Firstly, let’s get this out of the way: what’s green and empty? Orville’s bumhole. Oh you. Paul’s going to write tonight’s entry, and I’ll butt in wherever my big sassy ass can fit. You’ll be able to spot my parts, they’re in italics. How decadent!

Technology really is marvellous, in’t it? I’m happy to say that in a little over seven months we’ve managed to attract (at the time of writing) 2209 subscribers to the website and 2704 to the Facebook group! And thank you to each and every one of you.

I absolutely love technology – any kind. I’m a complete geek when it comes to anything like that. I once dragged James around an old nuclear bunker from the Cold War just so I could crane my neck to have a look at what their printer was like (very beige, if you were wondering). His latest thing is Twitter – I can’t use the bloody thing, too complex for my liking (it just reminds me of someone mouthing off in the middle of a bus station hoping someone screams back – gah) and I recoil whenever I see a bloody hashtag so he’s looking after that side of things. I’ll stick with Facebook, thank you very much. It’s where all the drama happens.

A thought entered my mind today as I sat at my desk at work trying not to think about Galaxy Ripples. I remember the feeling of amazement and wonder I had when I was just a little lad whenever I saw computers. Back then they were just these little boxes whirring away in the corner of the classroom (but only if you were good for that week) that didn’t really do very much but were still fantastic and quite mystical. I also remember the excitement whenever I saw anything even vaguely computerish on the telly (I sat through an entire series of Bugs once. It was crap but it looked cool). I was always lucky enough to have a computer in the house. It started off with the Commodore 64 which unfortunately ended its life at the hands of an errant Lambert and Butler from mother. She used to be fixated with a game called ‘Split Personalities’ where you had to slide bits of a puzzle around to make a picture of a famous personality – mother, in the grips of a panic that only rearranging Elivs Costello’s face in 16-bit can create, must’ve clamped her thin lips down a little too harshly on that tab of hers because the tip fell off and burnt its way through the keyboard. Turns out you can’t load a tape without the use of the space bar.

Our first PC was smashing – a Packard Bell that we had to have the bedroom floor reinforced to stop it crashing through the ceiling. Well not quite, but you get the gist. I’ve never known a computer where you had to shovel coal in the back just to get Encarta 96 running at full speed. No internet at the time – just Solitaire, Rodent’s Revenge and then completely knacking everything up by installing After Dark screensavers (flying toasters!) and setting a boot-up password, then promptly forgetting it. We had to call someone who ‘knew computers’ to come and fix it whilst we stood slack-jawed at the Windows 95 splash screen. He also installed Quake on it but that was far too manly for me so I just spent my time playing Hover and Theme Hospital. No internet at that point see, so there were no long summer evenings spent flogging the dolphin. Anyway. Back to Paul.

From there we eventually moved up to a PC – we got some ‘glorious’ reconditioned box of crap from an iffy looking warehouse that disappeared the next week and where the workers had far too many gold earrings not to be up to something shifty. The only problem was that I used to love tinkering with it. As a curious twelve year old I loved nothing more than taking the case off and pulling wires out to see if I could remember where it went, or delete key files to see if I could fix it (I never could). I was able to get away with it by blaming the Millennium Bug until some smartarse actually pointed to the problems most likely being the massive amounts of smut I had hidden away on it. Eeh what am I like.

I soon got my comeuppance, though. Whilst fannying on too much I accidentally deleted the display driver meaning that it could only ever from that point on do things in sixteen colours. SIXTEEN. You’ve never seen complicated porn until you’ve watched it in only sixteen bloody colours. I didn’t realise a bumhole wasn’t an aurbergine colour until I saw one winking at me for real. Anyway, after a few weeks of aborted, frustrated attempts at having a wank I finally managed to sulk my way into getting another, nicer, newer one. It was still rubbish, mind, but at least I could finally crack one off in a few million different colours. It makes all the difference, believe me. The problem from then on though was that mother started to get her hands on it. No, not that (I know I’m from East Anglia, but come on) I mean the computer, and that’s when it all went terribly wrong. You wouldn’t trust a hamster with a bandsaw so whoever it was that decided a middle-aged woman that had only managed to figure out how to click a biro should be allowed access to a computer deserves a good kicking. There was no time for smut when I had to spend all my days uninstalling toolbars and iffy Bingo diallers and running up and down the stairs with a list of words to run through a thesaurus for her latest Puzzler. And when Bejewelled came along that really was the final straw and I decided to move out. I couldn’t bear another question about a bloody Java installer.

I want to interject here and continue my bit and agree that, for my formative teenager years, technology was amazing – in that technology could get me any amount of debauched filth at the click of a mouse and an installation of Realplayer. Truly, it was a wondrous time to be a teenage boy. When I finally managed to get the computer put in my bedroom rather than downstairs I don’t think I reappeared for a good two weeks, and even then I came out of my bedroom with a right arm like a Russian shot-putter and skin the colour of milk. You know when you were young and you used to slick your arm with PVA glue so that you could peel it off? That’s what my bedroom looked like – like a giant spider had made a nest. My parents were responsible enough to put parental controls on, but nothing stops a teenage boy getting at pornography, and if you’re sitting there reading this thinking little Oliver and Danrobért aren’t bypassing every restriction you’ve put on there, you’re so wrong. It’s a wonder I got any GSCE coursework done.

Hush, you. Fancy lowering the tone like that. Speaking of cheese, though:

I know right?

to make cheese and asparagus french toast dippers with soft boiled eggs you will need:

two slices of wholemeal bread – now this is where it gets tricky, syn wise. You could use a couple of slices of wholemeal bread (from a small loaf) as your healthy extra and look, that’s fine. It really is. Or, you could splash out a little and get this nice seeded bread, which I work out as 6.5 syns a slice – but see now you’re allowed 60g of wholemeal bread so I’m going to call it and say that it’s 3.5 syns for the bread. It might be a bit more, it might be less. I had it and lost 7lb on that week so either way it didn’t derail me. You’ll also need your healthy extra allowance of cheese – choose a good strong cheese, that way you can use less – 30g of gruyere is what I used), six eggs (two for each of you and two for the bread), a good bunch of asparagus and a strong coffee. Oh, and some spray oil – I use Filipo Berio. Or however you spell it.

to make cheese and asparagus french toast dippers with soft boiled eggs you should:

• set four eggs away boiling merrily in boiling water – seven minutes is normally enough for a good dippy egg
• cook your asparagus – little squirt of oil and just cook them in a griddle pan until they’re nicely browned – then chop into pieces, keeping the griddle pan hot
• whisk the remaining two eggs, a dash of milk and some salt and pepper in a bowl
• take your slices of bread and make a ‘sandwich’ – cheese and chopped asparagus
• carefully dip your sandwich into the egg mixture and drop onto the griddle pan so it can toast and the cheese melts
• serve sliced with the top of the egg removed and dip away! 

I can’t tell you how nice this was. Something different for breakfast too! Yes, it involves using syns, but that’s what they are there for!

P and J

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