How Did You Get Here?

June 24, 2011 Leave a comment

Francis Rossi on stage with Quo at the Colston...

Image via Wikipedia

One of the great features of having a WordPress blog is that it tells you what people searched for in order to end up on your site.  I’m going to take a look at some of my favourite search terms from over the years.  They’re very intriguing.

francis rossi traitor:

Post this search leads to – Francis Rossi – Traitor?

What’s the post about – The confusion and hurt felt by the members of the PTC (Pony Tail Club) when Mr Rossi snipped his PT off.

Reason why I like it – Because someone searched for Francis Rossi being a traitor.  It’s quite funny, isn’t it?

cheeky chappy shaun costello:

Post this search leads to - Wall of Wonder

What’s the post about - A photo of all the stuff I had stuck on the wall next to my desk in work.  This is accompanied by a key explaining what all the items are.

Reason why I like it - I love this post because it’s a reminder of the wonderful wall I had and all the hilarious things that I stuck on it.  It’s one of my favourite posts of all time.  Also, I love the fact that someone actually searched for the phrase “cheeky chappy shaun costello” as it’s so unlikely.  To be honest, it’s so unlikely that it was probably me that searched for it and I’ve forgotten.

chilli & cranberry hair gel:

Post this search leads to - Blumen’ Marvellous

What’s the post about - An incredibly clever satire on a Heston Blumenthal type meal as created by infamous Warringtonian Goot “Goot The Crow” The Crow.

Reason why I like it - I made up chilli & cranberry hair gel as a wacky non-existent product, and yet someone wants to use it for real.

100 good reasons why to pour stuff on somebody:

Post this search leads to - ?

What’s the post about - I think it just leads to my home page or something.

Reason why I like it - Why is this person looking for reasons to pour stuff on somebody? Why are they so vague about what it is that they want to pour down somebody?  It’s all a little bit sinister.  Are they trying to justify a fetish to a partner?  Why do they need 100 reasons? Wouldn’t a few be sufficient? I’m very intrigued.

the pompidou centre – functionalist dreamscape or postmodern eyesore?:

Post this search leads to - n\a

What’s the post about - I think it was something I said on Twitter, which temporarily shows up on my blog.

Reason why I like it - It’s a quote from Paul Calf’s Video Diary.  I’m in no way taking credit for it.  It’s just one of my favourite programmes ever and it’s nice to be associated with it, even in the loosest and most plagiaristic of ways.

lady sovereign extra teeth:

Post this search leads to - Home page

What’s the post about - Weirdly, if you search for this phrase in google, my home page is the first result. Since I haven’t mentioned Lady Sovereign since she appeared in Celebrity Big Brother I don’t understand how this can be.  Also, if you search for the phrase within the blog, then it returns no results. Weird.

Reason why I like it - Haha, she’s got extra teeth, innit?

“i love chips”:

Post this search leads to - MBM – Chips

What’s the post about - It’s a milk bottle with a label on it which reads: “I love chips.”

Reason why I like it - I just really, really love chips.  It’s nice to know I’m not alone.

“gravy loving fundamentalists”:

Post this search leads to - Holy Gravy?

What’s the post about - When I transferred PSGOM from Blogger to WordPress, the redirection didn’t work properly and you ended up on some weird Bible site.

Reason why I like it - Who could fail to be charmed by the idea of a group of religious zealots who just love gravy?

in the world war 1 did people pour gravy down their legs?:

Post this search leads to -?

What’s the post about - ?

Reason why I like it - Well, it’s easy to understand where this question was coming from.  For the record (if you’re the person who asked this question), during World War 2 there were shortages of stockings, so women would rub gravy browning on their legs to give the appearance of hosiery.  What they didn’t do was get a gravy boat, full of the delicious brown stuff, and pour it wholesale all over themselves.  You’re an inadvertent pervert.

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Old About Gravy

June 22, 2011 Leave a comment

I’ve recently updated the “About” page on the blog, but I couldn’t bear to see the old post disappear into obscurity, so here it is.  It’s a little bit out of date, so forgive me. Why not follow the link above and check out the new version.

Portrait of Samuel Pepys, engraved for the sec...

Image via Wikipedia

So, what is this blog about, and why am I writing it?

The somewhat deluded answer to why I am writing the blog is that I think I’m going to be discovered and be proclaimed the Samuel Pepys of the twenty-first century, at which point someone will offer me oodles of cash to write for a living.

Luckily, I’m only deluded for part of the time.

The actual answer is slightly more mundane.  I’ve always wanted to be able to write for a living, but unfortunately I suffer from a terrible affliction: I’m a lifelong ‘quitter’.  In the words of Billy Ocean, when the going gets tough, Steven gets going. For many years, I just sat around and thought about writing. I had plenty of ideas for stories but since they stayed firmly within my brain, then they didn’t really count.  I eventually took a step forward in 2002 when I bought myself a notebook in order to at least make a token gesture towards writing.  This worked, up to a point, but, with six-month gaps between entries, any momentum I gained was pretty much killed right away.  I also started two novels in this period, and both sadly fell by the wayside.

I got around to starting my own blog in May 2007, the wonderful (if I may say so), The World Of Sherby57.  It’s not what I would call a normal blog; rather than talk about things that interest me, it tends to be a collection of weird and surreal ideas, that are effectively private jokes with myself.  I enjoy writing for Sherby57 immensely, but stream of consciousness nonsense doesn’t necessarily lead to very disciplined writing.

As time went on, I felt that I should challenge myself and try and write about some ‘real’ things.  I started to play with the idea of writing about topics of interest to me, rather than just express whatever gibberish floats off the top of my head.  Since I didn’t really want to change the tone of the other blog, then I decided to create Pour Some Gravy On Me.  Having got as far as my ‘about page’, you should have noticed that it is a somewhat more conventional blog.

PSGOM was created originally on Blogger in November 2008, but after a 4 month hiatus of both blogs between January and May 2009, I decided it was time to get Gravy over to WordPress and start afresh.  I say afresh, but all the older entries came along with me.

I’m quite open to writing about anything on here, but usual topics include television, football (particularly Liverpool FC), and reading.  I’ve written a disturbingly large amount of posts to do with reality TV, which makes me deeply question my lifestyle choices.  There is also a campaign to brighten up fridges in offices up and down the land with my Milk Bottle Manifesto.

Now, at this point, there is a good chance that you will be shouting at the screen, ‘Yes, but Steven, where the hell does the name “Pour Some Gravy On Me” come from?’  Well, just calm down a minute, and I’ll tell you.  The original name that I came up with was ‘An Audience of None’, for pretty self explanatory reasons.  Sadly (but maybe fortunately), this name was already taken, and I had to think something up on the fly.  In search of a title that was at least vaguely memorable, I searched Sherby57 for ideas.  I’m sure that you are way ahead of me as I tell you that one of the posts was called: Pour Some Gravy On Me

This was based on a story I heard, where someone thought it was extremely posh that someone they knew didn’t know what gravy was. Personally, I’d call it a sign of stupidity, but then, I really am a massive oik, and what would I know?  The title was just a play on the song title, ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’, by poodle haired Yarkshiremen Def Leppard. I was pretty pleased with my creativity until, since the creation of PSGOM, I googled it and found that some had put this on Youtube:

A YouTube clip used to be here… I don’t know where it’s gone.
And that should tell you pretty much all you need to know.  I hope you stick around and have a read of my posts, and, if you’re feeling frisky, maybe leave a comment or two.

Keep drinking that gravy,

Ste

P.s.

This page always got far more hits that I would have imagined. I don’t know if that was because people genuinely wanted to find out “about” me, or whether there was some specific content that brought them to it.  If you find yourself on this page, please leave a comment and let me know why.  I’m very curious.

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Project Managers In Need

May 19, 2011 Leave a comment


Dave, the put upon employee, takes a break from being mithered by the project manager to launch a new charity appeal. Please give generously. These people desperately need your help.

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Contact Me?

May 18, 2011 4 Comments

So, I’ve got two blogs.  They’ve both got a page on them called “Contact Me”.  The PSGOM contact me page has had 87 hits.  The World of Sherby57 contact page has had 152 hits.  That’s 239 hits in total.

Now, the purpose of the pages – and I’m guessing that you’re well ahead of me here – is to allow you to fill in a form that contacts me.  The clue is in the name.

I’m not exaggerating if I say that I’ve had a maximum of 10 e-mails through these forms.  10.  Ten.

What the hell were the other 229 people doing? What were they looking for? What did they think they were going to find?

These aren’t rhetorical questions, I’m genuinely stumped.  If anybody has a theory then please leave a comment below.  Or you could always “contact me”.

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My Plan for Speed Cameras

May 13, 2011 2 Comments

People hate speed cameras, right?  They’re not at all effective.  They’re only used to generate income for the government.  They stop the police from doing real police work.

A GATSO speed camera

Image via Wikipedia

If you whole-heartedly agree with the above points, then you should probably stop reading now.  I have a proposal for speed cameras that’s a bit radical.  I think that they should be everywhere.

Let me explain.

Frankly, there are too many arseholes on the roads of Britain.  If you don’t agree, then you’re probably one of those arseholes.  Now, I’m not saying that I’ve never broken the speed limits – although for official purposes, that’s exactly what I’m saying – but too many people want to be able to drive as aggressively as they want to.  These people should, quite frankly, be shot.  In the absence of a death penalty for drivers, my next best plan is to beef up the speed camera infrastructure.

I agree that speed cameras are currently largely ineffective, but there are reasons for this.  I believe that the main fault is that most cameras don’t have film in them (if they actually use film, you know what I mean) or they are a mobile camera, which means they aren’t even there for 99% of the time.  Is it any wonder that they are ignored?  The current units are also easily recognisable.  Why are we giving these criminals a warning?  This only leads to the “slam on when you see the white lines” technique, which is in itself probably more dangerous than travelling at 40 mph in a 30 mph zone.

My solution is simple: let’s have speed cameras everywhere, on every road, all switched on.

Sure, this would cost an absolute fortune to implement, but that’s not a problem.  The project would create lots of jobs, and it would all be paid for – probably within a couple of weeks – by those people stupid enough not to drive within the limits (ie arseholes).  It would only then take a couple of months before the same people were banned from driving and the roads would be that much safer.

But, I hear you cry, that means that we’d all have to drive within the speed limits and that’s totally unacceptable.  Well, I have an answer to that, too.  Once you’ve got a situation when you know that everyone is travelling at the speed limits, then you will get a whole bunch of new, accurate accident data.  The speed limits can then be tweaked on individual roads to an appropriate level.   We’re talking a driving utopia here, people (even though it would be implemented in a somewhat fascistic manner).

Anyway, there’s my plan.  I know you hate it, but I hate arsehole drivers even more.

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The Project Manager Strikes Back

May 12, 2011 Leave a comment

The project manager returns as he, yet again, harasses Dave about a ridiculous tranche of work that allegedly needs to be completed within a ludicrous timescale.

Can Dave cope with the insanity? Probably not…

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Corn Flake Cakes

May 12, 2011 Leave a comment

I like chocolate.  Obviously.

I have corn flakes for breakfast.  They’re pretty nice. 

Chocolate and corn flakes together? In a cake (that’s not really a cake)?  That’s the nicest thing in the world.

Why is that?

What is it about sticking chocolate on some cereal that transforms its inherent taste properties so radically?  It’s a conundrum that science should throw money at immediately.  If we could harness the power of this almost alchemical process, then literally anything would be possible.  I’m not exaggerating.  Is this happening?  Are the world’s governments making this their number one priority?  I think not.  The losers.

I’ve bought three corn flake cakes today from the Pound Bakery.  They cost a pound.  33.3333p for a slice of heaven is a bargain in anybody’s book. 

Get involved.  I implore you.

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Some Rubbish About Blogging

May 7, 2011 13 Comments

I was asked last week who I fancied most from off of the telly. It seems a simple question, but you can’t just answer flippantly. What if you just dive in there and then forget about someone you particularly have your eye on, and then you remember, but you’ve already left the person who asked you. They’d never know the truth! It’s doesn’t bear thinking about.

Luckily I was able to go with my stock answer of Holly Willoughby and the matter was closed. Or was it? In the back of my mind, I knew there was someone else on TV that I had recently declared “mega-fit”, but I couldn’t think who it was. It was a literal and metaphorical nightmare. I said nothing more to my companion, but, deep inside, all was not well. At this juncture, I’d like to confirm the following points:

a) The person who asked me a question was a girl, so I wasn’t being a sexualist.

and

2) There is a point to all this. Please bear with me.

A couple of days later, I realised that the name I had been searching for was Sarah Shahi. Never heard of her? Google her now.

Done?

Yeah, she’s amazing, isn’t she? She’s currently starring in Fairly Legal (Sundays, 8pm, Universal Channel) if you’d like to see her moving and talking. And why wouldn’t you?

After making my realisation, I remembered that I had mentioned her on this blog a few times, when she was appearing in cop-show, Life. I searched the blog and had a read of those old posts where she was mentioned. Surprisingly, I found myself really enjoying them. I decided to read some more of my television-themed posts and ended up totally engrossed in them. I think I read them all.

So, what did I learn from this experience? Firstly, it showed the power of having a blog as a diary. It was amazing what memories came flooding back, even if those memories were essentially just what happened in TV shows.

More importantly, I discovered that my old posts were actually much better than I had given myself credit for. I won’t say too much more for fear of sounding arrogant, but they were bloody great. Plus, there’s nothing more rewarding than laughing at your own jokes.

In a recent post, I pondered my lack of hits recently and came to the conclusion that it was due to a lack of regular updates. Whilst this is likely to have had an effect, I realised that I have stopped writing about actual stuff. Hopefully in the near future I’ll resurrect some of my old blogging topics and blow you away in a flurry of wordage. Stay tuned, blog-lovers.

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BBC Radio Pub Quiz

April 19, 2011 9 Comments

Ok, I know I’m banging on a bit about this now, but let me have my moment of glory.  Last night, I made a guest appearance on BBC Radio Leeds\Yorkshire’s Late Show, thanks to my good friend, and 6 Music legend, Vic McGlynn.  I was asking some pub quiz questions that were anything other than your traditional quiz questions (i.e. it was me being really stupid).

If you’d like to listen, then check out this link (presumably for the next 7 days):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00g19pw

The quiz starts at 1:25:00 into the show. Enjoy.

P.s.

I’m not suggesting that you start a campaign to plead with the BBC to get the pub quiz as a regular show on one of their national networks. I’m not suggesting that at all.

P.p.s.

The photo above was very much a staged publicity-style shot  taken for vanity-based reasons and in no way represents what really happened during the broadcast.

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D.D.I.Y.

April 1, 2011 Leave a comment

See Image:Gold doorknob.jpg

Image via Wikipedia

Today saw me perform the most in depth piece of D.I.Y. that I’ve done for a couple of years.   I finally replaced a door knob on my wardrobe that fell off about a year ago.  Not only that, I replaced the other two knobs so that they’re all silver (in colour) and not horrible gold.  It’s only taken me 6 years of living here to get them matching the other door handles in the house.

You can probably tell that I’m not a huge home improvement enthusiast.  The reasons for this are threefold:

  1. I’m incredibly lazy, by nature.
  2. D.I.Y. is something that grown ups do.
  3. I’m a single man and so I’m lacking the suitable “motivation” (I’m phrasing that as diplomatically as possible for all the non-single men out there – I don’t want to get you into trouble).

Those reasons aside, the biggest obstacle to me getting stuck into a bit of decorating is that I just don’t care.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t mean that in a teenage, “I don’t give a shit” way.  I just mean that this kind of stuff just isn’t on my radar.  It’s like I’ve developed some kind of special vision where the scuff marks on the wall aren’t actually there.  I live by myself, so it just doesn’t seem to matter; I don’t have anyone to impress.

An example of how my selective eyesight works is when I know that I’m expecting a visitor.  I can be living my life, quite happily, and truly believe that I’m inhabiting a model home.  Then I get a visitor and the veil falls from my eyes.  I realise that I’m living in, what experts would describe as, “a shit-hole”.  I quickly break out the vacuum cleaner and micro-fibre cloths from their emergency shelter and manically attempt to avoid humiliation.

Luckily, I have an incredibly hard-working brother who is very generous with his time, so my house will be spared from complete rack and ruin.  Praise the lord for families.

ADDENDUM:

Not long after I finished writing this, my brother turned up to paint my front door for me.  I’d love to say that he just came around to help me do it, but it would be too much of a betrayal of his kindness to lie about it.  Even though it makes me look like a lazy shit.  Anyway, he walked into the house and handed me what looked like four small wooden mushrooms.

I held them out in my hand and stared at them blankly.

“I’ve just taken them out,” he said. “You were already missing one of them.”

I continued to stare blankly.

“They were all going rotten,” he continued.  ”I’m going to have to fill them.”

With the “continuing to stare at the wooden mushroom things in an attempt to jog any kind of recognition” strategy failing badly, I decided to go outside and find five holes where a small wooden mushroom might fit.  I gave the door a good visual going-over.  I was still struggling.

“Errr, I don’t understand,” I said.

“Up there,” he patiently informed.

Ah.  It became clear.

Above my front door, is a kind of porch\canopy thingy.  I don’t know the actual name for it, but I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you by this stage.  The condition of this canoporch was such that a haunted house would have been ashamed of it.

It was the first time I’d ever noticed.  I’m an idiot.

Praise the lord for families.

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