New Term

It looks like today was the start of term for the local FE college. Loads of sixteen-year-olds squealing and giggling on their way to the grown-up world of Oldham College. If I’d looked out the back of the bus, there would probably have been a whole parade of dogs following, so high-pitched was it all. My head is belting again. Joy.

Still, it’s only a three-day week for me this week, which is nice.

Fluttery

According to the BBC today, the British moth population is in decline. And I can’t deny it, while I know that any creature being in decline isn’t a good thing (well, except ants and wasps, but we’re shit out of luck on that one) I can’t help but have “Good.” as my first response on learning that there’s less of the little fluttery furry-bodied bastards than usual.

Oliver Stone

I have a theory – I’ve developed it while sat on the train tonight. I think Virgin Trains don’t want me seeing people too much. They’re jealous, they’re used to the shape my arse makes on their train-seats. Bear with me on this.

Every time I’m travelling TO see someone, the train runs at least three-quarters of an hour late. And to be honest, 45 minutes delay is a good journey. However, every time I’m travelling back AFTER seeing someone, the fucker runs on time. And in some cases, as today, it even runs slightly early.

It’s a plot, I tell you, a fucking plot.

A Trickle Through The Dam-Wall

Some people who read d4d™ will know how regularly I talk about wanting to get back into writing creatively (as opposed to d4d™’s creative ranting *grin*) and seeing how I do with the ideas that have been floating around in my head.

Well today, with no special work needing to be done while sat on the train, and after a disturbingly domestic and relaxed weekend (in spite of the Virgin Trains debacle on Friday) it’s finally started to happen. Four pages may not sound much, but it’s 400% of my output in the last four years. While other things have been going on – you know, small stuff like Life, Friends, Relationships, Chaos – I’ve been uninspired to write this kind of thing. (d4d™ is, in this context, a very different type of writing method) The ideas have been flowing, but there’s been no impetus to expel them onto paper/laptop, and so it’s all been filling the reservoir in my head, staying there in idea form, waiting to fledge into something else.

And now the reservoir’s dam is cracking, and the ideas are beginning to flow out – and it’s in a positive way. When last I was writing in this form, it was more of a need to purge, to get rid of the poisons that had been built up. There was an almost obsessive need to heal, to get it all out any which way I could, to stop it harming me. That’s not there this time – it feels more like story-telling, rather than sucking out venom from wounds.

I’ve no idea where this will end up – or even if it’ll be any good when it comes to the conclusion I already know about – but for now, well, I’ll be happy just to be back writing, and seeing where the tale takes me. It’s not going to be overnight – I don’t expect to be anywhere near finished on it before 2005 at the earliest – but it’s happening, and as I’ve got (at a conservative estimate) 32 hours of train-time in the next eight weeks, I’ve got the opportunity to get a load done, and we’ll go from there really.

IKEA

It’ll come as a shock to most people, but until today I’d actually never visited an IKEA store. But I’m now an afficionado of the Swedish furniture freakshow, and to prove it I have *ahem* even made a purchase. I don’t know what his name is in the catalogue, but it really should be something like HYSSINGSID. Yes, I managed to go, and come back with a metre-long multi-coloured furry snake. Sometimes I even worry myself.

So – what were my thoughts about the joys of Brent Cross Ikea? Well, first and foremost was “Fuck me it’s big!”. But it’s got some good stuff in there – come the time to move, I can see that there may be another shopping expedition there. But it’s not somewhere I’d want to go on a regular basis – the majority of people in there today made me wonder if they’d been thrown out of the local Asda store for sheer stupidity. Abandoned trolleys, people dithering about so badly that I actually saw three people walk into display stands – not just brushing impacts, but full-on whacks. But then, one has to find comedy where you can.

If it weren’t for the people though, I think it’d be fine. The actual stuff they sell seems fine (although I haven’t braved the furniture ordering/collection section, which seems to redefine the phrase “fucked up”) and most of it is devastatingly cheap, too. Plus they’ve got some ace leather sofas to collapse on – definitely been listed in the mental notebook of “Hmmm, potential future purchase”.

If I return (OK, When) though, it won’t be on a summer Sunday just before thousands of students go to university. Timing-wise we really could’ve done better. Next time it’ll be on a cold evening after work, when no-one sane is out shopping for furniture and house-wares. Without too many people there, I suspect it might even be an almost pleasant shopping experience. Might.

Nearlytimeforanupgrade

Bugger,the_space-bar_is_beginning_to_knacker_on_my_laptop. Oh_cunty_fuck.

2000+ starts here

Well, it pains me to say it, but I think that Prince Harry making a film about AIDS in Lesotho is probably a good thing. It’s interesting sometimes, the things that travel between parents and children, isn’t it?

To me, anything that raises the profile of AIDS and HIV is a good thing – I’ll be interested to see what he’s had to say on the subject, whether verbally or visually.

2000^th Post

Wow, two thousand posts. D4D™ has been running now for 25 months – that’s an average of eighty posts per month, nearly three a day, every day. Of course, that’s an average, as there have been small patches of time where nothing’s been written at all. But then there’ve been others where I don’t seem to have stopped adding stuff all day.


I know I’ve said this before, but I still find myself amazed by the success of d4d™. When I got the domain name, it was a spur-of-the-moment idea, a name I liked and was available. It’s still not really relevant to anything I do or write here – it’s just an identifiable title. And that suits me just fine. I started off the idea of d4d nearly three years ago, actually. The domain name existed far before the knowledge of what would go on here – which, for me, isn’t an uncommon state of affairs. Eventually I thought I might try and get back into writing – and make a project of it. Until d4d™, I’d always had a hidtory of starting ideas, getting them started, then getting bored and never completing them. Perhaps d4d™ doesn’t quite fit that definition, because with a writing project like this there’s no defined process, and definitely no defined ending. Perhaps that’s what’s kept me going.

So – two years of writing, and two thousand posts. That’s quite something. And I look at the changes that have happened in that time, at the differences between me when I started, and me now – there’s a lot that’s happened over the timespan. Friendships started, friendships finished – sometimes both within that period; relationships doing the same; forming new and different social networks; seeing a shitload of concerts; starting getting involved in photography again. Moving home; changing lifestyles; and doing lots of thinking, introspection, and writing. Depression and Happiness. It’s all been here, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implied.

And for the next 1,000 or 2,000 posts? Who knows. I need to get that fucking WordPress template sorted, and move everything over to that. I want to go through some of the old stuff, move it around, possibly end up with a very different style to d4d. The rants of old have faded – or at least become concise enough to be blog entries instead of pages of their own. Thoughts may end up being born anew, and the photography section will probably gain some new ideas and perspectives. In fact, I’ve been playing with the idea of having wordy d4d and visual d4d, two different blog-type-concepts, and seeing how that goes.

All I know is that so far I’ve loved d4d™ even on the days when I can’t think of a thing to write. I don’t feel pressure to perform, don’t feel I have to write. But at the same time I do love writing and adding new pieces and ideas. It’s been a fantastic ride so far, and I’ve no intentions of stopping it yet. The next few months, in fact the next year or so are going to be a weird and new journey for me – and a huge percentage of it will be logged here. Enjoy the ride.

Coverage

Many times I hear the speculation that trains will be getting some form of wireless networking and internet access in the UK. I’m sure I’ve commented about this before, but I still completely fail to understand how they expect to get broadband internet access when half the time on a train you can’t even send a bloody text message when you want without a ten-minute wait. O2 used to boast about 95% coverage of the UK- well, I reckon that the other 5% is entirely around bloody rail lines. It’s just taken me twenty minutes to send a text because we were moving through (yet another) zone with absolutely nothing. It’s like the radio version of the effing Marie Celeste sometimes. Why do we bother?

Lulled

Should’ve known better really – the false sense of security that got built up last week by the train journeys to and from Middlesbrough now lies scuffed, bleeding, and broken on the floor. Prime suspect in this vicious crime? You guessed it – Virgin Trains.

What’s even more impressive is that they manage to still find new ways to fuck me off. It is on-time today UPDATED : was on-time, and is now running 45 minutes late, he said in an entirely unshocked fashion, and the air-conditioning is – well, if not working properly, it’s at least on and noticeable. So, dear readers, what have they done this time?

When I checked with trainline.com (yes, that’s probably my first mistake) I looked at a train leaving from Manchester Oxford Road at 14.58, changing at Crewe, then straight down to Reading, getting in at 18.45 or so. Not perfect, but not bad. So that’s what I do – get there way early due to fuck-poor timing on my part, get on the 1458 at Oxford Road, get off at Crewe. Supposedly on-time. And watch my connecting train go sailing past. Cunt-nuggets.

So off to the Travel Centre to face the whey-faced unhelpful motherfuckers lovely Virgin customer services people. Who check their system. And then tell me that the 1458 from Oxford Road doesn’t exist. And therefore it can’t connect to the one I’ve just watched leave. That route from trainline.com supposedly is utterly wrong. Yes, two computer systems, both based around the same fucking database, provided by Network Scumtwadging Bastard Rail and given the exact same data, they come up with two utterly different routings. According to Virgin CS (Customer Service, although I can think of others) I should go from Manchester to Reading via – wait for it – Newport, South Wales. Try looking at that one on a map sometime – and bear in mind that there’s a direct link between Manchester and Reading, and I’ll be getting the bastard thing on Sunday.

“Well, it’s not my problem”, quoth the raven camel, “we can’t take responsibility for the internet site”. “It’s the same chuffing database, though. So who does take responsibility for it?” “Don’t know. But it’s not us.” Ah, the “the Buck stops somewhere, but not with us” gambit – my favourite customer service attitude. Anyway, taking matters into my own hands, I end up getting anothertrain from Crewe to Stafford, then get on one from Stafford direct to Reading. Another plan that, according to Virgin, doesn’t exist. At this point I should point out that both the Crewe to Stafford train, and the one going onward to Reading were – um – Virgin trains. *Sigh*
Of course, because it’s a Friday and travelling during the high-demand rush-hour period, the train is four carriages long instead of the more standard eight, has been at least half pre-booked, and as a result it’s rigid with people. But that’s the Virgin wisdom at work – if in doubt put people off trains by realising that train travel is, in essence, shit, and only for people who can’t afford cars and/or driving lessons.

Well, my nice clean new provisional driving licence arrived this week, and if there’s one thing motivating me to pass the test, it’s Virgin Bloody Trains. Congratulations, you’ll be losing another customer. D4D™s readers will mourn the passing of this era. I, on the other hand, fucking won’t.

DIY

You know, sometimes things become seriously domesticated. A day of assembling desks and bedside furniture. Quite fun, in a “oh you fucking bastard piece of shit, why won’t you go together” way.

Away again

Chuff this, I’m off to Berkshire. Again.

There may be posts over the weekend. There may not. We’ll see.

Milestones

Sometime in the next few days, I’ll be posting d4d™’s 2000^th post. (This one is #1994, if you’re interested) As of Monday, it was on 220,000 page impressions, so there’s probably at least another 5,000 or so since then.

d4d™ keeps on going on, and I’m still deeply pleased with it.

Moving On

Yes, as I alluded to earlier this week, I’m pretty sure that come the start of 2005, I’ll be moving on from Manchester. By that time I’ll have been up here for five and a half years, and really that’s more time than I ever intended to be here.

However, the last three to six months have provided the impetus I needed to start looking at moving. Following the break-ins last year, I got more aware of the scallie element of Manchester, which really isn’t appealing in the slightest. So in some ways the changes have been getting ready for a while, but it’s the more recent things that have been the real impetus. Or impetuosity, whichever.

In the last five years, the city has provided me with lots of what I needed at the time – plenty of concerts, work, social contacts, and in many ways it altered a lot of my perspectives on things, and proved pretty much life-changing, looking back on the differences between then and now. But sometimes a place has a life-expectancy too, and I think that Manchester’s life with me is coming to a close.

Changes galore have happened this year – and I suspect there’ll be more in the near future. I’m still going to be based up here ’til the start of 2005, the contract with the council is going to run ’til then, having been extended yet again. For the most part, that’s a good thing, it gives time to make sure that everything is being done for the right reasons, and there’s also plenty of opportunity for the necessary introspection and assessment of what needs doing. Hell, I might even think about writing a new “to-do” list.

What’s changed? Well, primarily the new relationship in my life, and the changes that are being wrought around that. There’s a lot still to be sorted out and looked at – will we share a place from the start of ’05, or is the move initially going to be “just” to cut down on the 400+mile round-trips? That’s a decision for the future, and we’ll play it by ear. But there’s other reasons too – after five years, I need a change of scene, but I also want to explore more about my creative side, the photos, and writing, and see what I can do with them. Yes, I could do a lot of that up here too, and I will be doing in the meantime (those round trips have to have some use, after all) but there’s also that air of “new start” that’s coming up.

Would I be moving on even if the relationship weren’t there? Yes, I would. Maybe not right from the start of 2005, but yes, it wouldn’t have taken long to get it sorted. Of course, the destination would be probably rather more random than it is now, but well, that’s life. There’s a lot going on, a lot happening, and probably the strangest thing of all is that I feel fairly optimistic about the entire thing.

In Sewer Ants

I wish I could remember what book that title came from.

But anyway, I digress. This time next week I’ll be flying off to Iceland for a four-day weekend – with the parents, no less. It’s the first time I’ve been off with the family for a break since I was thirteen. That makes it – oooh, shit, shouldn’t have done the maths – nineteen years ago. Nineteen and a half, if we’re being picky. Scary.

Anyway, I finally got through the travel insurance stuff from my bank – it’s all part of the current account I’ve got, which makes life a lot easier. But having read through the document last night, it’s really pretty comprehensive – and it’s valid all year, and doesn’t care how many times I go away. Happy day.

Breakthrough

So, there’s a thing called the Breakthrough Generations study. They need over 100,000 women to join their study about lifestyle and breat cancer. Any women over the age of 18 can take part.

You can find out more about the study here – go on, sign up, do your bit.

Going Postal

Out of interest, did you know that if you send something by Recorded Delivery, it actually doesn’t get any kind of special treatment at all, and just goes in with normal post? If you want something to get there for the next day, or whatever, then it needs to go by “Special Delivery” instead.

So really, it seems like Recorded Delivery is more useful as a “this way you know it hasn’t been received” than as any kind of relevant guarantee. It’s no wonder Royal Snail missed all 15 of its performance targets recently. Useless bunch of chuffers.

Feeling Fruity

Ah, excellent. A selection of god-botherers has decided to complain about the drawings on a new range of Haribo sweets. Supposedly they show the fruits enjoying various types of sex. The progress of porn is an endless thing – and particularly in the minds of certain prudes.

“If pornography is available on any street corner for $5, isn’t that too high a price to pay for freedom of speech?”
“No. On the other hand, $5 is too high a price to pay for pornography.”

© West Wing Series 1 Episode 1

CPA

Currently the council I work with is expecting to start a CPA and panic is everywhere. God knows why, because the CPA is basically the same as a visit from the MD – everyone knows about it months in advance, so all should be perfect for the visit. Of course, that still means we’re likely to fail it, same as last year.

As it is, the Chief Exec pledged that this year the CPA would be far better, and the council would get at least a “satisfactory” grade. In the meantime, nothing’s really been done to improve the performance or organisation, but hey, we’ve hired some git who got another council through their CPA, and we’re currently sandblasting the front of the offices, making them look all clean and nice. Which, of course, is a great point-scorer when it comes to corporate performance.

As always, it looks like we’ll be going the “no idea what we’re doing, but doing it in a pretty way” gambit. And we know how successful that can be, don’t we, Tony?

M$ Publisher

Dear God I hate this software evil sack of shit. Thankfully I don’t have much cause to use it, except when some chutney-monkey decides that it’s a great piece of software for producing an Annual Report, or a couple of demos for a website.

Yesterday provided a different type of challenge though. An old Publisher document – knowing I use Publisher (when I have to, and never out of choice), can I open it up, and save it to something useful (or just print it out and fax it). “No problem”, quoth I, knowing fuck-all.

Turns out, I use Publisher from Office 2000. The old document was in Publisher ’97 or somesuch. Now yes, it’s the same piece of software, just an upgrade. Shouldn’t be a problem, should it?

Oh Bill Gates you utter, utter cunt, what the blue blazing fiddly fuck were you thinking? Instead of having any form of backwards compatibility whatsoever, it turns out that Publisher 2000 simply refuses to open any documents from earlier versions. Not even an “I’ll open it in a basic format, because 2000 has more stuff than ’97” – just “Publisher cannot open documents from earlier versions”. You fucking whoreson’s ringburned bumdonkey piece of software – what the frig is that about? It’s not even about upgrading from one version to another – because the upgrade still won’t read the old docs.

I despair. Cock-knocking bumnuggets, the lot of ’em.

About bloody time

As of today, the main shopping centre in Oldham has gone non-smoking – although I’m willing to bet that it’ll be a struggle for the first couple of months getting people to realise it.

Ninth

Um. September? Where the hell’s the year going? Before I know it I’ll be thirty-bloody-three.

On the plus side, <celebrate> Only three months left at Oldham – at most. </celebrate>

Hamza

I’m sorry, but when did the word de-arrested makes its bastardised way into the English language?

Shocking

Blimey – this is getting to be a really weird week. Not only did I have TWO decent train journeys with no hassles and no delays, but today I had to deal with O2‘s customer services – and even that went well.

Because I’m off to Iceland the weekend after next, I thought I’d best get the International Call Barring lifted, and also take advantage of sorting out a scheme they do for discounted calls and texts, just so I can make calls should I wish to (and for some reason I suspect I will be making at least a couple of calls…) without having to take out a bank-loan to cover the costs. Anyway, having called them, the entire thing was done and dusted in – get this – three minutes. Yes, 180 seconds, including verifying security details, checking the account, lifting the barring, signing up with the discounted programme, and all done and dusted. Colour me impressed…

Work Standardisation

*sigh* I think I’m becoming a “proper” council worker.

Ten days ago, I got given a load of stuff to do for one section of the council’s website. They’re soon to be going through some kind of assessment exercise called a CPA (don’t ask, I can’t remember) so the website needed to be up to date with the information by 1st September.

Because work’s so dull, I’ve been doing odds and sods of the work over the last ten days, and then finished it off today. All told, it’s taken far less than one working day to complete. According to Stinky® it should have taken all ten days…

Pride

You know, here’s something odd. In the five years I’ve lived in Manchester, I’ve only seen anything of the Manchester Pride festival once. Every other year I’ve been away for the Bank Holiday weekend.

Two years ago I was down at the parent’s place, and last year I was in Cornwall and Bristol. This year, I was in Middlesbrough. Next year, I won’t be around Manchester either, but that’s likely because by then I won’t be living here/there any more. Still, one year out of five isn’t too bad, is it?

Rude Girls – BBC2 last night

Unfortunately, I can’t find any valid links to the BBC2 documentary last night, “Rude Girls”. It wasn’t an easy view – based around a selection of girls who’ve formed “gangs” or “crews” (and with no interest in the origination of “crew” as an Egyptian term “Krewe” – but then, I’m a sad old bobble-hat at the best of times) and their lives. Mainly based around London, the documentary followed them in their lives over what appeared to be a six-month period. (I missed the first twenty minutes, I confess)

Obviously there was some element of “showing off” for the camera, which was always going to happen. But at the same time, some parts obviously weren’t. Personally, I found the entire thing really quite saddening, and even though several of the people in it were blatantly “chav” to the core, a lot of it was more than that, and there was a huge element of both attention-seeking behaviour, and ineloquent screams amounting to “get me out of this situation – I want out, but don’t know how to do it”. The majority of the girls shown self-harmed, although probably the saddest (to me) one was the girl who would verbally abuse the local Jewish community, and was almost encouraged by her mother to do so. You could so clearly see the generational influence. The scene where the girl screamed at one woman who’d nearly speared her with an umbrella (And, in fairness, I can empathise on that issue) and her mother tried being superior with the phrase

“Are you proud of yourself? Screaming at someone who’d just been careless wiv an umbrella? Made you feel better, did it? You shouldn’t yell at people for doing that – you should’ve taken her umbrella off her and broke it”

– nice, right ’til that final sentence. Instead of yelling abuse, you should have just nicked it and broken it. Now there’s good advice.

All in all, a very sad documentary – but definitely something that should be watched if it’s repeated.

High Street

And another bunch of rocket scientists have claimed that many Town Centres are now clones of each other. This really is no surprise – Britain’s become obsessed with branding, and with labels. As such, we now have what is effectively a branded society, one where (so the companies would have you believe)people are happy t be able to go anywhere and know what they want, and where to get it.

Macdonalds was always one of the biggest proponents of this method, meaning that in theory a Big Mac will always be made to the same formula,and taste the same whether you’re in Manchester or Market Harborough, London or Liverpool. Pub chains and fast food places ran with the theory, and then the clothing stores picked up on it too. And it’s all lead us to this point where every High Street and shopping centre look much the same. What will change it? Who knows- other than preferring to shop in the independents, rather than the chains.

Travelling

Hold on to your hats – this one’s a shocker. I travelled this morning by train from Manchester to Middlesbrough. And it was OK. Yes, it was OK. Told you it was a shocker.

I’d expected it to be a nightmare, with having to deal with people going to the Leeds festival, and Bank Holiday travel arrangements and track maintenance. But no, straight on to the train – on time. Grab a seat at a table, fire up the laptop, leave on time, the train was fairly busy, but no hassles. People on and off smoothly. At York it got busy, as it turned out that Crystal Palace were playing Middlesbrough. But still not ridiculous, or rigid. Most unnatural. And got in to Middlesbrough relaxed, unstressed, in sunshine and good health.

Most unnatural.

Geeky/Non-Geeky

About a week ago, I posted a thing about POV-ray, and was accused from a certain nameless source of being way too geeky for my own good, and that perhaps sometimes I should then explain for non-geeky readers just what it is I’m waffling on about.

As such, I’m going to experiment a bit with it, and when I do write about something techie, I’ll post two versions. Just thought I’d explain that, for anyone who wonders what the fuck I’m playing at…

Vile

“Those of a nervous disposition may wish to look away now”

Those with a dubious, vile, bodily-function-based sense of humour should instead head for this week’s Scaryduck story. I’ve just about broken a rib trying hard not to laugh out loud while at work. This is why the man won the Grauniad competition last year.

But yes, if you’re sensitive (or prone to uncontrollable giggling at certain levels of primary-school humour) don’t click that link. You’ve been encouraged warned.

Porn

Having read this story about 16 civil servants being sacked for accessing porn, I find myself wondering (yet again) what on earth makes people want to look at porn in the office? I completely fail to understand this idea, let alone wanting to do it.

I’m sorry, but if you’re going to insist on looking at porn, you do it at home. Not at work. And what on earth makes them think they won’t get caught, accessing it over a work network? Of all the ways to get yourself sacked rapidly. Maybe that’s why they do it. I just don’t understand it – would these people be so blasé about reading a porn magazine in work? Is it the porn, or the fact it’s on the computer?

I don’t know – it’s just one of those human facets that is completely beyond me.

Bah Fucking Humbug

<Victor_Meldrew>I just don’t believe it</Victor_Meldrew>

I’ve just received an email from work. Telling me about – wait for it – the fucking Christmas Do. In case it’s slipped their attention span, it’s flabbing August. There’s still four keffing months to go. (UPDATED : I’ve just counted – it’s still 17 weeks ’til Christmas) But no, it’s time to start thinking about fucking Christmas.

Of course, now that school holidays are over, it won’t be long ’til we get the Halloween shit in the shops, and it won’t be long before the first Christmas cards are on the shelves, waiting for those anally-retentive super-organised freaks who’ll have everything done by the start of September.

But Jesus H. Christ on a warped pine broomstick, I really can’t believe that they’re trying to organise Christmas Lunches already. I’m off to breathe into a brown paper bag for a few minutes…

Epic complaint

Thanks to Mr Teacher for pointing out Graham Pond’s complaint letter to the rail companies, which also included this sensational response.

Dear Mr Pond

Thank you for your email. If you are dissatisfied with London Underground’s services I suggest that you avoid using them. Perhaps you may consider also a stress management course.

Yours sincerely

Just read it – it’s superb.

Outage

Yes, d4d™ was unavailable for a few hours last night. My apologies for it, but it was a problem with 34sp themselves, rather than d4d™, or any other sites they host.

Nowt I could do, and they’ve brought everything back up as fast as they could. Fair play, these things happen.

NY-LON, Channel 4

So, the silly season of TV seems to be coming to a close (another big clue is BBC’s Casualty coming to a season finale at long last) and with the close of doors at the Big Brother House, Channel 4 has been launching some new dramas. (Although not Season Four of West Wing, for some reason known only to themselves. Luckily it’s only a month ’til the DVD release.)

One of those new dramas started last night, NY-LON, a tale of trans-atlantic love. (Be still my heaving stomach) Obviously with the way things are chez Lyle, a drama about long-distance relationships was always going to hit home to a degree, although thank Christ I don’t have to deal with trans-atlantic distances/prices. £55 train tickets are a lot easier on the wallet than flights to the US. (Stuart has my sympathies on that score) Anyway, the first episode was OK – not instantaneously gripping in the way some dramas have been (particularly Queer as Folk, West Wing, and the like) but I’ll still see how it goes over the next couple of episodes.

However, I did find that the gimmick of having a “split-screen” and flipping backwards and forwards in time was something that made it harder to concentrate on the storyline. Luckily I recorded it as well as watched, so it’ll probably bear a second viewing to pick up on bits I missed first time around. In fact, I’d possibly suggest that watching it on video/DVD would be a better bet, and would allow for the pause and rewind that perhaps this type of drama requires.

However, in general it’s so far OK as drama goes, and I’ll stick with it for the moment.

Upgrading

Well, I’ve found one of the contenders on the “next camera” list. One other one hasn’t been released yet, the Fuji S3, but Canon have just released the EOS 20d. Both are digital SLRs, which I know is going to be the next level up (and will require a shedload more technical knowledge, I suspect) and really it’s likely to be a toss-up between them, with a bit of an outside chance coming from the new Minolta Dimage Digital SLR.

Now I just need a spare £1500 or so…

Bob Marley’s Doughnuts

New Weebl and Bob – surreal, but fun.

Sherlock, Shit, No.

According to the Guardian today, scientists in the US have “discovered” a link between sugary drinks and obesity and diabetes. Surely this really isn’t rocket science?

A single can may contain 40 to 50g of sugar. Somebody who drinks one can a day could put on 15lb over a year, [Caroline Apovian (a US nutrition expert)] writes. She advises doctors in the US to tell their overweight patients to cut down.

© Guardian Newspapers 2004

It’s an interesting article, but at the end of the day it really doesn’t reveal anything that anyone with half a braincell didn’t know already – sugary drinks = lots of calories. A simple equation that seems to have bypassed a whole bunch of people.

Soggy

Last night, it took me two hours to get home – it normally takes about 45 minutes. The roads were solid with traffic, and the entire thing was a nightmare. It turns out that it’s because two sections of the M60 around Manchester were flooded and so all traffic was diverted off the motorway.

The M60 has been a nightmare for this since it’s completion a couple of years back. For a city as legendarily rainy as Manchester, you’d think that the Highways Agency would have installed decent drainage on it, wouldn’t you? Apparently not – the entire section around South and East Manchester has permanent signs now about “Road liable to flooding”. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d have thought that the road you’d least like to see flooded and with standing water all over it would be a motorway. *Sigh*

Stupidity knows no bounds

Sometimes you really have to wonder about some people. Not content with reading a porn mag while on a plane (there’s a mental image there that I really don’t want in my head), this knobber found a photo he didn’t like, and decided to burn it. While still on the plane.

Not just stupid and dangerous, but a bigoted prick too – the photo he objected to was inter-racial. I’m amazed that the pointy white hood with eyeholes (assuming he was smart enough to remember to make them) didn’t alert the flight-staff to this man’s issues.

“My view is that a prison sentence is not appropriate but a degree of supervision is required.

“These offences are regarded as very serious and many judges would send him to prison – I want the public safety ensured.”

Judge Richard Hayward

So many judges would jail the twat, but of course this one won’t? Wanker. Words fail.

EDITED : OK, as Dragon pointed out (and yes, I’d missed this point) the man also suffers from a degree of schizophrenia, and yes, that does provide enough extra circumstances that jail isn’t appropriate. As the judge also says, “I am concerned about his lack of understanding about the danger he posed.” Mea Culpa, I should’ve read the article more closely.

Official Complaint

Regular readers will know that I have occasionally cast aspertions about work’s Head of PR, and his suitability for any the job. This is primarily because the man’s a shit-for-brains mental dwarf – an attitude held not just by myself but by many others within the council. However, due to being a) a contractor, and b) not overly well-versed in the black arts of subtlety, it’s been observed that in emails and communication with him, the words “You utter fuckhead” have been silently (but noticeably) added to a lot of sentences and explanations.

It turns out that The Arsehole has now complained about my attitude to the IT Director, along with the added complaint that he believes it is because he is From An Ethnic Minority (Capitalisation, Complainant’s Own).

I’ve been called into the IT Director’s office today to talk about this, and the Head of PR was there too. Oh joy, oh happiness.

  “[The Arsehole] has alleged that you have a derogatory and unpleasant attitude towards him, and has also alleged it’s because of his Ethnic Background” (I’m paraphrasing ten minutes of conversation there)
  “I had no idea of his skin colour. My attitude towards [The Arsehole] is based entirely on the fact he’s an incompetent twat. I’d never seen him until today.”
  “Oh.“

Meeting Ends. No action will be taken.

Bollocks

Bloody Blogger. I swear that on occasion it’s the most tempramental piece of crap known to man. I’ve just managed to multi-post the same thing five times – purely because each time I clicked “Publish” Blogger did precisely fuck-all, so like a ‘nad I assumed it hadn’t done anything. (A feasible logical process) But no, it’d published, it just hadn’t loaded up the “publishing” screen.

Note to Self : Sort out WordPress. Pronto.

Manky

Scaryduck wants to know – what’s the mankiest thing you’ve ever done in a workplace?

I suspect there’ll be a lot of bodily functions in the comments…

Impressive

Words fail me.

It should be “37 year old”, if anyone’s interested.

Prepared for Emergency

This morning I finally received my booklet on “what to do in an emergency“. Having read it thoroughly flicked through it at random, it looks like the parody website actually contains more useful information. I haven’t got it with me, so expect more about this once I get home this evening, but the basics seem to involve “if in doubt, call 999” and “don’t worry, the government has a plan, even if that plan is only to send out these booklets“

Even better, considering the probabilities for each type of occurrence, flooding hasn’t been mentioned at all. Twadges.

Monday, Monday

I swear, weekends would be better if they lasted longer.

In fairness, I’ve had one of the best lazy weekends in ages – yes, I’ve still been out and about, but there’s also been a fairly large amount of doing what the textbooks would describe as “fuck-all”. And it’s been great.

And now it’s back to work, where we’ve finally got in the representatives from the Content Management System we’ve decided to buy. It’s all starting – and only fifteen months after it was supposed to happen. Quite impressive.

What’s more impressive (well, that’s one word for it) is that Stinky® is very obviously stressing and nervous, as a result of which he’s sweating more than usual. I do feel sorry for the reps, they’re in a confined room with him at the moment, thrashing out timetables and details.

Urbis

Out with the camera again today in Manchester, and I took the opportunity to go inside Urbis, using the entrance to the Le Mont restaurant. I’d been inside once before on a flying visit, and this was the first time I’d been in since when the weather was decent and the lighting made it worthwhile to take photos. At the time, I was struck by how much the curves were accentuated by being inside – a feeling that was repeated today.

Anti-Social

Possibly the best headline of the day. I wonder what anti-social powers they’re using? A lack of deodourant/deodorant (whichever) for crowd-control purposes?

Aaaargh

Ooops. Munch’s ‘The Scream’ has been stolen from the Munch museum by armed robbers in front of a crowd of people. Apparently they just pulled the painting off the wall – it was only held on by a wire.

I suspect that the curators may be screaming too.

Olympian

OK, yesterday was a superb day for British sport with five golds at the olympics, but even so, I would have to say that our most spectacular achievement has definitely not received the publicity he deserves.

In the 1500m freestyle, David Davies ‘only’ got bronze, so his race was hardly mentioned in the news. However, this man broke his personal best by twelve seconds, the UK record by ten seconds, and the European record by 5 seconds. He’s become the fourth fastest man in the world over this distance, one of only five to break 14m 50secs at this distance. Yet he’s hardly been mentioned – I suspect because it was a piss-poor day to win a bronze. To me, Davies’ achievement knocks all the others into the dirt – to some extent they’ve all been expected to do well, but a British swimmer? Never going to be a chance, obviously – yet we’ve won two bronze medals in a forum dominated by the US and Australia, and smashed records in the process.

“I said to my coach beforehand ‘If I drop dead during the race just come and fish me out’.

“I wanted to give it my all and I gave it everything.”

David Davies after the race

And that’s an attitude that should be celebrated.

Unnatural

God, this is strange – I’m actually having a weekend in Manchester, with nothing planned, no travelling, no people staying, and not much that needs doing. How ace is that? By my reckoning, this is only my fourth free weekend this year, and only about the sixth in the last twelve months, so I’m going to be concentrating mainly on doing fuck all.

Well, once my bloody landlords have come round and done their property inspection. They’re only half an hour late so far. Tossers.

Dripping

Fucking hell, it’s wet. Here in Manchester, we’ve already had 100mm of rain, as opposed to the normal average of 82mm and it’s still raining. I know people say it always rains here (and I have to say, on most occasions I wouldn’t argue with that concept) but at the moment it seems even wetter than usual.

Still, at least it seems to be country-wide for the moment. The landslips in Scotland and of course the damage in Boscastle have gone to show that Nature can still screw up the best laid plans of Man, and that’s fine. Of course, wasn’t El Presidente Blair saying something earlier this year about reducing the number of helicopter rescue stations, as they weren’t something we really needed for the most part? Let’s hope that plan is now filed under “Idea, Fucking Stupid” as it should have been at the start.

Graphical Geekery

There’s a graphics tool known as POV-Ray, which is one of those things I’ve never yet managed to get my head round. However, this month is its tenth birthday, and as a result, there’s a competition going on to produce some winning artwork through POV-Ray. More interesting is the Hall Of Fame, with some stunning pieces to come out of it. Personally, I’ve got a definite favourite, although loads of the others are fantastic too, and way beyond anything I could even dream of coming up with. All due respect.

As requested by a certain important person :
Non-Geeky Phrasing : Look at the pretty pictures.

English as she is spoke.

As part of our wonderful immigration rules, all migrants wanting British passports must prove sufficient English knowledge, the easiest means to which is gaining an English for Speakers of Other Languages certificate. However, if they speak English as a first language, they can’t get that certificate, and must instead have a written confirmation from a “designated person”. Yet until at least September 1st, the Home Office don’t even know what fulfils the requirements of a “designated person”.

As a result, Australians, New Zealanders, and many others are being refused passports as they can’t prove that they speak English. How bizarre is that?

(Of course, it also means Americans fail the test, but well, clouds and silver linings.)

In touch with reality

“Hello IT, Stinky’s phone.“
“Oh, is Stinky not there?“
“No, he’s not in yet. Can I take a message for him?“
“Oh, OK. Well, is he expected in today?“
“Yes, he’ll be in later, he’s just not here yet.“
“Well, can you tell me when he’s going to arrive?“
“Hang on one moment, I’ll just send a telepathic message to him and try to find out where he is and what time he’ll get in“
“Ah, that was a bit of a silly question, wasn’t it?“
“Yes“

“Lifelike”

According to the BBC, Madame Tussauds in London has created an effigy of Brad Pitt with “strokeable” chest and “squeezeable” buttocks made from silicone. Frankly, yick.

Visitors are invited to feel his chest, which the attraction says is “springy” and lifelike, in the updated figure – as well as the “popular” squeezy rear.

That’s just vile – and if it’s anything like other items made of “realistic” skin, then basically it’ll just feel like squidgy rubber. I’ve always found the idea of waxworks and effigies kind of weird anyway, but to now have something where sad gullible gimps go and “touch” their favourite stars, or (I guess) have photos taken next to the effigy or whatever, well, that just makes the entire thing even less appealing.

Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Hallelujah

Over the last two years I’ve pissed and moaned on various occasions about Virgin Trains, the lack of seating on prime-time trains, airconditioning that doesn’t work when it gets warm, the fact there’s regularly only one working toilet for a train of 600+ people, and a range of other screw-ups. Well, ring the bells and sing praise to God/Branson in the highest, it looks like they’re finally paying attention and doing something about it. My flabber has rarely been so gasted. Bet the prices go up though.

Wanky Sig

One of my “colleagues” here is supposedly in charge of making sure we have as much information as possible about the services of his department. His email signature is “Inform, Influence, and Innovate” followed by his contact details.

I’m sorry, but how pretentious?

Alternative Trains

On the BBC today, there’s a story about a commuter who’s decided that the service offered is crap so he’s trying to run his own trains. Of course, First Great Western aren’t overly amused by the entire thing, but there we go, if they offered a decent (and on-time) service, then they wouldn’t be getting people who want to provide a competitive and cheaper service.

Geeky

Hmm, now there’s something I didn’t know. If you do a search in Google for, say “link:https://www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk/random.html” then you get a list of all the sites/posts that link to (in this case) d4d™. I didn’t know google did that – it’s very clever, isn’t it?

Additionally, I come up in the top 20 on Google for “why neighbours are cunts” and in the top 50 for “purchase kids dummies“. And AOL, God love it, has me listed under “personal stereo headsets for hard hats“. And yes, still in the top ten for “‘st george and dragon’ wargrave“. Mission successful.

Grouchy

We had a fantastic thunderstorm last night. Nothing like certain parts of Cornwall, of course. (And on a tangent, how odd that it should happen on the anniversary of the disastrous Lynton/Lynmouth flood 52 years ago)

But it was much needed – although I really need to go out and remove some weedery from the front garden as it’s going like it’s on growth hormones at the moment. Joy.

However, it still didn’t break the humidity and air last night, so it was back to the second shitty night on the trot. This morning I am not in a good mood. I think I should be renamed Oscar.

Desperation

via Greenfairy, I couldn’t help clicking on MarryBlaire.com – a site by an American woman (no shockers so far) who has decided that she wants/has to be engaged by the end of this year, and who is looking for her husband online.

Words fail me. I really want to think “well, that’s one way to do it, I guess”, but instead it’s more “Ye Gods, talk about desperate”. She also keeps people updated via a blog. Cynicism overload.

Andrew Craig

Hmm, interesting. Looking back through my Haloscan comments, I came across two from someone called Andrew Craig, who obviously wasn’t brave enough to leave an email or web address. Neither of his comments was particularly relevant, nor even overly civil – and it leaves me wondering if I should exercise censorship and just delete them, or let them stay as a shining example of why some people shouldn’t be allowed near computers.

Coming Back

There’s always one real problem with being away from work, or going on holiday – and that can be summed up in the word “Backlog”. When I got (eventually) got home last night, the week’s email count (including spam) was just over 1,000 items. Thankfully SpamBayes had taken care of most of it, but there were still some 150-ish items waiting to be deleted read. Coming into work and firing up the email resulted in slightly less spam, but still another 100⁺ emails to wade through.

In fact, perhaps I should take a week off more often. It actually looks like I might have something to do today. I don’t know if my system can handle the shock…

Back to Normality

Well, the week’s break was great – the return to work is less so. Ah well.

Grease

There’s one vile thing about public transport (OK, there’s more than one vile thing, but bear with me on this), and todays trains have had some spectacular examples of it. Hair-grease.

Trying to look through the windows today (Not quite sure why, as it’s been primarily grey and raining) they’ve been obscured by a miasma of hair-grease where some bunch of soap-dodging fuckbats have rested against the glass. It’s not just smeary – that would be bad enough – it’s the little lumps of skin and residual hair-strands that really top it off. And so many times you can see the different patches where individuals have rested – one on top of the others.

Layers of greasy hair, strata of smeg. Follicles, oil, all sorts of shite. And you just know that if you tried wiping the window it’d smear even worse, and leave your fingertips just feeling yick. Nasty in SO many ways.

You guessed it

In a fit of epic logic, there are no direct Reading to Manchester trains between 1405 and 1805. All morning they run on at least an hourly basis, and then in the evening they run half-hourly. But at the time when people are likely to be travelling, in the late afternoon, nope, they fuck up and don’t run at all – every traveller to Manchester has to change trains at either Birmingham or Leeds. (I’m currently undecided which one I’ll change at – we’ll see) It’s a piece of true genius – and when speaking to the twadges at National Rail Enquiries, the excuse given is “well, it’s a Sunday timetable”. Not quite sure how that makes sense, but then, I suppose that expecting our rail service to make sense is deeply naïve, to say the least. Still, naivety has its place, and that generally seems to be in the expectation that things are supposed to make sense at all.

On a similar subject, why is it that so many train passengers keep their bags beside them all the time, taking up an extra seat with their oh-so-precious posessions, particularly when the train’s rigidly busy? There’s racks above the fucking seats, it’s not like you’re leaving stuff at the far end of the carriage where some scrotty little bleeder can search through it, nick it, or whatever. And it’s not even like the bag contains essential sustenance for the journey – it’s just an attitude of “it’s my bag, so it must sit beside me”. Of course, I do tend to pick on people who do it, and ask if that seat’s taken. The sighs and grudging way the bag is moved is enough to amuse me for a while – petty, I know, but there we go. Comedy can be found in many places, so long as you know where to look.

Shorts

Today is a day of tragedy chez D4D™ My – admittedly manky and knackered – shorts have finally died. Thankfully, most d4d readers have never seen this item of “clothing” – but they’ve served faithfully when sleeping in new locations, as well as for relaxing and scumming about in. They’ve been worn while decorating in at least three places, and seen the decor of many more.

While no great advertisement of any attempt at sartorial elegance on my part, they’ve provided great service, and induced despair in many a host. But now they’ve been consigned to the Great Laundry Bin in the Sky (well OK, just the Bin, but they know what I mean) having finally pretty much fallen apart. And while I may miss them, I’m sure no-one else will.

RIP Manky Shorts.

Santa Fe

In comparison to the previous hassles with the St George and Dragon in Wargrave, the Santa Fe (Nasty flash-driven site) is brillig. Decent food, decent price, decent drinks, and shedloads of alcohol. Including Stoli Raspberry, which is always a good thing – as well as lots of other stuff. Wholly recommended, and we’re back there tomorrow, which is even better.

Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like bananas

Blimey, it really doesn’t seem like a week since I set off to Norfolk. But yes, by this time last week I was off on my travels. I’ll be back on a train on Sunday (Lucky Me) then back down here for the August Bank Holiday.

In fact, we’re pretty much organised for the next couple of months worth of weekends in either Bracknell or Manchester (well, every other weekend, pretty much, but there we go) so we must be doing something right. It’s been a fairly lazy week, as in that we haven’t been out to loads of places – but at the same time we’ve managed to get a lot done and sorted out, so in that context it’s been pretty busy.

Returning on Sunday isn’t something I’m particularly looking forward to – but these things have to be done, I suppose.

Birthday Plans

It’s all getting horrendously organised this year. There’s a fantastic organisation called The Landmark Trust who take quirky old buildings, renovate and upgrade them, then let them out as holiday homes. The catalogue costs £9.95, which also helps to build funds for renovating “new” properties – which I regard as well worth the money.

Come November 5th this year, we’ll be going over to Kent, and staying in one of their properties for the weekend. It’s somewhere close to the arse end of nowhere, and looks fantastic. The photos when I come back will be well worthwhile. I’m looking forward to it already.

Round Tuit

Well, having waited what can only be described as “a fucking eternity” for someone to return the Filofax I left at their house at the start of June, I’ve finally decided that some things can’t wait any more, and applied for a replacement driving licence. It’s one of those things I need to get sorted, as train travel is (as regular readers may have noticed) beginning to piss me off on a regular basis, and I’m going to be doing more of it over the rest of this year. (I’m sure it would be easier to end up involved with someone in the same city, but for now well, it’s just not going to happen, is it?) So the sooner I can also sort out the driving stuff, the better it’ll be, particularly with certain other plans that may or may not (but, quite honestly, are more likely than not) happen. Joe Enigmatic strikes back.

Dipping In

I notice that today the water has gone back on at the Diana Memorial Fuck-up Fountain. Of course, now that la Jowell is in charge, there’s a whole new management structure being put in, and the emphasis has moved rapidly from “have fun, paddle, walk in the water” etc. to “sit on the sides and dangle your toes in” – rather an apt metaphor for our own lovely government.

On the news this morning, the old bag was saying that the visitor figures for the fountain had far exceeded their predictions. How did they come up with these original figures? No-one’s saying, but I’m betting it’s of the “Think of a number, treble it, and add two zeros” ilk. In short, no-one had a keffing clue how many people would go and see it, because there was nothing of a similar kind anywhere in the country. So basically it was guess-work. And the guessing was done badly.

The entire concept has been flawed from the start, as I’ve said several times before. No-one at the planning stage said “How are we going to make wet granite non-slippery?” or even “is that really a good idea?” – they just went ahead, and it turned into a farce. Still, better a farce than a media frenzy equivalent to when she popped her clogs, I suppose.

Useful

There are times where I just think that the internet is ace. No other words for it – it’s just ace. This morning, I’ve been able to get this little lot done…

• Check train times for travelling home on Sunday
• Check addresses for car air-con people in Bracknell/Reading
• Check bank balance, and move money from one account to the other
• Order prints of two photos to be sent here, having left the originals at home
• Talk briefly to two friends
• Update d4d™ (slightly self-referential, but there we go)

and

• Pay two outstanding bills

And all without leaving the house. Of course, now I’m going to go out, so I could’ve done most of it anyway, but all the same – well, the internet’s just ace sometimes, isn’t it?

Business as usual

Unsurprisingly, the hits this week have reduced by about 50% due to the spasmodic updates and so on. Of course, that’s still doing fairly well, which is always good.

I must admit, I still find the readership here surprising, both for who reads it and who doesn’t. I’ve got a couple of close friends who ask about whether I’m still writing and so on, but who never read it. And I mean never. It just strikes me as odd – but there we go, what would I know? Perhaps they read it and simply never comment, never let on that they know what’s been happening with me, and keep it all very quiet. But I’m more prone to believe that they simply don’t read it.

Ah well – sorry, it’s just something that’s been on my mind in the last couple of weeks.

Time Out

Christ, take time out and it all starts happening. Not content with More A Way Of Life going from hardcore cynic to loved-up old hippie in 30 seconds flat* , now Kitchentable’s doing the same.

And of course changes are continuing to go on chez D4D™, so there’s a certain little cynical corner of the web that’s going all pink and fluffy. (Not literally, you understand – I’m staying defiantly Yellow for the foreseeable)

Most unnatural. But still pretty great.

Coincidental

Do you ever get the idea that life is trying to batter your brain into submission, that sometimes the sheer synchronicity is proving to be somewhat difficult to avoid?

Life continues apace, and the time I’m spending in Berkshire is going well (we’ll ignore an episode today with the dog being extremely travel-sick) and all’s looking more and more positive by the day. Upon checking my email tonight, I’ve got mail from an agency about a contract doing WAP and WML work for a company in Bracknell. Talk about synchronised.

I’m not going to go for it – in many ways it would move things far more quickly than we’d be happy with, and also I’m still contracted to Oldham ’til somewhere around the end of the year. But it’s one of those things where yes, everything is conceivable all of a sudden.

I’m gibbering a bit, but all the same – well, it’s just interesting the way life goes, sometimes.

D4D™ is Two

The birthday party yesterday went well. 232,000 words, 1,925 posts, and still going strong. The cake in the shape of a Blogger logo was very successful, but a couple of the other little blogs got too excited, and the jelly and ice-cream made a bit of a mess on the carpet.

Pass-the-parcel was very successful, with little presents of USB sticks and more memory being gratefully received. The little bouncy trigger-jigger toy is already broken, but in general it’s been a pleasant little party, and d4d is now happily asleep with dreams of trucks of jelly and ice-cream, and what the next year will bring.

Central Trains

Fuck Central Trains. Fuck them, and their pox-ridden so-called service. They’ve managed something I thought was actually impossible, and provided a train journey that made me think Virgin weren’t so bloody bad after all. I raise my hat to you, you motherfuckers.

First of all, it’s the prices. £55.00 for a single ticket from Manchester to Norwich. Jesus H Christ with a moneylender on a spear. To get to Reading return costs the same amount. Extortion is alive and well and living in Norfolk. Four and a half hours on a train too, thank frig it’s direct.

Well, direct is a bit of a loose term for it, to be honest. Manchester – Sheffield – double back to Chesterfield – then on to Nottingham, Peterborough, Ely, then turn round again and double back to Thetford and Norwich. About as direct as tagliatelle.

It’d all be OK still though. Get to the station, look at the time-table, and it’s on-time. Yay, bonus. In the time it takes me to get down to the platform, that changes from on-time to “Oh bollocks, didn’t we tell you? It’s 30 mins late.” Grrrrr. Turns out there’s no way they didn’t know, because the cunting bastard motherfrumping tosstwadge had been half an hour delayed on the earlier train to Liverpool, so there was no way the bugger was going to get that back. They’re just all lying cunts. No two ways about it.

Anyway, the train finally arrives, and yes, there’s a table seat. Bonus. I can get some work done. Then the oriental horde of horror arrives. A certain lack of personal hygiene pervades the carriage, and then yes, you guessed it, three of ’em decide my table is fair game. Fair enough, it’s a table, and there’s space. However, the concept of personal space appears to be utterly beyond these backpack-wearing fuckheads, and so while the packs get slung in a pile on a spare seat at the back of the carriage (can you say “Luggage space”, central trains, you arse-licking ring-nudging profit-based flangesuckers?) my ribs then end up black and blue due to the introduction of sharp (and sweaty) oriental elbows into my vicinity. Repeatedly, even after a fairly loud “would you watch where you’re sticking that, you idiotic tosser?”.

What a shocker – knowing that the train’s already delayed, and overcrowded to a “Black Hole of Calcutta” level that gets some travellers (OK, Me) muttering about calling out the EU court of Human Rights, the guard doesn’t make an appearance at all. In fact, the only evidence of there being a guard at all was that there were announcements about each station, accompanied by a “sorry for the delays”. Were they sorry? Were they fuckaslike. If they’d been sorry, or even felt any need to inform the rather pissed-off hordes of anything, they’d have let us know just HOW late the bastard thing really was. If you were lucky enough to be in a position to see a monitor at a station with the expected time of arrival versus when it was supposed to have arrived, then you could figure it out – other than that, you were shit out of luck.

The service (if I can call it that) finally arrived in Norwich at 7.15, having been supposed to arrive at 6.10. No word on where we’d lost another 45 fucking minutes, no apology, nothing. Now, where’s the address for Central Trains customer service director? I’ve still got the (unchecked) ticket, I think there’s going to be some orbital letterage going on…

Winner Takes All

Not quite sure how we managed it yesterday, but even after a drive back from Norfolk to Bracknell via a drop-off in Aylesbury, followed by general domestic gubbins, a shop in the Tesco from Hell™, and a degree of lethargy, we still managed to win the local pub quiz last night. 32 out of 40, and five of the incorrect answers were based on stories out of the day’s Scum Sun “newspaper”.

Eight drinks are now ours for free over the next few days. All very worthwhile. But I’m still stunned we won. They must’ve known it was d4d™’s birthday, and been charitable towards us. All the same, woo, and indeed yay.

Away

So, I’ll be in the Reading/Bracknell area for most of next week. Any suggestions on where we should/shouldn’t go?

Anyone suggesting the St George and Dragon in Wargrave will receive a quick slap. (Having just looked, I’m currently 24th in Google for the search ‘“george and dragon” wargrave‘ – I wonder how high up the ratings I can go?)

Please bear in mind that, while all suggestions will be gratefully I received, I may do any, all, none, or some of them. There’s no guarantees at all. If I do, the suggester will be duly noted in anything I write about them. Other than that, well, *shrug*

Trackback

I wish I understood Trackbacks. I just tried linking to Gert’s post on fireworks, and it wouldn’t work. Gah. So much for being a techie.

Right, I’m going to go back to working on databases. I understand them.

Remember, Remember

For various obvious reasons, I’ve always been a fan of fireworks. Well, I have when they’re done properly, and safely. I’m sure Gert feels much the same and will comment too about this (Oh yes, she just has) but I’m glad to see that we’ve finally got some kind of firework curfew to limit “displays” to before 11pm. (with a couple of exceptions, such as New Years’ Eve and Nov 5th)

Another part of the new law makes it illegal for under 18’s to carry fireworks in a public place, which should (with luck) limit some of the scallie little bastards and their autumnal activities. I doubt it though.

To me, this new law actually doesn’t go far enough. I’d still like to see it made illegal to sell fireworks over the counter to the public in general. I’d then like to see the Government redirect the millions they spend each year on firework safety advertising into public government/council-funded displays in every town and city, where they can be enjoyed safely. Of course, it’d also make it far safer for general life, regardless of location, to not have to be worrying about some chavvy little cunt throwing fireworks at/near you, or through letterboxes etc.

Silly Season Slowdown

At last, the Summer Season on TV is beginning to come to a close. How can I tell? Because Big Brother ends tonight. Halle-fucking-lujah. I think I’ve actually managed to see a whole 2 hours of this dross in the seven-ish weeks it’s run, and I still wish I could actually understand what it is that people see in it. I’m sorry, but I just don’t. And what’s the fun in watching people sleep? That’s where I really do just get utterly confuzzed by the entire thing.

Even better, by the time the finale happens, I’ll be ensconsced in Norfolk for a couple of days. Now that’s far more appealing.

Testing

Testing Email Posting

Yes, I’m checking that the Blogger function
known as email posting works OK. It may, it may not. It may look shite.
Nothing would surprise me right now.

*gasp* It actually worked (well, once I’d edited out the guff that work’s email sender shoves on everything. Things are looking up for a semi-lazy week next week after all…

On the changing of plans

Next week, I was supposed to be off work, and having She Who Has Not Yet Been Named up to stay at mine for the week. Going down to Norwich this weekend, meeting up with her at sister’s house, spending the weekend there, then coming back (in a piece of truly Lyle-esque organisation) to Manchester via Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. (Don’t ask – there’s a logic there, but it’s a convoluted one)

Due to the vagaries of pets, animals, and care arrangements thereof, that’s now changed. Still Norwich/Norfolk, still Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, but then no travel back to Manchester. Well, not for a week or so – yes, I’ll be staying in Berks again. Isn’t it lucky I’m not that kind of retentive who plans everything and time-tables it, proving completely unable to deal with the complexities and random guff of modern life?

So next week will be quiet again chez D4D™. I’ll try to keep it fairly well updated, along with the odd dose of weirdness and – perhaps – photos. I’m not going ’til tomorrow lunchtime, so there’ll be guff for the weekend too.

And I may just organise something where people can email posts to here if they want. Who knows, I may be doing the same… *Grin*

Yellow

via Gordon, Nike have launched a Wear Yellow campaign for cancer sufferers, such as Lance Armstrong and the like. It’s an interesting campaign in a lot of ways – I wonder if I’ll now get trademark issues on the use of weapons-grade eye-searing levels of yellow here?

Hmmm, Guestblogging

Well, various people had the idea of turning d4d™ into a free-for-all for a few days. I’m not sure if I want to do that or not – there’s pros and cons, but it does have a fairly large feel of “jumping on the bandwagon” to it.

Of course, I’ve completely failed in the last two weeks to add anything to Uborka’s guest bits, which also slightly jades me to the concept, but then you can look at things like Hyphenated Mike where they go quite well. I don’t know – indecision has struck hard.

So – in the knowledge that it still may not happen – who would be interested in guesting/writing/spouting utter gibberish on here?

Answers in the comments, please.

Tut, Tut

Just when you think that estate agents can’t get any worse (after all, they only exist so lawyers have someone to look down on) along comes a story about one lot who put up “sold” signs on the houses of their directors to make it look like they were selling more properties.

They’ve now been slapped on the wrists, and fined just under £4,000. Best sell another couple of houses – properly this time – in order to pay that off, eh? Nice one, Romans.

No More Snaps

RIP Henri Cartier-Bresson. 95 years old, and he’d been a huge influence on the world of photography, and led an eventful life. The master of images will be sorely missed.

Bad Planning

Arse. I was thinking it’d be really nice (and far too organised) to have the 2,000th post placed on d4d™’s 2nd birthday next Monday. However, having looked at the profile it means I’d have to post 85 things between now and Monday. Frankly, not much fucking chance of that, particularly as I’ll be in “sunny” Norfolk for two of those days.

Still, it was a nice idea while it was there.

Donor

via Terreus, I came across the NHS UK transplant service. I’ve had a donor card previously, although I’m amazingly good at losing the bloody things, so it seemed like a good idea to also register myself with the service online. And I must remember to get another proper donor card too.

Hysteria and Hype

Sometimes, I find stories are utterly unbelievable right from the start, and on occasion it turns out that I’m right to think that way. This week, there was a case in point with the Americans upgrading their security on the basis of information received from a “credible source” about Al Qaeda planning more terrorist action. OK, all well and good, but the entire “credible source” stuff rings dodgy bells, because it really depends on who is being credulous of the entire story, and thus making it credible. In this case, it turned out that the information was actually already four years old. (and thus managed to even predated the 11/9 World Trade Center event) So I suppose it was credible, because it’d already happened.

Of course, now they’re jumping to defend the story, and of course the release of it this week had nothing whatsoever to do with knocking John Kerry off the headlines of every single news paper or programme in the US. No sir, not at all – it’s just coincidence that the story would break just after the Democrat Party convention.

“We do not do politics at the Department of Homeland Security,” Mr Ridge said. “Our job is to identify the threat.”

Aye right – and the current threat to Bush is that Kerry may actually knock him out of power. So that’s OK then.

Woo, Yay

The Scissor Sisters have just announced a new tour (do they ever actually stop?) including a date at Manchester Apollo on Saturday October 23rd. Yup, bigger venues too – should be good.

And yes, I have a ticket. I know, I need to get out more – but this is what happens when I do.

Liberty becomes available

Apparently, the Statue Of Liberty is to re-open. It’s been closed “because of security issues/failings” since Sept 11th 2001 (I must admit, I didn’t even know it’d been closed, so that’s impressive) but there’s been plenty of work going on.

“I think it’s significant that, despite the raising of the alert levels, we are still going ahead with the reopening,” said US Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson. “I think it shows the world that liberty cannot be intimidated.”

Absolute arse. Liberty’s been intimidated by the US since 11/9/2001, and it continues to be so. There’s no freedom to travel or visit. Instead Big Brother™ is now watching. I wonder how long it’ll be before someone decides to try an attack on yet another “symbol of america”?

Burning Bright

“Police have no special training on how to deal with tigers,” Durkin said. “Based on this tiger and the last tiger, we may have to incorporate something into our training.”

In fairness, I guess that you don’t really expect to see tigers walking down the street in the middle of New York.

The Fantastic Fountain Fuck-up – Part 3

It just gets better and better. After yesterday’s post regarding cowbag Jowell’s comments, Royal Parks may consider limiting the number of people around the Diana Memorial Fuck-up Fountain. It’s only one option, though, others including “roughening certain areas of the fountain”, or “replacing grass around the edge of the memorial with some form of hard standing to avoid slipping”.

As I said yesterday, this is all the kind of thing that should’ve been addressed in the planning of the idea, not as remedial work once the bastard thing’s been installed. The entire project has been a balls up from the start. What a wonderful memorial, eh?

I must admit, I also find it interesting that Earl “Wankhands” Spencer hasn’t been sticking his oar into this farce and blathering on about how this is disrespectful to Diana’s memory, or somesuch. I wonder when he will do so?

Macros

Over the last couple of months, when I’ve had the opportunity I’ve been getting very into Macro shots. Over the weekend I got a few more that I’m really pleased with, so took the opportunity to put them all on one page.

Braindead

Ooops. While out in the Peak District over the weekend, we came across a windfarm, and I tried taking an .avi movie with the camera of it. Having just looked at it, I realise that having the camera in a vertical orientation means that the windmills now appear to be on their sides. Shit.

The entire .avi looks like this. *Sob*

The Buck Stops Over There

Yes, the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain has been closed for ten days, as people insisted on paddling in it, and then slipped and hurt themselves. But it’s not badly designed, or even just fucking stupid, oh no. According to Tessa Jowell, the gobshite Culture Secretary, it’s the fault of the people using it.

“I don’t think any responsible member of the public would want to see people allowing their dogs in it,” she said.

“How can we maintain the purity of the water if some people allow their dogs to paddle?”

Shouldn’t that kind of thing have been addressed far earlier, perhaps, say, when the bloody thing was being designed?

“Well, we think this fountain will have a nice big watercourse, and allow people complete access to the waterway, and to the land inside it, so we’ll make the entire thing out of smooth concrete that’ll be slippy as shite when wet. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. We’ll put that plan forward, then blame the punters when they slip.”

Or perhaps hospitalising people was the true memorial to Diana? Who knows.

Memory Cards

Over on the BBC, five memory cards have been tested to destruction. Dunked in cola, laundered, boiled, trampled, hammered, and given to a six-year-old boy. Oh, and nailed to a tree. Only the xD and SD cards survived – I’m glad my Fuji camera uses xD!

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.

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.