Come back, yes-ah, with me colour TV

Blog, blog, blog! Finally I'm back after a somewhat turbulent weekend spent entertaining friends at our house while simultaneously fighting the system... okay, fighting to get my DSL connection back after it was cut off erroneously by some unthinking office jobsworth good-fer-nothing hack - alright, alright, I'm calming down already. Wow! You know you must be addicted to the internet when not being able to blog or download e-mail makes you develop several nervous tics and tourette syndrom-like verbal outbursts at even just the sight of a computer. Anyway, everything's back to normal, the marriage counsellor says we should be alright in the long run, the evil voices in my head have gone and here I am FINALLY blogging again. Ahhhhhhhhh...

(Finally, a picture of my own again - this taken while out walking in the woods above my house)

And it had all started off so well with a comment from the wonderful and seriously über-blog-tastic PARLANCHEQ that had me positively itching to respond. Oh flattery of flatteries, she had even read my profile! Or should that be taken as a sign of her concern, maybe even worry over the kind of people who'd been leaving comments on her blog recently? Whatever the case, I was (to use a Briticism) well chuffed and in a hurry to respond. See, the question was one that, I feared, might be speedily answered grace of the powers of Google if I were not quick enough. In my profile, I somewhat rashly mentioned the twin interests of Extreme Ironing and Extreme Wheelbarrowing, neither of which I currently practice. Okay, so for fairness sakes', I've also never speedluged unless you count trying to kill myself on my best friend's skateboard going flat-out down a steep hill on my back. However, I am addicted to speed and dangerous sporty stuff - you should have seen me breaking the guy on the motorscooter's nose when I hit him while trying to overtake the UPS van on my first day as a bike messenger. Okay, so anyway, what is extreme ironing, then?

(This one, clearly, courtesy of www.extremeironing.com)

Well, like many whacky and not-so-very-sane things I believe the sport was invented in Britain where a bunch of students (Tsk! Students...) came up with ways of making the chore of ironing clothes more exciting by spicing up locations and circumstances under which ironing might be performed. So, with battery-powered irons and boards in tow, they set out to steam-press shirts and the like on the top of tall buildings, in trees, underwater, etc. Obviously, proof of their achievements could only be obtained by having pictures taken while ironing. This in turn caught the attention of the media (at least in Britain and Oz) - a book was published highlighting some of the most outrageous ironing forfeits and sold mildly successfully about two years ago as a novelty coffee table item. From what I can tell, there have been no major changes in the sport since then, as the stagnation of the various "scene" websites would appear to confirm. A harmless, gimmicky sport that fits well with other Brit pastimes such as gurning, cheese-rolling or bog snorkelling, is probably adequate as a summary. As for personal involvement in the sport, I really wanted to take my ironing board with me on my first ever skydive, but my instructor wouldn't allow it. I do plan to iron while hanging off the side of our apartment at a 90° angle someday... Oh dear. This post alone has taken me almost two days (I don't have much time at the mo'), so I'll cut it short here and complete my answer to Parlancheq's question tomorrow (I hope). Meanwhile, cheerio!