Ding Dong

At this festive time it's always best to give thought to those less fortunate than yourselves.

However, living in Scotland now, i'm always amazed at how stupid the English (you have to live in Scotland to appreciate this) are. They can't even prepare for a wee bit of snow. And once they realise that they say stupid things like this...

"My husband left work in Reading at 1500 GMT and is still to arrive home - it is now 2315 GMT. He has been trapped in traffic for over eight hours and will still have to leave the car and walk the rest of the way home."

Well, that would certainly be a silly thing to do. He will just have to go back and get the car, presumably on foot. He probably should have just stayed in Reading. Got a hotel and had a night out on the razz.

Also, why's she being so specific about the time? And at 23:15 she felt so aggrieved she had to get in touch with the BBC. Why do people do that? Who cares, frankly. I couldn't give two shiny shites about her husband.

The X Factor

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8298056.stm

How old was this woman when she died ffs? 105 at least, i'd guess? I feel sorry for the bloke. At 85 surely convincing your mother to give you a million dollars before she leaves this mortal coil is better than giving it to charity? Clever even.

Nothing better than giving your offspring a good start in life, even if he is 85. I hope my children do the same when I'm 105 and think that giving my millions to cats or some such is better than giving it to my young children.

Of course, at 85 I can't imagine what you could do with a million dollars that would better the value you have taken from life. Apart from getting a Sinclair C5 or one of those nippy big wheeled thingies.

Ahhh look at all the lonely 106 Billion People

Apparently, since 50,000 BC, 160 billion people have been born. 100 billion of them are dead. That's a lot of grief.

What do they know?

Well, there's the question. And there it isn't. The Freedom of Information Act allows me (and you most probably) the ability to ask for, quite possibly, anything. But what do I want to know?

If you go to this site you can, apparently, log a request under the act, and they have to reply. Or maybe tell you what you want to know.

I don't know; perhaps, what did the Cabinet Office discuss the day after the General Belgrano was sunk? Or the day after Orgreave? Or Hillsborough perhaps.

I see that people have asked very serious questions, like how much did BP pay Tony Blair to get oil rights in Libya recently. BORING.

Must think harder for a better question.

Twatter

I'm so happy to see, that of the 21 people following me (is that stalking?), I have a wonderful young lady who wants no strings attached sex.

That's a shame really as I think strings attached sex might be quite fun. Depending upon, of course, where the strings are attached. Notwithstanding the fact that i'm happily married and strings form a generally appropriate position in our sex life. From top to bottom.

She looks like strings shouldn't be a problem, but it seems it is a pre-requisite.

Swinesitus and Probable Swine Flu

That'll teach me to speak too soon. I officially increased the global pandemonium statistics by one today. Well, the doctor said, quite happily I might add, that "you probably did have swine flu, so I have to log you as 'probable swine flu'".

I was actually at the doctors because after recovering I immediately felt bad as soon as I got back to work. Sharp pain in the front of my head, starting in the corner of my eye cavity.

Now, unbenownst to me, if your head wasn't full of cavities (see right) it would be so heavy that you wouldn't be able to lift it. I asked for clarification from the doctor on whether she meant with my hands. But apparently she meant we would all fall over from it's sheer weight.

Anyway, the membrame in said cavities is the same stuff that's up your nose, and when it gets infected (green snot*) it can all back up into these cavities and block up, making you feel like your head is actually a medicine ball. This can happen after flu.

After swine flu I think we should call this Swinesitus. I'd happily go and update the wikipedia entry for Sinesitus to reflect this, but I'm not as brave as my mate Musters with his Clown Fish update.

* Snot is green for evolutionary reasons

Flu Swines

Apropos of nothing, whilst on holiday in Majorca one of the kids ran a high temperature, coughing, sore throat and sneezing. When we got back (without alerting anything to the airline) our youngest also came down with this thing. It seemed like a summer cold, and to be fair, we couldn't really be arsed running up to the doctors to be told "well, just to be safe...".

So, they might have-not have had swine flu. The missus is sneezing as we speak.

Surely, though, flu actually puts you in bed for a week, and you feel bloody awful. I'm sure that's what it was like last time I had flu.

Anyway, it's better they get it now. It's alarming to think that by the winter loads of people will die of flu. I say alarming, but no more than every year. Apparently, 50,000 americans die from flu every year. Wouldn't that mean that half a million die every ten years? And 5 million every 100 years. Or maybe 50 million every 1000 years?

In 25,000 years nobody will be left in America, if we flippantly ignore this threat!!!!

Here's hoping.

The not so secret bunker

We turned into a private road, off some remote B road, to be faced with.. a small farm cottage looking thing surrounded by rolling fields and woods. (if you ignored the military tat they've now dumped there for effect).  Nobody could have prepared you for what you couldn't see. 

We went into the house and were presented with a wee shop with a nice older lady to greet us.  We exchanged pleasantries and she then felt it necessary to point out that the cost was cos it wasn't a charity and the MoD don't own it anymore and that it couldn't be classed as a museum either.  "When the MoD put these things up for sale they filled most of the others with concrete and sold the buildings above; here they advertised it as 'small farm cottage... with nuclear bunker underneath' anyway, see you in a couple of hours"!

A couple of hours!  I thought.  Aye right, I'll give it 30 minutes.

How wrong could I be?  Well, very wrong.

It turns out that all those underground complexes you see in Bond films, and the like, are actually pretty accurate.  This was fecking huge.  You wander down a staircase in the shop, therefore already in the basement, to be presented with a very long sloping (down) corridor.  Then after that there are big signs saying 'This way to the bunker'.  What, I'm not in it yet?

Then through steel doors and 10 foot of concrete and tungsten that encases the whole site (imagine a two-story car park that starts about 30 feet underground).  That's the top.  It then has two floors underneath and is a veritable complex.  The top bit was mostly living areas, a doctors office, a few cinemas, mess hall etc.

Then underneath that floor was all the Operations rooms, comms rooms etc etc.

Utterly brilliant.

So, if this is the Secret Bunker... where are the real secret bunkers?  Cold War gone or not, if we have nuclear weapons, then they are somewhere, and I bet they don't look so 1950s'ish.  I bet they have WiFi in every room.

Oh look, Goldfish! 

Shhhh... tell no one

Think we might take the kids here today.  I thought it was going to be quite difficult, or almost impossible one might think, to locate.  But thanks to the wonder of my internet and the end of the Cold War here it is.

And what's more, arguably, Scotland's best fish and chip shop is just down the road in Anstruther.  Admittedly, the odd dead swan might wash up with bird flu every now and again, but it's a lovely place to visit.

Millionaire

Went to see Slumdog tonight in the smallest cinema theatre in Edinburgh, The Dominion's cinema 3.  I couldn't help thinking it could have been slightly been slightly better without all the breaks and shots of poor people.

Apparently, this car (or one like it) has been down my street and taken photos of my house, and then posted them on my internet.

What a cheek.  Or maybe I'm happy?  I can show friends where I live and what my house looks like.  But, also, anyone can now see my house.

It's like privacy means nothing these days.  Next my every thought will appear on my internet.

Life is like a pipe

and i'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside...

Aye right Amy, spot on.

Ahem, happy mothers day listeners.

The French

Dropped our eldest off tonight at some new friend of his for a sleepover.  The mother invited me in for a coffee.  She's French, it transpires.  I pushed it too far by mentioning that I'd worked in Paris for a year.  "Tu parlez francais?" she inquired.

Well, that was a bit daft of me wasn't it?  How rude of me to reply "well, only in taxis, supermarkets and restaurants".  In english too!  I could see her disappointment.  I then made it worse by asserting that I had realised a long time ago that the problem with speaking another language wasn't whether you knew it, but confidence.  In english.

I said "au revoir" too, when I left.

Idiot.  I bet she saw "tosser" on the back of my head as I walked away.

Who'd have thought I'd listen to music?

My mate musters, and his mate Pete, mentioned spotify to me yesterday.  At first I thought they meant some kind of twitterish black magic, but it isn't.  I installed it in seconds today and within minutes was listening to music again.  It's a revelation.  I only wish my download of Ghost Town to my phone was so quick.  I'm in danger of cancelling that again as I've got to take the boys (my boys, not Musters and Pete) for a haircut.

Anyway, another revelation is that I now know who Amy Winehouse is.  Amazing I know that I could survive till now without knowing who she was.  She isn't Lily Allen, that's for sure.  Not sure how I mixed them two up.

I've decided to make all 3 kids fans of hers.  I'm too old for that nonsense.  I'm currently using spotify to play Back to Black over and over again.  It's a funny old tune, no mistake.  I'm not sure I get it, but obviously some dude pissed off back to some other burd and the singer (Amy maybe)  is a wee bit miffed and er.. decides she's going back to black.  I'm not quite sure how one does that, but that's not going to stop me.

I wonder if I can run spotify on my phone?  Worth a try.  

So, who's Lily Allen I wonder?

Read after burning

I'm a big Cohen brothers' fan. I'd bought the missus this fillum for her birthday and i've watched it twice this week. As a straw poll beforehand I'd asked a few people what they thought. My sister thought it was rubbish, as did some bloke in work. But a number of other people said it was great, and they all added this "have you seen the big Lebowski?". Did they think I was stupid?

Probably, in all fairness, as I haven't. Not much of a fan, I'll admit, but I'm a bit light on real interest in anything. I still don't know the difference between Lily Allen and that burd with the big hair. I did see the Ting Tings for the first time yesterday. I bet they wouldn't buy their round in a pub. Many friends of mine like music and especially reading lots about it and listening to it every day. Go see my friend musters site, he's constantly waffling on about people i've never ever heard of. I think it's a bit of a pissing contest thing.

Brad Pitt though, I bet he would. I like most films with him in. I say most as I'm sure there's a lot I haven't seen. But Kalifornia was great, and he had other quirky characters like that Twelve Monkeys one. I still don't get that. How did it work the first time through? I don't think old Albert would have approved. I think the author must have thought nobody would notice the flaw in the logic.

Anyway, enough of that. I've decided to get a hobby. Not knowing about music. That's rubbish. Something more physical. I may get the guitar out again, but was thinking about getting a piano and some lessons. Or drums even. Or a boat.

Press the 6 button longly

Isn't technology brilliant?

Sat in the car, outside my son's fencing lesson tonight listening to the footy, i failed to notice that i'd left lights on. Five mins before he came out I tried the engine only to realise the battery was dead. I had to ring the AA but didn't know where I was. But my phone has GPS so I could fire up googlemaps which pinpointed my position within some small circle of x metres. Anyway, it meant I could give my exact location to the AA woman.

Then, whilst waiting, and enjoying some quality time with my eldest, i suddenly received a text telling me yon AA man was being despatched and would be with me in 15 mins. Cool as fuck.

On the way home we noticed that the radio wanted a code. We quickly found the car manual which had said code and we stopped and worked out how to type it in using the 1-6 numbers usually used to change channels. Only we couldn't find an enter button. I consulted said manual, which it seems has been 'translated' from French. Not Japanese. "press the 6 button longly" came the instruction.

Now, I could clearly understand the French instruction, but the English translation was, if I can be allowed to say this, merde. Press the 6 button longly, I did. Voila!

We all live in a Yellow Duckmarine

We all went back to Liverpool for the weekend. It's about 15 years since I'd seen the City Centre, so what better way to solve that and keep the kids entertained. I'd rang up and booked tickets for this in advance and then took the family to the Albert Dock for a quick look see, then climbed aboard this baby. Apparently, they are actually old Marines landing craft, with a few mods.

Our driver/captain and his co-pilot pulled off a fantastic hour of fun. Every inch was packed with some wit, including a perfectly timed pun at the Victoria monument "you'll see why we call her King Victoria". You either have to be a local, or on this tour to understand. We also got to see 80% of the local city centre sights. 30 mins round town and then 30 mins in the docks.

Don't miss it.

Worms

Imagine my surprise this week. I've had kids for ten years now, so I sort of think nothing can phase me. I've seen and had to deal with many a childhood thing.

But on Wednesday my youngest was complaining of a sore bum. That's not unusual. They can't really wipe their own bums very well, and often complain of itchiness.

However, on Wednesday night i was suddenly confronted with something I'd never seen before. A couple of nights running my youngest went absolutely mad at about 7pm. He started shuffling around the room like a mad dog. His arse on the floor etc.

I placated him with the usual platitudes and said I'd get some cream. He'd obviously not wiped his bum. But then I looked, and jesus H christ, a wee worm popped it's head out of his anus!!! I almost fainted. It was the most ugliest thing i've ever seen. Imagine seeing a wee maggot suddenly appear from your most dearests bum and then try to go back in. Luckily I had a wet wipe and caught the wee bugger. I then spent the night catching the wee fuckers. 15 I caught that night.

The Doc then gave us all a tablet each. Every family member has to have one. We've all had them. He still had the wee fuckers appearing until yesterday, but today he's been ok. Apparently, they are dead now. Bastards.

SAS Running

I'm out running again on Wednesday. I did 5k around The Meadows last Wed night with my birthday present on my head. It's a spot light thing that you attach to your head with what looks a bit like a jockstrap.

Of course, you don't actually need this kind of thing for the middle of a major european city. However, I wanted to see if the weight affected my performance. I'm glad to announce that it didn't. Although it was a little uncomfortable. I got bored after the first lap; people kept on looking at me and obviously thinking "why's he got that on, it's not even switched on".

So I decided the best way to tackle that was to slip the light down a little over my right eye. It then looked like I had night-vision. Much better look, I thought.

Underwriters

I think there's a correlation between underwriters and undertakers.

If you've ever sat near a claims team, or underwriters, you'll know that their life is spent understanding things that no normal person should have to worry about. One wished me well on it being my birthday today. He then went on to point out that I can now be happy in the knowledge that i've reached the age where things stop functioning the way they used to. By way of example, he added "like dribbling... you'll have to shake it a lot now". I laughed, nervously, thinking "jeezo, how does he know?".

They also can't help but stare at you when you have a coffee, or gasp when you bring out a cheese sandwich for lunch, commenting "cheese again, eh?". And inside you know they're calculating the exact date your heart is going to stop.

They are only eclipsed by actuaries, that can actually calculate that in a nanosecond. Failed fecking rocket scientists if you ask me.

Tweet my arse

I tried yon Twitter out this weekend. I'm not sure I understand what it's for. It seems to be yet another way of telling lots of people what i'm doing. I'm increasingly alarmed by the amount of technology that allows people, I don't really call my friends, to know what i'm doing.

I think the only answer is to start posting absolute rubbish. To fool people into thinking they know what I'm doing when I'm really doing something else. Why is it so important that people know what I'm doing? And I include friends in that. You can all piss off, as far as i'm concerned.

Some people I can see even post things that you'd be a bit of a berk to say out loud. Like "does anyone know why the Ruby on Rails European conference has been cancelled?". Who fecking cares? What is a Ruby on Rails anyway? No, don't answer, it's not something I need the answer to.

I know what you're going to do with that!

I was in the supermarket tonight. It was a pretty quiet affair, and whilst choosing toilet roll I noticed there was a woman also deliberating over her choice of bum wipe. I smiled, the way that you do when you're in someone's way and are happy for them to go first. She made her choice and I gesticulated with my eyes to her selection in that way that says "I know what you're going to do with that!". She averted my eyes and moved swiftly away. Now I think about it, she was a bit rude really.

Incontinence

I received the following email today, as by way of an update on encryption for my blackberry.

"The blackberry encryption will not take place today. Sorry for any incontinence caused".

Apparently, this also went to every other blackberry user in the company.

I called the team up responsible for providing the updates and asked them if they were taking the piss.

gmap pedometer

As you know, i'm training right now for a 10k run. Today a colleague pointed me to a cool online pedometer. It's really quite clever. Well, I say it's clever, but it does as it's told really. I guess the geek that developed it, and the googleguys are pretty clever too.

Anyway, go look at it. You basically find somewhere you have run/walked or whatever, start recording then double click along the route you took. You can even select the return route thing, if you ran the same way back, and it calculates the distance, in miles or euros. You can also click on something to show how far up or down you went too. I like it. A lot.

what did i miss?

Apparently, Obama started his new job yesterday and two million people went to see him off. That's only double the amount of The Stop The War campaign in London a few years back.

I missed the event, yesterday, but my sources, close to the new president, tell me it cost him £120m. Personally. Unless they charged each person six quid to get in?

Anyway. Let's see how he gets on. Warmongerer, philanderer, womaniser or damp squib like usual. Maybe he'll even be good. Doubt it though.

my mate steve

I was just reading, as I'm want to do most days, my mate, steve musters' blog; for the way we live today (link just over there) about the top ten ways to get people to visit your site. One other subject is stickiness, of course. Once here, how do I keep you here. I've just given you an opportunity to leave by pointing out where his link is. So, here's my top five stickiness tips:

1 remove any links to your friends sites without telling them (so they don't remove your link)
2 always write your postings completely in the nude.
3 include subliminal messaging and code that would take a very clever person at least a week to decode
4 choose a subject that geeks will find it hard not to have an opinion on
5 use subject matter that clearly worked elsewhere and plagiarise it

Simple.

Miraculous Weight Loss Technique

Tonight I discovered a miraculous weight loss therapy. I might even have to file a patent on it.

As part of my training (!) for the Edinburgh 10k I went for a run round the meadows twice tonight. I didn't go out twice, I actually ran round it twice at the same time. Not that I was two people.

Anyway.

During said run(s) I decided to run on the grass for a while (ala cross-country) to get a bit of extra workout. I spotted, at the last minute, a huge mud and puddle combination and checked my footwork, only to come a cropper. Where does that saying come from? Was Cropper some Victorian who kept on falling over or coming in to (or into even) dillemas of his own making? So, I slipped and ended up on my arse in mud (sorry mum).

When I got back I obviously needed a shower. I might have had one anyway, but given I was covered in mud it seemed more appropriate. I had mud on my face apparently, which must have made all the women waiting for their pilates class, as I picked up my son from his fencing class, giggle a little. Not stolen goods or garden work, but proper fencing. With swords.

Before said shower I decided to weigh myself. I came in at a kind 11 stone. I then had a shower and thought "maybe i'll weigh myself again in a mo to see if showering has changed my weight". Of course, that was a stupid thought. But lo and behold when I weighed myself again I was 10 stone 13 pound. That's something-or-other kilos in real money.

Where did that 1 pound go? Down the plug-hole? Was it mud and shed skin? Or invisible weight that we accumulate throughout our lives on our bodies? Sweat and ions, perhaps?

Anyway, showering. Try it. I suspect if I had a bath the same thing wouldn't happen. I actually believe I might have put on weight if I had a bath. I haven't had a bath for 20 years. Thank god. (or whoever your deighty might be). I might be a fat bastard if I had bathed every week. If you're a fat bastard then maybe you'll think twice about bathing again.

on the bus (part 422)

I'm actually on the right bis now.

on the bus (part 421)

I'm actually on the wrong bus and I have to get off now.

Edinburgh 10k

I've finally arrived at middle-agedom. I decided today, after a week of sobriety and good health, that I'm going to run a 10k in May. My mate, Andy, is doing it too, but he's been running for a couple of years now. He must be tired.

I ran a few times last year, of an evening. I think that's a rubbish time to run. I'm going to run at the weekend and a couple of lunchtimes a week.

I don't know why I'm doing it, I think it's a health thing, but at 43 surely the excesses of life have already determined my fate? Maybe not, maybe it'll actually make a differerence. Not that that's why i'm doing it. I don't think. Anyway.

Twitter Ye Not

I read today that a cross between a blog and a wiki is a Bliki. How amusing.

How many of these things is it safe to own, before it becomes to clunky and clumsy.

I now own a blog, a faecebook, three email addresses, a website, two laptops and two devices for accessing my internet whilst sat on a bus (which I am now).

I'd go for a twitter if I knew what one was. It seems to let everyone know where I am all the time and what's on my mind. You'd have to be crazy to want that.