Q: "Hal - where the f*** have you been?" A: "Failing to Kill Slugs".

Hello again after another (more than) 2 week layoff... so what have I been doing that's so important that I couldn't post for all that time?

failing with a beer trap.


I made the trap for the slugs that are really laying into the cabbages we are trying to grow over the winter. Filled a plastic container with some Quilmes Argentinian lager (it was all I had left over from the BBQ we had last week), and sunk it into the soil next to the cabbage patch. Result after 48 hours: a beer trap with two wasps, three beetles, one worm, and no slugs. The bastards are too clever for me. Luckily I have some other alternatives without resorting to chemicals - a border of crushed eggshells (easily available from most garden centres or you could indeed make your own if you eat enough eggs) works well. Note to self: use bitter, instead of lager, in the beer trap in future. Maybe these slugs are CAMRA members.

Never mind... courgettes and squashes are now doing very well and the slugs don't seem to go for them. More excitement from the garden to come in the autumn...

I'd like to say that was all I'd done for the last two weeks. But it would be a lie. I somehow like the idea of someone spending 2 weeks laying a beer trap and then failing miserably. The Lottery will probably give me money to make a film about it with some ex footballers.

Topical blog of the day: quilmes.blogspot.com

(Expect at least one of these with each post from now on. I am trying to find the most genuinely lame and useless blogs out there - and it seems to be surprisingly easy.)

Apologies for this extended interruption to the service

Been no post here for almost 2 weeks which I'm well aware of.

This is mainly because I am going on holiday next week and I have so much crap to sort out before that. But I will make regular posts next week and beyond... you can count on that.

Also... it's a one man show from now on. I killed off Seth and Barney. I put an axe through their heads. I've got... tapes of some of it. Harold... I killed a lot of people. Perhaps, like "Horselover Fat" in Philip K Dick's Valis, they never really existed at all. Perhaps they were honest Tory MPs.

Never mind. Giroscope is now just Hal Berstram... in time for its 1st birthday.

For rock'n'roll, dope and frowning in the streets.

Piece and frakkin'. BEE LEAVE - don't sting me now.

Cheers all. Until the next shot of coherence, give yourself a laugh and try my new technique; rather than pushing 'next blog' to go to a random blog on Blogger, try inputting a well-know (or little known?) word into the browser, followed by 'blogspot.com'.

Some ones I tried today (with varying degrees of success):
Eno
Heavy Metal
Heavy Rock
Namlook
New Labour
blogspot.blogspot
I Like It (possibly the weirdest one)
Space 1999 (weak)
Blakes Seven (possibly even weaker)
Cress (enthusiastic)

Try it... please report back if you find anything interesting.