Domenica.

Il prossimo martedì è la festa di tutti i santi in italia. Tutti i santi! È un giorno festivo.

 

Ci sono molti santi. Questo è dannatamente sicuro!

Il paradiso deve esserne pieno! Dopotutto, sono martiri, quindi sono tutti morti.

Saints, by definition, would be considered special people in Heaven. There must be a hierarchy there...

1. God, Mrs God (Holy Ghost), Jesus.
2. Mary, St. Peter, maybe the bible writers. Noah. Joseph?
3. Archangels.
4. Angels.
5. Saints.
6. Biblical characters.
7. Extremely good people.
8. Non paedophile clergy.
9. People like Robert and Mr. Linford.
10. People like Brother Benedict and Father Minto (paedophile clergy). 
11. A few lucky souls who just scraped in.

Maybe people on level 9 (and lower) would have to work in Heaven? Robert and Mr. Linford could volunteer for a church shop.

Obviously, Robert's cleaning abilities would be in high demand too. There would obviously also be children in Heaven. I hope they don't put the 10s in charge of daycare or Heavenly schooling. 

I think the 11s would be in charge of sewerage problems.

The 7s would probably oversee Hell. Satan would visit Heaven to negotiate with this group.

* * *

It's time for me to move on from rugby. I think I was eight when I played my first game. I was at St. Vincent de Paul Primary and we played a group of boys from St. Teresa's School in Karori. I scored a try. The final score was 6 all - two tries each, but the St. Teresa's coach (who was refereeing) helped them to get a final try. I think he just wanted everyone to leave feeling happy. That all happened about 62 years ago. I've supported rugby ever since. 

Then, last evening, I was unable to get a Sky Pass to watch the All Blacks and I didn't know how to watch the women's rugby. I thought, "Fuck it. These are well paid young men and an old guy like me can't even pay to see them play." (I don't know if the women are well paid.) The All Blacks are on their own for the rest of the northern tour. 

I'm hanging up my boots for now.

Ciao tutti.

Late start today.

That's good news.

The relieving year draws to a close next week.

That's good news too.

There will be time for more practice and jobs around the property (properties).

At his time of the year relievers are getting a bit over naughty children.

So, this morning I'll get some double bass practice done.

Ernest Wallerman (The 
The The Guy) practising.

I haven't been successful getting a venue to play my DOUBLE BASS MELODIES in, so I might have to give that a miss. Plan B is just to play solo and maybe visit a few performance nights where you can play a couple of tunes. It's called going out with a fizzle rather than a bang, but who really cares?

This morning I intend to intensly practise my solo piece Sii Gentile. This should be a good workout.

Actually, I'd better get onto it.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Ciao tutti.

"Have fun boys but don't sin."

 Is this good advice if you don't believe in Hell?

The concept of Hell is nonsense!

I don't.

Though, I have been told that I will be going there. Fortunately, the people who told me this are imbeciles.*

I'm expecting a grandchild to arrive in about April next year. I will adopt the name Grandad Rich. I've looked up the Grandad Task Sheet and have learnt that my job description is rather simple:

• Love this child to the extreme.
• Cuddle it lots and tell it silly old man stories.
• Reinforce simple truths to help it become a well rounded person.
• Teach it kindness, acceptance and understanding.
• Teach it to love itself.
• Keep it well clear of the fears and guilt brought on by silly old religion.

I feel pretty well ready and am looking forward to the loving bit.

Unfortunately, I think I'm only going to be around for the first part of this new person's life. That's okay, I'll just have to do my job extra well because I will be helping mum and dad to set the foundations - along with Grandma and others.

I CERTAINLY will not be mentioning sin! 

That's for damn sure.

I'm off to cook tea now.

Ciao tutti.

* im·be·cile
[ˈɪmbɪsiːl]

NOUN
imbeciles (plural noun) a stupid person.
synonyms:
fool · idiot · cretin · moron · dolt · halfwit · dunce · dullard · simpleton · 

nincompoop · blockhead · ignoramus · clod

A little bit of Mr. Nice Guy.

 Baxter had realised it a long time ago in the desert and this knowledge was going to serve him now, all these years later.

Lots of people are stupid.

VOTE JEREMIAH BAXTER
FOR COUNCIL
SETTENTRIONALE WARD

All you needed to get onto your local council was a nice picture and a blurb in a little book that almost nobody read.

"Jeremiah Baxter has ancestry from the Middle East and experience doing God's work. He has a lot of experience in leadership and possesses a quick way of problem solving. This is certainly a man who can give you what you want and, for some people, what they may need. Jeremiah is a team player whilst on his way to the top of any organisation. A vote for Jeremiah is a vote for the sword of quick progress."

Jeremiah was in with 8,632 votes. His very long briefcase made him stand out as he strode around the council offices.

At council meetings his sentences were brief and there was an obvious feeling among most councilors, even the mayor, that this was not a guy to mess with. There was another councilor who went by the name of Evan Anhell who was developing a reputation as not the easiest guy to get on with. Some councilors could feel some sort of tie between Evan and Jeremiah. It was an odd thing, after all, that Jeremiah and Evan had both managed to collect 8,632 votes in the same election.

Evan usually left his hoodie top over his head.
This look didn't seem to go down well with 
other councilors but Evan passed it off as 
a cultural thing. 
 

Evan Anhell always seemed to push the point, at meetings, that church shops should be compulsory in all churches in the district.

He also had a slightly weird scheme where all proceeds from these shops should go to certain councilors. He said that councilors should be better paid and that this was a good way to start achieving that goal. He was fervently backed by Councilor Baxter. Evan talked about a new paragraph he was planning to add to The Bible to support this idea. Some of the Christian councilors seemed a bit puzzled by this but, when they tried to object, Jeremiah always picked up his very long briefcase in a threatening sort of a way.

Still, council meetings ticked along.

What is Baxter going to do next?

All over the land people are becoming glued to their computers for the next Baxter episode!

Him: So darling, what are you watching?
Her: It's the new Baxter series on Richard's Bass Bag*!
It's amazing!
Him: Let's forget about that cuddle. Let's watch it now!

Everyone is asking, "How will Baxter go in local politics? Will he need to cut a few things up with his sword?"

This weekend people are waiting for answers!

Well, you'll have to wait and see.

Baxter is proudly brought to you, in conjunction with Richard's Bass Bag*, by the 

Moderno 3.5L Air Fryer!

Chips? No problemo!

* the original bass bagging site

Adjustment time.

 Life in 2022 was certainly quite a bit different from Biblical times and Baxter was aware that he had a lot of catching up to do.

The first thing was his appearance. He had to quickly get used to modern underwear, socks and shoes and modern clothing.

Before

After

Although he was really over 2000 years old, he felt that a beard trim and a haircut made him look younger.

He knew that one thing was not going to change.

The sword would stay. He'd been able to find a suitable briefcase, so it really was problem solved on that one.

There were quite a lot of extreme changes in these times...

• Horses were scarce.
• Ripped off bread had been replaced by sliced stuff.
• There were things called bathrooms and you had to go there to poo.
• You didn't need to fetch water from a well or a river.
• Roads were very smooth.
• Women worked in many jobs, they even drove what he learned were called buses.
• Chariots, big long ones, flew like birds.

There was also the need to learn English. This is what had attracted him to a job as a relief teacher in a secondary school. He'd done well at that, though one of the parents now had an artificial limb, but he thought it was time to move on. He'd come across things called local body elections where you could stand for council - whatever that was. Being in control of others appealed to Baxter and this seemed like a good place to start.

to be continued

Baxter's back.

 

THE MODERN DAY ADVENTURES OF BAXTER.

Baxter

Yes, he has come to our time from Biblical times and he isn't in the habit of beating around the bush or dealing with time wasters. He has a solution to all (well, most) things - a big sharp sword.

Coming soon to Richard's Bass Bag*.

* the original bass bagging site

Cometh the hour, returnith the man.

 Psychologists have managed to compartmentalize much of child behaviour.  The word they would have been left with to describe Nate and Brenty would be Extreme (with a capital E).

Mr. Baxter was new to relief teaching. Schools were desperate for people to take on 'standing in front of adolescents' so Mr. Baxter had been issued with a Limited Authority to Teach at Settentrionale College. 

On this day in October 2022 at 8.45am, after having been transported from a past that required a rather different set of skills, Mr. Jeremiah Baxter stood in front of a class made up of year 9 & 10 students. It was a science lesson, but Mr. B wasn't required to teach, just to hand out books from the back of the room and to unlock the laptops. He read the roll and the students were generally responsive - one girl even helped him with who was absent. 

"This is not so bad." Mr. B thought. He'd been warned about two students but fortunately they were both absent. He distributed the books - another chance to learn a few names. He told the students that the assignment for today was set up for them online. The students toddled up to collect their laptop. "What a nice class!" he thought.

The classroom door was kicked open and two boys in hoodies entered and brushed aside two desks until they found a spot that suited them near the back of the class. 

"Hoodies off please." Mr. B said in a quiet voice.

"Fuck off." one of the boys, who was the fatter of the two with ginger hair, replied. The other boy just grunted as they both claimed a laptop and sat down. Brenty, the fatty with red hair perched himself up on a desk. Nate sat on a chair next to him and put his feet up on another desk. His feet were placed roughly on top of his laptop. They were both curious to see what this reliever would do, as were the rest of the class.

Brenty in later life.

Hey teacher, what do we call you?" said Brenty rudely.

A moment later he was pulled off the desk and landed with a thump on the floor.

Nate got such a shock that he kicked his laptop flying. It was caught by the teacher who simply said, "Baxter."

It's fair to say that Brenty was really pissed off. He took his phone from his pocket.

"I'm calling my dad! He's going to beat you up, you fucking shit! We live next door to the school, so he'll be right over!"

Baxter walked to the front of the class. When he had entered, no one had noticed that his briefcase was unusually long. He opened it and took out a long shiny object with a handle at one end. The class went very quiet. Through the windows they could see a chubby man with a baseball bat walking quickly towards them. Baxter just smiled and thought to himself, "This is like old times."

Mr. Jeremiah Baxter

He truly didn't expect this sole chubby guy with a little bat to be up there with the Saradites.

The Saradites

Baxter was right.

A little bit of Sunday religious instruction.

 Uriel hated his own name. He'd been told, by the boss, that his name meant 'God is my light' and that he was the angel of wisdom, but the other three well known archangels often pretended to get his name wrong and called him Urine.

Urine Uriel

Gabriel, Michael and Raphael were known as the big three and, to be honest, they could be arrogant buggers.

How does one become an archangel?

Archangels are made, not promoted. God has made a hierarchy of living things. It sort of goes in this order:

Archangels, angels, humans, apes, cats, dogs, rats, cockroaches, fish, trees, grass. Obviously, I've left out quite a few species, but you get the idea.

Lucifer was a big letdown for the angels, but he now serves a useful purpose in his role as Satan. Some have suggested that, behind the scenes, Satan and God are good mates. After all, running Hell is a very important job and God wouldn't give it to an imbecile.

Angels and archangels don't have to be good to get into Heaven - they're already there. You can see that being created at the top of the ladder has a lot of advantages. How many times have you seen slugs mentioned (in a good way) in The Bible?

Of course, in the hierarchy of living things, humans can be divided into different groups:

Saints - Priests, Brothers and Nuns (includes Paedophiles) - Catholics - Non-Catholics - Pagans - Atheists - Imbeciles.

Well, that's all I have time for today. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

I'm off to create some Uriel and have a shower.

Ciao tutti.

What's the world coming to?

 I popped into a supermarket in The Hutt to pick up a couple of Cleanskins, only to find that they were sold out.

WHAT!

There were other wines and Shelley seemed keen to at least buy something. Normally I would have put my foot down (as I often do*) but yesterday had been a stressful day - we'd spent about 4 1/2 hours in A & E because Shelley had a health scare. Everything turned out to be fine, so I wasn't in a mood to say, "Let's go with Corban's White Label at $8.99."

She chose this:

$30 that could have gone towards bass strings!

She also chose a couple of other bottles.

I wonder if Cleanskin do a set of bass strings?

Sheesh!

Ah well, I guess my practice will be slipping out of Equal Temperament tonight. Wine can affect your intonation.

I guess I'll just have to play Elgar, and maybe some folk music.

The great news is that Shelley is fighting fit.

Ciao tutti.

* as I sometimes try to do

Arrivederci Equal Temperament.

 Okay, in my last post I made a typo. I wrote RDD instead of RBB.

I apologise.

One of the RBB 'guys' gleefully pointed the mistake out.

On the upside, my mistake seems to
have given this old fella a new lease of life.

 

Unfortunately, my little typo has set off some sort of weird reaction in the cosmos that contains the RBB 'guys'.

In his latest post, RBB 'guy' Robert the apathetic sanctimonious sinner and toilet cleaner plays a piece of music where he clearly steps out of the Equal Temperament tuning system. 

He calls the key that he has chosen to play in E#. Now, with equal temperament tuning, E# major would contain the same notes as F major. By the way, it's not necessary to write 'major' when talking about major keys. 

Now, if you listen to his playing in this clip, he is certainly not using equal temperament tuning. His notes lie somewhere between E# and F. There are also notes that sound like E notes and F notes. In my opinion using this tuning doesn't really get a good result for the Elgar tune that he is playing, but it was his decision. Robert (t.a.s.s.a.t.c.) may be taking violin playing in a different direction. Stroll boldly forward Robert (t.a.s.s.a.t.c.)!

Ciao tutti

Official Richard's Bass Bag* 'guys' announced.

 Okay, as you know, a lot of bloggers in this community have such an allegiance to Richard's Bass Bag that they are often referred to as RBB 'guys'. You can use our LINKS service to find their blogs.

Here are the most famous RDD 'guys':

Akish The Philistine

Angry Jesus

Bin Hire

Bunny Hoskins

Dave Shaw

Different Time Zone Bill

Phillip Edward Nis

Terry McDougal

The The The Guy

To this list of celebrities we'd like to add two more RBB 'guys':

The Curmudgeon

Robert the apathetic sanctimonious sinner and toilet cleaner 

Welcome aboard guys. We think you'll both fit in really well.

* the original bass bagging site

Crackpot?

 In Robert's last post he published this clip. I think his title suggests that the lady who wrote it was a crackpot.

Robert tells us, " "Dying to be me" by Anita Moorjani sounds like an interesting read considering she claims to have had an NDE. Near death experience. It seems that if you include in the title of your book something about going to heaven people will snap it up and you can make money. But a closer look suggests anomalies of their experiences that at are apostasy. To Anita there is no sin."

Robert obviously doesn't like this idea because, among other things, there is no room for sin and, of course, Hell. He calls her ideas apostacy... he stumbles through a bit of bad grammar to make his point. I thought that Catholics loved everybody and were always ready to forgive. After all, a deathbed confession with a priest can clean your slate and you're supposedly into Heaven. Just like that! 

Anita actually has a much nicer approach to it all and maybe we need to ask the question, "Is it our place to judge others and have a need to see them suffer for all time?"

I was talking to a friend the other evening and, out of the blue, he challenged my atheistic views.

"The universe is expanding, it always has been, and there must have been something that started it all off."

Good point.

Then he jumped straight into the Catholic church, which he implied he had a liking for. He said my view of the institution had been shaded by some unhappy experiences.

His thought journey went from a good point, straight to a jump of faith. Maybe he was a fan of punishment and Hell too?

As I read Anita's excerpt, I thought how much nicer an idea it was than all this Christian mumbo jumbo.

I guess time will tell who is correct.

* * *

I also read The Curmudgeon's latest effort COCK OFF COOK OFF!

Okay, TC has taken us into his fantasy world, but one thing doesn't work for me in this COCK OFF COOK OFF! I hate baked beans, but I would have proudly made spaghetti with cheese on toast.

Now there's a dish!

Still, I won the cook off - 1st place!
The reality is that I'd certainly go for spaghetti with cheese on toast over Mince and pasta with bacon and mushrooms, Wattie's sauce and wedges, McCains reconstituted mashed potato, rice risotto, Pam's frozen peas and corn, roast lamb, pig's trotters and beef burgers. A slice of lemon on top to give a 'Tuscan' flavour. 

I don't like mushrooms.
I certainly wouldn't be eating Pear, walnut & blue cheese tart with whole truffle roast celeriac with cheese sauce & hazelnuts.

I'd rather eat human faeces than that last one.

There you go, it seems that people agree with me.

It sort of feels like TC shot himself in the foot with that one.

Ciao tutti.

That last post was a cracker!

 

I knew the boys would love it!

Which brings me to my lack of gigs.

I have not had a music gig for quite a long while and I'm not having any luck so far with my plan to play my DOUBLE BASS MELODIES repertoire.

I have sent a descriptive email to two venues and no reply. You'd think that they'd at least say, "Thanks, but no."

Never mind, I will continue to practise. 

By the way, how did you go listening to the two notes, where you had to say which was higher or lower, in the video on the last post. I must admit that I got one wrong but was correct with all the others. It was an interesting exercise.

Peter may be playing tennis today.

We can probably expect a post where he complains about that guy at tennis he doesn't get on with.

Rob's Sue should be going home today. Fingers crossed. I can't get in to see her today because I am waiting on a plumber - we have a funny noise in our pipes. Hopefully it's not serious.

Well, that's it for today.

Enjoy your day.

Ciao tutti.

One for Robert.

 HERE is a video that Robert will enjoy.

Who knows, TC might enjoy it too.

Ciao tutti.