Good Vibrations

This should have been about a particularily uncomfortable bus journey, but it didn't save properly. I really can't be bothered to type it all again, so you'll just have to imagine!

Current Affairs

Seems there has been lots going on in the world recently (other than volcanoes, cricket, etc, etc), a lot of which does not make pleasant reading. I have a colleague at work who is quite keen on trying to track down the websites carrying the gory beheading videos from Iraq. Each to their own I say, www.rotten.com is as near as I get or would want to get. Whatever you feel about the invasion of Iraq (and my opinions seem a little out of step with my normally left of centre leanings), these gruesome murders are not just that - gruesome sadistic murders. I could go on, but I read an article today which pretty much says it all and better than I could ever do.

Rather than hunting down videos of decapitations, I prefer to enjoy the sight of idiots being made to look like, er, idiots. And there is no better place to see this at the moment (as far as I am aware - if I'm wrong please email me) than the wonderful world of www.419eater.com. Ever had an email from Nigeria or somewhere similar encouraging you to share in the profits of some slightly dodgy financial transaction? Most likely it was a 419 scam, so named after the section of Nigeria's penal code which covers this type of fraud. Look at the website and find out all about it, and how to deal with it and gain maximum comedy value...

A Friend In Need...

Tonight, my best friend has been around, and we have drunk a lot of coffee and discussed the fact that he has suddenly become single. And although I swore beforehand I wouldn't say anything remotely like "I told you so"... I just couldn't help myself.

On the bright side, I did however manage to avoid saying "there are plenty more fish in the sea" for which I'm quite proud...

Vegetables!

Before I start tonight's rant (and it is a bit of a rant, too) I'd just like to say for the benefit of those who may wonder why I am no longer posting at least once a day that her name is Dawn and she's very nice!

Right, speaking of Dawn, I went out for a meal this afternoon with her and her brother and his wife. It was your bog standard carvery type job, pleasant enough, but it was distinguished by one feature. The roast potatoes were awful. I love roast potatoes. I like them when the outside is quite crispy, but the inside is nice and moist and tasty, and not, as these were, like partially set polyfilla. If I'd walked outside with a pocket full of those spuds I could have been arrested for possession of an offensive weapon. On the plus side, the cauliflower was okay...

Cursed!

So there I was a few hours ago, starting to write today's entry, where I was extolling the virtues of the England cricket team, and how it looked almost certain that they would manage to win a trophy, when I got sidetracked and cancelled it. Which I am now rather glad about. Because I would have had to write another entry very shortly afterwards totally contradicting myself and extolling the virtues of the West Indian cricket team, who, when it appeared that defeat was staring them in face, went and won.

The question is, did I curse the England team by writing that I thought they were going to win even though I never got around to sharing this thought with the world; or did I curse the England team by NOT sharing my thoughts with the world?

These kind of strange events are not uncommon. For example, today, if I had bought a lottery ticket, I may have won. But if I actually did buy a ticket, I probably wouldn't have won. If that makes sense. Luckily, these are not the sort of thoughts that keep me awake at night!

Wuss!

It's Thursday night, it's one of those odd occasions I put on the TV, and it's Ray Mears Bushcraft on the box. Ray Mears, man of survival, the very same Ray Mears who was lecturing Amazonian tribesmen about how to make fire using just two sticks in last weeks programme.... so what's he doing tonight? He's telling us all about how important it is to carry a GPS unit and a satellite telephone! I'll be bearing that in mind next time I'm in a plane crash in the jungle...

The End Is Nigh!

...well, it isn't really, but I was stuck for a title for today, and I happened to be reading this rather excellent website on the subject of armageddon. Just doing a bit of research for when I decide to set up my own religion/cult in the future. As you do...

Here are my prophecies, so far:

1. Over the coming weeks, the sun will dim in the sky and the days will mysteriously become shorter. Animals will seek shelter and trees will lose their leaves. And the air will grow cold, and I advise all my followers to ensure that they wear nice warm coats when leaving their homes, and turn their heating up. If you do this, I will protect you from the cold, mark my words.

2. A chip shop will mystically receive my patronage later on, and I predict that I will buy donner kebab meat and chips. With a smattering of chilli sauce. Those who see me will believe me.

3. The man who forgot his password today, will forget it tomorrow as well.

Later, to recover from the stresses and strains of seeing these important revelations, I shall be resting with a good woman. My religion will obviously encourage such relaxation techniques, especially for the upper heirarchy, because, followers, it is good for the soul. Also good for the soul is money. Please send me yours. Oh, and anybody who can come up with a good name for my new religion can be a high priest of some sort.

Good bye followers, for the moment. I'm not ascending to a higher plane, I just have to nip out and get some fags.

Light Entertainment

I've just read that Des O'Connor has become a father again. At the age of 72. Imagine being 16 and having a father who is 88. In fact imagine being 88 and having a 16 year old son. What a nightmare. I don't begrudge anybody the right to have a child, but it's all a bit selfish - what are the chances of him actually living to see his son become an adult?

Speaking of death, moving from light entertainment to lighting up entertainment, I appear to have continued to not actually stop smoking. Never mind, I have at least been smoking a bit less... and I can reveal, in good company too!

Excuses, excuses!

It's not failure, the fact I am sat here with a cigarette. It's just a sign that I maybe should try cutting down on drinking and then give up smoking... at the very least not try to give up after yet another vodka bender... and I have managed to get most of the way through the day without one...

Unforeseen Circumstances

Well, today is the day I give up smoking. Except it's not, as due to unforeseen circumstances I didn't. So tomorrow is the day now. I won't go into detail about the unforeseen circumstances, but they were very pleasant!

The same unforeseen circumstances also conspired to lead me to not write anything for this yesterday, but I don't think I had anything really to write anyway, apart from the fact that yet again I had a ridiculous hangover.

Come to think of it I don't really have a great deal to say today either, so I shall instead suggest that a far better thing to look at on the internet tonight is this: http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/etna/etna04/index-en.html - very, very good pictures (or as my colleagues at work would describe it "volcano porn")!

Cigarettes and Alcohol

Aaaaaaaaaaah.... vodka...

I've finished my on call week, and I'm pleased to say that I have a rather large drink in front of me. And very refreshing and nice it is too.

It may not seem likely, given the frequent references I make to drinking and general unhealthy living, but until a year or so ago I was actually fairly fit. I think this may have been despite my lifestyle rather than as a result of it, but nevertheless, I could walk for miles and stomp up hills with a reasonable degree of dignity. The current situation is a bit different - the last significant hill I walked up left me a panting, wheezing, sweating mess, and to be honest, that upset me a bit. Especially as my asthmatic son was running rings around me.

So a thought has been fermenting in my mind for the last month: perhaps I should try to give up smoking. I smoke quite a lot, mostly out of boredom and habit. I have been sat here since about 5 this evening, and in the last two hours the evidence in my ashtray shows I have managed to smoke 5 cigarettes. This is not a good thing.

And there are a few other things as well as my current inability to walk up hills without feeling I'm going to die at any moment. There's the occasional (like right now) chest pains. There's the slight smoker's cough I've started to develop. And there's snoring. Yes, I admit it. I snore. Not all the time, but often enough. I didn't used to, or at least certainly not like I do now. I am basically destroying the very system my body uses to provide me with oxygen, and I've come to the conclusion that this is no longer a viable state of affairs.

The real kick up the backside was a quick calculation I did which showed that I was spending more than £200 a month on cigarettes. I am paying to kill myself, and to do it slowly, which really seems a little odd. Especially given how broke I am.

Soon, the time for real will power will be upon me. Sunday is the day. Tomorrow night I smoke my last cigarette. Ever. I have Monday and Tuesday off work, so I can get through the worst of it in the privacy of my own home. I am ready to do this...

Better...

It has been, for me, a much better day today than yesterday. No personal crises, and my mood has improved a lot.

Shortly, I shall be turning my TV on. It's not often I do this, but there are a couple of things I want to watch, as much as anything else to try and get some ideas and inspiration for the website. Yes, it's the start of a new season of Horizon on BBC2, and prior to that is good old Ray Mears doing something survivally. I say "good old" Ray Mears, but I always think he looks about 15. Quite how he has managed to acquire so much knowledge about survival I don't know, when he looks for all the world like he hasn't actually started shaving yet.

I don't think tonight's Horizon is actually about anything that particularly interests me, but I'm sure at some point in the coming weeks we'll get a good one about global disaster...

Strop!

I've been in a terrible mood for most of today, but I've decided that I need to cheer myself up. Still being on call, I can't use my traditional method of getting drunk, so it's quite a challenge. And one I'm going to have to learn to live with for a month or so, given the pitiful financial state that has made me miserable in the first place. If anybody has any suggestions for cheap, non-chemical ways to boost the mental state please feel free to let me know!

Eruption...

As I mentioned a few days ago one of my little interests is volcanoes, and in particular Mt Etna in Sicily. Which as I also mentioned is having a bit of an eruption at the moment. Nothing too dangerous, well, as long as you keep out of the way that is, but quite spectacular anyway. I can recommend the webcam at http://etna2004.videobank.it/ - if you look at night-time, the lava flow is the bright thing. And if you look in the day, it's obvious.

Luckily, the lava flows at Etna are heading into a deserted area and are unlikely to endanger life or property. But in the coming months, possibly years, keep an eye open for Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Mauna Loa is the biggest volcano on the planet and there are some ominous rumblings from deep under it. When it erupts, the lava moves quickly, and spectacularly, and nothing stops it. Definitely one to watch from a safe distance.

If you want real destruction, at some point in the next few hundred millenia there will be a super eruption - a large chunk of the Yellowstone National Park in the US is actually a volcano capable of one of these, and when it does go bang (and it will eventually go with a very big bang) it will take out most of the Western US. Oh, and drop us into a "volcanic winter" too...

Decibels...

I love music, I do. So much so that I almost always have some on, be it radio or CD. In fact one of the reasons I set up a blog was basically so that I could share with the world details of what I was listening to while I was online. Which is something that I have almost entirely failed to do, thankfully.

My neighbour doesn't like music, he really doesn't. He likes basslines. Okay, so maybe I'm a little snobbish there, it may actually be music; but sat in the house next to him and his large floor standing speakers, any musical qualities it may have are lost.

Of course, my neighbour's musical tastes, or lack thereof, would not be a problem were it not for the fact that not only can I hear it, but I can feel it. It makes my internal organs vibrate, which is not a pleasant feeling. His stereo would be better measured on a seismograph than a decibel meter.

Luckily, he is not in the habit of really pumping the volume up too often, but six o'clock this evening was one of those occasions. As I sat here, moving around the room as my floor and chair bounced around, I decided to do something that I'm normally against, which is retaliation. I have done this a few times before. One of my favourite tricks with the neighbours on the other side of me (who don't have such a bassy system and therefore are just loud rather than nausea inducing) was to get my electric guitar, crank the volume up, get some nice feed back going and make it howl for a while. This usually did the trick, but would not have worked for this evening's problem. This evening, I needed to fight fire with fire...

So out came Metallica's Black Album. Unlistened to for some time in favour of more mellow material, I knocked the dust of the case, took it out, and slapped it in the CD player.

I don't have a particularily spectacular hi-fi system because it is set up for listening to CDs at the fairly low volume and high clarity that suits the music I normally listen to. Nevertheless, once I got the bass up almost to maximuim and the volume up to 8 (my knob goes up to 40, baby!), I found I could no longer hear next door. Up to 10 and my bass was starting to make my internal organs vibrate quite unpleasantly. 12, and even with my wall mounted speakers, I had to be returning the furniture shaking favour to next door.

It took until I reached15 and "Holier Than Thou", and the victory was mine. It's a slightly pyrrhic victory, as my ears now hurt, but nevertheless, I won. And "Sad But True" sounds brilliant at that volume!

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Rain

Damn, the weather has beaten me. My big pile of stuff to be burnt is soaked through, and so would I be if I was silly enough to try and make it burn, firelighters or not. I am quite disappointed about this, so have had to treat myself to a Chinese take away to compensate. And I ate every last grain of rice with chop sticks.

It was a pleasant enough Chinese, a chicken szechuan, but it leads me to an important question: does anybody actually like water chestnuts? They have a vaguely unpleasant texture, and a vaguely unpleasant non-taste. I always eat them, but I'm never sure why afterwards. And I'm not sure if it's the water chestnuts or the bamboo shoots, but I have the distinct feeling in my mouth that I've been eating wood...

Rats and Pyromania...

I have just popped into the kitchen to make yet another cup of coffee, and out of the corner of my eye what should I see sat on the patio but a large rat. On further investigation the rodent turned out to be almost dead with certain tell tale markings around it's neck. A lovely present from next door's cat, I assume. At least my kitchen door was shut and it only got as far as the patio.

The rat is now out of it's misery, and I shall be giving it a good send off later when I attempt (again) to burn the products of yesterday's creeper clearance session. Last night's attempt at fire was foiled by rain. I created quite a lot of smoke, but not a great deal actually got burnt. Today, however, I found a half empty old bottle of white spirits, and a box of firelighters. This may not be any more successful in terms of reducing the amount of garden waste, but should be more visually pleasing...

Gardening

I have spent a pleasant few hours today tearing down a massively overgrown creeper from the back of my house. There is now light getting into my kitchen again, and once the bits I can't reach have died and dropped, there will light once again upstairs too. A very satisfying afternoons pottering! I just have to work out what to do with the several cubic metres of dead creeper now cluttering my patio. I feel a fire coming on...

As I am clearly in a "doing things" mood, I may try and harness this further and set to work on some more pages for the website later. I wrote something the other night, but I'm not happy with it. The idea was okay but the page doesn't work. Astonishing though it might seem I do have the odd moment of quality control!

Detox

It's my least favourite Friday night of the month - the start of my week of "on-call." This means I have to be prepared to shoot off to work at any hour, day or night. For practical and legal reasons this also means my liver gets a nice week long break!

Volcanoes

When asked to give a list of my favourite hobbies or interests, for some website or another, I named the following: music, computers, volcanoes, knitting. Appended to the list were the words "one of these is a lie." I was somewhat offended when somebody suggested it was "volcanoes" that was the made up interest (the true answer is computers, obviously!)

Although I had a vague interest in the workings of the planet as a youngster, as I have got older this has developed into something of a fascination about volcanoes. Not of course that I have actually visited one: this is a purely desk based interest, and one which the internet is made for.

Much like sports fans have their favourite team who they follow, I have my favourite volcano, which is Etna on Sicily in Italy. This is the volcanic equivalent of supporting Manchester United. Although sometimes it splutters a bit, it usually produces the goods. Kilauea in Hawaii is the Arsenal. Totally consistent for the last few years, so much so it's a bit boring.

In the last few days, Etna has just decided to wake up again after spending nearly 2 years dormant. Nothing too spectacular as yet, but I'll be following it's progress daily. And here's where a simple internet interest becomes self-improving. The best site for up to date news about Etna is in French. Which I have a very, very basic smattering of. The rest of the useful sites are in Italian. About which I know nothing. So two years ago, last time Etna erupted, I went out and bought a pocket French dictionary and a pocket Italian dictionary. The Italian is very slow going, but I can get the gist. The French I am finding easier, and apart from messing up some of the tenses, I can pretty much understand it.

Now if I can just learn to speak Italian I can actually go and visit Etna in person...

Headwear

I'm not going to go on too much about this subject, as www.chavscum.co.uk says most of what needs to be said, but I have got a few comments to make about the driving style of those who insist on wearing Burberry patterned baseball caps. I live in an area, which aside from having a high proportion of chavs, also has quite narrow streets which tend to have a lot of cars parked along them. The end result of the parking and the width of the roads is that getting from A to B tends to be a bit of a slalom exercise.

Now, I'm no advanced driver, I make no claims to being a good driver, or even a safe driver, but I can certainly see that roads of this type are best driven along quite slowly. Especially as an additional factor I failed to mention earlier is the preponderance of children playing in the road. This cautious approach seems not to have found favour, however, amongst the baseball capped drivers of the area, with the end result that the most common traffic noise around here is the screeching of tyres, presumably as they struggle to avoid each other or a child. Perhaps I'm getting old (I actually listened to Radio 2 for a bit yesterday evening!) but I'm actually starting to see that speed bumps may not in themselves be a bad idea.

Or perhaps it's actually time to ban people wearing headwear in cars? Over all, wearing hats in cars seems to be a bad thing. Aside from the lunatics in the baseball caps, there are the old duffers in the flat caps too. Perhaps bereft of their hats, the lunatics would drive slower and the old duffers a bit faster?

Preparedness...

While digging around for something important that "I've put somewhere safe," I have just rediscovered the very useful government leaflet, as delivered to all households, "preparing for emergencies."

Curiously, the booklet contains absolutely no information at all about what to do in the event that a large airliner ends up straddling your desk at work, but does advise you to listen to the radio and stay indoors should some kind of disaster occur. Well I'll be okay then, no great change from my normal lifestyle... Anyway, I was thinking, what they should do is get Ray Mears on the job. A proper survivalist, a man who can make fire from sticks, catch fish using nothing more than a cunning tickling action, and probably, if the batteries on your radio go flat, recharge them using only two pieces of wire and a potato.

Of course, this whole thing has been done before, with the legendary Protect and Survive campaign of the early eighties. Although also greeted with derision at the time, Protect and Survive has one point in it's favour - it actually does mention the fact that people could die. And that was it's downfall. Frankly, Protect and Survive was a pointless idea because in the event of nuclear war, we were all going to die, or at the very least wish we were dead. I might well have prepared a temporary toilet using a bucket, plastic bags and a chair with the seat removed, and have labels for attaching to anybody that died, but most likely I'd be a sticky, bloody, burnt corpse and not have a lot of use for them.

But nothing really changes. Nowadays, I can have as much tinned food, bottled water and as many batteries for my radio as I like, but if that jetliner does land on my desk, they, and "preparing for emergencies", will still only be as much use as a ice bucket in hell.

Headbanging

Apparently, so I was told today, banging your head against a brick wall will expend 150 calories each hour. Seems a bit low to me although the potential for blood loss after an hour of this activity would surely be quite high. Perhaps it refers to metaphorically bashing your head against a brick wall? If so, then today I have done my body a big favour, and I should really be thanking all those who have helped me in this worthwhile endeavour. However, I think I'll just stick to simmering gently, twitching occasionally, and a large vodka.

Interesting...

I've had a very interesting day, about which I cannot say anything. Terrible, eh. Doesn't make for good reading, but there you have it!

Instead of what I did do, I'll tell you what I didn't do: I singularly failed to mow my lawn. I managed to not vacuum or tidy up. I didn't even start to do any washing up. My dirty clothes are still in a big pile on the floor in my bedroom. My hedge is still only half cut. This is my kind of Sunday.

Banana

Although if you have read what I wrote earlier today you might not think it possible, I've actually had quite a good day today. I did my sad-dad bit and collected my offspring and we drove out to a place called Witley Court. Witley Court is the shell of a once great country house, destroyed by fire in the 1930's. It has great gardens, a fantastic fountain, and though the house is just a shell, it still has a certain grandeur to it. A very good place to spend a warm Saturday afternoon with the kids in fact.

Ruins are great if you have imaginative children, they have it rebuilt in their minds in no time at all. My daughter Harriet was busy sweeping up staircases being a princess, my son Charlie was rushing around spotting where the staircases used to be, and me, I was quietly pleased that they were so entertained without taxing my still slightly aching brain too much.

And how was this possible? How did I get from horribly hung over gutter dwelling fiend to responsible dad in the space of no more than 3 hours? The answer is simple. Coffee (obviously), a quick petrol station ham and cheese pasty, and most important of all, banana flavoured milk shake. I cannot stress enough just how fantastic banana milk shake is. I now make a habit of buying a bottle or two of it every time I get vodka, ready for the morning after.

But why is that although I like almost all things banana flavoured, I can't stomach bananas themselves?

Ouch

Much has been written about drinking and the effects of alcohol, but I can find very few words to describe just how bad I am feeling this morning. I think the best way I can describe it is as follows: imagine somebody has drilled into your head using an entirely inappropriate tool. Probably the sharpish corner of a brick. And then that they have sucked out half the contents of your cranial cavity with a vacuum cleaner. Finally, imagine that the space thus created has then been back-filled with a mixture of rusty nails, cold custard and grass-cuttings, then the hole sealed by sellotaping your skull to a large, bad-tempered goat.

I probably had quite a pleasant evening yesterday, so it's not all bad. I say "probably" because I can't actually remember at the moment...

Drinking!

Friday is here, and drinking is on the agenda. I have a suspicion that at least part of the evening will be spent discussing today's news, the battle for a school in Russia. As yet there is still only speculation about what turned a tense situation into an all out gun fight, but it does sometimes seem as if humanity is er, losing it's humanity.

Smoke On The Water

I've done precisely what I said I was going to do tonight, ie nothing. I've had a few beers, got fairly bored surfing the internet, exchanged a few messages with a few people, and so on. Very relaxing, very pleasant.

While I've been doing nothing, I've been listening, as I often do, to the radio station Planet Rock on my digital radio (which, despite what I'm about to say, is a very worthwhile gadget to own.) Planet Rock is a radio station which describes what it plays as the best rock from the 60's, 70's and 80's. Really? What it actually seems to be is all the obvious rock tunes from the 70's and 80's, with the odd obvious track from the later 60's and 90's thrown in as well. Together with patronising station idents which seem to suggest that to listen to the station you have to be considerably older than I actually am.

Don't get me wrong, I really, really like good rock music. I like the standards, those obvious tunes that Planet Rock play. But I like, when I occasionally get to hear it, some of the more obscure stuff too. And what really, really gets me about ALL radio stations these days is the limited play lists. Once I have listened to a radio station for a few days, I can pretty much work out what time of the day it is from what track is being played on the radio.

And this, I think, is one of the problems with the music industry at the moment. It's all too comfortable, cosy and predictable. Why are record companies allowing this to happen? I already own almost all of the tracks I like that PlanetRock play, so I'm not going to go out and buy them again. The same goes for the odd times I listen to other radio stations. Perhaps if the record companies invested a bit of the money they are spending chasing kids through the American courts for downloading MP3s on persuading radio stations to look outside their limited playlists they might actually start selling some records again.

Rest

I shall not be doing anything I can get sidetracked from tonight. I've had a hard day at work, and I'm going to have a beer and do my impression of a root vegetable and do nothing (albeit it a root vegetable that can frequently get up and go to the toilet. Unless I take my beer with me and take root there.)

Actually, I suppose I could get sidetracked from doing nothing, but that's a terribly confusing concept...

Victory! part 2

Yes! I have actually written something. Not much, but something. Two things ticked off on my list. We have Farmer Arthur explaining why Summer is the worst season of the year, and an updated Gimpo's Problem Page. I can give nothing away, but next on my list are the words carbon fibre, bonsai, trees, diamond toothed hacksaw. This may, or may not, find it's way onto another new page in the near future. Distractions allowing.

I'm having a beer now to reward myself for actually doing something. I deserve it. All this getting distracted has been very hard work. Having a beer is also good practice for Friday night when I shall be meeting with my good mate Martin to drink and discuss our top secret project, which unfortunately I should also currently be attempting to work on. Something else to be distracted from... excellent!

As an aside I'm curious to know if anybody has actually read any of my rambling? If you have, please drop me an email to say hello.

Victory!

England seem to be doing rather well at cricket at the moment, with yet another win today. More importantly, I am poised with hands over keyboard, list of great ideas at the ready, brain in gear... I think I might actually get around to doing something tonight...