As some of you may know if you have ever looked at my blogroll, I am a fan of a blog called ‘Little Red Boat’ by a most excellent lady called Anna Pickard. My cousin Tom found her first and passed her site on to me. It’s very, very funny indeed and she has some wonderful things to say. I thought I was the only person who commented on the weird things that people search on and then happen to find my blog (with which they will no doubt be seriously disappointed, as I offer no factual help with anything at all, not even how to make your own magical pie tin/pool), but there is a fantastic entry of hers where she has done the same. Apparently it’s quite common, but as I am a technical idiot, I didn’t know. Anyway, her blog entry on this particular subject was in the form of the questions and then answers from her. It made me laugh a lot.
I have been most amused by some of the questions/statements/random oddities that have ended up in my stats searches over the last week, so thought I would approach today in much the same way, rather than end up becoming fixated on Celine Dion, who as ever, is mooching about in the top of my statistical searches. This way I can mention her and just move on without ending up dedicating hours of writing about her Dionness and then wondering why people always search on her and find me. Call me crazy but it could be a self fulfilling prophecy: Anyhow, here goes:
We must start the day with Celine, naturally. She is the patron saint of my blog after all. As well as the usual bids to know if she is dead (still going apparently), what her nipples look like (don’t know, don’t want to know. Perhaps small maps of Ottowa?), and the general health and wellbeing of her family (all doing fine, I think), my favourite search term on her this week has to be: ‘Celine Dion – Evil’. Now there you have it. I’m presuming this is a statement that requires verification rather than a question as there is no question mark. I think it’s up for debate personally. I mean she seems harmless enough. I’ve never seen red laser beams shooting from her eyes for example, nor have I see her practice the vulcan death grip on any backing dancers who happen to be a bit slack. On the other hand, she does have a preternaturally annoying voice and she did sing; ‘my heart will go on’, which some of us are never going to forgive her for. So, like I said, questionable, but probable.
So, now that’s been dealt with. Let’s move on to the other questions:
Can you throw a blanket over a cat to calm it down?
My answer would be; I’d like to see you try! Bless your heart. You’re obviously a novice in the cat department here. My advice would be that when a cat is in a bit of a state, the best thing to do is to remove yourself from the vicinity immediately. Go and have a cup of tea and a hob nob and come back in half an hour. By then it will have calmed itself down or passed out from exhaustion. Either way you’re quids in and you’ll still have all your own skin and eyeballs intact. Throw a blanket over it, and what have you got? A seriously pissed off cat in a blanket, that’s what. It’s not a bloody budgerigar, it’s a furry killing machine, and it’s not going to respond well to being muffled in half a ton of finest wool products. Avoid at all costs. If you really need to calm it down I suggest a tranquiliser gun and some leather gauntlets.
How is Beetroot Look Like?
Now I’m presuming here that English is not your native tongue, and not that you’re an illiterate fool. On the other hand you’re clearly challenged in the beetroot department, of which it turns out, like Celine, I am becoming somewhat of a reluctant expert. In my guise as the Percy Thrower of the root vegetable world my best advice would be to write in to Gardener’s Question Time. Otherwise I’d say that it’s a dirty purple, slightly roundish object with bushy green and red leaves. Please wash before eating. If you don’t pickle them they taste a lot like dirt. Consequently it may just be easier to shovel a good tablespoonsful of dirt onto your plate and eat that. It saves you trying to identify beetroot and/or grow them. It probably contains about the same amount of nutrients, vitamins and minerals as well. It’s probably best to brush your teeth well after eating dirt, not because it’s going to rot your teeth, just because a gritty smile can be somewhat off-putting to the neighbours.
How to make a home-made magic mushroom
That’s somewhat ambitious and quite a lot fool-hardy in my opinion. You’re not giving me a lot to go on here to be honest. It depends what you want to do with it. If you just want to look at it I suggest some playdoh and a picture of a mushroom will see you right. If you want something more permanent, modelling clay and a tin of beige paint will do the trick. If you want to take it to bed, probably some felt and knitting wool. Again, I’d be going for beige here. If you actually want to get wasted on it, I think you should probably just stick to growing/finding some real ones rather than guessing the chemical content of one and trying to reproduce it using household ingredients. I feel that death may come before success in the: ‘I’ve made my own magic mushrooms using baking powder, a scouring pad and some liquid nitrogen’ stakes. By the way, the baking powder, nitrogen recipe won’t work. I promise.
What’s the light ginger pig called?
Anthony
Why does my boiler crackle?
You’re being a bit gung ho about this aren’t you? If I had a crackling boiler the last thing I’d be doing is googling on it. I’d be putting on some stout clothing and a hat, ringing the gas man and going next door for a cup of tea until he arrives. There are some things it’s good to have a crack at on your own, things like making sponge cakes, possibly even things like fixing the grouting round the bath. Diagnosing crackling boilers is not one of them. Crackling and boilers are not words I like to see together, unless your boiler happens to be made of either a) paper or b) roast pig.
Toy Banjos for Children.
Are you mad? You must be. No child should be encouraged to play a musical instrument unless you have a) a soundproof room in which they can practice, b) a hearing problem which means that you are unable to register squeaky sounds, or c) another house to which you can retreat in times of crisis, and/or musical emergency. I believe there is a by law which states that nobody under the age of thirty should be allowed to play a banjo in a built up area between the hours of midnight and 11.30 p.m. seven days a week, including Christmas and Bank Holidays. N.B. toy banjos must not be bought for the purposes of present revenge either. By this I mean, ‘They bought my child a lute for Christmas so I’ll buy their child a banjo for his birthday.’ Bad, wrong, bad and wrong.
How do you know when you’ve got nits?
If you need to ask, you probably don’t have them. Oh for the days of the nit nurse. We used to call ours Nitty Nora the bug explorer. I wonder what ex-nit nurses end up doing with their lives? Probably making string vests I expect. For an explanation of string vests and their uses I refer you to an excellent reply to an earlier blog this week by Cranky Phone Guy.
Mind your top-knot
Indeed. A warning and example to us all… If only we had all minded our top knots earlier none of this would have happened. I might write a letter to Gordon Brown on the subject. Clearly he hasn’t minded his top knot in some time.
Holes size of a mouse all over garden
Lucky you. How very exciting. Either you have mice, or you have holitis. I would seek advice from a) Gardener’s Question Time or b) Ray Mears. He’s probably excellent at identifying random holes. When you say size of a mouse, do you mean that the holes are mouse shaped, with ears, tail, quivering whiskers et al? That would be fantastic. I’d call the newspapers as well in that case. You could be famous. You might even get some money. If you don’t want to do any of those things you could always blow down one of the holes using some plastic tubing, whilst employing friends and neighbours to keep an eye on the rest of the garden/holes. This way if a creature is disturbed by your gust of air and is blown out through one of the other holes you will be able to identify it immediately. Keep me posted.
Women in very small birthday suits
This intrigues me. Birthday suits are in fact rather like the Emperor’s New Clothes you know? This means that what you are talking about is nude women wearing very small nude women. Or nude women whose nudity doesn’t fit them properly, which sounds very uncomfortable and rather improbable. I think you’ve definitely got the wrong sort of website here. There are probably some specialist sites that cater to your needs, but I’m not one of them, despite my speculations on the shape of Celine Dion’s nipples. When you say very small birthday suits it makes me think of Mrs. Pepperpot. It’s an image that I can’t shake and now I’m quite troubled. Thanks for that.
I am so fed up of being pregnant I could cry.
This one seems like a cry from the wilderness. Poor you. You have my deepest sympathy. Don’t worry it only lasts for nine months and then you have twenty years of anguish to follow, always presuming they move out by then. Chin up. By the way, it’s only when you’ve given birth to them that you realise the being pregnant was the easy bit. I’d be in no hurry to get it over with if I were you, although during my pregnancies I’d have paid someone to make it all go away.
Sterilising a medical fish tank.
Wow! I didn’t even know they had medical fish tanks. That’s very impressive. I wonder if it’s the tank that’s medical or the fish? Maybe it’s both. Perhaps the tank has a large red cross and some oxygen tanks attached to it. It may even have flashing blue lights on top. The fish on the other hand may be chock full of vitamins and/or antibiotics, meaning that doctors will soon be giving us small plastic bags with goldfish in instead of a small sticky bottle of faux banana tasting gunk. It will be like going to the fair. You may even get a balloon on a stick if you’ve been particularly good and/or poorly. I wonder if you have to kill the fish before swallowing? As for sterilising one, you could try those tablets people clean their dentures with. They make a lovely fizzing noise when you put them in water.
How to tell if beetroot is off?
Another beetroot related quandary. See Gardener’s Question Time advice above. Otherwise, if it’s furry and galloping around the house, rounding up your carrots and holing up in your vegetable rack refusing to come out quietly I would suggest it is probably off.
Are elephants lucky in the house?
It all depends on how big your house is vis a vis the size of the elephant. If you’ve got a two up two down mid terraced house and a large bull elephant I would suggest that an elephant in the house probably isn’t the luckiest thing that’s ever going to happen to you. On the other hand if you’re specifically insured for acts of elephant, you might be quids in. Probably a baby elephant in a mansion would be alright, although not ideal. The other thing to think about of course, is the width and height of your front door, unless you’re going to winch it in through the French Windows.
Pointy Rash
Whichever way up you slice it, a pointy rash does not sound great. My advice would be to stop wasting time on google and find the nearest accident and emergency which has quarantine status. The other thing is to use the time you are spending googling to find some suitable clothing which will fit neatly over your pointy rash. It all depends how pointy it is of course, but for the record I would probably avoid skin tight lycra, and go for something loose and floaty in natural cotton. A kaftan sounds ideal. If you haven’t got one, cut a hole in a bed sheet and improvise. Avoid those ones with ruffles round the edge, you’re only going to trip over it. Depending on where your points are I would also avoid driving yourself to the hospital. Probably best to call an ambulance so you’ve got the option of standing up on the way in.
Can I eat rhubarb crumble in pregnancy?
Go for it. I ate three a week during my pregnancy with Tallulah. The only thing is I did put on about fourteen stone and had to resort to wearing bed sheets (see above). But as long as you don’t care what you wear, and you’ve worked out the logistics in terms of your relative size and the size of your house (see elephant question above) knock yourself out. It’s very comforting. You’ll have to be quick though. The season is almost over.
Is Elton John’s hair natural?
Ha! Ha! Ha! I feel that you must be visibly impaired to even need to ask that question. If you think 100% bri nylon with a terry cloth weave is natural then yes. His hair is 100% natural. Bless you and your charming naivete.
So there you have it. Question time over. I’m off to go shopping. I’m not blogging about real life today. It’s too much for me. I’ll let you know how I got on with my magical pie dish tomorrow when I’ve recovered from the trauma.
