I was talking to a lady recently who, in an attempt to make her life jollier, bought herself a ring. Unfortunately, she didn’t tell me where she was going to wear it. I mean, it could be worn almost anywhere these days. There is a middle-aged lady at the video shop I go to who wears one through her lips. I just hope she never kisses anyone with braces.

Some women wear a ring through the nose. No bull!

Others wear them through the navel. I have a theory about that but since it is a bit … er … naughty, I won’t go there.

And some women wear them even further down! I’ve always thought that, in this case, if the guy has a Prince Albert, there’d surely be sparks when they made love!

Hopefully my lady friend is going to wear her ring on her finger. But which finger? Indeed, on which hand?

If she is truly wicked, she’ll wear it on her right hand. That way, when the lack of it on her left hand encourages a man to make advances, should he go too far and she slaps him with her right hand, the ring will leave a lasting reminder that he was naughty. After all, they say that diamonds make an impression.

And I can only commend her on her other self-bought birthday present – a water blaster. These have such a multitude of uses. As well as the more common uses, they are great for keeping the kids in check, and, since hers also has a low power option, she could use it like one of those water jets a dentist uses to clean one's teeth. Plus, she coud make the water stream half water, half whisky and *really* enjoy the experience.

I suggested to her, however, that she doesn’t use it to wash the cat unless her sons have some cricket pads she can wear in the process. Also, there is the added danger that she may accidentally use the full power squirt. This, I have been told, tends to leave the average tabby looking like a Siamese. And be about as rowdy for a short period of time.

You know, with all this good advice that I give, I should write "The Bachelor's Guide To Everything Females Make So Complicated". I can see I’m going to have to put that on my To Do list…

--
Allan

How’s the weather your way today?

There was a fine patch this afternoon so I popped out to Riversdale. I'm pleased to say that there was not a tsunami in sight.

Now I'm doing some research on Irish jokes for a little project I have on hand. Found some good ones, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Father O'Malley, the new priest is nervous about hearing confessions, so he asks the older priest to sit in on his sessions.

The new priest hears a couple of confessions, then the old priest asks him to step out of the confessional for a few suggestions.

The old priest suggests, "Cross you arms over your chest, and rub your chin with one hand."

The new priest tries this.

The old priest suggests, "Try saying things like, 'I see, yes, go on, I understand and how did you feel about that?'"

The new priest says those things.

The old priest says, "Now, don't you think that's a little better than slapping your knee and saying 'No shit?!? What happened next?'"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you hear about the Irishman who locked his keys in the car?
Had to call the AA to get his family out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two Irishmen were out duck-shooting. They had their guns and dogs and walked for hours with no success.

Dropping into the pub on the way back they listened with envy to all the other hunters who had obviously been very successful.

"Where do you think we went wrong?" asked one.

His friend thought for a minute.

"You know, I think it must be that we're not throwing the dogs high enough."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the moment my back yard looks like the Waitomo caves. The Wharehouse is selling 8 solar lights for $20 so I decided to add some light pollution to the Masterton sky and bought some. Very pretty. I think I will hold a Winter Solstice party and we'll all dance naked in the light of the solar lights. That should scare hell out of the moths!

You know, I should be in advertising. There was a song playing on radio just before. It was called "I’m Flying Without Wings"

Well, as soon as I heard it I had a brilliant idea for a TV advertising campaign.

You'd see an Air New Zealand air hostess singing “I’m Flying Without Wings” as she jauntily boards an aircraft.

I reckon it would be a piece of cake to sell it to Tampax.

Well, enough from me.

--
Allan

I feel that I must warn you of a matter of great concern for the people of New Zealand. Indeed, for the citizens of the world.

Electricity generating wind farms are going to cause an ecological disaster.

We all know that propellers make things go along, as is evidenced by propellers on boats and aeroplanes. So it logically follows that all the propellers on wind farm turbines are pushing the Pacific Plate ever faster across the surface of the Earth. Soon Easter Island will be a suburb of Wellington and the people of Hastings will be digging their toes into the beaches of Rio De Janeiro. Auckland, of course, may inherit the US problem of illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Furthermore, with the ever-increasing number of wind farms in New Zealand, the movement of the earth’s crust can only be speeding up, as is evidence by the number of volcanic eruptions that are occurring, since these eruptions are the equivalent of the bow wave of the moving Earth’s crust.

Here we are worrying about tsunamis when we really should have people on the beaches to give us warning before the country crashes into islands.

And it’s going to play hell with road speed enforcement. If the country is moving at 100kph, is a driver whose speedometer reads 100kmh actually doing 200kmh? Or, if he’s driving the other way, is he actually not moving? Will we have to introduce a system where, while you get a ticket travelling one way, you get a credit cancelling it when you are coming home? Life is going to get very complicated.

So it is with a glad heart that I see the people of Makora in Wellington are trying to stop the building of a wind farm in their area. Admittedly, their objections are based on misplaced concerns about noise and visual ugliness, but these are a mere trifle compared with the true danger of these infernal machines.

While I know that windfarms are an important source of revenue for electrical generation companies, we can’t have the Earth’s crust water skiing over the planet’s molten interior. So we have to do something.

After considerable thought I believe I have the solution.

The propellers on the Palmerston North wind farm are pointed towards the west, so the movement of the Earth’s crust will be to the East. The logical thing, therefore, is to ensure that all the wind turbines at Makara point to the West to counter the movement created in Palmerston North. And, just to be safe, the turbines should be mounted upside down.

Isn’t it marvellous how the intellectual hothouse of New Zealand society allows vital discoveries like this come to the forefront and save our planet?

Thank you.

(As the academics put it: Part of this email discusses the etymology and application of a selection of words that, to varying degrees, can be considered vulgar or offensive. As a necessity, this entails the use of said words, and it is strongly advised that, should you find such words distressing or inappropriate, you do not read on beyond this point.

For the rest of you, enjoy...)

===============

Gidday,

I'm now back on my feet. Well, on my computer chair, anyway.

A nasty bug attacked me. I'm pretty sure it wasn't bird flu because I didn't grow feathers or anything, but if the bark-like cough I got is any indication, I shouldn't have patted that dog a few days ago!

No, the dog wasn't a Rottweiler. It was a Labrador. Labradors let you keep your hand. Admittedly, it's a well-licked hand by the time you get it back, but it's still attached.

I tell you, I was terribly sick. I was so hot, I only needed to stand under the fire sprinkler to get a cooling shower.

But now that I’m feeling a bit better, I’m back into the essential things in life like reading my horoscope.

And my horoscope for today was very interesting today. It said: “If you want to increase your income, you have to have more faith in your creative abilities. Conventional wisdom says that artistic types are destined to starve, but this is completely wrong. There are plenty of examples of folks who earn a nice profit from their handiwork. Why should you be any different? Put your imagination to work.”

So, how can I ignore this advice? With this encouragement I immediately sat down and started to write this great novel in which Muhammad didn’t die but shifted to Utah in America and had 93 children to 74 wives. However, I thought a book like this might upset a few people and I’d hate a suicide bomber to come to my front door. After all, loud noises annoy the little old lady next door.

So I decided to write a book about swearing, instead. I’ve read that learning the art of swearing is one of the hardest things for people who speak English as a second language. And lots of international pupils come to New Zealand and have great difficulty learning New Zealand swear words and how to swear properly, I read recently.

So I'll write a book on swearing. How about that?! A book completely full of swear words! Billy Connolly would approve!

Having started looking at the subject, I find that it is actually very interesting. Swear words are very versatile. They can be used to insult, or used affectionately or even admiringly. For example, someone may say that a person is a stupid bastard and that’s an insult. But someone can also admiringly be called a clever bastard.

And the actual meaning of a swear word is often lost in general use. For example, if someone is fucking good, he or she may not necessarily be a good lover.

Indeed, that word "fuck" is very interesting.

Here’s the book entry for Fuck.

Fuck – Although the narrow definition of the word “fuck” is to have sexual intercourse, fuck has now become probably the foremost swear word in New Zealand. It is, however, a very old word. Indeed, records from as early as 1278 list a man called John Le-Fucker. Since people in those days usually had names to do with their occupations, ones mind boggles.

It is known that the word “fuck” was in common usage by the 16th Century because, in 1598 it appeared in John Florio's dictionary called “A World of Words”. It later became a vulgar term and was even banned from the Oxford English Dictionary.

In 1928, in his book “Lady Chatterly's Lover”, DH Lawrence was the first author to use the word accurately and in context in a serious (non-pornographic) book. Not that this helped him much since the book was banned for over thirty years. However, in the early 1960s, several court cases established the right of publishers to publish the book. And with the book’s publication came the first time the word “fuck” had been legally used in print.

Not all people are happy to use the word in print, however. It is often shortened to just 'Eff', as in the phrase “effing twit’ used to describe some stupid person.

In his book “The Naked and the Dead”, cowardly American author, Norman Mailer used the word 'fug' instead of “fuck”. But he got his own. Not long after his book was published, the famous US wit Dorothy Parker met him at a party, and said to him, “So, you're the young man who can't spell fuck”

Fuck has been recognised as one of the most versatile words in the English.

It can be used as a verb both transitive (John fucked Janet) and intransitive (Janet was fucked by John).

It can be an action verb (Janet really gives a fuck), a passive verb (John really doesn't give a fuck), and adverb (Janet is fucking interested in John), or as a noun (Janet is a terrific fuck).

It can also be used as an interjection (Fuck! Janet’s two months late!). It can even be used as a conjunction (Janet is easy, fuck she's also stupid). [Political correctness should perhaps see that read: “John is easy, fuck he's also stupid”.}

As you can see, “fuck” is very versatile. It can be used in many situations.

It can be used in greetings ("How the fuck are ya?"), fraud ("I was fucked by someone on EBay."), resignation ("Oh, fuck it!"), trouble (“Hell, I'm fucked now."), aggression ("FUCK YOU!"), disgust ("Fuck me."), confusion ("What the fuck...?"), difficulty ("What the fucking shit does this mean?!"), pleasure (“This is fucking nice!), displeasure ("Fucking shit man..."), lost ("Where the fuck are we?"), disbelief ("UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE!"), denial ("I didn't fucking do it!"), perplexity ("I know fuck all about it."), apathy (I don’t give a fuck.”), suspicion ("Who the fuck are you?"), panic ("Let's get the fuck out of here!"), and directions ("Fuck off.").

It can also be an anatomical description ("He's a fucking arsehole."), or used to tell the time ("Its five fucking thirty.")

Lastly, it has been rumoured to have been used by many notable people throughout history:

"What the fuck was that?"
--Mayor of Hiroshima--

"Where did all these fucking Indians come from?"
--General Custer--

"Heads are going to fucking roll!"
--Anne Boleyn--

"It fucking does look like her!"
--Picasso—

"Where the fuck is all this water coming from?"
--Captain of the Titanic—

"Fuck a duck."
--Walt Disney--

"Light-fucking-rain my arse."
--Noah—

Ah yes, book writing is lots of fun sometimes…

At the moment I am not performing too well, since I am being attacked by some nasty bugs.

In fact, I've felt so bad these last few days that yesterday I actually went and saw the doctor. He cheerfully told me that prostate infections are notoriously hard to get rid of and patients often gets relapses - one of which I am suffering from at the moment.

So he has put me onto the antibiotic equivalent of a small atomic bomb and I should be either cured or buried in no time flat!

The result is that these antibiotics are now having a major skirmish with the bugs in my system and I feel like the battlefield! I'm just worried that they're going to start digging trenches in me soon!

Whatcha mean, "Typical! Men are always terrible patients"?) I'll have you know, I'm really sick here. I can't even hold my Playboy steady. Then again, can you? Er ... we won't go there.

I mean, it's so bad that I dropped the lid of my brand new two-cup teapot and broke it! Aaaaaaaargh. Do you know what trouble I had finding that teapot?! Now I'm going to have to go turn Inside Out inside out to find a new one.

Or maybe I'll just go to the Wharehouse. Oh, this is all too much for a sick bachelor. I think I'll just turn to drink.

~sigh~

But seriously, don't worry about me. ~sob sob~ I'm just looking for sympathy. I mean, it's terrible when you have a bug that you can't pass on!

--
Allan