Rough as a Dog's Arse...

...was how I felt yesterday evening, hence the lack of a post. There was no particular reason for my feeling that way, as far as I could see. I certainly wasn't hungover. Trust me, it takes more than two pints of Courage Best to make me feel unwell. Mind you, there was that half pint of Guinness I had in my still not-open-under-new-management local. But that's another story entirely. Still, after about twelve hours sleep, I feel a lot better. Certainly not as rough as a dog's arse. Not that I have any idea whether dogs' arses are rough or not. In fact, why do we even use a dog's arse as a point of reference for how we feel? It's like when people are described as being 'drunk as a skunk'. Why a skunk? Are they notorious for their alcohol abuse? Have you ever seen an inebriated skunk?

But then, people do say the strangest things. The other week, seeking refuge from the charity-related celebrity bollocks on BBC1 and the regular bollocks on ITV, I found myself watching the curiosity known as 'Russia Today'. If you haven't seen this 'news' channel, it's basically a post-communist Russian propaganda channel. It's slightly disconcerting to watch, as, whilst broadcast from Moscow, it's English-language service is presented by British anchors. Anyway, getting back to the point, when I saw it, the top story was the 'discovery' by locals, of hundreds of T-72 tanks and other armoured vehicles in a forest in Russia, apparently abandoned by the army. Local villagers had been all over them (undoubtedly making off with anything remotely saleable), and told TV reporters that nobody seemed to care that they had access to the vehicles, which appeared to be unguarded. One villager even declared that "you could drive off in one and nobody would notice". Now, I beg to differ with this extraordinary statement. I think that if I was to drive o my local supermarket in a fully functioning tank, people might notice. They might even find it worthy of comment. But perhaps things are different in Russia. Maybe they have drunken skunks there. Maybe they even test dogs' arses for roughness...