Showing posts with label Quasi-Intellectual Friend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quasi-Intellectual Friend. Show all posts

Friday, 22 August 2014

On the Nature of Academic Friendships

Sometimes* we can't tell whether our friends are being nice or sarcastic. This is most likely due to the lofty echelons of intellectualism in which we move; practically everyone we know spends up to 85 % of their time worrying about things like intransitive verbs in dead Germanic languages, the difficulty of dating medieval church architecture incorporating flint, or the importance of tin mining to Bronze Age warfare, and disdaining non-experts in their field with the kind of hauteur usually only found in dead French aristocrats**. The high level of pedantry that is required for maintaining meaningful discussion on this type of subject means that most of our friends are absolute fruitcakes at the best of times, and if someone should happen to be drunk, you can wave lucidity good-bye and prepare to write it long letters on scented paper***.

Anyway. We have received missives, from more than one source, containing a link to a certain newspaper article. Our correspondents were, we think, being kind. Or possibly they were being cuttingly sarcastic. We're fucked if we can tell the difference. Anyway, the article, from the Guardian, warns against the dangers of leaving unsuitable elements - like, say, excrement, or toilets - in estate agent pictures when trying to sell a house.

"Obviously, you're in it for the toilet, but I feel like that article has a lot to offer," says one chum.
Another crony explains: "You have to scroll down to find it, but there is in fact a photo of a kitchen with a toilet plopped right in it," continuing, "Have you ever come across this particular plumbing phenomenon before?"
The answer, friends, is yes. (And oh, how we wish it wasn't.)

*Practically all the time, especially when drunk.
**It could also be that we don't help matters by thinking about a) toilets, b) Richard Armitage, or c) a wonderful combination of both, more than what is strictly necessary.
***Seriously, if we had a penny for every time we've woken up hungover with a napkin full of crazed, pseudo-intellectual scribblings on the floor, we'd have enough money to build ourselves an aqueduct. A marble one. With little turrets every mile or so, and bunting.

An update about Quasi-Intellectual Friend's surprisingly clever pictures, which we couldn't publish the other day due to him putting them somewhere we can't find them, then totally and utterly failing to send them again: Quasi-Intellectual Friend has attempted to make up for his astonishing cack-handedness by providing another image. "A lovely water-saving toilet!! At the Museum of Wine, Chinon," Quasi-Intellectual Friend cackles, raising his eyebrows in that way he does, supposedly imagining it to look intellectual.


We do approve of this water-saving arrangement with all our heart.
HOWEVER. How is one supposed to wash one's hands in this tiny sink
without inadvertently touching the toilet seat? Riddle us that.

In other news, we have decided that things may not be too catastrophically bollocksed, after all, despite our recent despondency. We may still be hurtling towards shit creek at an alarming speed, but we suspect that there may, in fact, be a paddle or two tucked into the hold. Let's have a festive video and drink some rum.



Festive video - Kacey Musgraves, Follow Your Arrow


Related Reading
Australia is truly pioneering when it comes to water-saving technology. Read more about it here: Why Today Is a Toiletally Important Day
More rampant sarcasm:
"Oh for Shame, How the Mortals Put the Blame on Us Gods" - We Indulge in Melodrama
Another wine-related tap:
Taps, Wine and Elvis!
And another wine-related tap:
Kronovall - More Castle Shenanigans
Found another one:
In Good Spirits - Börje's House
Let's do one more:
Festive Things That Are Red

Saturday, 16 August 2014

Foul Play, Also Fowl Issues

It's been one of those days again. There has been a profusion of spiders, mansplaining, and general fuck-ups, tripping us up and cramping our (normally pretty damn edgy) style. The level of fucked-up-ness demonstrated by the world at large lately is excessive to the point of actual obscenity, and shows no sign of lessening no matter how much whisky we chuck at it. We are steeped to the gills in Weltschmerz and, as if all the other stuff wasn't enough, suffer from very painful and annoying blisters on our feet.

We had intended to delight and amuse you with some surprisingly clever pictures from Quasi-Intellectual Friend, who has briefly come out of the woodwork (or was it the asylum he came out of?) and sent us a batch of toilet photos, but can we find the damn things? Can we bollocks. We can't even get the massive, angry rant we had planned as back-up off our chest, due to a tiring technical cock-up.

In an effort to calm down and prevent ourselves from having a massive, collective apoplexy, we braved the onslaught of the enraged pheasant living in our archive (there is no sign of the dwarves - we don't know what happened to them) and dug out some festive pictures. "Well, strike us pink with a sheaf of medium-quality printer paper," we said to ourselves, while trying to shield our eyes from the pheasant's really rather sharp beak, "here are some pictures from that time when we went to Sir Toby's with Obsessive Emmerdale Fan Friend, and some other nice friends, to watch the rugby, and Wales won, or lost, or disappeared in an earthquake, or similar."

(Due to - you guessed it - yet another technical fuck-up, these pictures are arranged sideways. If you find this perspective invigorating, there are plenty more here, here, and here.)


We believe we intended this picture of toilet-door graffiti to illustrate a point,
possibly one to do with the fragile nature of human existence, or similar.
Possibly we had just drunk too much Guinness and lost our judgement.

As a friend of ours once said, on a memorable occasion,
"Rock'n'roll ain't dead, it's just been getting fucked in a ten-dollar bed".
No, we don't know what that means, either.

An unintentionally artistic picture.
The message here is a prosaic "this looks like a hygienic tile-and-toilet-roll-holder combo".

This picture illustrates our current, rather cornered, situation.

Do we remember seeing a yellow sink at another festive location?
We do indeed! Oh no, hang on, that was a yellow toilet.

We have said everything there is to say about air-dryers in a previous post called AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! AIR-DRYERS!

Here, enjoy this view of a reasonably charming window. Here's another one, at the Red Lion in York.

Semi-Intellectual Friend has been singularly alert recently, and sent us an interesting word. The word is anatidaephobia.

Anatidaephobia. Look it up.
Image from i.chzbgr.com.
Semi-Intellectual Friend has also been making some rather feeble jokes about our supposedly fragile mental state. Semi-Intellectual Friend can, as he is well aware, shove said feeble jokes where the sun don't shine. However, Semi-Intellectual Friend also said, in a brief moment of lucidity - and we're going to make a bit of a thing about this quote here, because we thought it was rather profound - the following words:
Irony exists for a reason and that reason is to be slathered over everything spoken or written like grease on a fat man's belly when he's being thrown down a hill.
On that note, we ought really to have a festive video, oughtn't we?


Festive video - Ashton Shepherd, Look It Up

Related Reading

Other pubs we have been to through the years:

A pub we unwisely entered in the company of Quasi-Intellectual Friend: The Rook and Gaskill - Well, the Beer Is Good
A pub that saddened us: The Royal Oak - We Revisit A Dear Old Pub with New Toilets
A nice Danish pub we sweated profusely in last summer: Det Lille Apotek - Big Beers and Small Toilets in Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country
Oh, you know. Some stuff happened: An Annoyingly Long, But Brilliantly Clever, Post, Including Shewees, Beer, and Some Other Stuff
Reminiscing about happier times: De Consolatio Philosophiae

Sir Toby's Pub & Restaurang
Davidshallsgatan 21
211 45 Malmö
Sweden
http://www.sirtobys.se/

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Tømmermænd at Café Jorden, or, Sleepless in Aarhus, or, Fear and Loathing in Jutland

Since we happened to mention old-fashioned French taps the other day, we thought we might follow up with more of the same. We spent an entertaining weekend in the charming Danish town of Aarhus recently, with various mad-as-spanners academics of our acquaintance (among others, Danish Friend, Intellectual Friend, Norwegian Friend, Quasi-Intellectual Friend, and Semi-Intellectual Friend). In all honesty, we were hungover most of the time, and completely failed to do or see anything noteworthy. But it was worth the tømmermænd: in our opinion there is nothing more amusing than watching academics get drunk and sexually harass each other!
Be that as it may, we spent a fair part of Saturday afternoon at a place called Café Jorden, consuming beer and nachos at a leisurely pace, in order not to upset our aggrieved stomach lining more than necessary. Café Jorden is situated in a most picturesque location on Badstuegade, and offers beer, nachos, and perfectly decent toilets.


We happened not to throw up in this particular toilet,
but it was clean enough to indulge, should the urge come upon one

Unfortunately only cold water is available, but we were too hungover to care, and anyway,
this tap is decorative enough for the sin to be forgiven

We thought this was rather lovely, in a fin-de-siècle France kind of way

Café Jorden exterior, complete with rude statue of Apollo or similar. Image from Aarhus Guide.

We're not bothering with points anymore. Instead, for those requiring intellectual stimulus, we highly recommend the kamelåså video for an accurate and up-to-date description of the Danish language.




Related Reading
Waltzing Around Amalienborg
Sing If You're Glad to Be a Dane
Blogging Something Rotten
Cowering in Copenhagen

Café Jorden
Badstuegade 3
Aarhus
Midtjylland 8000
Denmark
No website; check it out on Google Plus

Tuesday, 30 August 2011

If You Like Sheep and Beer: Why Not Go to the Lake District on Your Next Holiday

In an unparalleled fit of madness we went camping in the Lake District in January with Intellectual Friend, Quasi-Intellectual Friend (a.k.a. The Mexican Hair Horror) and somebody we like to think of as the Giant Lump of Lunacy. When it didn't snow like buggery it rained like the dickens, until we actually got flooded and had to leave the campsite in a dramatic night-time life-saving manoeuvre. Why, you may ask, quite reasonably, did we set out on so ridiculous a project? Why, because of the Old Dungeon Ghyll pub of course! Enveloped in its welcoming arms one may attempt to dry one's sodden garments in front of the friendly fire or, failing that, at least drink oneself insensible.
There is of course always the Café Treff in Ambleside as well, which, you may remember, harbours the best toilet in England. We tend to take refuge there to get away from our travelling companions and warm up briefly.

This old receipt turned up in a book, reminding us of bad weather and a seriously good toilet


The Old Dungeon Ghyll Hiker's Bar toilet: antique taps and sinks

A perfectly reasonable, if freezing cold, toilet, bin and toilet roll holder.

Smart-One - actually quite clever! This device makes it difficult to pull off unnecessary amounts of paper

Retro formica door

These toilets don't get many points, but we happen to be very fond of them nonetheless. We cannot recommend the Old Dungeon Ghyll warmly enough.

The Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel
Great Langdale
Ambleside
Cumbria, LA22 9JY

http://www.odg.co.uk/facilities/walkers.cfm?id=4

Related Reading
The Best Toilet in England

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Nunc Est Lavandum - Bath-time!

We had planned yet another delightful article about toilet paper today, but something happened that, believe it or not, entirely took our mind off cellulose and virgin fibres. It was pointed out to us that another Roman Bath has been found in York; in the civilian part of town this time.  We learn from the BBC website that it was briefly exposed by vandalising Victorians building the train station in the 19th century, but has lain undisturbed ever since. Being fans of Roman plumbing, we find this terribly exciting, and caper with unbridled joy at the thought of seeing another Roman bath!

Image from www.bbc.co.uk
To enjoy a soak in our post about the Roman Bath museum in York, see http://theprivycounsel.blogspot.com/2010/10/roman-baths-museum-crap-on-stick.html.

Our desire to experience modern British plumbing as good as that of the conquering Romans two thousand or so years ago remains, needless to say, futile.

Postscript 
Thanks to Mother and Quasi-Intellectual Friend for helping us with our Latin grammar
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