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Saturday, August 30, 2008

twix

limited editon.
white chocolate.
twix.
delish.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

quote

“ping-pong is coming home”.
pure boris.
total class.
just a shame he is a tory.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

jealousy

olympic handover.
the blonde boris triumphantly accepts the olympic flag.
a red london bus.
just how green is ken right now? i think he is a bright shade of envy.
can’t say i blame him.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

ban2

will people stop going on about the use of the word decimate.
we all know it is used incorrectly, but we all know what people mean when they use it.
you are not big, you are not clever and you are no longer original when you go on about what decimate really means.

ban

it is time to ban “role model” when it is applied to any sporting non-personality. young bryony shaw wins a bronze medal at the olympics and at the end of a very very very gushing thanks she said “fuck” live on tv.
of course the use of the world fuck has brought raging condemnation from at least 14 people, and most of them see themselves as being guardians of the moral fibre of the nation. rather than just chalk up this stray fuck to a heat of the moment enthusiasm it has become a question of what sort of role model is bryony shaw to the youth of the nation?
the simple answer is: no. not in bryony shaw’s wildest dreams is she a role model to the youth of britain.
quite why it is thought that because you are good at sports you somehow have the answers or that you should be held up to scrutiny. after all most successful sportsmen are selfish; they have to be in order to get to the top. they have to have supreme belief in their own abilities, they have to have a belief that winning is what it is all about.
these are not qualities that scream empathy.
add to the mix that top sportsmen are paid far beyond that of ordinary mortals and we have moved beyond the realms of shared experience.

the lessons that we can learn from sportsmen are that regardless of naturally ability success comes when it is mixed with blood sweat and tears.

we may want our sportsmen to be nice people, but really what we want them to do is to win. that is their job. as we have turned sportsmen into celebrities we have also given them the additional job of being role models. it is easier to point to the behaviour of these role models than it is to point out that parents may have let their children down, that more and more we abrogate responsibility to anyone.

it must be hard to be a sportsman (or for that matter a minor celebrity) so let us make their jobs a little easier by stop branding them role models.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

pride

i remember having a conversation with one of my old work colleagues – like so many of the conversations we had it left me scratching my head. it must have been during a world cup campaign and we were talking about national anthems he was going through a list of all his favourite ones, it was no shock that “god save the queen” came bottom of the list. when it came to certain things he was very predictable and very conscious of what the “correct” and trendy view was.
in the conversation over the anthem he claimed that the british one was a dirge. i was flummoxed.

because of the olympics i am getting to hear the anthem more often than normal. now it may very well be an unfashionable thing to say but by golly i do love to hear it. it sounds even better when you can hear the feint sounds of the spectators singing along, it is not helped by my joining in, as i can’t carry a tune even if i am using a bucket.

long may the anthem be heard.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

quote

a new must read political book is out this monday, “cameron on cameron”. in it david cameron says:

"i'm going to be as radical a social reformer as mrs. thatcher was an economic reformer, and radical social reform is what this country needs right now…
"it's dealing with the issues of family breakdown, welfare dependency, failing schools, crime, and the problems that we see in too many of our communities."

the reason why it will be a must read book is the hope that at last cameron will outline just what being a radical social reformer really means.
cameron is quick to use the phrase “breakdown britain” he is not so quick to state his policies for changing the situation. rather the conservatives trot out the tired excuse that they do not want to provide the labour government with any ideas. perhaps that is a canny strategy or perhaps it is just the fact that they do not have anything new to offer.
we may learn something from cameron’s new book.
we may have to wait until the general election is called.
we can guess at some of what will be offered. the usual mix of tax cuts for the rich, a push on traditional family values, the removal of welfare provisions, a return to selection in schools, in short radical means it will be a return to old conservative values.

maybe the boys and girls of new labour will be rushing out to get themselves a copy of the book so that they can remind themselves why they shouldn’t be engaging in political in-fighting. i doubt it.
that is the reason why the book can be seen as essential reading because as new labour self-destruct cameron and the conservatives are looking more and more likely to be forming the next government.
and that is a scary thought.

(i just have to find it somewhere very cheap).

Saturday, August 16, 2008

lazy

been a lazy day.
did nothing.
still doing nothing.
and i do not feel guilty about it.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

coins

for various reasons i have recently started trying to give shop keepers the exact money that way i cut down on the amount of change i have in my pockets and it means that i am using the loose coins that i seem to have floating around the place.

there i was in my favourite coffee shop, i am sorting through the shrapnel to give the exact amount. there is a little “tsk tsk” from the lanky barista, as i must have been holding him up from doing something really important and interesting.
yet shamefacedly i have to confess that a sign of encroaching old age kicked in as i sorted through the change: i gave him a 1 pence piece instead of the 5 pence piece i meant to hand over.
ooops.

even more than that i realised i had made the mistake as soon as i did it because i was stunned at seeing my first example of the new coinage.
yes the new heraldic coins are here.

several months back the mail on sunday made a big song and dance about the designs of the new coins. at the time they didn’t know what they would look like, they just knew that britannia would no longer be on the 50 pence piece. this was a terrible thing because it would be the first time that britannia would not have featured on the country’s coinage for the first time in 300 years.
this change was seen as being a betrayal of all that is british by gordon brown and new labour.
judging by the tone of the pieces that appeared in the mail you would have thought that very fabric of life, as we know it was about to be torn asunder. look they cry we have 30 thousand people who want britannia kept; now we have 45 thousand people. it is an unstoppable tide of people who are prepared to fight this change, to defend our way of life.
take britannia off of our 50 pence pieces at your peril.
david cameron came on board to say that the conservative party would return britannia to the coinage.

i was surprised that the mail on sunday didn’t blame this change of the coinage for causing the sub-prime mortgage crash in the states, the credit crunch in the uk. i don’t think it would stretching matters to claim that the situation in georgia is down to the fact that britannia has now been taken off of the 50 pence piece.

well that is not strictly true either as there are lots of 50 pence pieces around that still feature britannia, it is just that the new ones are now out.

what is a bigger shock is that after a few weeks of making this a big cause for the mail on sunday it was quietly dropped. there was no big story to say that the new coins were nothing more than a way to integrate us closer to europe even though new labour had promised a vote on coins in europe (not that they did, but that isn’t something the mail worries about).

the lack of coverage of the coins meant that when i saw my first one i was a little awestruck that i could hold in my hand a new shiny 1 pence piece and to know that i held something that could bring down governments and make world’s collide (even if it nothing of the sort occurs). for that reason alone i was slow in giving the right change to the barista.

i am still recovering from the fact that the new labour have managed to slip the coins in under the radar. keep watching the skies as disaster is only around the corner. well according to the mail on sunday and they wouldn’t lie.
would they?

Monday, August 11, 2008

digital

if money were no object i would be a gadget freak. i would be buying every new bit of kit that came out. sadly money is an object so i am what they call a late adopter, i am generally waiting for the item to be a “mature” product.
today i bought a video to dvd recorder that also included a digital tuner.
i needed a new video player as my old one was on its last legs and i still own a lot of videos. the dvd recorder means that i can cut down on the number of videos i have as i can copy them to dvd. see not just an impulse buy there is a plan.
the digital tv tuner means i can get lots of tv channels. there are two reasons why this is important. firstly my time in runcorn has made me addicted to tv, i went years and years without caring about tv but a few months in runcorn and i am hooked again. secondly the olympics is on.

aside from money there is another reason why i am not at the head of the queue to get new tech toys. the other reason is that no matter how simple a piece of kit is i will find it almost impossible to get it to work properly.

as yet i have not mastered the one touch recording that the machine promises. no shock there.
the digital tuner has tuned. annoyingly it has not found bid-up tv, which i think is a travesty.
now i can watch digital channels to my hearts content, except for the fact that some of them play and some of them say signal is weak. how does that work? i have no idea. the first thing i have discovered is that all those extra channels just means more chances to see the same thing time after time after time.

ah the joy of technology.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

hot

still too hot. all i seem to do is sweat.
want a big storm (though did enjoy the electical storm last night). want it to be cool or even chilly.
summer i hate it.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

quote

"I am full of fire. I am like a greased bounding panther. My legs are steel springs and every day I get out of bed and I beat my chest. Every morning I am full of wonderment that the people of London have done the honour of making me their mayor. I really am."

thus spake boris.
i am not sure i want to contemplate the image.

as sad as boris thinking that he is a sleek beast the news that ken keeps popping back to city hall is a sad one to contemplate.
though it comes as no surprise that someone who has been in power for eight years and suddenly finds himself out in the cold and can't give it up and move on.
cripes you only have to look at tony blair to see this, made worse by the fact that blair has managed to secure himself a nice cushy number he can't help but get involved with the internal struggles with the labour party.
sometimes you just have to let it go.

Saturday, August 02, 2008

1000

well it has taken a looooooooong time but finally post 1000 is here. wooo.
i had lost the urge to blog just recently, which is odd as there has been so much to comment on (as if anything i say will make any difference, but hey ho that is what ego is about).
so i am back and looking forward to getting the next 1000 done quicker.

(still too hot and my zits have not gone they have moved...)