Peter and the Wolf

That David Attenborough gets around a bit, doesn’t he? I was watching the (fantastic, as it turned out) Elephants – Spy in the Herd documentary, with poo-cams (cameras disguised as lumps of elephant cack – including ones that went in the river, charming known as floater-cams) on BBC1, narrated by DA himself.

Ninety minutes later, the sod’s there again, narrating Peter and the Wolf for the Nation’s Favourite Proms. I used to have a recording of this on vinyl, narrated by someone else (can’t remember who, offhand – Johnny Morris or someone) and the DA version was a real trip back in time, and just as fun.

Divides

The Observer’s online edition has a piece in it about the divide between rich and poor – a stark portrait of one poverty-stricken family living within eyesight of one at the other end of the fiscal spectrum. Goes to show, it’s not just a “north-south divide”.

Movable Type

Well, I haven’t been writing much here today – and for one particular reason. The new domain, dummies-for-destruction.co.uk is getting set up, and part of it has involved the joys of setting up Movable Type on it. (Hopefully this’ll stop certain nameless ones nagging me to go to a decent comments system, non-blogger blah blah blah) Somewhere along the line I’ve norked the config file, so it’s not finding the graphics for the MT stuff, and that needs twiddling with.

And I’ve still got to sort out importing stuff, but that’s not high on the priorities just yet. First things first, setting up joys like an include file for all the site navigation (using PHP) and so on, figuring out a template (yes, d4d™ may undergo another minor revamp while I’m twonking about), and generally just getting it all laid out. I’m still waiting to hear from Wileys, but at the same time I do like the idea that they come looking for d4d™ with vengeance in their hearts, only to find it’s happily no longer sueable. (if that’s a word) We’ll see though. I could turn this place into a true pit of anti-Wileyism once I’m in the mood…

Overly familiar

Having managed today to pick up tickets for Radiohead in Newcastle a thought occurred to me – should I worry when the people at the ticket office know me by name?

Hulk

I couldn’t resist – it looked good, and also it’s directed by Ang Lee, whose stuff I love. Some of the effects from the trailer looked a bit dodgy, but decided to give it the benefit of the doubt.

And I’m glad I did – I have to say I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Adaptations from comics seems to fall into two fields – bloody good (X-Men, Spiderman, Blade, Batman) or fucking awful (Daredevil, Batman Returns, Spawn, Punisher) – Hulk is definitely a new member of the former group. The effects that look dodgy on a small screen work fantastically on the big screen. Other people have said it takes time to get going – and it does. But that’s justified, this isn’t just a comic strip, it’s a full story, covering two generations. But when Huk does make his first appearance, the film kicks up a gear.

I don’t know how Ang Lee does it – there really hasn’t been a film genre where he hasn’t excelled. Period Drama ( Sense and Sensibility ), Westerns (Ride with the Devil), “Romance” (the Ice Storm), Martial Arts (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and now comic-book stuff. A truly impressive talent.

Hulk’s ending is a bit of a let-down, but it’s still better than the one that’s implied about twenty minutes before the end – final scene leaves enough potential for a sequel, should we need one. Personally, I hope that one isn’t made – not because Hulk is bad, but perversely because it’s bloody good, and a sequel would have one hell of a lot to do to simply break even, let alone be better than the original. As always, spotting the cameos is – both Stan Lee (the creator of the comic strip) and Lou Ferrigno (the original Hulk in the TV series) appear as security guards. (And yes, I was bobble-hatted enough to be able to spot them both), Sam Elliott is as sexy as ever, even when he’s being military instead of his standard cowboy self, and Nick Nolte is his normal stolid self, although still in danger of being out-acted by the furniture around him.

All in all, it’s a tour de force – don’t let “it’s the film of a comic” put you off, just go and soak up 2ish hours of pure entertainment.

And speaking of which…

The joys of irony. Following on from the No. 1 “people who should die” in the post below, I checked who’d looked at the site since. I present this image as proof that irony isn’t dead, and is in fact currently pointing at me and laughing.

UPDATED : And still when I got home there wasn’t even a nasty word from Wileys. How disappointed am I?

Sooner or later they all have to die
Or Misanthrope.com

Since Green Fairy’s post last Saturday on the 20 types of people who most deserve to die, I’ve been thinking along similar lines. Some are blindingly obvious, others are a more individual decision. And I’m sure I’ve missed some out. But (for now) here goes…

1. Litigious commenters who work for Wileys
2. People who stop at the end of an escalator, ignorant of their surroundings, and the people piling up behind who want to kill them.
3. Those who insist on repeating their every point twice, particularly when stating the fucking obvious, such as “it’s relaly hot, isn’t it?”, just in case some poor chuffhead in the next county didn’t hear it the first time.
4. Couples who insist on walking everywhere arm-in-arm, even when the entire pavement/alleyway has just enough room for two people. It’s easier to seperate Siamese twins than these simpering examples of humanity.
5. Anyone wearing excess nasty gold jewellery from Argos/Elizabeth Duke. You don’t look wealthy, you don’t look cool – in fact, you just look awful.
6. Women/girls with wonky pony-tails. They know who they are. You see them every day – the pony tail starts of at about 45° from the normal place, is invariably held up with a hairband that looks like it’s been cannibalised from a sweat-sock, and just makes it look like they’ve never even looked in the mirror.
7. Scallies. The first sign is normally the tracksuit/shellsuit bottoms. These are a bad omen, unless worn on a professional athlete. When tucked into socks, it is invariably a sign that the person should be killed to save the world any more trouble. The same can be said for those who wear a hooded top with a baseball cap underneath it.
8. Bagpipes. Unless it’s at the Highland Games, bagpipe players are a hazard to mental health and audio clarity. Especially the one outside Primark in Manchester. You know who you are.
9. Those who insist on repeating their every point twice, particularly when stating the fucking obvious, such as “it’s relaly hot, isn’t it?”, just in case some poor chuffhead in the next county didn’t hear it the first time.
10. BMW drivers. Just because.
11. Brand-obsessed people. Just because everything you are wearing has a label on it, don’t assume the “coolness” of these trends rubs off on you. In fact, the only label that really applies to you is “sad cunt”.
12. The freaks who look at you in amazement when you ask for one ticket to see a film, play, concert, or anything else that may represent “normally done as a couple” in your tiny minds.
13. Even more so, the ones who look at you in sympathy, or with the thought “Oh, how brave, being able to go out on your own to social events” when the same request is made.
14. People who can’t do more than two things at once. It’s obvious that walking and breathing are taking up all your available brain-power. Don’t tax it by trying to read a text message, or talk on the phone at the same time. Even more to the point, when you’re doing such a thing and walk into someone, don’t glare at them like it’s their fault. Broken limbs may result.
15. The fucktards who think that bigger warnings on cigarette packets will make people suddenly want to stop smoking. They know it’s unhealthy – stop preaching, find something better to do. Alternatively, light up a cigarette and help yourself to die faster.
16. TV programme planners. All week, nothing to watch. Then shove everything on at the same time on the same night. Thanks.
17. Those who say “we won the match”, meaning their favourite team/country/whatever. “We” did fuck all – you weren’t involved, neither was I. The team won the contest, and fair play to them. But you had bobbins to do with it. End of.
18. The designers of public-transport seating. We’re not all five-foot six. The distance between seat edge and back of seat in front is just enough for me to wedge myself into, at risk of being crippled by the time I’m 40.
19. Supercilious sales assistants. Yes, I know what I’m looking for, no I don’t want the extended warranty, no I don’t need batteries with it, no I won’t give you my postcode unless you can tell me your Data Protection policy and how I opt out of receiving anything from your shonky shop ever again – just take the money and get the fuck on with it.
20. Anyone else I’ve forgotten.

Digital Cameras

Following the break-in last Friday, I’m looking for a new digital camera. It has to have at least 3 Megapixels (preferably 4, or even 5), and ideally a good optical zoom (frankly, digital zoom isn’t worth the hassle) of at least 3x, preferably more. I’m not bothered what it uses as storage, but it’s got to be removable. I already miss my Fuji digicam, but I’m not overly impressed with the new designs and they look decidedly uncomfortable, and much as I fancy it, I can’t justify a Canon EOS 1Ds. I’ll be going to have a play with some tomorrow – so the question is this :

What do you use, and what do you recommend? Budget goes up to about £500, and at the moment Pentax are looking promising, with Fuji a close second if I can find one that’s comfortable. Pros, cons, recommendations – that’s what I’m interested in.

What do you mean you’re still here?

A survey from the Skipton building society has shown that some parents actually pay their grown-up children to leave the nest. It was only a small cross-section (530 parents, to be exact) but out of that, only a third of the parents ask for a contribution from their children towards household bills, and 90% do the cooking/laundry for their children still.

Are these people fucking stupid? Of course they are. If the parents insisted their little darlings paid for their keep, did their own cooking and laundry, they’d soon leave once they realised it wasn’t a cushy number to stay with mummy and daddy any more. OK, house prices are high, which makes it harder to go out in the big wide world, but it’s not that difficult – I’d reckon most of them stay with parents simply because it’s cheaper/easier than doing it all themselves.

Anniversary

A quick “Happy Birthday” to Haloscan (the commenting system used here (for now)) which is one year old today. It’s had it’s ups and downs, but still annoys me far less than Enetation still does, even when I use it on other people’s sites. Maybe it just doesn’t like Opera, but it’s slow as hell, which in fairness is one thing I haven’t been able to say for Haloscan.

51st State

Interesting piece in the Guardian about how Britain is losing it’s sovereignty to the US. Would we be better off if we actually became the 51st State? (I say “if”, I probably mean “when”) In fact, could we actually continue on in the way we do now if we were to fall out with the US?

Was that it?

Well, normality returns to the UK weather, and it’s pissing it down again. Typically, I have to walk across town to a meeting in a short while. A meeting with people I’ve never met, and I have absolutely no idea what the meeting is about, nor what they want.

Gee, that’ll be productive then.

Dead Letters

I suppose it’s not so much the contents as how the hell they were posted – a nice piece on the BBC about Belfast’s “National Returned Letter Centre” (although that doesn’t include the 280,000 letters every week that are lost or delayed in the UK). I’ve had stuff back from these people before, and I think they’re pretty bloody good for the most part.

I particularly like the idea that they’re the destination for all the UK’s letters to Santa. And that all the letters get replied to. We truly are a daft nation at times.

A house, A house, my kingdom for a house

Over at Whereveryouare, Vaughn has been having some thoughts about his hopes and dreams for a house of his own. Fair enough, I can understand that desire for a front door of his own, having lived in flats and shared houses. Personally, I have a different dream…

I dream of a day where I don’t have to deal with fuckhead landlords. I’ve been with my current bunch of clowns (no links, as they don’t even have answerphones, let alone email, websites, or anything remotely useful) for three years. In that time, I’ve not seen a single person from the agency – which is no bad thing. However, this includes the fact that to be legal, a property has to have a “gas check” at least once a year to ensure the safety of the gas system. One was done when I first moved in, and there’s not been one since.

After the break-in on Friday, I ended up calling the landlords on Monday morning to arrange a replacement window. (They’ve no answerphone or mobile, so I hadn’t been able to leave a message over the weekend) It was arranged that it’d be done yesterday, while I was at work – and I even arranged to leave the back gate unlocked in order to allow the glazier access. (They also don’t work weekends, or anything after 4 in the afternoon) When I got home last night – unshockingly – the window hadn’t been fixed. I called them up, and they said they’d let me know what was happening.

I’ve just called them, no phone call having been forthcoming, to be told “oh, he should be fixing it today”. That’ll be impressive, as the gate’s now locked up again – maybe he’ll climb over the wall, along with the sheet of glass and so on. I look forward to going home to an injured moron in my back yard. And the landlord’s attitude? “Oh well, you should have left the back gate unlocked so he could get in. You knew we’d be there at some time”. This is the back gate that was where the little bastards got access last time. I see a failure of logic – and my soothsaying ability predicts a shitty letter going off in the very near future.

In the meantime, I’m just going to dream of the day where I can simply get all this done and organised myself, not have to go through landlords, letting agents, or whatever – I know insurance companies will be just as annoying in their own way, but at least I’ll be able to sort it out without the use of keffing proxies who can’t find their arses with both hands and a flashlight.

Paid Off in Full

Well, one of my long-standing battles is finally over. And I lost. For the last two years, I’ve been having endless hassle with Companies House over the annual return for my company. Nothing special – it’s only a sheet of paper. But if it’s filed late with Companies House, they fine you. Fair enough.

I filed my first copy of the return in plenty of time. They lost it. I filed a second one, also in plenty of time. They lost it – and it was now overdue. I sent it to them a third time, recorded delivery. It got there, got signed, and got lost again. Finally, on the fourth go, it was acknowledged, and because it was more than six months late, I was fined £500. Which, needless to say, I objected to – I’d filed on time, and it’d been lost at Companies House. And that’s where it’s been stood ever since.

Companies House is implacable. Sooner or later, they know they will win any issue along these lines. In the end it’s easier to give in, just pay the fucking money, and let them weave their inefficient way through the world. The cheque has had to go via solicitors, and I’ll get a receipt from them. After that it’s not my problem.

However, I do wonder if Comapnies House will ever cash a cheque made payable to “the incompetent inefficient extortionists at Companies House“? *Grin*

Efficient

Considering that my utterly fucking crap landlords still haven’t replaced the window from the break-in, it’s nice to know that some organisations are efficient. Having renewed the contents insurance at 9pm on Friday, I received the complete pack, policy, numbers, and all that gubbins, in the post this morning.

I also received a pack from “Victim Support”, on the same time-scale. Both of which are quite impressive – but I only intend to make use of one of them. And it won’t be the support people.

The joys of insurance, part 2

When it comes to insurance, contents insurance is nothing. A “mere” £350 for the year. The paperwork arrived this morning. In the same post came the documents for the new business insurance – the last lot hadn’t been what I needed, didn’t include Professional Liability etc.

So – I’ve now got new business insurance, including Professional Liability, Employer’s Liability, Public/Products Liability, all the main legal requirements. £11.5m worth of cover, all things considered. (although that includes £10m of Employer’s Liability) which is costing me an annual sum of – sit down – £1,360. All told, I’ve spent (well, I’ve started spending) £1,700 on insurance. *Sigh*

Devil’s Advocate

While the media are – predictably – going bananas about Shevaun Pennington disappearing off into Europe with an ex-Marine, saying he’s a vile paedophile and so on, they seem to be ignoring a couple of – to my mind at least – relevant points.

I know that my views will possibly be contentious, and so be it – they probably are. My first problem with the entire story comes to light with the story that he thought she was 19. Shevaun (and oh lord how I hate that spelling) has been portrayed as some innocent 12-year old who’s done nothing wrong – but 19’s a long way from 12. It’s not even a typo, it’s a lie. And yeah, we all know that the Net is full of people saying they’re things that they’re really not – but she’s no innocent blossom on this one. Would he have come over to see what she was like if he’d known she was really 12? Would he have been attracted to someone nearly a third of his age? Who knows – but I doubt it.

Second is the problem that she took her passport and clothes with her. This isn’t an abduction – she knew she was going to be travelling. She said to friends that this man was her “boyfriend” – personally, I find it far more worrying, far sadder, that people can now see themselves as being “in a relationship” with someone they’ve met online, and have never met in person. To me, that’s just wanking and a keyboard. But I digress.

Yes, in the eys of the law, this ex-marine is going to be in epic amounts of shit – but is that fair? I don’t think so – at most, so far, he’s guilty of being lied to, of being gullible. No-one even knows if she’s yet told him what her age actually is – and I have my doubts that she has. But the law doesn’t care about that – he’ll still be “a child molester”. And while I’m absolutely not pro-paedophiles, I do feel that in this case there’s a likelihood that he doesn’t really qualify for the title.

UPDATED : OK, for once I’m going to qualify this one a bit. In light of Peter’s comments; yes, there are still issues on both sides. Saying “he should’ve walked away” is slightly farcical though – you find out someone’s 12, and walk away from them in the middle of Manchester, London, or Paris. Great way to get yourself even more vilified in the press. As soon as he’d met her and discovered her age, he’s between a rock and a hard place. The only semi-decent way to conclude it would be to travel back with her, and deliver her to her parent’s door. And, of course, then get arrested.

As for “knowing she was 12 when he met her”, I simply don’t believe it’s always possible to tell any more. I’ve a friend with a (just)14 year old daughter, and she could easily get served with alcohol in pubs, let alone cigarettes. Could she pass for 19? Yeah, I think so. Try wandering down the street, working out how old people are. It’s getting more and more difficult.

Pet peeve

via Gordon, I’ve just laughed out loud at some of the phrases in the Guardian’s piece about the future of the apostrophe in the 21st century. Yes, maybe it’s a sign of being a complete bobble-hat – and yes, I did email the story to my father as well, who’ll appreciate it – but the errant apostrophe is a source of irritation for me.

And, while it’s a nasty site (even with the Yellow™), the Apostrophe Protection Society certainly deserves more recognition/publicity. I’ve a nasty suspicion that my father will join up…

Toys

Oooooh – just as I start considering a new main PC for home (the old one is beginning to annoy the tits off me in various ways, so it’s likely to be upgrade time fairly soon), Silicon Graphics releases it’s new machines, the Tezro (stupid name, nice design) and Onyx4 on to the market. I’d never utilise the full power of them, but hey, a geek can dream…

Now, where did I put that wishlist?

The joys of insurance

I renewed my contents insurance on Friday (for obvious reasons) – with MoreThan, the people I was with previously, £60,000 worth of cover including specifics for the two laptops, PC, TV, and so on, has cost me £350 for the year. Not a bad deal.

Looking on the website of my bank, they’re saying “you can have a 10% discount on your insurance because of the account you have with us” In for a penny, in for a pound, I had a look at a quote. Frankly, fuck that. Before the discount, it would’ve cost me £580 for – are you sitting comfortably? – complete cover of £25,000. So 10% discount off that makes it… £522 One hundred and seventy pounds more, for less than half the cover.

Someone’s taking the piss…

Still waiting (part 2)

The SOCO has been round and taken a couple of fingerprints – mainly mine, for reference purposes, but a couple of others as well. They’re not optimistic about it though, and neither am I. Now I’m just waiting for the landlords (it’s a rented property) to come and check the window so they can get it replaced/reglazed. The useless fuckers don’t have any way of contacting them in evenings or weekends, so it had to wait til this morning. Joy.

Still waiting (part 1)

Still no word from Wileys. Tiger-baiting is seeming to be more and more popular as an option. In the meantime, d4d™ zips past the 70,000 page impressions. Not bad going for 11 months in actions.

The cheque has cleared with 34sp.com so the new domain should be live in the next couple of days, with luck. Then I decide how much to play with the design…

Aftermath

Well, the police called round at 3am, to look at the window. Mainly just for the crime number for insurance purposes. All par for the course. He said that if lights hadn’t been on, he wouldn’t have knocked. I’m getting old – the policemen are getting younger.

A fairly sleepless night – the joys of the sofa. The kitchen window wasn’t secure, and I wasn’t prepared to take the chance on some little sod coming back while it wasn’t sorted. My eyes currently closely resemble pissholes in the precipitation.

A morning involved with a trip to B&Q, blocking off the window gap with chipboard and screwing it into place – lots of times – as well as two new bolts on the back gate. Also, making the door between the kitchen extension and rest-of-house secure. It’s ugly, and I resent having to put these measures in place.

I know I’m still ahead of the game – four years of living in a “high crime” area, and this was my first experience of a break-in. Actually, it was my first experience of a break-in. Full stop. I don’t feel the shock and feeling of invasion that people say about – it just seems like another pointless crime, a thing to do because well, why not? He’s left the house, gone to the shops – so lets smash a window and see what we can nick. Not even the IQ to get the batteries from next to the digital camera – an entirely pointless exercise.

It’s not my week

Well, I could almost suspect someone had a grudge against me. I came back from doing some shopping this evening to find the house had been broken into. Nothing special had gone – it looks like I’d disturbed them – but the digital camera (sans batteries) and the old mobile phone, with about 12p of credit on it.

The laptop was unplugged, ready to go, but hadn’t made it. Which was lucky.

I’ve spent the last hour informing the police, renewing the insurance (oopers), trying to get hold of the useless cunting landlord (and failing), letting friends know in case they didn’t want their dog running the vague potential of getting glass in it’s paws, cursing the fucked electric drill, and not much else. Joy.

Farewell, fuck off

With a happy wave of one middle finger, a la the new(ish) pointy man graphic, I’d just like to say that I’m truly pleased to see Section 28 finally leaving the books. I’d publish a guide on “Section 28 for Government Dummies” but I’d get in trouble all over again. Getting rid of this piece of shite has taken 18 years and should never have taken that long, but at least it’s gone now.

And about time too.

Jaundiced

Hmmm, knew there’d be a problem with the Free D4D™ campaign. All the sites I read are now yellow. Reading them at work is – shall we say – problematical. That doesn’t mean the entire thing is unappreciated – in fact I’m totally amazed by the number of people who’ve come out in support of this.

I admit, I really thought that the majority of responses would be akin to Peter’s initial response, “Well, you’ve known it might happen – now it has”. Yes, the Wiley Way was overly heavy-handed, completely out of order, and typically overbearing – interesting, though, to see that even their legal “profession” (I use the term loosely) has gone for the “shock and awe” style of tactics now. But to see the level of support that has been brought about, I can’t begin to express how amazed and grateful I am. (As a side point, d4d™ is now #16 on google if you do a search for “Kirk Bateman” – that’ll upset him.)

I’m yet to hear back from Kirky and his legal mavens. I still don’t even know for sure it wasn’t a hoax. As Iain pointed out, the IP address on the comments from Kirk was correct for Hungry Minds Publishing, owned by Wiley, owned in turn by the official Friends of the Internet&trade, Time Warner. D4D™ was definitely looked at three times by the wiley.com servers. I called the Wiley office, and got put through to Kirk. (At which point, I admit, I rang off – but there’s definitely a Kirk Bateman there) But if I can find that out, so can a hoaxer. At the end of the day, I don’t know how else to check whether it was a hoax or not.

I’m tempted to assume it wasn’t a hoax.

So – where do I go from here? Do I write another email to Kirky, wanting to hear more about what he plans to do? Do I write a formal letter of complaint to Wiley’s, and do I include a mention of the number of sites that have now altered themselves with regard to this cause? Or should I just stay quiet, not cause hassle, and wait for their response?

Lyle™’s useless fact

With a title nicked borrowed straight from Scaryduck (for dummies), I bring you this charming little fact-ette.

Did you know that if you pay cash into your bank account along with a couple of cheques, it can then take up to three days for the cash to “clear” into your account? Apparently it’s “because they’re both on the same slip, they all go off to be processed together”. Yes, that’s right. Cash. Taking three days to “clear”.

It’s been a while

Yes, it’s been quite a while since the last real rant was published. But now there’s a new one ready for the reading. Not that today has been frustrating at all. Honest.

And there was me wondering if I’d finally started to mellow out. There’s life in the cantankerous old goat yet…

Oops

In a wonderful cockup, the Danish Army sent out snowploughs, tractors and grit for icy roads. Hardly newsworthy, except the consignment went out to Danish troops in Iraq. Perhaps the grit can be “discovered” as a Weapon of Mass De-icing.

The web goes Yellow

(Please note the new title bar style – I love CSS for some things. *Grin*) Considering the number of comments that have been made in the past about the yellow on this site, I’m both honoured and amused by the number of people turning their own sites various shades of yellow in support of the Wiley Farce™ (as it’s now affectionately known trademarked) – primarily organised by Peter.

So far, we’ve got Mike, Ian shit, sorry, Iain, Blue Witch, Jann, Steve, Gert, Gordon, London (Spelcnut), and The World (Noodle) – all For Dummies. Additionally, Scaryduck is now “Swearing for Dummies” with the sublime phrase “ the fucking wankers can go piss up a tree“, and Karen at Rise has also joined the “Free d4d™” campaign. Unfortunately, there’s still no sign of a response from the litigious twunts (©Scaryduck™) Wileys – I may have to stir the pot a bit more, if I’m not careful. *Grin*

Now, I wonder if I can trademark “Yellow” before they get to it? (And no, that doesn’t mean I’d sue the supporters – I just like the idea of telling Wileys to Cease and Desist from using Yellow on their covers…

Innocent and profitable

Sometimes, it’s really good to read a success story, particularly one were everyone initially said “It’ll never work”. Innocent drinks is one of those stories – they make a brand of “smoothie” (basically a blend of fruits, pureed) which (having had several, and being a fan) I know are generally delicious.

From the story, they also have a “corporate” culture that is quite different to most places. But more to the point, they’re making money and the people who work for them are happy – sounds like a good deal to me.

Bleurgh

I’m back at work (they’ve insisted on it, while my boss is off sick – because there’s no-one else with the passwords to send stuff up to the council’s site, and hey, World War 3 might break out or something) and feeling abysmal. It wasn’t even the final visit – the crowns for two teeth had been fucked up by the lab, and looked shit, plus there’s some other stuff to do. So I’m back on the 21st.

However, 3 molar root canals, one extraction that was in the right place for wisdom tooth but probably wasn’t, 5 shots of anaesthetic (and yes, it still fucking hurt for the extraction), and plenty of other vile stuff later, I feel utterly chronic. I need an email from Kirky to brighten my day when I get home.

Normal service

But until I hear something from Wileys, I’m going to return to business as usual. One can only batter on about civil rights and fascist litigious Americans for so long before it gets wearing – not just for anyone still reading, but for me too.

Today’s service will be intermittent. I’m off to the dentist’s for my (hopefully) final major visit for a while. 90 minutes. Anaesthetic. One final extraction that they’ve put off because it’ll be an absolute bastard. Plenty of other stuff too. I’m really not looking forward to it. Ah well.

Another update

Well, the events of yesterday were interesting. Kirky didn’t respond (I’m heartbroken) so I’m left in limbo. However, perhaps I should pen an email of thanks, as according to the logfiles, yesterday was one of d4d™’s busiest days ever. Looking at my little Nedstat counter (which only counts on the random page) shoot up like a lottery-winning smackhead was certainly an interesting experience, and it looks like various people then went off on a stroll through the site.

I sent off the cheque for the new domain name this morning too – I’m sticking with the original idea, and when it’s all sorted it’ll be at www.dummies-for-destruction.co.uk Go on, Wiley – sue that. Depending on their response (and whether they even bother to make one) d4d will stay here for a while – however, I’ll also be doing work on d4d v2 as soon as I can. Ooooh, nice new hosting company, PHP, mySQL, the whole lot. For less than I was paying with Easyspace for “space and that’s it”. Now – do I consider moving the entire thing to Moveable Type too? We’ll see.

I’m not alone

Just for the hell of it, I did a search on google for the poison phrases “For dummies” trademark. Wow, there’s a lot of results under that – “For dummies” have been busy bastards people. Fridgemagnet dealt with the exact same situation. Frommers has a letter from Wileys that lists all their supposed trademarks (it’s a Word document, more’s the pity), and there’s many other links besides. Google lists 52,200 results for that little search.

I suspect I may lose the case. However, the war is another matter. *Grin*

UPDATED :Thanks to Quin, who reveals in the comments below that the cynical fuckers Wiley are releasing Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks For Dummies. Ah, sweet irony. I wonder if it’s just “For dummies case law” under a new cover?

Litigation. An update

First of all, thanks for your comments (and posts on your own sites, Peter, Iain and Sapientum) – they’ve been greatly appreciated. As yet, I’ve yet to hear a response from Wiley’s. (Oh, and I did check the log-files this morning – three visits from wiley.com, so I assume there’s at least a bit of legitimacy to this lot) Personally, I find this entire thing from Wiley’s just hilarious – and I do wonder how far they’re prepared to take it. Peter is completely correct when he says I set up this domain as a pisstake – and yes, it doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to realise that the colour-scheme was based upon an homage to the “for dummies” books. When it first came up as an idea, d4d™ was just one of those silly conversational things – but the idea took off, so I bought the domain. According to the initial plan, it was going to be far more satirical and a full piss-take of the for-dummies series, but that didn’t happen. Instead d4d™ mutated into the warped beast that’s here today.

From day one, there’s always been the disclaimer disavowing itself from Wiley, For Dummies, blah blah. D4D™ never passed itself off as being anything to do with the book series, and that’s the way I see it continuing.

Over at Sapientum, it’s already been said that perhaps I changed the graphics and acquiesced too quickly to their demands. Maybe so. However, I’ve always referred to the site as d4d™, so it’s not that much of a trauma. Besides, I quite like the new pointy man – and the raised middle finger is definitely indicative of Wiley’s attitude to the world. However, the domain name will stay mine ’til Wileys make a decision. In the meantime, I’m also going to sort out a new domain name – suggestions gratefully received, although I think I know what it’ll be *Grin* – so any changeover will happen easily and smoothly. I do feel that as it’s Wileys who are raising this as a problem, that they should be willing to pay for registering a new domain name – that’s a reasonable offer, so I’m absolutely certain they won’t take me up on it.

I don’t yet know how long or hard I’ll fight this – as Peter and GF both say, Wileys have far more resources than I, so the winner of any battle is likely to be a foregone conclusion. However, the attitude that this has been done with so far, the typically litigious American way of “stop using it, or we’ll sue – this is federal law” utterly stinks. If anything could be more calculatedly red-rag to a bull, I don’t know what it is. The fact that the trained monkey-turd lawyer/administrator for Wiley couldn’t even email me (and there’s a contact me page with the email address on) shows how abysmal they really are. As such, I’m not going to take it laying down. I’m looking forward to seeing Kirk Bateman’s response – and also whether he’ll manage to figure out how to reply to an email instead of leaving snotty comments.

Response

I never could resist the chance to reply…

Dear Mr Bateman,

Many thanks for your comments – I would refer to them as an email, but it seems you are far more prepared to leave comments instead of emails. Obviously this gives the lie to the intent “to deal with this matter informally“, as the communication was left in the public domain. I understand this actually can be seen to constitute the UK criminal offence of “threatening behaviour”, as your open communication contained threats of un-named further actions.

Regarding the points in your comments, I should first of all point out that as destruction-for-dummies.co.uk is a completely UK-based domain, it does not fall under the “federal” laws of the US. The domain (which I shall hereafter refer to as d4d™, which is it’s normal name) has been registered with Nominet (the UK registrar) since 2000 – I am surprised it has taken your company this long to find it. I would also suggest that Wileys should perhaps spend some money and reserve all “for dummies” domain names, if they are so obsessive about this style of domain name.

Having read the copyright notices on www.dummies.com, I also notice that you insist upon holding the trademark for (among others) the phrase “Unofficial Guide” – having looked on Google ( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=%22unofficial+guide%22&spell=1 ) it seems you have at least 72,000 other trademarks to consider. I should also point out that since the first day of owning the d4d™ domain, there has been a disclaimer on the index page, disavowing all relation to the for-dummies brand. However, in accordance with your comments, I have removed any reference to “for dummies” from the site graphics etc. Obviously it is impossible to remove the reference to “for dummies” from the domain name.

If Wiley is serious about attempting to remove d4d from the web, I would hope that as part of the “informal” proceedings, they would be willing to pay for the registration and hosting of a new .co.uk domain name of my choosing. As it is purely down to Wiley’s insistence that this matter has arisen, I believe that this resolution would be one that would be mutually satisfying.

If you have any further comments, please feel free to contact me by replying to this email. At least that should help it keeping the comments out of the public domain.

Sincerely

Lyle™
Domain Owner.

Busted

Left in my comments box
Re: Trademark Infringement
Domain name: destruction-for-dummies.co.uk

Dear Mr. xxxxx Lyle:

Wiley Publishing, Inc. (�Wiley�), owner of the famous and well-regarded (well regarded? don’t make me laugh!) FOR DUMMIES trademarks, recently became aware of your registration of the above-referenced domain name (well done, it’s only been registered for two years). You may be unaware that use of the phrase �For Dummies� or a similar formative of this phrase as a domain name infringes and dilutes our famous trademarks, and such use is not permitted under federal trademark laws. (so – that’s US laws then. What about UK law?)

In order to fully protect (go on, split another infinitive) its valuable trademarks, Wiley unfortunately cannot allow use of the domain name, destruction-for-dummies.co.uk, for a web site (so why didn’t you get the domain name yourselves?). Our initial review of this site indicates it is active and includes the For Dummies? trademark in the title of the page. Wiley requests that you discontinue using the domain name destruction-for-dummies.co.uk, and remove all references to FOR DUMMIES from your site.

While we prefer to resolve this matter informally (if it’s that informal, why did you send this to my comments box and do it in public rather than sending it by email?), Wiley is fully prepared to use all legal remedies available to protect our trademark rights and corporate assets (pay for my trip to the US and I’ll seeya in court).

Please contact me if you have any questions. (Oh, rest assured, I will. And I’ll publish it all here too) Wiley appreciates your cooperation with this matter.

Sincerely,

Kirk A. Bateman
Administrator, Brand Management & Contracts
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
(317) 572-3355
Email: kbateman@wiley.com

And yes, I do intend to leave the full name, address, phone number (it’s his direct line, folks) and email address here. They were left in the public domain. That’s where they’ll stay.

Harlem Biblebashers

Sometimes I just love the BBC’s news site (hell, I love it most of the time anyway, regardless) and in particular their ability to find some of the quirkier stories.

Today’s gem is the Gray (sic) Friars, a set of Franciscan monks who have come to London from the New York Bronx. They’ve even started lessons in basketball, and are entering “proper matches”. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that not all Christians are the same as the bigots of the Anglican Church (and many other Churches)

Taking the piss – the first 2003 Festering Season mention

At work today, I received an email. They’re already trying to organise/sort out their Christmas office do. Oh joy, oh bliss, oh lucky lucky me.

My RSVP simply said “Bah Humbug”.

Will they have the feet?

Well, last year I dragged my parents to see Marsyas at Tate Modern. (I need to drag them to Birdget Riley’s exhibition there this year) And now it looks like I’ll have to force my father to the Science Museum in London too.

Actually, who am I kidding? I’ll enjoy an exhibition of the technology behind the Lord of the Rings films too. *Grin*

Lancaster and Morecambe

There’ll be a page with photos etc. later, but all in all it was an OK day. The basic decision was that I needed a day off, and so the world famous Atlas of Randomness™ and woe betide them, Lancaster and Morecambe got the pin.

Lancaster was the first stop. I can’t deny it, it wasn’t a long stop – I wasn’t impressed. Really, what Lancaster reminded me of most was the Guardian’s recent diatribe about the homogeneity of town centres – it could’ve been Anytown UK, all the same stores, all the same designs, there wasn’t anything special about the place. Maybe I just didn’t see enough of it – but after half an hour I’d lost the will to live, and most certainly lost the desire to explore the place more.

Back to the train station, and on to Morecambe. For some bizarre reason, I love being close to the sea, and this weekend, it was what I wanted. And sea’s what I got. Kind of. In the end.

Morecambe’s a very strange place. Then again, I think all seaside places are pretty weird – it’s all part of the way they are. Even among those, Morecambe’s weird. For some reason (I assume because it’s some kind of haven for bird-watchers) every bloody bollard along the seafront has a bird on the top of it. Every roundabout has sculptures of seabirds on it – Gannets, Gullemots, Cormorants. Yet it’s also the place that has had the Midland Hotel – one of the most significant Art Deco buildings in the UK, and it’s in ruins, a complete shell. Truly sad.

All in all, it was an OK day – two places I’d never been, and quite honestly, two places I won’t go back to. But not a bad day still.

1000th comment

Somewhere in the last week, someone’s placed the 1.000th comment here on d4d. However, as Haloscan have recently fucked up altered their numbering system, I have no idea who, when, or what the comment was. I know that last week it was on 980 or so, and there’s been more than 20 comments this week.

So congratulations, whoever it was. Can’t believe there’ve been 1,000 commenters here in less than a year. Happy Day.

You mean he’s got some?

Ah, the powers of self-persuasion. El Presidente Blair is now alleging that the BBC claiming that the Government “sexed-up” the report on Iraqi weapons undermined Blair’s intergrity integrity. Eh? I’m amazed he can even spell the word, let alone believe he’s got any.

UPDATED :Thanks, Vicky, for pointing out that I also can’t type it – thankfully I’ve never tried implying I’ve got any.

But before I go…

A couple of gems from yesterday’s Google searches.
I have no idea what Problems with d4d in africa may mean, but so far as I know there’s no problems with Africa seeing d4d.
Slightly worryingly, I come in third for Smelly armpits when I wake up in the morning – I have no desire to know any further information on that subject.

Lyle moves…

Well, not really. Not permanently, not even semi-permanently. But I’m off, in a fit of randomness and “why the hell not, I’ve never been there before”ism, to Morecambe for the day. Sea. Beer. Sea. The camera is coming with me. The laptop (amazingly) isn’t. Photos (if you’re lucky) will be here when I can be arsed.

Have fun yourselves, and I’ll be back sometime tonight. Or maybe tomorrow. It all depends, really.

God moves…

I bet he walked out of the church (well, ran out probably) still saying “Give me a sign…“

RIP

The walrus of luuuuuuuuurve.

Aaaaaaaaaargh!

Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t fucking care about Tim fucking bastard Henman, whether he’s at the top of his game, whether he’s an arse covered in white flannel, or – in fact – any fucking thing else about bastard Wimbledon. Why the keff do people insist on obsessing about the dull little loser – wonderful, he’s a UK Tennis player, and he’s (supposedly) the best we’ve got, and he’s a darling of the media – but face it, he doesn’t bloody win. He gets to the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, whatever, and fucking loses. Every time.

All hail Henman, the “Eddie the Eagle” of tennis. Now just shut up about the prick, OK?

Aftermath

Pissed. Utterly pissed. Thorughly good night in the company of two gorgeous women. Pissed. Going for chinese. Back later. Maybe.

Feminism and Equality

Following on from Green Fairy’s post about the current state of feminism, I’ve been thinking about it a bit. Not necessarily in terms of right/wrong, or even with regard to feminism per se.

The thing that I’ve noticed now in just about every workplace is that feminism’s main result (OK, it’s other main result) has actually been to foster a distrust – even a dislike – of women in much the same way that America’s “Affirmative Action” has spawned a level of resentment against those whom it was meant to be helping. I’ve seen far too many situations where the phrase “Well, she got the job because she’s female” is used, along with the implication that a person would get the job, even in the face of better applications, because the company in question needed to show how “fair” and “unbiased” it was. For every job/contract in the last five years, I’ve filled in an “equal opportunities” form to detail my gender, birthplace, “ethnic origin”, mother tongue, and various other details. Why? Shouldn’t the criteria for getting the job be my skillset, not my genitalia or skin colour?

When feminism and work equality first came to the forefront, this kind of policy was essential, because there simply weren’t the women in the workplace. Now, the work environment – and life in general – are much more level playing fields, so is there still a need for this kind of policy to be in action? We’re now in a situation where (as I’ve commented/ranted before) the balance has in some cases gone the other way.

Personally, I believe in equality – not feminism, nor any other -ism, but equality. I believe that feminism, in addition to all the other “Affirmative Action”-type policies have had their day, and are now perhaps even proving to have a negative effect on their own goals. In an ideal world everyone would be taken on their merits – and gender, race, religion, etc. etc. wouldn’t matter a toss. Perhaps that’s now the target we should be aiming for.

Sociability

While Aquarionics is sorting out a London blogmeet, I started thinking about a similar thing for the North-West. From the comments below about the new Manchester sky-scraper, it looks like there’s a fair number of bloggers (Sorry, “personal publishers”, daaahling) in the area. Therefore – what’re the chances of some kind of Mancunian Meet?

Is it something that’s been done already and I’ve just missed it, or would it be a good idea anyway? Feedback gratefully received – comments, mails, whichever.

Ah, the joys of discrimination

If, like me, you end up setting up random accounts in Yahoo! and similar, then you’ll have noticed that there’s a “new” (i.e. it’s been introduced in that last year or so) test, involving a word embedded in an image, like the one below.

It turns out, according to this story in CNet news that these “anti-spambot” techniques are discriminating against the blind. (And yes, this does seem obvious in hindsight – but I hadn’t thought of it ’til now, I admit) The problem is that even voice readers can’t deal with the images satisfactorily – apparently the word has to be garbled enough that a computer can’t recognise it and use it. An interesting challenge between security and accessibility.

Better than dieting

Sometimes I just despair. I wasn’t really aware of this (although I suppose I should have been) but it turns out Kraft (and various other companies) are reducing portion sizes in the US in order to combat obesity. OK, I can see the logic – to a degree. Smaller portion size means people eat less. Well, until they just eat two portions instead.

What really got to me though is that Americans are now sueing the people who make the food/drinks that contribute to their obesity. As always, there’s got to be someone to blame, and it can’t be ourselves – blame a company instead. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that the main reason they’re obese is because they eat too much. Not rocket science, is it? But no – instead, let’s blame Macdonalds, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, whoever – because of course we all thought fast-food was healthy, didn’t we?

Of course we did – well, there wasn’t a health warning on the side of the burger wrapper that said “caution – eating too many of these will make you into a fat git“. The drinks didn’t have a warning that said “contains more sugar than the average tin of golden syrup”. So of course we didn’t think they’d make us fat, unhealthy, obese. It’s a shock to our systems, a trauma – and we should sue because of it. No-one told us to eat less – we thought it was OK to eat til we nearly burst.

Of course, it’s also probably hard for Kraft to make itself out to be too healthy anyway, as their main brands are things like Dairylea, Philadelphia cream cheese, and Toblerone chocolate. Oh, and they’re also owned by tobacco manufacturer, Phillip Morris.

What’s in your wallet?

In Northampton, they’re doing a trial of a PIN number system supposed to help reduce credit-card fraud. Supposedly it’s been a success. The “Chip and Pin” method means that when you hand over your credit card to make a payment, you also have to type in a PIN number.

However, a piece today in the Register suggests that it’s not as secure as the card companies would like people to think. Big Shock. Unfortunately, so long as it’s possible to intercept the data being passed through to the credit-card company’s computers, there will be card fraud. Just because there’s more data (i.e. a PIN number) doesn’t make it any harder to intercept. And it’s also possible that the new “Chip and Pin” methods will also increase identity fraud – hence just moving the fraud to a different area.

High-rise

It looks like Manchester may be getting another addition to it’s skyline. Ian Simpson Architects have designed the UK’s highest living area – a 47 storey glass tower, 171 metres (561 ft, for the pre-decimal in my readership) high.

Personally, I love the way the skyline of Manchester has developed, even over the four years I’ve been here. So much has changed, what with Urbis and No 1 Deansgate (both also designed by Ian Simpson) and so on, and I’m sure there will be several more changes over the next few years.

For some reason, the spirit of change appears to have hit Manchester in the last five to ten years – long may it continue to stay.

CSS – again

Well, following on from the minor (in appearance, anyway) redesign of d4d, there were still problems with the right-hand side not being yellow all the way to the bottom. That’s now fixed – in Opera at least. IE and Nutscrape still appear to hate it, but that’s just tough. Thanks Pat for advice and so on – and yes, it did take me some time to look more at it. I still may end up cheating and just using a table for the basic layout – although CSS purists would shout at me for doing so. I’ll see how it goes.

Speaking of CSS purists, Pinky pointed out that the CSS here didn’t actually validate. Mea Culpa, I hadn’t actually checked it. Turns out, it was actually the CSS code I’d got from Blogrolling that was keffed, but that’s now sorted – observant readers will note the new graphic saying so down on the right somewhere too. *Grin*

John Connolly – Bad Men

I’ve been a fan of John Connolly’s novels – lots of different reasons, but the blend of crime novel with a dollop of the supernatural and/or mystic. A lot of the critics have sneered at Bad Men, saying it’s cod-Stephen-King, and yes, in some ways it is – even down to the fact it’s based in Maine. Yes, a lot of it is fairly predictable, but for me there’s something special about Connolly’s way with words, the way he writes, that makes it different.

For me, “Bad Men” is on a par with the other novels of Connoly’s. This is the first one to focus on a main character other than Charlie “Bird” Parker, although he still has a cameo appearance. As such, there’s a slightly different feel and setting to this one, but it’s instantly recognisable as Connolly. I don’t know why so many of the reviews I’ve read have apparently disliked the book – maybe the style is an acquired taste. I’m happy to be a voice in the minority, and to say I enjoyed it all the way through.

Eh?

I couldn’t resist posting this experiment in pure bollocks from today’s BBC story about the US planning a hypersonic bomber.

“Moreover, the current and future international political environment severely constrains this country’s ability to conduct long-range strike missions on high-value time-critical targets from outside CONUS [the continental United States].“. Now – any ideas what that load of bollocks is all about? No, me either. The only thing going in it’s favour is that it makes more sense than “The intent is to hold adversary vital interests at risk at all times, counter anti-access threats, serve as a halt phase shock force and conduct suppression of enemy air-defence and lethal strike missions as part of integrated strategic campaigns in the Twenty First Century.“. Which isn’t saying much. I’d make more sense out of reading “Mongolian for beginners – the Serbo-Croat edition”.

To me it just looks like someone’s been using the Management Bible as bedtime reading.

2020 : Anyone got a light?

As reported in various sources today, the Institution of Civil Engineers (surely an oxymoron, I’ve never met a civil one in my life) has released a fairly pessimistic (but still believable) report into the future of the UK’s energy usage.

Because of emissions laws etc., by 2020 the UK wil have no more coal-fired power stations, and only one of the current nuclear stations will still be in use. And as yet, renewable energy is nowhere near to being used to it’s full extent, so (according to the report) we would have to import gas from other countries – mainly politically unstable ones.

More and more, we should be looking at renewable energy – I know some companies are looking at it (it’s still not available online, but I did do the work on United Utilities “Green Energy” site) but it’s still got nowhere near enough investment. Would the NIMBY bastards would rather have powercuts instead of the wind-farms they’re currently pissing and moaning about?

Poetic justice

I wonder whether ITV will now sack Alastair Stewart from presenting his abysmal “Police, Camera, Action!” series, as he’s been barred from driving for 2½years following pleading guilty to drink-driving.

We can only hope. If so, can I suggest that people keep an eye open for a pissed Michael Barrymore, Jerry Springer, David Frost or Loyd Grossman? (Just think, get the last two, no more “Through the Keyhole” – maybe there is a god after all)

I can say no more

No, not a hiatus, but instead, via Scaryduck, the absolute winner of the “Let’s see what I can get past the editor” headline award of 2003.

One voice – Helen Keller’s

via an advertising link, I clicked on this link to my own bank. “Talk to the whole bank through your relationship manager” What a load of old shite. My “relationship manager” (already I loathe that expression) still hasn’t managed to pick up the phone and talk to me.

Or perhaps the phrase that the bank should be looking for is “Adding insult to injury – professionally”.

Response 2

“Dear Sir,

Kind Regards
SMS Team.”

So, that’s that cleared up then. Or not.

For fuck’s sake, m’lud

I must admit, I completely fail to see the logic in “naming and shaming” courts that are ‘underperforming’ in a new set of league tables. There seems to be a huge flaw in the logic – “I know, we’ll make them do MORE paperwork, then say that they’re not up to scratch.”

Rather than spend the money on a fucking league-table, I’d rather see the money spent on improving the courts themselves, and look at perhaps increasing their “opening hours” (sorry, I don’t know the exact terminology for the times a court operates) so they can deal with more cases. But of course, that would be logical, dare I say even sensible, so there’s no chance that Lord Falconer and the new “Supreme Court” (Hey, Tony, I wonder where you got that idea/name from?) will even be on nodding terms with it.

Response

Further to my post a bit further down regarding the SMS feature on the new landline phone, I got this reply.

“Unfortunately we do not support the telephones so we do not know how you would switch this facility off. However it is standard practice that your number be delivered with the SMS message as SMS messages cannot be sent from anonymous lines.”

So – the instructions tell me not to give out my number, but it can’t actually be stopped from doing so. Nice paradox.

At a loss for words

I know it won’t come as a shock to anyone who uses the train network, but it looks like we won’t get an efficient (and punctual) service for at least another decade yet. If then. Personally, I reckon we might have a decent infrastructure by about 2035 – by which point it’ll all need replacing as it’ll be MagLev trains or something entirely different. Although I do think that the concept of “train delays going on for years” is a bit much – it’s bad enough when they go on for two hours. *Grin*

I wonder if anyone’s still working on the idea of teleportation as a public transport device? It couldn’t be any worse than what we’ve got now, surely?

Here we go again…

Not content with the bollocks about reports that were “sexed-up” before war on Iraq, (and how the hell do you “sex-up” a report about purported chemical weapons?) that lovable bundle of happiness and hope, Jack Straw, is now insisting that Iran opens up it’s nucular nuclear programme to Western inspectors.

A more suspicious soul would perhaps think that the UK and US were trying to take over the entire of the Arabian Gulf, and grab all the oil-production sites/countries for itself.

Oops

A quick apology to Gert for messing up the site-counter just as it was getting to the grand 50,000 marker. Oops. Sorry. *Blush*

Now that’s irony

Following on from the Guardian’s stunning article yesterday on the “death” of irony, comes the story (also in the Grauniad) of story of a boy who got injured in an anti-bullying class. Which seems to be the living definition of irony.

Paradoxical

Yesterday, I went out and bought a new DECT phone, as the old one’s batteries were just on this side of knackered. This time, it was the BT Synergy 3200 which can also send SMS text messages.

The way it does the text messages is a pain in the arse – there’s a middle layer between sending and receiving, where it all goes through some company called Bizzyline (sic) – they’ve no web-presence, which is why there’s no link. If I send a text message from my landline, it gets my number appended to the bottom of it, wrapped in #’s, so it looks like ‘#0161xxxxxx#’ – and it needs that to be in the message when it’s replied to. Fair enough. It’s a pain in the arse, but fair enough.

Then I read the Bizzyline Terms & Conditions (I’d scan this in, but can’t be arsed, so you’ll have to take my word for it) that (and this is a quote) “SMS, like any Service, can allow strangers to meet and chat anonymously. … Don’t give out your name, address, or telephone number via SMS.” I’ve emailed them to ask how the hell I can send a text message without revealing the phone number. When/If I get a reply, it’ll be posted here too.

Sounded better in the head

While I can understand what was meant by the headline in this story over at the Guardian, I’m sure it could have been phrased better.

After all, “Troops return to massacre town” sounds far more like “Troops return to kill of every inhabitant in town” than it does to “Troops return to town where massacre (and do six people really qualify as a massacre?) happened earlier this week”

See, Tabloid headlines are infectious.

Another week, another time-sheet

I can’t deny it, I’ve been on a bit of a downer this week. I don’t know exactly why: there’s been an awful lot of stuff all at once, coupled with a lack of sleep, and it’s all just been chaotic.

So yes, for once I’m glad it’s the weekend, and even more glad I’ve got nothing planned. I was supposed to be sorting myself out for a week down in Devon with a group of friends – and yes, the break would have been much-needed – but got myself stuffed by my current workplace at almost the last minute. So my weekend is now open and free, and I’m planning on doing as little as possible.

I’m not going to make any guarantees about the regularity of posts over the next couple of days – it’ll either be prolific or deader than a dead thing from deadtown. I suspect I’ll decide that tomorrow morning.

What the Fuck?

I despair – when these talentless bastards are at number 2 in the UK pop chart it’s just going to get worse from here…

Fag Ash Lil

I’ve been saying for a while that the new-style health-warnings on cigarettes were more designed as a “collect the set” than a proper deterrent to smokers. So I’ve just seen that a company is selling sheets of stickers with which to cover up the warnings.

Of course, the anti-smoking lobby is getting all snotty about it, but I think the company selling the stickers has a point. As Denis Leary used to point out, “What do they expect? That a smoker’s suddenly going to read the warnings and say Yeah, Bill, I’ve got some cigarettes.. HOLY SHIT! These things are bad for you! Shit, I thought they were good for you! I thought they had Vitamin C in them and stuff!’”

In the BBC story itself, there’s a quote from Deborah Arnott of ASH, saying “ Telling people that smoking is cool is a dangerous message“. Pure bollocks. You think they haven’t got the message yet? Get a grip. The simple fact is, people will smoke – no matter how much the tax on the packs is, no matter what size the warnings are made, no matter whether they’re advertised or not, people will still smoke. And that’s coming from a non-smoker.

Sorting problems

Well, I don’t know why new Blogger was keffing up my italics and making them red, but the problem has now been sorted with the gentle addition of another selector in the CSS file. I could get used to this – spot a problem, fix it in one place rather than 50. Sweet.

Of course, it would’ve been nicer if it hadn’t happened in the first place, but that’s just picky really.

One down, several to go

I hope that Connex SouthCentral losing it’s train operator’s franchise is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to these things. There’s at least two others that deserve a similar kicking, and I’m sure there are plenty of others. (The train company for Northern Ireland being a case in point)

Of course, the fact that National Rail are also axing 2,500 jobs won’t help sort things out any quicker. I don’t really see how much worse it can get before things have to get better.

Commiserations

The below-mentioned celebratory dance was rapidly curtailed though by news of the death of Sir Denis Thatcher, husband of the Iron Dominatrix.

Possessed of a demon wit, and also the long-running butt of the “Dear Bill” letters in Private Eye, he always managed to stay out of the firing line, and never contradicted Maggie in public – although I’m sure he did in private. Definitely an unsung hero of the 80’s.

Celebrations

Can I just say that I’m utterly pleased to hear that the Ginger Twat™ lost his court case? In fact, a little celebratory dance was done in the office in recognition of this fact.

Read all about it

Over in the Grauniad, there’s an extremely good column about the Daily Misogynist Mail losing it’s way over recent months. It seems that ever more people are noticing that as a paper, it’s viewpoint is now slightly to the right of Hitler, and getting further out there every day.

It’s interesting for me, because I used to read the rag – out of the tabloids, it used to be one of the better ones, so long as you could distill your way through the hype, bigotry and north-south divide bollocks that seemed to smoke from it’s pages. Of course “best out of the tabloids” is similar to “which serial killer would I prefer to be killed by”, which is why I now rarely buy it at all.

I’ve been migrated

Yes, I’m now on the new blogger malarkey. Not that many differences that I can see so far (although it does look nicer) so just see how it goes.

UPDATED : Further thoughts on new blogger.

• First – it seems OK on multi-edits to me, Jane.
• Second – fuck me, the post reference numbers are twice the length. That’s knackered the layout on Haloscan, for sure.
• Third – why are my italics now coming out in red?
• Fourth – nope, it still hates Opera. Quelle surprise.

Death of an Email addy

Further to a comment a while back, I’d just like to point out that anyone who has my address as lyle@ should now change it to lyle2@ (it seemed simple enough at the time) as anything going to lyle@ is now diving straight into the anti-spam deleted items folder from hell.

Fair warning? I thought so. Anyone who has no idea what the feck I’m talking about probably didn’t have the address in the first place.

Answering Phones

Why is it that as soon as you answer a phone in the office with “Hello, IT department, xxx‘s phone”, that every signle fucking time the first thing the chimpoid lemming clone on the other end asks is “Oh, is xxx there?”?

<mental_voice>No, of course he’s not fucking here, you twat. If he were here, he’d be answering his own fucking bastard phone, instead of leaving me to do it. Do you think he’d bother answering the phone as “xxx‘s phone” when it’s his own phone? No, of course he bloody wouldn’t. Don’t be a spastic all your life – go on, think about something before opening your fat gob and saying the first cretinous thing that occurs to you.</mental_voice>

“I’m sorry, he’s out all day at a meeting. Can I take a message?”

Time Out

No, not a hiatus, not even a brief holiday, just a dollop of “not really in the mood for adding loads of stuff“.

A quick note to self – being knackered enough to end up asleep on the sofa all night is not a good thing. Ibuprofen is my friend today, with my neck feeling the way it now does.

Bastard Fuckwit Bureaucratic Cunts

The saga continues. In my hassles with the professional document losers, I was given the chance to appeal their earlier decision. The response I’d received basically consisted of “It’s not our problem. You’ve got to prove that we received the documents in the first place. Hahahahaha – suck on that, mate” – the appeal I replied to was sent, recorded delivery, and received two days later at Companies House. Sealed, Signed and Delivered.

Today, I got a snotty letter from a solicitors, saying “pay up or else”. Upon calling Companies House – no, go on, you’ll never fucking guess – they’re telling me that the letter never arrived. So it’s got to their mail-room, and then been lost. I can’t wait to see what their excuse will be this time.

Some people just don’t know when to quit

Despite repeated failures over the last five years, the Grauniad is reporting that our favourite fugger, Mohammad Al-Fayed is trying (again) to get a public enquiry into the deaths of his son Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Any Charity You Can Think Of.

Personally, I think Al-Fayed is obsessed, and won’t ever let the entire thing go. No wonder the Home Office seems happy to know he’s leaving the country…

Will his robes be pink?

So far, I’ve avoided commenting on the completely farcical furore over whether the church should appoint a gay man as Bishop of Reading. This is a man who has been in a solid relationship for 27 years, which is more than I can say for most pederastic bastards priests/vicars/whatever.

Considering Rowan Williams’ comments today that the church should be ‘more gay-friendly’, and that Christianity is supposed to be about tolerance, loving thy fellow man, and all that gubbins, surely a gay priest is an ideal move? (Yes, that might be slightly flippant, but bear with me here) The Christian church has been alienating gays for years, telling them that they are sinners, evil, against God’s law, and other far worse insults and inquisitions, while still conveniently managing to avoid the issue about priests who abuse children etc. So really what this acceptance of a gay bishop comes down to is that the church would have to admit that they’re a bunch of hypocritical blinkered bastards – which everyone in the public knows anyway. In many ways I think it’s actually great that the Church has been called on it’s hypocrisy, double-standards, and intolerance towards modern life – and I hope it helps them move forwards, rather than get bogged down in some stupid schism. (Meanwhile, back in reality…)

After all, if someone who is so obviously a Man Of God is also gay, then that can’t fit in with the “fact” that it’s against God’s Law to be gay – can it? Personally, I would be far more likely to visit a church knowing that it’s main speaker had been through that kind of test of faith – I’m interested in people that have that level of conviction in their beliefs. If Canon Jeffrey John were a lesser man, he’d have bowed to his critics, and stepped down from even being nominated for the Bishop-ship (or whatever it’s called) – and I will admit to a more than grudging respect for him that he’s faced this fight head-on, and not even called for the privacy laws to be invoked himself, although others have – perhaps wanting to hide the entire issue under a stone.

UPDATED : I should also point out that Gert has also ranted about this, and she’s done a much better job than me.

Grim

I know I’ve written about this before, but the story of the man who shot his neighbour in a dispute over a hedge has taken another turn.

The man, who was accused of murder, has now hanged himself in jail. So – two lives lost over a poxy garden hedge. Was it worth it?

And I thought BT were bad…

In the same vein as the posting below, here’s one for everyone who’s ever cursed BT, NTL, Telewest, or any of the other UK phone providers. Over in Bangladesh, it took one man 27 years to get a phone line installed.

Personally, I’m amazed BT hasn’t come up with the “we’ll be more efficient if you bribe us” policy yet – maybe they will after this story. I’m sure it’ll be wrapped in some legalese mumbo-jumbo – they’ll call it an “express installation charge” or somesuch, but I predict it’ll be tried.

Ah, sweet irony

Personally, I think there are few things funnier than irony, and the story of the politician caught speeding by the camera he bought for the local police force is funnier than most.

Warped, but still somehow pure comedy.

Similarities

It’s been one of those days. And on those days I end up watching garbage TV like BBC’s “Spooks“. In fairness, it’s not too bad – complete garbage, but at least it’s fairly well constructed garbage. However, while they’re playing at being lawyers etc., Joe Bobblehat here notices that they’re using the exact same rooftop as Trust did late last year.

Always nice to see the BBC saving some money from the licence fee for once.

Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on

I’d never thought about this before, but the BBC has a piece on a “pet-fostering” service where people can put their pets in order for them to be fostered out to other people. I think it’s a great idea, particularly as (according to the article) one of the things that keeps people in situations of domestic violence is a concern about what’ll happen to their pets.

As a nation, we do tend to be fairly barmy about pets, and in some ways this story illustrates that perfectly. That someone who is getting assaulted by their partner is prepared to put up with that because if they leave, the pet will receive the same treatment is slightly barmy, but understandable. Lots of shelters won’t accept animals, so Paws for Kids (a bloody horrible name, but who am I to complain?) helps by taking the pet in for a while, allowing the owner to get themselves out of the violent situation, get sorted out, and then take their pet back.

Regardless of whether it’s completely mad to have this attitude towards our pets, my personal feelings are that if this service helps even one person to get out of a situation involving domestic violence, then it’s a bloody good thing. And it seems like they’re having more than the occasional success story. Fair play to them.

Do you want a Flake with that?

I just couldn’t resist the title, considering the story of the great ice-cream van hijack in Sussex.

Although I must admit that sometimes the idea of stopping the bloody chimes at gunpoint seems like a good idea.

Now that’s more like it

A while back, the UK Government assessed that 2 out of 3 people were in favour of the UK Identity Entitlement Card – but the problem was that no-one believed the figures. So the Government checked them.

Lo and behold, the re-assessed figures are completely different and now 5 out of 7 people are against the idea of a card. not really a surprise, but quite amusing all the same.

Of course, if the programme still goes ahead, it won’t be the first time that the Government has completely ignored the wishes of the public, and it won’t be the last. But it’ll almost certainly be a cock-up.

Oh Christ, it’s started

I promise to not say much more about it, but fuck me dead, is it that time of the year already? Bloody Wimbledon. Two weeks (well, actually about a week to ten days) of Tim Henman this, Tim Henman that – he’s the new hope for UK tennis. And he’ll go out in the quarter-finals. As always.

I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than watch Wimbledon. Tennis is, for me, second only to football in sheer tedium. One year I’ll get my timing right, and sod off to Outer Mongolia or somewhere for the two weeks of Wimble-fucking-don, and with luck not hear a word about it.

But this year I didn’t get the timing right. (Big Shock) So there’s a choice of Big Brother’s new African chum, keffing Wimbledon, drecky soaps, or films from the 40’s. Not often I say it, but thank god I’m at work. The evening’s won’t be much better, but at that point I’ve got stuff on TiVo, and DVDs of Donnie Darko, Face/Off, Dark City, and Animatrix, plus the aforementioned Harry Potter. (Which I’m a third through already – sad but true)

Hopefully that little lot will get me through…

Shows how much I cared

I got a semi-spam today – via bastard Friends Reunited, of all things. Turns out that the old boy network from my secondary school has it’s own website – unsurprisingly, it’s fairly shoddy, but such things happen.

The spam-ish was about signing up with the feckers so I could be informed of school reunions. Frankly, the only reason I’d want to be notified is so I knew when to make certain I was nowhere near my hometown. In my own opinion, the cretin who came up with the phrase “schooldays are the best days of your life” either died at 15, or was a complete fucking retard – I hated school with a passion, and would only revisit it to see it being demolished.

Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be a regular visitor at that site…

Serious Car

I think this is a first for d4d, but I’ve been dribbling over a car from BBC’s Top gear tonight. I’ve always been a fan of TVR cars, but I think that the Koenigsegg has it beaten as “car to dream of owning”.

Of course, the insurance would be crippling, and it would never come out of second gear in the UK, but wow, it looks like a fun bit of gear. Just a pity that it retails for about £350,000.

No added sugar

I’ve just seen an advert on TV for Sunny Delight. They’re bollocksing on about how great Sunny Delight is, because it’s got “No added sugar”. Um – this is the same Sunny Delight that is at least 10% sugar? Or does “No Added Sugar” really mean “Well we haven’t added any more sugar over the 10% that was already in there”?

I thought there were some laws about truth in advertising – but I’m sure plugging Sunny Delight as the healthy alternative to other drinks is bollocks of the highest order. I wonder how long the advert will stay on?

Phoenix my book again, I’ll kill ‘im

Much to the imminent disdain of Green Fairy, yes, I did get the new Harry Potter book yesterday. I haven’t read it yet – and no, I didn’t queue at midnight for the thing. It got delivered at 8 o’clock in the morning, which was pretty impressive.

And no, I won’t say who pegs it. I know (my normal bad habit of reading the last chapter first to find this kind of thing out), but I won’t keff it for everyone.

Stigmata

I’d seen Stigmata at the cinema, and remembered it mainly for the sound-effects, to be honest. That might sound weird, until you realise that the particular sound effect related to crucifixion, the sound of the impact of hammers on the nails/spikes used. And it was shudder-inducing.

Watching it on TV tonight reminded me that it’s a bloody good film too – and the sound effects are still vomit-inducing. Not quite horror, not quite thriller – it straddles a lot of fences, and I think I might even have to get it on DVD…

Choices

Something Green Fairy was saying this week (look at her 17th June posting – permalinks appear to be keffed) reminded me of stuff I’ve been thinking about for a while – namely Wills, Living Wills, and all of that associated garbage. Not the most cheerful of subjects, particularly for a Saturday night, but there we go. At least I’m not cliched.

There’s a lot of stuff around it all too – mainly to do with relying on other people, wondering whether they’d go through with what I want, whether they could handle executing a living will, all kinds of stuff. Is it fair to expect someone else to be able to say “He doesn’t want to live in this state” and to allow death to happen? Is it fair to want them to fulfil the terms of the will, even if they personally disagree with the terms?

Hardly a shock

It looks like the HIV virus has now begun to develop a drug-resistance. Considering how it’s been attacked so aggresively in the last ten years, it’s not exactly a surprise. Viruses (virii?) mutate, they develop resistance to the treatments, and develop themselves. It’s a survival situation – if it’s being killed off, it’ll evolve so that the main source of mortality becomes less effective.

TB’s done it, Staphylococcus has done it, HIV is doing it. The human race never seems to learn that Mother Nature is far more powerful – the more we fight, the more she makes us work for it.

Fling me to the moon

via SlashDot, there’s a piece about using a ‘slingshot’ to catch spacecraft and hurl them up to higher altitudes, or even give them a boost on interplanetary flight. It’s not a new idea, more a re-birth of one that’s been around for a while. But in connection with all the other spaceflight stuff going on at the moment ( tourist seats on Soyuz spacecraft, the X Prize, and many others ) it looks like we could be coming up to a new decade of space exploration.

Flexible computing

Over at New Scientist, there’s an interesting piece on the future of PDA-style computers – when they’re too small to be typed on, how do we use them?

The answer may be in making them slightly flexible, so that gently bending them makes them work. Of course, you then couldn’t keep them in your trouser pocket, or anywhere else where flexing is part of the natural movement. All the same, it’s an interesting concept.

Stressless

The BBC has a piece on how to make your office stress-free. Avoiding standard comments like “resign” would probably be tactful.

For myself, I tend to find that stress is lowered by knowing that I’m only going to be there for a finite time. It’s one of the best things about doing contract-based work. Even if I absolutely loathe someone, the thought process of “ah, but six months down the line I’ll be somewhere else, and you’ll still be here” is a real life-saver. Without it, I’d probably be locked up by now.

People keep telling me I should “get a proper job” – by which it seems they mean “get a job in an office you’re not keen on, with people who bore you comatose, in a lifestyle where you know what every day’s conversation will be like before you even go in through the door”. Not for me at all. I’ve done it, given it all a fair crack of the whip, and in honesty, I fucking hate it. So for the forseeable future I’ll stick with doing my own thing, getting paid for it.

Yes, it has rough periods too, where work isn’t easily available. My finances aren’t the best, because it’s completely swings and roundabouts. Because I’m contracting, I don’t get proper holiday pay or sick pay (except what I pay myself) and my pension scheme is – well, let’s be honest – completely non-existent at the moment. But in contrast, I’m able to do a job I still love doing (regardless of shonky days/weeks where it all goes to pot) and move on when people piss me off. Or even just work from home, fitting in with my own hours and body-clock.

Now that’s what I call stress-free, or as close to it as possible.

Croc in Cannock

Adding to all the regular silly-season stories about big cats on Bodmin Moor, Harry Potter hysteria, and the annual shite about Nessie, we can now add the crocodile in the lake in Cannock, Staffordshire.

Mind you, it’s a brave crocodile to hang around in Cannock. My bet is that by the end of the week, the inhabitants will be wearing crocodile-skin shoes, and eating crocodile steaks in the local J D Weatherspoons.

Call that a present?

It’s not often I feel sorry for the Royal Family, or any member thereof, but to hear that Prince William was going on a trip to Wales on his birthday invoked the sympathy gene.

Not just Wales – which can be pleasant, when not surrounded by the bloody Welsh – but Anglesey. For a food fair. (Well, at least that won’t take long) And then off down to shitpit of the Western World scenic Newport.

Someone must really hate William.

I love IE, no really, I do

<geek mode>OK, my apologies to both Green Fairy and Jann, they were right, I was wrong. Turns out, IE6 handles some things in CSS completely differently to the method IE5.5 (and in fact every other browser I tried it on) uses.

The bar on the left was annoying me, so I made it a fixed CSS box – makes it nice, the menu stays put while the text scrolls down. Well, it does in everything except IE6. IE6 decides it doesn’t like it, and wallop, the entire screen goes to bollocks.

OK, I’ll be nice(ish) here. This link will let anyone who’s interested have a look at the CSS file I’m using. If you can come up with suggestions for making it cross-browser, with a nice fixed navigation on the left – let me know. Otherwise, I’m going to leave it in the way it is now, so it works in all browsers again, but looks shitter when a long page is scrolled downwards. (UPDATED : right, I’ve norked about a bit more, playing primarily with background colours/colors etc., and in general it looks better. Except on longer pages, where I’ve now also got bastard black on the right hand side under the blog-roll. Maybe I should just add more shit to that side. *Grin*)
</geek mode>

Oh, just get on with it

Jesus Christ, I may be the only male in the country to say this, but I wish David Beckham would just fuck off now. I don’t care that he’s going to some other football team, I don’t believe he’s worth £25m, and I don’t believe he’s worth the fucking media hype either.

Now just piss off to Spain.

The Joy of Tech

Unbelievable as it may seem, it’s just taken my direct boss all day to send me an email confirming the cost code for the work I’m doing.

Eight hours. To send an email. I’m impressed. Honest.

CSS

Yes, as the observant amongst you will notice, the (minor in appearance) redesign has happened. Well, for this page anyway. I’ll be waddling through the site over the next week or so, converting all and sundry to the CSS template, so bear with me. But I must say, I like it.

Yes, there’s still some tweaking to do on it too – I don’t know, for instance, why the left hand bar is only black (as it’s supposed to be) til about halfway down the page. Then it goes back to Yellow. Or at least it does in Opera. And IE appears to did have an issue (subsequently fixed) with inheriting the font’s weight on subsequent paragraphs. Then again, IE’s a sack of shit.

Now – do I lose the yellow? *Grin*

Job Adverts

I must admit, now that the Anne Summers chain has won it’s case to be able to advertise it’s vacancies in Job Centres, I’d almost like to see how they’re advertised. In fact, if Job Centres weren’t the most soul-less demoralising shit-pits, I’d possibly go in just for a laugh.

However, I bet they won’t advertise “various positions throughout our range of shops“, or “people needed to fill a gap in the market“. Which is a pity.

Personally, I’ve always wondered how places like Anne Summers, and their more “adult” brethren advertise for people to work in them. You never see the ads in the papers or whatever : “Wanted : Someone to deal with dirty macs, dodgy videos, flashers, giggling schoolboys, and a range of perversions. Unshockable nature a must. Knowledge of lubricants and experience of cleaning dildos is prefereable, but not essential“

Rise and Shine

Ah, what a joyous start to the day. Root-canal work and fillings before nine in the morning, followed by being comprehensively rained on. It’s what I live for.

Stand and Deliver

On a TV theme again, I’ve kept on meaning to mention BBC2’s Your Money or Your Life with Alvin Hall. He’s a very good motivational speaker, and a financial “guru” – each of the programmes I’ve seen has included a neat way of illustrating people’s debt. In fact, it’s an all-round interesting programme, and worth watching if you’ve a spare half-hour or so.

One of those days

You know those days where staying in bed isn’t just an option, it’s the only sensible option? Today’s been one of those days.

It started off with managing to slash my face with the razor while shaving. Not just a little cut, but the full length of the blade. Don’t ask how, I’ve no bloody idea.

Half the morning was then rapidly fucking wasted productively occupied with a meeting – now there’s a shocker. I swear, local authorities could do so much more if they had some decisive people working for them, instead of the chuffheads who insist on either a) doing everything by committee, and/or b) making sure that if it all goes wrong, they’re not to blame. Fucking time-wasting indecisive responsibility-dodging card punchers, the lot of ’em.

Then the joys of a visit to the dentist. Except they’ve got problems today, so I got precisely half the work done I needed to. And now the other half is being done tomorrow morning at 8.30, before another full day of work. Oh, I can’t wait. I then got whacked with the bill for the dental stuff as well – and frankly that’ll have to wait ’til Friday.

I’m waiting to see what else happens today. It started off so well, with the insurance documents, and just went downhill at a pace equivalent to Franz Klammer. But I’m not holding out much hope of it improving.

30-second Ice Cream

Over in Popular Science, a man makes perfect ice-cream. His secret ingredient? Liquid Nitrogen

Always a fun way to end a dinner-party. *Grin*

That’s the way to do it

Yesterday, I rang a recommended company about the proper business insurance I need, rather than the sack of shit I got sold by RBS. They said they’d get the paperwork out to me ASAP. It arrived this morning.

Sometimes I begin to believe I must be being unreasonable in expecting things to run smoothly, to see documents arrive on-time, be the correct documents, and generally for everything to work the way it should. It seems like the simple smooth running of things is an insurmountable problem for the great majority of companies. Then along comes something like this, and my faith goes a little way towards being restored.

I suspect it’ll take longer for RBS to cancel the existing insurance than it will for this new lot to get a new policy started and working.

Gym part II

“Ouch” was spot on. I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow. But it’s a good start, and I’m happy with how it went. And after the first one, it only gets easier.

Ketchup in Kilburn

Allegedly, people in Kilburn eat around 33% more ketchup (4,400g, to be precise, according to the report. That’s ten pounds of ketchup a year!) than anywehre else in the UK. Now, they even have a shop, stocked entirely with ketchup.10,000 bottles of the stuff.

It’s only an experiment, and the proprietor will see how sales are going by the weekend. Bizarre, but true.

Overheard

“Are you vegetarian then?“

“No, I just don’t eat meat“

“Well do you eat chicken then?“

Gym

Tonight will be my first proper workout in a gym for just over a year. I’m looking forward to it – and also to sorting out some of the issues raised by the health check etc from Saturday.

However, I suspect that by the time I get home, my main word for the rest of the evening will be “Ouch“.

Lord of the Rings – The Server Farm

Via Slashdot, the studio that’s doing the computer generated rendering of the final instalment of Lord of the Rings has just received delivery of another 588 servers, all of them with 2.8Ghz chips. This is now the world’s largest collection of Intel based linked machines, and it’s all for the CGI in a film. Sounds good to me.

I wonder what they’ll be doing with all that gubbins once the film’s completed?

Unknown Names

Over on Fortune, there’s a feature about the two people who wrote QNX, ‘a crash-proof operating system’. It’s an interesting little read, about people I hadn’t heard of, who created an OS I’ve only vaguely heard of. All the same, it’s a very positive story, and worth the read.

Neighbours and Border Disputes

Reading this story in the Guardian just amazes me. Basically, a man shoots his neighbour after a two-year dispute over a hedge, for fuck’s sake. How petty can we get?

More importantly, can you think of a pettier reason to kill someone? Because of a frigging garden hedge. I despair.

Redesign in action

Over the next month or two, there are going to be some changes to d4d. I’m working on a semi-minor redesign (well, it’s coming up for d4d’s first birthday, so I might as well give it a present) taking the entire thing to a CSS design. Which is fun, in a geeky way. In fact, it’s also a complete nightmare – stripping out all the tables, maintaining the basics of the “design”, and all that gubbins.

The next bit will be moving from Easyspace to 34sp (which’ll hopefully stop Pat nagging me advertising their service in my comments boxes too *Grin*) – then I can re-do a couple of bits with PHP, and sort out things like comments systems, and possibly moving to Moveable Type. It’s going to be busy.

Gym

Not quite as depressing as it could’ve been – blood pressure of 130 over 85, respectable heart-rate (the instructor didn’t tell me exactly), and – depressingly – a BMI of 34. Still, that’ll soon be on the way down.

So, we’ve sorted out the exercise routine, trying out some of the machines, getting some proper training, My leg muscles in particular are slightly sore, but that’ll disppear before long.

It’s not over yet

Ah joy. My earlier optimism was obviously very mis-placed.

OK, I admit, some of it is my own fault – I didn’t read the paperwork properly. To operate legally in the UK, a limited company has to have insurance – liability insurance, employer’s insurance, and (ideally) professional indemnity insurance. Now, I work in IT – and god only knows why I ever trusted RBS to sort out the insurance, but I did – and when I finally read through the reams of gubbins that came with the insurance policy, Particularly the “bits that we don’t cover” part.

Yes, in a piece of true professionalism, RBS have managed to sell me professional liability insurance that doesn’t cover IT work, computers, programs, or information. And they can’t sell me any, because their underwriters don’t cover such a policy.

So I’ve got to shop around (again) for insurance, and fight the useless cunts to get back the money I’ve spent on an insurance policy that was useless, and that they knew was useless from day one.

Google Fun

Now, I know I’m probably the last person on the planet to know this (Sometimes I amaze myself with how little I look deeper into sites etc.) but – did you know you can make Google do all of it’s message in “Elmer Fudd” style? Hahahahahahahahahaha.

No, not through the Dialectiser, but within the actual Google preferences. Look in the drop-down list of languages, where you can tell Google how you want the messages to appear. In there there’s Elmer Fudd, Bork (Swedish Chef from the Muppets), Hacker, and several others. Select the language, save the preferences. Lo and behold, Google has been Elmerised. It’s not perfect, but it’s still fun. And yes, I’m a geek.

Spam 2

As a result of a recent explosion of spam coming to my main email address from here, anyone who has lyle@destruction-for-dummies.co.uk in their address books for me should be aware that the address is soon going to the great black hole in the email server. However, anything else at the same address will still get through to me.

Spam

Yes, Sarah Williams, I’m sure you visited my site and thought I wasn’t linked to enough search engines. Whoopee-Doo. But frankly, because of the six spams you sent to different domain names I own, there’s no fucking way I’d use your service, even if I was interested. And while I’m sure that www.trafficmagnet.com is a wonderful idea, so far as I’m concerned it’s a sack of shit that I wouldn’t touch with someone else’s weed-strewn bargepole.

Hardly a shock

Yet another study reveals that ‘young people’ prefer to send text messages rather than talking to people/friends. Texting (Lord, I h8 th@ word *Grin*) is now a ubiquitous activity – it’s hard to walk down the street without seeing someone sending a message. Or (as this morning) being walked into by some fucktard who’s concentrating more on how to type the message than they are on where they’re going.

In the same vein, over in Japan there’s now a “keyboard” that can be operated in much the same way (please note, the page is in Japanese, but a picture is worth a thousand words pictograms) and a US company has released a similar device for one-handed typing *insert wanking joke here*.

Still not enough to make me live there

Apparently, Los Angeles now has it’s own Top level Domain (TLD) as of today. It’s the first city to have it’s own TLD – so you can register a site at www.la. I wonder how many film studios etc. will end up as (for example) www.miramax.la ?

Personally, I already like the idea of domain names like tortil.la, cocaco.la and pepsico.la. But hey, what would I know?

Hey, buddy, can you spare a fiver

Pardon the pun, but it looks like the Congestion Charging scheme in London is in a jam of it’s own – the scheme has been so successful in stopping cars from going into Central London that it’s now looking like it’ll be £65million in the hole by the end of the year.

Impressive.

Dinner Party Inspectors

Did anybody else see Channel 4’s The Dinner Party Inspectors this week? I must admit, I thought it was hilarious.

Two fairly upper-class grand dames watching – and bitching about – other people’s dinner parties. In the first one, the party itself was fairly innocuous, just some grotty manners and intra-diner sniping. But it was still fun to watch. Not necessarily as instantly watchable as the now-infamous “Wife Swap”, but still in a similar vein of fish-out-of-water scenarios.

The final line of this first programme though made sure I’ll watch it again. “Next time, dear, separate your female guests more – one at one end of the table, the other the week after.“

Explanation

Well, according to Easyspace, d4d was having problems yesterday and today “because of problems while they upgraded the server that holds d4d (and others)“. I don’t find it reassuring that they obviously dont have things like back-up servers and so on.

Time to start looking (again) at moving hosting services, I think.

Mission:Unreachable

Amazingly, President Blair is one of the few world leaders without their own email address. Considering all the gubbins about e-government and so on, isn’t it nice to know that he’s in the same technological league as Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe.

Because of course, that’s the kind of company he wants to be seen to be keeping.

Union Joke

According to the BBC, there’s a move to redesign the Union Jack. In theory, I think the idea of adding black to the flag “to reflect the multiracial nature of Britain” isn’t a bad idea – but of course I can already see that other “minorities” would then want to be represented as well. Which is, of course, a recipe for disaster.

UPDATED : Following on from the comments on this one, I think that if a flag were to represent our “national identity” (as in how we’re seen by other nations) then perhaps a background of the US Stars and Stripes with a white flag in front of it, covered in puke to display our image in the Balearic islands, and anywhere else the England football supporters have been. Have I forgotten anything relevant?

Status Quo

Ah – within twelve hours of working for the local authority, I’m already in meetings all day. I love government, don’t you?

Success

Amazingly, even running on less than 25% of my normal IQ, I got the contract. So it looks like I’m now doing websites for local government for the next six months, so long as everything goes OK. Woo Hoo.

And I’ve also signed myself up with a gym/health club, which will be interesting. I’m booked in for a health check on Saturday, where they’ll tell me all nasty things like my Body Mass Index (I’m reckoning it’s about 33% fat, but we’ll see) and all that garbage. And yes, in a fit of shameless behaviour, I’ll put the results on the blog. Oh Jesus, what am I letting myself in for?

Weirdness

From the look of it today, if you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones. I don’t know quite what’s going on with the site – I assume it’s the hosting service playing silly buggers, but I really don’t know.

Hopefully, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. In the meantime, apologies for stuff that’s completely outside my control.

Thanks

Dear Body Clock : I’d just like to say thank you for a major dose of insomnia, at the best possible time. As I’m doing a “trial day” for one of the local authorities, proving I can do what I say I can with websites and so on, having a brain that works and is capable of conscious thought is definitely a good thing. Therefore, I’d just like to say thanks for not letting me sleep at all last night, so now I’m more likely to be on auto-pilot than on Planet Efficient.

Luckily, it’s a well known fact that I can do this sort of stuff in my sleep – but it would have been nice if I didn’t have the chance probability of displaying that on a day that will win or lose the contract for me.

Sincerely

Lyle.

Huntley and the pills

There’s something very very dodgy about the story surrounding Ian Huntley’s suicide bid today. Supposedly, this man who has been on “suicide watch”, being checked every 15 minutes and subject to random room searches, has managed to accrue 30 days worth of anti-depressants in order to take them all at once.

Obviously, HM Prison Service say they will beconducting an urgent review into what happened. I wonder if it was a “Prison Officer of Mercy” type affair?

A Finale to the banking fiasco?

Finally, I’ve been contacted by the Internet Banking department of the bank that likes to say “It’s not our problem, sir”. It’s only taken two months, and three copies of the same form. Now all I have to do is wait to see whether they’ve managed to get the authorisation codes right.

But yes, it looks like I may have to find something else to piss and moan about before long. What a trauma that’ll be.

Nominet – again

Just a quick additional – looking at Nominet‘s site, and considering that they’re the registrar for UK domains, wouldn’t one have thought it might be an idea to also nobble nominet.co.uk and probably nominet.com ? Hmm, I think I might have to obtain myself a nominet domain…

Today’s Mail

In today’s post came 18 – count ’em, 18! – certificates of registration for domain names etc. that I have with Nominet. Each one contained a form to confirm that I’m the owner of the domain name.

Now, to me this seems pointless in just so many ways. If, for example, I weren’t the legal owner of the domain names, wouldn’t it be more likely that I’d just tick the “yes these are the correct details” boxes, and send them back, thus causing endless hassle at some further point? Also, wouldn’t it be easier to list the domain names by registered address, so you only got one form, one envelope, listing all of them, rather than 18 fucking forms?

The ultimate piss-take though is that each of these forms comes with a pre-addressed envelope to send it back in – but you’ve got to pay the postage. I think I’ll put all the forms in one, or at most two, envelopes, let them sort it out at the other end.

Entitlement ID Cards

Apparently, the poor misguided soul that is David Blunkett firmly believes that the UK public will support use of an ID card. Personally, I’m unconvinced – first of all, you’ve got to find something to persuade the Daily Mail readers that ID cards are a good thing. There’s no way the Mail won’t sit there and batter on about it being an invasion of privacy, and so on.

And then you’ve got to persuade Joe Public. Some will go for it – hell, some of them will stick their heads into plate-glass windows if you tell them it’ll be good for them – but I think most people won’t. There’s still all too much of a feeling of Big Brother (as in 1984, not the shonky Channel Four series) for most of the populace to like the idea of ID cards.

Hiatus Unintentionale

Blogger has been tits-up all day, hence no other updates, except for the flowers. There’ll be more in a bit, when I’ve re-tracked-down the bits I was going to say about earlier.

Flowers too

Also, during the last two blindingly sunny days, two of the lilies I’ve been growing have bloomed. So of course photos were required – and have been placed on the plants photo page. I’ve never managed to get lilies to flower before, so I’m bizarrely pleased about having managed it this time. I know, it’s hardly newsworthy, but what the hell, it’s my site, and I’ll say what I want. *Grin*.

Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon

It’s been a lazy day, thankfully. The last few weeks (and weekends in particular) have left me feeling fairly drained, so it’s been really good today to be able to just go out and sit in the sun by the canal, and finish John Connolly’s “White Road“. Very relaxing, even with the bunch of pissheads slightly further down the canal-side. But all things considered, it’s been a fine day, and one where doing chuff all really doesn’t seem like that bad an idea. *Grin*

Only in local government

I’ve just been given a potential contract for the next six months working for one of the local councils, twatting about working with their website, and building a Content Management System. In the contract, it says I’ve got to work a 7.20 hour working day, leading to a 36.40hour working week.

Now, I’m assuming they mean 7hours 20 minutes – but that’s not the same as a 7.2hour day. Needless to say, I don’t think it’d be approved by the Campaign for Plain English.

A political gesture

Nice to see John Prescott living down up to his nature, and making a V-sign at journalists in Downing Street. I’m sure they all responded with the official sign-language denoting a politician. (A loosely clenched fist waved gently side to side).

Oddly enough, the same gesture is also used to denote bank managers, estate agents, lawyers, and football team managers.

What about the femail ones?

The Royal Snail has announced that it will be phasing out the use of overnight mail trains after 170 years of using them. (And somewhere there’s still a letter from the first train – still undelivered, of course) Quite how they can say they want to stop using them “because of poor reliability” without getting flattened by thunderbolts is beyond me. A more perfect illustration of “pot calling the kettle black” you couldn’t wish to see.

Paperwork

It’s obviously one of those days where paperwork runs rife. As such, I’ve been stalking it, tracking it down, and completing it with a sharpened ballpoint pen. So far today that’s included :

• the Quarterly VAT return
• An application for a check by the Criminal Records Bureau
• various odds and sods for Companies House
• other odds and sods for Inland Revenue
• Contents insurance renewal stuff

And that’s it. Well, for now, anyway.

Whatever happened to the bastards?

Well, Day of the Bastard is obviously complete. My mind’s back on a more sane trip today. So far, anyway.

Day of the Bastard

Yes, for some reason every post today has had the word “bastard” in the title. I have no idea why – it just seemed like a theme at the time.

Daft bastard

According to the Sun’s website (I got it forwarded by a friend, honest) Jarvis Cocker is now calling himself Darren Spooner, and fronting his new band, Relaxed Muscle. Not quite as good a name as “Bigfoot and the Groincrushers” ( © Scaryduck) but all the same…

Cultured Scouse Bastards?

While I don’t necessarily think they entirely deserved it, I’m not surprised that Liverpool was awarded the 2008 European Capital of Culture.

There was no way that Oxford could have coped with the influx of extra people – it has enough problems with the people it gets now, and the traffic/transport system isn’t looking like it’ll improve anytime soon. I don’t know enough about Newcastle/Gateshead to make a judgement – but I’m pretty sure they’ll keep on going for bids in other years. Birmingham wasn’t really in with a chance just yet – I’m hard put to think of real culture around the Brummies anyway (*cue comments protesting my thoughts on that one*) other than Willie the Shake, and he was more Stratford. Bristol? Well, it was in with a chance, but it’s still got a long way to go when it comes to long-standing culture. Fair enough, they’ve got Massive Attack and many others, but there’s still a way to go. And Cardiff? Supposedly it’s had a renaissance over the last four or five years, but again, I’m stumped to think of real culture from there, Manic Street Sweepers notwithstanding.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts on it. Other comments can be found here. But they’re still Scouse bastards, at the end of the day. *Grin*

National Plaster of Paris Shortage. Bastard

I wouldn’t have fancied being the poor sod who had to deal with Barry Manilow’s broken nose – well, not unless you got paid by the time it took.

Nagging bastard *Grin*

Over on Troubled Diva, Mike has named and shamed some UK bloggers who weren’t listed on weblogs.co.uk (or somewhere similar). I was sure I’d done this once, and it appears to have not worked, so I’ve done it again.

And it’s all self-inflicted if you now get two notifications. So there.

Useless bastards

On a tangent, just how fucking long does it take an accounts department to decide that an invoice has been filled in incorrectly? You wouldn’t have thought it would take long, would you? Particularly when the “essential” information (their words, not mine) is the address of the company that the invoice was done for. But no, two weeks down the line, and the only reason I find out about this “error” is when I ring them to find out why the hell they haven’t paid me yet. Then they find the time to tell me what the problem is. Two weeks. Cunts. Absolute fucking cunts.

Why did no-one tell me that 2003 is obviously the year of the pedantic fuckwit bureaucrat? I’ve had enough of ’em, and we’re not even halfway through the year. If I’d known it was Chinese Year of the Twat, I’d have gone into hibernation ’til 2004.

</rant>

Robbing bastards

Yet again, I’ve had to visit the bank that dare not whisper it’s name. Various reasons, but the main one comes down to this :

• I’m overdrawn – within my agreed limit, but it’s close
• I get charged £20 for going over the agreed limit
• I got charged for being over the overdraft limit.
• This charge put me over the agreed limit
• I’m now getting charged again for going over the limit – because of the charge that the bank took out of the account with no warning.

So can someone explain the logic of being charged on a bank’s charge?

Travelling

I swear, only my parents get this kind of luck. They were going off to France today, going by ferry (I think) – so of course it’s the day that there’s a strike in France. They’ve ended up travelling twelve hours later, and going via the Channel Tunnel instead. I hope the rest of the break goes more smoothly for them.

Enquiries

The Guardian has a story about the UK Government continuing to reject calls for an inquiry into whether the intelligence reports were bollocks (to paraphrase it slightly) – which seems almost to negate the need for the investigation. So far as I can see, if the reports had been accurate/true, then the government would be saying “Yup, no worries, investigate away“. The fact they’re saying “there’s no need for an investigation” stinks of avoidance, denial, incipient cover-up, and virtually admitting that the “reports” were all a load of old shite.

Sometimes it seems to me that the current Labour government is doing absolutely everything in it’s power to ensure it’s ousted in the next General Election. I wonder what it is they’re trying to run away from?

Evanescence

In a weird set of coincidences in the last week, the band Evanescence have come to my attention. I’ve ended up with a copy of the album, along with some EP stuff, and it’s really pretty impressive. I don’t think my neighbours like it – but then, I’m only playing it during daylight hours, so it’s kind of tough – and it beats the everloving crap out of shite like “Hot in Herrre” and all the other rap-based garbage I get inflicted on me most of the time.

Quid pro quo. *Grin*

Political Brother

The BBC has a piece on what politicians can learn from Big Brother. (Personally, I thought the Government’s Big Brother programme, involving installing CCTV on every street corner in the country – but no, this is about the Channel 4 programme of the same name.) Supposedly they could learn more about how the public perceives them (other than as the only industry estate agents can look down on) from the way the media and public reacts to events on Big Brother. Which sounds like a complete load of bobbins, but then I’m not in PR, so what would I know?

However, it did give me a vision of a future where we had “Big Brother – The Election” – the leaders of the major parties go into a secluded House with a limited budget, and discuss their relative policies and politics. Then the people phone in their votes for the party they like the most. Worryingly, it’s actually likely to be a way of attracting more of the electorate (particularly those precious 18-30 votes, the apathetic ones who can’t be arsed to get to a polling station) than the current methods.

Then again, maybe we can just return to ancient rome, and have a Gladiatorial Circus as an election method. Survivial of the fittest, and all that.

The Wedding

Unaccustomed as I am to attending these ceremonies, I still find that I actually enjoy attending them. I know it’s a paraphrasing of a line from another film – most of which I hate, but I find I’m completely in awe of people who make a commitment on this level, to see the people I care about being this happy. To know that (regardless of divorce and so on) these people have decided that they want to be with each other, and with no-one else, for the rest of their lives, I honestly wonder if I could ever see myself doing the same thing.

The wedding was held in Westbury-Sub-Mendip, (a small picturesque Somerset village.) in the church of St Lawrence. Very pretty – and again, held on a perfect summer’s day, which always helps immensely. One good thing was the brevity of the service, at just under the hour – and it was a really smooth service. I’ve seen some that were pretty chaotic, or just that went on for too long – this wasn’t one of them.

Even the photographer was fairly swift – although he did have a bloody annoying habit of standing in the way of everyone else who was wanting to take photos. There were several comments around about what could be done with that flash-gun…

And then on to Chelwood House for the reception.

For fuck’s sake

According to The Grauniad, the J D Wetherspoon pub chain is contemplating banning people for swearing in their pubs. Considering their normal clientele, I reckon that could halve their business in one fell swoop.

And basically, to coin a phrase, for the people who are complaining about people who swear in pubs – if you don’t like it, fuck off.

Wells

Saturday morning dawned amazingly sunny – absolutely great. So we went off and wandered around Wells for the morning. I haven’t been to Wells since I was about six – and yes, it did hit me to realise that that’s now quarter of a century ago. Time and tide, blah blah blah. Anyway.

Because I’m completely disorganised, I left the camera back in the hotel – so there’s no pics of Wells. There will be next time I go there though. It was fantastic – we were wandering around it early enough that most of the true tourists weren’t even out of bed, and that made it a whole lot better. Wandering around the cathedral (one of my more religious days in a long time, what with the wedding in the afternoon as well) was glorious, and so was the rest of the town. Even looking at property prices didn’t induce a heart-attack, although it looks like I’d need a mortgage involving about quarter of a million pounds before I could feasibly live there.

And yes, Pat, the Vicar’s Close was lovely – many thanks for saying about it beforehand. It’s a street that’s been constantly inhabited since the 1200’s – the oldest continually inhabited street in Europe. As soon as yuou walk through the gateway that leads to the street, it’s as though silence descends on the place – you can’t hear traffic noise, or people, nothing. A real dream-place to own a house in.

I freely admit, I love finding places in the UK like Wells – it was completely unexpected that I’d like it as much as I did, and finding new places that I want to re-visit. Wells is definitely on that list.

Travelling and Weddings

I’m away for the weekend – going down to Wells (and no, Pat, I haven’t seen the Vicar’s Close yet – and just why do I keep wanting to call it Vicar’s Passage? Must be the latent choirboy in me *Grin*) to attend the wedding of a close friend of mine.

I haven’t been inside a church (for a ceremony, as opposed to the sightseeing of May 10th) for at least three years now. I expect there will be thunderbolts and all sorts upon my walking through the doors. Still, it’ll make for an interesting day. *Grin*

Updates may happen during the weekend, but don’t hold your breath. Pictures may follow on Sunday/Monday when I return.

Have a good weekend – it’s looking sunny and fun for all…

Or are you just pleased to see me?

From a convoluted trail via Mike, Scary duck and Green Fairy, there are just SO many captions that can be added to this picture. Words fail me. Laughter, however, was alive and kicking.

Royal Snail

I can’t honestly say it’s a surprise to hear that Royal Mail has failed to achieve 80% of it’s standards for first class mail being delivered the next day. In fact, I’m more surprised that it’s only 1million first class letters per day that don’t get delivered on time.

Then again, I’m still waiting for phone calls from that certain bank that I was promised two weeks ago. Useless fuckers.

Liverpool

I knew there was something I’d forgotten to do this week – and it turned out that what I’d forgotten was to get the latest photos off the digital camera. Typical – brains of a doughnut sometimes.

Anyway – they’re from the work I was doing in Liverpool last week. Nothing special – but did you know that Liverpool had an underground train system? I know I didn’t. The other pics are available on their own page within the photos section.

Actually, even though I didn’t get to see much of the place, it was still interesting, being able to go inside the buildings that most people only see from the outside, that kind of thing. And yes, it’s definitely somewhere I’m going to visit and explore a bit more – never a bad thing. Just don’t mention the accent, or the fecking Beatles…

Alms for the Needy

Over the years, my knees have always had spates of being really dodgy – not that they’re ever particularly great. Over the last month though, they’ve been horrendously bad on occasion (I mainly blame train and bus seating arrangements that appear to be designed for pixies) and I’ve decided that it’s time to go back to taking capsules of cod-liver oil, accompanied with a dollop of glucosamine. Does anyone else have any ideas on what to do to help strengthen joints that are keffed? (to use the proper medical terminology)

Trains

According to Peter’s comment a couple of posts below I have to stop blethering about trains now. Well, we’ll see. Luckily, I’m not on one for the trip down to Wells this weekend – so my loving readership is spared the “joys” of yet another set of train thoughts/rants.

So there.

Extra Thoughts

Further to the piece last week about memories and thoughts, there’s also now a follow-up piece sat plonked in the thoughts section. Hopefully, it’s a sign that the block has lifted a bit, and there’ll be more soon. Fingers crossed, and again, thanks are due to the people who’ve provided their encouragement and thoughts.

The Matrix Reloaded

Amazingly, it’s taken me almost a week to see this – my excuse is that I was running round like the proverbial, and just didn’t get chance to see it ’til today. But anyway.

I saw The Matrix first just after I’d moved up to Manchester – and thought it was a stunning piece of work. Needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to Reloaded (and part three, Revolutions, when it comes out in November) since I knew it was being made. So obviously it was pretty much a must-see. Some of the critics haven’t been overly impressed with it, so there was a minor query in the back of my mind about it – would it live up to expectations? Or would it just be another sack-of-shit sequel?

Well put it this way – I’m still convinced that the critics generally talk complete bollocks. Yes, there are some pieces of the film that aren’t to my taste (I still find myself wanting to be a schoolboy and retch copiously when screen characters kiss and so on) and in some parts the storyline hangs together by the merest threads. But it hangs together – something that’s not always a requirement in the middle part of a trilogy. Of course, as with the first one the main constituents of the film are the effects and the fight sequences, and they are simply stunning. The scene on the freeway is going to be a film classic for the next 30 years, the way that the car chase in Bullitt has been the acid test for all car chase scenes.

A lot of the film’s hype has centred around the effects, and the fact that people will be back to saying “How the hell did they do that?” – and for once it’s true. The changes between actors and computer-generated is pretty much seamless – while watching it, it’s difficult to discern between the two, other than the simple knowledge that some of the sequences aren’t humanly possible, that some of the shots are impossible to achieve with anything other than a “virtual” camera. The fight scenes and soundtrack are top-notch too – it’s definitely worth seeing. (just avoid the snogs – they’re vile *Grin*)

One final point – if you do go and see it, do so at the biggest and best screen in the area. It’s worth it.

More train thoughts

Maybe Virgin Trains have a real problem with their train toilets – the exact same situation arose as when I was travelling down to Reading. Six coach train, one working toilet.

I’d say it’s taking the piss – but of course it’s not even taking that.

Graffiti

Travelling from Birmingham to Manchester by train, at one point just outside Smethwick (a suburb of Birmingham/Wolverhampton, I think), the traintrack runs past a canal, over which there are several bridges. On one of these, with no decoration, no extra stle, the words “Tojo the Dwarf” are daubed.

And I want to know who wrote it – I’m assuming it wasn’t Tojo himself, as the bridge is at least 12 foot off the ground. And if it wasn’t Tojo, then who the hell wrote it – and more importantly, why?

Jehovah’s

There was a knock on the door this morning – and it turned out to be another coven of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’m normally fairly civil to them – I wouldn’t fancy facing the sheer amount of abuse and rudeness they face, so fair play to them. All the same, I swear the sods have fitted me with some kind of tracking device. I get visited about once a month on average at home – and (in a fit of blinding logic) it’s always when I’m at home. Now, I’m in Reading at a friends, they’ve both nipped out for about an hour, and I’m in the house on my own.

*Knock Knock*
*Opens the door*
“Hello sir, do you believe that there is any hope of global peace?”
“Well, I certainly do, but not today, thanks.”

Personally, I reckon that rates pretty highly on the non-violent ways to get rid of Jehovah’s Witnesses. And one day I’m going to ask them who Jehovah really was, and frankly, what the fuck did he witness that was so great?

Health and Efficiency

I’ve just seen the most wonderful example of marketing-speak. Bird’s Eye foods have released a “new” product. The advert addresses all the parental buzzwords about health, vitamins, and cooking vegetables properly. How do you keep the goodness in, rather than boiling them to death?

Well, it appears that the answer is this new vegetable product from Bird’s Eye – vegetables in a bag that you sling in the microwave so they steam-cook, rather than unhealthy boiling. So – “keep the vitamins in” by irradiating the veg. Sounds like a plan to me.

Shitty trains

Ok – here’s a simple equation – One Train = Six Carriages. each carriage holds 70 people, plus however many standing ones. So – 420ish people, maybe more. How many toilets are there in a six carriage train? Three. How many were working, on a journey between Manchester and Reading? One. Don’t you just love rail privatisation?

Musical trends

Why is it that sometimes, regardless of what else you try to do, there’s suddenly a musical refrain or lyric running through your head? I’m currently sitting here and I’ve got Carter USM’s “Bloodsport for all” blasting through my frontal lobes. Not even the entire track – that wouldn’t be so bad – but no, all I’ve got is “The coldest stream guards of them all / sang God Save the Queen and bloodsport for all“.

And in connection with that, how come that no matter how many albums/tracks you’ve slapped onto the laptop for a journey, as soon as you’re on the train you want to hear something that you KNOW you haven’t got on the hard-drive?

Bollocks

Looks like Blogger’s playing silly bastards today. So I’ll update as and when…

Flying tonight

The BBC is reporting that concrete blocks have been placed round Parliament to protect it from a terrorist attack. OK, so a) why do this now – surely it’s not a spur of the moment decision? b) what’s the point? All they do is provide more cover for a dedicated suicide bomber to hide behind before getting to the building.

The official line is that the blocks will stop a truck driven by a suicide-bomber. OK, big deal – that just means instead you get them coming on foot, or on motorbikes, or any number of other methods. As September 11th demonstrated, there are always plenty of other access methods, not just ground level.

And at the end of the day, even if there was a truck-bomb, if you load it with enough explosive, the concrete blocks just become airborne ballistic objects themselves, and probably cause just as much damage as the truck would have done if left to get near the building itself.

But hey, what would I know about these things? *Grin*

Exhaustion

Ah, the joys of insomnia. In the last week, I think I’m probably lucky if I’ve amassed 12 hours sleep. I feel shattered, and almost on the verge of breaking down – thank god it’s the weekend tomorrow, and a long one at that. I’ll see how things progress tonight, but no promises on any further updates today.

You have been warned.

Vanity, Vanity, all is vanity

I just know that Green Fairy will be spitting feathers about this one upon her return (from seeing Radiohead, the lucky so-and-so) but I find it incredible that someone can insure themselves against ‘stopping being attractive’. This woman stands to get £100,000 if she is deemed (by a panel of ten builders, no less) to be unattractive. (Looking at the photo accompanying the story, I reckon she’s a good 90% of the way there already – but that’s my own perspective).

I suppose that’s part of why I find it hard to comprehend this policy – simply that what’s attractive to one person can will be fugly to another. From my own view as well though, what kind of husband/partner/whatever says “I’d dump you if you lost your looks”? Maybe I’m too altruistic for my own good, but I thought love and relationships were about loving and accepting the entire of the person, not just what their face/body is like. Perhaps that’s where I’ve been going wrong all these years. *Grin* Thankfully, I’ve never had the looks/vanity for this to be an issue with me – but isn’t it just an amazingly shallow pair of attitudes.

And yes, I know, it’s hardly a shock – NEWSFLASH – People are shallow – not really a revelation, is it?

Anonymous for life

Personally, I’m glad to see that Mary Bell and her 19 year old daughter have been granted lifelong anyonymity. While this particular case wasn’t contested by the press, it still had the potential to be overly-hyped in the future, and would have been raked over given the slightest opportunity – and that now can’t happen. (well, it can – but it’s a lot more difficult than it would be if the anonymity hadn’t been granted)

Sola Lala

So daft, I just had to mention it. There’s a place in the US wants to attract interest from investors by having a ginat lava lamp in the middle of the town. And in lots of ways, I think it could be really fun – quite what the town’s inhabitants would think of it, I have no idea.

Memories are just dead men making trouble

Over in the Thoughts section, there’s a new piece – looking back over the last three years. It’s not comprehensive – in fact it barely dances on the ice at the edge of comprehensive – but it’ll do for now.

And thanks go to a couple of people (they know who they are, at risk of sounding like an Oscar acceptance speech) for providing some of the impetus to keep on writing it – and some of the other pieces in the pipeline.

Big Bore

I have to say, with the beginnings of the media hype again plus the trailers on Channel 4 and so on, I’m already utterly tired and bored of Big Brother. I suspect that no matter how hard I try, I’ll be even more bored of it come the end…

Reading

Karen over at Rise is compiling a list of favourite reads. Mine consisted of

1. “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson.
     A book that somehow combines Metaverses, Sumerian history, neuro-linquistic hacking, and a deeply warped sense of humour, all in one story.
2. “The Sparrow” and “Children of God” by Maria Doria Russell.
     Science-fiction at it’s highest level, the story of a Jesuit mission to a newly-discovered planet. Impossible to describe and do justice to – simply superb.
3. “The Reality Dysfunction” by Peter F Hamilton.
     The first book in a 4000+ page trilogy, again, bounding with ideas involving the discovery of a “beyond” after death, and how to deal with it.
4. most stuff by Dick Francis (they’re all interchangeable to a degree, so that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it).
     Complete no-brainers, but familiar ground – always a good thing after reading an epic.
5. “Brightness Falls” by Jay McInnerney.
     Showing it’s age slightly (written in the late 80s, about the late 80s) when all’s said and done it’s a love story, but with various twists along the way. In fact, for the most part it’s the story of “what went wrong”. Still a favourite though.

I’ll explain more about them later, when I’ve got home. Work’s not as bad today – things are finally working, or as close to it as a combination of Windows XP and MS Visual Source Safe will get. The fact I’m now using Textpad instead of bloody Dreamweaver is also helping things come together a lot quicker than yesterday.

Definition of Irony

The first site I’ve got to work on within the new contract is adding some stuff to United Utilitities’ website – which is ironic, because over the last year or so, one of my primary complaints with United Utilities (other than the shite back-end and payment systems) is that the website was as useful as a mobile phone to Helen Keller.

Someone up there has a sense of humour. I’ll know this for sure if the next site I have to work on is that of the bank that shall never be named.

Work

There are some things that can be said about a place that uses both Dreamweaver and Microsoft’s Visual Source Safe. The first of these is “WHY?!?“, the second is “No, seriously, why on earth would anyone in their right minds use this combination as a work tool?“, and the third is normally somewhere around “Oh for fucks sake, you useless lump of shit, of course the fucking files exist, now why won’t you find them?” followed by the thud of boot into computer.

People’s Olympics

It didn’t take long for Camelot to get in on the act of saying it will help fund a UK Olympics bid – using special scratch-cards, and some “special event” draws, they reckon they can raise £750m, as well as providing a similar amount from their normal funds. Will it happen? Only time will tell.

Preparation

Ah, the joys of the last day before a return to work. Laundry, shopping, sorting out the week’s season ticket for the train, it’s all happening today. And then Peter Gabriel tonight – not necessarily the wisest option just before an early start the next morning, but what the hell, that’s what timing’s all about.

Have blog, might get sued

As Graybo says (and he’s probably correct) the article Dating A Blogger, Reading All About It, this article will probably be linked all over the place by the end of the week. It’s an interesting piece, showing how bloggers sometimes write too much about their personal lives, their colleagues, and their thoughts. The phrase “I need an editor” seems to apply to a lot of them – either that or “I need some more braincells” – there’s a distinct air of naïvety to the people who comment, considering how they “don’t expect” friends/family/employers to find them. *Bows to the power of Google*

Personally, I’ve stuck with the pseudonym Lyle – it’s a safety barrier, but I also try not to leave myself open completely. There are levels to everything – I know someone once said that people are like onions, that getting to know them is like peeling the onion, going through all the layers. For me, that’s also what a site/blog is like – there’s no point writing absolutely every thought, emotion, and possibility down – it leaves you too open, and it’s too easy for people to find themselves, or find what their friends think of them. That, for me, isn’t what it’s about.

But don’t ask what it is about either – I don’t know. I just write what I want – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I’m happy with what’s on here, and there’s no-one I wouldn’t want to see what I’ve written. And maybe that’s what it’s all about – being the same as anything else we do, where you never leave yourself completely open to everyone – it depends how well you know someone as to how deeply you let them in.

Next of Kin

When, as today, I’m filling in paperwork for contracts, work-places and so on I never fill in the “Next of Kin” information. I’ve had arguments with people about this before – so I’m wondering what the problem is that they have with me not providing this information. So far as I’m concerned, if anything short of fatal happens, I’ll be able to handle it one way or another (the joys of work-related insurance etc. *Grin*) and if it were fatal then I’ve always got the donor card in my wallet, along with contact information there.

But my family are at least 200 miles and 4 hours away, should anything ever happen – and I wouldn’t want to cause them that much stress in the first place. If there were an accident, I couldn’t contact them to drive me home or whatever. I don’t have a partner, or children, so those options are out too. So really, I don’t have any next of kin that are of any use unless I’m dead – in which case they’re notified anyway. But some people see it as unreasonable for me to not fill in a Next of Kin form, so I ask you this : Is it a case of being selfish/unreasonable to not list a family member or whatever, or simply realistic?

I don’t believe it</meldrew>

As an exercise in shudder-inducing TV, it sounds like the “Celebrity” version of Wife Swap is yards ahead of the competition.
Richard and Judy, for frig’s sake. But that’s not the best of it – “Celebrity” now apparently includes the couple who cheated on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and also – God help us all – Jade from Big Brother, and her boyfriend. It sounds like the televisual equivalent of a major road crash.