ME: Now I’ve had the time of my life, no I’ve never felt this way before. Yes I swear it’s the truth and I owe it all to you.

ALL: Now with passion in our eyes there’s no way we could disguise it secretly. So we take each other’s hand ’cause we seem to understand the urgency.

… hmmm, probably best to leave it there….. which, rather aptly, squares us full circle back to the starting blocks.

So, now that you’ve finished your Pal Sandwich it’s time to get the wrapper out of the bin, look back over the ingredients, and realise why you’ve been left feelilng so ill - just look at what you’ve been forced to digest:

Up Shit’s Creek Without A (doggie) Paddle, Welcome to Pal Sandwich, Oh oh oh oh there’s trouble in America, Poll (de)faulter, Peter You’ve INVENTED the news, My Comical Romance, Out for a Duck, s=ut+1/2at2 in the modern world, Long on shorts, Moving with The Times, QUICKIE POST: Bog or Blog?, Cocked Hat Double Take, Writer’s Bollock, Mint imperialism, Honour or Doner?, Birds out numbers in, Whimper bang scrape whatever, It’ll be alright on the flight, Out-take 1, Out-take 2, Out-take 3

Goodbye-ee, Goodbye-ee,
Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee
Tho’ it’s hard to part, I know,
I’ll be tickled to death to go,
Don’t cry-ee, don’t sigh-ee,
There’s a silver lining in the sky-ee!
Bon Soir, old thing! Cheerio! Chin-Chin,
Nah-Poo, Toodle-oo, Goodbye-ee
 

Yes you’re right, this was over-indulgent. Time for me to move over for a younger, smarter (and let’s face it better looking) model….

So, laydeeeeez and gentlemen, I give you your friend and mine, all the way from the South Coast, king of the boot sales, table tennis supremo, the thinking man’s Harold Steptoe…

Mr SHIT SANDWICH !!!

We’ve all dabbled with hypnosis haven’t we?!    HAVEN’T WE?!

… let me explain…. for a long time I’ve been interested in the application of hypnosis and the ‘related’ topic of NLP - my interest was probably sparked initially by the late Professor Sir Paul McKenna PhD. but in more recent times I’ve been ‘exposed’ to NLP in particular in the workplace (eg as part of training ‘interventions’ on the subject of presentational skills, personal impact etc).

Naturally, whenever one thinks of NLP one also considers its possible application to chess (as I am sure you all have many times)…

 … anyway, this is all by the by and by way of background to my interest in these things.

This particular post concerns an mp3 hypnosis I downloaded recently which,  while you were “under”, actually had the audacity to attempt to hypnotise you into buying a whole load of additional mp3 tracks from the author. It even went so far as to then try to hypnotise you to “forget” that you had been hypnotised into wanting to do this (ie so that you just did it but without realising why).

Surely this has got to be illegal? Anyone know anything about this or have any experience of hypnosis?

YOU ARE FEELING INTERESTED, VEEERY INTERESTED…….

Once again, as so often in life, I am grateful to my Basildon chums for reminding me to pause and reflect before making important decisions. For, in fact, I was on the brink of making some kind of barnstorming entrance onto the editorial scene with all sorts of new fangled ideas, proposals of layout changes, day rates for guest editors etc etc… but DM’s epic “Walking in my shoes” reminded me not to judge a man by his cover until you have walked at least a mile in his slippers, or something like that.

Or, translated into change management speak, one must “live in the reality” before seeking to impose radical change. On that basis I will ensure I have appropriately girly hair, a slightly flambouyant floral shirt and a portfolio of guitars before proposing any radical amendments.

Change management principles also suggest that it is important to “Communicate, involve, enable and facilitate involvement from people, as early and openly and as fully as is possible”. Consequently, and no doubt much to the horror of The Daily Shit, may I cordially invite you all to contribute to the debate as to how this site can be best improved?

After all, it is important to gather all your views before I disregard them completely and implement what I have already decided to do…..

… or something like that…

Following the amazing success of the “Peter, you’ve INVENTED the news” post, which SMASHED THROUGH ALL RECORDS, I’ve been doing a bit of research into how trails of comments come to an end* - in other words, looking at examples of the “last post” against comments and seeing if there are any conclusions to be drawn…

* NB please note that posts are never actually closed so ”the end” is somewhat subjective - I refer you to the seminal treatment of this essentially philosophical issue by David St. Hubbins: “..well, I don’t really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It’s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you.”

Having “closed out” that issue, some selected examples follow: 

Well, it wasn’t. That’s where this whole thing started.

Anyone who has ever done a boot sale knows that when you get near the end, you just want to shift the damn stuff - doesn’t matter what you get for it. After all, if you can give it away it saves you a trip down the dump on the way home…..

Similarly, in the run-up to the hand-back (which surely rivals the momentous handing back of Hong Kong to China in 1997 - with me in the Chris Patten role and Shit in the role of Jiang Zemin) I am clearing my last trestle table of shite - namely, my ‘draft posts’ which never quite made it onto the site.

There was a reason they weren’t posted - they weren’t good enough! But, rather than leave them as drafts, what the heck, let’s get ‘em out for the fans…. So, 3 “out-takes” will follow shortly….

Earlier in my RECORD BREAKING stint as guest editor I had grand vision of building slowly towards intellectual crescendo just in time to hand back to Shite. Now, on the back of an exhausting schedule (including sole custody of the kids at the weekend, let alone having to look after MYSELF as well) I am physically, mentally and yes emotionally drained.

Have you seen that bit in Cars where Lightning McQueen pushes Strip “The King” Weathers over the line in the tie-break race? Well, I’m your King and your my (Mc)Queens so shoulders at the ready and HEAVE…. HEAVE… (actually that’s the mice in Bagpuss isn’t it?!)

Anyway, I decided to investigate further and the following “13 Signs of Burn Out” are courtesy of assessment.com

1. Chronic fatigue - exhaustion, tiredness, a sense of being physically run down
2. Anger at those making demands
3. Self-criticism for putting up with the demands
4. Cynicism, negativity and irritability
5. A sense of being beseiged
6. Exploding easily at seemingly inconsequential things
7. Frequent headaches and gastrointestinal disturbances
8. Weight loss or gain
9. Sleeplessness and depression
10. Shortness of breath
11. Suspiciousness
12. Feelings of helplessness
13. Increased degree of risk taking

I got 12.5 (I don’t suffer from frequent gastrointestinal disturbances hence the half point deduction). So, I’ll be off to burnout.com later today - anyone else get a similar score? If so, let me know and I’ll do a job lot booking at their Snowdonian house of retreat….

Time for a change of poll methinks.

Thanks everyone for your votes in the previous one - I suppose we could’ve predicted from the start that we’d plump for the birds, in this case parrot and partridge - actually that’s rather a spooky coincidence, better let Dan Brown know as he could probably turn it into a best selling novel, trilogy even.

My final poll, which will run until Shit gets back onto the pan, is simple and yet strangely confusing. The poll is:

“How many people will vote in this poll?” Options are:

0 - the idiot’s choice

1-3 piss poor

4-6 slim pickings

7-9 nice one mates

10-12 barnstorming

13+ who voted twice?!

The objective, obviously, is to try to end up voting for the “winning” category…. bit similar to the Prisoners Dilemma game, although this one is nothing to do with the Nash Equilibrium (remember all the blokes going for the blond in A Beautiful Mind) and this will not have wider application in the fields of economics, sociology, politics, criminology, evolutionary biology etc

Anyway, get voting!

10 (yes a whole TEN) Pal Sandwich loyalty points go to the first reader to identify the subject of the following epitaph (well it’s not really an epitaph - Shit/LZ/someone - help)

“xxx died peacefully [at home] at 6.05 this morning. There was no stress. He departed from this world with dignity and no fuss. He did his dying in the same individual way that he did his living. It was time to go.”

Is this referring to a hero of the great war? Maybe a soldier tragically killed in the line of duty in Iraq?

Oh no my friends - the subject is Desert Fucking Orchid. (10 points go to me - sorry)

I’m conscious that certain readers (and ex-editors) of this blog may prefer to see their animals “sur le terrain” rather than “sur la terrine” but surely a 27 year old horse should just be melted down for glue without all this hoo-hah?

As a father of young children, this whole concept has snuck up on me rather sneakily (as with most things that have ever ’snuck’)….

I’m talking about the personification of animals - that is to say (and this is my definition) the attribution to animals of human traits and, further, the imposition of human customs, past-times etc. (ok, it was a poor definition but I’m an accountant not a linguist)

Now it’s fine for 3 and 4 year olds (and in fact can be useful: eg “doggy says put your shoes on…”) but the only aspect of news coverage that revealed we were talking about Desert “Dessie” Orchid and not Desmond “Dessie” Lynam was that they kept referring to the fact that “a lot of people will be sad to see him go because he made them a lot of money” (not true of the latter Des, as the odds had shortened considerably by the time the average betting man got wind of the countdown thing).

In a separate “news” item, the nation’s favourite paper ran a story on “pet weddings” today - I can’t find it online but this link gives you an idea. (As an aside I googled “Pet Divorces” , “Pet Alimonies” and “Gay Pet Weddings” but no-one’s doing these……YET)

Crazy crazy crazy.

Oh yeah, before we get too much screeching, the simianisation of humans is fine.

You will no doubt have seen recently that the Bank of England will shortly be issuing new twenty pound notes featuring the image of the “father of modern economics”, Adam Smith. The new notes will comply fully with new size-discrimination guidelines issued by the EU and as such are approximately 500% larger than existing currency (see below).

Is this some kind of “reverse takeover” tactic from Chancellor Gordon Brown to introduce a Scottish currency to England? If so, how soon will it be before these new “Scottish pounds” will be worth less than their “real” English counterparts?

Or is it just a desperate attempt to reduce inflationary pressure on the basis that a note with a Scotsman printed on it will intrisincally resist being spent? 

I must’ve caught it in something in my sleep - the fridge maybe…. (actually you would’ve thought after our previous discussions about accidents involving white goods I would’ve learned my lesson but I guess that’s what addiction is all about.

Well, dear readers, first thing’s first - HAPPY MONDAY. My own personal mondayspace has gone fairly terribly so far, train related problems and so on and so forth, but on the positive side I didn’t die in the first world war and on that basis I will complain no more.

My thoughts this morning have turned to dear old Mr Sandwich (remember him?!) - as we run into week 2 on the-blog-formally-know-as-Shit-Sandwich I’m beginning to understand just how easy it is, er sorry how DIFFICULT it is, to produce regular, high quality posts… so, my key points:

1. If I may borrow from McFly (and I think I may) - it’s all about YOU - so, a big up to the entire Pal Sandwich boredience for keeping this thing alive and interesting. The good thing about this stance, of course, is that from later this week “YOU” includes me - so, at long last, and rather subtly, this is actually all about ME - hurrah!

2. Moving on from the wholegrain/floppy white/pita bread/folding sandwiches analogy, I now think of myself of the Yazz and the Plastic Population of the blog world - sure it was fun, but it was never going to last was it?! And yes, maybe we DO still all remember that bloody song but it was only ONE song and it wasn’t all that good was it? Shit, on the other hand, is the Julio Doubleglazias of the blogosphere (or blogoplane depening on your views iro world ‘flatness’) - endlessly creative, dark, impossibly handsome and always capable of reinventing himself to keep up with the modern world (ok, maybe keep ‘just behind’ the modern world)

3. One tip Shit gave me in the run-up to the handover (or should that be “dumpover”) was to “give something of yourself”. Accordingly, I have a number of toe-nail clippings available upon request. Stocks are limited and available on a strictly first-come first-served basis. Only 2 clippings per household. Whilst we will endeavour to supply your preferred flavour we reserve the right to substitute if your preference is unavailable.