The year of living dangerously...

You all know that I'm an idiot don't ya?  Well for sure I know it.  I'd be called a 'daft 'apeth' here in Yorkshire, that being the polite way of telling someone you know what kind of idiot they are.  On the scale of sub normal intelligence I always assumed that an imbecile or a moron was significantly worse than an idiot but apparently not.  You're doing folk a service if you call them an imbecile if they're truly an idiot.  There are many scales covering intelligence but I think that the Levine and Marks IQ scale from 1928 is colloquially the one most often used today.  As follows:

IQ Range ("ratio IQ")	IQ Classification
175 and over	Precocious
150–174	Very superior
125–149	Superior
115–124	Very bright
105–114	Bright
95–104	Average
85–94	Dull
75–84	Borderline
50–74	Morons
25–49	Imbeciles
0–24	Idiots

The more modern descriptions use 'defective' for anyone with an IQ less than 65.  That surely means I am a defective idiot.  And there's me thinking I was, well, a bit more than average, perhaps a bit brighter than a bright thing although a worn out 60W lamp beats me every time.   Light bulb moments?  Nah, don't have many of those.  

So why do I think I'm an idiot?  Here's several reasons why.

1. My shower is upstairs in the roof space (it's a dormer bungalow you see) and I decided to have sex with it just as a rather aggressive lightening storm growls and rolls overhead.  I imagine the lightning hitting the copper pipes in the roof on its way out of the house down the plug hole with me in between going off like a 1970’s Kodak flash cube...

Well, having sex with anything can happen at anytime and in any situation for a bloke can't it so strong are the urges sometimes perhaps?  Having sex in the most dangerous of situations only adds to the thrill of it doesn't it?  I recon that some blokes on a sinking ship would say, '...well, we've only got 5 more minutes dearest before we drown so what do you say, eh?...', whilst she's stood there holding tight onto the frightened children..  Men, huh...

2.  Sometimes, and please note this is not a regular habit, a cycling water bottle might, on a dark and wet night whilst camping in a 2 person tent, get used as the male version of a she-wee.  'Stop complaining dear and go back to sleep, I'll wash your bottle out in the morning...' is what I've said to all my exes.  So yeah, I did the dirty deed again on the last journey cos I was lazy, making a strong mental note of which of the two identical bottles had the pee and which had the rehydration fluid for use overnight.  Phew!  Almost!  I took the right one the next day with me to the toilet to empty it and me for the second time.  I saw the loo blue 'it kills 99.99999999% of all known germs' bottle of toilet ZAPPO! and so thought it might be good stuff with which to clean the 'used' water bottle.  Perhaps?

Of course I washed and re-washed and rinsed and re-rinsed the bottle, held it to my nose, yes it smells OK, so figured it was now properly sanitised and clean so filled it with clean water and added a rehydration tablet just before setting off.  Somewhere east of Ripon I took a swig.  *JESUS!*  Wide eyed I couldn't eject it fast enough from my mouth!  *PLURBBBBSSSTTT!!!*

Coff coff!  Spit spit!  I did my best to clear the U bend cleaner, which was very effective at coating both the inside of the bottle and the back of my throat.  Oh God, no water to swill out my mouth!  Spit, snort, cough, spit!  All the way into Boroughbridge.  

I walked into the cafe and said, 'Elo, cn eye af a gwas ov watr pweeez anna bukt fanx' whereupon I cleaned out my S bend proper like.  Then proceeded to order breakfast number 2.  Which was 3 dry Weetabix mixed with the remaining Trill to help scrape the remains of the loo blue from the back of my throat on the way down to Audrey II who, being an imbecile, choffed it anyway.  

3.  Perhaps like me when riding your bike you also get really annoyed with car drivers, bus and lorry drivers, even the worlds biggest tractor drivers who pull up close to your rear and try to intimidate you off the road.  Well, I'm not having that.  If I hear them coming I pull out into the road a bit more so clear of the gutter.  No you're not going to intimidate me.  Of course my testicles, who are now looking back under the Brooks saddle, see what's coming and hurriedly run away and hide in their bomb shelters, which I think going by the feeling they give me when they get frightened is somewhere near my adams apple.

No amount of revving the accelerator or parping on ones horn is gonna make ME move.  I am a road user 'aint I?  I have a right to be here!  Those tracks marked with blue and white circles with a pedestrian and a bike symbol don't mean I have to go on them you moron!  No it means you can't take your 40 tonnes of hardened steel and pointy bits on it.  It's an ONLY sign innit!

4. Downhill riding is so looked forward to when riding a bike.  To feel the harsh sweat being ripped from ones back is the bestest feeling other than point 1.  I do not fear downhill speeds.  There I was earlier this year on my way down Garrowby hill.  It's a 17%er of twisty madness from 800 ft to sea level.  My crap nav is shrieking at me showing 50MPH and there's me on the brakes contemplating whether I should overtake the slow fecker in the car in front.  Yes I was on a fully loaded bike with panniers front and back wearing shorts, cycling jersey, crash hat and a manic smile whilst screaming my head off.  Yaaaaa!  WOOOHOOO!!!!  No I cannot blame the front brake this time...

Oooh the mess I could do to myself.  Wince!  It reminds me of one of the hot head boys I managed when I was on secondment to Dublin back in the early 2000's who had come in to work on his motorbike 'cos the weather was so great for Dublin (any day without rain in Dublin is a great day!).  In jeans and a t-shirt... Sadly he lost control of the motorbike on the way home on a patch of road chippings on a roundabout.  I suspect that today he still has someone helping him to eat his food and wipe his arse because of the grinding damage he did to his wrist, elbow and knee joints.  Sometimes there just isn't enough skin and flesh to protect ones bones.  

5.  I’ve flown with Ryanair.

Oh dear, I could go on, and on, and on...  

Hey, it's not all me!  I'm sure you know many idiots, morons and imbeciles don't ya?  I'm not offering to carry the can for all of them too!  And so here's a short story of three of them that I know.

We're all in Bradford one warm summers evening probably back in the 90's now - in the days where a cruise up Lumb Lane to ogle at the 'working girls' was not necessarily a crime.  On the way of course to get a curry with a group of drunk idiots - don't worry I was the designated driver of the minibus so it's all orange juices and the food for me was free that night.  

My mates were well drunk.  Two of them bravely ordered Bradfordian vindaloos which will in a flash take the skin off your ring piece at the best of times.  Out comes the food.  The first two idiots complain.  'OI! It ain't hot enough!'  So the plates were taken away and a minute later two iron clad bowls of molten magma were deposited under their noses.  The chicken had dissolved and all that was left was two pools of scary deep red liquid gently bubbling with a 'poop' and a 'plop' to itself.  

The two idiots tore at the nan bread, dove in, stuffed the soft fluffy white bread and crimson liquid mix in their gobs and... one.. two.. three.. four.. fiAAARRGGHHH!  I can't feel my lips!.  Help!  Mummy!  I’m laughing so hard I cannot breathe.  Last image I have of those two is through teary eyes watching them rubbing raw tomato on their lips to try to quell the burning.  

No that's not the end of the story...  Enter idiot number 3.  An ex merchant navy sailor with an 'I'm as hard as nails' demeanour about him.  Won't say his name nor nickname as it may alert some folk to tell that idiot what this idiot is writing about.  Anyway he say's, 'Yer feckers!  Yer both poofs!' ('scuse the politically incorrect / homophobic language used in those days)..  He grabs both plates, grabs the nearest and biggest spoon and proceeds to shovel both plate loads down his neck straight to his Audrey IV who was already struggling, whilst wearing a silver flame retardant suit with asbestos gloves, to deal with the vindaloo that had hit her moments earlier.

Just as she died his eyes opened extremely wide and for a big bloke, probably then in his late 40's, he hit the curry house front door like Usain Bolt suffering the sudden onset of the screaming abdabs.  And that was the last we saw of him for the remainder of the night; and at work the following day.  Apparently his wife had phoned in to say he was 'sick'.   Idiot.  LOL! :-)

But need I say more.  I cannot explain it really.  It's like there's times when I just put my brain in neutral, expecting that the autopilot will kick in and take me safely to whatever place, or destination, or to complete whatever task I intended to do.  Trouble is, I don't have an autopilot...

Er, I didn't mention the one about the angle grinder did I?  Er, no.  Good job too.  

I still get the collywobbles every time I go near Lumb Lane...

Ciao for now..