return

i was asked the other day if i had lost my blogging mojo. sad to say i had, but i think i have come through one of my periodic lets pass on the blog phases and i am back to join the fray.
it is not that i haven’t had things to say but more to do with the work situation just grinding me down and making me a duller person than normal, more on that at a later date.

so here is a little snapshot of what i haven’t written about (don’t worry the nature of things is that these subjects are likely to pop up again allowing me to vent my spleen…)

the brothers peter and christopher hitchens have provided me with hoots a plenty recently. peter’s column in the mail on sunday always provides a laugh or two. his desire for a freer country is admirable but that has to be tempered by the fact that he really only means freedoms for some people (and they would be the white middle classes) and not everyone. it is a little like his claims for the keeping on national identity (part of the mail on sunday’s campaign to keep britannia on the 50 pence piece), it is a very specific identity that should be protected.
meanwhile christopher has obviously decided that peter’s problems stem from him being full of faith so chris has attacked faith in is most recent book “god is not great”. now i declare an interest here: i was raised a catholic and while like many catholics i am fallen i still have faith. like eve and the apple i was tempted to buy the book but a quick flick through it made me stop and consider.
did i really see that? double check. blimey, i did!
in order to score a point or two against christianity christopher has cited dan brown’s “da vinci code”. fantastic. you would have thought he would have at least quoted the book that brown stole from (sorry referenced) “holy blood, holy grail” (or perhaps christopher thought that was just cod history…..)
as for mr. hitchens book i will wait for it to be remaindered or given to me.

technology: been having trouble with my ipod, for the moment it just wants to play the almighty, acid mothers temple and bauhaus. getting a little boring.
then there were the problems i had with flickr, partly of my own making, partly thanks to their (un)help desk. but all sorted now. off you go and check out some of my pics (and, paul, i am sure that there are a few happy ones there for you…)

sport: the media went into hyperdrive about the beckham circus completely ignoring the fact that they could avoid the “circus” by talking to someone else instead, but that doesn’t sell newspapers.
dwain chambers a successful british sprinter, got caught with drugs, was banned, did his time, has come back. the powers that be have tried their best to keep dwain out of the sport, but their own rules are against them. in the end it looks like dwain will be driven out of the sport because he won’t be able to earn lots of cash on the athletic circuit. so he can be prevented from running in commercial events because he just doesn’t get invited, but a national association can be taken to court so that he can run in the national colours. makes sense to me.
dwain has now moved on to rugby league, at least for this week.
for the time being i’ll pass on the olympics, 2008 is going to be a year of sport and politics claiming that never the twain shall meet, but we know different.
so britain won a lot of gold medals in the bicycle world championships. as ever it will be a flash in the pan of the nation’s consciousness. which is a little bit surprising as several of the women riders are quite hot, they should be celebrated, raised up as superstars and then be given a custard rub down…. sorry that was me having a bit of a fantasy there.
we really don’t like celebrating winners.

politics: looks like there will be changes coming. i really wanted hillary to win (but then i was also hoping for a cat fight between her and condi, but again that is another of those personal fantasys that i shouldn’t share). now that hillary has misspoken or, more accurately, lied she looks somewhat less presidential.
the battle between her and obama has shown just how bizarre the american political process is. if i hear another american tell me how anyone can become president i will slap them silly. unless of course they add the caveat “as long as they are very very rich or know very very rich people”, and then i will believe them.
back home poor old gordon can’t buy a break. he should never have contemplated the early election, but once he started he should have followed through. he would have won. instead he gave cameron a weapon to hit him with, now gordon is a ditherer. it has stuck. now everything is his fault.
in london it looks like it boris has learnt from cameron and is running a campaign that means he stands a very very good chance of winning. ken livingstone is being attacked from all sides even the observer recently carried a piece by max hastings that basically said ken’s time is up. it also had the lovely moment where hastings pointed out that ken’s administration was corrupt even though ken himself had not benefited from it (so ken is useless on two counts – can’t keep his administration in check and he can’t make any cash out of it).
if boris wins then cameron will be a happy man as it means he will probably be the next prime minister.

there was talk about making kids take a pledge of allegiance when they graduate. it was about building a sense of community. my only real problem with this is: why just when they graduate? just once is not enough to build a sense of anything (well except in some cases like where you break a bone – then you know not to do it again). my long rumination on community will wait for another day.
can’t help but notice it has dropped off the radar.

the cbi still annoys me. their one strength is that they do have the answer to all the world’s ills: business should pay less tax and have much fewer rules and regulations. we can see how successful that is with northern rock. oh sorry that was gordon brown’s fault.

amazon still disappoints, but i still seem to spend far too much on books, cds and dvds when it so obvious i will never get around to watching or reading them all…. oh well at least i am not buying shoes.

oh and in this very brief round up of things i might have written about i just have to mention that my bowel movements have not be very regular i have gone from being constipated to pebble dashing the toilet.
ah the mojo is back.
you lucky people.