Fixed-ish

Well, it’s been kind of hacked back together. Not what I needed on a Saturday morning, but hey ho, at least it’s semi-fixed.

Bollocks, Arse, and Fucking Shit

Yes, I made an addition to the template yesterday. And yes, I made a right monkey’s cock out of it. So, in the spirit of fuckwitdom, it may have to stay like this ’til Monday, as I have apparently not been as rigorous in backing up my template. There’s definitely a copy at work, but the one here was well and truly out of date. Bugger.

Content remains the same, it’s just that it’s gone back to the page “design” without CSS. Ooops. Anyway, I’m aware of it, I can do close to fock all about it ’til Monday, so we’ll just have to live with it. Hey Ho.

Disability Flights

I have to say, I’m really pleased to see that Ryanair were found guilty of discrimination by charging a disabled man for use of a wheelchair today. As the Disability Rights Commission chairman, Bert Massie, said in the story

“It beggars belief that a company with £165.23m annual profits last year, should quibble over meeting the cost of providing disabled people with a wheelchair.”

Ryanair have always been penny-pinching bastards, but this case was one of the better examples, and I can’t see that their petty “we’ll levy a 50p wheelchair levy on everyone who flies from Stansted and Gatwick with us” attitude is going to win them any friends either.

Fluffy Disease

via Parm, I have to agree with Chris, I really want these these fluffy toys. Quite how you explain your collection of fluffy lethal diseases, I have no idea – but the concept is sufficiently warped that it seriously appeals. And the idea of explaining to – say – a friend that you’ve got their kid a cuddly Black Death, well, that’s just comedy in the making…

Interference

According to the BBC, Lancaster City Council are considering whether people should report relationships with colleagues. Personally, I think it’s intrusive and pointless – yes, perhaps if there were problems with nepotism or, for example, an MD promoting their partner in preference to someone better qualified. But to my mind this entire thing should be an exercise in discretion – and generally, what the hell business is it of an employer to know whether one employee is shagging/living with/ married to another ?

According to this concept, it still wouldn’t be necessary to declare if one’s partner were working for a company that was tendering for council business, or any of the other infinitely dodgy practices normally detailed in Private Eye.

In the same week, Wigan council has barred all its workers from using the Internet, which is equally interfering, and a pain in the arse for all concerned. Again, to my mind so long as the internet use doesn’t interfere with everyday work, and is used sensibly (as opposed to looking for porn, downloading music, or *cough* blogging ) then who cares?

I simply don’t understand this nannying “we know what’s best” attitude, particularly when combined with a Big-Brother-esque surveillance of all employees, as with Lancaster council.

Slebs

While I haven’t yet watched any of it, of course it’s impossible to miss the media hype surrounding “I’m a non-entity, get me a publicist!” I wish I could fix a bleep button to my brain so that just mention of the words rendered me temporarily dead/blind so I could ignore the thing completely.

But I haven’t – and so I’ve been considering the d4d™ alternative version. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the idea for…… <drumroll> Dead Famous™ </drumroll>…

In the preliminaries, the public has a vote. We’re already used to Big Brother-type voting, and also for the 100 best books/films/comedies/positions/magicians/alcoholics. This is similar – but this time the public picks their 10 most-loathed celebrities.

Once that’s been done, the preparation takes place. Transporting the ten celebrities to a specially made compound, somewhere in a remote location (each series could have a different location) – they know that the winner can get £5m, and that the other nine will have more media coverage than they would normally get, by being involved with Dead Famous™. Once they’ve been dropped off at the location, and the helicopters/coaches/whatever have disappeared over the horizon, the celebrities are told why they’ll become famous.

Basically, the rules will be very simple. For the first week (or until a certain level of votes has been reached – whichever is earlier) all they have to do is live together, and be “normal”. Daily tasks have to be performed in order to get food/water. Each day, two of the rations of food and water are also spiked with a hallucinogenic – but that’s just so that the next day is more fun for the viewers.Throughout the first week, viewers are voting for the celebrities – depending on whatever vagaries the viewers want.

At the start of the second week, things change. The challenges are nowmore difficult, and decidedly more lethal – and with no health and safety adviser. If the nominated celebrity fails the task, then they die. The public vote for who they want to take the tasks. And at the end of the day, the last one living is the winner, and £5m better off.

Now I have to say, that’s a gameshow I’d watch…

But who would you want to see in the show?

Bucket of Shite

So, the government gets absolved of all wrong-doing yet again. Who’d have expected that, eh? And the report’s been done by a Lord, so it must all be kpsher kosher and above-board.

*Yawn*

Speaking of being cold

I wonder who was looking for “my micropenis pics” in google, and came up with this site. They must’ve been sorely disappointed – although having waited for a bus for 45 minutes this morning, perhaps I qualify after all. *Grin*

Crap country

It’s amazing – how does this country (I should just say England, according to Gordon, but I think I’ll leave it as “this country” just to annoy the haggis-munching pedant. *grin*) maange to come to a stop after just one spell of slightly shit weather? Yes, it’s snowed – and so everything goes to shit. We’ve had a week’s warning that it was going to happen, but still it turns out that people can’t drive in snow (even when the roads are at least half-clear) so it’s taken me nearly 2 hours to get to work. The entire of the main road on which I live was nose-to-tail with cunts who won’t overtake because they might have to drive on – shock! horror! – snow. Utterly pathetic.

I don’t even understand what it is that makes us so crap at dealing with “extremes” of weather. (By which I mean, “extreme” according to the UK – people elsewhere would regard it as mild) Recently I’ve been reading Daily Dose of Imagery, based in Toronto, Canada. Currently they’re in the midst of a -30°C winter, yet everything runs as normal. I could perhaps understand it if the temperature here was around -10 or so, but it’s hardly gone sub-zero. We’re just pathetic.

UPDATED : Further to comments and also to reference made on Parm it may be that Manchester City Council are a bigger bunch of slack-arsed twats than I’d previously allowed for. However, that doesn’t explain the stories about Manchester Airport having to close its runways because of snow, nor that transport links in Lodnon were equally keffed. And yes, Gordon, I know the Scots are far hardier than the wee Jessie southerners, but bits of Scotland had the same problems too. So nyah! *Grin*

I’ll also point out that I’m not actually complaining about the weather – I don’t mind it at all – but more about the reactions of other people to it, and the general levels of incompetence in dealing with anything as extreme as little lumps of white falling from the sky.

Bills and Accounts

Sometimes I could really begin to believe that UK companies have a dark plot to stop people from moving house. They seem to love making the entire process so complicated and stressful that it’s almost easier to say “Oh, fuck it, I’ll stay where I am”.

As regular readers of d4d™ (there are still some of you out there, aren’t there? *grin*) I moved to the current house about five months ago (and oh shit, I’d best nag the letting agency to find out about renewing the tenancy, hadn’t I?) at which point I had to move the accounts for the gas and electric supply. Like an utter, utter primate, I stuck with the same suppliers – British Motherfucking Gas. I really should know better by now. Unsurprisingly, they’ve made a complete monkey’s cock of the entire thing.

Today I’ve received not one but two bills – one for my old address, one for the current one. For the same bloody time-period! I ring them up, and they then told me “Oh, we haven’t listed your change of address” – which doesn’t quite explain the correct(ish) bill for the new house. “Oh, ah, um, I don’t know what’s happened there then”

I don’t think that the answer “I do. It’s that British Gas couldn’t find their backsides with both hands and a flashlight” went down too well…

Carlucci

I’ve just finished a book called Carlucci by Richard Paul Russo. It’s actually three books in one, all based around a future San Francisco, and the eponymous detective. The book was very much a speculative purchase, a case of “that looks like it might be interesting” – and it was. A very dark view of the future, with huge levels of corruption and corporate machinations, but ultimately pretty believable.

Over the years, one thing I’ve found I like in certain – primarily sci-fi – books is that they don’t feel the need to explain everything. I find that books with timescales, with fixed dates for when events occur, annoy me – and once those dates are passed, they just feel dated. So many authors also feel the need to explain all their definitions – for me that just detracts from a story. I’d rather the slang or whatever was used, and let my brain come up with images. Much more fun.

Anyway, the Carlucci books have managed to be damn good stories, and not fallen into either of the above traps, so they come well recommended.

Life vs. Art

Is it just me, or is the entire farce about university top-up fees, and the votes surrounding it very reminiscent of a whole range of episodes in the West Wing where votes are suddenly lost at the last minute etc.?

Of course, the concept of John Prescott taking the place of Josh Lyman makes me smile.

“Fookin’ ‘ell, Tony, we’ve lost ten votes!”

Acid Brass

The perfect music for an unhinged and disjointed day is the “Acid Brass” album by the Williams Fairey Brass Band. I’ve a nagging feeling that I have probably waffled on about this album before, but it still makes me smile.

The basic premise was to get a standard brass band to play classic ‘Acid House’ tunes. Tracks like 808 State’s “Cubik”, and the KLF’s “What time is love?” – all performed by brass. Utterly surreal, and just strangely happy.

Day Confusion

Today is going to be non-fun. My brain’s utterly up it, and thinks that it’s currently Sunday. Nothing makes sense – it can’t understand why I’m working on a Sunday, or anything that’s going on. This is not a good indicator for the rest of the day. So I’m taking it fairly easy – all complex tasks will be postponed ’til tomorrow at least – and just getting through it for now.

I hope everyone else is having rather more organised, or at least logical days. *Grin*

Guests

As I said yesterday, I had three friends staying here last night. We’d decided to go out for a meal (yes, Beluga again – no-one can say I’m not supporting them! *Grin*) Again, the meal was bloody good – I really do enjoy going there.

The evening was really pleasant all round – it’s been a good weekend. Out of the friends who stayed, only one had been here before – so the 24 hours before had been a little bit hypersonic, I still worry a bit about first impressions and so on, and no matter how many times I go through this and it all works out fine, yes, I still worry. Pathetic, isn’t it?

Anyway, all went well, and it’ll be happening more regularly.

TV – Boss Swap

For the last two weeks, Channel 4 has been showing a new variant on the Wife Swap genre, Boss Swap. I’m a sad geek – I find documentary-type programmes about business fascinating, particularly the type where the owners or bosses are uprooted into a new environment, or where troubled businesses are looked at.

With Boss Swap, obviously they’ve been made to make for good TV, but the bosses so far (and bear in mind I’m working from a sample of two here) have all been complete cockheads. It’s infuriating – I know that some of the personality flaws displayed are the ones that have driven them to become self-employed and drive towards their own businesses and empires, but so far they’ve all got a vile personality, completely abrasive, blinkered, and apparently incapable of receiving criticism. Deeply annoying TV.

Grrr

I finally got round to ordering the mounting cards for the two prints I got done last week. “They won’t be ready ’til about 3pm, dear” – no worries, I’ll just head home, tidy up, then run round like a bollockwit at about 2.30 in order to get back into town, pick up the mounts, get home, get sorted for guests later. (of which more in a bit) I’ve just got home, the phone rings “The mounts are ready for you, dear”. It’s 12.30. Aargh.

Words Fail Me

There’s only so much I can say about “I’m a nonentity – get me a publicist” without spitting, but the story from Ananova that Jordan wanted to take a vibrator into the ‘jungle’. Although, as we discussed in Fab cafe yesterday, I do wonder just how badly Jordan (wrong link – this one, if you must), John Lydon (Johhny Rotten) and Peter Andre are going to get on together…

Regional Insanity

For some reason, Nottingham seems to be getting right into it on the tourism/branding front at the moment. Not only have they finally got their tram system working, they’ve also managed to get East Midlands Airport renamed to Nottingham East Midlands Airport. An impressive achievement in its own way, particularly as Nottingham is further from the airport than either Leicester or Derby. Obviously, the councils for both cities are up in arms, and generally protesting away – far, far too late.

And now, Yorkshire is trying to claim ownership of Robin Hood, and get tourism signs saying “home of Robin Hood” moved 60 miles up the road. If it weren’t all so pathetic, it’d be quite funny.

Blogmeet – the summing-up

Yes, it was fun – Meg turned up, and that dirty little stop-away Stuart didn’t. We’ll get him one day, I’m sure…

Photos will be up later – some were _very_ shonky, so may not see the light of day. Fab cafe ran out of Budvar – focking disgraceful. *Grin* Le knacker du Chris was an early theme for conversation, followed by (in no certain order) films with too many endings (mentioning no names); whether Princess Bride is a good film, or “just shit”(©Topper); hobbit porn; tattoos; body mods in general; whether some people should even be allowed out of the house; whether the same people look in the mirror before going out, and think “Fuck, yeah, I look hot tonight!“; whether striped tops are a priviledge or a right , and a whole range of other disparaging comments and subjects. It was fun.

When’s the next one?

Quiet

There’s not much been happening today. The entire working day has been filled with skirmishes and running battles between PHP, CSS, and SQL. Overall, a lot of progress has been made, but each section has been a struggle with something new, or not working, or not doing the job properly, or some combination of those.

Luckily the evening is looking like it should be good – the first Manchester Blogmeet of ’04 is happening tonight, and I’ll be there. So will (in no particular order) Lori, Jane and Adrian. Unfortunately, Chris is (ahem) out of action, and Sarah’s broke, so neither of them are likely to be arriving. New guests are welcome – and Meg Intergalactic is looking to be one of them. Possibly Stuart too – he’s been invited, but remains quiet so far. It should be a good night…

Larceny

On a different tack, I’m fascinated by the story of the secretary who allegedly embezzled £4million from her employer, Goldman Sachs. The money was transferred from the personal accounts of three bankers with Goldman Sachs – and they didn’t even notice, until she’d been caught. I know the saying about having “more money than sense”, but this really takes the piss. One transfer – the largest – was for £2.25million. How the hell do you not notice an amount like that?

She was being paid £42,000 – so how come no-one noticed that she was buying a £650,000 house in Cyprus, or that she owned a powerboat, and spent £300,000 on Cartier jewellery? Another utterly bizarre story, ably showing how the other half lives.

Apathy

Yes, I’m slow on the uptake with this one – it really hadn’t entered my consciousness ’til yesterday, and then it fell right back out again. So, what I’m wondering is who actually gives a flying donkey-dollop whether John Leslie and his partner were involved in group sex? I certainly don’t – so long as all the people were consenting partners, then it’s about as newsworthy as someone taking a shit.

I see even less point in sacking his partner from her ad hoc TV presenting slot. Does the fact that she gets involved in this kind of thing affect her reporting ability? Or her objectivity? No. (Well, unless she’s feigning shock at orgies in Little Britain Middle England or something) So – and I’m really intrigued by this – who cares?

Priorities

The BBC today has a story about the Russian army salvaging barrels of beer from a frozen river. The truck carrying the barrels had come off the road and toppled into the River Irtysh near Omsk – the driver managed to escape, but the truck sank.

In all it took six divers, ten men with electric saws – and a tank. They managed to get the beer kegs, and then the rope snapped, so the truck sank back again.

Now that’s what I call priorities. *Grin*

Litrucy

via Gert, the BBC’s site has a story about pupils having difficulty with spelling – which includes a small test. (And yes, I did get eight out of eight, but that’s beside the point.) Personally, I find that it’s an incredibly sad state of affairs when 60% of the sample tested couldn’t spell “effortless” or “knowledge” correctly. It’s sad – but it’s not a surprise.

At school, my year were the first to take the GCSE. In primary school, we had a more “traditional” education, with weekly spelling tests, and numeracy/maths tests. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn the times tables by rote, and as a result I still have to work it out rather than instantly knowing. But when it came to English, and literacy, the theory was that if it wasn’t correct, it wasn’t acceptable.

Since then, the education system has headed for a more relaxed route, where “it doesn’t matter how it’s spelled/presented, it’s the way the thoughts are formed that counts” – and results like those in the BBC story are finally revealing the flaw in that. Unless we wish to end up with a two-tier system, the literati and the illiterati, then there seems to be a need for the education system to change the philosophy of the last decade or so, and return to an emphasis on literacy. To my mind, it’s an essential – I’ve no desire to see a society where it’s frowned upon to be literate, nor one where everything becomes pictographic in order for those who can’t read/write to still be able to operate machinery etc.

In many ways, I feel that computers haven’t helped with regard to literacy. MS Windows uses pictograms as a reference point, rather than words. Spellcheckers mean that people don’t need to spell correctly – instead they can just press F7 and voila, everything’s done. (Of course, it’s still occasionally fun to play “fowl up the spellchequer”, because they’re still unable to cope with context – but you’ve got to be literate to understand that particular amusement) So why bother learning to spell, when machines can correct it all anyway?

I was lucky – both my parents are intensely literate, and in fact I was reading way before school age. They instilled in me a love of both words and literature, and an understanding that being literate was a good thing, that it would enable me to express all of my ideas, as well as allowing more (metaphorical) doors to be open than would be available if I couldn’t spell/punctuate/write. Maybe that makes them elitists, or intelligentsia, but I don’t honestly care – they opened those metaphorical doors, and it’s been up to me whether they have stayed open or not. But not one opportunity has ever been closed to me by way of a lack of literacy.

All of d4d™, no matter how vile and vituperative it may be, is at least literate. The ideas come through although some, as over the weekend, may end up being more visual than literal now. Would the same be true in ten/fifteen years’ time, if I were just now coming to the end of the basic educational period?

Caffeine

Amazingly, the reduction in caffeine intake is still working pretty well. I’ve said before that caffeine is really the only remaining addiction or habit in my life, so it’s good to see that cutting it down is working out for now. I’ve even managed to avoid most of the vile headaches that normally are part of the reduction process. So all things considered, it’s pretty optimistic. The other part of it is to be drinking more water – and that’s going OK too.

The weekend meant I didn’t drink as much water as I perhaps should have done, but still, I’m trying to keep the intake up on what it was. But today I’m back at work with a 2l bottle of water, so even if I manage 5 days out of 7, I’ll be happy with that. Now I just need to get myself motivated for going to the gym more again…

Time Flies

I was just reading this story in the BBC about the New Cross fire – I really can’t believe that it’s now 23 years ago. I was 10 at the time, but can still remember reading about the fire, which killed 14 people during a birthday party.

It’s always been a suspicious fire, so it’ll be interesting to see what the new inquest makes of things. After 20+ years of asking for it, it was finally approved back in 2002. The BBC also has a link to the original story as well as an overview of the entire thing.

Walking the Dead

As well as a few other things today, I ended up going for a walk (about two to three miles all told) to the Phillips Park, and then to the cemetery there. I used to live closer to this area, and even wandered through the street I used to live on – the first house I moved to here in Manchester, nearly five years ago. Considering how close it is to several major roads, I find it amazing just how peaceful and quiet it is. Well, except for the bone-idle fuckheads who insist on driving through the graveyard to the right area. But there we go – anything with people in it will always have something for bone-idle morons to chuff up.

Unfortunately, in this particular cemetery the morons have had the chance to play with other things too. Because of the area covered by the cemetery, it’s divided into several denominations, including Catholic, Protestant – and Jewish.

Every single marker and memorial in that Jewish section has been knocked over, broken, and just generally vandalised. It’s a deeply saddening, infuriating sight – thankfully there’s no graffiti to add icing to the cake, but all the same, it’s just intensely depressing, to see these stones and memorials broken and destroyed simply because of the faith behind them. I’ve taken several photographs there today, and they’re now online here… But in the meantime – just what the fuck is the point of vandalising gravestones like that?

Manchester has had a Jewish community since 1740, for crying out loud – it’s not like there’s even some shite excuse about being illegal immigrants. It’s just bigotry because of religion – and I’m willing to lay money that the wankers that have been big and brave enough to kick over gravestones don’t even know what Judaism’s all about. I admit – I don’t know either. I’ve never read the Talmud, nor been inside a synagogue. But that doesn’t mean I’m biased against anyone, just on the basis of their beliefs. It’s beyond me, this ability of people to hate others just for not conforming to their concept of what is “right”.

I’m sorry, I’m being slightly incoherent here – this set of photos, particularly the one above, just keeps on hitting me. It’s not fun, not in the slightest. And yet there’s nothing I can do. Frustrating doesn’t even come into it.

Niff

OK, now here’s the thing – what do you do when you have a manager that you can tell is in the office just by opening the door? Suggest deodourant? Breathe shallowly? Pray?

Photo-Geekery pt. 3

The prints arrived in the post this morning. Less than 24 hours since being ordered. I can’t help it – I’m impressed by effieiency like that.

And the print quality? Let me explain in two sentences.
1 ) I’m going to be looking for frames this weekend
2) I’m definitely going to use Photobox again.

Question answered. *Grin*

UPDATED : Well, not so much an update, just some extra information. I’ll probably, as per Gordon’s request, include a photo of the prints – but A2 is roughly 60cm x 45cm (24″ x 18″) so yeah, they’re pretty large prints. All the more impressive to have received them less than 24 hours after being ordered.

A reminder

Just a quick note to remind anyone who’s interested, the first Manchester blogmeet of 2004 will be taking place this time next week. Thursday 22nd January, FAB Cafe on Portland Street, 8pm or any time after that. Stupid t-shirts and fluffy toys welcome…

Photo-Geekery pt. 2

Many thanks for the recommendations, particularly those a) referring me towards Peak Imaging, and b) recommending I don’t use Jessops on-line developing stuff. (Can’t find a link to the actual developing stuff, but there we go).

Unless I’m reading Peak’s site incorrectly, I don’t think that the images I’m using (2832×2128 pixels – i.e. approx. 6.0megapixels)) are actually big enough for them to do the print size I want (A2 or above) without some resizing, which isn’t really what I wanted to do. So for now I’ve ordered two blow-up prints at A2 size from Photobox, which have cost me the princely sum of £30. See how they look, and work from there.

Personally, I still find I’m wavering on whether getting these prints done for myself is vanity or just being pleased with a good photo. Vanity, and that level of – to my mind – ego and self-centredness aren’t things that sit comfortably with me, and it’s taken some serious persuasion from friends and family to even get me to the point where I’ve ordered these prints. I’ll admit, I’m looking forward to seeing them at full size on glossy photo-paper – once that’s done, I may even get them framed, if I still like them.

One friend suggested that for ones I’m really pleased with, and that have received praise/comments from other people, is to possibly get a small set of prints done, and then I can self-justify having a print myself as “being part of a very limited edition” – although of course there’s also the side issue of the ego required to send out one of my own photos as a present to others. Heh. Ah well, we’ll see.

Yes, Karen, you can… (and yes, the larger images are still just under half the size of the originals – they’re fairly large all the same though)

UPDATED : I ordered these photos at about 10.30 this morning. It’s now 13.30, and I’ve just received an email saying “We’ve sent out your order”. I really hope the quality of the prints is up to the quality/speed of the service.

Cutting Down

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about reducing my intake of certain things. First and foremost among them at the moment is caffeine. Anyone who knows me will know how much coffee and diet Coke^® I drink in any given day. I’m not being stupid and just stopping it totally – if I didn’t have to work with people, I probably would cut it out in one go, but as I have to be in an office, it’s better to just cut it down massively. It means there’s also less chance of bloodshed.

I’ve already halved the intake – and managed it without the joys of caffiene headaches, which is even better. Coffee’s been completely cut out, and the diet Coke is on the wane. Only time will tell on the success of it all, but for now I feel OK.

Photo-Geekery

One thing I want to get done fairly early this year is to get some big – and I mean poster-size – prints of some of the photos I’ve done. Now, all these photos are done on a digital camera, and as such don’t have negatives. What I want to know is this : can anyone recommend somewhere that’ll do good prints of digital images, ideally from a CD, and is capable of doing them to a decent size?

I’ve had a couple of things suggested, but they sound like a complete pain in the arse.

The first option was to get a photo-print done to about 6″x4″ or even 7″x5″, then get a negative made from that so that it can be blown up to the large size I want. Of course, that’s through the shonkmeisters known as Boots photo centre, so I’m sure there are better options out there. I’ve looked at Photobox‘s services, and they seem pretty good, but I’d be interested to know if anyone’s used them, or has any recommendations of who to go to.

Shameless – Channel 4, Tuesdays 10pm.

After a small amount of fanfare, and a middling amount of advertising, Paul Abbott’s latest drama Shameless hit the screens last night. Abbott has written a huge number of successful TV dramas now, so anything new by him is likely to hold promise – and Shameless doesn’t look like it’ll be breaking that reputation.

Set in a run-down Manchester council estate (and yes, I do keep on thinking “I know that place” – I think I can even identify most of the location for the estate), it features the Gallaghers, six children whose mother left years ago, leaving them in the care of the father, Frank, and the eldest daughter Fiona – who does far more to keep them all together than her father, who mainly appears to drink himself comatose. Most of the other children weren’t really detailed in the first episode, although “Lip” appears to be the other main protagonist, along with his gay-but-not-out brother. There’s a lot of other plot-threads still to appear, I’m sure – but Shameless looks like it’ll be worth keeping an eye open for.

Um.

Do you ever have one of those days where there’s loads of things you want to say, but none of them seem to be working out quite right? All the ideas are just rattling round, clamouring for some form of escape, and yet every time you try, they just come out looking like (and sometimes smelling like) shite? Well, today’s one of those days.

I’ve already hit the “delete” button on Blogger more times today than any time in the last month – maybe I’m getting more self-critical or something, but I suspect it’s more likely that I just know that what was being written was utter utter shite. There will be stuff written here today, I’ms ure – but for now it may just get written off as “shite night, no writing skill at all, so don’t hold your breath. Besides, there’s a blogroll over there…”

Kilroy Silk

Google’s obviously getting hit lots for anything to do with that Kilroy-Silk weasel. As such, I currently come up third for Robert Kilroy Silk Prick – and oh lord I hope that’s an epithet, not a request for images – and seventh for Robert Kilroy-Silk bastard. Yahoo lists me first for Robert Kilroy Silk webpage too.

I’m glad I issued a rapid disclaimer to the theory that he’s a bastard. I’d better not call him a cocksucker. *Grin*

A special room in Hell

So, Harold Shipman has been found hanging in his cell – so sad. This man has never shown any remorse – and in fact continued to deny his crimes at all. There aren’t many who I find myself hoping that there’s a hell for – but Shipman is one.

Roast.

Cadbury’s Creme Eggs

Last Wednesday, during my post about the finale of the Festering Season, Gordon asked “what do I have against Creme Eggs?” I was going to write something about it over the weekend, but quite honestly, I forgot. So – here goes.

I don’t have anything against Creme Eggs per se. They’re revoltingly sweet and sticky, and put diabetics at risk of insulin coma just by walking past them, but there we go – that’s a personal viewpoint. Some would call it a taste thing, except everyone knows I’ve got no taste anyway. The TV adverts are incredibly annoying, but again, hey ho. Most of the time I can avoid them.

In fact, it’s more about the advertising than anything else – or more accurately, the marketing of them. No sooner has Christmas disappeared over the horizon (and not a moment too soon, so far as I’m concerned) than the TV adverts start to happen. The hoardings appear, and the little teaser adverts. Easter’s not until the 11^th April this year, so that’s near as dammit four bloody months of advertising for yet another consumer-fest. And in between we’ve still got Valentine’s Day – although that’s still a rant for another day.

So no, Gordon, I don’t hate Creme Eggs themselves, just the marketing wazzocks who foist them on us from January 1^st each year.

Flak and Character Assassination

Oh, the joys of working for local authorities. Talk about blame culture. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to work with such a bunch of jobsworth responsibility-dodging fadge-lickers.

Each week, the council’s chief exec publishes his “briefing” on the events of the week as a Word^® document on the council’s intranet. It’s wank, and no-one reads it. Recently it’s been made more “reader-friendly” by adding a photo of him to the document. Part of the problem is that apparently it’s beyond the skillset of the chief exec’s secretary – or the PR department – to put the photo into the Word^® document themselves, so it’s down to the web monkeys to do it. (i.e. me, or my manager – and it normally falls to the manager) God knows why, but the secretary and PR department won’t take any responsibility for it.

Last week, my manager was off sick, so it was down to me to put the briefing on the intranet. No worries. The secretary sent down the image, and the document. Lo and behold, 30 seconds later the two were married together, and five minutes after that the entire thing was on the intranet. Rocket science this ain’t. All’s well, and I naff off home for the weekend.

This morning it’s been like a scene from the Dambusters, there’s been so much flak flying. The PR department has decided that “the wrong photo” of the chief exec was used, because he looks smug and complacent as though he’s smiling, while the briefing has a message of condolence for a member of council staff who died over the christmas break. Big focking deal, I hear you cry. But of course it’s the web department that’s taking the flak – and I’ve never been exactly great at taking the blame for other people’s idiocy and incompetence. Today’s no different to normal on that score. Luckily, I’d kept the email with the photo attached, and have been able to say “not my problem – they sent it, I stuck it on”. Cue the next period of flak-flinging.

At this point, my sense of tact rather went out of the window. I wondered aloud why the secretaries can’t add the picture in themselves (along with mutterings suggesting “well, my pet gerbil can manage it, so why can’t they?”) and thus take responsibility for the entire document (and yes, that does answer the question) as well as a rather vocal suggestion that perhaps the head of PR could be replaced by a badly-trained mongoose, which would almost certainly do a better job.

This one could run and run…

Oh, Arse

I’d been planning to start a course with the Open University, but I’ve missed the dealine. Fucking arse. I’m annoyed at myself for not getting my finger out in time, although I did actually receive the paperwork on the day before the deadline, as it turns out – so the chances of getting in were pretty low anyway. But all the same, yes, I’m still pissed off with myself for missing it. I’ll get in for the next course start though…

And in the meantime, I’m going to take the time to make sure that I set myself up for it, make sure I can do it properly. And in the meantime? I think I might wedge in an extra course on something geeky – learning to use Photoshop properly appeals bigtime.

Customer Dis-service

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to drive me barmy, then it’s customer services. This time it was my old favourite – BT. I’m going to try and be good for once, and not swear – but it’ll be a struggle. In another of their fits of *cough* professionalism, I got a snotty red letter yesterday telling me to pay my bill within seven days. OK, fair enough – but it would’ve been nice to receive a bill in the first place, particularly as apparently I’m spending £50 per month on calls at the moment, which is definitely wrong.

I was out all day yesterday, so I didn’t get the chance to call them. Fair enough, call them on Sunday. So I go through the four levels of their AVR (Automated Voice Response) system for billing, and finally get put through to the right department.

“This department is closed. Please call back between 8am and 8pm Monday to Saturday. Thank you for your call.

Now, I’ve installed AVR systems, and I know that they can be set up with a timing system – so why doesn’t BT’s own system have the ability to tell you at some time before you’ve gone through the entire set of menus? Grrrr.

Still the same

I watched ET tonight, and even now, 22 years after it first came out, it still makes me cry. I should know better than to watch the bloody film, but still it comes on and I watch it.

But what a stunning piece of work, to still have that same emotional impact despite repeated viewings, despite everyone knowing how it happens, and how it ends.

Kilroy woz there

Oh, it’s true what they say – every cloud does have a silver lining. Robert Kilroy-Silk has pulled suspended the Kilroy programme while he’s busy being accused of the truth – i.e. that he’s a bigoted racist elitist bastard. Oh no, that’s libellous – I’ve no proof that his parents weren’t married at the time of conception.

Any rumour that the only reason there’s no “father’s name” on his birth certificate is because no-one wanted to accept responsibility would be a cruel and vicious lie, with no basis whatsoever in truth.

Logfiles

Back on October 6th, d4d™ hit the 100,000th page impression. Yesterday, three months down the line, we went past the 130,000th page impression. 10,000 per month, on average. Yes, I can live with that. I still find it amazing that so many people do look at d4d™ – of course the busiest time was during the entire Wileys furore, but still, there must be something that makes people come back.

Maybe they’re just hoping it’ll get better in time… *Grin*

Snail Mail

I commented on this back in June, but the last mail trains run tonight. I still think it’s a great shame that it’s happened, and that the profit-conscious cocksuckers have decided that the trains should be phased out. Mail trains have been running since 1838 (although the 23:17 always ran a bit late) Supposedly the trains were “a Victorian solution to a Victorian problem of moving post around the country before the era of motorways and air travel” which explains why they’re still in use today, when we recently celebrated 100 years since the first flight by the Wright brothers.

Relaxation

I was out last night with a friend who’d come up for the night – and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s been far too long since I’d just been out with friends for a few drinks and talking, no pressures of time or whatever. We ended up in Prague 5 (I’d add a weblink, but the site isn’t set up yet – Guess who I’m writing to over the weekend? *grin*), putting the world to rights, with some decent bass-heavy music as background, and luscious leather seats.

It’s definitely something I plan to do more often in 2004.

Bush on Mars

So, President Bollockbrain Bush has announced plans to put a man on Mars, and also manned missions to the Moon. Big shock – this man’s not just the greatest threat to humanity, but now he’s aiming to expand America into the Solar System. I know he can’t spell it, but does anyone think he knows the meaning of the word “megalomaniac“?

Now, what I really want to know is – which man is bush planning to leave on Mars? Hussein? Bin Laden?

Hardly a shocker

The BBC is reporting that Robert Kilroy-Silk is being accused of being a racist after an anti-Arab rant over the weekend. Now, let’s get real – was anybody ever under the impression that he wasn’t a bigoted prick with an ego the size of a planet? This man has made a life’s career out of being the Daily Mail of the chatshow world, a biased tosspot who appears to be racist, sexist, homophobic, class-ist (is there such a thing?), and a complete arse. To hear that he’s been reported to the police for it can only be seen as a good thing.

Immigration

From the sublime to the ridiculous in one easy move – the US is proving itself to be ever more paranoid. Todays two stories, firstly that the US wants airlines to ask passengers to not ‘congregate’ near the ‘plane toilets, and second, that Britons may need visas to enter the US. Frankly, the entire thing is just hysteria – I’m amazed they haven’t gone completely insular, and just said “right, we’re closing our borders to everyone. We can get out, but you can’t come in.” As it is, they seem to be doing that, only in incremental steps rather than one monumental move.

The first story would be hilarious if it weren’t so obviously the ravings of a paranoid delusional. As Warren Bennett, from the Australian Board of Airline Representatives is quoted as saying

Passengers are caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they are advised to move around an aircraft during flights for health reasons; but now they are being told not to congregate. It doesn’t make any sense”

The entire US Department of Homeland Security appears to be living on planet chuffhead – my favourite quote from Darrin Kayser (a spokesman for the US Transport and Security Administration, itself part of Homeland Security) in the story is

“We frequently say security is not a spectator sport… we can’t be successful about stopping terrorism without everyone playing a role”

As for the story regarding visas – again, it’s just laughable. If you have a passport issued before October 26th, then it doesn’t matter – as long as it has a barcode, you won’t need a visitors visa to the US. If the passport is issued after October 26th (and why didn’t they just go the whole hog, and make the deadline September 11th?) and is non-biometric – i.e. doesn’t contain data on fingerprints, and/or digital photographs (because, like, no-one can fake those, can they? *rolls on the floor laughing*) – then you’ll need a visitor’s visa. And again, it’s not like a terrorist would get caught at the stage of getting a visitor’s visa.

All of this “improved security” really is just cosmetics – regardless of all of it, if terrorists want to attack the US again, then they will. Osama Bin Laden must be just about killing himself with laughter by now, seeing all of these “precautions” that won’t add up to a cup of warm piss when/if the next attack happens. Maybe that’s the US’s “plan” – to make him laugh so hard he breaks several internal organs?

Stunned

via Meg, a regular joy that I’d forgotten about. Avon and Somerset police record all their 999 calls, and the most spectacular wastes of 999 time get put on their very own webpage. It’s simply amazing the kind of things that the fuckheads general public think deserve a 999 call – in this case, my “favourite” is the “very angry” person calling to complain that the police are doing bugger all about there being no buses on one particular road. Hopefully, he can be sent back to his own planet any day now.

Twelfth Night

So yes, that was Christmas ’03. All over and done with. The one nod to the Festering Season™ on d4d has been altered back to how it should be, and we can all wend our merry way through the adverts for Cadbury’s bastard Creme Eggs, and Valentine’s Day cards in the shops instead. Oh, what rapacious materialists we are.

As I was wandering round the city centre this morning though, I did find myself wondering about Twelfth Night. Is it something that people still believe in? Supposedly if you haven’t taken the Christmas decorations down by Twelfth Night then bad luck will follow you all year, and really you should leave the decorations up for the complete year. Looking around the town hall, the tree was still up this morning, and all the decorations – I found myself thinking it was a shame that the council didn’t organise it so that (even for overtime) all the decorations came down overnight on the 6th, so that when people came into the city on the 7th, the decorations had all just disappeared. Now that would be something fun – and add some sense of magic back to the season. Christ knows, it needs it.

Cat, meet Pigeons

My dentists has a policy where if you don’t turn up for an appointment, or cancel it on the day for an unconvincing reason, you still get charged for it. That’s fair enough, stops people pissing them about as much.

Today, I turned up at 8.45 for my 8.50 appointment. Nothing special, just one of those scrape and clean jobs, about 10-15 minutes all told. By 9.15, I still hadn’t been seen – not even a word from the receptionists. So I asked to make it for another day, and do it first thing.

However, the suggestion that they should pay me the cancelled appointment fee, as it was their chuff-up rather than mine, was definitely not well received. In fact, you’ve never seen a mouth turn into a replica of a cat’s arse so quickly – it was hilarious.

UK Advertising

Is it me, or is all the Sky One advertising for their latest import, “Nip/Tuck” beginning to reek slightly of desperation? I don’t know how much they’ve paid for this series – which, to be honest, sounds like Six Feet Under for cosmetic surgeons – but it certainly feels like they’re now trying to drum up interest in the programme just so they can justify the expense of it.

Personally, I suspect it’s one I’ll be giving a miss, as the adverts have sent me in the opposite direction, and made it look more and more unappealing. (or less and less appealing, whichever you prefer)

International Advertising

I meant to write a little bit about this story before Christmas, then completely forgot about it. As such, thanks Meg for reminding me about it. AdAge produced a list of ten adverts that the US will never see – it makes for quite interesting reading. Several of them have been seen in the UK already, including the #1 “Mr Kipling’s Nativity Play“, which had me laughing out loud, but received 570 complaints, primarily for the closing punchline of “it’s a girl!“.

Lardy

Did anyone else watch the documentary on Channel 4 on Sunday, about “America’s Fattest City” ? (Sorry, I can’t find a link to it at the moment) It was pretty horrendous – although apparently Detroit has now deposed Houston as America’s Fattest City – and included people who apparently drive their children the 50 feet to the stop for the bus-stop. The old rumour that Americans are going to evolve into limbless creatures still appears to (pardon the pun) have legs.

And was it just me, or were a good 75% of the adverts in the programme for diet programs like Weightwatchers? Never let it be said that advertisers don’t have a sense of irony.

NYE and the texts

Over at The Register, there’s a piece about the number of text messages sent in the UK on New Years Eve. The figure is reckoned to be 100 million text messages. That’s mind-boggling. Of course, as per every other New Year, the mobile phone networks couldn’t cope with the demand, and locked up for up to four hours. Aren’t modern communications great?

The end of days

Call me a putrid old Scrooge, but I must admit to feeling a lot lighter in mood since the poxy Christmas decorations and lights are starting to come down. The infamous World’s Shonkiest Shopping Centre™ (also known, for some godforsaken reason, as The Spindles) has lost all things festering, so now we’re back to marimba and panpipe versions of Boney M’s “It’s a Holi-Holi-Day”, as opposed to the delicate joys of glockenspiel and tuba versions of Christmas Carols. Trust me, you’ve never heard Slade ’til you’ve listened to it in a version designed for triangle and bagpipe. (Well, that’s what it sounded like).

So, Twelfth Night is almost upon us, and thank fuck for that. Only 300ish shopping days to Christmas.

Moooooooose!

Well, as promised, proof that the collection has grown. As well as Rutt and Tuke (I’m sticking with their Disney names, due to a combination of simplicity and current lack of imagination) there’s finally a (very bad) picture of Scaramoose, Scaramoose, and Fandango, as well as another gift addition, Infa.

And yes, I realise it means I have two called Scaramoose, but to be honest I just don’t care. They’re identified as a set, so it’s pretty much irrelevant anyway.

New-ish Year

Amazing as it may seem for a Sunday, I’ve been doing some thinking. One thing in particular has been bouncing round my head a bit, which relates to the entire New Year thing.

Now, while I’m the last one to agree that greetings should be reciprocated without thought – I’ve never been into the “sending someone a card because they’ve sent me one” school of thought – I do feel that things change slightly between people who are supposedly friends. Feel free to add in the comments if you think I’m being unreasonable on this one – I actually want to know if I’m seeing this one entirely wrong.

When you’ve sent a quick “Happy New year and all the best” message to a friend, is it unreasonable to think it’d be decent to send a reply? You know, sometime in the four days since sending it. Is that unreasonable? Or is it – as I’m beginning to think – a decent way of saying “Oh fuck off, I really can’t be bothered even to do friendly greetings” ?

Bad Domestic Joke

Yes, today’s been domestic again. As well as domestic shopping for the week, I’ve also been planting bulbs with a compost of rodent and sugar.

Yes, I’m going to be growing Tulips from ‘Amster Jam.

Kaboom and indeed tish.

Manchester Blogmeet III

While I remember, Lori has revealed details of the first Mancunian Blogmeet of 2004. Thursday Jan 22^nd at the ever-present Fab Cafe. If you can make it – or if you can’t – leave her a message here. We’ll also be looking at other venues for the new year – Kro₂ has already been mooted by Yours Truly, but others may be suggested too.

Utopia

At long last, a day completely off. A trip in to the city centre, a wander round while the weather attempted to snow (and failed abysmally) and some small purchases. Can’t be bad.

One thing I was really pleased with was to finally find the St Mary’s (Hidden Gem) church – I’d heard about it, but hadn’t managed to find it ’til today. Ok, fair enough, I’d hardly been looking intensively or anything, but I’m still pleased to have found it at last.

Oh, and the moose collection has had two additions, as I wrote before on d4d™ the latest Disney movie “Brother Bear” has two Moose characters, Rutt and Tuke, both of which the Disney store stocks. So now I just need to take photos of them to add to the Rogues Gallery. Sad, but true.

Other than that, just visiting a couple of shops, and a truly quiet pleasant day. Pax Festivicus.

And so that was the festering season™

Ah, thank God that’s over and done with. Only another 300ish shopping days ’til the next one. I wonder if I’ll be any more prepared for it in ’04?

There’s a lot to be said about this festering season™ just passed, and also one hell of a lot that I want to change before the next one. I’m not wanting to lay myself down targets of what to do, but there’s a definite feel for things I don’t want to do, so we’ll just have to see how it all works out.

I’m undecided about what to do for the festering season itself next year – three options really raise their heads for consideration.

1. Go somewhere sunny – and possibly non-christian.
   Now this one appeals, knowing my need for sun, and my desire to avoid as much of Christmas and it’s traditions as possible.
2. Go somewhere snowy
   Prague still really appeals, and the entire thing of going somewhere that’s capable of a “proper” christmas
3. Stay home, and work a soup kitchen or similar
   Done it before, and I’m pretty sure I’ll end up doing it again. Maybe not in ’04, but definitely before long. We’ll see though.

So – that’s the choices so far. As yet I’m not sure which I’ll go for, but first thing on my list is to take about a week off and just collapse and die. Definitely a good idea.

NYD

Over and done with. As always, a sense of let-down, of being annoyed with myself for hoping that this one will be different. No matter how much I try to expect absolutely nothing from December 31st, and all the hype and bullshit surrounding it, there’s still always a way for me to have been expecting too much.

I don’t know why – but yeah, in some way I buy into NYE each year, the entire “people getting in touch with those they care about to say ‘Happy New Year'” and so on. And it never really works out at all. I think that at the end of ’04, I’m going to leave my phone alone, and see who actually bothers to send anything. Yeah, it’ll be an acid test – and that’s why I’m going to leave this as a reminder, both for me and for others, so that I can refer back to it in a year’s time.

Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but I fully expect to receive nothing, if I leave it to other people to make the first move. Happy New Year.