Cambridge Brass

I went back to Cambridge at the weekend. I think it's the first time I've been down there since around 2000, or possibly 2001. Either way, it's quite some years. I was at university there so I know the city reasonably well. Or at least I thought I did. I navigated to the hotel easily enough, but then I started to remember places I used to go to, but then realised I wasn't 100% sure of the directions any more. Example: I remembered a pub by the river called The Mill, but I couldn't quite remember how it fitted into the city. How time destroys the old grey cells. Finding it actually turned out to be quite straightforward once I was actually out walking around (It's on Mill Lane), but I still felt a little disconcerted.

Most of the colleges are closed to visitors at the moment to give the lazy students a bit of peace and quiet whilst they study for their exams. I might have been able to get into them if I'd remembered to take a university membership card or something like that, but I hadn't so that was that. I did have a wander up to my old college, Selwyn though. It hasn't changed much, from the outside at least.



They have begun to construct a whole new court next to the main part of the college. It's coming on well and seems to fit in well with the architectural style of the older parts (apart from horrid looking Cripps Court over the road). It was nice to see it in real life rather than just photos on the internet.

The reason I was in Cambridge was though completely unrelated to me being a past student there. My girlfriend's sister was competing in the confusingly named All England Masters International which is a brass band competition. And it is certainly not comprised only of teams from England, or even the UK. Odd.

A brass band competition seems to comprise of (in this case) 21 bands who all play the same 15 minute long piece. Yesterday it was Paganini's Variations (you know it - it's the one that goes Da da da da da da da da da da). If you have a good ear and are familiar with brass then you might be able to spot differences between the bands. To me though they all sounded pretty similar.

Well, ok, I didn't actually sit through all 21 of them. We left after the first two (which included the one we had gone to watch). But they both sounded fine to me. I think if I'd had to sit and listen to all of the bands I might have gone a little insane. Nobody should have to sit through something like that.

The worst thing was however the price. Sixteen pounds. Each! Arguably that's good value if you sit through all six hours of the competition, or however long it lasts for, but still... Sixteen pounds! They weren't even the best seats - we were near the back of the balcony!

Cambridge

This is cool. I'm in Cambridge this evening and as an experiment, I'm writing this on my phone! Don't know if it will work or not though!

Puzzle not Street

I think I'd forgotten how much fun Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo was to play. Way better than the Street Fighting variety. I've remembered now.

Sandwich News

Over the last couple of years, a lot of Subways have opened in York. I'm talking about the sandwich shops rather than the underground tunnels. To the best of my knowledge, York still lacks a decent subway system. It could be a secret, eyes only type network I suppose. Possibly used to smuggle illegal vicars out of the Minster.

I have only eaten from Subway once before, and that time I didn't actually go in myself - Chip went in and did all the complicated stuff. That was about two years ago. Today I felt like trying the full experience for myself. Not sure why, I just did.

I had a Foot Long Chicken Teriyaki on Hearty Italian bread (Toasted) with Lettuce, Red Onion and (stop me if you're bored) Green Peppers. With Sweet Onion Sauce. Now it was undeniably a very tasty sandwich. But it cost £4.60!! I could have had two pints of beer for that! Or a Pizza Hut All You Can Eat Buffet plus two packets of crisps. It seems like a VERY EXPENSIVE SANDWICH to me.

But it was good, and I would return. I'll just have to save up first.

In other completely unrelated news, I've just noticed that Flickr has finally gone out of Beta! And in to... Gamma. Hmmmm.

Beware of Peril

I'm a big fan of the little messages on TV film trailers that warn of the nasty things that may be in store for unsuspecting viewers ie "contains scenes of sex and violence". The best ones are the ones that warn of quite innocuous things. "Contains mild peril" seems to pop up on children's films from time to time. I'm never sure quite how perilous peril can get before it ceases to be mild and becomes instead just "peril" or perhaps even "strong peril".

I also worry about the films that warn that they contain "language". That's just odd.

I saw a trailer for the new monkey-based cartoon Curious George the other day. The warning on this one was a bit strange. It said "contains no sex, violence or bad language". This is weird.

Why have they felt the need to mention that there is no sex in a children's animated cartoon about a monkey? Do parents watch a trailer and think "Wow, that film looks great for my children but there's a risk that the curious monkey, George, might take a banana and be curious as to what might happen if he stuffs it up his arse. Oh, no it's fine. The warning implies there will be no monkey-buggery here. It's safe". Have perhaps parents been burnt by unexpected cartoon sex before? Was there some in Bambi that I missed?

I just don't get it.

Going somewhat the other way is the upcoming film Reeker. I know nothing about this film but my attention was drawn to it by a letter in this month's Total Film. The warning for this film says "This film is not yet rated. Graphic bloody violence, terror, language, drug-use, half a trucker".

Yes, Half A Trucker. How cool is that? Probably not suitable for children though.

Drivetime

I went driving in a car this evening for the first time in over three years. I was expecting it to be quite scary but it wasn't too bad. Clifton Moor is quite fun to drive around in an evening if you like car parks. Then I drove round the ring road to Monks Cross and did some shopping. Beer, wine, crisps and pizza. What more could I ever need from a supermarket?

I was quite pleased with myself that I wasn't distracted by car numberplates whilst I was behind the wheel. Last time I drove I wasn't playing CNPS. Now that I am, I have to be careful to avoid crashes whilst monitoring plates. It went ok and I even got one spot whilst on the road. Which rather nicely was my third of the day.

217.

I got wet

Today has mostly been rainy. Yesterday was fairly wet, but today was super-wet. I spent most of the afternoon with wet legs after I stupidly decided to go out at lunchtime. I didn't take an umbrella with me (not my brightest move) and so I rapidly became soaked. When I got back I had to dry my hair with a pret-a-manger napkin. It wasn't really successful. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Finland, Finland, Finland

Last night was the 51st Eurovision song contest. Our annual dose of odd euro-tunes and strange dancing. This year, a Finnish band came out of left field and won by a comfortable mile by dressing like aliens and playing some Death Metal.



In reality, it was about as metal as Mcfly. It was very entertaining though, and featured lines like "It's the a-rock-a-lypse" which it would be hard to use in any song in a bad way.

Lithuania deserve a special mention for possibly the most blatantly unsubtle. yet briliant lyrics I've ever witnessed: "we are the winnners, of Eurovision - vote for us" etc. They came about fifth in the end which made them liars. Shame.

Beast racing

I went to the horse races yesterday. It was very very windy. Although not sunny, it would have been warm enough without the wind. With the wind it was a little unpleasant at times but, being British, we darn well suffered it and stayed outside as much as possible.

Due to stopping off for a pint and a burger along the way we missed the first race, or at least the opportunity to place a bet on it. The next four races didn't go so well for me though - I lost five pounds on each one by choosing shit horses. Luckily in the sixth race my horse came in at 5 to 1 (well done Collateral Damage!) putting me five pounds up in total. I then did something rather sensible - I quit while I was ahead. I could have put the five pounds of winnings on the final race and ended up no worse off than break even. But I didn't! I took my money home. Wise decision as it turns out as I would have selected another donkey.

We also went to look at some of the horses in the paddock. They are big! I don't normally get so close to the animals but they really are big beasts!

A decent performance

I just heard this evening that my team from last week's treasure hunt, Beg, Steal or Zorro somehow managed to actually win the thing. To celebrate this momentous feat, I dressed back up as Zorro and attacked, and captured Clifford's Tower.



Seems like our scores weren't top of the hill in any category, but we put in a solid performance across the board - decent costumes, decent treasure, decent quiz answers, decent drinking and decent whatever else. It all led to an overall first place. Go us!

Actually, there was one category we did do best in and that was getting video(s) of people answering the question "What Is An Actuary". And that video was my baby. Go me! Not sure I contributed too much else though :-)

A Doctor Who Conspiracy...

I'm not normally one for conspiracy theories but I think there's something going on over at the offices of New Scientist. Specifically I think that:

New Scientist is in league with the creators of Doctor Who and are publishing articles to make people believe that stories in said programme could actually happen.

I have evidence.

A couple of weeks ago, shortly before the episode where everyone's favourite robot dog, K9, returned to our screens, an article was published about... Robot Dogs! Scientists have been using Sony's (now discontinued) Aibo to conduct research into robotics. Now that it is no longer being produced they need to build an alternative. "Now is the time for us to stop being lazy and using Sony's platform. We need to get together to build a better system." says David Calkins of San Francisco State University. What would his ideal replacement look like? It would be "brick shaped and include a standard computer "brain" From that base it would be completely modifiable. Researchers could snap on different heads, legs, cameras and sensors". Presumably wheels too. Sounds like a perfect prototype for something that could one day evolve into K9!

But that's not all. The next evidence is even stronger!

In this week's issue (13 May) there is a special report on "Enhanced Humans". "Why settle for what you were born with?" it asks. "Are you ready for your upgrade?" it also asks. It talks about replacing body parts with artificial ones... can it only be coincidence that this was published in the same week that the Cybermen returned in Doctor Who? I think not.

I will be scouring future issues for some more evidence.

What's that coming over the hill?

Heard a fantastic song on the radio the other day: Monster by The Automatic. I don't know much about the band - they're possibly quite well known. I'm not sure. The song's great anyway. A real stomper.

Still tired again today and lacking the energy and imagination to write anything longer than th

Bedtime

I haven't written any of the hilarious things I meant to write today. But now it's bedtime and I'm tired. Goodnight world!

How to make gammon

I went back to Sheffield today to visit my parents, sister, bro-in-law and nephew. It's always excellent to get a decent home-cooked Sunday lunch. Today was gammon.

This made me realise something. Gammon comes from pigs. Pork also comes from pigs. Pork is not gammon. I have no idea what makes pig into gammon compared to what makes it into pork. I could probably look it up but I'm lazy. I will assume for the sake of argument that the pig-slaughterer has two knives: a pork knife and a gammon knife. Each of these knives has been blessed by a different meat-god. Hence if the pig-slaughterer wants to make gammon all he has to do are the following steps. I've phrased them in a way that a text-adventure parser would understand - this might be useful for you if you ever need to kill a pig in Zork.

1. Choose pig
2. Take gammon knife
3. Kill pig with gammon knife
4. Enjoy gammon
5. Quit

Your score is 3/200. You are a loser.

The Drinks of Zorro

Another actuarial pub treasure hunt on Thursday which meant more fancy dress fun. This time me and my team were Zorros - masked up, sworded fighters for all that is good.



I'm not quite sure what I was thinking when I took this next photo:



One task we had for the evening was to find a stranger and film them answering the question "What is an actuary?" - a question that even I have been known to struggle with from time to time. We only needed to get one, but I got a bit carried away and ended up with about nine videos. Hard to pick a favourite, but I did like the answer given by a young couple down by the river. The guy tried for a while to give an answer and wasn't really close - he sounded to be describing an auditor if anything. His girlfriend though finally had inspiration and shouted in at the end "and they're gay!".

I also liked the chap on reception in the Moat House Hotel who despite looking very confused and slightly scared by us did try to give an answer and didn't call security to eject us. The firemen in the fire station were much less friendly though. They wouldn't talk to me at all. Stupid life-saving uniformed miserables.

Top Time-saving Tip

My new shiny box has an excellent time-saving feature that I hadn't anticipated. Possibly all similar boxes do this too.

If you've recorded something on to the hard drive you can play it back before work in the morning. So far so normal. But then when you watch it back, rather than watch in realtime, you can play it back at 1.5x normal speed. The sound is all still fine, speech is perfectly understandable and not even raised in pitch. The only times things are hard to follow are periods of fast talking, or fast action scenes. Other than that it's just like normal except everyone has a bit of a hurry on.

It works really well! And it means I can watch a 45 minute programme in just half an hour. An extra 15 minutes of my life is released for other things!

If only I could do the same thing at work...

The pineapple ain't so bad

Nice sunny day => first fruit pastille lolly of they year. Yum!

The Argos of sandwich shops

What occurred to me today was the following: York's sandwich shop, Krusties, is the Argos of sandwich shops. Let me briefly explain.

You go in and you choose your sandwich from the menu on the wall (Argos catalogue). Sometimes they have special sandwiches on a blackboard by the front door (special offer / sale mini catalogue). Then you order your chosen sandwich (electrical appliance) from the serving wench (serving wench). Then you wait for a bit and after some time your sandwich (electrical appliance) is brought out from the back room by a different serving wench (different serving wench). Then you leave and eat your sandwich (plug in your appliance).

See? Identical!

Without wishing to take the analogy too far, Krusties also has a special glass cabinet where they keep the special things. This is again just like Argos which has a special glass cabinet for the highly classy Elizabeth Duke jewellery.

Uncanny!

Top Gear and Doctor Who

I ended up watching Top Gear last night. Not because I wanted to, just because there wasn't anything better on. But as always when I end up watching it, it was highly entertaining. Considering it is a programme about cars and not much else, and I have no major interest in cars, it's always very watchable. And it's also very funny. For example, last night they took a people carrier and inexpertly converted it into a convertible. Then they took it to a safari park, argued about whether monkeys or lions are most dangerous, before finally driving it through a very powerful carwash. It was more dangerous than both lions and monkeys because there are big sheets of exposed glass flapping around (the design of the convertible seemed to involve just removing the metal that normally surrounds the windows).

But the main thing that struck me was something else.

Richard "Top Gear" Hammond looks very like David "Dr Who" Tennant. It's uncanny.

Which brings me on to Dr Who. I'm quite enjoying the new series. The first episode wasn't the best but it's been strong since then. David Tennant is a fantastic Doctor. For the first time, the BBC have been putting commentaries for each episode online after the episode has been broadcast. Like the ones you get on DVDs, some are more interesting than others depending on who's doing them. Sometimes you get long silences as the people talking try to decide what to say, or you just hear them going "Hmmm.... ahhh..... yes.... ahhhh...." etc. But sometimes they work really well.

The most recent one (for ep 4) features writer Steven Moffat (who wrote Coupling amongst other things) and the actor who plays the not-quite-as-irritating-as-he-was-in-the-first-series Mickey, Noel Clarke. They were happy to drift off on tangents such as discussing how the monks in episode two looked like they'd been taken straight off one of the BBC One idents where they have lots of red dancers. Which is a valid point. Most of it revolved around a discussion over whether the Doctor was getting any or not.

I've got into a routine now where I listen to the commentary whilst out running on the Sunday. It's tragic really. But it entertains me and keeps my mind off the constant leg-moving.

Running water

For the second Sunday in a row I've just done an eight mile run and then had a bath with a glass of red wine (Valpolicella, if you're asking) and currently I'm actually feeling pretty good. I did a new thing this week as an experiment - I took a bottle of water with me. Often when I'm running I will think: "My mouth is quite dry. I wish I had some water to drink". But inevitably I have no water and no way of obtaining any. I don't take money out with me, and even if I did I'd have to make a stop to use it to make a purchase and I'm not allowed to make that sort of stop within my own self-imposed running rules.

Even were I to have money and even were I not to have imposed self-imposed running rules upon myself, I'm not sure most shopkeepers would want a sweaty man coming into their nice local shops to buy a bottle of water. I'd make the place look untidy. They might even think I was a violent sweaty drunk tramp and call security (ie get out their big stick from under the counter). So it's not an option for me.

Taking the water with me from the outset wasn't too bad though. The obvious drawback is that you have to carry the water with you the whole time. This isn't so bad though as it gets lighter the more you drink. And if you sweat lots then even the overall weight you're taking round may decrease as time goes on. It was only half a litre (ie half a kilogram) in any case - and it probably means I'm getting even better exercise. Minor weight training for the old arms.

I did, however, realise fairly soon that I'd made one fairly basic mistake. The water I took was straight from the fridge. Hence it was cold. This would have been alright except that I had to carry the coldness in my bare hands. Brrrr! It warmed up after a few miles though. Whether that was caused by heat being transferred from my hands, general atmospheric warming, kinetic energy from being shaken a lot or just a passing solar flare I can't say. Whatever it was, it worked and I was glad.

Death by Typewriter

I've spent some time today playing an old computer game that I've not played for years. Possibly one of the daftest (in a good way) games ever made: The Typing of The Dead. It's basically exactly the same game as the lightgun game House of The Dead 2 but rather than shoot zombies with guns you... er.. you type at them on a keyboard. For example a zombie might appear with the word "rabbit" displayed in front of it. All the player (ie me) has to do is type the letters as quickly as possible before the zombie attacks. And each letter sounds like a gunshot. Bang bang bang bang bang bang. More powerful monsters have longer phrases. Little ones might just have single letter to type.

I think the game was originally put out on the Dreamcast, possibly only in Japan, but I have the PC version. This has led to a very surreal design decision on the part of the makers. Virtually all the in game graphics are identical to those in House of the Dead 2 except for one change. Rather than the lead good guys carrying guns around with them, they now have keyboards strapped around their front and a Dreamcast strapped on their back Ghostbusters stylee. So this means that rather than the keyboard just being a substitute for a gun for gaming purposes, it has also replaced the gun for story and visual purposes too. It's just plain odd.

Despite the inherent weirdness, the game works really well and is lots of fun to play. And it even has a proper touch-typing tutorial mode too in case you start having too much fun.

I'd quite like to see a version of Saving Private Ryan with the same replacements. The beach landing scene would be hilarious. I suppose there'd be a further level of incredulity caused here since Dreamcasts weren't invented until 1999. But then Tom Hanks isn't really a soldier either (no, really - he isn't) so maybe you could put it all down to the magic of the movies.

Shiny new toy

Today I finally leave behind the murky world of VHS video cassettes forever. And not a day too soon - they're rubbish. I've just got myself a combined DVD-recorder, hard-drive recorder and Freeview box which means I can now do all sorts of fun things like... er... watch DVDs, record things and watch digital telly. Which is cool, except I could do all those things already. I'm sure I'll find some proper advantages to the new system soon.

Hopefully soon, anyway. I haven't actually got the thing yet. I'm sitting around waiting for a delivery van to arrive. It's due anytime between 5pm and 8pm, so I still have potentially another hour to wait. This is annoying because:

a) I want my new shiny toy
b) I want to go running tonight before it starts raining

The rain isn't definite but I think it's pretty likely since it's been dead warm all day.

Anyway, one advantage I definitely will have is a reduction in the amount of boxes and spaghetti around my television. I'll be combining three existing boxes plus all their wires into a single unit. There'll still be a load of other stuff cluttering up the area but it'll be a certain improvement on the prior position.

So now I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting, bit bored. Perhaps I'll just sit here typing nonsense for the next hour.

Nah.

What could be better than pizza and beer?

Whilst in Glasgow, we visited the Republic Bier Halle. It's like a German beer hall and sells a huge range of beers. However, I feel it has improved on the German model in two very important ways:

1. The Food
2. It's not in Germany

Item 2 here speaks for itself. Item 1 requires a little more explanation. A typical German beer hall sells food that is typically German: mostly sausage and cabbage. All German food ends in "age" I think - it must be a local law. Anyway, the Glasgow place has abandoned this and instead serves really nice pizza. Good thin crispy base, and excellent range of toppings. It's cheap too - they seem to have it on 2 for 1 most of the time. I like.

Drink Limitations

Last night I went to see Snow Patrol at the Glasgow ABC - an old cinema that's been converted into a venue.



It was a great gig, even though I don't approve of what Gary's done to his hair. He seems to have had a perm. Not a good look.



I had a strange experience at the bar. I went to order two glasses of red wine, and the lady serving me said that they were only allowed to give one alcoholic drink per person. Because I had gone to the bar on my own, I was unable to prove that the second drink was for someone else over 18 and so she only let me buy one (large) glass of red wine.

This was odd because:
a) earlier in the evening, two beers had been purchased in similar circumstances with no problems,
b) the wine was easily big enough to count as two drinks had it been in two glasses rather than one. I could easily have taken this extra large wine and shared it with a hypothetical 17 year old elsewhere in the venue.

After I'd bought the drink, I think I was supposed to leave the bar. However, I asked the lady if I could then buy a second glass of red wine. She thought for a couple of seconds and then said ok. Although this was the result I wanted, it clearly makes a mockery of the whole rule and the serving wench in question should probably be sacked. Doesn't she realise that I could have been buying that second wine for a child?

It seemed like such a weird, odd rule though. I think the implication was that had I been buying drinks for a group of four 40 year old men (rather than one 30 year old man and a girl who was definitely over 18) I would have had to take all three of the other men to the bar with me or maybe just their ID cards, should they have thought to bring them. Maybe people just don't buy drinks for other people in Glasgow.

One thing that was nice about all the bars though was the new Scottish no-smoking law. It really does make places more pleasant to visit. Roll on Summer 2007 where the same thing will be introduced down here.

Coffee time

I made some Espressos (Espressi? Espressa? Espresseywessey?) yesterday. They turned out well:



Any resemblance between this photo and a pair of breasts is entirely coincidental. And would have to relate to a very odd looking lady.

Running, Brothels and Red Wine

This evening I have done my longest ever run - eight miles in just over eighty minutes. The half marathon is starting to feel achievable.

When I got home, I was obviously a little tired. So I decided to have an actual bath. I can't remember the last time I had a bath - I think I've only had one since I've been in the flat (ie in the last three years!). It was quite good though. I had some Ylang and Neroli bubble bath which is supposed to be a muscle relaxant. Certainly my legs feel ok now so maybe it works. I have no idea what either Ylang or Neroli are - they sound like two girls you might meet in a Thai brothel Maybe they make the bubble bath in their spare time and sell it on for a bit of extra cash for the weekend.

To make the bath extra decadent, I also took a glass of red wine with me (to drink rather than to add to the bath itself). Yeah, I know it's a bit gay, but it was good nevertheless.

One third

I'm a third of the way through my run-a-thon, both in terms of distance travelled and of time taken. 167 miles done, 333 more to go. That's still quite a long way.

On a scale of Paris to York, I'm just about to leave the French A1 and head towards Calais. The traffic has been reasonable and I'm hoping that the English Channel will not be too choppy. It'll be good to return to England.

Planning to do a longish run (seven miles or so) tomorrow, subject to hangovers.

Birthday cakes

I was supposed to have bought cakes for my colleagues at work for my birthday. I was supposed to have done this at the start of last week, but I forgot. And then I forgot at the start of this week too. On Wednesday, my boss drew me a diagram explaining how to buy cakes, with a deadline of Thursday. On Thursday however, I was too busy. So today my whole team frogmarched me to the cake shop where I finally bought the cakes. I wouldn't have minded except that I was full of lunch at the time and didn't want a cake. So I didn't have one.

Some things about Madrid

At the weekend, I went to Madrid with a few friends to celebrate my birthday (which was the previous weekend). Flew out on Friday afternoon, returned on Sunday night.

I haven't been to Spain since I was a teenager, when I spent a month around (but mostly not actually in) Alicante. Back then, they still had Pesetas, booze was dead cheap and everywhere looked like a building site. Now, in 2006 they have Euros, booze is a similar price to here but everywhere still looks like a building site. Come on Spain, finish building your stuff already!

Madrid airport is pretty huge. We flew into Terminal 4, and then had to go on the longest underground monorail journey in the world in order to get to the terminal exit. The monorail was pretty cool though - it looked just like the one at the start of the original Half Life, just without the occasional huge industrial cavern. Overall it took us the best part of three hours from getting off the plane to arriving at the hotel in the centre of Madrid (it involved a little bus, the monorail, some walking, a bigger bus and four Metro lines). Note to anyone arriving at T4: Just get a taxi into town instead. You won't regret it.

Here's a view of Madrid from afar. You have to get a cable car to get to where this was taken from. The Palacio Real (Royal Palace) is dead centre.



Random thoughts and things:

1. Madrid is right in the middle of Spain. This means it has no beaches, unlike some of the edges of the country.

2. Madrid does however seem to have a lot of rain. On the Saturday we got caught in possibly the most torrential rain storm I've ever been in, ever. With added large hail. It was so wet it was funny. But we did get very wet. For some time afterwards, there were huge drifts of used hailstones all over the city. Looked like sago.



3. Most food is ham or cheese. Some places serve ham and cheese together.

4. Our hotel was near a big train station, Atocha. For some reason unbeknownst to me, some madman at some point in the past decided to build a tropical garden smack in the middle of it:



I don't know why he (it must have been a he) did this.

5. I had a challenge set for me to drink 30 beers over the weekend. I was rubbish at this and only got through 15. Which included 2 whilst waiting for the train home in Manchester. I think I'd have been ok if wine counted.

6. There's a big famous art gallery, The Prado. It's mostly quite old paintings in there rather than more modern ones. What this seemed to equate to was about five hundred paintings of Jesus (many of which featured the poor thing being crucified) and Bosch's Garden of Unearthly Delights, which was a bit smaller than I was expecting. I preferred the Reina Sofia which seems to be mostly 20th century art. I like the Joan Miro stuff. Apparently he's pronounced "Huan" rather than "Joan". Little tip for you there to make you look cleverer than you are.

All in all, it was a good weekend - many thanks to everyone who made it out there with me :-)

Strange Fruit

I did an unusual thing today - I actively took a piece of fruit to work. This was fruit that I had in my house already, that I had bought at the supermarket yesterday. As I left the flat I thought: "Hmmm, it would be nice to have a piece of fruit during the morning today. Luckily, I have some fruit so I shall take a piece with me." And this I did.

It was not a banana, apple, lemon, grapefruit, pomegranate, melon, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, starfruit, norton, pineapple, kiwi, blueberry or lime.

It was a clementine.

Unfortunately I put it in my drawer and forgot about it. Oh well.

(Some Madrid stuff tomorrow. Probably. Today all I have time for is a mediocre fruit anecdote)

Number ones of my life

I got an excellent late birthday present from Bert - a couple of CDs with all the songs that have been UK number one on my birthday for the last 30 years (ie since I was born). 31 songs in all, here's the list.

1976: Brotherhood of Man - Save our kisses for me
1977: Abba - Knowing me, knowing you
1978: Brian & Michael - Matchstalk men and matchstalk cats and dogs
1979: Art Garfunkel - Bright Eyes
1980: Detroit Spinners - Working my way back to you
1981: Shakin' Stevens - This old house
1982: Goombay Dance Band - Seven tears
1983: David Bowie - Let's dance
1984: Lionel Richie - Hello
1985: Philip Bailey & Phil Collins - Easy lover
1986: Cliff Richard & The Young Ones - Living doll
1987: Ferry Aid - Let it be
1988: Pet Shop Boys - Heart
1989: Madonna - Like a prayer
1990: Madonna - Vogue
1991: Chesney Hawkes - The one and only
1992: Shakespeare's Sister - Stay
1993: Bluebells - Young at heart
1994: Take That - Everything changes
1995: Take That - Back for good
1996: Prodigy - Firestarter
1997: R Kelly - I believe I can fly
1998: Run DMC vs Jason Nevins - It's like that
1999: Mr Oizo - Flat beat
2000: Westlife - Fool again
2001: Emma Bunton - What took you so long
2002: Gareth Gates - Unchained Melody
2003: Room 5 feat. Oliver Cheatham - Make Luv
2004: McFly - 5 colours in her hair
2005: Tony Christie feat. Peter Kay - Is this the way to Amarillo
2006: Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

Now, if I had to pick a favourite from this list I think it would have to be Take That's classic Back for good, one of the finest pop songs of the 90s. The honour of worst song probably goes to Mr Oizo - close call between that and R Kelly. Rubbish.

Overall though, the list isn't too bad given that number ones tend often to be crap. I myself didn't buy any of these as singles and hence can't claim any small part in their subsequent success. But well done to each and every one of them. Except Mr Oizo. And R Kelly.

I'm the King of Spain!

I'm going to Madrid in Spain for the weekend because it was my birthday and I wanted to go somewhere, but not last weekend when it was actually my birthday because it was Easter and I thought it might be busy and I didn't want that. I leave in half an hour and I've just about finished packing - I started aiming to use just hand luggage, then decided I'd need a hold-all as well. But then I rethought and figured that I didn't really need two pairs of trousers in addition to the ones I'm wearing now, so I'm back down to a single rucksack. Other than that, I think I have everything I need.

The only thing I haven't done yet is learn any useful Spanish phrases (apart from "Can I have a beer, please?") but I'm sure I'll get by. In any case, I will have some Spanish speakers with me. They will be able to order any non-beer drinks I want!

Auf wiedersehen!

Different name, same dumb stories

I mentioned very briefly on Monday that York's newspaper, the Evening Press, is actually published in the morning - implying that this was a slightly silly state of affairs. Well it seems that they may have listened to me, as I read today that from next week it's going to have a brand spanking new name. It will be called... The Press. See what they've done? They've removed the word "Evening" to remove any limitations on the time of day they can publish without ridicule.

I feel like I've achieved something.

My Little Bonsai

I got a bonsai tree for my birthday:



It says that I should keep it in a bright place, but out of direct sunlight. And also that I should also water it once a day AND sprinkle the leaves. Frankly it's hard enough to remember to take a shower once a day so I don't know how I'm supposed to look after a tree as well.

And as for sprinkling the leaves, I have no idea how I'm supposed to do that without getting my table all wet. No idea what I'd even use to sprinkle it. A tiny pixie watering can? Actually if I could hire a pixie gardener to look after it all my problems might be solved... Where's my Yellow Pages?

Darn. They're not in it. They'd be between "Pitch and Putt Courses" and "Pizza Deliveries" if they were, but they're not. I can only conclude that there hasn't been much demand for super-diminutive tree-carers in the York area. Well - there is now! If there are any pixies reading, give me a bell if you can help.

Stag Don't

I was that close to phoning up a place yesterday to book myself on to a friend's stag weekend in September and pay the fifty pound deposit. Then I checked the date one last time and had a brief think. I realised that it was the same weekend as the Great North Run. I'm not sure that it would be clever to precede a half marathon with two nights of heavy drinking. No, definitely a bad idea. So I didn't phone and I won't be going :-(

Moral: Don't do half marathons - they really mess up your calendar.

Breaking News

I thought you might like an update on the latest exciting news within the York area. I have a copy of the Evening Press (published every morning!) with me, so I'll summarise the highlights:

1. Two neighbours have had a bit of a spat - a black guy moved in next to a white guy and they didn't really get on. Shades of the old sitcom Love Thy Neighbour here... Another case of reality copying fiction (admittedly with a 30 year gap). The white guy has now been convicted of "using racial language". Possibly it meant racist...?

2. A small ad tells us that someone has lost a blue bike in the Thief Lane area. I expect it was stolen.

3. Complaints against police officers have gone up since last year from 324 to 392. They also received 283 letters of appreciation, presumably from different people. I have neither complained nor appreciated the police today, though I did wonder internally why a few of them seemed to be guarding the Judges' Lodgings this lunchtime.

4. Firefighters near Selby had to put out a fire after men on a farm accidentally tried to put out a "burning rag" using paint thinner rather than water. Not too bright. No mention is made of why they had set fire to a rag in the first place. Since they were near Selby, I can only assume it was boredom.

5. If you're over 50, the monthly over 50s club is on Thursday in Strensall Village Hall, at 2pm. There will be bingo! Over 50s only.

6. Joy-riders stole and trashed a sit-down lawnmower in Hopgrove. Oh the fun that the youth of today have. Why can't they just light rags like their elders do? That's all the fun a man needs.

7. "A national survey has found York residents are the most knowledgeable and devoted in the country when it comes to all things meaty". I can back this up. I often eat meat and can name at least three different kinds.

8. A Mrs Hjort of Crayke has become a York Minster guide. She's taking a group of ten ladies on a tour on the 22 May. Book early to avoid disappointment on that one!

9. York City are still shit.

10. No time for a number 10 today! Sorry!

This is your roving reporter signing off. See ya!

Portrait of a Tortured Rock Star

It's Easter Sunday and I have had no chocolate. I think I will remedy that shortly.

I've just been watching Derren Brown on telly again. He did a thing today where he almost literally crucified Robbie Williams - I assume the symbolism was intentional given the timing. Robbie was taken to some industrial complex, strapped onto a metal frame, arms in the crucifixion posture, and then put into a mild relaxed state (I don't think Jesus had that crutch). Derren then pushed some large metal pins through Robbie's exposed arms, whilst the little pop star recited Three Blind Mice over and over. This actually made for quite uncomfortable viewing. It all seemed very sinister - possibly that combination of industrial decor, torture and children's nursery rhymes.

Robbie seemed unharmed by the whole exercise, though one of his arms was bleeding a bit afterwards. Poor lamb.

Next week: Derren sets fire to James Blunt (maybe)

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, it happened. I turned 30. No bad.

Do you like my subtle badge?



It had lovely flashing LCDs. Sparkly.

I'm all out of tocks

It's like I can hear the clock ticking. Tick. Tick. Tick. The last few ticks come one by one. Then it'll be time. Tick. Tick. Tick.

 

Tick.

 

Farewell, youth.

Back-up time

My evening tonight is going to comprise of: Backing up hard drives! My favourite pastime! I'm so excited by this prospect that I am going to start it now and not write the very long and interesting piece that I otherwise would have done.

Rabbit rabbit rabbit

Yesterday I went running around the back end of the racecourse. It turns out that's where all the little rabbits live in York. Little cute bunny rabbits. Awwww. I think they were enjoying Spring. Rabbits are great.

Bri-i-ight eyeeeees. Burning like fi-errrr....

Wipeout

One of my favourite authors is Stephen Baxter. He writes excellent big-scale hard science fiction. He does however seem to have two obsessions:

1. Destroying the Earth and/or the Human Race
2. Monkeys

Most of his books seem to feature one or both of these themes. Perhaps his crowning achievement on this front was Evolution which not only featured more monkeys than you could shake a banana at, it also documented the eventual extinction of all monkeys, humans and ultimately all life itself.

I think he maybe needs a hug.

I've just read Titan which was written about ten years ago. At the time, it was science fiction. Now, the first half is strictly alternate history, though with some uncanny parallels with actual history such as a second Shuttle disaster on re-entry. The second half of the book is still set in the future (for now). It's a tale of a last ditch attempt to get a mission to Saturn's moon, Titan, to keep the space dream alive and to also investigate evidence from the Cassini probe that there could have been ammonia-based life out there.

Even in this story of human hardship and survival (it's a six year, one way trip to Titan) Baxter can't resist just casually extincting the whole human race (apart from the few guys in space). One page there are billions of humans happily getting on with their lives. The next, Bam, all gone. Just because he can, and because he likes doing it. And possibly because he hadn't managed to shoehorn any monkeys into the book.

If anyone knows of an author who's committed human-race-icide more times than Baxter, I'd love to know.

Afterwards, I had fish and chips

I popped down to Sheffield this weekend to see my parents. Ostensibly, this was so that they could see me for my birthday since they wouldn't be seeing me next weekend. Except that now they are also planning to visit me on Friday too so I feel like I've been slightly conned somehow.

Mother just happened though (what a coincidence!) to be singing in a choral concert last night at Sheffield Cathedral. She also had got hold of a ticket for me (how convenient!) so I was able to go along to watch. I'm not really a fan of choirs and old fashioned music so I apologise if what follows seems a little negative.

Sheffield Cathedral itself is a bit nicer than I was expecting though in common with churches everywhere, the seats were damn uncomfy. It looks relatively new from the outside since it got bombed in World War 2 but inside there is a lot of much older stonework which makes the building feel much more cathedral-like than it might otherwise. It's being done up a bit too at the moment, the main impact of which is that the toilets are currently in portakabins outside the main entrance.

We (we being myself, father and a couple of mum and dad's friends) sat at the back of the room - an ideal place to watch something if there's a danger of falling asleep. The programme was split into two halves. The first was described as "a sequence of sacred motets and organ music". I had no idea what a motet is. And I still don't. But what this bit consisted of was some choral singing, then a bit of organ, then half the choir would wander off into one of the transepts of the cathedral and sing where nobody could see them, leaving the rest of the choir at the front doing nothing at all. This seemed odd to me. I think it probably seemed odd to the non-singing part of the choir too (which included my mother). They'd then come back repeat this whole sequence of events. It sounded nice enough, I suppose, though I was pretty bored by it.

The second half (after a quick interval spent in a local boozer) was a rendition of Schutz's St. Matthew Passion. As far as I have determined, a "passion" in the musical sense is a retelling of one of the gospels set to music. What this then seems to equate to is the composer rewriting the gospel in his own words, but still completely in prose, and then people singing the resulting text. Unlike an actual play where there might be some acting and stuff, here there is also a narrator (called "The Evangelist") who sings out narrative bits and also things like "Jesus said unto him" and "And they answered and said" - things that would be normally unnecessary.

The singing itself is also strange. There are no discernible tunes, motifs or even rhythms. Instead they just sing notes and sometimes go up and sometimes go down, seemingly at random.

Now, it's likely that it all just seems odd to me because I'm unfamiliar with the form and I'm a Philistine and because there were no guitars. But I would be willing to put a small wager that this is genuinely a form of music that is odd, somewhat boring and lacking in anything we now take for granted in music (like a tune). On the plus side, the guy being Jesus had a really good beard, though not in the style that it is generally accepted was worn by Jesus. This one was a bit more Rasputin.

As a second plus point, the passion only lasted for about 50 minutes. I'm told that someone (possibly Bach) did a St Matthew Passion that goes on for over three hours! That might have taken me over the edge.

Muddy Boots

Last weekend my normal boots that I wear all the time got very muddy after I walked across some unnecessary Harrogate grass. I have been too lazy to actually clean them and so I just haven't worn them all week. Until yesterday when I hoped maybe I'd find a puddle or a small amount of rain or something like that - some minor moisture just to wash off the residual mud.

On the way home from the pub last night, it really pissed it down. I got very very wet. Towel-needing wet. But it did sort out my boots. I wonder if they're dry yet...?

And your mind gets dirty...

It's the last Friday of my 20s. I really should dig out that "things I was supposed to do before I'm 30" list. Or possibly start a new one.

Pensions and Disease

Quick Quiz:

Was the most exciting thing that was in the news today:

a) A-Day (implementation of the new simplified pensions regime)
b) The discovery of deadly bird-flu in Scotland
c) The first cars being attached to the Yorkshire Wheel

The answer is of course a) because pensions are very exciting. Oh, I could talk about pensions for hours. I'm not allowed to advise you though. I'm not qualified to do that.

The bird-flu epidemic in Scotland is quite fun. Technically it's maybe not an epidemic yet, since it has only affected one poor mute swan. But give it a few days and we'll all be choking on the floor like people do in 24 all the time when they've inhaled nerve gas (*) and running for our lives as soon as a pigeon turns its menacing gaze upon us.

To think, when I was a kid, everyone thought we'd all die from nuclear war, terrorists, global warming, acid rain or massive meteor impact. In fact, all we should have been worried about was swans. A single swan can start panic and mayhem. The ugly duckling has grown up into a carrier of a dangerous fowl disease.

I'm not scared though. No, not me. I rarely get man-flu so I figure I have to be immune to bird-flu. Birds are much weaker than men and hence so must be their respective flus.


(* quick note to anybody easily scared - bird-flu does not spread quite as quickly as nerve gas does. It's also not quite as deadly. Not quite.)

Split the week

I've had a day off work today - mainly as part of an effort to reduce my outstanding holidays to a level I can carry over to the next year without losing any. I think I've been carrying over the same five days since I started work over eight years ago. I figure I'll use them eventually, as long as they don't have a use-by date like milk does. It would be awful to take a week away and find that your days had gone off. The swimming pool would have gunk on top of it, smell bad and would have to be thrown away. The beach would be all stuck together. And the pretty foreign girls would all have facial warts. Not a good holiday.

Maybe I won't ever take those five days after all. They sound minging.

It's nice being off on a Wednesday though - it breaks up the week into two manageable chunks: A Monday/Tuesday chunk where the world is new and everything will be achieved; and a Thursday/Friday chunk where it's not worth starting or doing anything because it's nearly the weekend.

I've done a few useful things around the flat - a bit of tidying, a bit of washing and a bit of cleaning. There is still more to do, but then there's always more of that to do. I've also read books, strummed guitar, played computer games, ran six miles and learnt to dance the Ballroom Tango. I've eaten crisps, pork pie and pizza. I've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Etc.

So not a bad day overall.

Second Largest Erection in York

It sounds strange, but there's a huge big wheel being built at the end of my road. The Yorkshire Wheel is due to open on Monday 10th April and may apparently bring a million people to York. Hopefully not all at once.

At around 60m high it should be the second highest thing in the city, beaten only by the Minster.

Since I pass the construction site several times a day, I've been taking a few photos of the build. It's gone up impressively fast.

Sunday Night:


Tuesday Morning:


Tuesday Evening:


It looks like it's all done now except for the attachment of the cars. The whole thing will have taken well under two weeks to construct which is pretty good going.

I'm looking forward to having a go. I'll probably be able to see my flat, though hopefully not into my flat as I wouldn't really want a million strangers doing that. Not without me getting a share of the admission price, at any rate.

Fat Cokes

I just had a can of coke and it made me feel really bloated. It's not fair. It wasn't even proper coke - just diet. Proof positive that diet coke leads to fat people.

Muddy Fields

The final (for now) part of Planet Earth is on in a bit. A fine series indeed. So far it's covered

1. The Poles
2. Mountains
3. Freshwater
4. Caves

And tonight is Deserts. What it hasn't yet covered is Muddy Fields. To remedy this ommission I have indulged in a spot of wildlife photography myself today.

Here are some cute lambs. Ahhh.


And here are some less cute donkeys.

Cooking with sweat

I went back to the funny curry house last night. We found another thing on the menu:



"Sweat Rice". That sounds lovely. To be fair to them, they had gone to all the menus and attempted to overwrite the error in biro, though I think this maybe drew more attention to it.

Lunchtime

I ate lunch at a restuarant called "Ate O'clock" today. I thought it would be hilarious to tell someone that you were going to phone the speaking clock and then phone this restaurant instead and pass the phone across. Oh the confusion and hilarity that could ensue. Just imagine. They'd think it was eight o'clock when in reality it might only be half past six!

Payment Arrears

I've been bad. I haven't paid the management charges on my flat this year. I was sure I set up a standing order at the start of the year, but all the evidence says I didn't. And no money has left my account either. Anyway, I've sorted it all out now. No harm done. At least it's not like I'm a director of the management company who should be setting a good example or anything like that. *ahem*

Lorries

Each morning when I wake up and look out of my bedroom window, there is at least one large lorry parked just outside on the main road. They block my view of the day's weather. Later, when I leave for work, they are gone. I have never seen one of them arrive or leave. Just there or not there. I am guessing that they are to do with some nearby building works, but I can't prove this. It might just be my upstairs neighbours hanging a picture of a lorry out of their window every morning. Perhaps they have such a picture and it gets wet each night and needs drying out. Perhaps they have a lorry duvet, an incontinence problem and a desire to confuse me.

Wouldn't be the first time.

We could be diving for pearls

I got my annual performance bonus today (because I perform upon demand, like a trained seal). I had all sorts of plans as to what to spend it on: new computers, audiovisual equipment, rock bands, maybe a crack house in the country. But it's all gone a bit wrong.

When I had my appraisal my boss asked me to sign the completed form and also tick a box. I was a bit pissed at the time and so couldn't be bothered to read what it said by the box. What it said was that by ticking the box, I was consenting to opt in to the company's brand spanking new bonus scheme. I'd be a trailblazer! A trendsetter! A trainspotter! (Not the last one). Only today did I find out the full details of this new scheme.

Rather than being paid in English cash, I have instead been paid in land. Very wet land. The wettest land you can get. I've been awarded 7 hectares of the seabed, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. I'm told it's about two hundred miles west of Kilarney and that it's very nice at this time of the year.

Apparently this sort of scheme is all the rage these days and my company is just the latest in a long line of Blue Chips to do this. Apparently it can be very lucrative as that part of the ocean is full of oysters. Apparently there's a bull market for pearls at the moment. Apparently I'll be raking it in. There might even be sunken pirate ships, full of lost bullion! You never know.

All I have to do is buy a deep sea diving bathysphere and I'm away. But I have no money! All I have is my bonus which is somewhat inaccessible. If I had a couple of thousand quid, I could buy a bathysphere, descend into the deep dark depths, harvest the pearls, oysters and lost bullion, rise to the light once more and then hit Selby market on a Wednesday afternoon where I'll be able to offload all the stuff at a vast profit. It's nearly foolproof, apart from the bit which went "If I had a couple of thousand quid".

And this, gentle reader, is where you come in.

I'm looking for investment partners to help me claim my bonus. Just send me a few grand into my bank accy (details available on request) and I'll sort out the diving equipment, we'll hit the ocean at the weekend and by the following weekend you'll be repaid double what you gave me. It's a hell of an offer, never to be repeated (unless I'm daft enough to tick the same box next year).

Just give it a little thought is all I ask.

Daylight Running

I took advantage of the increased amount of afternoon delight, sorry, daylight to run in new places today. The sorts of places that don't have street lighting and hence are slightly inaccessible in the dark unless you run with a miner's helmet upon your head.

This today, meant a 10km run up Bishopthorpe Road, past the racecourse, along the back of said racecourse and then back past Tesco into town. I've never travelled to that Tesco entirely on foot before. I was very glad that I had already visited a supermarket earlier in the day and hence did not need to run the final couple of miles holding carrier bags full of wine.

My time for the (ever so slightly more than) 10km was one hour and five minutes which I was reasonably happy with. It also means I can set myself a new mini target of doing 10km in under an hour. I like targets.

I did these things! Me, it was me!

Here is a list of 10 things I have done today, to prove to you that I am one of the most exciting and interesting people in the world.

1. I read a newspaper (Guardian)
2. I ate a sandwich (roast beef and red onion)
3. I watched an episode of 24 (5.14)
4. I read 3 chapters of a book (The Lightstone)
5. I played Shadow Of The Colossus on PS2 (killed 2 monsters)
6. I spoke to my sister on the phone (she's moving)
7. I ate a pizza (pepperoni, tandoori chicken and jalapenos)
8. I watched an episode of Lost (2.16)
9. I drank a single bottle of beer (Kronenburg 330ml)
10. I contemplated cleaning (I didn't)

They're not in order.

Just imagine the fun and excitement I might have in the remaining 3 hours!

No more darkness

I went running this evening and I realised that it would be the last time for about six months that I'll have to go out in the dark. Since the clocks are due to go back/forward/something at the weekend, from Sunday onwards it should be daylight at any time I'm likely to want to go out. Having never experienced this before, I'm not sure whether I'll like it or not. It'll probably get warmer and I'll have to wear less clothes too.

Total miles run so far this year is 115. This puts me just on target for the 500. I'd hoped to be a bit ahead by this point (indeed, I was before I went skiing) but as long as I don't actually get behind schedule I won't be too unhappy.

I don't think I entirely realised what I was committing myself to when I started this. It's really quite hard sometimes to find the time to go out three (or even two!) times a week. It will likely get even harder over the summer as the temptation to sit outside drinking lager in beer gardens grows ever larger. I shall have to be strong.

Willpower: yes.

I'm back again. Did you miss me?

Ok, it didn't rain in Norwich. I was wrong. I did, however, end up spending excessive amounts of time in Peterborough station, whilst travelling in both directions. Nobody should be made to spend time there. It's cruel and unusual.

Not exactly a holiday

Tomorrow evening I have to go to Norwich. I will then stay in Norwich for a day and come home in the evening.

I don't think I really want to go though. It will probably just rain again.

Mind you, it'll probably rain here in York too.

It's a bit annoying because I effectively lose two whole evenings, one of which I could use for running and the other I could use for dancing. Instead I get to sit on a train one evening and then sit on another train the next evening.

Really not that exciting.

Lessons in Pop

Listening to the radio earlier, I noticed that Girls Aloud seem to have a bit of a school lessons thing going on. Their current album, Chemistry features the singles Biology and Whole Lotta History. That's three subjects down straight away. I thought I'd help them out and finish a top 10 of Pop school subjects:

1. When a child is born - Johnny Maths
2. American English - Idlewild
3. Physics-al - Olivia Isaac-Newton John
4. Losing my Religious Studies - REM
5. Computer (Studies) World - Kraft(wood)-werk
6. French Kissing in the USA - Debbie Harry
7. Freak Show and Tell - Grass-Show and Tell
8. History - The Verve
9. BrEconomics Beacons - Supergrass
10. Politiks - Coldplay

Maybe cover versions of these could form the entirety of the next Girls Aloud album.

Authentic Irish Hat

It was St Patrick's Day in England yesterday. As normal, the pubs were giving away free crap when you buy Guinness. We got a lovely hat, as modelled here by Chris:



See how happy he is with his fine headwear? I really felt like I was in Ireland where everyone dresses that way.

Guinness is nice though. And good for you too.

Star Turn

I went to the Golden Lion last night (in a relatively unplanned way) to see Drew playing his guitar in their "Turn of the Year" competition. Four acts on, and all had got friends down to vote for them at the end. I think there may have been some normal voters there too, to be swayed by the actual quality of the music rather than pure loyalty.

Drew won the audience's vote, but not the judges' vote. I think this means he still gets through to the next round and his dream of being "Turn of the Year" is still alive. I'm not sure whether or not he really does dream of this or not. I'd like to think he does. When he met people he'd be able to say "Hi, I'm Drew. Believe it or not, I was Turn of the Year in 2006" and they'd be impressed by that fine award.

His main problem at the moment is being told by people that they really liked the cover versions that he's played. Recently for example, someone particularly liked his Johnny Cash number. I, myself told him a few months ago that I enjoyed the Boo Hewardine song that he played. Last night a girl I was with said she very much appreciated the two covers he played in the middle of the set.

The only problem is that not one of these have actually been covers - they're all originals. He's now not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm not sure either but I think it's quite funny.

One of the other turns did a cover of Sleazy Bed Track by The Bluetones. That definitely was a cover. It was good, but not as good as the orignal.

Wombles: Real or Made-Up? Discuss...

I spent some time today explaining to a colleague that the Wombles (of Wimbledon Common), were not based on any real life animal called a womble, but were in fact just... Wombles.

I thought most people knew this. I don't recall ever seeing David Attenborough ever commentating on some real natural wombles in nature, mating, fighting and hibernating (and possibly tidying their local area). It is hard to mistake the TV programme, The Wombles, for a natural history programme because it is narrated by Bernard Cribbens and not David Attenborough. That should be a dead giveaway.

It was, however, an entertaining conversation. I laughed much and long. I'm not sure I convinced her 100% though that there are no real wombles out in the wild.

FDH - Live! At Track! Singing and Signing!

A good excuse to leave work a little early today: Live music at the local independent record shop, followed by a signing session.



Not the biggest venue for a gig ever, though I think I have been in smaller ones...

Today started off very snowy. As I walked to work I was cursing myself for having forgotten that I now owned ski-clothes which would have been much more sensible to wear than the things I had put on. By the time I arrived I was covered in snow and must have looked like the very image of the abominable snowman. And it was all settling on the ground too.

Thankfully by lunchtime, a combination of mild warrmth and a bit of rain had melted it all away. The streets were safe to walk on once more. No snow and no abominables. Huzzah!

And on the 13th of the month...

A long time ago, back in early 2005, I helped start a record label (financially if not creatively). Alamo Music was set up to initially record and get out to market, Four Day Hombre's debut album. Today, said album, Experiments in Living finally hit the shops. Quite exciting, really.

There's an article on the BBC website which is quite nice, even if it does mistakenly claim that we've bought shares in the band as opposed to the label. Oh well, the rest of the article seems reasonably accurate.

I've now heard the album all the way through for the first time and it's great. I realise I am somewhat biased here, but it is great all the same.

Currry Menu

On Friday night I went to a new curry house that's opened up in town. I think it might be called Spice Club. It has a menu with some fairly ridiculous (and unhelpful) descriptions of the food:



My favourites are:

"Handi Lamb or Chicken
Relatively sophisticated dish developed for the Mongul emperors. Easy young meat such as calf or spring chicken always used for this dish, so its easy to break with your fingers avoiding the need of cutlery. Its knack of course aided greatly by using chapptti nan as a type of cutlery to carry it in your mouth. The once all powerful Shah of Asia said that eating with knife and fork was like making love through an interpreter."

"Nepalese Style Lamb or Chicken
Jinnah's frustration echo from around the world race religion age gender we are all united in our intention to eat well. Food can cause havoc with our psyches as well as our bodies, food is fuel we have to eat so it may as well be tasty .A little of what you fancy and lot of what you need is the way to go . So trust the chef."

Note that in neither of these descriptions do they even attempt to start to describe what it might taste like, or even what might be in it. It's either a carefully cultivated piss-take or possiblty just a work of minor genius.

Broken Whiteboard

Our whiteboard at work broke down the other day. An engineer came and he fixed it.

Rip it up and start again

Few things mark the passing of time more depressingly than the arrival of a new telephone directory at your door. Like birthdays and Christmas, it's an annual event. Unlike those times, there are no parties involved, no meeting up with friends, no food and no drinks.

So all you get is a feeling of "Oh, bugger: Is it that time of year again? I'm sure I got one of these last week".

But last week was actually last year, and... another year gone. And another telephone directory to dispose of.

Nik-Nakkered

Crisp-maker Golden Wonder went bust recently and it's become a bit harder to get hold of Nik-Naks. Apparently someone else will start to manufacture them soon, if they haven't already. I don't know the details.

Anyway, two nights ago I dreamt that Nik-Naks had been relaunched, but also redesigned. Rather than being long knobbly crisps, they were now long smooth crisps, rather like a baguette but way tinier. I was dubious at first, but when I tried them they were good. Actually better than the original version.

When I woke, the smoothing of the nik-naks was no more, since dream was all it had been.

Moral: If you eat too many crisps you start to dream about them.

Problems I don't have

Whilst I was away on the skiing, my work colleagues held a bit of a guessing game as to what ailments and afflictions I might return to the office with. Here is their list:

Iced buns
Frozen assets
Fifth metatarsel
Strained love-muscle
Burnt finger (marshmallow toasting)
Sunburnt face, white goggle eyes
Achy breaky heart
Sunburnt finger
Achy Buttocks
Skewered by a (ski) pole
Blisters - mainly feet, but not exclusively
Knobbled knees

They were not able to declare any winner. If only someone had gone for "slightly chapped lips"...

Bad Sweets

I brought some sweets back from holiday to take into the office. As normal, I tried to find the most unpleasant ones I could. What I found were some French bon bons which tasted vaguely lemony, and inside had some liquer made from Alpine Herbs.

I had one this morning and it gave me a headache. My friend felt sick. A lot of other people pulled faces.

I did well :-)

It was a more satisfactory outcome than the Cactus Candy I brought back from Arizona. That actually tasted pretty good.

This is Planet Earth

On TV at the moment is part one of the BBC's big new Natural History programme, Planet Earth. Watching it has made me think of several things.

Firstly, a lot of animals are really stupid and live in daft, inhospitable places: Penguins and polar bears, for example, live in cold, snowy places and not nice warm places like my flat when I have the heating on.

Secondly, despite the programme being named after a Duran Duran song, the BBC have not used that music for the theme tune. They've used some big, important-sounding classical rubbish instead. Maybe the BBC are too tight to pay Simon LeBonBon any royalty fees. I hope that they will at least credit him for providing the title!

And finally, there must be a lot of frustrated natural history narrators at the BBC who are just waiting for David Attenborough to die so that they can have a shot at the big time. I think Attenborough has narrated every nature programme that the BBC has made for the last 50 years. He may even have narrated these programmes before we had television. He could have even been doing them back before we had animals (ie, either a few thousand years ago or many many millions of years ago - choice depending on whether you are a nutter or not).

Perhaps when he does die, it will be at the hands of one of the young potential narrators in waiting. Maybe they'll film him being chased across the tundra and ultimately attacked and killed by his successor. Maybe this film will form the basis of a whole new series (though not, obviously narrated by Attenborough himself). I think this would be a fitting way for him to go. I hope however it won't feature his mating rituals.

Strangely, as I write this, they are actually showing some slow motion shots of the production crew themselves, though sadly they are not being eaten by rivals.

Back from the piste

I have returned from my skiing trip to Meribel in one piece and unharmed. This is good. I have not lost any of my extremities to frostbite or polar bear attack. I was also not forced to rely on my emergency supply of sherbet lemons whilst trapped in a ten day blizzard. So that's all good.



I think I enjoyed the skiing itself overall. It was sometimes a bit hard to tell at the time due to it often being both scary and hard work, but in retrospect I think it was ok. I had ski lessons most mornings and found these to be much more useful than the ones I'd had on the Sheffield dry-slope. After the first couple of hours I had got the hang of turning and was able to keep my speed as low as I wanted, which is much more than I was able to do after eight hours in Sheffield!

Over the rest of the week I definitely improved lots (as one would hope!) and was confident enough to go out on my own one afternoon for a couple of hours without feeling I needed someone to look out for me. I also managed to make it to all of my lessons, unlike most of my friends. I did leave the last (four hour!) lesson half way through though due to being tired, aching and wanting to go home.

One way to measure my improving skills over the week is to measure how many small French children I knocked over. On day one and day two, I took out two of them each day - four in total. On the remaining days I managed to avoid knocking any of the little bastards over. This definitely represents an improvement in ski skills though possibly not an improvement in natural justice.

We stayed in a chalet in Meribel at about 1600m above sea level:



Our chalet hosts, Rachel and Rowan were excellent and cooked me bacon sandwiches nearly every morning. There was also copious free wine (of which the red, at least, was quite drinkable). Thanks guys!

I'll end with some skiing tips for first timers (like me):

1. Lip balm is good. Don't wait until the second to last day to get some.
2. Don't worry about having a hangover. Cold mountain air is a fantastic cure.
3. Falling over doesn't normally hurt you, but it could damage your expensive electronic equipment. Pack things carefully.
4. Wear warm clothes.
5. It's not easy to walk in ski boots. Stairs are even harder to traverse. Plan your routes to avoid stairs.
6. Make sure you have an emergency supply of boiled sweets.

That is all!

Columbia records are stupid

After a day of not doing that much but still seeming quite busy, it's finally time to go skiing. I'm leaving on a jet plane. Well, technically, I'm leaving on a taxi, a minibus, a jet plane and a bus. But you get the picture.

My bags are packed, the only things I have left to put in are things like phone chargers, iPods and last minute rememberances of which I hope there will not be too many. It's always tricky, when going somewhere for the first time, to know whether or not you have packed all the right sorts of things. I think I'll be ok (or at the very least, warm).

On a completely unrelated note, I'd like to make a complaint about Neil Diamond's record label, Columbia. He has a new album out called 12 Songs. An appropriate title because it has 12 songs on it. This is two more than Leonard Cohen managed on his last album, Ten New Songs - I'm not sure if the two of them are engaged in some kind of song counting competition. If so, Neil's in the lead.

But there's a problem. If you look on the back of the CD, it lists 12 songs. They are numbered 1 to 12. And then it says below "with two additional songs" and lists two more without numbers! Outrageous. I'm not sure how they get away with this madness. The way I see it is that if you're going to have an album called 12 songs, it should have 12 songs on it. Not eleven. Not thirteen, and certainly not f***ing 14! They're not even "bonus songs". They're additional ones. Implying you should do some addition and add 12 and 2 to get... 14.

If they really, really had to put the two extra tracks on, why not call the album "14 songs" or "12 songs plus 2 additional songs". At least that would be honest.

F***wits.

I've a good mind to write to them. Maybe I will when I get back home.

So anyway, I'm off and it's likely to be quiet round here for a week or so. See you all soon!

Wine v Head

I'd forgotten I'd taken this at the weekend.



I like the way the wine glass is bigger than my head. In reality, outside of photos, my head is in fact bigger than most wine glasses. See how photos can be deceptive?

Cutting Edge Hardcore

I heard a song on the radio for the first time last night and I thought it was fantastic. Cara Dillon's Never In A Million Years. It sounds like distilled Dawson's Creek. Which is, bizarrely, a good thing.

If you hear it and don't like it you must be half dead already.

Go with the flow

I was out in town on Saturday night. In Bar Ha Ha there was a man doing magic tricks in the gents toilet. Is that normal? I didn't think it was normal. I asked him why he was doing card tricks in the toilet. He said that he didn't really know. It had just started and he'd carried on. I think he then felt a little embarrassed and left.

Later on I spilt a large drink all over my legs. I'm pretty sure that this was unrelated to the magician and he hadn't cast a Level 3 Spell Of Spillage to get revenge on me for embarrassing him out of his favourite toilet. But he might have done. You can never tell with wizards. They are quick to anger.

Mountain Survival

I've just been watching Ray Mears' Extreme Survival which tonight was all about surviving in the mountains after you've been a bit unlucky or done something idiotic (like skiing).

The key things I have learnt are:

1. If you get buried in an avalanche, make sure that as the snow starts to slow down that you make as much of an air pocket as possible.
2. It's then really helpful if you have an avalanche transceiver about your person.
3. It can be really cold.
4. Ski boots make a convenient water receptacle.
5. Wear Layers. Lots of Layers. Don't go out dressed just in a bikini.
6. You can make a T-shaped snow cave/shelter using a spade and lots of snow. Having a saw helps too. You need to make sure you include an air hole. And a cold sink is useful too.
7. It can be really, really cold.
8. Take things with you like dry matches, food, signal flares, cyanide and portable DVD systems. And lots of batteries. You might be bored for a long time.
9. You get blisters if you thaw your frostbite. This makes it hard to walk. Possibly better to just leave your bits frozen until you are rescued (or until you die).
10. If you start to feel you might be lost, DON'T KEEP GOING. Stop and either retrace your steps or bed down where you are. Otherwise They will never find you.

Polar Bears do not seem to be a problem or a danger in mountainous areas of the world. This is a good thing I suppose. If you put penguins and polar bears in a skiing race, who would win?

My survival training is now complete.

This isn't very interesting. Sorry.

I went to the haircutters today and for the first time (that I can remember) the little man remembered what I normally have done and didn't have to ask me. He did try to make conversation a few times though. I wasn't having any of it. I wanted to be quiet. He gave up eventually and cut my hairs. All of them.

Great North Run: Entered!

After failing to secure a place in The Great North Run through either the preliminary or main ballots, I had no choice but to throw myself at the mercy of charity. On Tuesday morning I phoned Cancer Research UK and pleaded with them to let me have one of their guaranteed places. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do and my powers of persuasion were tested to the hilt:

CR-UK: Hello, Cancer Reserch UK running line - how can we help you?
Me: I'm after a place in the Great North Run.
CR-UK: OK, we have some guaranteed places left.
Me: Excellent.
CR-UK: Will you be able to raise at least £400 for us?
Me: Yes, that should be no problem.
CR-UK: OK, let's just take your details then.
etc

See, really hard! I didn't bother to mention the whole Run-a-thon 500 thing though. I thought it would just confuse matters. I'm sure they won't mind that I'm planning to do an extra 487 miles more than they are expecting me to.

They're going to send me a t-shirt with my name on it. That's like the coolest thing ever. Don't expect I'll wear it though.

Avast - New Clothes

Right, enough about skiing. I got given a Polar Buff for Valentine's Day yesterday. I had absolutely no idea what it was at first. Because it was wrapped up.

Once unwrapped, I still had no idea what it was, but quickly worked out that it was some kind of headwear. I was able to do this because the cardboard it came on said "The Original Multifunction Headwear". "A-ha!" I thought, "This must be some kind of multifunctional headwear!". And I was right, it is.

So in case you are also ignorant of the Buff, it is a kind of tube of material. You can wrap it into several configurations, including headband, scarf, cap, balaclava, ski-mask and most excitingly... Pirate! It turns into a proper pirate scarf/hat thing like they wear on telly. When I saw that I was happy.

Now a Polar Buff is like a normal Buff but it has a fluffy fleecy bit on the end so that you can line your hats with warmth.

It took me a while to get to grips with using it - you have to do some odd things to get it into some configurations, but I think I have the hang of it now. Oooh-aaarggh, me hearties.

Not allowed to fall down a hill

I went out to Xscape at Castleford last night for some "skiing practice" with the guys I'm going skiing with later in the month. The idea was that we'd have an hour of practice on real snow to aid our transition from the dry slope skiing of the weekend.

(Can I just say here that I've always thought "skiing" is a ridiculously spelt word. Those two i's don't work for me)

I was a bit worried about this as I'd never been on a slope bigger than a nursery one before and I wasn't sure how I'd cope with the change. Especially since I was crap on the dry slope. I was hoping I'd be able to have a go on the indoor training slope to get some more basic practice. Unfortunately, they only allow you to use the training slope if you're having a lesson. If you're just there for general practice you have to use the main slope (which is quite big).

Rules for going on the main slope are:
1. You must be able to control your speed (I can't very well)
2. You must be able to do linked turns (sometimes I make turns by accident)
3. You must be able to use the button lift (never even seen one before)

So I wasn't doing very well there. I figured I'd have a go anyway though. You can go up and just get off halfway rather than going all the way to the top. How hard can it be from there?

I think I first raised the suspicions of the staff when I fell off the lift after about a metre. She asked if I'd ever used a button lift before. I said no (strike rule number 3). She asked if I'd ever skied before. Now I knew that the answer I needed to give in order for her to let me up the slope was "yes". So I said yes and then she showed me how to use the lift. I then made it up halfway and dismounted without major incident.

Once there I had to work out how to get down. My plan was to go as slowly as I could and maybe try a turn. Somehow I managed to avoid the fence that was in front of me at the start and make it relatively slowly down to the bottom. I must have done something wrong though because when I returned to the ski-lift the lady asked me to do some turns across the slope this time. I don't think she wanted to just admire my skills. She instead wanted to see if I was competent enough to stay on.

I didn't fall off the lift the second time, but that at least was an improvement. When I got off half way though I moved away from the lift and after a while found myself starting to slide downhill. I tried to stop and didn't so figured I'd make the most of it and just get going. I avoided the fence somehow but then failed to make any other turns for the rest of the way. Also I went (unwittingly) quite a lot faster than the first time. Strike Rules 1 and 2.

The third time the lady said she wouldn't allow me to go up again because I was rubbish, incompetent and a danger to myself and others - my words, but that's what she meant. Hence I found myself, for the first time in my life, banned from the slopes.

She had a point though. So all I could do for the rest of the hour (about 45 mins or so) was wait at the bottom, watch the others, smile a lot and try not to cry.

Stupid snow.

Oh well. As a plus point, I've had a small amount of experience now of skiing and attempting to move across flat snow in skis. That must be better than nothing. Shame I'm shit.

When I got home I had a beer and watched Prison Break and ate a bag of jelly babies. That made me feel a little better. Just a little.

As easy as falling down a hill

So yesterday and the day before, I was out at the Sheffield Ski Village, learning to ski (or at least attempting to) in preparation for my trip to the mountainous region of France later in the month. I'd never skied before so I was starting completely from scratch.

I found it pretty hard going. For some reason I have yet to determine, I was unable to go down the hill at a constant slow speed like everyone else could. I think my legs are the wrong shape or don't bend the right way or something. In addition, the skis generally refused to move as I wanted them to when attempting to turn a corner. This was really annoying. And my feet really hurt.

We were in a group of ten people and on the Saturday we all had one instructor. I was a bit rubbish. Too tense apparently. And too asymmetrical. Even when I fixed these though, it didn't seem to help much.

On the second day we were split into two groups. I was in the retards group, along with two friends. However, whilst later in the morning my friends had improved enough to join the grown-ups and have a play on the big slope, I didn't and stayed on the nursery slope. I didn't actually mind that though, as I'd rather be safe than lying twisted and broken.

I definitely made some progress over the weekend, but not as much as I thought I would.

Also my arms hurt.

Also my calves hurt.

Also my toes hurt.

Tonight I'm taking a trip out to the indoor slope with real snow at Castleford. Thankfully we're only skiing for an hour as I don't think my legs would bear any more than that.

I expect I'll hate it.

Too much exercise

This week's been/is going to be a bit crazy physical:

Saturday: Skiing Lessons
Sunday: Skiing Lessons + Bowling (separately)
Monday: Skiing Practice
Tuesday: Running
Wednesday: Dancing (Quickstep)
Thursday: Running
Friday: Drinking
Saturday: Drinking

On this list, I'm currently between Sunday and Monday. And I'm really quite tired (again). I'll try and write about learning to ski at some point. Summary: Ow.

Should have slept about a day ago

Tomorrow morning I have skiing lesson number one. I was supposed to have gone for a quick drink after work, then home to bed, sleep, zzzzz, sleep.

Bugger.

It's probably not too late. I'll go to sleep now. Zzzzz.

Zzzzz.

The wrong trousers

At dancing last night (a mix of samba and quickstep, but not together) I realised I had a small hole in the arse of my trousers. I don't think it was noticeable. I noticed it though and then forgot all about it.

This forgetfulness turned out to not be one of my better ideas.

At work this morning I suddenly realised that I had put on the same trousers and that they still had a hole. This would have been bad enough, but the hole had now grown considerably - it was now about eight inches across. Once I discovered this I made a conscious effort to not leave my seat for the rest of the morning. It would be embarrassing to be walking around the office only to have somebody shout out "Look, you can see his pants!".

Now I know that girls will often walk around with the top of their thongs poking out of the top of their low-cut trousers - what is colloquially known as a "whale tail". They look ridiculous. Underwear is called underwear because it's supposed to be under what you wear. Not poking out of it. I, unlike an uncouth girl, don't wish people to see my undercrackers. Not that there's anything wrong with them, it's just that the office is not an appropriate place to reveal one's private glories.

I therefore decided that I had better head into town at lunchtime to purchase a new pair of trousers to wear for the afternoon. I do sometimes need to leave my desk and it would look a bit odd if I put on my long coat every time I went to the coffee machine or the toilet or the printer.

In Marks and Spencers, a girl approached me. I was looking at trousers so she'd clearly got me pegged as someone who knew a thing or two about clothes. Luckily, I was wearing my long coat so she was unable to catch a glimpse of my nethers.

She asked if she could ask me a personal question. I wondered what was wrong with "Hello!", but I guess people aren't as friendly as they used to be. She was holding two near-identical stripey jumpers. She said that she was buying a jumper for her "friend" and he was a similar size and build to me (ie he was also a tall lanky bastard). She wanted to know whether I normally wore medium-sized or large-sized jumpers. I wasn't really sure. I think I sometimes wear both sizes. I know I do with t-shirts. I explained this to her, but then in a fit of generosity let her measure the medium one against my arm. It seemed like it could be slightly short so she decided on large. Then she thanked me and went on her merry way.

Despite me doing this good deed for her, she didn't give me a reward, or indeed any form of payment at all, except for a smile. Not even a pound. Tight moo.

To be honest though, I was quite glad she had only asked me about the sizes. If she'd instead asked me whether or not I liked the jumper, I'd have had to reply that I really didn't, yuk. And that wouldn't have been polite.

So anyway, with my good deed done I found a pair of trousers (32" waist, 33" inside leg - not the easiest to find today) paid and left. Then, when I got back to work, I went straight to the toilet and changed into the new trousers. I'd had the foresight to take a pair of scissors into town with me to cut off the labels when I returned. I was able to do this because I do not pass through any airport metal detectors between my desk and the shops.

I've thrown the old pair of trousers away now. They are of no further use to me.

Asking for charity

I'm a bit pissed off tonight because my ballot application for the Great North Run has been unsuccessful (unlike every other single person I know). I'd been hoping to do the GNR as part of the Run-a-Thon 500, but now the only way I'll be able to do it is by getting a charity to give me a place.

I may have made it a bit difficult for myself here. Normally you can get a charity place if you get sufficient sponsorship for the race itself. I have however been getting sponsored for a series of runs which I ultimately intend to contain the GNR. So I'm going to have to try and convince Cancer Research UK that they should give me a place anyway.

So far, I've actually raised over £500 of which CR UK have physically already received over £400. There are still 8 months until the race. Hence if anybody who processes the applications there has any common sense they'll give me a place with no problems.

I suspect it won't be that easy though. These things never are.

Oh, well. It's all fun :-(

More complaining

I'm too tired to have inspiration. I'm too tired to have any good thoughts at all. Why is it that the only time I can get to sleep properly is half an hour before I need to get up? What's that all about? Bastard sleep pixies.

Scotland's For Me

I got a bit pissed off at work this afternoon (quite unlike me) so headed off into town for a little fresh air and a break. Also I wanted to buy the new Belle and Sebastian album and hadn't been able to get out at lunchtime. Three o'clock in the afternoon is a much more sensible time to go shopping than twelve o'clock. The shops are really quiet. Everyone else is working. Losers.

So I got myself the album - deluxe versiom wih bonus DVD that I'll probably never watch. It was two quid more but I had a voucher for two quid off so that all works out. Is a good album. You buy.

I also got a packet of jelly tots. They didn't come with a bonus DVD, but they were great all the same.

Does exactly what it says on the bottle

I bought a bottle of pomegranate juice earlier. It sounded exciting. It didn't taste very nice though. It tasted like pomegranates.

Last night we went out into York. We went for a Thai dinner and then headed into the town centre. Strangely York seemed much rowdier than Newcastle had seemed the previous week. That's not right. Once away from the river however the numbers of pissed-up idiots declined to a more manageable level.

After a spell upstairs in Victor J's, we headed to 1331 for Claire's 30th birthday party. None of us had the faintest idea who Claire was but we knew the DJ and this was just about sufficient for us to get in and not be evicted by the bouncers. The party featured a very entertaining, fine example of dad-dancing.

Then it was home time. Like we used to have at school, but later and a bit more drunk.

Toilet Photo

I've been to Fibbers a couple of times this week. The second was for FDH last night.



We didn't have tickets so I started to get a little antsey when, whilst I was still in the pub, I spoke to a friend who had just got to the venue and found a largeish queue. Luckily, although there was still a queue when we arrived, it was not yet full inside and so we got in ok. Great gig but a little short.

The first time I went to Fibbers this week was on Wednesday night when my friend, Drew was supporting Jess Klein. Jess was very nice and signed a CD for me. Well, I think she signed it. She definitely wrote something and I assume that it's supposed to be her name.

I was chatting to Drew later and he asked what I thought of his (mostly new) set. I said I liked the Boo Hewardine cover. He said that he hadn't played a Boo Hewardine cover. Whoops.

Team Name

As a team name in The Punch Bowl tonight I went for If only all of Wales died in The Thames. We won no money and no beer.

Commiserations to the young whale wot died in London's big river. Idiot.

I cna't tpye

Despite it being the thing I maybe type more than anything else on a keyboard, I almost always get my name wrong. Letters transposed, letters,capitalised when they shouldn't be, letters added, letters missed. All these and more. It's very annoying.