Oh good, I was getting worried after last weeks result.

A Yorkshire Winters Day

We were closed today for snow, so I grabbed the chance and wandered around the course whilst the snow was white and pristine.



These prints were on the riverbank on the island at the 2nd hole, what are they ? I didn't put anything in to scale the picture, the prints are bigger than a mink or cat, are they otter ? Fox ? Badger ?



Bird tracks on the ice, this is the old bank defences close to the 2nd green/3rd tee, on the Ilkley side of the island.



Old Man Willow on the river bank, 3rd fairway, Ilkley side.



Looking from the bridge at the 4th tee, up the river along the 4th hole.



Moorhen tracks in the now, note circular patterns, moorhens are dippy.



Sheep in the field alongside the 14th fairway.



Deerprints (and mine) on the 14th, a small deer ran across in front of me and vanished into the copse before I could point the camera at it.



Rabbit motorway at the 16th tee, we need a man with a gun I think.



Rabbits obviously held some sort of rave party on the bridge at the 16th, perhaps a man that can lay minefields then ?



Looking across the course to Ilkley Moor.

Timanfaya National Park, Lanzarote.

Wine Review - Harold Erben Kallstadter Saumagen Riesling Auslese '98, Pfalz *****

In an effort to expand my knowledge of wine, and to educate my palate, I bought a mixed case of German Rieslings, this so far has been the shining star. Very pale in colour, with an attractive bouquet, it fills the mouth with ripe fruit flavours, dominated by tinned lychees with just enough acidity to provide perfect balance, stunning.

I previously always thought that medium sweet wines were a bit naff, but this is gorgeous, packed with flavour, ideal on its own, or as I tried it with sweet Chinese food, glorious.

Bought from Laithwaites as part of a German wines promotion, about £9 a bottle.

Dreams 3

And this is the mother, or perhaps Prime Minister, of them all.

I'm in Makro (a huge cash and carry warehouse), holding one of those tomato shaped tomato sauce bottles you used to see in cheap cafes, soon I'm joined by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Rt. Hon Geoffrey Howe, we proceed to have a riotous, laughter filled, ketchup fight up and down the aisles...................explain that then.

Conversation in the kitchen last night..........

Nameless waitress "Our teacher wants us to name a really famous work all about death."

"Dante's Inferno" I suggested.

"OK, who wrote that then ?"

I watched a film the other night, "Behind Enemy Lines", a harmless enough piece of war porn with the nasally challenged Owen Wilson, but I always feel uncomfortable watching anything about the various conflicts that erupted in Yugoslavia in the 1990's.

I feel it is a mark of shame upon Europe, NATO and the EU that we allowed a modern European country to collapse into civil war, we permitted all kinds of atrocities, up to and including genocide, to be committed. We even decided that genocide was too strong a word to be paraded on our nightly news programs and came up with the slightly softer 'ethnic cleansing' , after all, you don't want to upset your sleek, well fed, warm and comfortable viewers whilst they're having their tea.

There must have been millions like me, helpless, seeing the news every night and saying why are we not helping these people ? The fall of Srebrenica and the subsequent massacre of the Muslims there will remain as the most shameful event of a complex war during which we had almost nothing to be proud about.

I was reading about Srebrenica earlier and found something I never knew before, NATO planes had carried out one air strike against the advancing Serb forces, and the Serbs stopped advancing, a second air strike was requested but did not take place because the Dutch general accidentally filled out the wrong request form, yes, that's right, we might have stopped the Serbs except for a jobsworth at NATO who turned the planes back because the wrong bit of paper had arrived on his desk, makes you proud to be European.

Cry From The Grave gives an excellent history and timeline of the events surrounding the fall of Srebrenica.

Dreams 2

Then there was this other dream I remembered with some clarity, I'm in a playground, with loads of slides and big constructs made from brightly coloured plastic pipes that you could crawl through, I'm chased around the playground by large shaven headed women wielding pitchforks (again!), what on earth does this mean ?

Dreams

It isn't often that I can recall dreaming at all, usually whatever insanity my brain has been creating during my sleep fades almost instantly on waking, but yesterday I woke with a clear memory of what had been going on in my head so I committed it to paper.

I've been looking on dream web sites trying to find the meaning of my sleeping thoughts, but I don't seem to have to normal dreams of running, falling, flying or appearing naked in public (sadly, my dreams never seem to contain any nudity at all, sigh). Here is what went on in my head the other night..............

I'm at the top of a steep grassy hill, on a sledge, holding a platter of raw meat, I fairly zoom down to the bottom of the hill where there is a river, a boat pulls up rowed by two elderly, very red faced, hugely bewhiskered gentlemen who proceed to unload a number of very large chickens from the boat, using pitchforks.

Any ideas ?

Interpret your dreams, with Freud, or at Dream Moods.

Hypothetical question (no, honestly), supposing, just supposing, I'd borrowed a book from DSP Andy (well known for his random acts of aggression), and if you could imagine that there had been an incident involving said book and let's say..................a vat of porridge, how far will I have to run ?

Answers in kilometers, miles, fathoms or astronomical units please.

Yorkshire Soul's Rambling Quiz, Series 2, Week 4

Rules as always, if you want to enter this weeks quiz, post the answers to me at yorkshiresoul@hotmail.com, get them in by Friday night, I'll pop the answers and league table up sometime over the weekend.

1) What kind of bird is this............


2) You've got this awful feeling that you should recognise her, who is she.....


3) What's that then ?


4) Who is this ?


5) It's hideous, but what is it ?


6) No points for saying butterfly, what sort is it ?


7) What creature is this ?


8) What primate is this ?


9) Shy little fella, but what is he ?


10) Who is this chap ?

This is a light sculpture made by Richard Box, he creates things from lighting tubes which then illuminate by picking up waste energy from overhead power lines. His current work, "Field" is a giant layout of 1,300 vertical flourescent tubes under a power pylon off the M4 in Somerset, details here.

(NSFW) We were invited for dinner over at Redmaiden's place last night, despite her being a vegetarian she had pulled all the stops out and made sushi for starters, I must admit I'm not mad for sushi and dinner didn't really improve when the soup course arrived.

Things were looking up for main course though, who doesn't like a burger or hotdogs strait from the barbeque. Afterwards I offered to help Reddy and Chay load the dishwasher, I'm not sure we'll be going again.

Yorkshire Soul's Rambling Quiz, Series 2, Week 3 Answers

May I just say, I thought this was the hardest quix posted so far, well done to those of you who scored well. The answers are followed by how many points were on offer for that answer, 21 points in total this week.

1) A British Managing Director makes a derogatory comment about his jewelry and gift business, within weeks the chain has folded despite a brilliant attempt by one employee to turn the bosses statement into a catchphrase.
Name the MD, his comment and the employees catchphrase ?

Gerald Ratner saaid that his company sold "Total crap". Within weeks the entire chain collapsed despite one employee coming up with this........

"We sell CRAP, Cheap, Reliable And Perpetual." (3)

2) What is this in plain English ?

"Per pale, dexter gules, sinister vert, fess sable, garb dexter chief, lucy hauriant sinister chief, stag's head cabossed middle base."

Heraldry buffs to the fore here, a shield with a vertival central divide, the right side red, the left side green with a black band horizontal across the middle, a bound sheaf of corn is displayed in the upper right corner, a pike rising in the upper left in the upper left, at the point of the shield is a stags head viewed from the front with no neck visible. (7)

3) Deutscher Tafelwein, Landwein, Qualitatswein mit Pradikat, what have I missed out and where in the list does it fit ?

These are the German wine qualifications, for quality not ripeness, the missing one is Qualitatswein Bestimmer Angaubiete between Landwein and QMP. (2)

4) During WW1 British soldiers were known as Tommys, what was the nickname given to French soldiers ?

Poilus (from poilu - hairy) (1)

5) Which composer first used the dodecaphonic scale ? Arnold Schonberg (1)

6) What book, modelled on Homer's Odyssey tells the story of a day in Dublin ?
Ulysses - James Joyce (1)

7) What was the first flag to reach the moon ? I've accepted Russian or Soviet here, the flags were scattered by Luna 2 in 1959. (1)

8) Who was the world's first woman prime minister ? Mrs Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka (1)

9) What, where and when was the first ever opera performed ? Peri's Daphne, Florence, 1597 or 1598 (I have accepted both years as they appear differently in editions of the Hutchinson and Cambridge encyclopedias) (3)

10) What is the Cassini Division ? (1) The largest gap in the Rings of Saturn, handily illustrated here by JR.........



The scores this week then.........

Malcom R 20
Dr. P 20
JR 15
Kennamatic 11
EvilBarSteward 7
Penny Farthing 4

The League : Week 3

1) Dr. P 41
2) JR 35
3) Malcolm R 33
4) Kennamatic Dave 29
5) Chay 13
6) DSP Andy 11
7) EvilBarSteward 7
8) Penny Farthing 4
9) Mrs YS 3

Well done folks, new quiz on Monday morning.

More of this silliness here.

(From DSP Andy)

Pain : 3

The adventuring party is now made up of Saragon, an Outsider from the City of Doors, Sigil, Beltain Gallowglar, hard as nails Dwarf priest of Dorn Blackhammer, Callran, half elven ex epic level mage, had mishap with wish spell, Psyche, lithe and limber rogue from Amn, Sibornal, priest of Caswell (doesn't like getting his sword dirty) and new girl Isis, a monk.

They wandered through the tower of the Lions Of Iriaebor and rescued one of that illustrious adventuring company, Ashia al Hadra who turned out to be Amnish, as Psyche, and also a rogue (insert thieving arab jokes here).

After much prodding on the part of the DM they set off across the subjugated city to investigate the ruins of the Temple Of Tyr, destroyed by the Red Redemption n the early days of the occupation, there hopefully to find some vestments to convert into robes of Ishtia, the water god.

Inside the temple they fought a few Burned Ones, accidentally summoned a Thulkan, and made pretty short work of a Greater Fihyr, more next week.............

Faking It

Who say last weeks 'Rock Chick' Faking It ? How annoying was that posh bird ? From never having heard of Megadeth, Motorhead or Deep Purple one moment, she than declares that she would rather write her own rock classic than have one donated by Harry.

That would be similar to me saying, "I've heard some classical music on an advert, now I'm going to pen a concerto". Arrogant cow.

I laughed when she gave the song to the backing back and the lead guitarist said.....

"The basic problem with this is, it's shit."

Her other main problem was despite being a classically trained choral singer with a wide ranging and in depth knowledge of musical history, structure and composing, she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket on stage.

Also, saying to Lemmy "So, are you in a band then ?", is just plain stupid.

Fat Tax

So we're to have a fat tax, in an effort to combat the scourge of obesity that is sweeping the nation the government proposes to add a tax to sources of dietary saturated fat.

Great idea, we all know that nobody smokes anymore since the tax on a packet of fags went through the roof, and hardly anybody drives a car now that petrol and road tax is so high.

So what should the government be doing ? Well I'm afraid it's all down to education, if you have a generation of children leaving school who can't tell a leek from a lemon, can't make bread, can't tell one cut of meat from another and therefore will never enter a butchers, can't buy, fillet and cook a fish, well, you get the idea.

I know there are already a thousand other demands on teachers time but two subjects that have suffered more than any other under present and past governments are physical education, and home economics.

Even when I was at school, some 20 odd years ago, we did regular PE, and all the way through 1st and middle school we had cookery lessons, granted it was mostly baking, but along the way we learned to make bread, pizza base, lasagne, casserole.

When my mother was a home economics teacher she taught the full gamut of the subject, purchasing, costing, dietary values of food, how to shop in a butchers, greengrocers and fishmongers. Some of us living in comfortable UWC/Middle class households with parents that were good cooks may thing this comes automatically outside school but that isn't so in many households in the UK today. Young parents who never learned to cook at school, or from their parents, now can make nothing more complicated than a ready meal or pot noodle.

Cookery is not hard, but it needs to be taught. I've got a new commis chef at the moment, he has come to me with a fairly blank idea of the subject, but he is keen. Three weeks ago he could make almost nothing bar a fry up, now he makes perfect bechemel, veloute, soups of all kinds, risotto, sauces and I'm opening his eyes to a variety of flavour and ingredient combinations that he wouldn't have dreamed of last month.

Teach children good basic cookery, if they learn soups and sauces they will be able to feed themselves and endless variety of nourishing, healthy, inexpensive food for evermore. Teach them about cooking from scratch, potatoes and vegetables, stocks and stews, when to grill, roast or casserole meat.

Taxation won't work, it will just raise some more money for the government to burn in NHS bureaucracy, MP's wage packets and endless layers of civil servants.

This is an actual advert for the Afruedite restaurant in Lisbon, Portugal, creaated by ad firm McCann-Erikson, tasteful is it not ? I'm pondering whether I dare show their adverts for bread and handbags, it's 18+ stuff all the way.

From the links log this week, I can confirm that surfers will find the following somewhere on Yorkshire Soul...........

Kylie Minogue's tits
sick Chinese Morecombe jokes
Justin Hawkins tattoo
Angelina Jolie's pussy (but it won't be what you're looking for)

I can also confirm that I have no information, or pictures, whatsoever, on this subject....

Matthew Pinsent's penis

Sorry about that, I must try harder (groan).

Following complaints from the ladies section of the Yorkshire Soul readership, that the blog is far too heavily slanted in favour of men, and shows far to many pictures of naked ladies (or skanks as Redmaiden likes to call them), I would like to redress the balance.

Especially for the ladies then, a picture of a really big cock.

This is the garden of some bloke in Teguise, Lanzarote, he's either some genius artist or a serial killer, you decide.

So, is the quiz hard enough for you all this week ?

Shock news at the cricket, Australia (all out for 18) lose heavily to the Canadians who ran up a massive 59 in their innings, if you can do better, head over here.

Yorkshire Soul's Rambling Quiz, Series 2, Week 3

Rules.......if you want to enter, e-mail me with the answers at the addy on the left, no spoilers please, no prizes either come to that.

1) A British Managing Director makes a derogatory comment about his jewelry and gift business, within weeks the chain has folded despite a brilliant attempt by one employee to turn the bosses statement into a catchphrase.
Name the MD, his comment and the employees catchphrase ?

2) What is this in plain English ?

"Per pale, dexter gules, sinister vert, fess sable, garb dexter chief, lucy hauriant sinister chief, stag's head cabossed middle base."

3) Deutscher Tafelwein, Landwein, Qualitatswein mit Pradikat, what have I missed out and where in the list does it fit ?

4) During WW1 British soldiers were known as Tommys, what was the nickname given to French soldiers ?

5) Which composer first used the dodecaphonic scale ?

6) What book, modelled on Homer's Odyssey tells the story of a day in Dublin ?

7) What was the first flag to reach the moon ?

8) Who was the world's first woman prime minister ?

9) What, where and when was the first ever opera performed ?

10) What is the Cassini Division ?

Sign at the entrance to Timanfaya National Park, Lanzarote, complete with giant crow on the lookout for unwary tourists.

On the theme of the last quiz, JR sends this picture of another celebrity trying to rejuvenate her failing career by exposing her breasts.

Yorkshire Soul's Rambling Quiz, Series 2, Week 2 Answers

Tits and tats time, and didn't they do well, I think you can rank this weeks quizzers by the amount of time they spent on the interwebnet trawling for celebrity porn.

1) Cindy Crawford's tits

2) Claudia Schiffer's tits

3) Geri Halliwell in her previous career as a soft porn model.

4) Janet Jackson and her interesting nipple piercing

5) Johnny Depp's tattoo (wot, no Winona ?)

6) Kylie Minogue's tits

7) Justin Hawkins' groin tattoo, how far down does it go ? All the way to the kindling says Justin.

8) Gwyneth Paltrow naked, I've seen other photo's of people looking like this, only they were behind barbed wire and surrounded by Nazi guards. Eat something Gwyneth.

9) Angelina Jolie's back tattoo.

10) Harrison Ford shaving (only his chin, don't panic)

Scores this week then.......
Dr. P 7
JR 7
Kennamatic 4
Mrs YS 3

The League : Week 2

1) Dr. P (The unstoppable) 21
2) JR 20
2) Kennamatic Dave 18
4) Chay 13
=5) Malcolm R 13
6) Andy Squirrel 11
7) Mrs YS 3

Just in case any web bots missed my obvious hitometer references, this week on Yorkshire Soul you can see pictures of Cindy Crawford naked, Claudia Schiffer naked, Geri Halliwell naked, Janet Jackson half undressed, Kylie Minogue's boobs (such as they are), Gwyneth Paltrow naked, and Harrison Ford in his underwear.

LUFC in "Not shittest team in Premiership shock", it comes as a big surprise to all Leeds fans to find there's at least one team in the league crapper than we are, helloooooo Wolves.

It comes as no surprise to anyone to see the disgusting cheating that goes on at Man U, what was Gary Neville thinking ? He took an obvious dive, which he should have been booked for, and then when the ref refuses to grant a penalty in the face of this appaling bit of cheating, he goes into a tantrum and starts slapping the floor like a spoiled toddler.

It must be said that scouse git McMananamanmanann didn't help the situation, but what the hell, it worth a small portion of my licence fee to see scousers and mancs headbutting each other.

In other sports this weekend, COME ON ENGLAND (wot ? no Johnny ?)

"I love Catholics," says the Rev Ian Paisley (of course he then went on to say "But I detest the popery"), imagine though what a nice world it would be if some folks could find it in their hearts to be nice to other folks..........

"I love the Palestinians," - Ariel sharon.

"I love Lancastrians," - Yorkshire Soul.

"I love Jordan," - John Lydon.

"I love Colonel Ghaddafi," - Tony Blaire, here, hang on a minute........

Valentines night dinner at IGC.........

Fresh Oyster Rockefeller to start,



Then tarrgon crepe filled with asparagus in a cream sauce, no photo, it was getting a bit hectic at this point, and with 54 dining I was down to the last spoonful of filling at the end of service, good measurement or just very lucky not to run out ?

The main course was roast breast of chicken stuffed with sun dried tomatoes, with roasted red pepper sauce, aromatic rice and a sautee of sugar snaps, red onion and carrot flowers.



For dessert, dark chocolate mousse with sugar honeycomb, baby apples and bitter seville orange sauce.



Mrs YS eating the honeycomb instead of plating it...........



Robyn of the knickers fame, and Becca..............

A rhyme with the most romantic first line... but the least romantic second line.....

1. Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss
But I only slept with you, because I was pissed.

2. Thought that I could love no other
That is until I met your brother.

3. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head.

4. Of loving beauty you float with grace
If only you could hide your face

5. Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not

6. I want to feel your sweet embrace
But don't take that paper bag off of your face

7. I love your smile, your face, and your eyes -
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

8. My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you screwed up my life

9. I see your face when I am dreaming.
That's why I always wake up screaming

10. My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

11. My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe "go to hell"

12. What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime.

(From that old romantic, DSP Andy)

Oh dear, what's all this then ? This then is the infamous 'concert' given by Norwegian black metallers Gorgoroth which used umpteen severed goats heads, 50 gallons of fresh sheeps blood and three naked models, crucified, in black hoods.

Er, boys, she doesn't look very well, further problems ensue when the model in this picture, who is looking realistically unconscious, is in reality very unconscious, having fainted from the heat, lack of oxygen in the hood, and general stench of rotting flesh.

Why does Norway, otherwise a beautiful and lovely country, keep on churning out satanic nutters like Gorgoroth ? Is their something in the Norwegian psyche that prompts people to burn churches and murder their bandmates ? Anja, what is it with the Norweigans ?

Ritchie Richardson and Curtley Ambrose skanking it up ? It's true, Big Bad Dread And The Baldhead feature possibly the world's tallest bass player, they're based in Antigua, I think we should demand that Dorna from Castries gets her shapely bum over there and gives us a review of the boys!

Two sharks are swimming in the Irish Sea.
One says to the other: "God I'm bored of mackerel, let's swim to Morecambe and pick up a Chinese."

Morecambe council are spending thousands of pounds on their sea defences. Apparently there are a few chinks in it...

(Blame Popbitch!)

Yorkshire Soul Dines With The Stars

As I said to Mark Viduka over dinner last night, "Maybe if you didn't stuff your fat face so full of keftedes and retsina Mark, you might be able to run around and score a few more goals for Leeds."

Well of course I didn't tell him, in truth, he looks a bit handy, and if he didn't then his father/father in law looks like he's on day release from Satan's Nutjobs, I'd have taken on his brother/in law though, he looks a bit soft.

To report though, Viduka has a very healthy appetite for Greek food, he wasn't getting excessively drunk and his toddler son charmed most of the restaurant all evening, except for the grumpy twots over on table seven.

Dinner was held at the Olive Tree, Rodley, with Andy & Carole, Mrs.YS and myself, and the Viduka clan, and very pleasent it was too, review to follow.

There's a marked similarity to this blog and that of Tilesey today, he's appropriated all the aircraft jokes so in return I have nicked this, especially for our good mate Andy.............

When the shit hits the.........Walls ? Ceiling ? Customer ? Street ? All of the above. (From Andy)

Pilot to control tower..........

A DC-10 had come in a little hot and thus had an exceedingly long roll out after touching down. San Jose Tower noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of the runway, if you are able... If not able, take the Guadeloupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport."

_________________

Unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff queue: "I'm f...ing bored!"
Ground Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!"
Unknown aircraft: "I said I was f...ing bored, not f...ing stupid!"

_________________

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7."

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702, contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger; and yes, we copied Eastern ... we've already notified our caterers."

__________________

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206."

Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."

Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."

The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944 -- but I didn't land."

(All from Andy)





Las Vegas firm charges men up to $10,000 to stalk ‘prey’ with paintball guns
July 16 -- The National Organization for Women has labeled the hunts "sick and barbaric." MSNBC's Chris Jansing reports.

July 16 — A paintball manufacturer and advocates for women are expressing outrage that a Las Vegas company claims to be charging men up to $10,000 to use the non-lethal but dangerous weapons to shoot naked women racing through the sagebrush. But a creator of the “Hunting for Bambi” game on Wednesday defended the enterprise as good, clean fun for “guys who thought they had done everything.”

(From JR, oops I lost the naked lady picture)

Good news, the delightful Anja hasn't left the interwebnet after all, she's camping out on livejournal under the name of Sprengstoff.

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Prada suit, Gucci shoes, Dior sunglasses and D+G tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd: "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"


The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers: "Sure. Why not?" The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulae.

He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturised HP LaserJet printer, turns to the shepherd and says: "You have exactly 1,586 sheep".

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep," says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the boot of his car. Then the shepherd says to the young man: "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says: "Okay, why not?".

"You're a consultant," says the shepherd.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie. "But how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required," answers the shepherd. "You showed up here even though
nobody called you, you want to get paid for an answer I already knew to a question I never asked, and you know f**k-all about my business."

"Now give me back my dog."

(From Stuart)

Hello, hoorah, the course is open, we have a Ladies Alliance, and I might actually earn some money for the first time in a fortnight.

I've found a special little game for our special little friend Squirrel Boy, look at those pesky critters go.

Here's a smashing little animation based on the Shoah.

The Cumming First Organ, bet you don't believe this is worksafe, but it is.

So, last week dear old Johnny Lyddon walked out of I'm a Celebrity, pneumatic Katie Price got the chop, whinging Lord Brocket departed last night leaving just Kerry, and hasn't she changed, posh bird Jenny and less of a twat than he was at the start Peter Andre, Kerry to win then.

Lydon is definitely an oddball, although he comes over all mouth and testosterone, don't you think he's just hiding a lot of insecurity underneath. What surprises me about the press coverage of the last couple of weeks is the way many papers have referred to him as Sid's best mate. Oddly, I remember Lydon describing Vicious as "a wanker" and saying "friends ? Sid didn't have any friends."

Lydon's obvious devotion to his partner, Nora Forster, is charming though. He describes himself as being devoted to Nora, her children and grandchildren, and he has a really positive attitude to marriage, I'll let Johnny Rotten, marriage guidance counselor, finish off the piece..........

"I don't understand the fiasco of endless divorces and showbiz marriages. Anyone can get it wrong, but it is exceptionally satisfying to get it right, so take that little bit of extra effort."

No more green eyed, blonde, pretty, introspective, cat obsessed, poetical and lyrical, no more, all gone, I'm a little sad.

Yorkshire Soul's Rambling Quiz, Series 2, Week 2

Some of you may be mistakenly thinking that Ysoul is some sort of upmarket, clever dick sort of blog just because I can ask questions about Pulitzer prize winners and obscure Scaandanavian politicians, well it's not.

This week you've got to identify ten celebrities by their tats or tits, just in case you were not paying attention, ALMOST NONE OF THIS QUIZ IS WORKSAFE.

Rules - e-mail me with your answers (plus the usual round of complaints, additional information and extraneous gibberish), I'll try to post the answers and league standings on Saturday 14th.

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9) b9.jpg

10) b10.jpg

Well, we got through a whole roleplaying session without Charle dying, probably because he retired at the start, so welcome Isis the tee-total monk.

Saragon has been plagued by bad dreams and lucid visions ever since gathering the six gems that provide the arcane power of his magic sword, the dreams have led him to Pain, the city once called Iriaebor, now brutally subjugated by the insane Disciples of the Red Redemption.

They ambushed a RR raiding party, dispatched a Fire Elemental back to its home plane, then sneaked into the city, after first discovering huge arcane wards on both the astral and ethereal planes.

Once inside they returned a freed slave boy to his grateful father and then set about exploring the ruins of the home of another adventuring party, The Lions Of Iriaebor. Much of the upper part of the tower has been ruined by fire, so far they have found no life, no clues, and only a clay golem guarding a hidden door............

I'm not alone! There's another Ilkley blogger, welcome on board, oh, wait, here's another one, look here, Ilkley is so cold we've got polar bears on the moor.

My oh my, what a pile of links, gibberish and entertaining rubbish has arrived in my inbox this morning.

First things first then, Andy wishes it to be known that his interest in squirrels is a thing of the past, it's all badgers for him now. Continuing this theme, he brings to my attention the deleted badger scenes from Lord Of The Rings and rounds it off with this rather splendid dancing facist techno metal kittens ensemble. Although he's clearly forgotten that I posted most of this stuff, plus some scary badgers and a nasty leering bloke way back in November. It's old age, it does that to you.

Not to be outdone, Dr P responds with the Kitten orchestra covering Destiny's Child's Independant Woman.

Yorkshire Soul's Rambling Quiz, Series 2, Week 1 Answers

1) "Looking in shades of blue through shades of green", name the song and band.

Emerald Lies - Marillion

2) "I could be wrong I could be right
Could be wrong -
They put a hot wire to my head
Cos of the things I did and said
A model citizen in every way
Your time has come your second skin
Cost so high the gain so low", name the song and band.

Rise - Public Image Limited

3) Who played Nancy Spungeon in the film Sid And Nancy ?

Chloe Webb

4) Who was the collaborator appointed as Norway's prime minister by the Nazis during WW2 ?

Vidkun Quisling

5) Which company makes the Crossfire and Concorde cars ?

Chrysler

6) "Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness in equality
Instead in spreading love we spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity" Name the song and band.

Where Is The Love - Black Eyed Peas

7) "I have played in every toilet
But you still want to spoil it
To prove I’ve made a big mistake
Too long trying to resist it
You’ve just gone and missed it
It's escaped your world" Name the song and band.

Muscle Museum - Muse

8) Who is Spain's Chief of State ? King Jaun Carlos I

9) Which company made the Lancaster bomber ? AVRO

10) What is Retsina ? Greek wine flavoured with Resin

Ok then, there were a possible 14 points to get on this weeks quiz, the standard of entries was very high, or the quiz was too easy, wait 'til you see what I've got lined up for you all next week.

The League : Week 1

1) Kennamatic Dave 14
=1) Dr. P (The unstoppable) 14
3) Chay 13
=3) JR 13
=3) Malcolm R 13
6) Andy Squirrel 11

Don't forget the quiz, I have received a small but well informed set of entries so far, come on girls though, don't let this be an all male affair, where's Mary, Reddy, Morag, Sheila ?

E-mail me with the answers (scroll down to Monday for the quiz), answers on Saturday (probably) or Sunday, depending on whether I have to beat off a communist invasion of Belgium.

Look for the Loch Ness monster with the Loch Ness Livecam, aaaah, there it is, it's........white and fluffy and dumb, oh, that would be a sheep then.

Is your offspring driving you up the wall, would you do anything to make the lovely little person shut up ? Give them one of these, then take them to casualty.

I bought a new strategy wargame for myself this week, thus no blog yesterday, I was too busy fighting off the Nazi advance. Strategic Command : European Theatre, I played a campaign game at the lowest level and very nearly lost WW2.

Playing the Allies, at the start of the war I seemed to be doing alright, ok so Poland collapsed without a struggle, the Low Countries also, but I was holding on in France.
Across in Russia, a scorched earth policy was introduced to try and stretch the German supply lines.

Eventually France falls, Canada joins in, I've read the tactics book and playing the historical game I'm supposed to marshall my forces and survive until the Yanks enter the game, reading further, I'm supposed to protect my navy until later on as well. Arse, I've already lost the entire North Sea/Atlantic fleet to a disastrous encounter with a u-boat pack off Scapa Flow, and my Med fleet was similarly surprised by Italian warships, so now my navy consists of HMS Hood, things don't look good.

Come the Battle of Britain I'm getting my arse kicked, I've had to retreat all my forces to Northern Scotland so that German jet bombers! (bloody computer, it's cheating) can't destroy them. Over on the Russian Steppe though, the advancing German armies have come to a standstill, and the Reds are even making a few gains.

The Yanks arrive hoorah, except that I lead them into a nightmarish North Africa campaign, I watch as unit after unit are slaughtered in the fight for Tobruk, and then, learning nothing from watching Gallipoli, I land the Americans in Sicily and Southern Italy, it's like I want them all to die.

1945, I'm running out of time, the Russians are advancing into Germany and the Low Countries, Yugoslavia, Poland, Bulgaria all fall, and they all turn Red, Russia keeps the lot. Not only have I lost the race for Berlin, it looks like I'm going to lose the race for Paris as well.

In a panic, I invade Denmark.

Why stop now ? the Russian reasoning goes, they cross the water and assault Sweden, oh dear, neutral Switzerland ? No, it's all Red now. Throwing caution to the winds, I move the units protecting London and invade Brest and Normandy. Unstoppable, the Reds march through Vichy France and look set to take Spain when the AI decides to stop the game.

Oh dear, on the easiest setting it has taken until 1948 to free Europe, and when I say free, I mean under the boot of Stalin, oh well.

We have a house at last, it has taken a lot longer than we expected due to a house down the chain failing some planning regulations but it is all sorted at last. I had to go round to our old house last night to drop off some keys, it's very strange seeing other people's stuff in your 'home'.

I was dying to say "That table looks odd there, and do not let that budgie crap on my worktop."

Here's the new place............



Open house tonight (West Wing only), do come round for a glass of fizz, remember for the West Wing take the A1173 to junction 23, my parents came off at junction 21 last night and ended up at the servants quarters in the East Wing, tch.

From my hit log this week...........

"Bury is a hell hole in Lancashire", we all know that mate, you're supposed to avoid it, not search for it.

Restaurant Review - Livebait, Leeds

Out again on the Times offer we visited the rejuvenated Calls in Leeds and the Livebait group's most Northerly outpost.

The restaurant at Wharf Street, Shears Yard is a warehouse building, updated with clean brick walls and green painted girders across the roof. Tables are green and white, no cloths, nothing too fussy or pretentious, and you get to drool over the selection of shellfish on ice as you pass the bar on the way to your table.

We had a round of G&T's whilst perusing the £10 set menu, 3 choices on both courses. Our waitress came round with good fresh bread, three or four varieties, then two fresh shell on prawns each to nibble on.

I went for devilled whitebait, a good sized portion in a crisp flour coating and well dusted with cayenne pepper, served with lemon creme fraiche. Mrs YS had a smokedmackerell pate, another generous serving with hunks of toasted whole grain bread and finely diced celery and apple.

The main courses were equally generous in size, I had salmon fishcake, a single large cake on a bed of fresh wilted spinach and a delightful sorrel sauce. Mrs YS had the traditional fish and chips, two well sized pieces of haddock with a great big bowl of thick chips. Kev and Liz sampled the linguine with sun dried tomato, artichokes and pecorino. An acceptable, off dry, Cullinan View Chenin Blanc at £11.50 accompanied the meal.

Desserts were priced at £3.75 - 4.50, both the white chocolate cheesecake and creme brulee were pronounced good, I had a lemon ristretto and a glass of Baron de Sigognac Armagnac.

The bill (with added 'optional' 10% service charge) came to £97 for the four of us, good food and we will visit again, especially as Livebait are part of the Hi-LIfe Diners Club, you know us Tykes, we don't spend extra money if we don't have to.

This is bone idle, but understandable......



This on the other hand, is a disgrace.

For today's viewing pleasure then........An artist making brains and other organs from pasta

Dinner out tonight, if Mrs YS is up to it, she was a bit under the weather yesterday. If all goes well we are meeting up with my little sister, Squirt, and her husband Kevin, then off to Livebait in Leeds.

I'm spending money without earning it again, the golf course had been closed since last Wednesday, at first for frost, now for two feet of water. My new trainee chef Ryan started yesterday, so now I have no customers and an extra wage to pay, bugger.

Whilst searching for Livebaits website (which seems to be offline), I found this, Using Live Kittens as Fishbait!

Mike Read, hmmmm, I didn't actually realise he was in the programme until he was booted out.

"It's a parasite, it don't work, it don't contribute", what's that Johnny ? Surely you don't mean Jordan and her magnificent mammaries...........



N.B. Redmaiden, let's try to avoid arguments about minging bikini lines this time.

Easter is cancelled, sorry.

Yorkshire Soul's Rambling Quiz mk.2 - Week 1

It's back, here are the rules.................

If you want to enter the quiz (+ league) then e-mail the answers to me (address to the left) on or before Friday 6th, I'll try to get the answers up on Sunday 8th.

1) "Looking in shades of blue through shades of green", name the song and band.

2) "I could be wrong I could be right
Could be wrong -
They put a hot wire to my head
Cos of the things I did and said
A model citizen in every way
Your time has come your second skin
Cost so high the gain so low", name the song and band.

3) Who played Nancy Spungeon in the film Sid And Nancy ?

4) Who was the collaborator appointed as Norway's prime minister by the Nazis during WW2 ?

5) Which company makes the Crossfire and Concorde cars ?

6) "Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness in equality
Instead in spreading love we spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity" Name the song and band.

7) "I have played in every toilet
But you still want to spoil it
To prove I’ve made a big mistake
Too long trying to resist it
You’ve just gone and missed it
It's escaped your world" Name the song and band.

8) Who is Spain's Chief of State ?

9) Which company made the Lancaster bomber ?

10) What is Retsina ?

What's all this then ? John Lydon 'Man of the Woods' ? At one with nature ? Whatever happened to 'Anger is an energy' ? Kerry becoming tougher and tougher as the week goes on ? It's all very odd.

Plenty of kudos still for the pnuematic Jordan as she munched her way through assorted bugs last night, and very funny to see TwatAndre (using the mans own bizarre language system) standing to attention for her, he he.

Anyway, onto real life, poor old Charle got killed again ! Twice in two weeks, and this time it was a tree that got him, now don't laugh, it was a very hard tree. A tree with 30 ft tentacles, what's the fighting tactic here ? Stand back 35ft and pour fireballs and lightning bolts into it ? Or stand toe to toe, well, toe to root with it and get the living daylights beaten out of you ? Heroes, they think with their codpieces.