Chinese or Yorkshire dialect...

"oo war she wi?"
"she war wi ersen!"
"oo war she now?"
"aaah shi wa!"

nicked from Ayup

How to make tea in Yorkshire

"Make us a cup of tea luv, two sugars!"

You could try...

The Sheep Game.

The Yorkshireman's Motto

'ear all, see all, say nowt,
eat all, sup all, pay nowt,
if tha iver does owt for nowt,
do it for thissen.

Eh up, it’s t'dinner 'our

Let’s 'ave some o' this washed down with a pint o' this or a bottle o' this. Gerrit down thi neck tha soft, shandy drinking, south'n poof.

Wha arta bletherin abaht?

This Yorkshire-English Phrase Book might help.

On Ilkley moor baht 'at

Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee,
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!
Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee?
Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee?
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!

Tha's been a cooartin' Mary Jane
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
Tha's been a cooartin' Mary Jane
Tha's been a cooartin' Mary Jane
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Tha's bahn t'catch thi deeath o'cowd
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
Tha's bahn t'catch thi deeath o'cowd
Tha's bahn t'catch thi deeath o'cowd
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
Then we shall ha' to bury thee

On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
Then we shall ha' to bury thee
Then we shall ha' to bury thee
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then t'worms 'll cum and eat thee oop
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
Then t'worms 'll cum and eat thee oop
Then t'worms 'll cum and eat thee oop
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then ducks 'll cum and eat oop t'worms
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
Then ducks 'll cum and eat oop t'worms
Then ducks 'll cum and eat oop t'worms
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then we shall go an' ate oop ducks
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
Then we shall go an' ate oop ducks
Then we shall go an' ate oop ducks
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then we shall all 'ave etten thee
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
Then we shall all 'ave etten thee
Then we shall all 'ave etten thee
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

'appy Yorkshire Day

By ‘ek!

Following the huge success of "National Foreplay Day" and "National Orgasm Day", Guess what’s next. No, it’s not "National Have a Fag and go to Sleep Day" or "National Sleep in the Wet Patch Day" or "National Pass the Kleenex Day" or the "Australian National run Down the Pub and Brag to all your Mates Day". It’s "Yorkshire Day" tomorrow. I didn’t know that until my colleague Paul pointed it out. Watch this space tomorrow for "Yorkshire Day" links, events, themes, frolicks and general “ee by gummery”.

Hey look...

...here’s a picture of Liz Hurley

Sky God

In my previous life, I did over 150 skydives. This is small beer in the skydive fraternity, I know people who do that many in a week. I was never going to be a sky god, and I eventually packed it in. This man, Felix Baumgartner, is a sky god. Well done Felix, bloody fantastic.

Steve Hislop

The world of motorcycle racing is a little poorer today following the death of Steve Hislop. A brilliant racer and all round nice bloke.

Show us your RSS

You probably know this already but, an RSS feed will tell the world when you have updated your blog, what a great idea. Mine is over there on the right, down a bit, Kiss my RSS, that's it. Quite a few of my regular daily reads don't seem to have RSS feeds yet which is a shame because I don't know when they have posted something new. Simon's posting here mentions Bloglines, a server based weblog aggregator. It allows you to subscribe to a list of RSS feeds which you're interested in and tells you when they have been updated. It saves you from wading through a long list of blogs instead of getting on with your work.

I've been using it for a week or so after seeing it mentioned on Andy's techno geek blog and am finding it to be an excellent tool. It's free, it's cool, go have a look. You simply sign up, tell it which RSS feeds you wish to subscribe to and off you go. The user interface is clean and crisp and it all hangs together very nicely, it's a pleasure to use well designed software. If, like me you have an ever increasing list of blogs you like to read then it's the way forward, just read the updated ones.

So, if you don't have one, get an RSS feed. It's dead easy, in BloggerPro (don't know about regular Blogger or other tools), just go to your settings, click on the Site Feed tab and follow the bouncing ball. Blogger will then create an XML file like this with cut down versions of your postings. Stick a link to your RSS feed on your blog and your regular readers can then subscribe to it using Bloglines to to let them know when you’ve posted something new, original, funny, controversial or interesting.

Today I are mostly reading blogs with RSS feeds. Easy cheesy peasy!

You can’t get drunk on frozen lime daquiries

Met up with Simon and Andy last night in Cubana. We had a few jugs of mojitos but then moved on to forzen lime daquiris. No hangover but rather tired this morning, no chance of getting scurvey.

WMDs

Well someone had to link to it...



There is a story here.

Learning Java on the train

Hey, I reckon that I've grasped the concept, if not the details, of interfaces in Java. Can I have my interesting job and my pay rise now please? I will settle for either.

The village bike...

Cathy and I have decided to buy bikes so that we can strap Sam to the parcel rack and explore some of the beautiful countryside (oh, and the pubs) around home whilst getting a bit of exercise. I went to Halfords for a looksie at lunchtime. Things have moved on a bit since I had my paper rounds as a lad when I had an old bedstead with knackered Sturmy Archer gears permanently stuck in third with the aid of a safety pin. Did I ever mention that I used to deliver the Huddersfield Examiner to Nora Batty’s house? Anyroad up, the bike I fancy, The Raleigh Incognito, is pretty kewl. The seat, wheels and handle bars are in roughly the same place as my old bedstead but that’s where the resemblance ends. It’s got 7005 light Octoval Alloy frame, 21 gears with Shimano CO30 + CI deck, Suntour M3000L suspension, knobbly tyres, grip shift gear changers (well, you need grip shift gear changing), Linear Alloy V-Brakes all for less than £180.00. Cathy fancies the Raleigh Vixen but it’s a bit of a girl’s bike, it’s only got 18 gears. We will of course need helmets, locks, pumps, cycle shorts (aaargh), one of those special tools, wrap around sunglasses, a carrier for the car, a yellow jersey or two, a camelpack for drinks, some stabilisers, a seat for Sam etc. etc. etc.

You can’t get drunk on mojitos (an impromptu blogmeet).

To celebrate the 50th anniversary (on Sunday) of the Cuban Revolution, Simon and I are holding a cocktail evening tomorrow at Cubana near Waterloo Station (London). Please feel free to come and join us, we’ll be the two tall gentlemen hogging the bar, drinking jugs of mojitos and babbling techno talk.

I slow down for horses...

...say the signs in quite a few of the cars that I see on my regular journey back and forth to and from the grindstone that is my job. I slow down for horses too, and I give them as wide a berth as possible. They’re big, they’re stupid (yes they are!), they scare easily and they are unpredictable. I have no problems slowing down for horses; it is horsey people I have problems with (well proportioned young ladies wearing jodpurs excepted). You never see signs in horse boxes saying "I speed up for motorbikes" or "I pull over every now and again to let the traffic pass when I’m causing a five mile tailback by transporting Dobbin in the back of a hundred year old van at 40mph in a national speed limit at 6:00pm on a Monday". The only time I can agree with moving horses around at rush hour is if the glue factory have an urgent order to fill, or if France is having the mother of all BBQs and they’ve run out of saucissons du cheval!

Look, here's a picture of some girls in bikinis

Well, I gotta get my hits.

The rough guide to Switzerland

My surfing buddy Swiss Tony is on a grand tour of Switzerland (funnily enough) in a clapped out VW camper van, or at least he will be if he ever gets past Dijon. Follow his progress, or lack of it here on his blog, or over there on right on my blogroll.

Beers, buskers, boys and girls...

We went for a quick pint at the local yesterday afternoon with some new friends and their three young daughters. There were a bunch of buskers doing their thing in the garden, murdering Beatles tunes, so we stayed for another, and another. They had a particularly good batch of Fullers London Pride on tap, so we had another and another whilst Sam ran himself ragged in the garden chasing little girls.