new technology vs old technology

If you've ever looked at your dog and thought, wow, your life is great, what I would give for my life to be that easy. Well, I believe we can learn from dogs, and I'm writing a blog, with my dog Daisy, to teach people how to make life that easy.

Actually I started this blog to sell my e-books Jackpot and The Band, but that has now turned into a side gig.

Post for post Daisy and I are tackling life's challenges and world problems.

This is Discussions With My Dog.

Today’s subject is unnecessary technology. It’s quite probable that I will come back to this subject in future discussions with my dog.

pointless inventions

It seems wherever I look there is some unnecessary technology that I either don’t understand or fail to understand why it exists. The high-street and the internet are full of gadgets and accessories that nobody really needs. The Japanese appear to be responsible for inventing most of it and the Chinese have taken over mass producing it. For example, Asia sells a whole range of toilet seats that play musical tunes – why? If I want music whilst using the toilet, I can resort to bodily functions to make a few trumpet noises, although I can’t hold a tune.

check out this link for the 12 most pointless inventions ever manufactured 

How technology affects us negatively

The particular technological advance annoying me today is the push / pull handbrake button on my car. This piece of kit works perfectly, I can’t fault what it does. But this little button has replaced what a car should have, a levered handbrake. This old fashioned device is in exactly the place where I want a handbrake to be and can be used to execute handbrake turns. I have to be completely honest and admit I’ve never attempted a handbrake turn. It’s a trick that rally drivers do to spin the rear end of the car around tight hairpin bends. The handbrake turn looks epic, with the car ploughing up a cloud of dirt & gravel as it rotates through a full 180 degree turn. The point I’m making is that I have been denied the privilege of performing a handbrake turn if I wanted to. The silly little button has deleted the fun option.

Daisy's response 

So, what is Daisy’s take on this? Daisy has her own manoeuvre which can be best described as the paw-brake turn. Our back garden has a stretch of lawn and a couple of raised borders that run most of the length of the garden. After we moved in, we spent a couple of months clearing the borders and laid them with bark. Bark is the perfect surface on which to perform an immense paw brake turn.

Lurchers are sprinters and Daisy is no slouch. She is also a relatively large dog and in order for her to slow and change direction simultaneously, which is an essential part of the chasing game she likes to play with her doggy friends, she engages the paw-brake turn. It looks quite spectacular and it sends piles of bark flying in all directions or tears bloody great lumps out of the lawn. Daisy thinks paw-brake turns are awesome and she completely opposes anything that would stop her being able to use her signature move in the chase game.

At the weekend I’m popping down to Halfords to see if they can fit Daisy with a paw-brake button.

Cyberdog

If you can think of any other technology that is just damn right unnecessary please comment below.

Alastair and Daisy

10 recreational uses for toilet roll

If you've ever looked at your dog and thought, wow, your life is great, what I would give for my life to be that easy. Well, I believe we can learn from dogs, and I'm writing a blog, with my dog Daisy, to teach people how to make life that easy.

Actually I started this blog to sell my e-books Jackpot and The Band, but that has now turned into a side gig.

Post for post Daisy and I are tackling life's challenges and world problems.

This is Discussions With My Dog.

Why have supermarket shelves in the United Kingdom been stripped bare of toilet roll?

If you had to panic buy essential supplies to survive the Corona virus lock-down, would your most urgent requirement be toilet roll? 

Apart from the obvious, what can you actually do with immense quantities of toilet roll? 

Here’s a few suggestions for the hoarders who will be looking at the toilet roll mountain taking up every available square foot of space in their garage.

1. Install a toilet in every room in the house.

2. Wrap your entire body in toilet tissue to become a Mummy for Halloween

3. Actually, there’s enough for the whole family to have matching Mummy costumes.

4. Climb to the roof of a tall building, hold the roll by the loose end and drop it. It serves no practical purpose but it’s fun to watch.

5. Make a full scale Tyrannosaurus Rex from toilet roll paper mâché.

6. See exactly how much soggy toilet paper can be crammed into someone’s shoe. To gain maximum effect for this practical joke, if your victim has several pairs of shoes stuff one shoe from every pair.

7. Put on your baggiest clothes and stuff them with toilet rolls. With the protective padding you can now perform dangerous stunts such as jumping off a dining room chair onto a mound of toilet rolls. 

8. Recreate the Valley of the Kings by building toilet roll pyramids in your garden. If people can’t travel on holiday, let’s bring the seven wonders of the world here.

9. Use the cardboard tubes to construct the world’s longest hamster tunnel.

10. Use it as gift wrapping paper. Unfortunately you’ve blown your whole budget on toilet roll so the only gift you have to wrap is a multi-pack of toilet roll.

I asked Daisy how we might solve the national shortage of toilet paper. She went outside to give a simple demonstration and took a shit in the garden. I promptly went out and disposed of the turd in a dog poop bag. If you pop down the supermarket you’ll find they have a plentiful supply of dog poop bags.

coronavirus symptoms you may not have heard of

If you've ever looked at your dog and thought, wow, your life is great, what I would give for my life to be that easy. Well, I believe we can learn from dogs, and I'm writing a blog, with my dog Daisy, to teach people how to make life that easy.

Actually I started this blog to sell my e-books Jackpot and The Band, but that has now turned into a side gig.

Post for post Daisy and I are tackling life's challenges and world problems.

This is Discussions With My Dog.

Beware of LOCK DOWN FEVER

It appears that Europe, and a good many other countries are in lock down to protect us from Coronavirus 😷

This has some unintended consequences, one of which is an outbreak of another highly contagious ailment. It can manifest in less than a week and you don’t have to have been in contact another infected person to catch it 😓

Fortunately, it’s not physically harmful - it’s inside your head – I call it LOCK DOWN FEVER.

LOCK DOWN FEVER can affect different people in different ways. Here are just a few of the bizarre symptoms that middle-aged men are especially prone to:

     

     1.       You become highly possessive over toilet paper and will reprimand family members who use more sheets than is necessary. (This symptom does not apply to toilet paper hoarders who were the subject of myprevious blog).

     2.       Instinctively you know that food might be the best cure for Lock Down fever. Most types of food work although some food groups are more effective than others: ice-cream, chocolate and crisps. Sufferers may experience an allergic reaction to salad.

     3.       You have considered taking up various forms of exercise. Unfortunately, the ones that you would be really good at can only be performed in places where you are banned from going to.

     4.       Mysteriously many of your clothes have shrunk in the washing machine so you are forced to wear Lock Down fever gear – a baggy tee shirt and fat pants. Scientists have noticed a strong correlation between symptom’s 2, 3 and 4. 

      5.       Before lock-down you thought the biggest thing in existence was the universe, an ever-expanding mass of deep space. Now you realise there is something bigger, the amount of shite available on the internet (you’re reading some of it now).

     6.       You are seriously considering becoming a transvestite, you’ve even picked out a few stylish outfits from internet retailers. After your permitted ‘hour outside’ you can pull on a wig and a frock and leave the house as a completely different person. The nosey neighbours don’t realise that “Mandy” is actually you, having a sneaky extra hour outside. You are wondering if you actually need to shave your legs to perfect the disguise.

     7.       You’ve dug out and listened to CD’s that you can’t remember you owned. This is how we entertained ourselves before social media. Some of it is surprisingly good. Some of it was obviously an unwanted gift.

     8.       After two weeks with the family you’ve checked out a couple of promising websites. Do-it-yourself-divorce.com and DNA test kits. The kids are so bloody annoying you can’t understand how they can be your offspring.

     9.       You have considered setting up a number of business ventures to help your local community through this difficult time and make a little profit for yourself. For example, converting the conservatory into a UV lit greenhouse for growing marijuana. The scheme also involves setting up an online store to sell recreational drugs to alleviate fellow Lock-Down fever sufferers. Unfortunately, you don’t have a clue how to do any of this.

     10.   If the two worst pub football teams in the country were playing at Wembley stadium tomorrow and you could watch them – you would gladly pay £50 even if you had to dress in a full protective haz-chem suit. You’d be there along with 89,999 others.

You might be wondering where Daisy fits into this blog? Quite simple – she is a dog and she needs a walk. So, I have a legitimate excuse to go out.

Alastair and Daisy

a very honest review of The Tate Modern

If you've ever looked at your dog and thought, wow, your life is great, what I would give for my life to be that easy. Well, I believe we can learn from dogs, and I'm writing a blog, with my dog Daisy, to teach people how to make life that easy.

Actually I started this blog to sell my e-books Jackpot and The Band, but that has now turned into a side gig.

Post for post Daisy and I are tackling life's challenges and world problems.

This is Discussions With My Dog.

This post is going to a bit of a rant 💥. Have you noticed the Modern Art is an anagram of Total Crap? (after about 5 seconds you’ll work out it isn’t, but you get my drift). Not all modern art is Total Crap, for example last summer I spent an hour at the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden in St Ives. It’s well worth a visit. The garden is treasure trove of tranquillity and the statues are quite interesting . 

To appreciate modern art you need to have artistic vision. To be honest I don’t understand how two lumps of stone portray “The eternal passion of the Duke of Wimsey and Lady Hyacinth- Nymphamania”. Confession – no such piece exists but if an art collector wants to throw a couple of thousand pounds my way, Daisy and I will soon knock one up.

I showed Daisy a picture of a pile of concrete blocks. I asked her if it was art? She instantly recognised this as a multi-functional dog urinal. The lower blocks are for small dogs such as terriers to cock their leg against, the next layer is for spaniels sized dogs working up to large breeds at the top. Daisy clearly has artistic vision 😏. 

Having discovered the Barbara Hepworth Museum, I thought I was now ready for the big one, the Tate Modern in London. The Tate is an imposing brick building that is reminiscent of a Cold War communist prison camp. Entry is free. You are asked for a voluntary donation on the way in, which is clever planning since there is no way I’d have paid up on the way out.

The exhibits range from the pointless to the dour to the manic depressive. Pointless includes works such as massive canvases with a line or a squiggle. Nobody has a clue what these are, they were probably created by hippies in the 1960’s who were high as a kite . The dour range is similar to the pointless. The artist has attempted to draw or paint something which leaves you with the distinct impression of “why did you bother”. The depressive include collections of grainy black and white photographs of things that really should never have been photographed.

The Tate Modern does not welcome dogs, and dogs don’t realise how lucky they are. (It’s possibly because dogs would succumb to an irresistible urge to piss on the exhibits, which to them look like a tree stump or a wall. I did ask Daisy what she thought of the Tate Modern. Having listened to my rant she devised the perfect solution. The British prison system is stretched to capacity, we have more prisoners than we know what to do with. Why not send offenders to day release sessions at the Tate. After a few days in there Daisy thinks the re-offending rate would be very low.

Alastair and Daisy