Why being a best man is a good thing.

As mentioned earlier, very briefly, I have managed to be conned into going to a friend’s wedding. To top it off, conned into being one of two best men.

Two you say? Yes my friend is of the greedy sort and well, one is never enough, thankfully he did not get two wives at the same time.

Anyhow I digress, unable to sleep thanks to this snore monster next to me I am forcing myself to be awake and suffer the risk of blowing out my ear drums for the extended trip that I am going to suffer.

Why would being one of two best men be a good thing, well only one of them has to give a speech. As the other one felt reticent in writing, I jumped on the prospect and said that they would have to speak why I said. Him being drunk at the appointed time meant the speech was a little less offensive than originally planned. So much for me ruining his reputation, this survival instinct played good.

The other perk is that you get to do important things and therefore have the opportunity to feed your ego, and to top it off you get a present. Well maybe not traditionally but you do if you were at that wedding. Hence I have acquired a new old man item in the form of a pocket watch. Something that one always want but can’t justify buying, if you are under the age of 150.

So what else is good? Well you get to dress up, sign your life away and can justify talking to all the nice women using the excuse that as best man you need to be ‘sociable’ to everyone. No one minds really… unless you get caught! Besides you are there to take the blame of doing silly things away from the groom, who is stuck on best behaviour seeing as his ball and chain is there watching his every move.

So there you have it not really nice clear reasoning, but I think it might be best sticking to being a best man for a while, unless there is that mysteriously absent lady who is supposed to be one for me, decides to turn up.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Why being an ex- communist is good.

Hello all, I find myself writing to you from a rather crapped Eurostar train. Having been away for a while at a friend’s wedding, I have neglected updating the blog. Being in a 3rd world ex-communist country, access to the miracle of the interwebs has been virtually non-existent.

Yes, you need to belong to the elite of the nation in order to qualify for Internet. I have to say, and being brutally honest, I really did not miss the Internet. I had no compulsion to repetitively check my e-mails, no desire for Facebook and no need to sit and watch another funny cat video.

Although being stuck on this overcrowded train due to exceptional weather conditions ( ie winter) and being stuck next the largest smelly snorer I would really like to see another funny cat video or even just have some music to drown out the snore orchestra, which seems to be growing and growing and growing.

So why would I go to an ex-communist country to attend a wedding, well my answer is simple, because now that it is an ex-communist country they serve meat and potatoes without the obligatory cabbage.

Yes it is true no more cabbage, it is important to note that these now capitalistic countries no longer feel the need to stuff themselves full of this noxious plant. Yet the industrious and efficient Germans and a large part of the lazy good for nothing French still do so.

So what does this tell us? It is an indicator of immigration, countries that consume mass cabbage do not emigrate to the UK. How many new French of Germans do you see?

Compare that to the number of ex-communists?

See my point?

If we decided to forgo the boiled cabbage with our Sunday roasts we might as a nation, be able to immigrate and conquer desirable places by sheer desire. Let us be honest with ourselves, all the nations that consume lots of cabbage are stagnating and honestly are constituted of lazy good for nothings.

Whereas the cabbage free nations are growing! How else can we explain China’s growth it is not a cabbage loving country, their definition of cabbage is boiled salad…..

So help me create a better world today and give up on cabbage.

Providing tomorrow’s world today.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Slash Dot Sickness.

Well here we find ourselves again, however this time with too much to say and 105 fever. So lets start at the beginning.

I am 4 hours away from the start of my holiday and for some insane reason have managed to catch the office bug in the last two days. Pray tell how am I supposed to deal with this? I am about to love many hours of holiday time to recovery.

I am not saying that you should fall sick during company time, god forbid this, I have been on the wrong side of this situations to many times to want to repeat it.
This is more about sod’s law; for those less educated it’s Murphy’s law, sod being a much more interesting person than Murphy the Irish New Yorker. It could be referred to as Karma for those spiritually inclined.

I am forced by taking vacation in the doubling of one of my colleagues workload, the company of course does not want me to work and pay me for vacation that I do not take, as it would amount to me taking it twice.

Now my preferred solution is that I get my vacation and that my silly customers learn that miracles come only sometimes and not all day every day. Well at least the miracle box machine needs to refuel sometimes.

Ok enough about the boring stuff... let us talk about advertising. I was walking down the tube ( Metro) the other day admiring the adverts, they are posters. Posters are inoffensive and to be frank the only form of advertising I enjoy.

To my horror I saw a poster for one of our ex-squadies turned pop star’s new album; this brought forth this unique thought, here we go suicide music round two. Yes depressing no? I don’t want to see depressing stuff on my tube walls.

A point of reference for the foreign people. James Blunt was a phenomenon after returning from war and making a song about being miserable, dumped, random love etcc…. All the things an Englishman should never talk about. English men have no emotions, do not show or express emotions, certainly not in public.

Needless to say he was a success with our emotion starved chavy women. Hence why he decided it would be a good idea to do another sing song. I don’t want to hear his new woes. Maybe he will sing about how now he is famous he can’t go to war anymore because all the enemies of the state will recognise him and shoot him for being a queer emotional whore. The truth is no one likes him and our soldiers would probably get rid of him and blame the enemies for being the first soldier to be WEAK.

Other exciting adverts include, the opera, mobile phones, the theatre and you guessed it charity. IF charity firms can pay to advertise, then why don’t they just save the money and use it for a good cause? A real charity will not need to advertise.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree man

The Joy of News

In a world where scandals and disasters are the feeding force that our readers required, we wonder at the potential for happiness.

Today the news talks about engine failure in an Airbus A380, how the new ink cartridge bombs were 17 minutes away from exploding, how the new alliance between France and England is relating to Nuclear testing and how this is bad and of course a comparison of our testing and Iran’s needs for testing. Notwithstanding some flag burning for good measure.

Let talk about the least useful item of news; flag burning. What exactly is the point of burning flags; we know that Americans pioneered this during the civil war. Now it seems it is a symbol of protesting nations to show hate for the west.

But what benefit do we get from burning these icons, which represent the pride of our respective nations? It is not only the other nations’ populace that indulge in this little habit but it has been seen done by our own people in our own country. The majority of these fire hazards are created by naturalized people who seem to be at odds with our culture.

But other than making bad smells and a mess that the street cleaners need to sort out, what benefit is there really?

Would it not be simply easier to vote for a different leader who will change policy? Oh yes I forgot, it is now part of human rights to vote, so this means that the criminals we have spent many months locking up are now free to vote. How can we vote to change when the people whom we decide should not be in society get to vote and make their lives easier?

Other than flag burning what kind of protest can we make? My belief is if you burn flags you do not deserve to be part of a nation, you simply are no educated enough to have the benefits of being part of a society.

How would people feel if we started burning their flags just because we could? It would be a public outcry and we would be branded as being barbaric and inconsiderate. So why does this not work both ways?

Does it always need to boil down to jealousy? I want what you have but can’t have it so I will make sure you don’t get to enjoy it either?

Despite all the long meaningless text there is a reason why I am talking about this. I just find it frustrating that the news only talks about such inconsequential things.

Another example, if there are people stuck in a collapsed mine, the news does not report on the superhuman effort required by the rescue people who risk their lives to save the trapped miners, no the news reports that it took X time to get to them? Why do the reporters for five minutes not put down their cameras’ and microphones and help the diggers or get some refreshments for the rescuers so they don’t collapse.

All in all, this lets me claim that I don’t read the news. What is the point? I don’t want to know how much more misery there is in the world. Other people can tell me with great glee as it seems to be what drives them to have fun.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, if news is that important there is someone who will pass it on to us as they won’t resist telling everyone they encounter.

So help me change what we call news and aim for more cute kittens and success stories by boycotting depression.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

Trains

Most people I know dislike public transport, I am inclined to agree, it is dirty, crowded and inefficient as well as the most costly method of travel around our capital.

But sometimes, and this is very rare the trip becomes enjoyable, regardless of how many sardines get crammed into the can.

Why do you all cry out?

Well it is really simple, if you a people watcher, not pervert psycho who letches mind, someone who like to see the differences in people and what interesting behavioural patterns can be discerned; you will get to see some really nice or interesting people.

For example this morning I am presented with our regular gaggle of people, plus a few one timers.

So for the regulars, there is always one passenger who intrigues me. It is a she and she sits there holding her jesus phone about 10 inches form her face watching some program/tv show and makes faces. Sometimes its smirks, sometimes smiles all with an excess of frowning; while occasionally taking furtive glances at all the people round her.

I find this very amusing, for a number of reasons, why on earth would you want to watch anything on a jesus phone on the train and who on earth watches comedy at that time in the morning? Most people are just sitting there dreaming of their next cup of coffee; never mind summon the intellect to watch a TV programme.

The other interesting fact that I can discern, for all the train regulars, everyone has a preferred seat. So we all scramble in order to get said seats. It is very funny if I am honest, admittedly most of the regulars always gets seats as we all live so far out of the capital that we have no problem with sitting down for a long commute.

There is another regular on the train, who starts at my station and changes once with me and the get off to take a third train. This poor man takes at least 3 trains every day and every day he sits in exactly the same seat and nothing changes, he never reads the paper, never listens to a jesus phone or a zombie machine, just sits there half asleep smirking.

Then you have the larger lady that takes the same route as I everyday but refuses to talk to anyone, and just buries her face in her book all morning and phone people using her new model jesus phone.

Finally the gaggle of working mums and pregnant ladies who huddle and talk all the way into town and refuse to acknowledge anyone else unless they are pregnant…..

Just think this is just what I see from my station, what else you can see from yours? Why do you not all have a look see and tell me what fun and joy you can derive from the morning trip in to work and the homeward trip.

If there are people you see every day then I challenge you to say hello to them and see if they will talk to you.

Let me know of your successes and failures.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Cultural Soups

So a fiend ( note not spelling error….) of mine has been suffering from pains of indescribable intensity; hence being forced onto a liquid diet.
Now in my world a liquid diet is great, we eat many beers… but I suspect they would not find it quite so noutricious.
So they put on their apron:



And started cooking a childhood staple, ABC soup. Now for me this means:




But for them it means:



Which in my book is sweet and sour soup :P not alphabet soup!

Ah well we will need to teach those strange people what the ABC looks like.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Needs of Others.

So today I have had to sit down and listen to things that annoy me. I cannot decide if it is because it requires a change of processes in work or whether or not I wish to remind someone that things are done differently here, or just because I know they are being annoying for the sake of being pernickety.

Now I am by nature a reasonable man and am fairly understanding of other peoples’ needs. At no point will I claim that I tolerate those needs or desires. I can see how people thin and behave and normally can foresee when something is going to be difficult.

Today’s task it seems is going to be so painful that I already wish to turn around and say no. In fact I will probably look at making their lives as equally difficult as they seem to enjoy making mine.

Call me petty, small, vile, it is of no consequence; should there comes a time when ‘being reasonable’ comes back into the picture then maybe I will be more understanding.

It is like my dinner, it is reasonable if uninspiring. It is not really what I want to eat but ‘circumstance’, the defrosting of said item means I am accepting of its needs and will vanquish insipidity with my stiff upper lip.

I will not however tolerate the waste of said dinner, similarly I don’t like my time being wasted, especially by other people who do not understand the implications of their demands. If I am to waste my time, then I should be able to decide when and how, after all it is my time.

Would you let other people waste your time and stamp their feet like little children because you do things differently from how they are used to?

I did not think so!

So why is it ok for them to do it with me. I have little enough time to waste during my working hours, so little in fact that my writing has suffered as a consequence. This irritates me no end but I do understand why it is necessary.

Does that make me overworked or an overzealous workaholic? Maybe I just must cure the I care about my work syndrome and be like everyone else and erstwhile moron who has no grasp of the English language.

Or maybe I should take a leaf out of my friends books and turn into a cynical pshychonaut who abuses the very fabric of peoples’ minds.

No I know I will buy a forest and go and live as a hermit, where the cares of others no longer become the preserve of my very existence.

You may wonder why all this bitterness, it boils down to simplicity. I can help anyone who wants to be helped. I will attempt to help people who are lost causes, ‘knight in shining armour syndrome’ is the correct term. Yet I am incapable of managing my needs and expectations.

Sound familiar?

Yes I love helping others so much that I don’t really remember how to help myself.
Does anyone have a tip on how to help me help myself? Please note no self help manuals…. You know who you are…

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

The Joys Of Aches

Today my hands ache. It is like mini arthritis. I cannot figure out if it is the cold, where it is really not that cold, the repetitive typing, or just my brain saying eat more healthily.

The reason we like the aches that any form of exertion gives us is because allows us to feel a sense of achievements. This however is not always the case, lots of people suffer those aches without feeling that sense of bliss that forms inside our sports mad acquaintances.

What about the people who suffer from chronic pains or people who are suffering from arthritis?

I find myself stuck in the middle, I suffer all of the above and at no point would I wish to lose the bliss of hard exercise but at the same time wish for the aches to end.

All that I get when my hands ache is that it will soon rain. Not an uncommon occurrence in the UK to be honest considering that on average we have 200 days of rain a year.

Yes 200 which is more than half. For those that live here we are astounded by the fact that this number is so big and for the tourists they are surprised at how small this number is. For visitors all this country provides is masses of rain and all our history and reputation and stereotypes are reinforcing the image of constant rain and drizzle.

As an example where in printed material do we see England as a sunny holiday town outside of our land? We are portrayed as a nation of umbrella toting bankers in grey pin stripe with bowler hats.

Really could not be more different, we are a nation of garishly obnoxious rich people and chavs. The poor middle classes are swamped by an excess of posh chaviness. This leads us to living in the past where the grass was most definitely greener.

So raise a glass to toast our past greatness and let us look to the future when we can hunt freely again, first culling the chavs, second culling the wankers and finally all the hippies, terror merchants, and other undesirables.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

PS before people wonder at what are the undesirables, I would ask them to think as to whom they believe are undesirable and append their names there. I cannot compile a list to suit all tastes as there would be no one left to enjoy our sacred land. Although should I be successful in my world domination plan then I would of course accommodate my needs only.

Jelly Beans

Why oh why did we invent coffee flavoured ones? Who though that coffee flavoured sweets are tasty? They should all be shot.

While exploring the end of my diet as I need to recover from hangover of stag dos’ I came across some jelly beans in the office goodie bag. Sweet I thought, let’s eat a few; I munched through a few and ended the yummy spree with coffee.

STOP MAKING COFFEE FLAVOURED SWEETS YOU BUNCH OF MORONS

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

Stinking Strikes.

For anyone who has been following the news, it is plain to see that the French have got it right. They want something, the country grinds to a halt until they get it. I am not saying they are right to do it, but if it gets them what they want then good.

To put it in perspective, we the English decide we want to strike, we do it for a day get bored of the damp cold and go home to tea and crumpets with the missus. No wonder our strikes never succeed. I mean why would you give up the toasty oil barrel barbecues and special brew for tea and crumpets? Is it because as a nation we are emasculated by female kind?

We used to be a great nation, we ruled the world and now we cannot even rule our own country.

Why the news about strikes, well because in my kindness I have agreed to go and collect a merry band of fools; in order to stop them being beheaded by Marie Antoinette, for not being willing to sleep with her. Needless to say I drive a traditionalist car and it need petrol, the one thing that you cannot buy in France today.

If I wanted coal or electricity or bread, wine and garlic, no problem 'monsieur ere it is for you'. Petrol... non non we do not stocking sis in our beautiful country.
Damn you French bureaucracy! I am now forced to drive around like the mad zeppelin man Von Graff with a car full of explosive stuff, rendering my smoking habit a bit more risky than normal.

I suppose now is the time I wish I had one of those green cars that do a million miles on fresh air. Actually I remember, they don't exist! I would right now happily settle for a diesel golf as that would get me there and back on one tank, even a v8 diesel jag would do it. Damn me for being poor and not driving those luxo-barges.

Irony would have it that if I don't take petrol I will run out, but by taking petrol I won't need it. Maybe I can send the bill to the French Unions and say dudes you fail and cough up or we will conquer your country again and make sure that for every man that goes on strike we will shoot a random person on the streets.

So come forth together great British people, bring back the monarchy and lets us show the French what it is really like to be inconvenienced.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

The Joy of Monday Morning

Having realised that the weekend is over, I cringed at the thought of going to work. Having had an epiphany at 5 in the morning I realize that I am on holiday again. So I really did not need to get up and go to work.

Great I thought what plans for the day?
Phone the doctor, to attempt an appointment, is the first task of the day. 8:30am the place is closed, great, does no one work anymore? So I need to wait until 9; miracle occurs as I only need to wait 24hrs. Which for the UK is very good.

Task 2.... check my work e-mails...

Task3... bored now....

Task 4 think of something nice to do....

Task 5 go shopping...

Task 6... bored now...

Having spent most of my professional life being a workaholic, I find myself at a loss as to what to do when not being bothered by my work.

This is a terrible habit, one that should be curable but somehow in vain do I hope. It is not that I do not have things, to do... the list is endless and yes lots of... today.

It is just I have no compulsion to do them, at all. I can only spend so much time cleaning and gardening without getting cabin fever.

Preparing the house for guests later on in the week is great but now I sit and wonder whether I really want to have guests. The point of living on one's own is to be alone, yet all the while craving company.

Essentially, the idea of company is more solace than the actual company; this I fear is indicative of modern society, thus the creation of silly things like Facebook and MyFace and Twitter. All so that we can pretend to care and show everyone what an exciting life we lead.

Clearly we all go jumping of bridges with elastic bands and planes and go potholing everyday of the week; every night we are out getting drunk with our myriad of friends. So there you have it proof that our society is based on over active freaks with no social skills.

Seriously are we that afraid of others that we must indulge in extreme solo sports? What happened to having dinner with friends, going to sit in a cafe and people watch?
Answer my question and I might write more.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

After The Break

Hello dear viewers, after a couple weeks holiday doing work I am back. Well actually still late by 4 days as I started this 4 days ago.

Unfortunately this means that I have a few things I would like to say and not enough energy to type it all. So without further waffling let’s get started.

Politiking in the office.

All thanks to our comrades and our socialist office structure we are now being faced with the classic animal farm scenario of Napoléon being more equal than others. In fact I believe most people are more equal than me.

Please don’t think I am at all jealous at being the humble comrade that sits around drinking vodka day in and day out. I like being at the bottom of the pile as it gives me the possibility to mooch about and be ‘hip and cool’.

What worries me is that I am like the horse at the end of its useful life, rather than be let free to roam amongst the pastures to enjoy my reward for working so much, I have a sneaky suspicion that it’s to the glue factory for this one.

Of course the glue will help other worker bees’ lives but invariably it will profit only the king of the hill. All the best will in the world won’t save me from that fate when it happens. Time to look to the green grass on the other side me thinks.

Fanboys.

Yes there are those that believe that they item/ product/ thing is the best in the world and no matter what happens, this religion sticks with them. I say religion because that’s what it is, a cult may be more appropriate.

I won’t point fingers but a person who shall remain nameless has discovered joy in a specific product, the irony is that I agree with him, but on principle must provide the argument against. Their endless enthusiasm although justified just shows the change in culture towards our traditions.

We all have worked so hard to get where we are today and risk the millions invested in R&D be thrown away because someone made it better. Just like the Japanese at the end of world war two started copying the American camera’s and give or take 15 years made better products that they ever could the same is happening in our world. This time it’s the Japanese and oh the Americans and China who are slugging it out.

What is more amusing is that they are competing using the same base for all the products. Items built from the same components and which serve the same ultimate purpose. So fanboys, be warned you are only fuelling the economy of the big three, our empire has been reduced to two dozen lumps of coal where once we ruled the oceans, and actually most of the world; it is all your fault. You have sold yourselves for the cheapest instant gratification.

Opera.

This is something that means a lot to me, having been de-virginized to the joy of opera a few weeks ago. It’s not a cheap hobby, but having been once the ENO (English National Opera) have now decided to spam me with special offers so tickets that retail at 70-100 GBP can now be had for 15. Which in the grand scheme of things is great, not that we mind paying full price but if the show is not full why not sell the rest of the seats of cheap?

This is a model airlines used to follow many moons ago, it always meant that they had full planes. These days however they sell cheap if you book months in advance but very expensive if it is last minute. Therefore losing my business and anyone else’s who is spontaneous.

I digress, if you have never been then go, it is worth doing at least once in your life. It shows us how tragedy can make people happier. Forget Hollywood and Disney endings, the only purpose of those is to make you return to watch more and drown in the fantasy of impossible romance, which in the end just makes you sad because it shows you what you can never have.

However opera and tragedy shows you how much worse it could be for you and therefore by association how you don’t really have it that bad. Think about it, would you prefer to aspire to something that is not real or be happy that what you have is so much better than everyone else. Humans are selfish…. We want to be special.

*waves arms*

A big up to da man who sells da restora mojo juice! Yousa be knowing who you is!

*thumbs down*

To my basic package product who changes the rules and wont write for me when I go away and therefore leads to customer service issues.

*hugs*

For all the crazy friends who seem to think that polishing wooden floors is an activity that you share with you friends after bribing them with wine and good food.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Ludicrosity

Actually I like this new word, in fact it’s a word that has no meaning or bearing to anything that I may want to write. But it sounds nice on the tongue.
I woke up this morning and thought MEH.

So I have decided to share the feeling with everyone.

To this aim I present you with the following article:


































Was it good? I think so! It will represent everything that you could ever want.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

I’m On a Diet

Yes, well not me really but most people, sorry girls, you meet are on a diet of some description. Ladies, do you really need to be on a diet? Or is it just some topic of conversation?

So I was hovering in the local Starbucks waiting for a friend to turn up last Friday and I was hit by the following revelation:

How can you claim to be on a diet when you drink this?

What were they drinking, you ask? Well it was a triple shot Frappuccino with hazelnut syrup and whipped cream on top; to which they added about 4 table spoons of sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate and vanilla powder.

Dude, that drink contains more calories that all my 3 meals put together. Seriously, you starve yourselves all week to drink this every day and wonder why your diet is not working?

Stop drinking this and maybe you will discover there is no need to be on a diet and you will be a happier person.

If you want coffee fine, I think it is a good things, but coffee should be had with maybe a little milk and that’s about it. But no Starbucks has found a commercial niche, serving gunk and passing it off as coffee. No one in a sane frame of mind will add vanilla, nutmeg or cinnamon to coffee, let alone flavoured sugar syrup.

If you dear reader belong to that group of people, think twice before ordering it again, think about how much sugar you are putting into your body. A glass of Coke will be healthier.

Save the obese by boycotting Starbucks.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

Let’s Be Serious

Ok I have done my community service and now we can get to the more important topic of the day. Our innate desire to be atheists!

After the pope decided to visit up last week, we have been having huge uproars concerning this ‘state’ visit.

Yes it was a state visit; the pope is leader of a small country called the Vatican. Yes he will preach Catholism to everyone, regardless of the reason behind the visit; after all it is his job. His views and beliefs are his own and the fact that he tries to share them is a good thing. It boils down to freedom of speech, he is allowed according to law to say what he likes. Just because he does not share your beliefs does not give you a reason to try to rip him to shreds.

I am not a catholic, I certainly do not like them but that does not mean I don’t want him to visit. How can anyone know what it is like without being exposed to other things? What happened to tolerance?

This is ironic, any other country in the world we would not have this kind of hatred. It would appear that the UK has become a state where if we are not like the loudest voiced people we are wrong and evil and are not welcome. This by proxy would make 50% of our population not welcome in their own country.

So I now belong to the minority that advocates tolerance and peace. Maybe I should also leave and let our current mentality destroy the country before coming back once everyone has got it out of their system.

Let us bring back the past and reinstate tolerance.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Keeping To The Subject

It appears that some people are unable to follow my thought train and my endless digressions. So I am going to attempt to appease them by writing one article that follows one theme and only one theme.

There it’s done.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Sleep Is It Really Resting?

Gentlemen and ladies, this morning despite being a nice Friday is already very hard. I have sleep but not enough and I certainly don’t feel rested. Ok mostly it’s my fault that I have not gone to bed at a reasonable hour but then again if one is not tired one should not try to lie and bed to toss and turn.

It would seem that I have discovered that no matter how long or much you sleep, this is not indicative of how much rest you have. To be quite frank less sleep and more rest is what I am after. There days I need my rest, I want to be able to wake up in the morning and not feel so tired. It would be nice not to have huge bags under my eyes. Not being the vainest person in the whole world it does not mean I don’t try to look respectable. In fact this lack of rest is having a detrimental effect as I am too tired to shave at the moment.

Yes I said shave! I just can’t trust myself even with a safety razor. I fear that this is going to be a problem, much longer and I will end up with the worst whispy beard in the whole wide world. You may think that I may need to use an electric razor, but let me ask are electric razors green? I doubt it, besides if I used it, all it will do is tear my skin to shreds, I guess it would be better if I was hairy like a monkey but this is not possible so I must run around looking like a cheap hobo chav facially but like a typical class C geek everywhere else. This paints such a picture that I want to go home and hide in a cupboard.

Speaking of green, the newspaper had a lovely report condemning one of our supermarkets for making too much packaging for a roast beef? Really people we are not living in a communist state you know. There is nothing wrong with some packaging. In fact believe it or not it is required for most things, walking around with meat in your hands not packaged would be classed as a health and safety hazard. So how do you win? You can’t! The latest craze is to replace packets with plastic bags, be it coffee or cereals. If you stop and think, you will be confused; since when is plastic more recyclable than glass or cardboard? I am serious; since when? When was plastic that is not going to be recyclable, as it would otherwise perish before you could use the product, greener than cardboard and glass both of which are recyclable and reusable? You cannot reuse the plastic coffee packet, but I can use the glass jar for a hundred million things, even using it as a wall climbing deterrent, which incidentally people is illegal in this country.

Any how I am digressing again, I must stop this irritating habit born from a lack of concentration due to lack of rest. Does anyone know if taking sleeping tablet will increase rest or will it just make me sleep longer? Does anyone have any ideas as to what I should do? This is a cry for help and we would love to hear from you.

So please help me find a way to get more rest so I can get more inspiration to help entertain you.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

Oodles Of Doodles For Poodles.

#@!$$ is the un-typable expression that came out of my mouth this morning as a greeting. Its unimportant to note that it was very early in the morning before I had indulged in many coffees.

So I was talking to a friend last night and we were discussing the virtues of doing something productive, in our world this involves more of the doing anything other than watching the box and/or playing pc games. Life is really too short to waste doing anything else. How else am I supposed to be getting better than all those cheating foul mouthed 12 year olds? I am jesting in case you did not realize *shakes head*.

Anyhow I am doing that mind wandering again. Well in virtue of being productive my friend decided to have a play and update his site, so please go and have a look: http://oohsometimes.com

It makes me intrigued, what would push a person to change things; we are inherently afraid of change as human beings, that is why we end up stuck in ruts and complaining about how bad our lives are.

Do you complain about your life? What would you like to change?

So here is a challenge the person who can tell what they want to change and it appeals to me will get another box of chocolates.

Please note that stopping an addiction will not be classed as an acceptable answer.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Is It Really Time?

After having spent the weekend helping out everyone I could get my hands on and then using what little time was left to do house related stuff I find myself stuck on a Sunday night asking myself what I did for myself. You know in that utterly selfish way where the little voices in our heads tell us to be selfish and that we are number 1 and only the I matters.

Having many I’s in my head, I find it quite hard to do the selfish thing, as one may imagines the Is do not agree with each other ever.

But this is why we have a conscience, a part of one who is capable of making us have feelings, such as joy and more often than not guilt. Guilt is an interesting feeling, it’s not good or bad, you can feel guilt about doing the right thing, you can feel guilt for being a cock; it’s an emotional response that turns anything into a negative feeling.

Why do all humans want a conscience then? Why do we want to have this negative feeling? It makes you feel rotten and depressed and tired and all you get is sad apathy. Just like every other Monday morning when you fight the hordes of children on their way to school, stand in a sardine can for an hour, wait 10 minutes for your lift, walk into the office with a plastic smile and get told of for being late despite being on time, to sit down on your ‘ergonomic ‘ chair which leaves you looking like a crippled hunchback at the end of the day and try to tan while looking at your PC screen.

Don’t get me wrong I like my office; it’s vibrant and coloured with a whole pile of morons that provide entertainment. Not entertainment that I would share with you dear readers but entertainment none the less.

Still another 5 days of tedium for a 2 days of doing everything for everyone else and ensuring that my roof does not collapse on my head due to neglect. Where is the good deal in that; my dear readers I am sure you all have exciting lives with great adventures. But I; no, it’s not allowed, even if temped to pack a bag and bugger off to some exotic place, Morecambe as an example, my conscience would make me feel so guilty that I would shrivel up and throw myself into the sea in order to become lobster bait.

So all in all as a summary to the weekend, the only silver lining is I managed to have one pleasant evening ensuring a friends lack of sobriety and as a consequence ensuring that I drink myself into becoming blind to everything and washing that stupid conscience away for a few hours.

So dear reader, if you have a conscience, please get rid of it, it will only hold you back and make you miserable.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

Oh Dear!

Having decided that I could not be bothered with hunting some inspiration I decided to employ the services of a ghost writer who would ensure that my most excellent writing continues uninterrupted.
Please note that this ghost writer does exist and I did not pretend, I would never dream of pretending as it would reduce the quality of my articles.

Having read the article, I cringed and cried and stamped my feet. I decided must edit this article, and then decided to not bother. What else could life bring if I had to edit something someone took the time to help me out with?

See people I can be nice. Although the article is a little schizophrenic it is a fair representation of the point. In fact it’s probably very similar to what I write, but normally being the author I would not notice the issues.

So BG many thanks for being brave enough and +3 rep for the quality of your thoughts.

So without ado here is ‘my’ latest article:

A brand new day...a brand new resolution! Yes, no theatrics, no drama...I have decided on a resolution - not on New Year's eve but right smack in the midst of September. Despite my liking routine, I sometimes also do spontaneous (i so do try) so dear readers, Lemon Tree Man's spontaneous resolution today is to overcome his dislike for flying long distances (read: long distance to LTM equates to anything more than 3 hours)
So let's see..where shall I fly to? *thinking, thinking...* The Far East! Yes! A total opposite continent and travel time takes more than 9 hours. Perfect! :).. This will give me the chance to let it all out - start and finish a thick book (in hardcover no less), fiddle with
the in-flight entertainment, utilise the free flow of booze, maybe even make use of the puke bag, rant and rave at the crew (but if there are pretty stewardesses, I shall be try to be mindful of my behaviour and that may score me brownie points! ;) After all, it pays to be on one's best behaviour, so they say)

Some of the things that I've decided to do when in the Far East:

1. Visit my Far East friends - duh!
2. Keep my promise to bring some chocolates and to claim my sweets (total number of sweets to be determined at a later stage)
3. Teach and prove to a lock challenged friend on how to unlock a pedestal with a paper clip
4. Head on to the integrated resorts
5. Check out some recommended watering holes (hic)
6. Ad hoc silly things that one might not normally do when one's back home

I believe I'm not the only one who dislike flying so do feel free to join me in my quest and perhaps we might make good flight mates OR we might end up tearing out each other's hair (ouch) by the time we touch down. Either way, it will be an adventure but I can most certainly put a tick to my spontaneous resolution :)

Signing off

Ghost Writer For Lemon Tree Man

So people, if anyone feels they can best this then prove it and send me an article.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

*Arms Pointing At The Sky* I Give In You Win.

Yes even I will concede defeat, graciously to, without excess use of rude words. I was doing this thing called DIY this morning and for some reason felt inspired to fix something that had been irritating me for a while now. The patio foot board needed a new few coats of stain, so I dragged myself from my bed, donned some old clothes, found a paintbrush, a screwdriver and some wood stain. Ready! I thought; did the business and wondered why it would required 5 hours to be touch dry. Lo and behold, what happens, the lord of the rain decided that I should not be doing this so it pissed on my parade. I now am required to live with open doors in the rain praying it does not wash the stain onto my flagstones and thereby requiring more DIY to fix.
Rant over. :-)

Actually the subject I was thinking off was Internet Dating, prior to my daily disaster, other than what to eat for lunch.

It would seem as if the massed believe that Internet Dating is the easy way to meet a potential long term mate. You are dazzled with an array of choices, all of which cost more than the last. There is the original dating site, and there are the conman sites.

Seriously people It would be cheaper to buy a Russian bride than signing up to the half or dozen dating sites available.

So signing up for the service, for research purposes only of course. I decide to have a look see what happens. It just looks like a catalogue for distance selling, to think we moan about human trafficking but we do it gladly, by selling ourselves on the Interwebs.

So ladies, please help my research by messaging me, I don't bite and I wash everyday.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

The Continental Art Of Dining

After the ring fist punching article I decided to pay a little more attention to the cultural happenings of my world.

So we now can broach the topic of dining. Yes eating, we all do it and most of us enjoy it, asides of the fact this is important for our species survival.
While people watching we analysed who ate with whom. The observation is that women go out most of the time with one friend or a male friend. Men only go out for dinner outside of work related events in groups of four plus. Hello man, since when could we just not go out for dinner with a friend? I don’t want to go out in a group, that’s just a waste of time.

Needless to say when in the continent two men at a dinner table is normal. Friends eat together, we don’t just go to the beverage houses to get drunk. There are so many things to talk about in life. Why waste life talking shit drunk when you can do it sober?

Another digression in coffee shops the percentage of people reading is virtually zero these days, its all about ipad, ipod, laptops… why go there with a friend to sit looking at your respective iPhone texting each other? If you look up you could talk to each other in real life….

But anyways, why does everyone look miserable? Answer my question and I will buy you a whole box of chocolates.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

To Caper Along The Rooftops.

So dear reader if you were to be a superhero, whom would you be?

I know of 2 Batgirls, a Hulk Smash and a Super Dumpling Man.

I’ll grant you one the above is not a conventional hero, but he is a hero nonetheless. What defines the superhero? Can anyone tell me? Is it the costume? The name?

But more importantly, actually this is the most important question in the world: CAPE OR NO CAPE.

This I fear is not a clear cut answer. Batman has a cape and that makes him cool but Iron Man does not and he is cool too. Superman has a cape and he is a fag. The Phantom does not and he is a fag too.

In fact I have decided that to be an efficient superhero it’s not about the costume or the cape but the mighty weapon they must wield. Thor’s hammer is cool, Batman’s utility belt is awesome, Hulk’s fist is Uber awesome and well Ironman’s suit is the dog’s bollocks. So imagine a super hero with Ironman’s suit, Batman’s utility belt and Thor’s hammer and as strong as Hulk. He would look a little bit weird in a lovable Frankesteinish way. Maybe I should invest in becoming an evil genius so we could have such awesome superheros.

Again I digress, unless you are Batman wearing a cape makes you a Fag. Look at Robin, he not only dresses like a canary but he has a cape and let’s face it is very very queer.

To answer my first question if I was to be a superhero, I would have to be Batman. I get a col utility belt, a butler, a mansion and an underground lair oh and I get to play with cat woman!

Be generous and support the queer superhero rehabilitation programme.

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

The Power Of The Fist

Ok before I start on today’s topic, I have to ask what is wrong with people today? I am not a stepping stone, stop walking all over my heels, shoes are expensive, I don’t stand on yours so don’t stand on mine. If I am in front of you slow down and keep pace with everyone else or just walk somewhere else.
Anyhow I digress.

Walking the streets, people watching I have noticed a trend with the mid-twenties to mid –thirties married women; especially with the young professionals. Has anyone else noticed as they walk down the street that they are conveniently holding their handbags in their left arm and are making a fist. At the end of this fist there is their engagement ring and wedding ring and it gets bigger and bigger and shinier and shinier. As if that would protect them from men!

Girls, not everyone is a pervert and not everyone is interested in you. There is no need to punch my eyes out with glare from the diamonds. If you hated men so much and needed so much protection why did you get married?

All other women outside of this age bracket behave normally. Does this mean they are all comfortable with men and their life choices? To be fair they do tend to be mothers but that should not have any impact.

Stop thinking that big rings show how much you are loved and that it will protect you from everything. If I was a thief I would say carry on because then I can pick and choose my victims so I could steal only the best.

On the other hand please rest assured, your behaviour would totally put me off you and not because you are married but because your behaviour disgusts me. Stop pretending to be corporate ‘nouveaux riche’. You are nothing but common scum, pond scum! Being better off than other people comes with certain behavioural rules. If you are rich don’t flaunt it, be discreet, it’s more elegant and more attractive.
This new fashion is almost like the 1980’s Porsche syndrome, they are compensating for everything that is lacking in their lives. A loving husband, a happy home life, a fulfilling career, etc..

Be rich and be elegant, that is more beautiful than rich and vulgar!

Signing Off

Lemon Tree Man

Pigeon Holing

Better than pot holing as you don’t get stuck in dark dank caves. Today I feel like a pigeon, stuck in its lair. Well ok pigeons don’t really have lairs but evil people do so I am inventing the evil pigeon. But again this need to define things and justify my terminology means I am digressing again.

So why pigeon holing? Well it would appear that my readers, the few that have managed to put up with my filth, are expecting to find mostly amusing articles, the what and the why of the universe. People , wake up, I am not a comedian. I don’t write for your laughter. I write to express my innate understanding of the world and showcase my mental superiority. COWER MERE MORTALS AT THE IMMENSITY OF MY INTELLECT.
Did you all grasp that? Or do I need to reinforce the mental brainwashing using flashy lights and soothing white noise?

I admit that my texts are not of the quality found in our famous broadsheets but on the other hand they are available for nowt and are equally informative.
Today being the Monday of the week, my inspiration has dried up like most other things to be fair.

Oh on a side note, while indulging in public transport I sat watching the trees go by shrouded in early morning mist. The sight made me smile and memories of my favourite season ran into my mind. The cold is coming back and the end of summer is creeping up. YAY.

I’ll be back when I can think of something useful.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Podcasting: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Wannabe Adventure

So people I am only doing this to cement and force the hand of Ted into actually doing what Bill suggested a few weeks ago. So dear readers at some point in the near future we will have a podcast. The podcast will be for a recent computer game and hence will only be published on our sister site Lemontreemods.blogspot.com.

Anyhow what is a podcast I hear you say well here is the definition:

An online audio blog, made by people who typically sound like slightly camp nerds who most likely have no lives. It's pretty difficult to listen to one for more than about 5 minutes without laughing at them and then turning it off.

Oh cock that means I’m a geek and camp to boot….. how that marries with me being an out dated macho male for enjoying The Expendables. Oh dear society cannot decide what I am. This is terrible, what am I ever going to do.

I digress again, so yes podcasts. I suppose a podcast is a blog but of the audio kind. So this means that it’s the unknown audiophile’s version of a novel. Just like the blog a cheap way of publishing and getting free exposure in the hopes someone will notice you in amongst the masses of utter rubbish that get created. Does this mean we are reducing our attention spans by listening to trivial rubbish? Ah yes my attention span has drastically reduced because I am digressing again.

So here is a preview of the script for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Wannabe Adventure.

Bill: Welcome to our first joint games review. I am Bill Stalker coming to you from our Tal'darim studios

Ted: And I am Ted Raven. Today’s subject is a most serious review of Blizzard’s latest bestseller Starcraft 2

Bill: Spawn more Overlords

Ted: Bill how many times do I have to tell you be serious.

Bill: Sowry!

Ted: Clearly maturity is part of this review. After 12 years Blizzard have finally released the successor to Starcraft one of their bestselling games ever.

Bill: It is the start of a MOST EXCELLENT 3 part game.

Ted: Bill!

Bill: The first of the trilogy focuses on the terrans’ rampage through Middle Earth.

Ted: Bill!

Bill: OK OK. Anyway this is a classic RTS game with a bit of point and click and 8 bit goodness.

Ted: They have …. Blah Blah Blah

*sometime later*

Bill: Stalkers

Ted: Bill!

Bill: Well it was getting boring, it’s supposed to be a joint review not a monologue for the death and blind.

Ted: I will never do another podcast with you again!

Bill: Your off topic. EPIC FAIL!

Ted: And so ends a MOST EXCELLENT podcast review of Starcraft review.

As you can all see the script is a little rough round the edges and is certainly not funny; Will and Grace is funnier, even Friends allows for more humour. But as many people it is something we must try one, or twice until such a time as we have burned out everyone’s headphones.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Stubbornity a New Word.

Today I have decided to invent a new work to describe a certain group of people.

Stubbornity

This is defined as being stubborn to the point of transmutable stupidity.

Is this possible, you ask, yes of course. How? Well it happens all the time, as an example today during my most terribly busy working day somebody asked a question that has been answered, dealt with and put into the never want to hear this again bin. Sometimes, things cannot change for whatever reason, normally because the cost of retraining all those factory workers is too high; so please don’t try to raise a mountain when you only have enough soil for a mole hill.

Now that I have eloquently defined this word I will get back to writing something that might be vaguely interesting.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Case of Culturalism

To be blunt, if you are looking for culture in this article stop reading.
As my birthing day is slowing creeping closer I have decided that I should at least use this as an excuse to do something that I have always wanted to do. I will go to the opera if it’s the last thing I do. So I ventured out into the land of the Interwebs and asked the all-knowing Google what choices. The all-knowing replied Goethe’s Faust or Puccini’s La Boheme. I responded with an ooh.

The next thing on the agenda was to see if I could find a willing victim to accompany me so I would not appear as a social pariah and have an excuse to dress up. So As I asked around the answer was ’Opera no’ apart from one ‘Sure’; now I was not asking for a date, I was enquiring at a cultural evening and an excuse to go out, without reference to the infamous birthing day. So the girls I asked refused some more viciously than others and in the end the only one who said yes was a bloke. A BLOKE! We are constantly being berated for being beer drinking Xbox addicts, yet when it comes down to the crunch we are the only ones who would go to the opera. This is double standards that are unacceptable. I am sure if I offered a free shopping day paid for by me the only people who would accept are women.

Can someone tell me what went wrong? Are we all so modern that we no longer enjoy the classics?

Ok I get to the point where I have a willing victim, time to get some tickets. Now I discover that all the good seats are sold out. Not only this, but the tickets require me to re-mortgage my house. So how can the masses ever be expected to go if we are charged so much? I understand the need for a fair price but I baulk at paying three times more than a regular concert. This won’t deter me as it is one of the things that I wish to do before I die.

Ah anyhow I am going to run off to buy them.

Does anyone else want to go? Tell me now and I will make sure the next time we see each other that we will have a mini adventure.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

A Video Review

I decided to venture out this weekend, into the land of cinema. With the plethora of ‘blockbuster’ films available, we picked the film that started as close to our arrival time and fate delivered us to the warm comforting bosom of ‘The Expendables’.
So the Expendables, a film made by Sly Stallone for Sly Stallone, was an interesting experience. An acquaintance summed up the films with excellent accuracy using social media, and I quote:

BOOM BOOM STALLONE BOOM BOOM WRITTEN BY STALLONE BOOM BOOM BOOM

To date it’s the best review ever!

Yes it is the best film I have seen in a long time. I did not require one brain cell to watch it. So pleasant it was, did I just drool like a zombie. Don’t misunderstand me I like intellectual films too, but 90% if the time the reason I watch something on a screen is because I require a break from mental activity.

Spoilers below, so close your eyes and count to 1000 if you don’t want to ruin your experience.

The story starts with night vision, pirates and hostages. The story ends with a plane flying away. The middle bit is about helping someone who had values. Being a mercenary clearly precludes you from having a soul.

There are a few really good moments though; the Bruce Willis and Arnie cameo was one of the best parts of the film. Dolf Ludgren played a very good character, well in my opinion that is, maybe it’s because I always had a soft spot for those swedes. Jet Li had also an excellent funny moment. Statham well was the transporter with a really bad script.

Apart from this there are some pretty explosions and a monster BOOM STICK moment but there is nothing that would strike you as wow or memorable.

So do you need to go and watch this? Well yes because if you are ever going to waste ninety minutes of your life you won’t get a sense of scale with a small TV. If however you realize that watching this will kill all your brain cells in once instant go watch something else such as Toy Story 3 or Inception.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Socialism The Only Virtue Of Media

I was debating whether or not to write this expose of the wild world of social media. Social Media a term coined by the oh so informed media. I don’t know why it was coined as such; I mean there is no such thing as sociable media. The phenomenon grew from Myspace to myBook via twits. It corresponds to a desire to spread inane junk to the whole world.

Who care about the ugly boy at school that we bullied. We bullied him because he was a wastrel and now he is successful and wants to get petty revenge by showing off to all the people who ground him into the ground. What he does not realise is that even today we would still humiliate him. Being rich and successful is not an indication of strong character.

Why would I want to pretend to be friends with my first girlfriend ever who must have spend a fair while trying to figure out who Lemon Tree Man was from the hordes of other Lemon Tree Men. WE broke up for a reason, I don’t want to spend my life remembering the past, I want to move forward in life.

Who cares about what some drunk celebrity wants to say in 140 characters or less?
Seriously we are supposed to be intellectual beings and not absolute idiots. Social Media does not give us news, does not make us invent psychological friendships.
But the syndrome does not stop there, we are encouraged by everyone to share every sordid detail of our lives to everyone. At this rate the government will never need to spy again as we will volunteer all. Companies will no longer hire people as they can see them at their basest levels kissing pavements every Saturday night.
No need for courtship you can find out everything you ever wanted including your prospective partners credit history on the Social Media Scene.

So how do we cure this information overload? Why cure it I hear you cry? Well simply put life is boring if you know everything about everyone. What’s wrong with a little misery (oops *mistery), don’t you find it more fun discovering new things about people? I digress again! Cure it by not wasting your awake time looking for irrelevant information, no one cares what you are doing, no one cares how many ’online’ friends you have. No one wants to know who you did and when and if it was any good.

If you want to talk to someone I hear someone say.... well pick up the phone and arrange a meeting face to face, it would be more fun, you might scam a couple of beers and a dinner out of it. Better than spending it at home alone with a TV dinner and repetitive strain injuries because you can only type with your thumbs.
Help me help you give up on sharing.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

How To Make Life More Painful AKA Self Help Books

So do you feel you career is stalling? Having problems finding a partner? Want to get more out of life? Need tips on how to study? Want to quit smoking? Do you want to be successful? How to make a quick buck?

All those statements are undoubtedly book titles, no I have not done research into whether or not they exist, I am certain they do under one form another.

As society has progressed we have become so afraid that we no longer wish to take any decision and we are paralysed without the guidance of many self-styled guru’s. How hard can it be? If you want to stop smoking, quit! If your career is not fulfilling then change it! Want to make a quick buck, write a self help book! Etc...

Why do we need to rely on someone else to tell us what we need to do? Is this the result of nanny state and PC brigade?

So I have decided to write a self help book to. I have doubts that a publisher will accept it but it might be fun. I will call it “An Exercise In Cynicism: The True Guide To Being Miserably Happy!”. So all reader please feel free to send in your suggestions, so we can include many case studies.

Rules on writing self help books:

1) It should be more than a pamphlet but less than the average Clive Cussler novel.
2) Have a catchy title.
3) Have many case studies of success stories.
4) Find a gullible publisher.
5) Make sure the author has an intellectual sounding name.
So all the plans are in place now I need to get to writing.

Seriously people, how many do you own? Even I, the great Lemon Tree Man, has at least 3 that I can remember of the top of my head. I admit that two were bought as required reading for university and one was a gift from a ‘good’ friend. Can you believe it; a ‘friend’ thinks I need help so invests a large amount of money in purchasing this book in paperback no less. Paperback! Does he not know I collect books and so hardcover would look so much better?

Here is a message to this friend of mine, I was going to tell him on his wedding day be decided it would be better to post it for the world to see.

Dear Mate,

Thank you for your generous gift, I have now read this extravagant gift. I now realise the error of my ways and have decided to follow the glorious’ authors advice. So I am henceforth notifying you that you are going to erased (there was a movie about this a few years ago -> Eraser) from the great fairy tale of my life. I shall confine you to the place where I have put clown, snakes and crawl spaces. This does mean that I can no longer attend your wedding but for the sake of propriety and drunken promises I am going to delegate my presence to some outsourced firm who will send an ethnically suitable replacement.

All the best for the future,

Your witless friend.

Do you think it is too harsh?

Anyone else wish to give me advice?

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Origami for the soul

Have you ever noticed that people who practise origami are always tidy, elegant and seem to have everything under control? I mean look at the unicorn man in Bladerunner, he might look like a greasy cop but somehow he looks distinguished and elegant with a sense of purpose. I once worked with a bloke who spent many a productive office hour creating fantastic origami gardens, he also looked clean and elegant and confident.
Where do I fit in, I learnt to make the said infamous unicorn, and did that make me elegant and stuff... no!


But it all boils down to organising oneself, really it does. Creating paper dreams requires precision and patience and clean hands too, white paper does get oh so dirty.

Are you the kind of person that never remembers what to do? Do you never know when it is time to pay the bills? If so then give it a go. Why because it’s a lot more fun than trying to use a diary and a calendar and sticky notes etc... All those things do is create more mess.

What I hear you say! Yes more mess, have you ever counted the number of different post it notes you have ever written, how many times have you looked at them again? I have a paper diary as I don’t trust electronics, oh the irony I hear you say, yes yes but it’s the principle that counts. The diary is so useful; I only ever use it to check the birthdays that I missed, because I forgot to check to diary before the correct day. My company provides me with a most useful calendar for scheduling of those soul fulfilling meetings, again I still manage to miss and double book despite having it open and staring at my face each and every day.

SO if anyone can prove me wrong, I dare you! I will even go so far as to provide the person who does a nice bottle of bubbly and if they have the misfortune of not drinking then fizzy grape juice will suffice. You have one week to rise up to the challenge.

So how do I start to cure my disorganisation disease, well simple I will master all the aspects of origami that I can. First the lotus flower, then the swan and finally the unicorn, again.... Well it has been a long time since I last had to do this. Once I complete my training I will master the art of organisation and of course will therefore seem like a tower of calm surrounded by a multitude of storms. This of course leads me to the main point of all this, well not really but it sounds amusing in my head, it will make me more attractive to the girl next door who will be so impressed with my artistic talent that she will swoon.

OK OK, I did say it sounded good in my head. It will probably have as much impact as me buying expensive shoes; but it will make me more confident (some might say obnoxious.... how they get that tenuous link, go figure).

So what is the outcome of being more organised? I am more happy, I have more time to do interesting things and well it makes me feel sexy (* wildly swinging hip movement moment*)


Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Friday Washout And The News

Today is Friday and as usual my brain has stopped functioning. In consequence the witty banter that has been following me all week has dried up like an old prune. To be honest even my poor typing utensil has decided that today it’s going to have a go slow day too.

So I have decided to do the news. We all avidly read the news soaking up propaganda and advertorials, so why not show the world as it is. I personally only read the horoscopes and the cartoon pages. If there was anything interesting then someone would tell me about it. Why waste my precious time when I can get others to do it for me.

So without further ado the news:

It’s Friday the 13th, barricade the doors and don’t put out your washing as it will rain poison frogs.

The MOD has lost 20 Laptops containing confidential data.

War is illegal but so much fun, we want more.

BP share prices have dropped 1000000% due to perceived environmental threats.

Leftists are going to take over the world.

Killing animals for food must be done humanely! Become a vegetarian but only if you kill plans humanely.

Bankers are still getting big bonuses, the latest government poll shows.
1000000 squirrels drowned by angry fox hunters, RSPCA win 100m compensation through the courts for animal cruelty.

Don’t go on package holidays or you will be stranded after the sell and run tactics of tour companies.

Don’t bother flying because Unite union have got bored with BA and are going after BAA.


Unite members can’t be educated; they only learnt the first two letters of the alphabet!

As you can see there is no news apart from bad news. Actually the only good news would be.

Britons are rubbish at sport and still cannot understand why!

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Oh I paid my shoes.

Shoes:
A complex amalgamation of fabric and rubber in which to protect your feet from tiny stones and nails that may just happen to be lying on the ground.

Much better than sandals.

Apparently according to some sources:

Wearing shoes makes you lustful to the opposite sex.

Fine, Ok good, very nice. This does not tell me what shoes make me lustful. But I digress... again...

What has prompted me to discuss (read rant of faithful readers) shoes? Well I was standing outside in the smokers corner one day during a mini work break, and I was people watching. I saw things that horrified me and things that thoroughly impressed me.

Men please give up on sandals. Jesus could wear them because he was Special, you are not and heaven forbid wearing flipflops. You are in the middle of one of the worlds dirtiest cities and not on a pure white stretch of sand. How could you expose your evil wiggling things to the world, to let them be coated in grime and dirt and then go home traipsing that trash without a thought to hygiene. (this is making me cringe and want to puke people).

Girls, gladiator sandals were good for Rome and here in the land of the Queen we wore boots, there was a reason for this. It’s cold outside and DIRTY. Peep toe shoes and tights or stockings is a NO NO; it’s all in the name: PEEP TOE not peep mangy stocking tip. Don’t get me started on UGH boots, we are not in Canada where there is ice 10 months of the year!

What happened to elegance people? I know that we are degenerating as a race but Converse All Stars were out 20 years ago, do not prolong the pain. Your collective lack of taste is making me look like an angsty psycho!

Ok here are the rules for footwear:

Men:

No pointy shoes, you are not wizards so don’t.
Square toes, unless you are Frankenstein give up.
Sandals are for Cultists
Plimsolls are for Leftist Hippies
Trainers for chavs.
Go Oxfords go!

Girls:

Peeps toes but no other foot coverings.
High heels are in.
Balerina shoes are great as slippers at home!
Trainers are for sport
Boots of any kind are good
Gladiator sandals are only good as a testament of why the roman empire faded into nothing.

People please respect yourselves and me. Respect the rules

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Engrish and the Virtues of Linguini

Welcome to my pet hate. Language specifically the English language. I understand the need to be creative with words, trust me I do my fair share of creating and twisting in order to satisfy my creative linguistics.

But please txt speak? Mail speak? There is no way this language, even with all the best will in the world, there is impossibility for genuine understanding unless you are fifteen, pimpled, tracksuit wearing chav.

Yes we hate chavs for everything they represent but more so for the corruption of the queen’s language.

I have to face it, I am getting old and I cannot understand any of it. After many hours of repetition and learning by rote I have grasped a few: LOL, M8, KEK, MDR, TTFN, ROFL, OMG, WTF, FTW etc.... all of which are included in the vast gaming world, so one does get used to it.

Today I saw an anonymous comment and the rage came upon me. I Quote:

‘GLHF. wtb RRS link to add to my reader’

GLHF? OMG WTF!!!!! And yes this deserves 5 exclamation marks.

If you are going to post such inane comments have the decency to NOT be anonymous, I don’t know who you are and nor do I care other than you read my crap!

Ok I get that you want RRS link, if you tell me how to do it then I will... Anyone?
Help me save the English language.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

The Virtues of Thriftiness.

So buy one get one free, buy two get third free, buy 3 for 3 pounds, 20% off, value pack, family pack, econosave, 1st choice, sale all choices that assail you when you go anywhere be it on the street, in the shops, on the television, and even when I close my eyes.

What is the point? Why do we care are we really getting more value for our hard earned cash? Break it down to a unit price and soon you will discover that they are the same price or more than the ‘regular’ products. To which you must add value!
Value now that is a far more important criterion. Let’s take the example of tissues, whichever kind; the choice is down to your mental level; top to bottom honest. Ok I digress again, there is value single ply, normal double ply, exclusive triple ply and of course embalmed, aloe vera (that sounds like a bad French person greeting your long lost aunt Vera); what do you choose? The cheapest will give you sores and burst into shreds as soon as you approach it. The exclusive will run out before you find them and cost more than a plane ticket to Ibiza. So we exclude those from our selection as one has no value and the other is beyond our meagre taxed budget. We are now left with the multiple varieties of the ‘normal’ product. So what do you buy? You buy the same one you always bought! The boring plan normal product, so was your shopping experience more fulfilling by browsing the 30 or so varieties that you can choose from and reject?

Does buy the same old product make you a communist for believing that less choice is more? All things are equal. No of course not.

Well this brings me to the next item on the list. Is it green? Yes, is the categorical answer. Why scream the leftist non leather wearing hessians? Well you buy one value driven product and because it is the one that has been around for the last 50 years, it’s made in the same way with the same products in the same factory with the same packaging that it has always been composed of. HOW cries the leftish tie die hippy? Well dear Leftists, we did not make new factories, we did not find alternative plastic packaging for something, we did not make chemical ink that kills bees to print the flashy 3 for 2 or econosave branding. Oh and let’s be honest if you want to save the world stop us making infinite variants of the same things and branding it world saver. For everyone of the green products that we manufacture we have burned down 10 forest, killed thousands of bees and created some chemical compound that nature cannot assimilate all so that you can buy something that you believe is green. Yes it has value, green value but oh what did it take to make it?

All the boring standard products are still biodegradable, still use less packaging that the latest green craze.

So people the message today is be green and thrifty by buying the same products you always have. Change is sometimes evil, so save the bees by not changing.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

It’s the end of the world.

Yes you heard it we are nearing the end of the world. We are surrounded by Zombies, iPod zombies! Ok the expression has not been invented by me, but it is a fair assessment. They have even started appearing in the traditional safe haven of computer gaming. Team fortress 2 is full of them.




How do you spot one? Easy they are the ones with those white tentacles hanging from the ears. Yes you heard it first here, they are everywhere. The next time you are walking down the street, on a bus, in the tube* count them, I guarantee its one in three who is a Zombie. During rush hour the number increases to 50%, they even try to hide by painting their tentacles black.

How do you protect yourself from them? Simply do not fall into the trap of apple fandom and become a mindless follower of the CULT. I confess to liking the appley products and I even own one of the classics but thankfully I don’t belong to the zombie crowd.

Start the zombie watch, don’t stand too close to them as they will knock you out the way and you may slip under the wheels of some large metal moving machine. They won’t know you are there, even if you try to talk to them they are unable to respond as they only hear radio 4, they vote leftist as they believe we are all equal and should all be the same as them. They worship the Jobs two times a year when he makes himself public.

Save yourselves to save me.

If you are wondering what the point was well.... you have fallen into the zombie trap so don’t bother.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

*Tube this for our foreign cousins is the same thing as the subway or metro


Addendum



Yes a queue at the new cult shop for willing Zombie followers..... arghh... save me save you!

I Stream You Scream

While listening to some fancy tunes in my frozen cubicle via the great tool SPOTIFY; I started wondering about the wonders of music streaming.

Granted my boss can afford to have super fast Interwebs and well we are in the non-third world. What about when I get home? How will my super cheap Interwebs fare? Well quite well actually, in fact there is no difference.

But do I really want to stream all my content? No I like owning my stuff, I am a post modern materialist; I want to show off my music collection, my film collections so when I bring home the elusive female kind they can admire and wonder at my clear cultural superiority. I guess I need more books for that but I can hope no?
So streaming is not the way ahead for us mere mortals, it is on the other hand very useful. I don’t need to cart around my record collection, I can discover new bands risk free and see TV where no TV is available.

Well I promise I am getting to the point.

I am going to talk about a band that I discovered via Spotify, I can’t remember how or why I listened to them, but I have since decided that they deserve to be in my record collection.

I can’t really describe what they do its kind off like slightly punky rock and roll. It’s a modern version of 70’s rock. I guess they would not like the description but to my un-trained ear it’s what they are, being stuck in the 70’s as I am that is. In my humblest opinion they are finally one of the few bands of today who actually make nice music, I mean its not dance, hip-hop, r&B, bling bling tasticness.

They are a 3 album band and I wish them the best of luck.

So sign up to Spotify and give Gaslight Anthems a listen.

+3 rep for all the above

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

Ah Lunchtime, the sacred break from doing stuff for some company in some dubious city. Yes you guessed it this is a hungry man’s post. So why would I want to write about lunch? I don’t I just want to write about one of the world’s most famous sandwiches: the DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER!


This is about semantics, why does a double cheese*burger* have twice the meat but only single cheese for each meat patty. Double cheese by definition means twice as much cheese! I want double the cheese without double the meat! It’s not from a love of dieting that this is the case, simply because cheese appeals to me more than meat. No I am NOT a wanna’ be vegetarian, I love meat too.
In any case I digress, why not double cheese, single meat? From a cost perspective one extra slice of cheese is cheaper than an extra slice plus beef patty? Surely it would make commercial sense. You could have a double cheeseburger and a cheese doubleburger, thereby giving more choice and making yourself more profitable.

Enough!

If you want to see great burgers go to the travel channel in the states or the food channel in the UK and watch Man V Food. You are guaranteed to feel hungry, it’s the perfect cure to a bland dry weekday sandwich, stale crisps and flat pop*.

The point of all this was that we want more cheese in our burgers, everyone knows that melted cheese tastes better the more there is.

Back to the grindstone doing more stuff for my anonymous grey corporate entity.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man

*pop for you Americans refers to fizzy soft drink, most often known as Coca Cola, Lemonade, Irn Bru, Cherryade etc.... We do not distinguish between the brand product types to us its pop. So next time you go to the ‘Irish’ pub ask for pop! They won’t know what you mean, mind as they are Irish but any sensible English/Scottish person will!

Welcome

Welcome to the musings of Lemon Tree Man. Its always exciting to start a new blog, yes a new one, the old one has been decommissioned because it has become such an eclectic mix that it makes no sense. So onwards and upwards with this fresh start; maybe we can even be themed? Suggestions faithful readers?

There is a plan within a plan, there are a number of topics that will be covered but let’s keeps those a surprise for now.

Firstly I am going to point you to Lemon Tree Mods, a comprehensive log on PC modding projects. Yes this is shameless advertising but it’s something that is close to my heart. Well actually close to my everything as it has taken over half my house. Besides it’s always nice to show off, ok yes there are no posts yet because I have not got round to doing anything about it. So call it what you will, i will refer to it as strategic marketing.

Stop... I am going off on a tangent, I was only going to welcome you and ask you to follow whenever an interesting topic comes up.

Signing off

Lemon Tree Man