Getting away with it

Ah, another case of Do as I say, not as I do – Manchester Police’s Assistant Chief Constable (the one in charge of traffic, no less) gets stopped for doing 104mph on a motorway, and gets away with 6 points and a £450 fine. Alright for some, isn’t it?

Chris Rea
Manchester Apollo

Some people just get confused. As we were leaving the gig, someone behind me said

“Why didn’t he play ‘Lady in Red’ ?”

Sorry, pet, wrong Chris.

However, if you knew what you were looking for, this gig was bloody good. Bizarrely, it was my second all-seated gig within 10 days, after donkey’s years without one at all.

A few years ago, Rea was diagnosed with cancer, and allegedly “did a deal with God”, and decided that if he survived, he’d play the music he wanted to, and do blues albums instead of some of the pap he’d done previously. The first two thirds of the gig was exactly that – proper “old-fashioned” blues, like a supercharged bar-room band. Seriously good blues and rock’n’roll type music.

The last third was more a revue of his older stuff, “Let’s Dance”, “Road to Hell”, “Josephine”, and the like, but even then they’d been bluesed-up (if that’s a word) and a lot better than they’d been remembered.

All things considered, a bloody good gig – much enjoyed. And thank fuck, no “Lady In Red”.

Classy Google Searches

From the last twenty-four hours:

Niagara Academy livejournal. No idea, sorry.
“My boss is a twat” t-shirts – Nice idea! Definitely has potential…
Machine’s plastic and injection part – the mind boggles.

Be Still, My Bleeding Heart

Following on from yesterday’s pithy review by the Guardian of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, they now have a feature about the aftermath of the show. It makes for some hilarious reading.

“I think they manipulated the town, the restaurant and people who work so hard to earn a living,” said Sarah, a waitress. “They portrayed Silsden as an unsophisticated northern town in the name of reality television. We are as sophisticated as people in London. This is an affluent, growing place and I think we all feel insulted.”

What, a TV “reality” programme that alters viewers perceptions of what the place is like? Imagine my shock. It’s also worth noting that “Neither Gray nor the restaurant were paid by Channel 4 for their participation, which the head chef invited by answering an advert in a catering magazine.” – so really the chef thought he was good enough to be on TV, and didn’t think for a minute that he’d be upstaged and outdone by Ramsay. To me, that comes under “deserves everything he gets”.

Gray, who yearned to be a chef from childhood, said he did not undergo any psychological profiling before agreeing to take part in the programme, something Dr Cynthia McVey, a psychologist from Caledonian University said should have taken place.

“People want to take part because they’re excited about being on television. They see it as a path to stardom, but when they actually see the result it’s different. They think they have control and then realise they don’t.”

I’m sorry, but psychological profiling before the show? The lad wanted to be on TV, answered an ad to get him on TV, and is now upset that he was made to look like a twonk. He volunteered. If C4 had rung up the restaurant and said “we want to film at your place” without any prior enquiry from the people working there, then I’d feel more charitable about it. But they volunteered to be on the programme, answered an ad to take part, and didn’t even get paid for it, which leaves me thinking far more “reap what you sow”.

RIP

One of my old teachers, John Fulkes, has been found dead at his home (and they think he’d been dead for some time before anyone found him). The funeral is on Friday. RIP.

Disinterested

This one can be filed under “Brewery, Piss-up, Organise“.

Today, there’s been a report released about the future of Oldham, following on from the race riots in 2001, and detailing how Oldham can move on and improve itself. It’s been reported about by the Manchester Evening News – in fact, it’s front page headline, plus two further pages inside, plus an editorial comment. In the paper, it says “for a full copy of the document, look at the website”. On the website, the entire report isn’t even mentioned. [UPDATED : I’ve since been pointed to a copy of the story on the site, and the 5.5Mb PDF of the report is here]

Not only is it not mentioned on the MEN website, it’s not mentioned on the website of Oldham council, who are one of the parties behind the report. (Apparently they want to make it not look like a council-funded report – instead they make themselves look ignorant of what’s happening in their own town) At the time of writing, the UrbEd page has a link to a PDF of the report, only the PDF either hasn’t been uploaded to the webserver, or they’ve just keffed it up and sent up an empty document. The NorthWest Development Agency, another of the partner organisations, also doesn’t have any information about the report, except to detail the launch party for it, at Gallery Oldham, which also hasn’t got any information on the site.

And finally, the main organisation/site behind this report, Oldham Beyond at the time of writing hasn’t even mentioned the fucking report.

Organisation – don’t you just love it?

Hypocrites

Obviously the Anglican church still believes in “Love thy fellow man” – but don’t take it too literally. Not content with insisting that Dr Jeffrey John wasn’t “fit” to be the Bishop of Reading, a group of “around 40 clergy and laity” in the St Albans area now want him to step down as Dean of St Albans.

In a statement, the St Albans Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship said the move was a “serious error” of judgement.

The group said it was “aggrieved” that the Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Rev Christopher Herbert, had agreed to the appointment.

© BBC news

What is the problem with having a gay man in the clergy? I’m sorry, but I simply don’t see what the issue is with this, other than homophobia and bigotry on the part of the blinkered bastards who are complaining.

Perfection

This quote is entirely © today’s Guardian.

If Gordon Ramsay was reviewing his own show, Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (Channel 4), it would probably go something like this:

I tell you what, I’m fucking gobsmacked. Ramsay swans in from fucking London to fucking Bonaparte’s in Silsden like he’s God’s fucking gift and says “fuck” or “fucking” every other word. He tells some poor kid chef he’s a limp dick and an embarrassment and that he’s going to ram the cabbage up his arse. He’s making out he’s like some fucking food missionary, saving bad chefs round the country and spreading the word of good food, when really all he’s doing is helping his own fucking TV show and his ego. Then he fucks off back to London. Twat.

But he’s not. I thought it was quite entertaining.

I didn’t know I was writing reviews for the Grauniad…

And the earlier part of the review, covering BBC’s “Cutting It” is pretty good and pithy too.

On the way to work

While travelling to work today, a woman got on the bus, and spotted her friend sat in the seat behind me.

“Oh hello, are you on this bus too?”

A Gold Award^® in Stating the Bloody Obvious.

WinZip

I’d just like to quickly say that I think WinZip is ace. I’ve just taken a 10Mb logfile from d4d™’s server, and compressed it to 500Kb. Not a bad rate of compression at all.

</geeky>

Belated

Blimey, Naked Blog was three on Saturday. I hope that he had jelly and ice-cream at the party…

Lunatic

via Insubstantial, I bring you…

Creation of 4 simultaneous 24 hour days, within a single rotation of Earth, empowers me above all 1-day gods and
educated stupid scientists. I will wager $10,000.00 on it.

Spectacularly barking.

Another U-turn

Ah, the joys of government u-turns. Back in November (and it was still being reported as such as recently as a month ago) “Goebels” Blunkett was syaing that national ID cards wouldn’t have to be permanently carried, and nor would it be compulsory to have one. Yesterday, it was revealed that anyone who refused to be registered for a national ID card could be liable to a fine of £2,500. Yup, that’s still sounding pretty voluntary…

High-Class

Getting home today I had a mere 485 “deleted” emails (thanks to my message rules) and 360 “Junk” emails (thanks to Spambayes) Not bad for 48 hours away. One of them did make me laugh though…

Le Mont are delighted to announce our new exciting spring menu
for more details take a look at our website
www.urbis.org.uk
For reservations call 0161 605 8282
Open for Lunch Monday to Friday 12.00-2.30pm
Open for Dinner Monday to Saturday 7.00pm-10.30pm
Unfortunately due to a technical problem with our system we are enable to enclose a copy of the spring menu. Should you wish to receive a copy of the new menu, please email us back and we will get one out to you at the earliest convenience
Additionally Le Mont will be holding a Gourmet evening in association with Bollinger Champagne on Thursday 10th June 2004. The evening will consist of a 5 course gourmet menu with accompanying champagne and wines for £95.00 per person.
Reservations are essential for this evening.

We look forward to welcoming you to Le Mot in the very near future.

Le Mont at Urbis
Catherdral Gardens
Manchester
M4 3BG

I’ve replied to the email, because I was annoyed by the stupid errors within it.

To whom it may concern,

In addition to the “technical difficulties” and being “enable” (I think you meant “unable”) to send out the menu your mail is advertising, I note that towards the bottom of the email, “Le Mont” is now spelled as “Le Mot”, and “Cathedral” has somehow managed to become the recipient of an extra “R”.

As I am sure you will agree, this is hardly a great way to advertise a supposedly superior restaurant…

Sincerely

Lyle

Pedantry can be fun…

Yesterday

A train journey to Middlesbrough, and then a “sod this, let’s go to sit by the sea at Redcar, and put the world to rights”. Not bad at all. However, seaside bingo is an experience not to be repeated (no offence, Peter) but there’s still little to beat fish and chips out of paper sat on a bench by the beach.

In other news, “broken” networks are now working fine. Life is – well, if not good, then at least looking up.

Now I just need to get caught up on my own stuff, and sort all that out. Fun, fun, fun.

Amazonian Weirdness

Diamond Geezer pointed this out to me, but apparently Amazon has d4d up for sale. News to me, but then, most things are. Check your site out too…

Worst?

In my misfortune, while typing these posts out, I’ve had VH1 on in the background. For some reason they’ve decided that today is a day to air their “The Worst Songs of the…” for the 80s and 90s. In a way it’s kind of interesting, because while I agree that the songs are abysmal – in the 90s one so far we’ve had joys like Steps’ “5-6-7-8”, Ace of Bass’ “The Sign”, Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack”, and currently 2Unlimited’s “No Lyrics Limits” – in some ways I have a problem with calling them “the worst”. After all, they’re all memorable, even if only for how bad they were. But I can remember each one, from the first bars – so while they’re bad, they’re “good” enough to still be stuck in the brain 10ish years later. Surely if they were “the worst”, no-one would recall them? The truly worst would’ve been in the charts for a week, and then been forgotten about…

Today

I’ve been spending some time planning out stuff for the next couple of weeks. I’m in Reading next weekend, and thought I’d best check out train times etc. as it’s a bank holiday weekend. You know, those ones where “hardly anyone uses trains” (© Railtrack/Network Rail) so they close down half the routes for maintenance work.

Getting down on the Friday is no problem – direct, Manchester to Reading, piece of piss. Coming back on the Monday though, is a cunt. I’ve got to go from Reading to London Paddington, then from Paddington to Euston, then from Euston to Manchester. Well, at least it doesn’t involve riding on a bus, for once. But all the same, what a pain in the arse.

I hereby predict that, come the August Bank Holiday weekend, the line will yet again be closed between Reading and London. Because of course with the Carling Weekend festival in Reading, they won’t be expecting roughly 100,000 extra people in the town. Not that it sold out in less than three weeks, or anything.

Yesterday

Yes, yesterday was glorious and sunny, so I spent most of it outside, either in the city centre, or back at the house and in the garden. I’m definitely solar-powered, and the heavy dose of sunlight was probably one of the smartest things I’ve done in ages. Today will be more of the same, albeit with some of it through a train window. Joy.

While I was out yesterday, I took several new photos of the city – still in my normal haunts, as I really wasn’t in the mood to do much wandering. I’ll see how they look, and they’ll possibly make their way on here at some point.

Sun

Bugger all this, I’m off out into the sun…

E-zimmer

Mike is reminiscing about home pages and newsgroups. Enjoy, unless you’ve no idea what I just said, in which case don’t bother.

Face Off

Well, it was talked about a month ago, but it’s now been confirmed that the current edition of “The Face” will be the last.

St. George

Well Hey Ho and a jolly tantivvy, it’s April 23rd, which of course means it’s St. George’s Day. Or, according to today’s Grauniad, it should be St George and Jonny day, with a good roast beef meal, cooked by mum, and followed by a pint in the pub.Some people have been given the day off. Alternatively, you could choose to remember that it’s Shakespeare’s birthday, and join those celebrations instead.

Or of course you could take a leaf out of Richard Desmond’s book, be utterly “patriotic” and abuse the Germans.

Useful?

Here at work I have a colleague. Amazing, I know. However, I have absolutely no idea what he does. He’s supposedly in the web-team, the same as myself and Stinky. He never attends the same meetings, is seemingly incapable of answering even the most elementary questions regarding website and intranet (instead they get passed on to me, written in a doctor-esque scrawl on green card) and doesn’t appear to edit or write any of the web pages.

He’s been in the programming teams, only they got rid of him because he’s (in someone else’s words) “a completely clueless twat” and he’s ended up on the web-team. (Some would say that’s the rightful place for clueless twats, but I wouldn’t be that harsh) All he seems to do is sit at his desk and count the hours/minutes ’til it’s time to go home.

So my question is this : “What the fuck does he DO all day? and Why do the council keep him on?”

Identity

Two items on the BBC news site this morning caught my attention – partly because they seem to be semi-related. First, according to a MORI poll, 80% of people would be happy to carry national ID cards. However, most of them (58% of those questioned) also think there would be problems implementing the card system, (as per usual, file under “No, Really?“) and only 20% would be happy paying the proposed £35 fee for such a card.

The second story is about Jim Lee, a man who doesn’t exist, according to the government. Never registered at his birth, with no NI (National Insurance, for non-UK readers) number, he’s never claimed benefit, and has never been in “the system”. Now he’s in a position where it’s quite possible he’ll be back on the streets because the DWP won’t accept him without proof of identity, either paper-based, or on the recommendation of family (who he hasn’t seen since the age of 14) or friends. (possible, but he’s moved around so much that there aren’t really any regular friends either)

Utterly farcical. And remind me, just how is someone like this supposed to get a National ID card, when he can’t even get an NI number?

Coining It

Did you know that the pound coin is now 21 years old? I didn’t. The Manchester Evening News today has an article about it, including the changing attitudes towards the coin since its introduction, and also a comparison of its buying power now to then. Interesting reading.

Orange

Out of interest, why do people of a certain age insist on dyeing their hair such bizarre colours? They just look ridiculous, trying to cleave to a self-image that clearly is no longer theirs, and probably never was.

I’m not talking about skater “kidz”, but instead those at the other end of the generational timeline. Today has been the day I witnessed an orange rinse talking to a blue rinse. And I really do mean blue. Not “silvery white” but blue. Although I’ve still only seen a green rinse once. Thankfully.

Five Years – Part 3 – Regeneration

I was interested to see in today’s Guardian that Grimethorpe is to get a new housing development. Grimethorpe was one of the Yorkshire mining villages that was virtually crippled by the miner’s strike, and never really recovered from it, particularly once the mine itself was closed down. In fact about the only surviving “industry” has been Grimethorpe Colliery Band.

My grandparents lived in Grimethorpe, and my grandfather was a miner at the pit. Personally, I loathed the place, even before the strike and closures. The last time I was there was five years ago (this seems to be a developing theme this week) for his funeral. At that time, my father said “that’s it. I’ll never come back here again” – he still hated it, even after 30 years away from it. I can’t say I blame him. (Oddly enough, I’ve just done a search for photos of Grimethorpe, and these two are actually taken from the same road my grandparents lived on, and probably within 5 houses of theirs.)

From as far back as I recall, Grimethorpe was a grey, polluted town, and that was after the Clean Air Acts and so on had already cleaned it up. Since the mine closed, it’s an area that has just gone further and further downhill, becoming the perfect definition of a depressed area. I hope that the Park Springs project and these housing developments bring some new life (and new money) into the place, but I know it’s not somewhere I’d choose to return to, let alone live in.

BBC2 @ 40

Finally reaching the joys of “middle age”, BBC2 is 40 today, and is celebrating, including a list of 40 of its best programmes. There’s also a small retrospective of BBC2 idents on the BBC site, and (via DG) a much bigger index.

In fact, DG’s post about the history of BBC2 is loaded with more links than I can provide, so go there, and read that instead.

Happy Birthday, BeebToo.

Five Years – Part 2

And another weirdness from the gig last night – bumping into an ex-colleague. He’d changed a lot, and so there was a good couple of minutes of “I know he’s familiar, but where the fuck from?” before it all clicked. We’d worked together for a company very soon after I’d moved up here, so again, we’re looking at about 5 years ago now. The company was a small ISP based in Manchester called GreatXscape – no link, because the domain has now been taken over by some dodgy porncam company thing.

Anyway, it was good to see him, and catch up on some of the people I’d worked with. It’s just a surprise sometimes, coming up against people you’ve worked with before, particularly when it’s so far from the old context in which I knew them.

Norah Jones
Manchester Apollo

Unlike Chris, I did manage to see the Norah Jones concert last night. Partly through luck (I’d seen an advert, and knew friends who wanted to see her too) and partly through opportunity (there was money in my account, and I could afford the £30 per ticket gouge price), so I managed to get the tickets. And pretty good tickets they turned out to be – 19 rows from the front (well, row “S” – I think that’s 19th row).

Despite the comments of others (“they’ll have needles in the chairs to keep you awake”) it turned out to be a pretty good concert.

In direct contrast to most of the gigs I go to, this one was all seated. Very sedate, easy-listening. In fact, it was almost like a huge living room, with it’s own singer and band. Well, it wouldn’t be my living room – the seating I’ve got is comfortable, and doesn’t make my arse numb. But that’s a small side point.

The gig itself pretty much fulfilled the meaning of the word “intimate” – or as intimate as the Apollo gets, anyway, with 2,500ish people in there. It was good – the lighting was dimmer than I’d have liked, but then, I’m used to blinding bright shows etc. The sound quality was pretty much spot-on, and the musicians were excellent too. All in all, it was a pretty good gig – although I’ll still admit to being surprised by her covering two of the huskiest voices in music, “Long Way Home” by Tom Waits, and “Ride On” by AC/DC, originally sung by Bon Scott. All things considered, a pretty good evening – but with only a 90 minute performance, was it really worth ?pound;30 plus booking fee etc.? I don’t think so, but most of the people coming out agreed it had been a brilliant concert, and would probably disagree with me about value for money.

Five Years

It was only while reading this story (via Gert) that I realised it’s now five years since David Copeland set off three bombs in London. For me, it was the last one, at the Admiral Duncan in Soho that will always be the one I recall most, as I’d been through Old Compton Street less than half an hour before the bomb went off. It doesn’t seem possible that it’s already half a decade ago – but obviously it is.

Inspiration?

Hmmm, today I’m trying vainly to look for some inspiration. And not really doing all that well at it. I’m doing three (probably) different design ideas for one site, as a demonstration of the versatility of the website/product I’m creating, as well as the uses of CSS and PHP.

But inspiration is lacking. We’re not talking rocket science really, just three different titlebar images, logos, colour-schemes, and page layouts. I’ve done two (pretty much) but the third is – well, problematic. I’m sure it’ll come to me in the end, but for now it’s absolutely annoying the tits off me. Ah well.

The thing is, I’m not a graphic artist. Thankfully, nor have I ever claimed to be. I can (usually) get Photoshop to do what I want, and the ideas eventually transfer over the brain/hand/Photoshop interface, but it’s not easy, and tends to drive me barmy. Still, it does mean that when I’ve come up with something that works, or got at least the ideas, then I’m a happy bunny. Until then, stress-head reigns supreme.

Home Again, Home Again

Back home. The weather in Nottingham was abysmal, and pissed it down all day. The weather in Leicester wasn’t much better. It’s been a good weekend – although most of the group seem to have developed a dollop of food poisoning, which is never good. Thankfully I haven’t had it, which is a bonus considering the two hour train journey.

The birthday surprise went well, with the DJ at Zanzibar in Leicester being utterly gobsmacked that a whole bunch of his friends could be so sneaky as to all congregate in Leicester and organise it without him knowing.

Mission successful. *grin*

Normality

Well, after the calm of last weekend, I’m back on the trail of being daft. Nottingham this weekend – not for anything hugely relevant, just social commitments. Back Sunday. Possibly photos, probably not, if I’m honest.

There’s a few things I should probably be commenting on, but for now my brain’s in Helen Keller mode, so no guarantees at all.

Upgrade

I don’t need a new laptop.
I don’t need a new laptop.
I don’t need a new laptop.

But look. It’s shiny, and black, and ultrathin, and cute, and $3,200, and .. and …

I don’t need a new laptop.
I don’t need a new laptop.
I don’t need a new laptop.

Scapegoat?

Both the Grauniad and the BBC are reporting today on the story that 200 people have been falsely recorded as being criminals by the Criminal Records Bureau. I’m not surprised – but for once, I don’t think it’s fair to lay this one entirely at the door of the CRB. From the BBC story

In some cases the names of those being vetted by the bureau were similar or identical to those of actual criminals.

In others, the criminals had given someone else’s personal details to the authorities to avoid a police record.

Now, OK, the first sentence there is pretty much down to the CRB, and the fact it should check more than just the names. In fact, it _does_ check more than just the names, so it’s really more attributable to staff selecting the first matching name, rather than checking properly. That’s a procedural error, and not particularly great.

However, the second sentence is far more relevant – criminals using someone else’s name when arrested/charged/whatever. That’s not down to the CRB – it’s the police forces with procedural errors. I’ve been arrested a couple of times over the years, and have never been asked for proof of my name – it would be all too easy to simply use someone else’s name. That’s a flaw within the police system – and it’s stupid, because it’s something that’s pretty easy to verify, short of someone having a full set of false ID. Even a simple check in a person’s wallet is likely to reveal what their name is – cashpoint cards, switch cards, work ID cards, if they don’t match the name you’ve given, then it’s definitely cause for suspicion.

In fact, the CRB seems to be becoming the scapegoat for things like this. Back in December, it was acknowledged that it was relying on information from other agencies, which isn’t always accurate, yet it still took the brunt of the blame for Ian Huntley passing his CRB check when again the blame was actually attributable to the police forces who hadn’t kept records on his arrests. If the records had been kept, it’s far more likely that the CRB would have picked up on it, and not allowed him the job in Soham.

Also, that “200 people in two months” is actually a pretty insignificant figure. The CRB has the capacity to deal with 50,000 Disclosure checks per week. 25 errors a week isn’t good – but it’s still only a quarter of one percent of the capacity. That’s an error rate I can live with – particularly considering that it’s run by Capita (or Crapita, as Private Eye calls them) who aren’t exactly renowned for the smooth running of their contracts. Even the CRB one is now £150million over budget, which is currently in the throes of being investigated.

National ID Cards

I’ve studiously avoided mentioning the UK National ID card scheme currently being proposed by Hitler and Goering Blair and Blunkett, mainly because I don’t currently feel the need to froth at the mouth. However, Bruce Schneier – a well known security consultant and cryptography specialist – has written a piece about ID Cards that pretty much sums up my feelings on it. I’ve been reading Schneier’s Cryptogram newsletter for about three years, and (as with the post three down) I don’t agree with all of his views, but I do find the majority of it interesting and thought-provoking.

Kitchen-geek

Now that‘s what I call a sink.

Want one.

Sneering

I may not agree with what you say.
But I shall fight to the death to defend your right to say it.

Note : This is very disjointed at the moment. I’ll edit it several times, I’m sure. I know what I want to say, I just haven’t figured the right words yet.

There seems to be a bit of a theme developing at the moment. Meg has gone off for a break, primarily because of the attentions of some fucktard comment-troll, and now Blue Witch is off for a break as well, following on from people thinking they know her, and feeling able to snipe behind her back on her opinions. Gordon wrote his views earlier this week, which I agree with too.

So far as I’m concerned, blogs, weblogs, and all that gubbins come under one heading – Personal Sites. The first word there is the important one. It’s personal. We all have different opinions, different thoughts, and differing ways of expressing them. If we all thought the same, weblogs and personal sites would never have taken off – at least half the joy of blogs etc is finding other people, appreciating their style of writing, seeing what they have to say about things. Sometimes they’re good for spotting things we’ve missed ourselves – more times than enough I’ve found myself looking at a site or a story I’d never normally read, purely because one of my regular reads has said “this is a really good/bad/whatever thing, and you should read it”. I probably wouldn’t have found half the sites on the blogroll if it weren’t for things like that. And that’s what this is all about. It’s personal views, and we either like them or we don’t.

In that context, a set of blogs is no different to a party, or a social gathering. It’s a load of different people expounding about different subjects in different ways. Sometimes we listen, and like what we hear. Other times we listen, and disagree. Sometimes we disagree so much that we walk away, leave that group, and find another one.

With blogs, however, there’s a slight difference. Instead of just walking away thinking “I don’t really agree with that”, some people seem to feel the need to dissect that, and to turn it into personal attacks. Fair enough, that’s free speech at work. But it cuts both ways – I’ve got the right to say what the fuck I want, in whatever way I want. And so have you. I try to let people have their say, and if it’s in a way I don’t like, then fair enough – it’s still their right to say it.

Free speech is such a double-edged sword. So many of us banter the concept about willy-nilly, but the perspective on free speech there is “I’ll say what I want, but you can’t criticise it”. That’s not free speech. I can’t remember who first used the quote at the top of this post – but it echoes my feelings on this subject completely.

Fare thee Well

This’ll mean absolutely nothing to anyone outside Manchester, so if you’re not interested, just move along, there’ll be something else here soon.

Over the last four years or so, I’ve been a regular reader of City Life (Warning, the site appears to utterly bork Opera), the Manchester equivalent of Time Out. Next week, they’re relaunching with (another) new design, so this week’s edition is a bit of a milestone. One feature I’ve read almost religiously every week has been Phil Griffin’s Archisnap, a small feature that each issue has looked at a certain building or development around Manchester. Very bobble-hatted on occasion, but always passionate about the development of both architecture and Manchester, it’s always been a good read, whether I’ve agreed with the author or not. A small archive of them is available from Cube gallery – I’d love to see a full web archive of them at some point.

Through Griffin’s column, I’ve learned about bits of the city that no-one would really notice without having them pointed out, and also about buildings I’ve noticed, but had no idea of the history behind them. The last Archisnap is in this week’s City Life. It’ll be sorely missed.

Referrers

I don’t normally list any of the referrers to this site (other than bizarre Google searches, of course), but I’m intrigued about what brought the Department of Elder Affairs, Tallahassee, United States scurrying to this site earlier today.

At first I wondered why there was a department dealing with Elder trees, but now I realise I’m wrong. All the same, I’d love to know what brought them here.

Bollocks to it

Ah, the joys of favicons. Having norked about a bit, and added in a line of code to the HTML, it now works in most browsers. Except IE, which is (of course) doing its own thing, and just being a pain in the arse. So sod it, I’m not going to mess about any more for now, and work on the theory “It’s there, it’s just not always visible in borked browsers“

And at least I didn’t delete my entire weblog along the way. *Grin*

Bureaucracy

Gah, I’ve decided that Companies House are the bureaucrats it’s OK to loathe. On occasion I check out my company details on their site – not for any good reason, but more to make sure that I’m not missing anything, as they’ve been known to be utterly incompetent cunts in the past. (See also : the links listed here. ) This time, it’s fortunate that I did check it – as yet again, the form for my Annual Return hasn’t been received here, yet it’s due in at the end of the week. And what would have happened if I hadn’t sent it in by Friday? I could be sued by Companies House.

Now, I’m not saying there’s a conflict of interest here, but surely if the inefficiency of Companies House can subsequently bring extra money (in the form of legal costs, fines etc.) into the coffers of – um – Companies House, then there’s something wrong with that equation…

As it is, I’ve now done it all online, and sent it in. I just hope I don’t go through the farce of previous years about whether the motherfuckers have received it or not. I may back myself up, and send in a copy by post too. After all, I’ve already paid the £15 for the online one, so it shouldn’t be a problem to duplicate it…

*mutter* *snarl* favicons

I love the idea behind favicons. What’s a favicon? The little picture up on the titlebar beside the name of some websites, in some browsers. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a yellow square with “d4d” on it while looking at this site. But you may not.

And that’s what’s frustrating about them – they’re not standards-compliant, and there’s not even any compatibility between browsers about what works best. IE supposedly likes them, Opera doesn’t, and Firefox sometimes likes them and sometimes doesn’t. No-one seems able to decide whether they should be 16×16 or 32×32 pixels, 8bit, 16bit or 32bit colour, or really bloody anything.

Over the weekend, I realised that the website for my company didn’t have a favicon – it’s nothing special, doesn’t alter the functionality, but I do like the idea of favicons, particularly when using tabbed browsing, such as in Firefox. It makes each tab instantly recognisable. Well, it does so long as the keffing things work.

Of course, for some reason (as yet still unknown) the favicons I was using didn’t work. No idea why, and now it’s working again (although on an older version than the one that’s now been loaded onto the site) and I’m still utterly clueless about why it’s happening. Grrr. Why is it that it’s always the small “simple” things that take up so much time?

Colour Me Stunned

In yet another “File Under : Sherlock, Shit, No” moment, the Mental Health Foundation has published the results of a survey today.

And the conclusion of this survey? Low moods can be beaten by having someone to talk to, or by being hugged. I kid ye not. Now, how amazed are you by this revelation? I know it left me utterly flabbergasted. To think, just having a hug (or a shag) makes you feel better. Fucking hell, Holmes, you’ve got something there. It might even be a solution!

I’m far more interested in knowing how many depressives considered “punching the twat who’s just said ‘cheer up, luv, it might never ‘appen!’” as a viable option for its mood-lifting properties.

On The Edge

One thing that a lot of people don’t know about me is that once I hit a certain point in the depression/stress cycle, all I do is sleep. It’s an evasion manoeuvre, I know – and it’s the big signpost for me that things have gone Far Enough. (Intentional capitals) This Easter weekend has demonstrated that part of me quite impressively. I’ve slept for about 45 hours over four days. If anyone had been here to try and wake me up before I was ready, I suspect that (as has happened before) I wouldn’t have woken up. On previous occasions that’s worried people enough that I’ve woken up in hospital – no memory of getting there, nor of paramedics etc. using what can only be described as painful methods of rousing an unconcscious patient. Which is, of course, stressful in itself.

Thankfully, this time there’s been no-one around, and I’ve just been able to sleep for the time that my brain/body required. I feel almost human for it – my body-clock is still utterly wazzed, but that’s nothing unusual. Now we’ll just see how the return to normality (or at least my version of it) goes tomorrow.

It’s Oh So Quiet

I’ve been out for a walk today – and I can’t believe just how quiet it is outside. Amazingly, the supermarkets appear to all be shut – miracles never cease – and the only slight sound is that of traffic. Walk a short distance off the street into Clayton Vale and it’s a glorious day, far quieter than a normal. Lovely.

Incendiary

I can’t wait to see what Maria has to say about the story in today’s Guardian about a domestic abuse ‘expert’ who believes that acts of domestic violence are a defence response to undetected panic attacks.

I’ve never been involved in domestic abuse, and hopefully never will be – so I can’t really say what provokes certain men to want to abuse their partners, but from what other people have told me, it’s more about the abuser being insecure and feeling the need to display their “power” over their partner, to show their “superiority” by assaulting them. To be the attacker is (supposedly) to be the powerful one. That doesn’t sound like a panic attack to me, but as I said, I’m no expert.

Money ≠ Sense

Unbelievable. A “tycoon” has spent £70m on a London mansion. Fair enough, it’s a 12-bedroom place in Kensington Palace Gardens. But bloody hell, £70m? More money than sense.

Euro-advertising

While most adverts are bloody annoying, I have to say that the ones I find to be the worst are the ones that are made for an entire continent at once, with just bad dubbing and no lip-syncing to put them into each country’s preferred language.

Sleep, pt. 2

As if I needed any further proof that the last week had been major evidence of my being right on the shaky edge of a burnout, I’ve been doing some major sleeping this weekend already. 13 hours Thursday into Friday, and 7 hours last night. Gawd knows what I’ll manage to do tonight, but I’m hoping that it’ll be more of the same. A quiet Easter weekend, and plenty of sleep – just what the doctor would’ve ordered, if a) I ever went to see doctors, and b) they didn’t just enjoy prescribing Happy Pills® with little to no further investigation.

Happy

Yes, it was a good night too. Seeing friends, and then added beer, curry, and DVDs. And just to top it off, finding out where my copy of Angels on Fire had been hiding, which means I don’t have to fork out for a new (well, pre-owned) copy. A good night all round. Now if only I could persuade my body that today is actually Saturday, not a second Sunday.

Sleep

Well, you could say I’ve caught up on some sleep. It’s 1pm, and I’ve just crawled out of the pit. Do I feel better for it? I’ll let you know when my brain wakes up and is capable of conscious thought.

And yes, that does make it – for me at least – a very Good Friday. *grin*

Conversation

It’s a dying art…

Heard in the town centre today

“‘ello, alright?“
“Oh, alright?
How’s you? Alright?“

Shudder

Yick, Yick, Yick. I’m sorry, but who on earth would even _want_ to have a piece of platinum inserted into their eyeball?

Looming

Thank God that this working week is nearly over. Four days off are looming in front, and the alarm is already off in anticipation of tomorrow morning.

For the first time in what seems like months (in truth it’s “only” since the 31st Jan/1st Feb) I’ve got a weekend in the house to myself. No real social events planned – I’ll be seeing friends on Friday, but it’s not a big do or anything, and is more likely to involve beer, curry, and DVDs. Which works for me.

So yes, a quiet weekend for the first time in just over two months. It’s going to be nice. I’ll probably still end up doing a fair amount of stuff, but I’m determined to not enter “running round like a mad twadge” mode. Cinema is likely to happen, as I want to see Shaun of the Dead, Monster, and (if I get the chance) 21 Grams. Passion of the Christ also appeals, although as Mike says, some people just don’t seem to get it.

Other than that, catching up on sleep, and probably doing very little geeky stuff – and that sounds like a good Easter weekend to me.

Unshocked

Following on from the post below (and I have to say, some of my regular readers are deeply sad and scary – no wonder I feel so at home here), this is hardly a surprise…

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Buzzwords

Oh dear. Someone’s just hit d4d™ following a search for productisation LAWS – which was, of course, the bullshitfest that I attended two weeks ago. D4D™ comes up 12th on the google search list. Remembering the other bullshit buzzword from the event, I checked out Polyhierachical LAWS. No.1, baby…

Now I know why I write under a pseudonym. *grin*

Gubbins

A small piece of alteration today to this page. The “Link and Think” image has finally fallen off from the right hand side (only took me five months), and the title of the page has changed, thanks to a suggestion by Lori. How long it’ll stay for, I just don’t know.

Other than that, I’m not sure what the quality of updates will be today. I’m feeling generally wiped-out – not coldy, not flu-ey (is that even a word?), more like just the crumbling edge of exhaustion. Easter weekend is looking like it may descend into a pit of sleep, which is perhaps not good as I’m also supposed to have a TMA from the Open Uni to complete. One that I haven’t even looked at yet. Ooops. There’s also a nagging problem from Monday’s networking gubbins, where the office can’t get email from the POP3 server on their hosted website, yet I can get it from work, from home, and even over the mobile. (Geek? Me?) And yes, they can get email from another POP3 server, so it’s not that the ****ing ****ing bastarding firewall‘s blocking access to Port 25 or anything like that. Despair and lack of ideas are beginning to appear on the horizons of my mind’s eye. Or something equally hippyish.

Sleepy

Have you ever been tired enough that when standing still, you actually wobble slightly, like a trapeze artist trying to maintain their balance on the wire?

Welcome to my world today.

CBA

I’m supposed to be at another presentation tomorrow about E-Government and Broadband. I just can’t face it, it’ll be more of the same kind of bollocks as a couple of weeks ago. Knackers to that.

No, really?

Children shoved in front of the TV consistently may have a higher risk of Attention Deficit Disorder.
File under Sherlock, No Shit.

The track to hell

Coming back from Middlesbrough last night was an utter ‘mare. The train finally left Middlesbrough twenty minutes late, and in one of the vilest states I’ve seen in a while. Litter was everywhere, and a good third of the seats were knackered (for which read “utterly fucked and impossible to sit on”) – not a good sign.

It was also actually the second train. The first one had been pulled out of service for some reason known only to Transpennine. (Don’t be fooled by the nice fancy train on that page – the ones on the Manchester to Middlesbrough route seem to be from The Rolling Stock That Time Forgot™) And the staff who were at the station didn’t appear to be in on the information dissemination either – so far, not going very far towards their stated aim of

TransPennine Express – Our Vision

Our vision for the new TransPennine Express franchise is to re-vitalise and redevelop TransPennine Express, making it the preferred mode of transport for our customers in the North of England

<mutter>Fat fucking chance</mutter>

Eventually, we got to Leeds station. The train stopped. Then got turned off completely. A muttered announcement came over the tannoy. “mummwbwnd mewmewu mureuirbq murewuuipw” This apparently translates as “Hello Passengers. Your train is officially classified as “well fucked”, and has now been pulled from service. Please get your stuff together, get off the train, and go to the train waiting in front of this one. You have twenty seconds to comply” Not a word from the uniformed (and uninformed) goblin stood at the doors of the carriage in Transpennine garb. He just stood there watching people go “what the fuck?” Useless wazzock.

Finally, everyone is off the train, and standing on the platform. There’s no train in front of the one we’ve just got off. A twunt in a uniform appears (it would be uncharitable to mention the expression “ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag” at this point) and is asked “Pray tell, kind sir, where is the train that we were helpfully informed was waiting for us?” (or words to that effect, that may, or may not, have included “wherezthefockintrainyacunt?” from the pissheads in front of me)

“Oh, it’ll be back in a minute. The driver got told to leave the platform, because there was a train coming in behind him.” (yes, that was the train we’d all just got off) “He’ll reverse in a minute, and you can all get on”

At long last I got into Manchester, half an hour late, a three hour journey that involved three and a half hours, and three trains.

Now, where’s the number for BSM?

Networking Redux

Typical. I come in today, and within 90 minutes the entire thing that was being an utter motherfucking shitbag on Wednesday is now fixed. I could cry. I could, but I won’t. Because if I cry, I’ll lose the plot even more, and then kick the crap out of the server, and then I’d be back to Square One.

Le Sigh

‘Nads

We’ve just been watching a very odd TV “infomercial” for a hair-removal product from Australia. The unfortunate name for it is – wait for it – Nads (OK, as a commenter said, it should be “Nad’s”, but that’s not quite as much fun. Damn you, Pedant of the Western World). We’ve been giggling like idiots to expressions such as

“Your entire life can change with Nads”

Hilarity can be very chldish. *Grin*

04/04/04

In a fit of Diamond Geezer-esque bobblehatdom, I’ve noticed that today is the fourth day of the fourth month of 2004. In two-digit notation, that’s (as per the title) 04/04/04 – no matter whether you use dd/mm/yy, yy/mm/dd, or mm/dd/yy. And yes, I do still derive a weird bit of enjoyment from timestamps like 04:04 04/04/04.

My name’s Lyle, and I need to get out more.

Part Troll

Oh, and I’ve finally got my finger out, and got a ticket to Bill Bailey‘s new tour, “Part Troll“. Amazingly, because I’m utterly disorganised, it now turns out I’m seeing him on the tour’s first night, an extra show at The Lowry on May 3rd. Sometimes it’s good to be chaotic. (and via Gert, a very good interview with the man himself)

Travelling

Yes, I’m away again this weekend. Updates may be sporadic (good word) but we’ll see. And my heavy reading for the journey? After the hassles earlier this week, it just had to be a refresher on TCP/IP. Oh dear. Who was it said something about needing to get out more? Well, this is what happens when I do – while I’m going there, I’ll still descend into basic ubergeekdom.

Sunny D-Shite

Interesting today to see that Procter and Gamble has flogged off Sunny Delight to a bunch of US Investors. (The Grauniad didn’t name them, but the P & G press release names them as J W Childs, a Boston-based private equity firm)

In some ways I’m not surprised that it’s been sold off – it had bad press from day one, but at the same time, it still has annual sales of $550m, which is hardly chicken-feed.

Prettifying

Ye gods, I despair sometimes. Today will be spent making an utterly functional piece of web application into a pretty version. The voices from On High want it to look pretty. Apparently (according to them) auditors care more about how something looks than whether it works OK. I don’t believe them, but there we go – what would I know?

So it’s all about prettifying, about a nice clickable interface that looks good. It doesn’t add any functionality, so it’s likely to be the ubiquitous Waste of Money, but hey, the auditors won’t care about that. They’ll want it to look good.

And of course they won’t pay any attention to the fact that the Senior Management never even look at the results from this application, which is all about performance indicators and the like. Nah, that’s irrelevant. So long as it looks good.

Return to Type

Meh. That’s all my brain said at 7am today. Meh. Loudly, and repeatedly. It’s been networked out for the last three days, installing a complete wireless network, plus server, router, access point, and ADSL modem. The network side worked fine. The connection to the ADSL modem didn’t. It’s taken two days to sort out, and it’s still a tempramental piece of crap.

I’m stumped as to why. Monday will involve another visit to the site (possibly with a hammer) because last night it died – and hasn’t come back – for no reason at all. The entire thing had been shut down and rebooted (including to power-off level) three times, and was fine. Then for no good reason, it just died. The router/access point can see the modem, and communicate with it. But the modem doesn’t want to communicate with the outside world. And there’s no reason I can see for it.

I hate networks and networking. I can do the basics – and the wireless network side has worked fine, even with WEP, SSIDs and the lot, it’s all connecting fine. One computer keeps deciding to lose it’s workgroup, which is a pain in the bum, but the network is fine. It’s just the connection to the ADSL that’s a cunt. And when it gets to that kind of problem, it’s just a nightmare for me – considering that networking is supposed to be logical and easy, it’s the most complicated, user-hostile and illogical occurrence ever. I hate it – because it doesn’t make sense.

I’d also like to point out that the fuckhead who decided that things like routers and modems should have web-accessible interfaces deserves a kick in the bollocks with pointy stilettos. Accessing the different bits when only one is working, or when gateways are chuffed is a total nightmare of constantly altering IP addresses and the like.

I’m just immensely thankful that I’ve got a couple of friends who are pretty damn good at network-based stuff, and who are prepared to help me when I’m out of my depth. One of them I know owe big-time for helping bail me out yesterday. And yes, I find it strangely comforting to hear them saying “What the hell?” as well – it means it’s not just me making a stupid mistake.