Budget Christmas

It’s that time of year when you have to sort out your Christmas list. The annual challenge of spending some serious thinking time about what gifts to choose for family and friends.  Maybe you have one of those relatives who already have everything! Or maybe you’re on a budget and need to economise?

Whatever your dilemmas, Daisy the Dog has some ingenious money saving tips on how to conquer Christmas.

Save all the Christmas cards from last year. Simply cross out and swap over the “To”s and “From”s and mail them back. Following this simple strategy is a “win, win” situation, you won’t forget anyone and all that recycling will be doing your bit to save the planet.

Have a poke around in the loft. Maybe you have a remnant of carpet laying around. Only, it’s not an old piece of carpet, it’s a high quality, ergonomically designed yoga mat. An ideal gift, quite unlike anything they have received before.

The puppy came in the other day with a stick which he proceeded to chew into a hundred small pieces. I gathered them up into a cellophane bag and sprayed them with a mixture of 1 part ladies, perfume, 1 part deodorant and a sprinkling of washing powder and tied it all up with a bow. This was now a gift bag of potpourri – infused with mystic aromas of the rainforest.

The 1,000-Yard Stare

We continue our series of tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

In the middle-ages, taking part in a battle was a terrifying ideal. Most of the fighting was at close quarters, with the opposing forces stabbing, hacking, and bludgeoning each other to death with spears, swords, and axes.

Before battle commenced it was important to show a brave face. If your army was 5,000 strong at the bottom of the hill facing a force of 7,000 atop the hill, you needed the 1,000-yard stare. To focus, steely eyed, on a point 1,000-yards beyond the enemy – as if they didn’t exist – show no fear.

Sir D has come across a few occasions in modern life where the 1,000-yard stare can be invaluable.

Situation 1 – out on your Sunday afternoon stroll you accidentally wander into a nudist camp. If this was the movies the nudists would all be exotic lingerie models. In real life they are mostly over 60 with an average weight of 20 stone - the only safe place to look is 1,000 yards ahead.

Situation 2 – walking the dog you are approaching a busy intersection. There are queues of traffic and people everywhere. The dog decides here is the ideal spot to deposit a huge sloppy shit – put on a brave & impassive face as you scrape shit off the sidewalk.

Situation 3 – you have just sent your teenage son / daughter a carefully worded, fully punctuated text on your mobile phone. It’s taken you 20 minutes to write.
He / she pings you back in 10 seconds. The message is six emoji’s  - no words. You haven’t a clue what any of it means - remember parenting is mostly about pretending you know everything. Keep calm and carry on. You'll feel better at Christmas when their eagerly await gift turns out to be a dictionary.

Doctor, doctor...NOOOOO!!!

 

We continue our series of tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

Anyone having a problem booking a doctor’s appointment at the moment? 

Where are all the doctors? You might get the impression that they are all on an extended Coronavirus holiday 😷🌴😎.

In the 14^th Century visiting the Doctor 👴 was a risky business. There was a good chance the prescription was more likely to poison, injure or kill you than cure you. 😥. Sir Dickon gives us an insight 👀 ;

Symptom - a headache 😈

Cure – Trepanation. 

Headaches were caused by a demon trapped inside your head, rampaging around. The physician would drill a hole in your skull to let the demons out. Obvious when you think about it! 

But how did the demon get in to begin with?

Symptom – painful throat, stomach, chest, arse etc.

Cure – Blood letting. 

The doctor would drain blood to rebalance the fluids in your body. The blood loss caused the patient to become dizzy and disorientated, generally forgetting why they were feeling unwell in the first place 😵

Symptom – Syphilis, a common venereal disease.

Cure – quicksilver, better known as mercury was injected into your private parts. Interestingly mercury did result in some initial improvement in the condition, until the unpleasant side effects kicked in 😟

And finally …

Sir Dickon: “My wife has been nagging a lot lately. I think she might be a witch”. 👵

Doctor: “We will have to run some tests. We will dunk her in the village pond. If she floats it proves she is a witch and we’ll burn her at the stake. If she sinks, she’s innocent”.

Sir Dickon: “How much do I owe you for this consultation”?

Doctor: “5 shillings”.

Sir Dickon: “Cheaper than a divorce”. 😁

Ancient Chinese proverbs and other sayings as retold by Sir Dickon

 Old Sayings...

We continue our series of tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

Do you ever wonder where ‘old fashioned sayings’ come from? 

I’ve tested out some on Sir Dickon, to find out if they were the same in the Middle Ages? It turns out that over the centuries the sayings have lost some of their original context.  

For example

21^st C – There’s no use crying over spilt milk.

14^th C – There’s no use crying over spilt milk, but you may weep silently over spilt beer.

21^st C - Don’t keep a dog and bark yourself.

14^th C - Don’t keep a dog and bark yourself – unless you are doing your best Scooby Doo's ancestor impression.

21^st C - Actions speak louder than words.

14^th C – Actions speak louder than words, especially when you’ve been eating beans.

21^st C - Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

The last one didn’t exist in the Middle Ages. When you could die in a multitude of hideous ways such as disease, being stoned to death, burnt at the stake or hung drawn and quartered. Getting through the day with just a poke in the eye with a stick was an absolute luxury.

Marvellous Inventions

Sorry, Discussions with my Dog has been off air for a while. Our medieval life coach, Sir Dickon, has been trapped 💁 in the 14th century due to Covid 19 travel restrictions ⛔.

This week, Sir Dickon gives us his view on the invention of the mobile phone.

If you want to send a message long distance in the middle ages, you first had to find a 👴person who could write, pay the cost of a piece of parchment (about £10 in todays money), and send it by horseback - 💲very slow and expensive. The last posting date for Xmas cards was in September 🎅.

BUT...

1) Nobody received junk mail ✉

2) If you were out on the lash, your wife couldn't pester you to find out when you would be home

3) The world didn't stop turning because nobody "liked" your latest selfie 😭 

That being said, on the whole, Sir Dickon thinks mobile phones are a valuable contribution to society because he can access PornHub on the move 💪 😏.  

5 things your dog would like to humbly apologise for

("While Sir Lancelot had his eye on Lady Marjorie's bishop, Sir Dickon had his hand on her sister's left breast".)

 In 1776 Thomas Jefferson famously quoted “Not all men are created equal”. It’s true, some people are more gifted than others. Of course, it doesn’t help when their ego is bigger than their talent. We like our stars better when they have a streak of humanity.

It’s the same in the dog world. It’s a characteristic of being a lurcher that Daisy thinks she is awesome. But she also knows there are times to show you humble side, for instance;

When you’ve just launched an air biscuit that has people’s eyes watering and gagging for breath. You have to (at least) pretend you are very sorry and blame it on what they fed you.

When you’ve done a huge sloppy dump on the pavement that someone has to scrape up with a tiny plastic bag. Again, apologise and blame it on what you were fed.

When you’re drooling at the dinner table. Blame it on what they haven’t fed you.

When you’ve abandoned your tennis ball in the long grass for the third time that week. Make an effort of going to look for it - in the opposite direction of where you left it.

When you wake everyone up at midnight barking at the bottom of the garden. Sorry, but people really needed to know a fox was passing through the neighbour’s property.

A humble apology means you can do exactly the same thing again tomorrow.

How to blag a holiday during Covid-19 Lockdown

 

Can you remember the last time you took a holiday somewhere in the sun? 

When do you think you might next get away? Not any time soon because the Government has slapped a Covid-19 ban on foreign travel except in exceptional circumstances.

Courtesy of Discussions with My Dog, here are a couple of ideas of what might help you get that ‘exceptional circumstances’ ticket.

Option 1

Appeal for charitable donations for some worthy cause. Say you are going to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a 10-foot rowing boat. Organise a big press event to watch you paddle away from the British shore in the rowboat. About 2 miles out you get picked up by a luxury yacht which you have chartered with the charitable donations and cruise to an idyllic island in the Caribbean. Nobody will expect you back for a few months, by which time they will have forgotten about where the charitable donations went.

Option 2

Set up a company called ‘Essential Business Travel' on the application, list the company directors as you and a few of your drinking buddies. Apply for permission to go abroad for ‘‘Essential Business Travel’. You are bound to be approved.

Why does my dog stare at me when it's taking a shit??

Why do dogs stare at you when they are taking a shit??

🐕💩

Scientists believe it is because they feel vulnerable and they are checking to make sure you will be 

there for protection if an unfavourable situation arises.

😕 I have two questions ⁇ –

1. How exactly did the scientist(s) come to this conclusion?

and...

2. How much money did they blag from the university research grant to carry out this ground

breaking investigation?

I guess...

It’s really quite a genius project. The whole team got paid for standing around watching dogs take a

shit. 

The only thing more difficult than proving their theory is correct is proving they are wrong.

But, in my opinion...

Yesterday as I was waiting for Daisy to finish her business. She looked me straight in the eye and the

message I was picking up was “Good luck cleaning up with that tiny polythene bag. I’ve left a huge

pile and it’s 85% liquid”.

Confessions of a bored housewife

 

Raise your hand if you were expecting to see porno when you clicked on this link. Sorry, if your fantasy has just been drenched by a bucket of ice-cold reality.

When a bored housewife wakes up in the morning, she has a few options.

1.       Clean the kitchen

2.       Dust the house from top to bottom

3.       Take the dog for a walk.

4.       Log on to Amazon and buy something frivolous

99% of the time they go option 4. Shortly afterwards she remembers that the credit card has been maxed out but since the phone / tablet / PC is switched on she may as well browse social media and some random shit on-line.

Three hours later bored housewife realises she has wasted the whole morning down some internet rabbit hole. This is followed by a guilt attack and an intense desire to do something creative to compensate for those lost hours. Whilst browsing the internet she came across a video of a guy walking face first into a plate glass door he thought was open. That was LOL funny.

She decides to recreate the incident herself. This is what we ended up with …

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

We continue our series of Tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

I read on the internet that 18 months ago they changed the law in California, so theft of goods valued at less than $1,000 would be treated as a misdemeanour rather than a felony. (Unlike some things on this blog page, this shit is actually true). Consequently, incidents of shoplifting have shot through the roof.

Back in medieval times, crime levels were very low because there was an effective system of punishments. Sir Dickon explains;

Today the authorities go through a long, drawn-out process of taking people to court. A trial isn’t necessary if you have a confession. Criminals who were interviewed on the rack in the 14^th Century, provided a full signed confession in 100% of cases. The rack is a torture device which is designed to slowly winch a person’s arms out of the sockets.

Once they have confessed, medieval judges could sentence an offender a whole range a grisly punishments including:

- hanging

- beheading,

- being boiled alive,

- being burnt alive

and the classic…

- hung, drawn, and quartered

The reoffending rate in the 14^th Century was Nil.

I asked Sir D if he is aware of any punishments in the 21^st Century that might be considered even more terrifying than the middle ages. He informed me there is – free tickets to see Justin Bieber, not just one show – the whole damn tour!

Good ole' US of A

 

We continue our series of Tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

Sir Dickon is quite fascinated with the USA, in the medieval times Europeans didn’t know the American continent even existed. The USA doesn’t do ordinary, they like to max out. Here is his quick research guide on what’s great, awful, and in-between about America.

THE BAD

Sir D realises that in the 20th Century it is no longer acceptable to beat and torture the peasants, even if they are useless twats. The Americans have, however, invented more cruel and insidious ways for large companies to abuse their employees and it’s all completely legal – send them on a team building course. Check out our other blog for more  insight on this barbaric practice.

The UGLY

The average person in the USA consumes more calories per day than people in any other country. Probably good news for the fat bastard community. Not so good if you are livestock.

THE GOOD

The greatest thing to come out of America is … Stacey’s Mom. Watch this video and tell us if you disagree.

Football

 

We continue our series of Tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

Sir Dickon has just been watching football on television. He is lamenting that he really doesn’t recognise the modern game and is flabbergasted by how much it costs. Just look at the comparisions.

Equipment
Modern – the Video Assisted Referee system (VAR television replays to help referee’s check important penalty decisions) in the Premier League costs over £9,000 for each game.

Medieval – the only thing you needed was a ball - an inflated pig’s bladder - which cost pennies.

Rules

Modern – there are 17 rules for football, but they cover 150 pages.

Medieval – no eye gouging and no kicking in the testicles. Pretty much anything else is allowed.

Venue

Modern – when it was built, the new Wembley Stadium cost £798 million.

Medieval – their pitch was the village high street. The goals were where the houses stopped at either end.

Players

Modern – Lionel Messi earns £500,000 per week playing for Barcelona – for just 90 minutes work.

Medieval – every able-bodied man in the village. They played for pride and a satisfying tankard of ale after the match.

Injuries

Modern – sore ankle, stretched hamstring – the sort of thing a real man would turn up for work with the next day.

Medieval – broken arms, fractured jaw, dislocated knee cap – and they still had to turn up for work the next day.

I don’t dare tell Sir D that women are allowed to play football.

Flushing toilets

 
We continue our series of Tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

Of all the amazing inventions that people have created over the last 700 years, the one Sir Dickon marvels over most (apart from Porn Hub) is the flushing toilet.

In his teenage years, Sir Dickon shared quarters with a number of other squires. To relieve themselves during the night there was a chamber pot in the corner of the room. Chamber pots are supposed to be emptied daily but this was a sadly neglected chore until the day the pot was brim full with several gallons of fermented piss and would not hold a drop more.

The squires would play dice and the loser had the task of emptying the pot. It was virtually impossible to lift the slippery iron bowl without some spillage. Sometimes the carrier would slip under the immense weight and collapse, drenching themselves in foul smelling urine. When this happened, other boys had been known to piss themselves laughing.

I told Sir D about a modern game, practised by school bullies, known as the ‘Swirly’. The victim is dragged into a cubicle and suspended upside down over the toilet bowl. When the toilet is flushed the victim’s head is dunked into the swirling water.

Sir D was mightily impressed. When he gets back to the 14^th Century, he is going to give his useless squire, Edmund Ass-hat, a Swirly. Since there are no flushing toilets they will have to Swirly Edmund in a chamber pot. 

                                                  

If you want to know how people went about wiping their arses in days of old, check out our other blog post here... scrape

Brexit

 

We continue our series of Tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

Sir Dickon was interested to learn about Brexit. In his day public opinion was quite the opposite. Instead of breaking away from Europe, the English spent a considerable amount of time and effort trying to establish closer links with France – by invasion and conquest.

The medieval view on Brexit goes like this;

Sir D - “Boris Johnson’s tactics were rather weak. He should have offered them a yew branch.”

Me - “Surely you mean an olive branch”?

Sir D - “No, with six feet of yew, you can do this”.
English Longbow - YouTube

During the 100 years’ war, the English fought several famous battles against the French. By the time it got to the battle Agincourt in 1415 both sides knew the routine. A vastly superior number of French knights would line up and charge, ideally across a muddy plough field. The English, armed mainly with big sticks (longbows) and a sheaf of smaller sticks (arrows), would fire volleys until the French were beaten and surrendered. I may have over-simplified matters but I have to agree with Sir Dickon. Yew branches appear to be the answer to settling very complex negotiations in one day.

Historians might point out that this strategy didn’t work out quite so well in the long run. The English armies got their arses kicked by a 14-year old school girl named Joan.

For those of you who are not familiar with this battle please follow the link bellow to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia

 

Discussions with My Dog brings you food for the brain.

Ted the Shred

 

Readers of this blog will know the Daisy is a keen recycler – [see this post].

Daisy isn’t the only dog who is determined to do her bit to save the environment. Discussions with My Dog would like to introduce you to: Ted the Shred – the recycling dynamo.

The local council has informed me they prefer packaging to be cleaned, and for waste-paper to be shredded before being placed in the recycling bin. Clear instructions on how to do this:

Stage 1 – cleaning the packaging. Ted is especially fond of ice-cream tubs and sticky sweet packets. After he has licked the packaging clean, Ted is on a sugar rush and ready for stage 2…

Stage 2 – watch this video of Ted shredding paper.

What’s more Ted’s don’t even charge minimum wage; he’ll be happy to work for a dog biscuit.

Alastair, Daisy, and Ted

Holiday

 

We continue our series of Tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

The other day, I was complaining to Sir Dickon about the fact that I haven’t been on holiday since the Coronavirus outbreak. Out of curiosity I wondered if people had holidays in the 14^th Century. It turns out things weren’t so different back then. The travel agency business was cornered by the Catholic Church and they offered two options.

The Pilgrimage – best suited to older people who are looking for a more leisurely break. Pilgrimage’s were low budget. Holiday attire was basically a sack cloth shirt and bare feet. Travel costs were minimal, you just walked to a shrine and back.

Sir Dickon preferred the more adventurous type of holiday, otherwise known as a Crusade. You needed a proper outfit for crusading – a full suit of armour, helmet, shield, broadsword and a war horse. At least it included a cruise to a place that was hot and sunny.

On a crusade you could take part in many action activities such as a siege, a skirmish, or a battle. With the opportunity for looting, it was actually like getting paid to go on holiday. On the downside there was a fairly high risk of death, disease, serious injury, capture and/or imprisonment.

Sir Dickon has just booked himself on a Club 18 – 30s holiday to Ibiza. He read the brochure and said it sounds pretty much like a crusade.

We all need a little more culture

We continue our series of Tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

“The call of the siren doth ring across this fair land …”

Is the opening line of a poem by the famous medieval bard Simon Spoutshite. Today, most of the population don’t have the concentration span to read a poem, a book or even a newspaper – they just want to watch a video of someone being a dumb ass. We need to rediscover culture.

I asked Sir Dickon to research the internet and find some examples of classic 14^th Century literature that we can share on this blog.

Twelve hours later …

Me “So what have you found”?
Sir D “Classic poetry is lame, I found something much better”.
Me “What might that be”?
Sir D “Porn hub”.

In case you're late back from the pub

We continue our series of Tales from Sir Dickon, a 14^th Century Knight of the Realm, magically transported to the 21^st Century to become a modern-day life coach.

It’s as true today as it was 700 years ago, menfolk occasionally get back from the pub later than they had promised. We asked Sir Dickon to let us know some of the excuses that he has actually used.

3 hours late excuse
My idiot Squire, Edmund Arse-hat, drank too much wine and fell down the well. It took us several hours to haul him out.

Overnight late excuse
There was a case of the plague in the village, so we were all locked in the Inn as a safety precaution.

One-week late excuse
A Scots army invaded and laid siege to the village. By the end of the week, we had drunk every drop of ale in the town, so the Scots packed up and pissed off home.

Three years late excuse
Sir Dickon found a notice in the Readers Digest that there was a recruitment campaign to go on a Crusade. Things got a little out of hand, and, after too many pots of ale he woke up on-board a ship bound for the Holy Land. 

Haircuts

 Sir Dickon was surprised to learn that in North Korea men can chose from 7 styles of haircut, approved by the illustrious leader. He was downright shocked when I told him that anywhere else in the world you can have whatever hair style you desire.

In the 14^th Century there were two types of haircut for men. The clergy had a tonsure, everyone else had a pot cut. For the pot cut, the barber placed an empty piss-pot on the customer’s head and simply cut around the edge. If you went to a high-class barber shop, they would even wash the piss-pot out first.

The monks tonsure is similar to the pot cut but they also shave a bald patch in the middle.

I asked why monks cut their hair this way? Was it so when an angel flew over the realm he could count the number of men who were dedicated to doing God’s work? Sir Dickon had a different explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU28GHMcYxM

Introducing Sir Dickon

 

Throughout 2020, Daisy the dog has been dispensing invaluable advice. Is the world a better place at the start of 2021? Probably not. Perhaps Daisy hasn’t been expressing herself in the right way, or perhaps she just needs some help.

So, Discussions with My Dog have hired a life coach; someone who can dish out plain and simple solutions to everyday problems. Let me introduce you to Sir Dickon d’ Latrine, magically transported to 2021 from the 14^th Century. Let’s see if some Medieval wisdom can solve the conundrums of the 21^st Century.

Sir Dickon lists his occupation as Knight of the Realm and slayer of dickheads. His pass-times are drinking ale, pillaging, wenching and scratching his arse in contemplation. Sir Dickon has no concept of political correctness, he just calls it as it is.

We’ll start with a simple one – time -

How to distribute your time correctly

Modern society is obsessed with time, we measure our life by the hour, the minute, and the second. Sir Dickon says there are just 4 important times in a day

• Arise at sunrise
• Go to sleep after dark
• Meal-time

and his personal favourite

• Time to take a shite

Everything else is just the filling in between.

Check in next week for more “Sir Dickon explains…”.