Monster...

There is a wintery scene through Andromeda's starboard windows today in Lancashire.

This time of year, along the canal's towpath, you get only the dog walkers and the pikey's passing by. 

Not the sneaky, thieving ones suspected of lifting the lead off the church roof or nicking the lawnmower from next door's shed, it's the other ones.....the Pike fishermen.

Yes men, always men!

Woolly hatted and wrapped up with more skins than an onion they tramp up and down casting their little short rods with their little rubber fish bait....plop, plop, plopping repetitively and then winding at various speeds while staring hopefully at the canal surface in a vain attempt to lure in an elusive monster from the depths.

With massive nets and freezing fingers and weighed down with scales and scissors they puff on fags to keep their lungs warm as they cast and cast and cast, trolling along until all of a sudden the line goes tight and the rod bends....

An expectant face at the window across watches the scene as it excitedly unravels ...has he struck into the record breaker?...with bending rod raised in the wind and hail he frantically winds in his prey but he can't seem to land it? He fights and pulls and tugs, the rod bent like a willow the specimen hunter's catch must be huge?

If only he can land it......oh, hang on....

....it appears that from the towpath, he has casted so far he has missed the canal completely and managed to snag it on the coal bunker cover which although it was putting up a hell of a fight I don't think it was quite the catch of the day he was after? 

I can't really picture him on the cover of the Anglers Mail holding a prized 25kg bag of Milligan's Excel somehow, can you?

REM's single Monster will have to do for this blog...!                    

Something better change...

Sick to death now of pulverised pulses and life changing cacao, chia, maca and goji - it's time to get reality back on track as I'm not sure that the Ying is lining up with the Yang with all this healthy dieting. Having all this fruit and veg ingestion only seems to be making the Andrex bills soft strong and very long and has even started to cause other problems...

It's now no longer possible to open any cupboard on the boat without a plethora of plastic juicers, mixers, and smoothie blenders, all with flip-top-lids-to-go and stay fresh resealable oversized cups tumbling out and clattering all over the floor at every opportunity.

No more compact ninja urine extractors or stylishly contoured meat and herb choppers on this craft....it's gone too far, to the point that only this morning the dog had to be taken down the vets as it got shot in the leg by a stray NutriBullet and this was the final straw.

 It's time to take all his stuff down to the tip where it belongs.

Instead, it's time to embrace the advances in technology and invest in the future.

With a click and a credit card it didn't take long to google up the Internet to Ebay a purchase for the latest hot must have sporty gadget direct from up the Amazon and with free shipping all the way from the sweat shops of Taiwan. 

When it arrived it was strapped on snugly, synced to an app and fired up with dramatic results.

The cheaper option, 'Fatbit' uses latest satellite Gps along with bionic synth stealth    technology to record all the food that you can shove in your cake-hole, monitor your sleepless nights and record how many times you get up for a wee. In the morning, it will wake you with an electric shock and supply you with an electronic till receipt showing how porky you have become overnight while taking into account and deducting any weight loss from your morning ablutions.

The app automatically cancels any direct debits and appointments you have for the local gym and is programmed to bleep and uses google mapping to inform you when you are approaching any fast food outlet that has a promotion on pies. 

The personal trainer programme allows you to stay focused on your blubbery goals,   that is if you goal is to balloon to the size of massive fat walrus and then Twitter your  score to anyone who weighs more than 3 stone in your Facebook contact list to compare the market with other fat biffa's you know.

Finally, with an inbuilt tracker comparison surge it will locate and find you new fat friends, invite them for lunch and book a table at the nearest Nando's and order you the highest calorific meal on the menu.

If in 3 weeks you haven't put on loads of lard, and if you can get it off your leg, you can return it free of charge and get your money back to spend on some more cakes.

So now, I can lie on the settee and watch all the bandy legged Lycra clad joggers puffing down the towpath....it's the future!

An obvious blog title track again by the Stranglers off the 1977 album No More Heroes.

http://youtu.be/ZTl6YBCjaA4

The Times They are a Changin'...

Come gather 'round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters
Around you have grown!

Being a boater it's important to be able to stand at the tiller for long hours and stay alert to the requirement to have to step on and off at a moments notice when a canal side pub is sighted.

So, a healthy mind and body is crucial for an accomplished helms-person in 2016.

Following the Xmas binge that started mid October, it makes sense to make amends going into the New Year.

If only there was a new hardback publication available online to give guidance on what to do if you feel you want to shift the lumps from the blocked aorta and achieve an eternal BMI that would give the reader a base line balanced bottom to die for!

Amazingly there IS one or two to choose from!

From these scientifically proven resources it would appear that fry ups and egg banjo's are old hat and have been banned as they contain saturated polyunsaturates that can indeed block your tubes, cause palpitations and give you excessive embarrassing wind.

This year, in order to be able to moor up perfectly, you really need to improve your metabolic heart rate by reverting to a 5 a day, vitamin rich, diet of moolie, kumquat and parsnip smoothies containing life saving antioxidants to encourage weight loss through osmosis and give you an overall and more publicly acceptable fake tanned enhanced appearance.

Then, by altering mealtimes to having breakfast at teatime, then setting the alarm to have your lunch and dinner together at 3am, will encourage enzymes in the good bacteria to multiply, giving a boost to your free radicals to burn off the excess plaque from your fat balls thus avoiding acute obesity in the twilight years.

From now on, daily protein shakes of the new improved Yakult muscle strengthener with added vitamin P instead of builders tea will replace your chlorophyll overnight and will go a long way to enhance and improve poor eyesight to enable all to spot awkwardly placed water points a bit easier along the towpath, even in the rain!

Combine this with two high tempo Zumba sessions and a strenuous spin class and it could be possible to sail all the way to Lancaster with only one short stop at Bridge 90 for a lite camomile and juniper herbal infusion.

Apparently, going forward, the body can no longer cope with reheated lamb bhoona's,  BBQ'd pulled pork or Hollands steak puddings. 

By the end of the week there is rumour that alarming news could break following NHS insider warnings that drinking pints of real ale could lead to excessive amounts of unwanted urine and may go on to cause bouts of kebab worship followed by insomnia.....so go out and panic buy celery to cut down those calories and combat this evil as the times are definitely a changing!

Time to empty the bog, eh?

Another obvious blog title track, The Times They are a Changin', from 1964 by Robert Allen Zimmerman no less.

http://youtu.be/e7qQ6_RV4VQ

What a Waste...

Only Allah knows what Buddha has got to do with Christmas!

Back from the sales it took ages to cram all the lovely celebrity endorsed merchandise through the narrow Narrowboat doors. Brainwashed by impressive marketing campaigns on Dave and Spike with once in a lifetime tempting half price triple discount  deals down the shops with an easy 'i' swipe payment platform and nothing to 'i' pay EVER!
 It was far too unbelievably irresistible to resist the final bargains.

Unpacking all the 'can't live without' items including a 'must have' battery operated squid, an Adult playboy colouring book with pop out features, several jars of original Old Spice foot balm and a large tube of bohemian beard oil to stabilise growth, enhance and nourish all types of facial hair, the excitement was almost too much.

Basically, a new me was about to emerge with the dawn of the New Year but this mind and body revolution could not have been realised without the purchase of Psychic Skinny Pete's new best seller, an idiots guide to cooking and eating a gluten free hunger strike diet of cous cous, coconut and coriander smoothies 3 times a week to enable the reader to continue to lie on the settee and still shift all the blubber off your flabby bingo wings without having to lift a painted fingernail, saving the time and effort required before preparing a balanced diet and messing about doing regular exercise!

How on earth did life continue without before this enlightenment?

Maybe you shouldn't leave out the exercise?

Maybe half an hour pumping and writhing about in front of Kanye Kardashian's 3 minute belly blitz video will kickstart the New Year's wellness and clean living regime before utilising the benefits of the new organically bespoke Dyson celery spiraliser with an integrated Star Wars BB8 droid attachment for trimming unwanted nasal hair should be the order of the day now?

As we reach saturation point, the last dregs of Aldi's finest Prossecco gets poured down the plug hole and the stinking Stilton that no one ate gets lobbed in the canal, there is just time to get online to check how much money has emptied out the bank and put the last bid on eBay for a combined hover-stroke-ironing board with free shipping from China.

If only there was enough left for a boarding card?

I think a holiday is required!

Where exactly is Copa Cabana?

This latest post blog title was inspired today by the late Ian Dury from the album 'New boots and panties'......probably picked them up in the 
January sales!

https://youtu.be/ZmopROxBnBU