.000-07:00

Hey Kids! The database job has fried my brain and left me with a compulsion to make lists with tickboxes, and an irrational need to listen to The Carpenters. High time for a HOLIDAY! Have two weeks off and The Great Dan Bashford arrives on Tuesday.

The monster van has had a ridiculously expensive service, and is booked in for a ridiculously expensive temperature gauge repair on Monday. It now features custom-made curtains in suitably horrible orangey-browny-yellowy fabric, and a brown velour sofa bed. Just needs nasty carpet.

Hope get out of Auckland sharpish and have a little jaunt around the North Island, taking in glow-wormy caves, hot springs, a bit of walking and maybe rafting and things. Tis all dependent on cash, hangovers and van reliability tho.

If Dan’s got a camera, I might be able to post some pics.

Cheerio

Crap Joke

2004-10-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

Did you hear about the thieves who stole a calender?
They got 6 months each!

(sorry)

This isn't my van either

2004-09-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

Or my bike...

Toyota Hiape

2004-09-28T18:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve finally got some wheels. Until I’m able to get a picture of me and my monster van, this one will have to do…

Free Reader Offer!

2004-09-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've got 6 gmail invites. If anyone is geeky enough to want one of these, let me know.

Smelling the Sights

2004-08-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

Hey Kids! Have finished the crappy debt-collecting job. Hurrah. On Monday start at Bank of NZ. Apparently have to use Excel and Access to process tonnes of data wot they've collected. Sort of blagged it and said 'yeah I can do that' - as one tends to in job interviews when thinking of the money; but I think it might be a bit trickier than showing the senior folks of Didcot how to use a mouse.

Went to Rotorua last weekend. The earth's crust is very thin there, so steam rises from the ground, and sulphuric ming wafts past from time to time. I imagine being in New York with Jerome would be similar. It was my first trip out of the city, and the scenery was all green and covered in volcanic lumps and bumps which looked like many Hobbitons. Lotsa sheep!

Went Luging. The website makes it sound all glamourous, in fact it is all about sitting on a plastic tray with wheels and rolling down a windy track as fast as you dare. Good pointless fun.

Kiwi Piddles to Olympic Gold!

2004-08-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

That's what the newsreader said...

Special German Words

2004-08-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

At school I tried to learn German. I've forgotten all my vocabulary apart from a few 'special' words. I think they're called compound nouns, where two or more words are joined together to make a new one. Like these:

Handschuh = Hand shoe = Glove

Luftkissenboot = Air cushion boat = Hovercraft

Brustwarze = Breast wart = Nipple

Durchfall = Through fall = Diarrhoea

I reckon that's enough to cope with most eventualities.

9 to 5

2004-08-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

After spending a couple of weeks trawling around agencies pretending to be keen and doing typing and Excel tests and stuff I finally got a job.

I have to look after accounts on behalf of various businesses, and ring their debtors to enquire when they might feel like paying their bills. Had about five minutes training, and know nothing about accounts. Have a Windows 95 computer which runs pre-historic software which has no GUI and cannot be operated by mouse. Its one redeeming feature is that it occasionally causes amusement by displaying an error message which simply reads 'WHAT THE FUCK!'

Under these circumstances I don't feel obliged to do anything right. The money is OK, the people are nice enough, and there's good coffee for free. Hope to have an interview for something better next week.

Spooky Fiine Art Coincidence

2004-07-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

When I first moved into Raleigh Park Road I (supervised while Scatch and Soph) painted my room a lovely shade of brown. This went very well with the brown flowery duvet cover, and orangey-brown sheepskin rug donated by my Ma. Soph made some fine cushions with bold 70's print, and dyed some curtains a nice shade of...

All that was needed to finish this masterpiece of interior design was some fine art. I set my heart on a particular painting by Tretchikoff but could not find it.

Last week when I returned to my dorm at the Brown Kiwi Backpackers, who should have appeared on the wall but...

Tunes of The Moment

2004-07-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

Lemon Jelly - Rambling Man
An obvious choice. Samples of some posh bloke reciting list of placenames over tunes which can only be described as 'floaty'. There's a great bit where it sounds like it's going to do something, then doesn't, which turns out to be better than if it had done something.

Bob Dylan - To Ramona
Bob, what are your songs about?

"Some of them are about 3 minutes, some of them are about 5 minutes"

(Seems to have overlooked 'Desolation Row').

I think this one's about talking to a lady called Ramona, who's sad.

Bill Gates is Rubbish

2004-07-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

Not the most original statement, but the computer crashed just cos I wanted to look at a picture of some grapes.

Rambling Man

2004-07-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

That's where I live now. It actually looks like that. The big tower in the middle is the Skytower. It was the tallest structure in the Southern hemisphere, but then the Aussies built Centrepoint in Sydney. The Kiwis didn't like to be outdone, so they added a bit to the top of their tower. So now it's the tallest again. Foolish. You can pay lots of money to jump off it attached to a wire. Foolish.

Started off in 600 bed hostel in centre of town which was 'functional'. Had a few raucous nights there, but after the 'locking self out of room and getting stuck in lift in pants' incident I decided to find more sedate surroundings. Am now staying in The Brown Kiwi which is in a nice suburb, just a stroll from town. Tis nice to be able to cook own food (supermarket is full of good stuff - a fine range of hommous!) and lounge around. Hope to stick around and get a job for a few months, then hit the road in November when the weather should be better - its a bit chilly at the mo. The Great Dan Bashford may be visiting! Am thinking of buying a car or camper - but must get job first.
Am waiting to get on ferry to go to Waiheke. Tis an island about half an hour away, but is aparrently a couple of degrees warmer. The perfect climate for growing:

and Oh Yes!

Rence Arrives in Auckland

2004-07-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Kids!

2004-07-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. It is likely to contain the same old stuff I always talk about and maybe a bit about me travels. Feel free to not read it. Feel free to leave rude comments. Cheers!