What’s in a name?

/ masher / 4 Comments

My son is doing an appreticeship as a vehicle mechanic (my dreams of him joining the RAF didn’t pan out, unfortunately). Friday evening, he was regaling us with a tale of something that had happened that day at work: “… and so my mentor was under the truck and he said to me ‘ Oi, Wankstain, pass me a 32mm socket willya’, and so I went over to his toolbox and…”

“Hold on”, said Mrs Masher, “What’s that he said?”

“Pass him a 32mm socket”

“No, before that. What did he call you?”

“Wankstain”

“Mrs. M wrinkled her nose up and gave that indignant look that tells us all that she isn’t happy about something. “Well, that’s not very nice!” she said.

“It’s just a nickname”, said Son. “Everybody there has nicknames and, being the lowest of the low – an apprentice – I get all the horrible ones.  Last week I was ‘Shit-for-brains’ most of the week. It’s just banter. Doesn’t bother me.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s very nice. Do you want me to come down there and say something?”, said Mrs. M, not really grasping the social dynamics that reside within an all-male workforce.

“Errr… I’d rather you didn’t”,  he said..

But this got me thinking.  Most every place I’ve worked, people have had nicknames… especially when I was in the GPO / BT.  I got away quite lightly with it: my nickname being a bastardisation of my own name… as it was for many others. We had an Abbo, a Clippy, a Pedro, a Bazzer, a Smithy, etc. Others got handed names like Spud and Biffo and Walrus, for various reasons.  And yes, the lower ranking guys – the trainees and apprentices – were often saddled with more derogatory names. I can’t remember them all, but I do remember we had a Slug-guts and a Shit-legs.

Although some of these names weren’t particularly nice, there was never any malice attached. Well, rarely.  It was – as Son pointed out – just male banter.  I’m sure that if he had joined the RAF, he would also have been given a nickname of sorts.

But, I’m pleased to see that the woke brigade haven’t yet managed to infiltrate every British institution – the humble car mechanic’s garage may well be the last bastion for men to be able to talk like men.

Which makes me think (Again! That’s twice today!).  When I was much (much) younger, I worked for a short while in a factory, where most of the workforce were women. I don’t remember any of them having nicknames. Do women give each other nicknames at work or is that a male thing?

 

 

Lé Weekend

/ masher / 5 Comments

We went to the pixtures on Saturday evening, to see Fast & Ludicrous 64.

It was this: ridiculous.

I think I enjoyed the first F&F film, way back when, but they have gone from outrageous stunt to even-more-outrageous-and-unbelievable stunt as the franchise has progressed.  I’m sure they came up with a whole load of crazy car-driving stunts first and then wrote a storyline around them.

I really wasn’t keen on going to see it, but was cajoled by  a nagging family and the promise of a Nando’s beforehand.

Anyway, once in the cinema and seated in front of the Supersize Screen, I stuffed my face with popcorn and sort of enjoyed it.

What I enjoyed more, was the trailer for the forthcoming Mission Impossible 7 film.  That’s a defo.

Then, on Sunday morning, I went with a friend up to our local, nerdy, radio rally and I took some stuff with me, to get rid of.  I didn’t want any money for it, so put it on the club’s trestle table to help with their funds.

Mrs. Masher was most pleased to see me taking some stuff out of the loft at long last.

She probably won’t be so happy when she finds out that most of it is now in the garage, because I had to bring it back!

I couldn’t sell it. Some of it I couldn’t even give away for free! People just didn’t want it.

I was most surprised – and saddened – to see that all my lovely gear wasn’t snapped up by like-minded nerdy buyers.

It seems that Mrs. M was right after all: it’s just junk.

Sunday afternoon, Son and I went for a bike ride – some father/son bonding time.

I had to smile when he had the audacity to overtake me on the A505, as we rode up to Royston. Crouched over the tank of his little Yamaha YBR 125 and with his jacket flapping in the wind, he slowly – oh, so slowly – passed me, with a big grin on his face.  With ten times less cubic capacity and eight times less BHP than me, I let him have his moment before I opened the throttle and used my three remaining gears to watch him quickly reduce to a speck in my mirrors.

But, it was a most enjoyable ride – we’ve never really ridden together before – and I was pleased to see that he is a competent and safe rider.

At least for now.

Going down the toilet

/ masher / 3 Comments

Whilst out and about yesterday morning, I stopped at Beaconsfield Services on the M40, for a pee.

All these service stations now have advertising posters in the toilets, in front of each urinal – a captive audience.

Fed up with reading about period poverty, I stood in front of a different urinal to the one I usually go to (OK, writing this, I ve just realised that I actually have a favourite urinal at Beaconsfield!) and was so taken aback by the advertising poster before me, that I had to take a photo.

Dear Dyno Rod, you’re a big company, but how could I ever trust you to fix my plumbing, when you can’t even throw some apostrophes in to your advertising?

Dirty Stop-outs

/ masher / 4 Comments

Mrs. M and I went out last night.

We had an excellent meal in TGI Friday’s and then went to see a show.

Well, not a proper theatrical show, as such. It was the comedian Michael McIntyre doing some stand-up.

And it wasn’t his ‘proper’ show even, it was his warm-up tour, where he tries out his material on various audiences.

Despite that, he was hilarious and we thoroughly enjoyed it. And it was interesting (and, of course, funny) to witness him making up material on-the-fly…  some of which he admitted would likely go into his proper tour later in the year.

Afterwards, we had a couple of drinks in the hotel bar, before eventually retiring to our room… to see what might happen.

It turned into a late night and, today, we both feel absolutely knackered.

I think we are getting too old for all this going-out-and-enjoying-ourselves lark.

“Some salt on your MD5 hash, sir?”

/ masher / 11 Comments

I reckon only 50% of my readership will understand that post title.

The other one will have no idea.

Anyway, I was reading an article last week, about the security of the passwords we all use.

Most of us pick something memorable and use that for everything… which is not a good idea!

I have my own system, which I have always considered to be pretty difficult for the hackers to crack, but as computing power gets faster and cracking software gets better, I wondered whether that would still be the case.  And of course, now that we all have access to AI systems, who knows how much quicker and easier it will be for the naughty hackers  to crack our passwords.

From what I can gather – and put simply – the longer the password, the more difficult it is to crack. But of course, having different 18-character passwords for everything, isn’t easy.  We need a compromise between security and convenience.

As such, I took a long, hard look at the system I use.  All my internet login passwords use a mixture of letters, numbers and special characters as shown in the far right column in the table above. They tend to be of different lengths, but generally all fall into the orange area… which is fine: if some hacker wants to spend three years trying to get into my Cineworld account, then so be it.

On the financial side of things – banking logins, etc – I use a slightly stronger system and it all falls into the the yellow area. Coupled with 2FA, I feel this is probably secure enough.

But, whilst my system makes it pretty easy for me  – and me alone –  to guess my passwords, there are still too many for me to try and remember (bearing in mind, you normally need to remember a login name as well as a password). And so, I use a Password Manager on my phone – with a desktop application – and it currently holds about 200 different passwords.

There are plenty of good ones available – I won’t be recommending any here, just do a search – and even the free ones look pretty good.

With a Password Manager, you only need to remember one master password – so make it a good one and make sure you don’t forget it!

Of course, you may be thinking that if I lose my phone and someone then finds it and manages to guess the sign-in pattern I use, and then also somehow figures out the master password for the Password Manager, then they would have access to all of my passwords.  But no: without that key piece of info about each password, that is known only to me, they won’t get very far.

So, after several days of looking at different password systems and different Password Managers, I’m happy that my current system is up to the job.

So long as I don’t accidentally download a keylogger.

Going to the flix

/ masher / 6 Comments

Last night, the current Mrs. Masher and I visited our local picturehouse.

And by ‘local’, I mean we drove for three-quarters of an hour, to get there.

And by ‘picturehouse’, I mean a proper, old-fashioned, single screen cinema.

Originally built in 1938, The Rex cinema in Berkhampstead fell into disrepair and closed down after 50 years’ service.

It re-opened – refurbished and restored to it’s former art-deco glory – in 2004 and has played to a full auditorium ever since.

Whilst we had the option of sitting in the ‘stalls’ – seated in swivel armchairs, with tableclothed tables on which to place our alcoholic drinks – we opted for the front row of the circle, which gave us a better viewing distance, we felt… I don’t like being too close to the screen.  The seats were undoubtably the most comfortable cinema seats I have ever sat in!

Before the film started, some old geezer came out on to the stage and introduced the film, which was a nice touch.  I assumed he was the manager. He chatted amiably and humorously for a few minutes and then the house lights dimmed and the film started.

I was startled by the quality of the screen and the audio  – I think the old-fashioned ambience tricked me into expecting something less, but they are obviously using modern projectors and speakers. It was a superb audio/visual experience.

The film we chose to see, was John Wick 4 – a totally ridiculous piece of hokum, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

The people of Berko are lucky to have such a treasure on their high street, but I hope they don’t mind a couple of out-of-towners visiting every so often, because I’m sure Mrs. M and I will be visiting again, sometime soon.

Fancy

/ masher / 8 Comments

On Friday, we all went to a 21st Birthday, fancy dress party.

The theme was “Come As Your Favourite Movie Character”.  Of course, that also translates as “Come as whichever movie character you can get a reasonably priced costume for”.

We were given plenty of notice, so after much umming and arring, I eventually settled on one of my favourite characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Anthony Edward (“Tony”) Stark.

Over several days, I built myself an Arc Reactor – the centrepiece of my costume.  Of course it wasn’t a real arc reactor. The “real” one was made from some sort of Titanium alloy and was powered by a Palladium core. My version was made from MDF and a plastic milk carton and was powered by three AA batteries but, from a couple of feet away, it looked the part. I cut a hole in an old T-shirt for it to poke through and strapped it round my chest with some wide elastic.  It kept falling down as I moved, so I added an extra strap over each shoulder. It felt like I was putting a bra on, but it also felt strangely comfortable – I didn’t even know I was wearing it. And the reactor stayed in place.

Tony Stark also has dark brown hair and a small anchor beard. I have neither of those, so over the course of several weeks, I grew a beard. A full beard. Urgh. I hated it. How you hirsute types put up with it, I don’t know.

Then, with the aid of a bottle of Just For Men (other male hair dyes are available), Mrs M dyed it all.  It came out slightly too dark, but at least I no longer looked like I was aiming to go to the party as Father Christmas!  Some hair clippers and a razor gave the desired look… well, almost: I would have needed anorther two months to get my hair long enough.

I bought a jacket from Amazon, that replicated the one he wore in Avengers – Infinity War and a pair of replica glasses from ebay.  Funnily, no-one picked up that I had a Mk1 Arc Reactor but was wearing Infinity War clobber.

The kids went as Clark Kent and Lara Croft, whilst Mrs M went as Pepper Potts – Tony Stark’s girlfriend… a somewhat older Pepper Potts, who had let herself go.

But let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly portraying Tony in his prime!

There were a number of Blues Brothers’; several Ali G’s; a couple of Shaun Of The Deads; a Don Corlione; a Little Mermaid and a whole host of others that I can barely remember… because the bar served Estrella Damm on draught.

It was a great night, on a Good Friday.

Nerds Day Out

/ masher / 9 Comments

Last Saturday afternoon, still tired from my Friday night out withy the missus, myself and a couple of mates met up in that London, for a day of nerdiness at The Science Museum.

The last time I had been there, was many years ago with the family. We didn’t stay long, that time, because it turns out my family  – unlike me – have no sense of wonder and lack any thirst for knowledge.

To be fair, the kids were only little at the time and could probably only take so much of seeing their dad get over-excited in front of a mock-up of the lunar lander.

But this time, there were no kids… apart from those inside three grown men with a combined age of 130.

For several hours we wandered around, marveling at this, that and some of the other.

It was impossible to see it all in just one visit, but we gave it a helluver good go!

The area devoted to telecommunications was probably my favourite (as you might guess) and I could easily have spent the whole day just in that section.

Once we’d had enough, we headed out onto the street and went in search of a pub that sold food.

The first one we came to was packed to the rafters – as one might expect on a Saturday night in that London. As was the next one, but luckily, just as we were about to give up on that one, a table became available and we grabbed it.

Many beers (and a couple of whiskys) later, having put the world to rights several times over, closing time arrived and we were turfed out.

We parted company and boarded our respective trains home.

I fell asleep on the tube and was fortunate to wake up just in time.

I then also fell asleep on the mainline train. Luckily for me, it terminated at Luton. It was the sound of the driver slamming his door on the way out, which woke me.

With BST arriving and adding a virtual hour to my watch, it was a long old day.

But, as Bill (and/or Ted) might say, it was most excellent.

Date Night

/ masher / 3 Comments

Mrs Masher and I went to see a show on Friday evening.

Danny Baker is currently doing his Sausage Sandwich Tour around the UK.

I’ve long been a fan and always thought that pound for pound, the ol’ motormouth was the best radio presenter out there.

I say “was”, because he has lost his job several times over the years, and due to the nature of his last sacking, it could well be the last time he works in that particular media… one in which he has excelled, over the years.

Anyway.

The show started at 19:30, so we knew that getting there after work was going to be a bit tight. The heavy rain that day didn’t help, with the motorway traffic delaying things before we even got started.

As it was, we arrived with exactly one minute to spare.  We walked in, were shown to our seats and, as we sat down, the lights lowered and Danny bound out on to the stage.

It was amazing how he talked non-stop throughout, barely pausing for breath as he regaled us with anecdote after anecdote from his life story.

Only one thing let it down, in my opinion: it was too long.

It started at 19:30, as I say. We had a short interval of about 15 minutes or so, halfway through, and then it continued, finishing at 23:15.

Wow! That man can talk!  It was interesting and it was funny and well worth the price of the tickets, but toward the end, we were all getting a bit tired and bumsore, I think.

Of course, being that late, all the restaurants had closed and we were famished.  We checked in to our hotel and the proprietor told us that the kitchens were closed. He suggested McDonalds would be the only place open at this time of night.

We walked to McDonalds… just a few minutes away, to find it had closed at 23:30 due to ‘routine maintenance’. We’d missed it by five minutes!

So, two beefburgers with chips, from a snack wagon parked in the town square were purchased, and we sat eating it in our hotel room, with two chairs drawn up against the dressing table.

I really know how to show a girl a good time.

Birthday Girl

/ masher / 2 Comments

Today is Saber’s birthday.

Apparently.

She’s six-years old.

We don’t actually know her birth date for sure, but this was date that was worked out when we first got her as a puppy and we have stuck to it.

Of course, she doesn’t know it’s her birthday.

The significance of the extra bit of chicken in her breakfast passed her by, as she wolfed it all down, just as quick as she always does.

The extra couple of doggie biscuits in her mid-morning treat also went unnoticed, as they too were devoured  ravenously, like we never feed her, or something.

And I’m sure tonight’s birthday meal of beef and tripe will be scoffed just as quick.

Unfortnately, chocolate isn’t good for dogs, so we will have to eat her birthday cake for her.

She can have a bit of cheese, instead.

Special birthday cheese, of course.

Tea

/ masher / 8 Comments

Spotted this whilst out doing my weekly shop, this morning.

What a terrible idea!

It doesn’t even say which flavour jam.

What next… Hovis to bring out a loaf of bread that tastes like tea?

Yorkshire Tea have adverts on the telly, where their tagline is “Let’s have a proper brew”.

I don’t think this fits with that ethos, somehow.

I give this product two months before it disappears off the shelves, never to be seen again.

 

Pinch Punch…

/ masher / 8 Comments

Well, there’s another bloggy-thon thing over and done with for another year.

Can’t believe I started doing this 17 years ago. Or is it 18? Not sure.

It takes time for these things to become an internet sensation, but I think we’re finally there, with Google Analytics showing viewing figures up in the tens.

The low tens.

Sometimes.

Thanks to the Joneses for keeping me company throughout and to those of you who took the time to comment.

Even the least observant of you will have noticed that I titled each post after a movie. Why?

You may well ask.

I don’t know, is the answer.

It started with that first post about my left foot. I struggled to come up with a title and just called it My Left Foot, realising almost immediately that it was also the title of a film.

Showing great imagination, I then did exactly the same for the rest of the month.

Anyway.

Same time, same channel, next year.