I hear that his neighbour is called Mike Hunt and that his wife’s maiden name was Norma Stitz.

I’m almost run over every time I walk along the path by the side of a motorway. Those cars racing by mere feet from me…

Yours,

Ted Stickles (Sr.) - not to be confused with my son, Little Ted Stickles

V. nice chenier - v. nice indeed. I’m as dry as a bone today, which may be the reason (nay, excuse) for any vitriol aimed at the stories (but not we commenters). That and the fact that my animated 3D shiny Annorak logos I wanted to design are proving too bloody hard for my dunderheaded brain. And my stomach hurts across the fourteen inch scar where Bear Grylls used me as a f**king chapeau yesterday. Channel 4 posted me back, and it took me four hours to chew my way out of the jiffy bag.

I’ve just found a rosary in my desk drawer amongst the empty Bournville wrappers, empty biros and two (two? what the hell have I got two for?) eyebaths. Waste of time asking God for help though - he has a new job in the Education Department apparently.

If Dan can nobble the Hadron boys over there, hopefully Saul can fill up our lifetimers again with his sand and I’ll attempt to bolster the economy with the bottle of Jameson’s that I’ll no doubt sink my enraged teeth into later. (I’m going Oirish this weekend in tribute to a friend we just lost to the big C).

[My only real skills are attracting paperclips and some things my girly side does better than me. I can knit bullet-proof vwhicles if my one-inch tension squares that should be bigger and looser are anything to go by]

“A Hail Mary pass or Hail Mary play in American football is a forward pass made in desperation, with only a small chance of success.” Wiki

Sounds about right Pam. My Rosary is made out of cheap white plastic. The Catholic Church only ensures success with the purchase of a nicely turned up-market one these days.

Chenier - You just reminded me of the cover of the ’scare-the-hairy-Jesus-out-of-little-magnetite’ cover of Trout Mask Replica. My uncle owned this, and I was too freaked out by it to get close enough to get the record out of the cover to listen to it. Whatever he said about me probably isn’t true (or is, probably - I’m an enigma hidden in a riddle wrapped in a mystery enveloped in a paradox -= but I just look like a c*nt from the outside). Zappa had me bang on though, ’cause it hurts when I pee and I frequently promise not to…

I wonder what else is in these desk drawers…

broken mobile, NCB issue conveyor belt knife, a strip of multiblock, broken fob watch, GCSE Mathematics pass cards from 1979…oooo dry wipe marker. I’ll be right back. With the giggles.

And bugger it even more, the Smudd is back in town and I missed her post!

Please come back!

I told you never to call me Sarge in public!

What will people think?

What will the little grey aliens from the Planet Splog think?

And how are you?

Oh-oh, if that research is true then those four prostitutes in my attic died for nothing. Quetzalcoatl! You said sacrifices would be just the ticket to ward off financial ruin!

[Sadly mon oncle sold off his extensive record collection when he remarried in the 90’s. I do have an original (with the working metal zip) Sticky Fingers by The Stones, but it’s far from mint. It’s still mint listening to it when I can be arsed to get the turntable out. It’s a bizarre sight, seeing it and the pre-amp perched next to the computer when I do though, but then I’m daft enough to have a 1913-ish treadle Singer sewing machine in my bedroom so I’m a combination of anachronism and modernism - but not Bowdlerism.

I don’t have one, but I let the in-laws splash the young’un, so she does.

The key doesn’t seem to fit any locks though.

About the money, I forget where you are, but did you catch my country’s bailout details yesterday? They’d have been SO much more comforting if they hadn’t been preceded by Thursday’s headlines, trumpeting how many billions in debt we already are. Where you reckon these new billions are coming from–the top-secret, magic billion machine?

Mars Bars! That was awesome; I’m going to steal it.

Bye, Smuddy; will be thinking of you and your family. Take care!

I think they are delaying Black Week until after the November elections, otherwise could the politicos to continue to campaign/ court or whatever?

June

They are hanging on by their fingertips; November is eons away as the financial markets measure time.

The US Treasury doesn’t have the money, and the people who do have the money may decide that enough is enough, and stop lending it to the US Treasury so that the US Treasury can bail itself out of the mess it has gotten into.

Otherwise known as Armageddon…

Yep; it was put together to get an equities market bounce, and they got it.

But no-one has any idea of what the US Treasury’s master plan is, mainly because the Treasury doesn’t know either; one of the few things which is clear is that they will have to get legislative approval in order to let the Treasury borrow the sort of money it needs for a bail out.

Bear in mind that almost the only people with the dosh to lend it are sovereign funds; if, for example, Kuwait says ‘thanks, but no thanks’ then the plan, whatever it is, never gets off the starting blocks.

I await, with some amusement, the IMF’s attempts at spinning the biggest piece of protectionism in financial history as a triumph of free markets; the French are already laughing their socks off about it, and there will be many more to come…