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Hellooooooooooooo! And welcome to the 80th EVER update from rathergood!

Today we have such a wonderful treat for you! We have made this beautiful song about spines and their glory! It is called Spine Song and it is about spines and it has BUNNY RABBITS!

http://rathergood.com/spine

Hoorays! Aren't you glad you've got a spine? Aren't spines WONDERFUL! Oh wow I love spines so much they are the raddest thing EVER in the WHOLE WORLD!

You know how much I like the moon right? I really like the moon. I mean I REALLY like it! It is totally RADICAL! Well, the most amazing thing happened last week- NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at the moon, which is totally GNARLY DUDE, but what's even more brilliant is that NASA celebrated with our moon song, and tweeted it on twitter. I dropped them a line and it turns out that NASA like us, which is brilliant because we totally LOVE NASA because they go into space and visit the moon and EVERYTHING! So, hooray for NASA and hooray for the moon!

While we're on the subject of science, here's a little illustration of Isaac Newton trying to invent gravity:

http://rathergood.com/It_took_Isaac_Newton_many_years_to_work_gravity_out

There's some other ramblings on the blog as well this week - regarding bioluminescent bacteria, Penge, and Jim Morrison and stuff:

http://www.rathergood.com/blog

I think that's about it for this week, except to tell you that I love you. I love you REALLY HARD. I love you so much I'd cut my toenails and give you a bit in a special box! I TOTALLY WOULD DO THAT FOR YOU! I would totally give you a bit of my toenail if I could only find my scissors.

I can't find my scissors. Sorry about that. If I could find them I would be snipping that precious toenail for you RIGHT NOW.

Mwah, mwah, love, kisses and superhugs!

Yours sincerely

Joel Andrew Veitch MA

Grammar is very important to me, and very important to civilisation. Civilisation itself began when the Greek God Parentheses brought forth grammar from a swan and cast it down to Earth.

Parentheses was the son of fleet-footed Apostrophes and brother to the nymph Onomatopoeia, and the triplets Antonym, Homonym and Synonym.

These Olympians created the Dutch language, though it was not discovered for thousands of years (by the Dutch). This entire language was forged from bronze by the great, lame god of metallurgy Hyphenation specifically to provide a justification for the greatest of all words- Zeeëend.

Zeeëend, which translates to English as "Sea Duck" does not have an umlaut as you may have thought when you saw it- that is a diaresis. It looks the same as an umlaut but is different. The diaresis means the first "ee" is pronounced separately to the second "ee" - so it is pronounced "Zee End"

Jim Morrison was, you see, actually singing about a Sea Duck, and using the greatest of all words. Specifically he was singing about a Sea Duck with Diaresis, so it must have been completely covered in poo. Also, of course, he was singing with a German accent.

"This is zeeëend, my only friend, zeeëend"

So there he was, Jim Morrison, completely insane by the end of his career, dressed as Hitler, standing in the sea with a duck, pooing and crying and singing

"QUACK PARP HEIL HITLER BOOHOOO PARP SPLUT QUACK!"

He was a true American poet.

They tried to keep that bit quiet of course, and made out that he was singing about "the end" as if that makes any sense, but now you know the truth.

May you rest in peace, Jim Morrison. We will keep the true torch of your artistic vision burning.

Seadave has written a treatment for a film. It is the BEST TREATMENT FOR A FILM EVER!

Imagine you're fighting terrorists on a cargo net trailing behind a transport plane, (the plane is flying, obviously, otherwise it'd be a bit rubbish) and you have to beat the terrorists quite quickly because in four minutes THE WORLD WILL EXPLODE!

And one of them is A VELOCIRAPTOR! The velociraptor is not really a terrorist but THEY HAVE HIS FAMILY so he has to do what he's told BUT ACTUALLY YOU BOTH TEAM UP AND DEFEAT THE EVIL ROBOT HEAD TERRORIST TOGETHER and then you ride the velociraptor and it is pretty cool.

Only the EVIL ROBOT HEAD TERRORIST is a ROBOT. The others are normal terrorists, albeit ones with NUCLEAR BOMBS strapped to their fists so when they punch you it's a NUCLEAR EXPLOSION punch. Which is ALMOST TWICE AS PUNCHY as a normal punch.

The EVIL ROBOT HEAD TERRORIST travelled back in time from the FUTURE and PROGRAMMED HIMSELF to DESTROY THE WORLD. He is almost INDESTRUCTIBLE and has only ONE WEAKNESS- he can only be defeated by PUNCHING HIM REALLY HARD IN THE FACE.

After the terrorists are dead the plane CRASH LANDS into an EXPLOSION FACTORY or something.

In the end you save the velociraptor family and nobody dies except the terrorists although IT IS PRETTY CLOSE AT TIMES.

You also manage to stop the WORLD from EXPLODING - I think that was IMPLIED but I wanted to MAKE SURE just in case you were WORRIED.

If you are a big-time Hollywood producer obviously you will right now be desperate to make this movie so please drop me a line at joel@rathergood.com and we'll get going on making it thankyou Seadave will be very pleased.

I am wondering what will happen if I eat a load of bioluminescent bacteria. Will they establish a colony in my gut? Will we have a symbiotic relationship? Will they make my poo glow brightly? I may well be able to use my bum as a torch as well, which would be really handy. Whenever I was stuck in the dark, I would just pull down my trousers and a beam of glorious bumlight would help me find my way.

I found these instructions on growing my own colony of bioluminescent bacteria:

http://cibt.bio.cornell.edu/programs/archive/0608alum/lumos.pdf

I just need:

750 ml seawater
250 ml water
5 g peptone
3 g yeast extract
3 ml glycerol
15g agar

It does say not to eat them, but this is just because of contaminants. Presumably if I carefully picked out the bioluminescent bacteria and threw the other ones back it would be ok.

I could do amazing art! I could poo artily on a large canvas at night and then I would totally be an artist. Or maybe I could find a way to get glowing fingers or something. Squids and stuff have set up these bacteria to give them glowing tentacles and that kind of thing, and I'm LOADS cleverer than a squid, so how hard can it be? I reckon if I eat the bacteria and then just think really hard about them going to my fingers, and maybe do some special finger flexes, that might get them there. They could establish colonies in my fingers and then that would be TOTALLY COOL. I'd be a massive hit at raves - I wouldn't need glowsticks - my fingers would be like natural glowsticks all on their own.

Yep, I reckon I should totally give it a go.

Penge may seem like an inconsequential suburb of London

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penge

It is, however, surprisingly important. Here are some facts about Penge:

DESTINY'S CHILD'S BEST SONG ABOUT PENGE IS INDPENGENT WOMAN

THE BEST FILM ABOUT KILLER SHARKS IN PENGE IS JAWS 4: THE REPENGE

THE BEST FILM ABOUT AN ALIEN INVASION OF PENGE IS INDEPENGENCE DAY

THE PENGE IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

THE BEST SALISBURY TOURIST SPOT IS STONEPENGE. IT IS AN EXACT LIFESIZED MODEL OF PENGE MADE FROM STONE THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO

A LOT OF RAPPERS IN AMERICA RAP ABOUT BEING SENT TO THE STATE PENGEITENTIARY

THE MOST EVIL NAZI PHYSICIAN WAS DOCTOR PENGELE

Helloooooooo! And welcome to the 79th EVER update from rathergood!

We've got some AMAZING stuff for you today!

First up, I have developed the single best thing in the history of mankind! It is the MEATINI! A full fried breakfast served in a cocktail glass made of BACON! YEAH! I've got photos and stuff- have a look! You will be AMAZED and AWED!

http://rathergood.com/841_Meatini

Also, our little kitten, Meowcat Jackson, has been deeply saddened by the death of his hero, Michael Jackson, last night. He's undertaking a memorial moonwalking marathon, and you can see a live camera feed of it here:

http://rathergood.com/thriller

Go on Meowcat! You can keep it up! He's been going for hours already! Have a look and cheer him on. You can do this by cheering at your screen and offering words of encouragement- your computer microphone will pick it up and play it out of speakers in the field, so he can hear you helping him along.

In other news I did my spot on Sky News again this week. Unfortunately there was a vote in Parliament about the Iraq War enquiry and it over-ran, shunting me into the ad break, so it was only viewable online. Where are their PRIORITIES eh? It's only a war! I had INTERNETS to talk about! Anyway, I still did my thing and you can see it here if you like:

http://bit.ly/RTLfs

Also, little Bliss met one of those lucky cats with the waving arms the other day, and she spent AGES waving back at it! Look - I captured the moment!

 

 

ALSO! (OMG there's loads today isn't there!) we've whacked up an mp3 of the chasm spasm theme tune for download. Hoorays!

http://www.rathergood.com/music/chasm_spasm.mp3

Ed has it as his ringtone now. I've still got the W.S.Demon theme tune for mine.

I think that's about it for this week except to tell you how much I love you. I really do! I love you so much that I'd eat bacon for you! I'd take bacon and pork products made from blood and fat and entrails and I'd fashion them into the form of a cocktail glass and I'd gluttonously scoff them JUST FOR YOU BECAUSE I LOVE YOU THAT MUCH.

Every time I eat bacon, or black pudding, or anything else from a pig, I do it FOR YOU. I'm thinking about you as I eat that bacon (or other pork product). I'm thinking of you as I fry it up and I'm thinking of you as I chew it and I'm thinking of your face as I pat my distended meat-filled belly. When it comes out the other end, of course, I'm thinking of something else. Yes, something else. Not you. Not then. That would be weird and horrid. I'm probably thinking about cars or hammers or something else that isn't you, honest.

GOODBYE, AND I WISH YOU THE GREATEST OF JOY!

Yours faithfully

Joel Andrew Veitch MA

I had a wonderful dream! A dream of a cocktail of meat! Specifically, a full English fried breakfast served in a cocktail glass made of bacon. Once in every lifetime true revelation strikes a man, and this was my moment of total clarity! This was my chance to make a mark on history! To ACHIEVE A KIND OF IMMORTALITY THROUGH BACON! Clearly, I had to follow my dream and make this thing of great glory. Ed came over and we set to work.

I started out using a bowl as a mould for the glass. I coated it in streaky bacon.

The bowl coated in streaky bacon. This was looking good.

We tried a couple of different approaches. This is a mug lined internally with back bacon, the idea being to make a smaller bacon cup.

Here Ed is demonstrating the internal cup bacon lining approach. I can't help feeling there's something vaguely obscene about this photo.

We did another bowl lined in back bacon to compare structural properties with streaky. Here Ed is trying it out as an unorthodox cap.

The stem for the cocktail glass was prepared by wrapping a core of streaky bacon in a coil around a skewer. This was then jacketed with an outer layer of back bacon.

We also tried an external casing of streaky bacon around a mug - we anticipated problems with this design due to the gap where the handle is. We thought we'd try it anyway in the interests of science.

Here I am displaying the external streaky bacon mug coating.

All the bacon bowls and cups ready to go into the oven.

Any cocktail needs ice cubes. For the meatini they are made of haslet - a kind of pork meatloaf made largely from entrails.

Into the oven with the bacony stuff! We'll give it about an hour.

A cocktail needs a slice over the edge of the glass, and an umbrella. The meatini's umbrella will be a mushroom. The slice will be black pudding - a sausage made from pig's blood, fat and pearl barley.

External bacon mug disaster! This has clearly not even slightly worked. Hey-ho.

This is more like it! The bowls have both worked lovely. The back bacon bowl is better, but the streaky bacon bowl is still pretty good.

The back bacon bowl is a thing of beauty!

The internal bacon mug has also worked! Hooray!

 

The Meatini starts to take shape! Hoorah! A base of haslet, then the stem of bacon. A second wedge of haslet on top to provide a wider base for the cup. A wooden skewer runs down it to keep it all firmly in place.

First in are the haslet "ice cubes"

Next in goes scrambled egg.

The black pudding slice goes over the edge of the glass.

HOORAYS! Here is the Meatini in its full glory! Complete with mushroom umbrella, sausage swizzle stick and cherry tomato cherry! It's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!

Here I am, sipping my glorious Meatini! This is the greatest triumph of my entire life!

I immediately reclined in the garden with Zak., to sip daintily on my delicious Meatini! How very very civilised!

Here I am, chilling out, Meatini in hand.

The internal mug bacon cup was perfect for a lady-sized Minimeatini. Jacqui was very taken with it.

Jacqui was not allowed to eat her own Meatini however- little Bliss may be small but she knows what she wants! And she LOVES THAT MEATINI! You go girl!

This is an absolutely normal afternoon at the Veitch household. Nothing unusual here at all. Just chilling with some Meatinis.

I LOVE THAT MEATINI! OH YEAH! IT IS SO GOOD!

VERDICT: SUCCESS! THE MEATINI IS LITERALLY THE BEST THING EVER INVENTED IN THE HISTORY OF EVERYTHING EVER!

I did my spot on Sky News again last night. In the event, the House Of Commons were 17 minutes late getting their vote in on whether to hold the enquiry on the Iraq War in public or private, and this pushed me into the ad break, meaning my bit was only viewable online. Hey-ho. It was still fun - you can see it here.

Another interesting thing to see was the struggle with Twitter and how to use it in the news reports. Sky have appointed a Twitter Correspondent, who was talking specifically about the information coming out of Iran on Twitter. The reporting was careful to point out that this information is unverifiable, but it was interesting to see how much time is being devoted to this stream of information.

The journalist tasked with reporting on the Iran crisis was really not happy with the idea of using twitter as a source. In his opinion, the kosher news agencies are reporting the best information available (on that day that most people had been forced off the streets and skirmishes had been sporadic) while the twitter users are telling tall tales of massacres in the streets in order to advance their agenda. Interesting. 

The big news today is that I have heard from NASA and they are big fans. This is the bestest news EVER! As you are probably aware, we love the moon, and space, and NASA, and to hear this from them makes me wonderfully wonderfully happy.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived in orbit around the moon today, and NASA celebrated with the Spongmonkies singing We Like The Moon. I now have a wonderful image of the NASA control room erupting into WE LIKE THA MOOON in celebration. I do so very much hope that the control room in NASA is like that. Wouldn't that be great? Just the best thing ever in fact!

I did ask them if they has any spare tickets to the moon but they haven't responded with an offer at the time of writing. I expect they will do soon. We can sing about the moon on the moon! It will be GREAT! Hooray for NASA, hooray for the moon, and hooray for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter!