Fuck-up

Ooops. It’s not next Friday for d4d™’s second birthday – that’s the date of my brother’s birthday. In fact, it’s a week on Monday, the 9^th August. All the same, two years of writing this rubbish. Scary, but true.

Bizarre

Here’s a hypothetical situation. You’re company decides to put an advert for holiday breaks (say, for instance, deals for spending Christmas anywhere but in the UK) in the Saturday edition of a newspaper, and print a contact number for more information. All well and good.

Now, bearing in mind it’s the Saturday edition, would you think it was a good idea to then have the office closed on Saturday and Sundays? Just an answerphone there to take messages? Maybe it’s just me, but that seems to be pretty counterproductive. Doesn’t it, Travel Editions?

Twadges.

Hmmmm

In some ways, this week has been like a mini-hiatus on d4d™. No excuses for it really, it’s just that my head is currently overflowing with stuff, none of which has ultimately yet proved to be worthy of any writeable subject matter at all. Which is a real pain in the backside.

In short, inspiration has been hugely lacking, and while I know some of the reasoning behind it, and what my brain’s getting up to, there are large areas of life that currently seem to be filed under “Wibble”.

On the plus side, I’ve got my head round some of the WordPress crap now, and the template etc. seem to be getting somewhere near usable at long last. I still haven’t written the Sweary filter, but the basic stuff is there, and I’ve got it straight in my head, which is always a good start. Who knows, it may actually be up and running in time for next Friday, when d4d™ officially has its second birthday. Can’t be bad.

Twadge

This is an exact copy of the email I’ve just received from our illustrious head of PR.

Grateful if above attached is placed on the intranet straightaway as per usual with his photo. Please confirm when it’s on so we can send all users note. Thanks, Chris

It’s no wonder people think he’s a tosser, is it? The laws of punctuation, grammar, spacing, and – well – basic letter/email writing all seem to have bypassed this cock-knocker. And the skills for adding a photo into a Word^® document have continued to evade the entire PR department.

Residual

Hmm, there’s a general lack of motivation going on round here at the moment. I’ve got a (continued) site to be building for Oldham, but it’s the nightmare of copy-typing the entire thing, as referred to a couple of weeks back. I could be trying to figure out the template from WordPress to re-do d4d, but I can’t be bothered. Lots of stuff is taking on a similar vein for me this week.

I’m sure I’ll perk up again shortly, but for now, the impetus is just not there. While they’re great at the time, and it was a much-needed break, holidays are bad, bad things. I’ll figure it all out in the end though.

If You’re Happy and You Know It

According to this BBC story, I’m back in the minorities again. Supposedly two thirds of people are happy with their work, nearly half of those surveyed were very satisfied with their pay and 60% very satisfied with the hours they worked.

In fairness, I suppose I should say that in general I don’t mind the work I do, and the money can be pretty good. It’s just that in the current contract the work sucks arse, as does the company, and the money. So all in all it was a bad, bad move. Roll on the end of 2004, when all that changes for the better.

TVR-Ski

Car making company TVR have today announced that they’ve been sold to a Russian entrepreneur. I’ve been a fan of TVR’s for far too many years, so I hope that this investment will lead to the brand continuing to do exactly what it does now – produce stunning performance cars, and keep on designing new ones that don’t imitate anything else.

Chav of the Month

Stunning – words fail me. For the full effect, click on the picture, or go to Chav of the Month for a whole selection of horrors.

Ch-ch-changes

Hmmm, this is all most unnatural. Not just content with the new things going on chez Lyle, it appears that Jon is also going through a similar set of changes and viewpoint revisions. All the best with it!

I think I’m going to need an injection of cynicism, if I’m not careful here.

And then, as if by magic, a nice pair of stories about people being unaware they’ve got HIV and the continued rise in STI cases. Ah, welcome back, despair and cynicism.

Damp Squib

Due to being away, I missed the news/hilarity that the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain has been closed, as it’s currently a hazard to people, who seem to insist on walking through the waters, closely followed by a Slap!Bang!Eek! as they land flat on their arses. Be still, my sympathetic heart.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Some poor people have been in receipt of this rant already, so instead it’s going to be a bit of a two-fer. Yes, you guessed it, bastard trains. I SO need to sort out driving lessons, but until I get my provisional licence back (it having been within the Filofax I left at a friends seven weeks ago) then I can’t even get started on that score. So for the meantime, well, you’ll just have to put up with posts about trains. Once I’m driving I’ll probably vent about Motorways, Service Stations, Drivers, and anything else I can think of, but for now, it’s the joy of Virgin travel.

Let’s get the conclusion out the way first. Both Maggie Thatcher and Richard Branson should die. Train privatisation was one of the worst ideas around – and was basically (pardon the pun) railroaded through so that the government wouldn’t have to invest billions to repair a network that even back in the 80s was getting shonky, and in the last twenty years has only become shonkier. Privatisation was a grand idea, except that the Government forgot that private companies have awkward little buggers called shareholders, who expect to see a return on their investment. Because of that, putting the rail network into the hands of private business was always going to be a right twadge-up. Rather than spending the necessary money on rail infrastructure, they saved it and paid it to the shareholders. Great, everyone’s happy. Well, they are until various accidents because of shonky repairs and toss-all investment. And then it’s a complete “oh shit” moment.

So now we’re in a place where the rail infrastructure is pretty much back under government control (which it should never have left in the first place) and the taxpayers are left with a repair bill that’s about ten times the size of what it was twenty years ago.

Today, because of engineering works, we’re not stopping at about six of the standard stops. In theory this should make for a faster journey. Except it’s actually half an hour longer than usual. The reservations system is fucked not working, so the coachload of tourists who got on at Oxford expecting to all be in coach F have discovered that the train consists of coaches A to E. Luckily it’s a weekday morning outside commuting hours, so there’s space for them in other carriages. But it’s still a balls-up.

Inevitably, there’s a cock-knocking ringpiece with the IQ of a spastic sloth, and he’s got the “shower scene” theme from Psycho as a ringtone. On loud. In a strange way, that theme may be somewhat prophetic…

Across the table from me there’s a French mother-and-daughter, who got on at Oxford and appear to be using the train as a picnic table. A Sainsbury’s quiche, and what appear to be Roquefort and Donkey-shit sandwiches, from the smell. Congenitally unable to use the new “sports-cap” technology on the water bottles, they’ve pulled off the complete cap, as a result of which there are two sodden paper-towels in the nearest waste-bin, and I’m waiting for the laptop to fritz out because of water contact.

Opposite is an archetypal American family, kids wanging about complaining that they all want a window seat, and the parent’s mouths so full of sandwich that they can’t get a word out edgeways.

Eeeee. Eeeee. Eeeee. Yes, another call. Twat-arsed monkey-rimmer. I wonder if it’s possible to do someone lasting damage with a Gilette Mach 3? Maybe it’d be easier to stick the power-cable from the laptop up his arse and switch it on? I think it’s time to experiment, or revise using “Practcial SS Torture Lessons for Dummies”

The Americans are now commenting about how quaint it is to have a train line that cuts through fields. I think I’m just going to blast eardrums with something loud and grouchy. Where’s the Tom Waits MP3s?

St George and Dragon, Wargrave, Berks

Sometimes things just go wrong. Recommended by others, we furkled off to the St. George and Dragon in Wargrave. Beautiful location, right by the river, all meadows and fields on the other side – not far short of idyllic. However, the place itself has been taken over, and recently refurbished. Oh dear, oh dear. The marketing guff menus are all very stylish, glossy black, black and white photography, bronzed text. Very chic. Full of shite.

Ah well, see what it’s like. First problem – the barman doesn’t know how to change beer barrels. OK, benefit of the doubt, maybe it’s his first day. But all the same, can you say “training”? Probably not. But the barrel gets changed by a colleague, and we’re back on track.

Looking around, every table has a menu on it, and there’s nothing implying a seperate dining area. In fact, the marketing guff blathers on at length about how the George and Dragon is relaxed, informal, and comfortable. So we sit down, decide what to eat, and then – not to put too fine a point on it – get ignored by the staff. Not even a modicum of interest. Eventually, following the “oh, fuck this” plan of action, a waitress is hailed (and I really need to practice that piercing fingers-in-the-mouth whistle, a la Blues Brothers) and we try to order.

“Oh, I can take your order, but then you’ll need to sit in our dining area”
“Can’t we just sit here? It’s a table with a menu on, after all”
“Oh no, you’ll need to eat in the dining area”
“Where is that?”
“This table just behind you.”

Yes, this “informal, relaxed” (let’s not forget that one, kids) venue has a dining area, and you can’t sit even one table outside that area. Not even a sign to say “dining area”, it just seems to be a perfectly arbitrary section. No signage, no instructions – I wonder how many potential diners simply walk out, sick of getting ignored by waiting staff. Come to that, I wonder how many simply walk out, never to return.

In fairness, the food was pretty good. Imperfect for a business lunch, as the pasta sauce was basically liquid – I’m amazed my shirt didn’t manage to get some as well. My face and chin certainly did. If I’d been doing it, the sauces and so on would have been a lot firmer, simply in order to keep it all together, and not splatter suits mid-day.

I’d say actually that that’s the problem with the George and Dragon. By all accounts it used to be a good pub that did excellent food, without disappearing up its own arse. Since the refurb, the sphincter is coming ever closer to experiencing self-insertion. In my experience, as soon as you start assuming that customers (and particularly business ones) have the intelligence/patience to figure out the ordering system for themselves, then you’re pretty much fucking doomed. If the “informal” attitude is to be nurtured (and it should be) then having a fixed dining area is shite. It’s being marketed as a food pub, an eating destination – so that’s what it should be, and it means that all the tables should be able to order food. If they want to split it, have two menus, a bar menu and a restaurant menu – not the same thing, but only orderable in one area. And if that’s the concept they’re going to stick to, then reprint the menus to explain that – otherwise custom will just be lost left, right, and centre.

Did the food negate the picky prissy attitude towards ordering? No, not really. Was it worth the money paid for the food? Probably. Will that make the venture a success? Who knows. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see some fairly major changes by the end of the year. For now it’s a slightly schizoid concept, with some pretty major flaws.

Back

Well, six days away, and I feel far better for it. I’ve been told by Dragon that d4d™ can’t become a loved-up mush-fest, and it’s not going to – but there’s going to be a fair number of changes on the way during the next few months.

Of course, d4d has its own place with me anyway, and so some things also aren’t going to change. In fact, if I’m honest, fuck only knows what’s going to happen. I’m going to go with the flow, and see how it all works out.

As for the next short time period, well, the redesign of d4d™ is continuing, once I suss out the WordPress template properly. The stylesheet is sorted(ish) with a couple of tweaks needed now I’ve also looked at it in bloody IE. Then it’s “just” a matter of exporting all the posts from Blogger to WordPress. I don’t think there’ll be anything I can do about the comments from Haloscan (although if anyone knows better, please let me know) which is a ballache, but a necessary evil, I think.

And lifewise? Well, there’s a lot to think about – but plenty of time to do so. I’m still contracted with Oldham ’til the start of October (and that’s going to extend again, I’m sure) but they’ve already been told there’s no frigging way I’m working there at all in 2005. And at that point? Well, it’s all still “seeing how things go” for now, but there’s a distinct possibility of uprooting and transplanting. We’ll see.

Windsor

Yes, Windsor. Holiday home of Queen Liz and her army of henchman. Well, one of the holiday homes, anyway. But also rather pleasant for a day out. Well, that’s what we decided yesterday.

One of the joys of being around Berkshire is that it really can be very, very posh. And very, very touristy. In Windsor, you can experience both at once. (And yes, I managed a day there without one single shot of the fucking castle – aren’t you impressed?) About the only thing you don’t really experience are posh tourists. They’re all off doing something else. God knows what, I’ve never been fortunate enough to find out.

Anyway, having gone past Ascot racecourse (which was having the “De Beers Diamond Day“) and an utter shedload of stretch limos, we got to Windsor, and it’s fucking crap beautifully designed one-way system, in addition to some deeply dubious signage regarding car-parking. Obviously most people visit Windsor in chuffing big air-conditioned coaches, and – on the evidence of yesterday – most coach tours now seem to also insist on a uniform for all passengers. Green tracksuits seemed to be one order of the day. Nasty in SO many ways.

Still, wandering down the riverside was a pleasant way to spend some of the day, and the way that the Windsor rail station has done itself up (I was last there some ten years ago) is truly impressive. It gives a really good “European” style area for food, drink, and shopping, and personally, I think it’s a bloody good concept. While we were there, it was certainly very lively and with a good turnover of people.

Of course, there’s tourist buses galore, and some of the biggest camera lenses this side of sporting events and paparazzi. One wonders how some of them fly over with anything in the suitcase except camera and lenses – anything else would surely push it over the weight limit.

But yes, for a summer’s day, it was all very pleasant. Much enjoyed.

Tech

Along the way this weekend, there’s also been an amount of geekiness going on too. Sorting out dubious email connections, installing anti-virus protection and updating it all, figuring out card-readers, and looking at digital cameras (not for me, for once!), in the end coming out with a very nice little Minolta Dimage G400 – certainly a breed I’ll consider looking at in the future, having seen some of the results already.

But I have to say, going back to 56k dial-up is painful. I’ve been on ADSL for the best part of 2½ years now, and you really do get used to it awfully easily. Still, all part of the fun and games, eh?

Still away

All’s well – I warned you the content would be intermittent, to say the least. But yes, things are good, and among other things I’ve caught up on more sleep in the last four days than I have in the last four months.

Of course, that’s not all that’s been happening, and in general there’s a fair amount of stuff that will be getting re-assessed and worked on in the next few months. Changes galore, and the boy is going to be OK for the forseeable future, I think.

Update

Yes, things are going fine, thanks. All’s well so far, and the relaxation is definitely a good thing.

Rants about train journeys etc. can be expected at a later date.

T’raaa

Fuck this, I’m off to Berkshire.

Expect intermittent updates for a while.

Tra(u)matic

After four years of “oh yes, it’ll happen, no really, it will”, the Manchester “big bang” tramline expansion has fallen through. What a shocker.

While the money’s always been promised, no-one seems to have ever thought to get a guarantee, or to actually say “Well where is it then?” And now the government has – unsurprisingly – changed its mind, and won’t help to fund the expansion.

So far as I’m concerned, yes, this is a bad development for the plan – but to say that it’s been betrayed is shite, it’s been piss-poor on the management front since day one.

Counting

Hmm, it’s a day with very little motivation left, to be honest. Come tonight I’ll be away down to Berkshire ’til Tuesday, so don’t expect too much in the way of updates. I’m sure there’ll be some along the way – but don’t hold your breaths.

In the meantime, of course, I’m really not in the mood to do much. There’s various bits I should be doing, but starting off something properly today just means it’ll then wait ’til this time next week. Kind of pointless.

So – no motivation for work, and lots for later. That’ll be a well-balanced day then.

Twattage

Thank you for your email about the problems you have experienced with the incorrect delivery of mail.

I am sorry to learn that your mail was delivered incorectly and left outside. I realise there can be no excuse for the misdelivery of mail which is clearly and correctly addressed and I would like to apologise for the concern you have been caused.

I have reported this issue to your local Delivery Office Manager and I have been advised that there are no problems with the way your mail is sorted prior to delivery. This leads me to conclude that this mistake happened as a result of human error..

You have my assurance that we are not complacent about our failures. In order to prevent this happening again the Delivery Officer responsible has been interviewed and will ensure that more care is taken in future, by checking the mail
both before and during delivery.

Please accept my apologies, for the annoyance and inconvenience you have been caused. If you have any further difficulties or require any information or advice about the various services we provide please do not hesitate to contact us quoting your reference number on 08457 740 740 or on Textphone(for the hard of hearing)08456 000 606 or email us at contactus@royalmail.com and we will be happy to help.

Postwatch, the independent consumer body for postal services, exists to represent customers’ interests. If you would like further information, they can be contacted on 08456 013 265 or at Freepost Postwatch.

Yours sincerely

JB

Customer SErvices

Aching arsebanditry. This was in response to a complaint I made a month ago about the fluntcapping twadgeknacker who decided to abandon an Amazon package at my front door on a weekend when no-one was in the house. An Amazon package with £100ish worth of stuff inside, and which basically advertised for the whole weekend “hey look, chavs of Manchester, no-one’s been home to pick up this parcel, so feel free to nick it, or break in and wander round the house at your leisure“

So yes, I’m going to complain a bit further on this one. Apologies don’t break the ice – and they’d do even less if the house had been broken into. And if some little scally had taken advantage of the package and nicked it, I bet the Royal Snail would have a whole load more shit to deal with than just me complaining.

Image Blocking

“Every image of a child that appears on the internet is a picture of a child that has been abused and that must remain firmly fixed in our minds as a key priority for taking the actions that we are determined to take.”

Absolute bollocks. I can think of many examples where family photos of children are online, and there’s no abuse involved at all. Fair enough, I can see the point(ish) in BT blocking images of child porn – there’s a lot of Big Brother implications to it as well though.

For example, what if BT (and other ISPs) were to decide that they didn’t want certain news to be disseminated via the internet? Could/Would they block it? The technology is supposedly there to do so.

But to say – publicly – that every picture of a child is a picture of abuse is, frankly, utter utter bollocks.

Intentional?

Is it just me, or is there a distinct similarity between these two images?

One’s of El Presidente Blair, the other’s the poster from Hannibal.

Another One Bites The Dust

According to The Register, the US has scrapped the CAPPS II project. Another $102m down the drain in the name of anti-terrorism. It’s laughable.

CAPPS was supposed to be able to “spot” terrorists (or rather, potential terrorists) in the passenger lists of flights coming to the US.

CAPPS II was once meant to identify potential evil-doers by snooping through credit card, phone and car registration databases and deciding whether or not a traveller was who he claimed to be.

© The Register

It’s never worked, has been plagued with errors, and has now been scrapped, to be replaced by some other as-yet-unnamed system.

I don’t know if it’s just me that feels like this, but the only country that terrorism has put me off visiting is – um – the US. Score one for Osama, then.

WordPress

Yes, I’m doing badly on WordPress. I think I’ve imported all the stuff from Blogger (although of course I’ll now need to do that again) but the templates have utterly fragged my head. Over the weekend, and today, I’ve found that my head’s not getting round them at all. I don’t know why, because PHP is normally a piece of piss as far as I’m concerned, but there’s something that’s just not clicking with me, and I don’t know why.

The template documentation isn’t helping either – I can understand(ish) the necessary tages, I just can’t find anything that really explains how the loop gets built, and where all the crap goes. It’s frustrating.

I think some of the problem is that I’ve had some sleep, which invariably leads to my brain being – well – fluffy, to say the least. I suppose that this week is perhaps not the best time to be looking at a complete change and upgrade anyway, as I’m only here ’til Wednesday, and then updates will be *cough* sporadic ’til Tuesday. Better things to see and do, and all that jazz. But for now I’m going to continue trying to get my head round this sack of shite, and see how I do.

Dragonfly Lights

The photos aren’t perfect, primarily because – well – the lighting conditions were crap. *Grin* But yes, they’re up, and yes, I love them. So there.

Spiderman 2

It’s still a quiet weekend (well, comparatively) although I’ve done a fair amount of stuff at the same time. In addition, I thought “Ah, the hell with it, go and spend a couple of hours in a seat in front of some giggling morons, getting the seatback kicked in”. Well, I didn’t, I thought “Chuff it, I’ll go and see Spiderman 2” – the rest just kind of happened from there.

Anyway. was it worth it? Yeah, in a way. It’s a fun film, no denying that, although I must admit I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the first one. There’s the occasional moral section that doesn’t so much sneak in under the perceptions as whack you round the head with a very big kipper. Maybe it needs that in order to impinge on Americans. Of course, I wish it’d impinged on the retard scallie munters sat behind me, who insisted on talking and kicking the seats all through the showing. Deeply annoying, but not much you can do except either tell ’em to fuck off, or figure a way to break their legs.

Still, it was an enjoyable break for a couple of hours. And now I’m going to sod off and do more domestic things. Scary, isn’t it?

Moving On

Well, with the 200,000 marker out of the way, I think it’s time to figure out how to import everything from Blogger to WordPress. I’ve a feeling that I’m likely to lose a lot of the comments from Haloscan, which is a complete pain in the arse. But the template’s sorted, I need to add a PHP rule to htaccess so that random.html will automagically redirect to random.php, and figure a fair amount of other bits and bobs. With luck, come Monday the majority of d4d will be sat on WordPress and PHP instead of the HTML. We’ll see how it all goes, anyway.

Domesticity

A weekend off is a wonderful thing. I’m generally being domestic, tidying up rooms, sorting out a whole range of stuff. Ive even got round to getting my big Massive Attack photo framed, so that’ll be getting put up this afternoon. And I’m sorry, Gordon, but the Dragonfly lights look bloody fantastic. So they’re going to be put up properly too, once I figure a decent place to put them.

All things considered, it’s going to be a quiet weekend, and I can tell you already, it’s been much looked-forward-to, and is proving much-needed.

200,000, Baby! Yeah!

Sorry for the brief Austin Powers moment there, but well, it seemed apt. The 200,000th page impression has been achieved. Chuffed to nuts, I truly am. Hmmm, Austin Powers to Yoda in less than a paragraph.

I’ll make sense later, but for now, well, 200,000! Woo! Yay!

They’ve arrived

Yes, I’m now the proud owner of some dragonfly lights. No idea as yet where I’m going to put them (answers on a postcard, all rude ones will be deleted laughed at) but I’m sure I’ll come up with some ideas.

Photos may be available once all’s sorted. This “quiet weekend” is rapidly degenerating into something deeply domestic and fairly busy.

Kerfuffle

Well, I hereby predict that most of the Blogworld will be sat griping about the new post interface on Blogger. I’ve seen it on IE and yeesh, well, “prepared for the lowest common denominator” is a phrase that springs readily to mind.

However, in Firefox it appears to be well pigged, and the changes don’t appear to have happened, so I don’t have to worry too much. Of course, we’ll see how this post turns out before I gripe too much.

In spite of that, well, in a fit of fortuitous timing I’ve got a weekend off, doing nothing. So it now looks like I may do some work on the new template, and move the lot over to WordPress. As such, it’ll mean that d4d™ design-wise goes slightly schizoid for a while as there’ll have to be a process for moving everything over to the new template. Don’t hold yer breath, but with luck it’ll all be done by the 2^nd birthday. With Luck. And a following wind.

My Eyes! My Eyes!

The day’s not getting any better. I’ve just had to deal with the eye-bleeding joy of Standing Tall, a site about bullying in schools. Sometimes I love Opera for being able to turn off images, or only stick an animation through once instead of repeatedly.

This one (on the same subject) isn’t much better either. Still, I guess if it helps anyone then it’s worthwhile.

Fucknugget Cunts

Being a bit of an accessibility geek (not that you’d believe it from the current incarnation of d4d™, and yes, I really do need to work on that a bit) I’ve often found that Matthew Somerville’s Accessible UK Train Timetable has been a godsend – and far easier to use than that POS, The Train Line.com.

He also created an accessible version of Odeon’s website. The original site has a nasty habit of trying to be IE/Windows only (although it currently seems to work OK on Opera, but absolutely hates Firefox) and was in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act. Sadly, after initially voicing support for the accessible site, the marketing twunts at Odeon have requested that the accessible version now be pulled. I can kind of understand their point about trademarks being used, but as Matthew points out, he wasn’t gaining commercial advantage, and was instead providing a service that Odeon couldn’t be arsed to do themselves.

If you’re as keffed off by this bunch of arse as I am, send a complaint to info@odeonuk.com.

Another Day

Common Sense may not be overly forthcoming today. Lack of sleep, necessity of writing self-referential PHP and navigation, and still fixing the utterly abortive site that I was pissed off with a couple of days ago. In short, today is NOT a good day. It may improve. It may not. Only time will tell.

However, in one minor high-point, the tickets arrived today for the Massive Attack gig in Bristol. Not much of a high-point really, is it?

Analysis

“Blunkett’s banging on about ID cards again. Why don’t we just tell him we’ve all got one – he’ll never know.”

Scaryduck analyses humour. Truly worthy of reading – just don’t do so at work.

Ouch

I pretty much guarantee that every man who reads this story will wince a fair amount. However, I hope everybody will also find it as amusing as I did. Otherwise I have a sick sense of humour…

Muttering

I’d just like to say that some “professional” web designers should be shot. Ideally they would then be incincerated in flaming cow dung, and then it would be arranged that syphilitic transvestite donkeys would then piss on the flames. It’s that kind of day.

One of the offshoot PFI pieces of crap that this council/government loves so much decided to do a website. All well and good – except they went to what they say was a “professional” web designer, and I suspect was in fact a 13year old with a PC and a copy of M$ Publisher.

This gonk decided that – as well as having what can only be described as “not a fucking clue” about information design and navigation – it would be great to have every single page done using an image map. Hey, that’ll make things easy for navigation and the like. And any links to other pages can just be done by designating a hot-spot in the image.

However, it also means that, when it comes to converting this site into something approaching usable, it’s nigh-on im-fucking-possible to get the content out of the site using copy/paste, and instead have to retype the fucking lot. Because you can’t highlight the text in an image and pull it out. (And, for the smart-arse techies in the audience, for once OCR doesn’t work properly either)

So, it’s back in the land of “create it all from scratch”. And if I ever discover which twadgeknacking fluntcap “designed” this abortion in the first place, I’m going to be in Strangeways before the end of the week.

Nearly There

Ye Gods this is frustrating. Today’s log report puts the page impressions at 199,000. Aaargh. Only another 1,000 to go! I’m currently considering a post about the changes that’ve happened since d4d™ started properly back on August 9^th 2002, or perhaps it’ll just be “over the last 100,000 page impressions” – time will tell. It’s hard to believe I’ve been blithering on for so long already…

Parenting

Bloody hell, I’m going to be a Godfather. Now there’s a shocker. And no, I don’t mean as in the film, but instead the classical role.

A good friend of mine is due by the end of the month – it’s not been an easy ride through the pregnancy, for one reason and another, but she’s come through it all, and now we’re heading towards the drop-date. Today she asked if I’d be Godfather to the new baby – and I can’t deny it, while smobgacked that anyone’d choose me for that role, I’m also deeply deeply chuffed.

The second half of 2004’s certainly looking like it’ll be interesting!

Hopper Exhibition – Part Two

No, there aren’t two parts to the exhibition. But as Pat asked what I thought of it, well, I’d best get on with it, hadn’t I?

Personally, I loved seeing the exhibition. I’d have enjoyed it more if it were anywhere but Tate Modern, I suspect. I find that other than the Turbine Hall itself, the entire place is about 10° too warm, and when that’s added to shitloads of other people, I just want to get round and get out. In fact, the Milennium Bridge is in a great place for that, as wandering over the bridge after being in Tate Modern is a great way of coming back down to a somewhere-near-normal body temperature.

The odd thing was that I’d always thought his paintings were somehow bigger. Nighthawks would pretty much fit on an A3 piece of paper, whereas I’d always imagined it to be much larger. I agree with Pat’s comment that it would be a better exhibition if there were more of the sketches and notes on view as well as the paintings themselves, but then, nothing’s perfect.

All told, I thought it was a fantastic exhibition, and well worth seeing. I’d hate to miss it, if it’s going to be another twenty years before a similar one comes round again. But if you get the chance, see it either first thing in the morning, or on one of the late-night openings. It’s on ’til 5th September, so there’s still plenty of time to see it. Do so.

Gadget Moment

via Slashdot, this has to be one of the funkier gadgets around at the moment. Oakley sunglasses with a built-in 128Mb or 256Mb MP3 player. Bloody expensive (around $500), but man, what a geeky little gadget. Pity I’d have no use for them, short of spending another $500 to get a prescription built into them.

And if you’re really into cycling and time-trialling, how about a time-trial bike frame that weighs the same as three bags of sugar?

Edward Hopper, Tate Modern, London

One of my long-term favourite artists, I was looking forward to seeing the first full exhibition of his work in the UK for twenty years. £9 for the ticket, which seems a bit extortionate, but worth it for something I want to see. However, I must admit that if I’m paying that kind of price, I’d rather see the tickets limited to, say, 500 per half-hour time-slice. The entire exhibition seemed crowded with people, in almost a direct snub to the solitude and sparseness of people in Hopper’s paintings.

Still, if you wander round the exhibition twice (pausing to look at the fantastic view out of the windows, directly across Milennium Bridge, and into the entrance to St Paul’s Cathedral) then the ones that had crowds the first time are empty the second, and vice versa. Well, except for Nighthawks (AKA “The Hopper Everyone Knows”) which was just packed on both occasions.

I hadn’t realised how similar two of my favourite artists are – both Hopper and Jack Vettriano share a very similar viewpoint, and on several occasions I found myself surprised by the similarities. Despite how much he’s despised by the art world in general at the moment, I wonder whether in fifty years Vettriano’s work will attract the same crowds as Hopper does now?

London

Ooops, bad planning, organising a trip to London on the same day that another 100,000 knobbers decided to run a mile for charity. Oh bloody whoops. Still, we managed to avoid most of them by simple dint of walking on the other side of the river. Waterloo to Tate Modern, into Tate Modern to see the Hopper exhibition, spit at anything by Damien Hirst, and then out again and over the Millenium Bridge. I still love it – just wish the bugger would still wobble. However, other people walking over it don’t seem to appreciate some 6’4″ gonk bouncing up and down in the middle, seeing if the hydraulic dampers work properly. Can’t think why.

Over the bridge and around St. Paul’s Cathedral. I’d never been inside it – and once we’d got through the crowds of Japanese/German/Americans to discover it was £7 to look round, while most of it is currently wrapped in scaffolding, a quick “fuck that for a game of tourists” was the result. So I still haven’t seen round it – that’ll wait now ’til sometime in 2006 when the work’s been completed. At that point it’ll a) probably be pretty impressive, and b) probably be £15 to look around.

Still, the redeveloped Paternoster Square is impressive, and provides some impressive viewpoints, and a nice square for Elisabeth Frink’s “Shepherd” statue. Back to the Millenium Bridge, but rather than crossing it, deciding to go down the steps, and walk back down the other side of the river – the one previously occupied by 100,000 idiots charity runners. Underneath the bridge, there’s a glass pyramid, a timescale of scietific development over the previous two milennia. It’s lovely – and it’s never publicised to my knowledge. If you get a chance, spend five minutes there, looking at it, and the bizarre sundial next to it. (I’m sure DiamondGeezer will know the ones I mean, and provide links)

The walk along the river was lovely – and conveyed an utterly different experience from the more industrial South Bank. Small arbours with benches and trellis work abound in one area, making it into almost a garden, or a piazza walkway feel. Under the Blackfriars bridges, and back onto the Embankment. Narrowly avoid getting well and truly pissed on by the squalls of rain, and watch the SportRelief trannies (all orange wigs and high-heels) slipping along the slick pavements.

Back into Embankment station, up to Marylebone, and thence home. A pretty good day all round.

Travelling

Yes, you’ve guessed it. Virgin Bloody Trains. Not much more needs to be said really. Travelling in First Club Class (No First or Second class passengers in our train system, oh no, just those who can afford to pay extra for a table) because the normal carriages are rigid with people. No such thing as a busy train, obviously – it’s only running from Bournemouth to Edinburgh, why the hell would people want to use a long-distance service like that? So I know, we’ll give it three carriages of normal class, and one of First Club Class. Make the fuckers pay. The bloody inconvenience of having to stop to pick up or set down passengers, for God’s Sake. It’s just unholy – we’d be so much better off just running the train and never stopping it at stations.

Oh, and you, yes you, the cunt with “Peter and the Wolf” as your ringtone on top volume, it was amusing the first time, but the fact that your dickhead colleague can’t get to grips with the concept of “on the train” and keeps calling back every time the call drops means that your comedy ringtone and sign of individuality becomes more than slightly wearing. It’s unfair of me to want to insert the phone for you to use as a vibrating buttplug, because of course it’s not you who keeps calling the fucking thing, but if you could set it to, oh, I don’t know, “Discrete” or “Beep” setting, so that we don’t have to listen to bastard Prokofiev for the fortieth time, that’d be appreciated. Still, it’s better than The Nokia Tune™.

Travelling

Lots to mutter about when I get home. Travelling. (Grr) Tate Modern (grr but cool too), St Pauls (Rip-off Grrr – £7 to look at a bunch of scaffolding surrounded by fucking tourists), travelling, rain, and – oh, Shrek 2. Non-Grrr.

Travelling again now, and will update all this gubbins later tonight. Don’t hold your breath.

Away

‘nads to this, I’m off to Oxford.

So close, So far

Oh, and we’re getting ever closer to the magic 200,000 page impressions. It’s on about 197,500 as of yesterday. I hope it doesn’t go past over the weekend while I’m away. But if it does, well, that’s life. There’s no prizes for hitting it, mainly because I can’t be arsed to go through the log-files line by line to check who got the exact page impression and all that guff, but it’ll be another interesting mile-post.

And it’s only a month ’til d4d™s second birthday. How scary is that? I’ve been writing this shite now for two years. Time flies when you’re having fun.

Anticlimax

Well, after all the events of yesterday, today feels pretty flat by comparison, doesn’t it?

In fact, it might be time to post the story of the shy moose just for levity purposes.

Birthdays

In order to announe the 1 year birthday of WVS, Sam has put together a collage of the years photos. Obviously photography is a very subjective thing, but I find I like far more of Sam’s photos than I dislike, which seems like a pretty good average, in the scheme of things.

Also, my father is 60 today, so I’ll be off to the sunny climes of Oxford for the weekend, and taking him off to the Hopper exhibition at Tate Modern tomorrow. Of course, in a glorious fit of timing, it means I’m not going to be able to make Sevitz‘s Braai (Barbecue, to those not in the know) which is a real bummer.

It also means I’m not likely to be updating d4d™ for a couple of days – in fact, I likely won’t be back ’til Monday afternoon, so sometime after that an update will happen. However, I’ll write some stuff over the weekend, and then probably load a splurge on at once. (if that’s not a vile image)

Answering the Questions

Well, the junction is now passed, and a route has been chosen.

None of the suggestions were anywhere near right – although I’m impressed at your levels of imagination! But now is the time when all will be revealed.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve found someone who is already very important to me. We’ve been friends for a long time, but things are developing into something way past friendship. The entire surrounding situation is a timing nightmare – she’s just starting a divorce, and if everything came out now her ex would be in a prime position to screw things up and make life incredibly awkward and nasty. So I won’t be giving away much on that score – and that’s also why I’ve been more enigmatic than usual of late. So yes, the timing’s an utter bastard, but if we get through this bit then the rest is likely to be far easier – the old “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” gambit.

In the past I’ve not always been sensible (I know I should be, but well, c’est la vie) and so obviously there’s been a potential for all things communicable. She’s important enough to me already that I felt that before things go past a point of no return, it was better to have a clean bill of health, particularly for your friend and mine, the HIV virus.

And that’s what today was about – the results from that test. If it had come back positive, there would still have been plenty of options, but it would also have closed off some things. If it were negative then obviously other avenues were open.

The path has been chosen. It’s come back negative, and so there’s a whole lot of other stuff to deal with over the next few months. All good stuff, with luck. There’s the potential here for a future that I hadn’t expected, even at the start of this year – and I’m relieved beyond belief that my previous life hasn’t fucked up the chances that are here for the future.

I was 99% sure that the result would be negative. But that 1% chance was still enough that taking the test was the right thing to do. That 1% chance could have screwed up not just my own life, if it’d been ignored. And for me, that would have been utterly unacceptable. But the stress came in with knowing how often those 1%s have risen up in the past to bite me in the arse. This time – thankfully – they didn’t.

I want to say thank you to all the people who commented yesterday without knowing what was going on, and to those today who have helped keep my mind off what’s been utterly unavoidable, the potential road-smash that was looming ahead.

And now we just have to see where life goes from here.

Bloody Hell

Amazingly, two posts ago (“Waiting”) was number 1,850. According to my blogger profile I’ve now written something like 220,000 words (which makes me no Mike, but it’s not too shabby either) It also means I’m on my way to being a Wordy Twat, with an average of 120 words per post. Blummin’ ‘eck.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

In the meantime, while waiting for that bloody crossroads, I couldn’t resist the personality test, as recommended by Dragon, among others. Yeah, it’s a meme. So shoot me.

Wackiness: 40/100
Rationality: 46/100
Constructiveness: 42/100
Leadership: 36/100

You are an SEDF–Sober Emotional Destructive Follower. This makes you an evil genius. You are extremely focused and difficult to distract from your tasks. With luck, you have learned to channel your energies into improving your intellect, rather than destroying the weak and unsuspecting.

Your friends may find you remote and a hard nut to crack. Few of your peers know you very well–even those you have known a long time–because you have expert control of the face you put forth to the world. You prefer to observe, calculate, discern and decide. Your decisions are final, and your desire to be right is impenetrable.

You are not to be messed with. You may explode.

I’m saying nothing else. Well, not on this subject anyway. I’ll let you lot do that. *Grin*

Waiting

Sometime after 4.30 or so today, I’ll post more about life-altering stuff. ‘Til then, random gibberish. Some things never change.

Actually, nadgers to it – let’s have some fun. Go on, guess what’s going on and what I’m waiting to find out. If anyone gets it spot on, I’ll know they’ve cheated. *grin* But yeah, go for it. No posts will be deleted.

Impulsive

I don’t know why I love these so much, but after thinking about it for a while, I think I may just have to buy some. No idea where they’d go yet, and the cable is pretty long – but they really do appeal to me a lot.

UPDATED : I’ve ordered some. Not from Debenhams, as they appear to be a) out of stock, and b) fucking expensive, so instead I’ve used this site – £18.50, and no postage/packing. Me likey. Just have to wait and see now.

Life-Changing

By the end of tomorrow, I should know more about some things that have the potential to change life utterly. In all honesty I don’t think they will, but there’s still that chance. For now though it’s just an oncoming fork in the road – nothing I can do about it, as the entire process is entirely out of my hands.

Still, I’m sure I’ll write more about it tomorrow. For now it’s just in my head a bit, so updates may be a bit thin on the ground today. Alternatively I may feel the need to gibber uncontrollably. Gawd knows.

Hatred

Perhaps it’s just me, but I keep mis-reading the headline on this story…

Each time I’ve looked at it, it makes me think that there are laws planned that will make religious hate into a law, a legally sanctioned requirement. More worryingly, I can think of a few groups who probably already thought that was the case.

Additions – 2

Couple of new bits on the Blogroll – I’ve been reading Random Acts of Reality for a while now, so it’s time to be added on to the bandwagon blogroll, particularly after the interview in the Grauniad too. Good work, that man.

The other addition is one that I’ve very little other information about. Chromasia is another photographic blog, in a similar vein to WVS. Both are updated daily, and both regularly provide images and ideas that simply leave me in awe, along with a combination of “I’m never going to be this good” and “Hmmm, that gives me some ideas and motivation to be better”. This image is a case in point. I’ve found Chromasia through my referrer logs, so to whoever looks there and then comes here, many, many thanks!

Additions – 1

via Scaryduck comes the joy of a spectacular chav family photo from Chavscum. There are so many appalling details – the make-up, the burberry blouse, the lovebite in the cleavage, the vacant expressions. Any money the hellspawn is called Chardonnay Louise, or something.

Dragging

Today is – to put it bluntly – dragging like a legless donkey. Part of that is due to a lousy night’s sleep, (even by my standards) aided and abetted by being on the ‘phone ’til 2am this morning. My head feels filled with some kind of bizarre cerebral packing material, but I really don’t think that’s anything to do with the bottle of wine that also disappeared last night. Honest.

Tonight is slightly more fraught, as my house-sharing friend is meeting up with her ex, and I get to make sure she gets home safely afterwards. So an evening in Wilmslow beckons. Oooh, lucky me.

Google

Yes, it’s true – I’m in the top ten results on google for Diana Fountain Piss. I’m so proud.

Memorial

Nope, I’m sorry, but even with all the extra coverage, I still think that the memorial fountain for Princess Diana is utter, utter shite. A £3.6m white elephant.

Nightmare datage

Last week, I found out that Massive Attack are playing a gig in Bristol on Monday August 2nd, and checked with a friend whether she’d like to go. Unshockingly, the answer was “yes!”, so tickets were booked.

Since then, it turns out that she’s got a meeting that day, and that it’s now also the day her office is supposed to be relocated. I’m also supposed to have a meeting, and it’s the day that the DMS project at work (finally) starts.

Me? I don’t care – I’m still going to be in Bristol. Work comes a very poor second to a hometown gig by one of my favourite bands…

About Bloody Time

If, like me, you regularly read Private Eye, then you’ll know what a rancid old cowbag Dame Shirley Porter was. She played a key role in a scheme that sold off council homes to potential Tory voters back in ’87, and ever since has been trying to evade paying the £27m fine and costs.

Today, she’s paid Westminster council £12m in a deal. And about fucking time too – that’s nearly 20 years she’s been messing about, and this £12m is apparently the best deal they’re going to get without a load of extra court battles.

A Deeper Love

Sorry for the punny title – it’s how my brain is “working” today…

Over the weekend, it was time for London Pride the Big Gay Out. Naff name, and becoming less and less attractive with every year.

Even the line up wasn’t exactly stimulating – or maybe I’m just getting older. Obviously there have been advances with equality over the years, and the Pride march is now a parade rather than a political march, which is an advance for sure. But at the same time, as Pride has become more mainstream and profit-oriented, the less I find it works for me. But there we go, that’s life.

Spiralling

I reckon Pogo will be utterly unsurprised to see the story on the BBC’s site today about costs at Bath Spa spiralling yet again. The entire project’s been a farce from the start, a story of mismanagement and “the wrong paint” – I wonder if it’ll ever open, or indeed how long it’ll take to break even if/when it does get completed.

Influence

Well, I have to say I’m deeply pleased that both Euro2004 and Wimbledon are over and done with. Perhaps some kind of semblance of normality can now return.

Also – and this is far more relevant – should I be ashamed of teaching a 7 year old the word “bumnuggets” over the weekend? I suspect her teacher may hear it rather a lot today in school…

T’raa

And for now, sod this, I’m off to Nottingham. I may post later, although it’s more likely to be tomorrow.

Have fun, all.

Strewth 2

As I realised in the comments on “Strewth” just below, it’s now also a year since the entire Wiley’s farce. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?

I’ve just renewed d4d™’s hosting for another year, the birthday is a month away, and the page impressions is on 195,000 now. Doing the maths last night, it took 14 months for the first 100,000 and only 9 for the second 100,000.

In the grand scheme of things, d4d™ isn’t much – but on a personal level it’s still something I’m really proud of, and one I intend to keep working on for the forseeable future. I think that over the next year there will be many changes going on around me, and also here (that fucking redesign, for one thing, when I get the inclination to move from Layout 1 to Layout 2 and move to WordPress.) which will all keep up my own interest in it as well as (I hope) everyone else’s.

Even after 2 years, I still don’t find that writing d4d™ is a chore – if (as yesterday) I’m not really in the mood, I don’t add anything much, I refuse to feel pressured (either by myself or by others) to update all the time, but instead do it when I want to. But I can’t deny, d4d™ is part of my life, and long may it continue to be so.

Uninspired

Worryingly, on a day when the logfiles are proving that d4d™ is fairly successful, I find myself utterly uninspired to write. It happens on occasion, and today is one of those occasions.

The next few days are likely to be pretty manic, what with one thing and another – I’m meeting up with a friend tonight who I haven’t seen in about six months, then tomorrow it’s off to Nottingham to go to (another) wedding, and back on Sunday. During the week I need to try and find something for my father’s 60th Birthday on Friday, as well as travelling down to Oxford on the Friday, then going with him on Saturday to London to see the Edward Hopper exhibition at Tate Modern. In addition, on the Sunday I’ll be in Bracknell before coming back here sometime on the Monday.

So – nothing like a quiet weekend then.

Strewth

It’s been a while since I’ve done a log-file analysis on d4d – and as it turns out I’ve lost the logs for a few days, which is a complete ball-ache, as I’ve no way of recovering them. Of course, I could fake them up too, just figure which days I’m missing, and then average out some stuff, but that’s a bit of a fraud, and I don’t want to do it.

Anyway, the latest official figures are here (well, official as in “a report done by me from logfiles”)and Ye Gods I’m actually quite chuffed with them. As of Monday, d4d™ had had just under 193,000 page impressions – so we’ll hit the 200,000 mark WAY before the 2nd birthday. Total hits amount to approximately 2¼million over the time it’s been running.

As always, I’m absolutely stunned by that. It was only in October that we went over the 100,000 page impressions, so d4d™ is still regularly gaining new readers. Many, many thanks to you all.

Sweary

via Gordon, a superb sweary resource – vote for your favourites!

At the time of writing, “fucknuggets” was no 83… I reckon we should aim to get it FAR higher on the list…

Big Surprise

Well, it’s no shock at all to see that Tim Henman collapsed like the wet fart he truly is yesterday. Every year it’s the same – “Henmania” fuelled by hype from the papers and media, as if he’s our Next Great White Hope (while not filming fucking Persil^® ads, of course) when in fact yes, he’s OK – but he’s never going to get to the bloody final.

We’ve got a history of crap sporting “heros”. Eddie the bloody Eagle springs to mind first and foremost in that little line-up. Henman’s not far off top of the list either.

History

Years ago, I was hugely impressed by a book – the first I’d read of his – written by John Katzenbach. Somewhere along the line I loaned it to someone, and never got it back. I’ve just started reading his latest novel, and while norking about with Amazon found that they’d got old copies of “The Traveller”, the book I first read. So I’ve ordered it.

There are occasions where I really shouldn’t be left anywhere near an internet browser. I just hope that the book lives up to the memory.

Incompetent

As I’ve said before, I really don’t have any problems with fuckheads trying to kill themselves. It’s when they try to take other people with them that I have a problem.

In this case the utter wankheid of a teacher took a group of 39 16-17year old girls up the Cairngorm Mountains with no decent gear, and using bin-liners for waterproofs.

“They were totally inadequately prepared, with the lack of waterproofs, and the mountain rescue team members were appalled at the condition of their clothing.”

[The leader of the Mountain Rescue team] said: “We were appalled to discover they were all wearing skirts and trainers. Some had bin liners and plastic sheets wrapped round them to act as waterproofs.”

He added: “It is one of the worst, if not the worst, cases that I have come across of a group being ill-prepared going on to the mountains.”

Somehow, knowing a few MRT guys myself, I suspect that there were an awful lot more words being used to describe this bunch of chuff-heads.

But not only did this moron put herself at risk, she also put 39 people in her care at risk, AND the 10 people in the Mountain Rescue team. However you look at it, that’s fucking reckless, and me, I’d try to get her done for attempted manslaughter. But then, I’m unreasonable when it comes to morons.