Scenes of Rural Devastation

Sometimes, we'll go out for a walk and it'll be lovely.  There'll be glorious sunshine, or we'll get to see the sun rise, or set. Sometimes there is mist and I'll see something truly beautiful, like the pictures below. It makes me feel so lucky to live in such a lovely part of the world and to have my dog, who gets me out of the door and into the countryside and the fresh air that it provides.

Natural Beauty

The sky's the limit!

Sometimes though, the weather is not kind. Like the lunchtime a couple of weeks ago where we got caught out in a hailstorm. You've never seen a dog so miserable. So like any caring, responsible dog owner, I videoed my poor dog's misery and am now sharing it across the internet. Should I report myself to the RSPCA?

In other news, the worst has finally happened.  The farmer has had the temerity to HARVEST HIS CORN. The look on poor Murdoch's face when he saw this scene of rural devastation.  He was utterly bereft.

Whaaaaaaaaat the f@%$& has happened here?!

YOU did this! How dare you!

My corn! My beautiful corn! GONE!

Found one!

Three things I have learned this week (part two)

More from the hinterlands of my brain, the latest instalment in an occasional series, perhaps more aptly titled "things that have mostly pissed me off recently".

1.  No-one uses their indicators any more.

Seriously. No-one does.  My driving tends to be fairly local, around the town and winding lanes of Godalming and surrounding area.  I can tell you that the vast majority of people around here do not use their indicators.  Is this a local phenomenon, peculiar to this area? Is it because there is a recession on and people are worried about the cost of replacement bulbs, should they wear those lights out from excessive use?  I'm actually considering popping a video camera on my dashboard and setting up a "People not using their indicators at roundabouts / junctions / anywhere they might be useful to indicate directionality" Tumblr.  What this space.  

1b. Saw an idiot driving through Godalming with no lights on at all yesterday at about 5 o'clock. Idiot.

2. Adverts on commercial radio can be astonishingly awful.

Since I realised that I was too old for Radio 1, on the basis that pretty much everyone on there started annoying the shit out of me, I have taken to listening to Eagle Radio. I'm not against commercial radio as a principle, but some of the adverts are just awful. There's one at the moment for Next.  A national retailer. They must have money for advertising creative to try something cool. But instead they go for a really lazy ad, that requires two poor actresses to utter the immortal words:

Embarrassed Actress One: "Great! What's the website again?"

Dismayed Actress Two (having already mentioned the website to idiot 'friend'): "next.co.uk!" (subtext, "jeeeeez, just Google it already, or take a stab in the frigging dark")

Surely it's possible to come up with a smarter, more subtle way of getting the point across. And don't even get me started about the ad that tries to tell me that it's best if my kitchen stoneware and bathroom tiles "work together as one".  They're frigging tiles, love. In completely separate rooms. I'm quite happy if they do their own thing.

3.  Murdoch really loves sweetcorn.

In a surprising "something that hasn't pissed me off" entry at number three, Murdoch has discovered sweetcorn.  It's been growing in the fields where we walk for months, but over the past week or so, the idiot hound has realised that it's really nice. As a result, I see very little of him during our walks as he slopes off into the field to help himself (sorry farmer, I think he eats much less than the deer!). The end result of this is *ahem* interesting, as Murdoch is now pooping something that is 90% sweetcorn held together by small amounts of poo. Good times.

Murdoch's in there somewhere. Eating corn. Yup.