Water features

£3.6m? For this? Wow, that must make people proud.

Because of course for a dim troll princess so supposedly into good causes and Doing Good^™, a fountain is a really smart idea. It sums up everything about Diana, doesn’t it? A fucking fountain.

Perhaps a hospital ward – or even a building. Perhaps something to house an AIDS unit. You know, something that would actually work as a memorial to the things she helped bring into the public eye.

But no, a bloody fountain. That’s great. It’ll make everyone remember her with so much more affection than if it’d been anything useful. Twats.

RSS

Well, OK, it’s an Atom feed – I assume that means something to someone out there. Personally, I’ll freely admit I haven’t got Clue One when it comes to this stuff. However, the RSS/Atom feed is now accessible here (http://www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk/rss/atom.xml. With luck, that’ll make sense to some people. Just not to me.

So if it works, grand. If not, let me know, and I’ll try and figure out what the fuck is going on. Sometime when I’ve got a spare couple of hours.

Oh, and thanks to David for pointing out that a lack of RSS was losing some readers.

Conflict

Some of you may recall back in March/April time when the immigration minister, Beverley Hughes, resigned. It followed a bit of a scandal about immigrants from certain countries being allowed in to the UK without having visa claims checked.

Today, the man who blew the whistle on this story is being given a chance to put forward his side of the story and to respond to a Home Office report on his behaviour. It’s quite probable that at the end of this meeting/board/inquisition, he will lose his job, and be sacked.

In general, there is an Act of Parliament known as the Public Interest Disclosure Act which should protect whistleblowers from being sacked or disciplined for revealing something that is in the public interest. In this case though,

” the Home Office report concluded he had acted reasonably but his revelations were not covered by the Public Interest Disclosure Act.”

© Guardian Newspapers

So – the Home Office report into an incident at – um – the Home Office that has caused an MP to resign for being a sleazebag suddenly isn’t in the Public Interest, and as such the person who caused the story isn’t safe under the Act? That sucks, and surely is a pretty major conflict of interest.

Open Mike

While I remember, Mike Troubled Diva now has a new home – www.troubled-diva.com. Yes, the old domain name, just with an added hyphen. It’s good to have him back in normality, or as close to it as we get, anwyay.

Nature

Over the weekend, there was also another walk in Sulham Woods – and some more photos.

Dumbfounded

It’s not often that I find myself left utterly gobsmacked. Yet it’s happened twice in the last 24 hours, so it must be one of those weeks. Oh goody.

One gobsmacked moment isn’t yet for public consumption – it’s likely to be so soon, but for now, well, I’m keeping it. The other one is over at Dragon’s place. (And Dragon, if you want me to pull the link, just let me know – I don’t want to trivialise that post in any way) I simply can’t find the words that work to express what I want to without drowning in pap platitudes. So I won’t, although I may add to this later, if I can find the right way to do it.

The Inner Walkman

I don’t know about everyone else, but I find on occasion a tune will stick itself right in my head, and nothing will get it out. It just keeps on playing, and it’s normally something earth-shatteringly inappropriate to the situation.

If I were at a funeral, it’d be – for example – Travis’ “Dying To Meet You”, or Lyle Lovett’s “Since the Last Time“.

However, on some occasions it’s not just a slightly relevant – if dodgy content-wise – lyric, but something so brain-numbingly awful, and at that point it’s normally a lyric you can’t help singing.

Today, while shopping in Tesco it’s been Blink-182’s “I Wanna Fuck A Dog In The Ass“.

The Journey Back

Well, the closure of rail lines between Stockport and Manchester is becoming a real pain in the arse. Last night’s journey back from Reading, which would normally be 3 hours, give or take, instead took 5. For some reason once the train left Birmingham it went via Nuneaton, then took what can only be described as a “well fucked” route up to Stoke, and then ended up getting to Manchester via, um, Warrington.

Still, I’m back now, and as a side bonus, I could even almost walk by the time I got off the train. Who could ask for more? Now, where did I put those driving lessons…

Ouch

I should also point out, for any people even dimmer than me, that when Avebury is wet, it’s exceptionally slippy. The entire site is built on chalk, which when wet turns into something with all the traction qualities of oil with added grease.

So, when going downhill, what one should do is let go of the dog’s lead, and ideally walk on grass, rather than down a wet chalk slope. I managed one of these two ideas, ’til (thankfully) fairly close to the bottom. At that point, the grass disappears, and you have to step down onto wet chalk.

If I’d let go of the dog’s lead (which, technically, would have still fulfilled the requirement of “all dogs must be kept on leash”) then it wouldn’t have suddenly pulled me off-balance in it’s desire to play fetch with a fucking stick. I wouldn’t have hit the slope badly and off-balance, wouldn’t have slipped, and wouldn’t have then twisted my frigging knee into oblivion while trying (in that stupid British way of not hurting pets) to avoid landing my entire weight on the dog’s chest.

As it was, I didn’t let go of the lead, so all of the above did happen. Along with an (apparently) quite impressive roll, which led to bruises in other – ahem – interesting places. No, not there, you vile pervs. Happily it all happened quickly enough that no other bugger got photos. I’m thankful for small mercies. And ibuprofen.

Hippies

Over the weekend, I visited Avebury and Stonehenge. Obviously, due it being just after the summer solstice, it was a) pissing it down, and b) full of hippies and tourists. In fairness, it was primarily the latter, but all the same there enough hippies of various ilks to make for some high comedy.

Avebury was a better area for them, as they can touch the stones (and wallow in sheep shit) rather than the rather homogenised views of Stonehenge, with it’s fixed walkways and roped off areas.

No need for further words, really.

Travelling

The travel on the train (and bus) last night was an absolute ball-ache. Well, an absolute everything ache, to be honest. Manchester to Stockport on a bus – half an hour of steaming hot humanity when the train takes 10 minutes.

The train was OK. For the first ten minutes. Then I got surrounded by what can only be described as a contingent of lard-arses. The one on my side was big enough (and bear in mind here that while I’m not small by anyone’s definition (except maybe a Sumo Wrestlers)) to overlap into my seat and wedge my arsecheeks tighter than those of a homophobe in a gay-bar. In fact, I didn’t move for the next four hours.

When the butter-smugglers got off, they were replaced by a bunch of Brummies who obviously thought Slade had had the last words in the world of Fashion. Aviator shades, tartan trousers, and skintight t-shirts over beer bellies. And blithering on in Brummie accents about some kind of concert they were missing because the train was late.

Ah well, I’m sure it’ll be just as much fun tomorrow.

Stonehenge

Today’s been interesting – wet, but interesting. For the sheer hell of it, Stonehenge and Avebury both appealed, so that’s where we’ve been. Pictures will follow – mainly with rain-spots on, because the weather’s been fucking horrible. Thank chuff the camera’s got the function for changing white-balance during an overcast day (among others) – if not I’d be buggering about with brightness/contrast from here ’til doomsday.

Work Challenge

The office I work in is going through a “restructuring”. All very Ho Hum, but it does mean that people have to re-apply for their jobs. I’m not involved in it, as I’m just a lowly contractor. All good so far.

However, it means that Stinky^® is having to re-apply for his job. He thinks it’s a certainty, as no-one else will want it or apply for it.

Now, do I stir the shite, and apply for the job? I don’t want it, but it would be deeply amusing to see him having to go through all the process properly, rather than just assuming the job is his. I suspect that he’ll do a lazy job of the forms, so anything that looks better is in with a chance…

Hype

OK, if I wasn’t bored of Euro2004 already, I certainly am now.

And out of interest, just what kind of fuckwit moron cunt thinks it’s a good idea to attack people simply on the basis that they’re from the country whose national team has beaten ‘ours’? I despair of the logic process that must’ve gone on there.

Bag of Bollocks

I’ve just been using TheTrainLine.com to do some enquiries into a bit of travelling I’m likely to need to do quite soon. It’s a simple thing – travelling Manchester to Crewe and back, with perhaps the need to stay there for an hour or so. So I’d entered in my requirements, and the fluntcapping thing kept coming back that “It can’t find a valid route/timetable for the information entered”. Which, frankly, was utter bollocks.

It turns out – through a process of elimination, and application of quite a variety of swearwords – that the piece of shit gets confused. If for example I’ve said I want to travel Manch – Crewe after 5pm, it gives me options for travel that result in an arrival time of anything up to 8.43pm. Because I’d said I wanted to know any return times from 8pm onwards, it got confused, and decided that rather than “are you sure?” it would just say it couldn’t find the route.

Changing the return time to 9pm (i.e. later than the last arrival time option) resulted in – lo and behold! – services through ’til midnight and gone.

It’s taken me nearly an hour to figure this out. Wanky piece of shite website.

Hypocrisy

I’ve tried to steer clear of mentioning the weasels in the UK Independence Party (AKA “The BNP for the Middle Classes”) on d4d™ – after all, why give the cunts any more coverage than they deserve, even on a tiny personal site? My idiot father voted for the tossers, saying it was a protest vote so it didn’t go to Labour or Conservative – then tried to make out that the BNP were disgraceful, while effectively voting for the smug grinning racist prick and his party.

Anyway, what I wonder is this :- How do the party trumpeting about UK Independence, and not being part of the European Community/Parliament manage to justify the fact that they’re now sitting in that self-same Parliament? I know politics is all about being two-faced and wanky, but surely this one beats most.

Drainage

Thankfully, things are going well with this entire new domestic house-sharing situation. While I was about 99.9% sure it would, it’s still quite a relief to know that the .1% is – for once – not the bit I have to worry about.

Of course, the other side is that helping a friend through a divorce – well, more accurately through the start of a seperation (seperation? separation? My head’s full today, and literacy has taken a back seat) which is pretty certain to lead to divorce – is fairly stressful. Particularly when the nork is of the breed who feels that a suicide threat is a valid way of saying “I want you back”. Words fail me at that point, although “cock” seemed to sum up a lot of feelings.

There’s a lot going on in my head at the moment – I’m still not going to be calling d4d™ into hiatus, but on occasion updates may not be quite as frequent as usual. I can’t wait for the end of July, when my social life finally calms down – I’m trying to keep August pretty free, and working from there, really.

In some ways the current situation is quite odd – I’m finding that even with the head-stuff that’s going on, I’m actually loathe to write it here, it’s personal stuff that’s either a) of no interest to others, b) private, or c) both. All I know for now is that there’s a whole load of stuff in the process of changing, and there’s a decision about whether I try to keep my feet on the floor and weather it out, or simply bend into the oncoming storms and come out as (possibly) a changed person. The jury’s still out – and will be deliberating for some time.

Rejection

(via Soreeyes) Now that’s what I call a letter. Rejecting a Rejection. I love it.

Barmpots

While I didn’t really publicise it overly much here, last week I was one of two guest writers over at Uborka – and a very fun time it was.

However, on the Friday, the drinks theme was “Sweary”, in true Lyle-style. The only difference is that most of it was starred-out, because while I don’t mind being a sweary old sod here, it’s not fair to get other people’s sites barred for being sweary.

The problem arose when a couple of people kind of failed to realise this, and went epically sweary. I don’t have a record of the sweary version, but I’ve looked back today and Karen has edited out the naughty words by replacing them with fruit – which is brilliant.

I think the replacement is excellent, even if it’s also the mark of a complete barmpot – and I’d just like to say that I’m utterly proud to know people at the degree of barmy.

Troubled Diva

For anyone else who has missed the joys of Troubleddiva.com of late (due to problems with The Hosts From Hell^® I won’t link) I can happily announce that he’s currently residing at Sashinka. With luck TD Proper will be back sometime soon.

About time too

There’s a piece in today’s Guardian about the financial services industry finally getting new guidelines on dealing with HIV and the like. Well done, it’s only taken fifteen years.

Personally, I despise the financial services industry in general. It’s one of the most amazingly bigoted industries, and one where anyone who doesn’t fit perfectly into their little pigeonholes is instantly penalised. This is an industry that thinks it’s reasonable to do things like this (and I quote from the article)

There is evidence that some insurance companies are still using information about occupation to deny gay men cover. There have been cases where companies have demanded an HIV test because the applicant is a ballet dancer, hairdresser or an airline cabin crew member.

What absolute motherfuckers. There’s no other word for it – it’s an industry where the massive majority are just bean-counting cunts. The sooner these new guidelines come in, the better.

Tosser

Sometimes it’s odd to see a news story. This one involves a lad I went to school with – and it’s no real surprise to see that he’s as much of a cock now as he was fifteen years ago. I’m fairly sure that I also knew his passenger – one of those cases where the name rings a bell, but there’s no hard and fast recall behind it.

I find more and more that I emulate my father’s thoughts when it comes to drink-drivers and the like – I’ve no problem with them drinking, driving, crashing, and killing themselves. It’s when they take other people with them that it pisses me off. Die if you want, don’t force others to do the same.

Tweet Tweet Chirp Flutter

In one of the funniest posts I’ve read in a while, that barmpot Galligan over at Kitchentable describes the events surrounding ticking off one of his “things to do before I’m 40” list. In a big-brother style, including cut-aways and those irritating “don’t sue us” breaks in continuity/sound.

Well worth the read.

British Gas

Yet again, I had to deal last night with British Gas’s awesomely inept customer services department. The following is the letter of complaint that’s being posted off today.

Dear Customer Services Manager

I have today had the dubious joy of dealing with the Customer Services department of British Gas, which has left me fuming on several matters.

However, I believe that the most glaring problem with the entire call was at the start, where I was asked to validate my account in accordance with Data Protection Act requirements. Having explained to the customer services advisor that I had a letter from yourselves in front of me, I was asked to provide – for DPA – my name, address, and postcode.

Apparently, this is enough to “prove” my identity, and is in line with British Gas’s DPA policy as being ample proof. Obviously it is not – as I explained to the advisor, I could have been absolutely anyone with access to the letter. ALL the information requested was in the top third of the sheet of paper.

As such, I find this state of affairs to be utterly disgraceful, and I hope that you will feel much the same.

In line with the requirements of the Information Commissioner, I am initially taking this matter up with British Gas. However, in light of both the seriousness of the potential breaches, and also the exceptionally dispassionate “that’s the way it is” attitude of the customer services personnel involved, if I have not had a response from yourselves by 21^st July 2004, I shall request that the Information Commissioner’s Office become involved in this matter.

Yours Sincerely Blah, Blah, Blah

I can’t wait to see the response to that one…

Mastermind

Well, Mastermind (bizarrely, the BBC doesn’t have a link or minisite for it) started again on TV last night, and as promised at the time, it was the one we saw being recorded back in March. It was interesting to see how it’d been cut together from the recording session, and even more interesting to see that I still knew keff all about any of the specialist subjects…

Fanaticism.

My God, I’m glad I’ve got a DVD player. Not content with fucking Euro 2004, we’ve now got keffing Wimbledon too, along with the standard *spit* Henmania too. Oh joy, oh happiness, oh be still my happy heart.

And once that’s over, it won’t be long ’til Athens Olympics. Oh, and also in there will be the British Grand Prix on the 11th July – and I’m sure there are a couple of other events I’ve forgotten/ failed to care about/ erased from memory.

Solstice

Ye Gods, what a weekend. All’s well, but it’s been pretty manic.

In other news, today is the longest day (Oh piss, linked to the wrong thing – it should be this one. Told you it’d been one of those weekends.) today is the longest day and a bunch of hippies, druids and travellers saw it in at Stonehenge. Good for them.

So – the longest day already? They just get shorter from here in, until Winter appears in all its glory once more. Must make a note to put in the daylight bulbs this week, make sure that happens in good time. Joy.

Domesticity

No updates today – and possibly tomorrow – as major changes ae going on here chez Lyle. I’ve now got a friend sharing the house with me, as her marriage has travelled up crap creek without a paddle to redeem itself.

So for the forseeable future, the house doesn’t have just me in it. It’s an interesting development (one of many) over the last couple of weeks, and will take some time and energy in order for me to figure out what the chuff’s going on.

So bear with me, and if weekends are quiet, you’ll have to live with it for the moment. It’s all going to calm down soon, I promise. Well, “soon” in the geological context, anyway. *grin*

Not Waving

One thing I’ve been glad to see today is that a new legislation will, for the first time in the UK, allow for ‘living wills’. I’ve always liked this kind of thing, along with the American “DNR” (Do Not Resuscitate) document. I would hate to be in a position where someone could decide what should happen to me, and to have no valid form of input into that decision.

‘Living Wills’ aren’t a comprehensive answer – but at least they open the door for such a thing.

Headspace

Do you ever have periods where your head is utterly full, and there’s really not much room – if any at all – for other stuff? Well, that’s been this week for me.

I’m sure I’ll write a load about various things in the end, but for now there’s a process going on of trying to get it all to make sense first. Doomed to failure, of course, but there we go.

So anyway, there’s chuff all happening here – however, Emily is looking for tales of casual sex (to add to her book, rather than random pervery) so go on, have some fun over there.

Inertia

Well, last night I ended up sleeping at something like 3am, and up at 7.30. Yet I feel better than when I’ve been going to bed at midnight. There’s no logic to this, and it’s doing my head in.

And in other news I still feel like shite, healthwise. Thank Christ it’s Friday, and the weekend looms.

However, today may be slow on the updates – there’s a distinct air of lethargy about the place. Hope you don’t mind.

Men

Why is it that so many men are such complete knob-heads?

A friend of mine came over this evening to see La Mala Educacion (“Bad Education”) by Pedro Almodovar. Her boyfriend knew where we were, yet when she came out of the cinema, there were no less than six missed calls from him.

After that, having called back, and despite telling him she was going to be driving, the numbnuts cockknocker called back another four times. Absolutely bizarre – I swear I don’t understand how people think that this kind of behaviour is either a) sane, b) attractive, and c) likely to keep the relationship going.

I despair.

Camel – Horse Designed By Committee

According to a new study, committees are stressful, boring, and unproductive. I’m amazed it’s taken this long for anyone to figure it out, really – obviously the people doing the study had never worked for a local authority, or any form of Government.

Improving The Day

Considering the last post though, today is actually rating as a Bloody Good Day^® so far. Only a couple of weeks ago, I observed (not here, but to the parents) that one of my favourite bands, the Cowboy Junkies, hadn’t toured in ages. Then I saw an ad in NME that said they were playing one gig. In London. The next day. Arse-nuggets.

Anyway, I had a look around today, and they’re doing a UK tour, including playing a gig in Manchester in October. Tickets have already been purchased, and I’m looking forward to it. Fan-bloody-tastic!

Drained

God, I wish I knew what was going on with my sleep cycle. I’m utterly shattered – and not feeling particularly well, but that’s not something I’ll bother people with. Anyway, due to feeling rougher than a badger’s arse, I’ve actually been going to bed early – around midnight-ish. Yet still I feel shattered, and actually feel worse than when I go to bed at the normal time, of between two and three.

As it is, the option of just collapsing and dying really quite appeals at the moment. I wonder if it’s not a reaction from my body of “Ooooh, I remember this sleep thing – I want some more, so I’m going to chuff you up ’til you get some.”

Thank God that this coming weekend is one where I don’t have much planned. Well, except for a friend moving in for an undetermined period while she sorts her life out. That won’t be stressful or chaotic, oh no.

Geeky : 2

For once, a geeky question about CSS. (Yes, I know *Yawn*) I’m trying to get a site design that uses a graphic background, then the content appears over the background, but with a degree of transparency.

What I mean by this is that I want the background image to appear, even when the content is there, rather than the content section being a plain opaque colour. I’m sure it’s a CSS command of something like opacity:0.9 – but I can’t find it. Any advice will be gratefully received.

Ooops

Excellent – I hadn’t seen this before, but it appears that there is a major problem (well, other than armed people on planes) with the concept of Sky Marshals.

The problem? They stick out like a sore thumb in a crowd of passengers. What a complete stroke of genius.

Geeky : 1

I know that other people have mentioned it already, but Mozilla has now released Firefox 0.9 for download. A bit more stable, a bit quicker, a slightly different appearance. Oh, and it keeps the settings from 0.8, although you do have to get the extensions again, which is a bit of a pain.

I’ve got it, and I like it.

Extension

Work-related post, for once. Don’t fall over, you at the back.

Yes, my contract has been extended again. I’m now here ’til at least the start of October. *Sob*

This contract was initially a six-monther, purely a project to install and develop a content management system for the council’s internet and intranet sites. That was thirteen months ago, and they’re only just getting ready to sign the contract with the supplier they’ve chosen. The wheels of this bureaucracy move so slowly that if you didn’t pay attention you’d think it was actually standing still.

As it is, things may still change. I saw a *gasp* permanent position I quite liked the look of, and sent off for an application package yesterday. We’ll see what comes of it.

For now though, the outlook is that I’m in Oldham ’til close to my birthday. Lucky me.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Yes, it took me some time to get to see this. There were a variety of reasons, but mainly it came down to first “can’t be arsed” combined with “not during half-term”, and then became “Ah well, I’ll see it on the weekend”.

So – what did I think of it? In general, I liked it – I’m glad that the new director managed to go with the darker feel of the book, following on from the more child-friendly and glossy first two. Managing to move Chris Columbus on to producer duties was probably a Very Good Thing for the HP franchise.

There are still faults within the production though – certain shots and cuts are over-used, and begin to feel tired by the end of the film. Also, there are some minor, but bloody annoying – bugs, such as Harry Potter’s scar moving during scenes (and even disappearing at one point), beds reassembling themselves, and the “Hulk Hypothesis” where a character can revert to human fully clothed, but when they transform again, the clothing stays behind.

Obviously it’s not possible to translate the film word-for-word from book to big screen, but there do seem to be a couple of huge sections missing. Particularly the explanation about who Prongs, Padfoot, Moony and Wormtail are – which is fairly relevant in the long run – as well as any explanation of the form Harry’s Patronus takes. Various other sections have been dropped too, but that seems to be the real biggie. It’s enough to make me wonder if those parts might not be explained in a “Special Edition” DVD release with extended footage.

But they’re the negative aspects. In general, the film is still pretty superb, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even with the stroppy little cunt darling child kicking the back of my seat for the first half hour. The main characters are still excellent, and Michael Gambon replaces Richard Harris as Dumbledore very nicely. It’s also interesting to see how Emma Watson (Hermione) is growing into the role, but certain scenes also make me wonder if she’s not going to be the next Keira Knightley, which could make for some entertaining films over the next few years.

Overall, an enjoyable two and a half hours of entertainment. I do wonder though how Goblet of Fire will fare – and how long it’ll be. There’s an awful lot of book to fit in there, and a lot less that’s skippable…

Boots

Yes, Pix, I’ve sent it over to the Shoe Project too, but in the name of completeness, a side-by-side of the new boots and old.

It doesn’t really take a rocket-scientist to work out which pair is which, does it? I think that the photo should perhaps have really been captioned “Well fucked”.

A Rare World-Cup Post

England Lost. What a shocker. At some point I’ll remember to care.

However, watching the news last night I was struck by one thing. The Home Secretary was over in Portugal. To watch the match. (bottom paragraph)

David Blunkett. Watching the match? Some mistake, surely.

Homecoming

Well, I’m back, after a weekend of idiocy and weddings. Oh, and Harry Potter 3. (Of which more in a bit) Well, someone had to.

In the meantime, I’m also guesting over at Uborka this week (again), and today contains a small post about How to Swear. There’ll be more, but right now I’m at work and I’ve forgotten my log-on and password. It’s one of those days.

Wedding

No, not me, you fools. But this weekend I’m going to be attending a wedding. God only knows why – I’m the +1 on a friend’s invite. It should be fun actually – several of those attending were people I went to school with, or who were in the years close to mine. So it might be fun. Of course, it also might just be hell on earth. But if that’s the case at least it’ll be hell with vodka.

Anyway, updates may be a bit thin on the ground for the weekend, depending on access etc. We’ll see. Have a good weekend though!

None So Blind

So, David Blunkett is ‘mortified’ at the results of yesterdays elections, is he? If so, he’s the only person in the UK. No-one else was surprised at all that Labour lost a shedload of places, and ended up coming third.

David Blunkett … blamed the Iraq war for “damaging” the Labour vote.

© BBC News

Fair enough, I’m sure Iraq’s got something to do with it. But laying it all at the door of that is frankly just fucking blinkered. People are getting uneasy about Blunkett and Blair’s policies about ID cards, a whole variety of strikes and pay disputes, and slowly realising that he’s just another PR-friendly weasel. Still, it’ll be interesting to see whether they actually change anything, or just keep on ramrodding in policies that people don’t like.

Made For Walking

Yay, and indeed, Woo. I’m now the posessor of a new pair of Cat boots, following on from last weekend’s sea-walk with the old ones.

I haven’t yet brought myself to bin the old ones, so I may still take a photo of their impressive greyness – and thank the good lord that you don’t have smell-o-net. I don’t know why I haven’t yet chucked ’em out, other than that I’d probably be accused of dumping poisonous waste – or perhaps get a visit from GMP alleging I’m some kind of terrorist with access to chemical weapons. Leave the boots on a train, the carriage would be cleared in no time flat.

Still, the new ones are much the same as the old – I hope I get 3+ years use out of these!

The Criminal Mind

Caution : Genius at work

Offensive Office

via Razorhead.

The BBC has a piece about politeness in the office and its effects on colleagues, following a survey by Office Angels.

Office Angels is urging people to turn up for meetings on time, turn mobile phones off and cut down on swearing.

Now, for me that counts as pretty much “No shit, sherlock”. Readers of d4d™ would be amazed to know that it’s exceptionally rare for me to swear in a meeting. (although the muttering afterwards while walking back to my office would make sailors blush) In my experience telling someone that they’re a fuckhead twadgeknacker with about as much practical business knowledge as an impotent in a whorehouse is utterly unproductive – no matter how much I might want to say it. (If I’m honest, I sometimes think that my tone conveys these words without them needing to be said aloud. The subvocal “You tosser” seems to just tag itself on to a sentence.)

As for Razorhead’s own example of someone taking calls in the middle of a meeting, I think that might make me swear. All mobiles have a “Silent” option – most now have a vibrate option. At worst, turn the poxy fadnadging thing off. Yes, *Gasp* it has an off switch. You don’t have to take every call at any time, no matter how important you may wish to look. Instead, you’re making yourself look like a smug egocentric huffswanger. (Don’t ask)

So – that’s the basics of being better in the office, is it? Personally, to that little lot I’d add…

• Not smelling like a dead otter with the squits
• Actually doing the work, instead of swanning around complaining how busy you are while doing fuck all
• Not talking about fucking bastard Euro 2004 incessantly and at a volume where everyone in the office is forced to listen
• Ditto, but for Eastenders, Corrie, and most other soaps/dramas/whatever

and

• Scratching your nuts/fanny/groin area while talking to colleagues

Thank you for listening.

Security

Yesterday evening was an utter bastard. I have a range of sites hosted by 34sp now, as they seem to be good, stable, secure, and provide decent value for money. However, last night the security was a problem…

Being an utter twadge of the first order, when I’ve signed up for domains and hosting with them, I’ve used an email address and password combination. However, a)I normally forget which one I wanted as my “main” email/password, so I come up with something else. And then get really creative and use a password that isn’t one of my regular ones (I have about six that I use everywhere in most places, so I can normally remember them) just to confuse things further.

Last night I was trying to update one site (Domain One), and it kept coming up with the file system from another of my sites (Domain Two). Fair enough, they’re on the same admin login, but the domain names are very different. So I email 34sp to ask them what the blazing badgery knackers is going on. They say “you need to validate your enquiry against your log-on and password for this account” (which is, of course, different to the FTP login) Can I remember it? Can I arseburgers.


Another email – “Um, can you send the login details to the registered email address, because I’m a twadge and can’t remember what it is” and following the “authorise this request through the login and password you can’t remember” response (and it’s rather ruder reply from myself) I got logged in.

It’s not in that account. Domain One is – the one I thought had the problem – but Domain Two is on a completely different account. It just happens to sit on the same server as Domain One. Aaaaaaaargh!

At this point my brain is bleeding out through my ears, but logic has kicked in and said “Hold on a minute, this is their fuckup, not yours!” so I’ve asked them to find out what the hacknacking chuff the problem really is. I’m still waiting for a response…

Going Postal

Yes, it’s taken some time, but I’m going to blether about tomorrow’s elections. Be afraid – but don’t be too afraid, because it’s not a sweary post.

Here in the North-West, they’ve been trialling postal voting – and in many ways it’s been a complete balls-up. It was brought in too close to the polling day, and as such there simply wasn’t enough time to make sure that it was implemented correctly and smoothly. Ballot papers were misprinted, or had errors in, and then had to be reprinted, checked, and distributed (or in some cases re-distributed) all to a strict deadline. So in that aspect it’s not gone down well at all. Cynics (Yes, Ian Hislop, I mean you) have observed that all the areas that are trialling the postal vote are primarily Labour areas, and that they’re trying to get as many votes in as possible – which is an interesting idea, although I’m not sure I’m that politically cynical.

Personally, I have problems with a couple of other aspects of the postal vote. First, the “confirmation” by another person that a voter is who they say they are. This is something that’s easily forgeable – I’ve no idea how they’ll be validating that the people who have countersigned actually exist, but I can’t see that it’ll be comprehensive. And if that’s the case, then there’s a flaw in the voting procedure. Secondly, there are barcodes on each ballot paper. Voting is meant to be anonymous, yet (and maybe I’m paranoid) each ballot has a unique bar-code on it, both on the envelope and on the ballot paper. Somewhere along the line, that means it’s likely that there is some form of database holding barcode against address/voter – which means that, given any interest at all, it’s possible to figure out who’s voted for who, and that doesn’t just flaw the voting procedure, it runs the risk of breaking it totally.

I can understand that there needs to be some method of increasing voter turnout. I make the effort even when it’s turning up to a voting booth, but a lot of people don’t. In the age of instant gratification, where everything can be available at the flick of a switch or the press of a button, it’s an effort to get to a voting station. The postal voting method has already apparently increased the turnout, so it’s been a success in that context.

But what does the future hold? Will we end up “pressing red” on the TV remote control in order to vote? Or “Send a Text saying ‘Vote:[whoever]’ to 98444”? Both of these methods would require some form of validation, a proof that you had voted once and once only – the easiest way is to have that unique ID, that voter code, and unless the code is there (and only used once) then it’s a spoiled ballot. But the unique ID means that the voting is no longer anonymous, and can thus be tracked, and (for example) Opposition voters targeted by the current government in order to change their minds for the next election. It seems that it’s a double-edged sword, we either have voter anonymity, or we go for increased voter turnout.

The only way to do both is to make it that each person HAS to vote. It becomes a legal – and enforceable – requirement, the way Australia already does it. But then there has to be a change to the ballot papers – if we have to vote, there has to be an option to say “None of the Above”, a statement that while you have to vote, you don’t have to like any of the fuckers you’re voting for. I suspect that “none of the above” would be the recipient of a high proportion of the vote…

Up It

Yes, Haloscan’s up it again. With luck it’ll get fixed soon.

In the meantime, if anyone does have comments on any of the stuff I’ve posted today, they can email it to me. Then once Haloscan has it’s database unborked, I’ll add them into the system.

It’s not perfect, but it’ll do for now.

Sea Boots

Oh, Nads. I’ve got to attend a wedding this weekend, and so of course smart clothing is an essential. (People who know me are now already pissing themselves with laughter at that concept) “Suited and booted” is the expression we’re looking for.

Boots however, are now a problem. Having been to Middlesbrough last weekend, I went off to Redcar with friends for a walk on the beach. Beaches and sea are still the main things I miss since moving to Manchester, having previously spent two years living in Weymouth. That’s when I got used to a two-minute walk to the beach, and the constant sound of sea. I love it. But anyway, I digress. Redcar.

Much as I think the place itself is a pretty standard seaside dump (cf. Weymouth, Great Yarmouth, Blackpool, ad infinitum, ad nauseam) it’s got a pretty good beach – so long as you can ignore the steelworks at one end of it (which most of the photos somehow seem to miss out). So we were wandering along it, at the sea’s edge, and the tide was coming in.

Yes, you’ve guessed it – boots, covered in sea-water. At which point I gave up caring anyway, so they just got soaked in the end. I’d forgotten about the wedding.

The boots are now grey in places, salt-water having dried into the leather. That is (perhaps) sortable. The real problem is that, having been wet, they now smell. Badly. I mean really really badly. I’ve had three years use out of them, and they were on the way out anyway, but I’ve now got to buy new boots before the weekend.

Oh, bollocks.

From Shitehawks to Nighthawks

You know, some people would say I was a geek. (I know, it’s hard to believe) Perhaps I am – it’s hard to come up with another reason why I feel that Peregrine falcons breeding in London would be a pretty good reason for a visit to the capital. (I’m going to be down that way at the start of July anyway, visiting Tate Modern to see the Hopper exhibition with my father – so I suspect that a small side-trip to Regents Park may be in order)

Of course, I also think that Ospreys in the Lake District are a good thing too, although for now I stick with occasionally looking at the webcam.

Concert Hotel

I was going to blither about this yesterday, the noticed that Gert had mentioned it too, and then completely forgot. Typical.

Yesterday, the new Radisson hotel in Manchester offically opened. Normally a new hotel wouldn’t have been overly news-worthy, but this one has been built to use the frontage of the Free Trade Hall.

The entire project has been a fascinating development, taking the listed frontage of the Free Trade Hall, (built in 1856) and then trying to build something modern that still works against it. Various suites have been named after musicians and conductors that have played at the venue, which I feel also adds a nice touch to the entire concept.

The Hall has been a shell since I moved up here, and it’s good to see the building with some life in it again. I’ll probably get some photos of the development in the next few days, and bung them on d4d™ when I do.

Glowing

“Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow.”
My boss hums.

By chuff it’s warm. The office here was designed for Scott of the Antarctic a time before Global Warming had come into the lexicon. So it’s got one whole wall of glass, pointing directly into the sun. With no air-conditioning, and double-glazed windows. Calcutta would be proud of this particular black hole.

Of course, the thing that really tops it off is that it’s warm, and so Stinky™ is sweating like a polar bear in a solarium. Skunk is apparently the perfume of the day. Luckily, I have a fan, so some of it is being blown in other directions, rather than just coagulating into a festering miasma of hum.

Don’t you all just wish you were me?

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

In today’s Media Guardian, Roy Hattersley writes a very good piece on perceptions about homosexuality using the current scenarios on Coronation Street. I can’t say overly much, as I’d rather put cocktails sticks in my eyeballs than watch Corrie, but I can’t find much wrong with the piece either.

Soaps in general love to promote stereotypes (while continuing to have one fucking huge paradox within them anyway^*) and anything that’ll reflect and reinforce the probable stereotypes of the viewing audience. With the big two in particular, it seems that reality, and positive role models are really the purview of Serious Drama, rather than Popular Entertainment. (I hope you can hear the cynicism going into the pronunciation of Popular there) So it’s “OK” to propagate the same things, without too much hope of reality or diversification entering into the mix.

^* The paradox at the centre of soaps is that while they purportedly portray “real life”™, no-one ever comments about anything happening in the other soap.

“In the four weeks to May 11, EastEnders averaged 11.7 million viewers and a 55% audience share on Tuesdays.”

“The three episodes of Coronation Street that featured Todd’s revelations to his pregnant fiancee Sarah Louise Platt averaged 12.2 million at 7.30pm, 12.2 million at 8.30pm and 11.5 million at 10pm – an average audience share across the three instalments of 54%.”

both quotes ©Guardian Newspapers

So 12million viewers each, and yet not one of them lives on Coronation Street or in Albert Square. What’re the odds? It wouldn’t take much for that kind of reality, just the odd conversation about “Did you see what happened in {name of other soap} last night?” But no, they’ll never do it. And that’s the Soap Paradox.

Envy

There are times where I really hate WVS. A perfect example is the photo he posted yesterday. All of a sudden I don’t feel like posting up my own stuff any more… (I will, but – well – *sigh*)

Common Sense…

is obviously something I lack. Having been blah and tired all day, a three hour train-ride home seemed to perk me up. (And Oh, I do like having a laptop that can manage two journeys like that without a recharge in between, and still have 40% battery life by the end of it</smug>) So of course, with work looming in the morning, and being knackered for most of the day, finally going to bed at 2am was probably something of a Very Bad Idea^®. One day I’ll learn.

Anyway, I’ve got a CD of the photos from the concert with me, so during my time *cough* “working hard” today I’ll probably get the chance to knock up a photo page. More news as and when.

Braindead

Blah. A quiet day – no hangover,but a definite feeling of letheragy. Not going to get back home til late tonight, so photos from Friday’s concert won’t be online ’til Monday. Sorry and all that,but them’s the perils of drink…

Ticketmaster

Oh, and amazingly the duplicate tickets were at the box office, and there was no hassle with anything aboutit. My cynicism was, for once, wrong. You’ve no idea how much that actually pleased me. And, by extension, saved me about £100

Firefox vs. Blogger

Hmmm, that was interesting. The post below originally appeared as being written yesterday, which wasn’t true. As such it’s been deleted and re-posted, but I wondered why it’d happened in the first place. And I think the answer was as follows :-

I use Firefox to write most of the stuff in Blogger. It works, I like it. One of the features of Firefox is that when you close it down, it saves all the window settings, including the tabs you had open at the time. On this occasion, one of the open tabs was Blogger’s “Create Post” – so when I re-opened Firefox this morning, it went to the old “open” create tab.

Blogger now doesn’t date posts according to when they were actually posted/completed/published. Instead it does it according to when the create page was opened. It’s as good a way as any, I suppose – but it doesn’t take account of norks like me using a create page that actually opened yesterday…

Halle-keffing-lujah

Over the last week, a wide variety of swearwords have been emanating from the corner desk at which I work. I got lumbered with assigned to do a website for part of the local authority. All well and good so far.

Except the fudgeknacking twunts had already “done” their pox-gonaded site with a *cough* webdesigner outside the authority. Oh dear Christ on an underpowered moped, had they.

I use the term “webdesigner” in it’s loosest possible term. We’re talking about terms so loose that they would describe Hitler as “slightly aggressive, not overly fond of foreigners”, or Big Brother as “entertaining TV”. This ringlicking mutant sub-normal reject from the Cambridge monkey labs didn’t use anything as standard as Dreamstuffweaver, oh no. The scrofulous fucknugget instead chose … M$ Publisher. Yes, Publisher. And then “Save as HTML”.

I’ve spent a week making the code even approach readable. Just under 80 – yes, you read that correctly – eighty scumsucking pages of M$’s attempts to write HTML. It’s no frigging wonder their browser’s a sack of maggot-ridden donkey-shite, when you see the kind of abuse they give HTML. Dreamweaver fell over just trying to render the bloody code, let alone edit the twadgeing thing.

I hope I never find out which headshaved knuckle-dragging wingnut actually wrote this abortion, and I think they should hope I never do either. I’d imagine that a keyboard would make for some interesting proctological contortions. Particularly if I sharpened the bugger first.

Taking the Piss

Fucking hell, for a festival that used to be commitedly uncommercial, Pride sure has changed. Of course, it’s not called Pride anymore, this year it’s the Big Gay Out, (shit name too – surely something better could’ve been thought up?) sponsored by Faceparty (who last time I looked were busy getting a bollocking for having photos of under-16s in various levels of undress) and with tickets on sale through your corporate friends and mine, Ticketmaster.

It used to be free, then it was (if memory serves) £5, then it was £pound;15 last time I looked. Now it’s £25. Inflation? Not quite. More like just a rip-off. And of course there’ll likely be less people going, so to “break even” next year they’ll up the prices even more. The economic model that doesn’t allow for “make it cheaper and more people will turn up”.

It’s not so much Pride, more Wallet.

Domain

Richard has realised he owns ten domain names, three of which are actually live. This made me think (in lieu of anything better to do while at work) about the ones I’ve got, as opposed to the ones I maintain for other companies.

There’s one that’s a middle ground – it’s my company, so it’s a site I own, but obviously I also maintain it. I won’t link to the various domains etc., because I do try to keep things seperate for a variety of reasons. As most people have figured, Lyle is a pseudonym, a nom-de-sweary, and adds a layer of remove to most of what I do. That’s the way I like to do d4d™, and it also means that my name doesn’t come anywhere near d4d™ should someone do a google search.

Anyway, the grand total is that I’ve currently got three live personal sites (including the company one) plus the one I was saying about the other day, which is in a kind of half-way house. There are also two three (oops, knew I’d forgotten one) that haven’t got anything done yet, and one I’m still thinking about buying.

In addition, there are four live sites that I’m still the main registrant and maintainer on, and three that are currently under development, as well as one that I haven’t yet bought (although I know the domain I want, just haven’t got round to it yet) and two that were bought purely on spec.

I think I need to get out more…

But anyway – how many domains have you got?

Abdication

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not worthy. Anna has written a post that has meant I have now handed over the Sweary Crown, and currently admit defeat.

All hail Queen Anna, Her Profane Majesty.

Bizarre

Apparently, I’m #1 in google for the phrase “I want to redesign existing trouser“. I have no idea why, nor even why anyone would search on this phrase. But there we go.

About Bloody Time

Some people who email me will know that I’ve got a domain name which currently doesn’t have a web-presence. Well, OK, it’s got a holding page – but that’s it. I’ve had the domain for four years now – if not five – and have had some ideas of what to do with it, but nothing’s ever come to fruition.

So this may be another of those plans – only time will tell – but I think I’ve got an idea of what I’m going to use the domain for. It might even make for some interesting projects along the way. But for now I do feel some vague optimism, and a desire to see if I can make it work properly.

I’m not trying to be purposely enigmatic on this one (although it looks like I’m succeeding anyway) but for now I don’t want to curse the idea with too many expectations. But once it’s life, or on the way to working, I’ll publicise more about it.

Like an Arrow

Eh? You what? June? Already? When did that happen?

BB5 AKA “Load of old shite”

Oh Jesus Christ, God help us all, it’s back. For a fifth series, as if we weren’t all utterly fucked off with it after the first four.

Of course, most people weren’t bored comatose by the constant media drivel of the previous four, and already it’s one of the main conversation pieces of the office. I don’t even know who the people are – there’s someone called Kitten, apparently, and some ringpiece turned up in a thong? The mind boggles, and already my survival instinct has cut off any nascent desire to know any more about it.

Eight and a half weeks to go…

Mating Season

No, not me, you fools. However, thanks to David for sending me a series of photos and captions regarding – the mind boggles – Moose courtship.

And as an additional, the fantastic Mooseworld. I wonder if there’s a chance that 21 Piccadilly can become an associate member?