* Posts by Elron Hubward

19 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Feb 2009

Jarmageddon: Marmite spill sparks biohazard threat

Elron Hubward
FAIL

Funnily enough....

...in a former life I was a truck driver and I drove the yeast tankers in and out of Burton-on-Trent.

First day on the job I got given the keys and sent of on a trip to various breweries with no training, just the advice that the brewery staff would know what to do.

First pickup in York and I am met by a brewery guy who has only a rough idea of what to do as well and we unship the pipes, connect up to a vat of foul smelling waste yeast and switch the pump on.

After a few seconds the pipe is bucking like crazy and the pump is making the sort of noises I only ever heard before when my parents thought I was asleep and me Dad had drunk enough to be able to come within 10' of Mum without being physically sick.

I worked out what was wrong; I hadn't opened the inlet valve on the truck. I leap for the valve and try to open it.... just as the pressure builds up enough to blow the pipe out of the ring mounting, spraying everything in the immediate vicinity with the foul gloop.

I was covered from head to foot (quite literally; I looked like a melted mars bar) and had to be hosed down by the giggling brewery staff. What's more I stank of marmite for about a week afterwards... although the missus didn't seem to mind over much.

Haven't been able to go near the stuff ever since for some odd reason.

Deezer launches stunningly original music idea in the UK

Elron Hubward
Coat

Blank media?

Erm... I can't remember the last time I burnt anything to disc.

My extensive collection of (royalty free and legally obtained) downloaded music is on hard drive and if I want some of it when I'm out and about it's a simple matter of copying it to a memory stick for the car stereo or to my mp3 player.

They can charge what they want for blank media... I haven't bought any in years.

Mine's the one with the 32GB X-Fi in the pocket.

Four months' porridge for 20-minute Facebook riot page

Elron Hubward
Coat

Prison sentances for bad jokes??

Damn! I'd best get me running shoes on; the rozzers will be here for me any minute and I'm probably looking at several consecutive life sentences for my interweb utterances over the years.

Mine's the one with the little arrows on it.

London rioters should 'loose all benefits'

Elron Hubward

Good idea..

..because letting the police play with live ammunition would never lead to any trouble would it?

I mean, it's not like they might shoot someone leading to a protest that then turns into an orgy of looting and voilence is it now?

Will the looters 'loose' their benefits?

Elron Hubward
FAIL

Oh dear...

Most posts which bring a worker into contact with children or vulnerable groups require an enhance CRB check.

I've worked within the Youth Justice system in the past and there are indeed groups of young offenders out and about doing work to benefit the community to offset some of the damage they have caused (Restorative Justice and all that). Sometimes they're out cleaning up graffiti, sometime doing gardening for old dears, distributing leaflets on crime prevention or community safety initiatives (free smoke alarm schemes and the like) and that sort of thing.

There is a very simple reason why they aren't wearing "Community Payback" boiler suits and/or yellow stars and tattooed serial numbers which should be obvious to even the most limited mentality.

Sadly, not everyone believes that due process of law and whatever sanctions and reparations are imposed on offenders (of whatever age) are enough.

There have been cases of young folk (and indeed their CRB checked supervisors - mostly volunteers who are usually guilty of nothing more than wanting to make a difference) being assaulted in the street by members of the public under the influence of a near lethal overdose of Daily Mail, and labouring under the missaprehension that what is really needed is a beating and ritual humiliation administered by a random member of the public with no connection to the criminal justice system other than seemingly wanting to be subject to it for assault.

You are indeed correct about the budget cuts though; these affect all areas of the criminal justice system, not just probation. This is one of the reasons why there is less community work being done by criminals of whatever stripe - the government doesn't want to pay the costs incurred.

Just FYI.

Elron Hubward

Rights don't come for free?

Rights do indeed come for free.

If they aren't free then they are privileges, not rights.

Council busts breast milk ice cream parlour

Elron Hubward
Stop

Oh dear....

Looks like my planned line of "chef's special sauce" flavour ice lollies would probably attract a similar level of dissaprobation from the general public and the Food Standards Agency.

Shame; I'm pretty sure I'd have had no shortage of willing volunteers to supply the raw ingredients and I'd have made a fortune flogging them from a van outside the local police station.

Great white sharks menace Blighty

Elron Hubward
Coat

I hear that the best place to see them...

...will be Morecombe Bay late Friday/Saturday evening when they all rush up there for a chinese after last orders.

Coat, 'cos I'll get my.

Margaret Thatcher celebrates 85 years

Elron Hubward
Thumb Up

And a good thing too. I hope she makes it that far at least.

Don't get the wrong idea; I grew up in the 70s and have as much reason to hate this evil old trout as the next man.... and I do absolutely hate her.... with a passion.

The thing is, she's gone a bit senile, but is apparently having ludic moments every so often. This means that at times she must realise how old and frail she is, how hated she is and how far she has fallen, and that very shortly the grey fog of senility will again descend.

Politics aside, one thing you could never say about the woman is that she was thick, and I think a long, slow slide into dementure, with the occasional good day to remind her of what she has lost, is just the ticket.

I hope she's a looooooong time passing and (as they kept telling us) it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Ordainarily I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy but.... well... Thatchers decline is an acceptable price to pay for northern jollity.

Earth's first all Klingon opera debuts

Elron Hubward
Thumb Up

On a related note...

...I'm looking forward to the (no doubt now inevitable) establishment of Earth's first Klingon theatre company.

After all, you've not experienced Shakespeare until you've seen it in the original Klingon.

Qapla' !!!!

Approaching space object 'artificial, not asteroid' says NASA

Elron Hubward
Alien

Actually...

...there's a very good reason why ALL aliens speak English.

As we all know English is the most perfect form of communication, with no room for misunderstanding or error and is vastly preferable to any other form of verbal communication yet discovered.

It is inevitable that any sufficiently advanced society will develop it for themselves sooner or later which is why all ETs capable of interstellar travel speak it.

Glad I could help clear that up.

Make Isle of Man drugs paradise, says Jagger

Elron Hubward

50,000 Alcoholics clinging to a rock?

...hardly fair; at the last count there were an estimated 80,000+. Must have missed the extra 30,000 in the kebab shop queue after closing time obviously

Man jailed for sex with donkey and horse

Elron Hubward
Alert

I've nothing to say on the subject....

...I'm still feeling a little horse.

Still; I find it a bit sad that when someone does enter into a stable relationship they are pilloried by the moral minority. Make your minds up ffs.

Apostrophe... cos we aint got a facepalm icon yet.

Jobcentre ejects Jedi Knight

Elron Hubward

Please make cheques payable...

...to Charles Arthur Simon Harris (or CASH for short) and leave in brown envelope taped to the bins behind Burger King.

China executes securities trader over $9.52m fraud

Elron Hubward
Big Brother

Yes it's cold Jellipphiish...

...it has to be you see, or the organs deteriorate before they can be plumbed into a member of the ruling elite that classless China doesn't have.

Chemical chance forbid they get the same idea over here in Blighty.

As long term unemployed, I'd be fitted up, convicted, sliced up and distibuted to various private hospitals before you can say Jack Straw... erm... I mean Robinson.

World of Warcraft: 'The crack cocaine of the computer world'

Elron Hubward
Thumb Down

Just wait until they make it illegal....

.. as the government is wont to do with anything that large numbers of people actually enjoy.

We'll end up with Robbie Williams on Parkinson talking about his level 60 Night Elf lady-boy, no doubt closely followed by George Michael discussing the joys of "twinking" a second account and a harrowing serialised in the Daily Mail account of George Best's struggle with his 16 hour raid habit by whoever it is who's milking his corpse for a book this week.

After that it'll only be a matter of time before we get Bill Clinton crawling out of the wood work to tell us he installed WoW once, but never actually logged on.

Judge issues radioactive 'pr0n downloader' alert

Elron Hubward
Flame

I wonder....

..if the Judge instead of the more usual slap on the wrist, ten minutes community service and enforced subscription to the Grauniad, will hand down two consecutive half-life sentances.

Flame, cos it's as close as I can get to a radiation warning icon.

UK kiddies cop a righteous tasering

Elron Hubward
Coat

Just what the youth of today needs...

a short, sharp shock.

Mine's the one with a rolled up Daily Torygraph in the pocket.

Hitler ordered Luftwaffe to spare Blackpool

Elron Hubward

Come friendly bombs and fall on Blackpool.....

..doesn't quite have the same ring to it, although as a sometime visitor to the "Las Vegas of the North" I can heartily applaud the sentiment.