Chuggers

Have I mentioned before just how much I loathe chuggers - you know the "charity muggers" who accost you in the street demanding a direct debit mandate with menaces?

By Fafnir's tail I hate these people so very, very much, almost as much as politicians, the McCanns and the Jehovas Witnesses who knocked on the door last sunday morning when me and Mrs Dracunculus were mid-shag. I used to contribute to Amnesty International until I got accosted by one of their chuggers and realised just how much of my cash was not going to get some poor bastard who had said "Hey, this government sucks" out of jail but to some cunt with a clipboard and a mound of direct debit forms so they could pay for their fucking beer whilst taking a year out.

Now normally I can plan my route from office to station avoiding the obstacle course of earnest clipboard wielding kiwis and aussies trying to pry a few baubles from the horde. However for various reasons today I had to leave work early and take a trip down Chugger Alley.

The charity de-jour was the NCH. Now I don't much like charities at the best of times but I have a particular black spot in my heart for childrens charities ever since the NSPCC started running those glycerin-in-they-eyes-so-it-makes-the-sprog-look-like-he's-crying ads on every channel one Christmas Day and now every time one of their number gets up and starts to spout on about censoring the interweb I have to go and immolate one of next door's brood.

I also have a cold.

Rhinovirus + Childrens Charity + Chugger = One Very Grumpy Dragon.

I don't suppose having Rammstein on at full volume on the ipod-u-like was helping me into a warm and cuddly frame of mind eithier.

So when permatanned aussie neighbours extra Nolene stood right in my path, spread her arms wide into the Jesus-being-nailed-to-a-plank pose and intoned "I'm an obstacle" she got both nostrils set to "crispy"

"I'm sorry. You have obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a fuck. Now get out of my fucking way."

The look on her pathetic little stunned face made my week.

I was so happy that Chuggers 2 and 3 merely escaped with a cheery "Go fuck a goat will you" and "Piss off" respectively.

At the sound of the woman being stoned, Mecca Standard Time will be...

It's always hilarious when religious people try to use science to back up their claims to the existence of their particular brand of sky pixie but this is the first time I've seen the Muslims crawl out from under their rock only to make themselves look more backward than we thought they were in the first place.

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Right. Well if you were to cut out a model of the UK and find the place where that model would balance you find that its somewhere just outside Blackburn, Lancashire. However I don't see anyone proposing the town famous for having lots of holes and a really cheap shoe shop to be made capital of Great Britain.

So what piece of scientific wisdom have they come up with to bolster the claim of Mecca Standard Time?

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

Errr.. where did this guy do his training. First thing they taught us when I did Geology (University of Lancaster, class of '86, I graduated Draco Cum Laude) was the Earth's magnetic poles move about and that "magnetic north" is different depending on where you are, it even flips round so north becomes south every so often. Ali Al Bottyburp, muslim scientist extraordinare, can't even claim that it lines up at Mecca because a quick shufty over at the US Geological Service shows that the magnetic deviation at 21°25′00″N 39°49′00″E happens to be 2.6 degrees. Here's a nice map if you want to have a look yourself.

But what's science when you can wilfully ignore history.

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

Not really. We were a pretty important maritime power but not particularly colonial at the time and I think you'll find that the world adopted the zero meridian at Greenwich because the Brits just happened to be the first to discover a reliable method of working out longditude during sea voyages. Either way most people call it "UTC" from the French for "Universal Co-ordinated Time" now.

I think it's high time we put to bed this myth of the muslim world being great scientists who discovered astronomy, chemistry and the like. They didn't. At best they managed to preserve Greek learning and just plundered the rest from places like India.

And as to adopting Mecca Standard Time, when you lot can present me with a Geologists that is acually capable of passing a GCSE science exam then I will listen to you, and will still tell you to fuck off.

They call her Slapper, Slapper, Faster than Ligtning

Sorry everyone. I've been away having fun making the lives of sundry West African gentlemen something of a nightmare, plus doing the Christians a favour (first time for everything) by turning the life of a fake "Evengelist" in India who preys on gullable Xtians (there is another kind?) for charitable donations into ass casserole - that one is still going on, he's off on what scambaiters call a "safari" next week the 1200 miles to Delhi thinking he's going to get a $20,000 compensation cheque.

Anyway that's what I've been doing instead of commenting on the latest inanity by the McCann circus and having a right old laugh at the Shannon Matthews saga. But I miss spilling my vitriol about around here so I'm back to set fire to things, always assuming I get paid as the employer of this little green dragon appears to be skint. Maybe Sir Fred will be at the front door this morning rattling a tin, "Buddy can you spare a twenty billion quid in liquidity funding?"

Typical though. Nothing really happening in the news to get wound up about. Dead MP - that's a good thing, Mugabe - yawn. Only really interesting thing is this... two pissheads go dolphin fondling and get fined. OK so how does this work? I've been swimming with a dolphin, that one in Dingle bay in Ireland called Fungus or something and let me tell you a dolphin in the sea has absolutely fuck all to fear from a couple of humans in the same element, even if said humans are a pair of pissed up morlocks from Folkestone. When you get up close and personal dolphins are bloody huge and exceptionally manoeuverable and you know that if Flipper didn't want you there it could fuck you up a treat in seconds and there would be bugger all you could do about it. All what is all this arse about "Oh it was distressed because it swam towards them" about? In my experience with animals if they are distressed or upset they move away from you.

Mind you, read between the lines of the report...

Pipe fitter Jukes, from Castle Hill Avenue, Folkestone said he had stroked its belly.

...

Mr Offord said there had been a number of discrepancies between what Buck and Jukes had told police when they were questioned initially and their evidence in court.

...

Wasn't there a guy up in Northumberland a while back who was up in court for trying to start a mermaid breeding programme with a friendly dolphin? I think these guys were having a go at that.

Dolphins... they're all asing for it you know.