Travelling and Weddings

I’m away for the weekend – going down to Wells (and no, Pat, I haven’t seen the Vicar’s Close yet – and just why do I keep wanting to call it Vicar’s Passage? Must be the latent choirboy in me *Grin*) to attend the wedding of a close friend of mine.

I haven’t been inside a church (for a ceremony, as opposed to the sightseeing of May 10th) for at least three years now. I expect there will be thunderbolts and all sorts upon my walking through the doors. Still, it’ll make for an interesting day. *Grin*

Updates may happen during the weekend, but don’t hold your breath. Pictures may follow on Sunday/Monday when I return.

Have a good weekend – it’s looking sunny and fun for all…

Or are you just pleased to see me?

From a convoluted trail via Mike, Scary duck and Green Fairy, there are just SO many captions that can be added to this picture. Words fail me. Laughter, however, was alive and kicking.

Royal Snail

I can’t honestly say it’s a surprise to hear that Royal Mail has failed to achieve 80% of it’s standards for first class mail being delivered the next day. In fact, I’m more surprised that it’s only 1million first class letters per day that don’t get delivered on time.

Then again, I’m still waiting for phone calls from that certain bank that I was promised two weeks ago. Useless fuckers.

Liverpool

I knew there was something I’d forgotten to do this week – and it turned out that what I’d forgotten was to get the latest photos off the digital camera. Typical – brains of a doughnut sometimes.

Anyway – they’re from the work I was doing in Liverpool last week. Nothing special – but did you know that Liverpool had an underground train system? I know I didn’t. The other pics are available on their own page within the photos section.

Actually, even though I didn’t get to see much of the place, it was still interesting, being able to go inside the buildings that most people only see from the outside, that kind of thing. And yes, it’s definitely somewhere I’m going to visit and explore a bit more – never a bad thing. Just don’t mention the accent, or the fecking Beatles…

Alms for the Needy

Over the years, my knees have always had spates of being really dodgy – not that they’re ever particularly great. Over the last month though, they’ve been horrendously bad on occasion (I mainly blame train and bus seating arrangements that appear to be designed for pixies) and I’ve decided that it’s time to go back to taking capsules of cod-liver oil, accompanied with a dollop of glucosamine. Does anyone else have any ideas on what to do to help strengthen joints that are keffed? (to use the proper medical terminology)

Trains

According to Peter’s comment a couple of posts below I have to stop blethering about trains now. Well, we’ll see. Luckily, I’m not on one for the trip down to Wells this weekend – so my loving readership is spared the “joys” of yet another set of train thoughts/rants.

So there.

Extra Thoughts

Further to the piece last week about memories and thoughts, there’s also now a follow-up piece sat plonked in the thoughts section. Hopefully, it’s a sign that the block has lifted a bit, and there’ll be more soon. Fingers crossed, and again, thanks are due to the people who’ve provided their encouragement and thoughts.

The Matrix Reloaded

Amazingly, it’s taken me almost a week to see this – my excuse is that I was running round like the proverbial, and just didn’t get chance to see it ’til today. But anyway.

I saw The Matrix first just after I’d moved up to Manchester – and thought it was a stunning piece of work. Needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to Reloaded (and part three, Revolutions, when it comes out in November) since I knew it was being made. So obviously it was pretty much a must-see. Some of the critics haven’t been overly impressed with it, so there was a minor query in the back of my mind about it – would it live up to expectations? Or would it just be another sack-of-shit sequel?

Well put it this way – I’m still convinced that the critics generally talk complete bollocks. Yes, there are some pieces of the film that aren’t to my taste (I still find myself wanting to be a schoolboy and retch copiously when screen characters kiss and so on) and in some parts the storyline hangs together by the merest threads. But it hangs together – something that’s not always a requirement in the middle part of a trilogy. Of course, as with the first one the main constituents of the film are the effects and the fight sequences, and they are simply stunning. The scene on the freeway is going to be a film classic for the next 30 years, the way that the car chase in Bullitt has been the acid test for all car chase scenes.

A lot of the film’s hype has centred around the effects, and the fact that people will be back to saying “How the hell did they do that?” – and for once it’s true. The changes between actors and computer-generated is pretty much seamless – while watching it, it’s difficult to discern between the two, other than the simple knowledge that some of the sequences aren’t humanly possible, that some of the shots are impossible to achieve with anything other than a “virtual” camera. The fight scenes and soundtrack are top-notch too – it’s definitely worth seeing. (just avoid the snogs – they’re vile *Grin*)

One final point – if you do go and see it, do so at the biggest and best screen in the area. It’s worth it.

More train thoughts

Maybe Virgin Trains have a real problem with their train toilets – the exact same situation arose as when I was travelling down to Reading. Six coach train, one working toilet.

I’d say it’s taking the piss – but of course it’s not even taking that.

Graffiti

Travelling from Birmingham to Manchester by train, at one point just outside Smethwick (a suburb of Birmingham/Wolverhampton, I think), the traintrack runs past a canal, over which there are several bridges. On one of these, with no decoration, no extra stle, the words “Tojo the Dwarf” are daubed.

And I want to know who wrote it – I’m assuming it wasn’t Tojo himself, as the bridge is at least 12 foot off the ground. And if it wasn’t Tojo, then who the hell wrote it – and more importantly, why?

Jehovah’s

There was a knock on the door this morning – and it turned out to be another coven of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’m normally fairly civil to them – I wouldn’t fancy facing the sheer amount of abuse and rudeness they face, so fair play to them. All the same, I swear the sods have fitted me with some kind of tracking device. I get visited about once a month on average at home – and (in a fit of blinding logic) it’s always when I’m at home. Now, I’m in Reading at a friends, they’ve both nipped out for about an hour, and I’m in the house on my own.

*Knock Knock*
*Opens the door*
“Hello sir, do you believe that there is any hope of global peace?”
“Well, I certainly do, but not today, thanks.”

Personally, I reckon that rates pretty highly on the non-violent ways to get rid of Jehovah’s Witnesses. And one day I’m going to ask them who Jehovah really was, and frankly, what the fuck did he witness that was so great?

Health and Efficiency

I’ve just seen the most wonderful example of marketing-speak. Bird’s Eye foods have released a “new” product. The advert addresses all the parental buzzwords about health, vitamins, and cooking vegetables properly. How do you keep the goodness in, rather than boiling them to death?

Well, it appears that the answer is this new vegetable product from Bird’s Eye – vegetables in a bag that you sling in the microwave so they steam-cook, rather than unhealthy boiling. So – “keep the vitamins in” by irradiating the veg. Sounds like a plan to me.

Shitty trains

Ok – here’s a simple equation – One Train = Six Carriages. each carriage holds 70 people, plus however many standing ones. So – 420ish people, maybe more. How many toilets are there in a six carriage train? Three. How many were working, on a journey between Manchester and Reading? One. Don’t you just love rail privatisation?

Musical trends

Why is it that sometimes, regardless of what else you try to do, there’s suddenly a musical refrain or lyric running through your head? I’m currently sitting here and I’ve got Carter USM’s “Bloodsport for all” blasting through my frontal lobes. Not even the entire track – that wouldn’t be so bad – but no, all I’ve got is “The coldest stream guards of them all / sang God Save the Queen and bloodsport for all“.

And in connection with that, how come that no matter how many albums/tracks you’ve slapped onto the laptop for a journey, as soon as you’re on the train you want to hear something that you KNOW you haven’t got on the hard-drive?

Bollocks

Looks like Blogger’s playing silly bastards today. So I’ll update as and when…

Flying tonight

The BBC is reporting that concrete blocks have been placed round Parliament to protect it from a terrorist attack. OK, so a) why do this now – surely it’s not a spur of the moment decision? b) what’s the point? All they do is provide more cover for a dedicated suicide bomber to hide behind before getting to the building.

The official line is that the blocks will stop a truck driven by a suicide-bomber. OK, big deal – that just means instead you get them coming on foot, or on motorbikes, or any number of other methods. As September 11th demonstrated, there are always plenty of other access methods, not just ground level.

And at the end of the day, even if there was a truck-bomb, if you load it with enough explosive, the concrete blocks just become airborne ballistic objects themselves, and probably cause just as much damage as the truck would have done if left to get near the building itself.

But hey, what would I know about these things? *Grin*

Exhaustion

Ah, the joys of insomnia. In the last week, I think I’m probably lucky if I’ve amassed 12 hours sleep. I feel shattered, and almost on the verge of breaking down – thank god it’s the weekend tomorrow, and a long one at that. I’ll see how things progress tonight, but no promises on any further updates today.

You have been warned.

Vanity, Vanity, all is vanity

I just know that Green Fairy will be spitting feathers about this one upon her return (from seeing Radiohead, the lucky so-and-so) but I find it incredible that someone can insure themselves against ‘stopping being attractive’. This woman stands to get £100,000 if she is deemed (by a panel of ten builders, no less) to be unattractive. (Looking at the photo accompanying the story, I reckon she’s a good 90% of the way there already – but that’s my own perspective).

I suppose that’s part of why I find it hard to comprehend this policy – simply that what’s attractive to one person can will be fugly to another. From my own view as well though, what kind of husband/partner/whatever says “I’d dump you if you lost your looks”? Maybe I’m too altruistic for my own good, but I thought love and relationships were about loving and accepting the entire of the person, not just what their face/body is like. Perhaps that’s where I’ve been going wrong all these years. *Grin* Thankfully, I’ve never had the looks/vanity for this to be an issue with me – but isn’t it just an amazingly shallow pair of attitudes.

And yes, I know, it’s hardly a shock – NEWSFLASH – People are shallow – not really a revelation, is it?

Anonymous for life

Personally, I’m glad to see that Mary Bell and her 19 year old daughter have been granted lifelong anyonymity. While this particular case wasn’t contested by the press, it still had the potential to be overly-hyped in the future, and would have been raked over given the slightest opportunity – and that now can’t happen. (well, it can – but it’s a lot more difficult than it would be if the anonymity hadn’t been granted)

Sola Lala

So daft, I just had to mention it. There’s a place in the US wants to attract interest from investors by having a ginat lava lamp in the middle of the town. And in lots of ways, I think it could be really fun – quite what the town’s inhabitants would think of it, I have no idea.

Memories are just dead men making trouble

Over in the Thoughts section, there’s a new piece – looking back over the last three years. It’s not comprehensive – in fact it barely dances on the ice at the edge of comprehensive – but it’ll do for now.

And thanks go to a couple of people (they know who they are, at risk of sounding like an Oscar acceptance speech) for providing some of the impetus to keep on writing it – and some of the other pieces in the pipeline.

Big Bore

I have to say, with the beginnings of the media hype again plus the trailers on Channel 4 and so on, I’m already utterly tired and bored of Big Brother. I suspect that no matter how hard I try, I’ll be even more bored of it come the end…

Reading

Karen over at Rise is compiling a list of favourite reads. Mine consisted of

1. “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson.
     A book that somehow combines Metaverses, Sumerian history, neuro-linquistic hacking, and a deeply warped sense of humour, all in one story.
2. “The Sparrow” and “Children of God” by Maria Doria Russell.
     Science-fiction at it’s highest level, the story of a Jesuit mission to a newly-discovered planet. Impossible to describe and do justice to – simply superb.
3. “The Reality Dysfunction” by Peter F Hamilton.
     The first book in a 4000+ page trilogy, again, bounding with ideas involving the discovery of a “beyond” after death, and how to deal with it.
4. most stuff by Dick Francis (they’re all interchangeable to a degree, so that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it).
     Complete no-brainers, but familiar ground – always a good thing after reading an epic.
5. “Brightness Falls” by Jay McInnerney.
     Showing it’s age slightly (written in the late 80s, about the late 80s) when all’s said and done it’s a love story, but with various twists along the way. In fact, for the most part it’s the story of “what went wrong”. Still a favourite though.

I’ll explain more about them later, when I’ve got home. Work’s not as bad today – things are finally working, or as close to it as a combination of Windows XP and MS Visual Source Safe will get. The fact I’m now using Textpad instead of bloody Dreamweaver is also helping things come together a lot quicker than yesterday.

Definition of Irony

The first site I’ve got to work on within the new contract is adding some stuff to United Utilitities’ website – which is ironic, because over the last year or so, one of my primary complaints with United Utilities (other than the shite back-end and payment systems) is that the website was as useful as a mobile phone to Helen Keller.

Someone up there has a sense of humour. I’ll know this for sure if the next site I have to work on is that of the bank that shall never be named.

Work

There are some things that can be said about a place that uses both Dreamweaver and Microsoft’s Visual Source Safe. The first of these is “WHY?!?“, the second is “No, seriously, why on earth would anyone in their right minds use this combination as a work tool?“, and the third is normally somewhere around “Oh for fucks sake, you useless lump of shit, of course the fucking files exist, now why won’t you find them?” followed by the thud of boot into computer.

People’s Olympics

It didn’t take long for Camelot to get in on the act of saying it will help fund a UK Olympics bid – using special scratch-cards, and some “special event” draws, they reckon they can raise £750m, as well as providing a similar amount from their normal funds. Will it happen? Only time will tell.

Preparation

Ah, the joys of the last day before a return to work. Laundry, shopping, sorting out the week’s season ticket for the train, it’s all happening today. And then Peter Gabriel tonight – not necessarily the wisest option just before an early start the next morning, but what the hell, that’s what timing’s all about.

Have blog, might get sued

As Graybo says (and he’s probably correct) the article Dating A Blogger, Reading All About It, this article will probably be linked all over the place by the end of the week. It’s an interesting piece, showing how bloggers sometimes write too much about their personal lives, their colleagues, and their thoughts. The phrase “I need an editor” seems to apply to a lot of them – either that or “I need some more braincells” – there’s a distinct air of naïvety to the people who comment, considering how they “don’t expect” friends/family/employers to find them. *Bows to the power of Google*

Personally, I’ve stuck with the pseudonym Lyle – it’s a safety barrier, but I also try not to leave myself open completely. There are levels to everything – I know someone once said that people are like onions, that getting to know them is like peeling the onion, going through all the layers. For me, that’s also what a site/blog is like – there’s no point writing absolutely every thought, emotion, and possibility down – it leaves you too open, and it’s too easy for people to find themselves, or find what their friends think of them. That, for me, isn’t what it’s about.

But don’t ask what it is about either – I don’t know. I just write what I want – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I’m happy with what’s on here, and there’s no-one I wouldn’t want to see what I’ve written. And maybe that’s what it’s all about – being the same as anything else we do, where you never leave yourself completely open to everyone – it depends how well you know someone as to how deeply you let them in.

Next of Kin

When, as today, I’m filling in paperwork for contracts, work-places and so on I never fill in the “Next of Kin” information. I’ve had arguments with people about this before – so I’m wondering what the problem is that they have with me not providing this information. So far as I’m concerned, if anything short of fatal happens, I’ll be able to handle it one way or another (the joys of work-related insurance etc. *Grin*) and if it were fatal then I’ve always got the donor card in my wallet, along with contact information there.

But my family are at least 200 miles and 4 hours away, should anything ever happen – and I wouldn’t want to cause them that much stress in the first place. If there were an accident, I couldn’t contact them to drive me home or whatever. I don’t have a partner, or children, so those options are out too. So really, I don’t have any next of kin that are of any use unless I’m dead – in which case they’re notified anyway. But some people see it as unreasonable for me to not fill in a Next of Kin form, so I ask you this : Is it a case of being selfish/unreasonable to not list a family member or whatever, or simply realistic?

I don’t believe it</meldrew>

As an exercise in shudder-inducing TV, it sounds like the “Celebrity” version of Wife Swap is yards ahead of the competition.
Richard and Judy, for frig’s sake. But that’s not the best of it – “Celebrity” now apparently includes the couple who cheated on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and also – God help us all – Jade from Big Brother, and her boyfriend. It sounds like the televisual equivalent of a major road crash.

No Shit, Sherlock

As expected, the jealous ex-wife Rena Salmon has been found guilty of murdering her husband’s lover. Really, from the media coverage of this case, it was the only real option for the verdict – it’s hard to persuade a jury that you didn’t know what you were doing when you’ve managed to con a locksmith into opening up the gun cabinet, drove the 60-odd miles to London, and then shot the other woman twice.

What does amaze me though is the concept, as GreenFairy says in her May 7th post (permalinks appear to be keffed, so you’ll have to find the day yourself), that it’s better to go after the lover/mistress/whatever of your partner, rather than going for the one who’s actually done the betraying and the cheating. I’m sure there’s a logic there, but it’s beyond me to work out what it is.

Open comments

To the couple with matching umbrellas : It’s very sweet, seeing you walking down the street hand-in-hand, with his’n’hers umbrellas keeping you both in your little oasis of dryness. However, it’s a complete pain in the arse when you won’t let go of each other, and you’re walking through the narrowest parts of the street, so no-one can get past you. In fact, it makes people want to take the umbrellas, and use them as tools for drumming up business for proctologists.

To the inventor of musical ringtones : My God, I hope you’ve died in the most painful way possible. Sitting on a bus surrounded by mobiles ringing with (in rough order) Walting fucking Matilda, the Nokia signature tune, the Flight of the Fucking Bastard Bumblebee, and Mission Im-sodding-possible, as well as some self-obsessed braindead gimp who thought he’d best find a new ringtone by trying all the ones he’d got, I found myself praying that you end up in a subterranean hell that’s sponsored by bastard Nokia.

Chuff

Ah, I love it when things suddenly slam together to make life really awkward. As of Monday, I’m working for a month for a company called Amaze in Liverpool. However, this also means I’ve had to postpone a dentist’s appointment for next week, and will have to look at re-organised train times for when I’m travelling to see friends for the bank holiday weekend.

Fun, fun fun.

Professional Skiving

via Slashdot, a truly brilliant article from the online Wall Street Journal about how people are finding new ways to look like they’re working when they’re not. Print it off, make it your bible. *Grin*

Quiet day and cereal

It’s been a quiet day chez Lyle today, hence not many updates. I’m sure that’ll change as the evening progresses, and my head’s no longer blocked up by stuff involving SQL and databases. Mind you, no guarantees on that score.

In fact, other than databases, the main thought that’s so far occupied me today is this : What is it that makes the “cereal dust” at the bottom of a packet of cereal always taste 1000% better than the rest of it? And why can’t Kelloggs or whoever just market packets of the dust?

I need to get out more.

Badger Frenzy

I know that Meg has already commented about this story but the entire story of the man in Worcester who was “suddenly” attacked by a badger stinks worse than my week old socks.

I don’t know what was really happening – but I simply don’t believe that “the badger slowly approached, then attacked him, latching on to his arm and tearing his flesh away” – there must have been some kind of provocation. Badgers are grouchy bastards for sure, but they still don’t “suddenly attack” unless they’re trapped or threatened. So – what the hell was this dickhead doing to bait the badger, and I wonder whether the story will ever be honestly told?

Fking Tw@s

Unbelievably, there is now a course teaching adults how to send text messages, and generally use a mobile phone – two hours on how 2 txt. I honestly didn’t realise it was a difficult concept – hell, even my parents can send text messages without any problem.

“The Day Britain Stopped”
BBC2, yesterday

I didn’t see this programme last night, but did manage to record it. I’ve watched it this afternoon – and all I can say is “Wow”. Almost worth the entire licence fee in itself – it was the kind of drama/documentary that the BBC should make more of. Last year they did one on Smallpox and chemical weapons, and this one was just as good.

Basically using a set of supposedly unrelated events – a train disaster leading to a national rail strike, a friendly international football match in Manchester, being the last Friday before Christmas, and a road accident on the M25 – it showed how the current traffic status could lead to the entire of London being gridlocked. As things progressed, one road accident led to two, leading to the M25 being solid, which then leads to every other motorway being jammed. Because replacements couldn’t come in to work, the air traffic controllers for Heathrow and Gatwick were overworked, stressed, and inevitably a mistake is made, resulting in two planes colliding.

Truly a shocking story – and one that was all too believable. Obviously a lot of the footage was taken from standard footage of jammed motorways and so on, which helped make it more believable. It struck me that if you’d flicked over halfway through and managed to get into one of the news broadcasts, it would be all too easy to believe that it had happened that day. And I suppose that’s the lithmus test of a documentary – if you come in halfway through, do you believe it could be real? In this case, yes, you could.

If you missed it, you can catch it through the BBC website here.

Currency

So, supposedly the UK public fully expects the government to stop using the pound despite the fact that the Euro is increasingly unpopular. 75% of the people surveyed think that the pound will be history within a decade.

However, there’s one question that wasn’t asked – or at least, the results weren’t published. I wonder what the response would have been to the query “Which currency would you see replacing the pound? The Euro or the Dollar?“

Hill carvings

Today the BBC has a story about the EC is saying that a carving on the Kent countryside (don’t spoonerise that, kids) is illegal. The carving was done on a site of Special Scientific Interest, and authorised by the local council despite the protests from Friends of the Earth and other organisations. And now the EC has issued a “formal notice” to the UK Government in protest.

Now, if only we could get them to do the same about the Big Brother logo by the White Horse of Uffington.

Seroxat

Peter has already commented about this, but I wanted to add in my own ten pence too. (don’t you love inflation? *grin*) Basically, Seroxat (or Paxil, as it’s also known) is being revealed to be rather nastier than initially thought, the so-called “side-effect free” drug turns out to have rather a larger potential mortality rate than expected and there are calls for massive levels of re-testing of the drug.

I’m in two minds about this entire thing – being a long-term sufferer of depression myself, I’ve been on antidepressants, and three years ago was even prescribed Seroxat/Paxil. I can’t say what effects it had, because I didn’t end up taking the stuff – in the end I’m too independent and bloody-minded to to want to have my thoughts and moods governed or ameliorated by a drug. For me (and I stress that more than I can imagine, as with every mental illness, no two people are alike, and depression is a hugely personal issue) the drug method simply doesn’t work – but in that way, I’m in the minority. For many other people, it works, and the SSSI/SSRI families of anti-depressants work exceptionally well. For another minority of people, these anti-depressants work in a way that makes suicide seem almost appealing.

My own experience nine years ago on Prozac shows that it’s quite probable that if I’d started taking Seroxat, I’d have been one of the minority. I found Prozac numbed all of my responses to a level where nothing actually mattered – it was easier to contemplate suicide and plan it while on Prozac, because there was just an emotional flatline to the entire process. I could look at it, and not be involved. The decisions were easy, because I didn’t care one way or the other.

But should Seroxat be pulled from the shelves because there is this minority group who react badly to it? Personally, regardless of my own experiences, I don’t think so. More testing should be done, and more training of so-called medical “professionals” should be undertaken. But there are so many positive examples of these drugs doing what they’re supposed to that no, I don’t think they should be removed from supply. It’s more of an education issue than one of human safety.

The real thing that needs changing is the attitudes of the doctors, who at present seem content to dole out happy pills to all and sundry, often on a quite minimal inspection. Unless someone is right on the brink of breakdown, you can’t look at them and say “you’re depressed”, it takes time to address the issues and evaluate the patient. Depression has become de rigeur in the 90s and 00s (whatever the hell we decide to call them) and it’s now almost a sign of growing up to be in receipt of your first anti-depressant prescription. Want some time off work? Claim you’re depressed. Want to avoid going to work, and just stick with incapacity benefit? Claim you’re depressed and suffering from stress. Most of the quacks will just dole out the pills and the sick notes with hardly a glance at the patient history, or a look at deeper issues. True depression is hard – in fact almost impossible – to fake. It’s a soul deep darkness, a pit where the most light that can be seen is the size of a 5p piece at the top of an insurmountable shaft. It’s not something that can be shrugged off with a three month supply of pills and a sick note so you can be off work for a fortnight. And that’s how it should be perceived – not as some cheap easy excuse for a holiday. As with dyslexia, hyperactivity, and many others, the more cliched and “in vogue” it is to have a complaint along those lines, the more harm will be done to the true sufferers, the people who really do need the help, the drug, the advice: these are the people who will be drowned out in the clamour of demand for a quick fix.

When they were launched in the 80s, these two families of drugs, the Prozacs and the Paxils were regarded as the new wonder drug. They were cure-alls, everything from anxieties to phobias, with supposedly no side-effects, no addiction problems in the way that the Valiums and Libriums of the 60s and 70s had – they were going to be the magic bullet against depression and all it’s nasty little buddies. But medical science never learns – Forty years ago, Thalidomide was the same kind of magic bullet only this time it was to cure morning sickness. Of course, it’s now coming back as a potential magic bullet against certain cancers. Before that, back in the 30s and 40s, LSD was being used as a wonder drug to help with schizophrenia, and to aid in it’s study. With hindsight, we know that these ideas were flawed, to say the least. When it comes to 2050, will we look back on Seroxat and Prozac in the same light?

I smell spicy brains

I’m not sure that “stolen” is a valid term in this context, but the stories over the weekend about the brains of mentally ill people and suicides being removed and stored for medical research is still pretty horrendous. Obviously if all these people had given their permission for their parts to be used, there’d be no problems, but instead it’s been done without asking permission.

It’s like another case of Alder Hey and their own organ retention problems.

Vindication

I know that regular readers will just tut and groan when they realise this is another (hopefully the final for a while) installment of the bank saga. Tough. *Grin*

Having launched a full formal complaint on Saturday about the lack of communication and messages coming from the bank that shall not be named since my business account opened, I received a call and message this morning from the Business “Manager” I’ve been dealing with. Quelle surprise

Now, she’s obviously either recording the call, or got her direct manager listening in to the call – I don’t particularly care which. Allegedly she (I’m not going to say the name, for obvious reasons) has been leaving me “lots” of messages, but has absolutely no answer to the question “so why did you not call the mobile number I’ve left every time?” – but no, she’s left lots of messages. No record, of course, of when any of these calls have taken place. And she’s replied to my email that I sent too, but has no record of when it was sent. I think she was then quite upset when I could tell her that I sent her the email on the 1st of May at 9.39am – obviously, one of us has been keeping records. *Grin* (Fact is, I keep the majority of my sent emails for at least six months)

The suggestion that perhaps a better contact management database would be a good idea for the business managers really didn’t go down well – or maybe it was me saying that I could do the system for them, as I’ve done them for other large organisations. Far be it from me to stoop to petty insinuations and suggestions, just to illustrate a point.

She’s “most upset” that I’ve launched a complaint without giving a chance for her side of the story to be put – I was unreasonable to turn up on a Saturday when I knew she wouldn’t be there. Which conveniently ignored the fact I’ve also been in the branch on Tuesday and Thursday to try and see her, and left messages on both occasions that if I didn’t receive a call by the end of the working week, I’d be launching a formal complaint. When I pointed this out, the only response was “Oh”.
Anyway, the complaint stands – but we appear to have sorted out most of the issues now. We’ll see how things go from here on in.

Weird codenames

Maybe this is just me, but why the hell was the British mole in the IRA codenamed Stakeknife? I could understand (ish) being codenamed “Steak-knife”, but “Stakeknife” just sounds like a typo, from one name to the other.

Still, what would I know about the wond’rous logic of our security forces?

Famous last words

It had to happen sometime. After all my own blatherings about convenience food and so on, I finally did it. For the first time that I can remember, I’ve made a complete bugger’s muddle of cooking rice. I have no idea what I did wrong, but it was a congealed starchy mess. Still edible, but compared to normal, it was definitely a fuck-up.

Tomorrow I’ll be off to Tesco to buy some easy cook rice.

Blanks would’ve been more apt

I can’t believe that royal protection police can ‘accidentally’ fire a gun while unloading it – particularly when their protectee was in the building. (Accounts vary as to whether he was in the next room or not) Still – even if it was ‘accidental’, you’d have thought they could have been more accurate. *Grin*

May Day Project – kind of.

The Mayday Project was due to happen today – various people around the world all taking pictures of their days. I’ve sort of half-participated (typical), and the photos from today’s stroll through Manchester are happily sitting here. Enjoy, or be bored by them – it’s up to you.

Tribute or plagiarism

While wandering through Manchester today, I took a couple of photos of Urbis (again), and a bit later wandered through one of the shopping arcades. In the window of one of the shops was an image of New York’s Flatiron Building. At that point, you have to wonder whether the architect of Urbis was really being inspirational, or whether it was more of an (ahem) tribute to an older generation of building. There’s certainly a wide range of similarities between the two designs. However, for me it doesn’t detract form either of them – they’re both stunning bits of architecture.

Cog

Further to various posts in various places about the wonderful Honda advert “Cog“, Honda have now released the ad, plus “making of” etc as a DVD – it’s available in today’s Guardian. Ah, the joy. I’d imagine it’s also in other papers this weekend, so keep your eyes open.

Bright, flashing lights

Oddly enough, two light-related stories in the media today. Strange, the way coincidences work, isn’t it?

The Guardian has a feature about astronomers (Stick with me on this one, OK?) and others starting a campaign to reduce the levels of light pollution. We can’t see the night skies anymore, because of the rise in the use of security lights, street lights, decorative illuminations on buildings, and the like.The CPRE are wanting to cure the “night blight” (their phrase, not mine) with a variety of measures, including streetlights that switch off after a certain time, and fitting shields around exterior light fittings.

Meanwhile, over at the BBC, there’s a piece reporting that a huge majority of children now never see true darkness because there’s always a nightlight, or a light on the landing. Supposedly, only 2% of children now sleep in total darkness.

My own recent experience of how much light pollution affects us came about when I was up in Scotland at the end of February. There wasn’t a streetlight in about 50 miles, and the nights were beautiful – I’d forgotten quite how many stars and so on there are, and how clearly they can all be seen. No matter how crazed it sounds, I do think that a reduction in light pollution is nothing but a good thing – if only because it also helps reduce our consumption of power, electricity that at the moment is just thrown out into the sky so that we can see our roads and feel safe.

Genetic talents/interests

This thought may get translated into a larger piece at some later point, but for now it goes something like this:

Both my parents are journalists – which of course makes me genetically predisposed to misquoting people as and when I wish to – and infected me with their literacy and love of the English language. (Although sometimes you’d be hard put to discern that from this site) However, I always said I definitely didn’t want to be a journalist.

However, it turns out that I got into the content editing/creation side of things on a couple of the big website contracts I worked on, and enjoyed it. And now with d4d and so on, there’s obviously some kind of urge to produce written work, personal viewpoints and so on – which really is what an awful lot of journalism, when you get right down to it.

So – do we end up being interested in the same things as our parents? Or do those interests become the exact opposite of what we want to do/be? Or is it all just random coincidence?

Train fares

Over at the BBC, they’re asking for public opinion about the fact that most train fares are likely to rise significantly this year. Considering that my first response was “Fucking Robbing Cunts”, I doubt mine’ll get published anytime soon.

Actually, it worries me as to what they term as a “significant” rise – since moving to Manchester four years ago, the price of a standard return ticket to London has risen from £80ish to £175ish today. And that’s not even first class. So if it’s been going up by £20-25 per year anyway, what the hell is a significant rise going to be?

Peterloo

Sometimes I think I should just pat my TiVo, because it’s such a neat device. Channel Four has recently had a series on called “Georgian Underworld“, a documentary about (unsurprisingly) Georgian Britain, and some of the lesser-publicised (in fact, completely bloody unknown, in a couple of cases) factors about life in that time. I’d managed to see most of them when they were broadcast, but I’d missed the fact that one was being transmitted on a completely different day. (Helpful of the programmers, wasn’t it?) Anyway, because of TiVo’s Season Pass feature, it still got recorded.

Bizarrely, it was actually the edition I’d most wanted to see – about the Peterloo Massacre. As I’ve noticed and noted on more than one occasion, my knowledge of UK history is woeful. Well, on a good day it’s woeful – on a bad day it’s simpy fucking abysmal. When my parents were up here a while back, we were walking in the City Centre, and my father said something about Peter Street being where the Peterloo massacre had taken place- an event I knew absolutely sod all about.

Anyway, the programme was all about that, and it was fascinating. The entire series has been very innovative and quirky in it’s styles of being shot – each one was done by a different director, in different visual styles. Some have been stunning, a couple have been distinctly ish. The one on Peterloo was done in a courtroom style, as an inquest on one of the people killed, and how the story came out of what happened. For me the real lithmus test is whether I’ve learned something from it – and in the 90 minutes it was on, I learned more about one portion of British history than I did in four years at secondary school. Sad, isn’t it?

Sins – Sloth

Today, Acerbia’s request is for Sloth. This is obviously a weird week for these sins, the days seem to be mimicing (mimicking?) them pretty well. Having been to the dentist’s (no sloth there, unfortunately) I’m now back to feeling as shite as I always do post-dental-anaesthetic. So I’m going to just vegetate a bit and collapse. I wish I knew what it was about that dental stuff that makes all my joints feel like I’ve got ‘flu, but there we go. So Sloth is easy.

Dentists – again

Well, I’m off again to the dentists, and hopefully this temporary crown will be a lot less temporary than the last one. It lasted less than six hours before falling out. Distinctly unimpressed – but then, that’s life.

Back later.

Nature Geek

While still watching the news, I was also really pleased to know that the nesting pair of Ospreys in Cumbria have returned for another year. The link also includes a webcam of the osprey nest, if you’re as much of a bobble-hat as I am.

The New New Towns

Embarassingly, considering I live in the vicinity of it, I’d never heard of Buckshaw Village until a news report on it today. It turns out that it’s the new version of the New Towns of the 1950s-70s, such as Milton Keynes and Welwyn Garden City. Buckshaw is a smaller-scale development, created on a brownfield site where a munitions factory used to be situated. In the end it’ll have 2000 homes, and a full set of facilities – almost a small town, rather than a village.

The difference is that the entire development is owned privately by Redrow Homes rather than being a government-controlled process. It’s an interesting plan, one taken with the long-term in mind – this “village” won’t be completed for another ten or more years, and it’ll be an interesting project to keep on watching how it develops.

Sins – Pride

Dead easy, this one. Acerbia wants to deal with Pride today, and it just so happens that I’ve been for an interview with the Caudwell Group for an “in-at-the-beginning-of-something-very-cool-and-new” kind of job. Unfortunately, the interview also included an NDA so I’ve got to keep lip zipped about most of it. However, Pride certainly took a major part in the interview – well, it was either Pride or Egotistical Twat – the jury’s out for now, so we’ll see.

And in a smaller dollop of Pride (coupled with self-referential linky lovefests) Gordon awarded me the accolade of Article Title of the Day – I’m assuming for “The Butler Did It”, but who knows. Either way, it’s another small dollop of Pride, and another step down towards Hell’s epicentre (AKA Coventry)

The butler did it

Personally, I’m amazed that Sophie thingy has announced she’s pregnant – I didn’t think Edward was someone who was interested in women at all.

Maybe we’ll find out in the end that Sophie’s been getting poked by the manservants or something. I’m sure Edward’s been getting poked by them too.

Sins – Anger

OK, So I missed out on yesterday’s Envy – nothing to envy, so I didn’t get involved. But today’s Sin is Anger and I’ve had enough of that today to last a while. Nothing’s been broken, although the necks of at least two bank clerks deserve to require the services of traction. I’ve been to the bank to find out why they still can’t get their fucking act together enough to send out a cashpoint card within three weeks, and why they’ve got all the communication abilities of Helen Keller in a straitjacket. Closely followed by a sojourn to the dentists, as detailed below.

Following that, a client changing their minds on what they wanted on the site, once it had already been uploaded for 24 hours. Dealing with it doesn’t take long, but the fact that they’d had the documents, OK’d them, and then only when they went online did they turn round and say “Oh, a lot of those numbers weren’t supposed to be accessible online”. Still, it’s all done now.

Thing is, yes, it’s annoying at the time, and drives me mental, but it’s over and done with, there’s no held over anger, so is it a sin? Who knows.

Feeling Shit

One thing I’d forgotten about today was that I had to go to the dentists again. Joy, Happiness. “Luckily”, this time only involved four lots of root canal work, and the preparation for post & crown replacements for a couple of teeth.

So right now I’m back to feeling like some kind soul has just beaten me senseless. The anaesthetic really isn’t any fun either, it leaves me feeling distinctly crap.

Maybe more later, but maybe not. Enjoy.

UPDATED : Great – one of the temporary crowns has already fallen out. I’m back at the dentists on Thursday, but that won’t help tomorrow when I’m off at an interview. Don’t you just love fate’s superb sense of timing.

Eight Nine months and counting…

Amazingly (Well, amazingly to me, anyway) d4d yesterday passed the 50,000th page impression mark. This blog section (personal publishing, whatever) started off on August 9th, so it’s *counts on fingers* actually nine months of blog existence. Still, not bad at all – just under 600,000 hits, but it’s the page impressions that are important (allegedly) so that’s what I count.

Oh, and if I take out the logfile references for my own IP address? I’ll still hit 50,000 by the end of the week. (Just before certain people start alleging it’s all me looking at the site. *grin*)

Peter won’t be amused

I should think that Naked Blog will be spitting feathers at the news of Butlins trying to bring bingo “up to date” with some new rhyming slang. I have no idea why there’s a need to update the phrases, but then, I’m not renowned for having my finger on the pulse of these things.

Another new page

It looks like the floodgates have finally cracked open a bit – and as a result, I’ve also added a piece on Writer’s Block to the section on thoughts.

Big Brother? Neigh – not in this house

Now maybe I’m showing my age a bit (and the already well-known fact that I’m a sad geek on occasion) but I’m quite amazed that the National Trust allowed Channel 4 to advertise Big Brother 4 by painting a Big Brother Eye buy the White Horse of Uffington. Quite what made them think it would be a good idea, feck only knows. I’d have imagined that C4 provided them with some much-needed money for it, but it turns out they accepted £2000 for it. Well, what a bargain.

Smack is bad for you

Part of today’s news has been that child-minders will now not be allowed to smack children in their care – even if the childminder already has written permission from the parents to do so. They’re also not allowed to smoke while looking after children – which, knowing some of the little sods darlings I’ve come across seems like a particularly cruel punishment on the child-minders.

I must admit, I’m not sure about the entire concept of being anti-smacking. I can understand the concept, and the fact that there are people (Parents, teachers, child-minders, whatever) who will always go over the top on things like smacking etc., but at the same time, is it right to completely remove it from being an available route?

I’m not a parent – but I’ve lived with families, have friends with children of all ages, and been involved with helping to bring up a couple along the way. Within that realm of knowledge, I believe that all children need to have some form of established limits – it’s part of the entire process of growing up. I don’t think that smacking, corporal punishment, or whatever other niceties there now are for it is necessarily the way forwards – but there always needs to be some kind of “If you misbehave, this will happen”, an established line. It’s always struck me that too many children now have parents that are frightened of establishing these lines, however they’re done, because they’ll be seen as physically abusing their child – and somewhere in there is a very fucked up piece of logic. There’s a difference between one smack for being a little bastard, and prolonged physical abuse – and the keyword, I believe, is “prolonged”. Too many times you hear parents saying “I’m going to get really angry in a minute”, and the expression on the child’s face eloquently says “Yeah right – it’s never happened yet”.

So is there a reason for the ban to be in place? Yes, in some ways there is – there’ve always been people who would rather batter the shit out of someone smaller than them. But at the same time that’s why there are laws about things like abuse, assault, and bodily harm. But to remove the ability completely? In honesty, I don’t think that’s right at all.

It’s getting hot in here

Following on from various other sites, I went off and took the Dantes Inferno test. These are the results:

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell – The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

New pages

Yes, it’s been a while since new pages were added into the main site of d4d – but today’s the day for the start of the renaissance. There’s going to be a small amount of twiddling of pages too in the near future, but that’s something for future revelations.

Today though, there’s a new picture in the Public Art section, and also a new page in the photos section, with some of the plants I’ve got here. I’ve also finally been writing some of the bigger pieces again, so they’ll get uploaded once they’re finished.

Today’s posts have been brought to you courtesy of Tracy Chapman, Massive Attack, Leftfield and the word “Bugger”.

Coming Soon

Via Gert, one of the projects for the next week (starting Bank Holiday Monday) will be Acerbia’s on-line Seven Deadly sins. Considering that I’m off to see the bank that shall not be named on Tuesday morning to sort out quite why they’re so fucking incompetent and unprofessional, I’m going to stick with Anger/Wrath for my performance piece.

Microsoft problems

If you’re using Internet Explorer don’t click on this link – it crashes IE impressively, and in only five lines of HTML. Nothing nasty like ActiveX or Javascript – just five HTML lines and zap, off goes IE.

Don’t you just love secure standards-compliant browsers? *Grin*

For fuck’s sake

I’m perfectly sure that there’s a great reason for a recovery truck to pick up a car at 1 in the morning, making as much bastard noise as possible, flashing lights and all, but considering that there was no owner nearby needing to get somewhere urgently, the car was parked up by the side of the road, and wasn’t causing an obstruction, I think that the timing of it could perhaps be defined as “over-zealous”, don’t you?

You cunt incredibly insensitive person.

UPDATED : And now, less than quarter of an hour later, there are two burglar alarms going off. If it carries on like this, I’m going to go out and kill people.

Health Warning

Note to self : papercuts on the fingers are exceptionally bloody painful when squeezing limes, and rubbing one’s eyes having chopped chilli peppers bloody hurts too.

Cooking Thai food is an experience that could be hazardous to one’s health/well-being.

Adieu, Goodbye, Farewell, Fuggoff

And finally, some news to celebrate. Mohammed Al Fayed has announced his intention to leave the UK, and live in Switzerland instead. After all the hassles over the years with (among others) Fayed wanting UK Citizenship, and protesting the removal of his “special tax status” that allowed him to only pay £240,000 per year he’s finally calling it a day and becoming another country’s problem.

And the Guardian has a history of Fayed in photos. They’re obviously as upset as I am about it.

Time to join Blockbuster again

Ah,the TV “summer season” is well and truly upon us. “Help, I’m a Z-lister, get me publicity” has restarted – although thankfully that’s only for two weeks, rather than the interminable shite that is Big Brother. The Big Brother house for Series Four has been opened up to journalists – <sarcasm> whoopee doo,I can’t wait.</sarcasm>

(As a complete tangent, I’ve just looked at the “I’m a Z-list” website, and it’s sponsored,by my favourite search engine, Ask Jeeves. Says it all, really – Z-list ‘celebs’ with a Z-List search engine)

Dream on, Virgin.

Over in the US, the researchers at Holloman High Speed Test Track managed to get a sled on a monorail to break the land speed record for rail vehicles – a record that they had set themselves 20 years ago. Preliminary figures assess the speed at about 6,400mph (Mach 8.6) – nearly nine times the speed of sound.

In the meantime, the UK dreams of getting trains to even 2% of that speed – and Network Rail (the successors to Railtrack) will be holding their annual meeting behind closed doors, with no members of the public present.

Banking Technology

This is probably just something I have a problem understanding, but quite honestly, how long can it take to return a phone call?

• An hour?
• Two hours?
• Six?
• Next working day?
• Three working days?
• A week?
• Fuck only knows – it hasn’t happened yet.

So far, yes, we’re on the last option. A week ago, the bank that should not speak it’s name promised to call me back regarding getting cashpoint cards and Internet access to the new business account.

Unsurprisingly, I’m still waiting.

X2 – Filmworks, Manchester

Yes, today was previews day for X2. (as it’s officially titled, but it’s the sequel to X-Men, if that helps at all) So of course I had to go – it’s a hard life, but someone’s got to have it *Grin*.

I loved the first X-Men, so I’m probably biased (and a bit of a fan of Hugh Jackman too) – but I still thoroughly enjoyed X2. It’s about half an hour longer, and still doesn’t feel like it’s too long at all – there are very few slack moments, it just keeps on going and going, and getting better. The story line is as daft as the last, but while watching the film, disbelief is very easy to suspend. The effects and character building were pretty good, and with a cast as huge as the original X-men comics, it’s always going to be an uphill struggle. But there were enough hints at future characters to keep fans happy, even to the extent of almost “cameo” performances by some of them.

Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler deserves particular mention, despite the dodgy German accent- I suppose it’s part of the character, but personally I found it irritating. Then again, that’s me. However, between the character and the special effects around it,the role seems to be a real scene-stealer every time. (Hardly a surprise when it comes to Cumming) BrianCox is up to his normal standards, and the entire cast appears to have had fun making the film – there’s an onscreen chemistry/cameraderie between them all that’s obvious, which helps build the idea that the characters are a team, despite personal differences etc.

Ian Mckellen’s still excellent as Magneto, and Patrick Stewart is – well – Patrick Stewart. It strikes me as impressive that between his roles as Gandalf and Magneto, McKellen’s in some of the biggest films of the last three years. Now all he needs is a bitpart in the Matrix sequels and he’ll be in every giant film of the 2000’s (so far).

All in all, it’s two hours that require suspension of disbelief, but that’s easy to achieve. Damn good fun – I’m sure I’ll see it again before long.

Now, when’s Matrix Reloaded out?