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Friday, December 26, 2014

passwords

for various reasons i am not using my regular computer.
i made a mistake and got a chromebook, it isn't that the chromebook is bad, just that it doesn't do what i wanted it to do, and in fairness the chromebook never said it could do what i wanted it to do, more a case of me wanting not to spend a lot and not paying attention to the specs.
as i once learnt from a financial controller who loved a bargain and thought himself a tough negotiator: buy cheap buy twice

so here i am composing on a chromebook.
the thing that is annoying is trying to remember passwords and log-ins.
yes i could be organised about these things and have the ones i want there at my finger tips i thought i did. but oh no i haven't.
lots of looking through emails i have sent myself to find passwords and log-ins,
only to discover i have changed some passwords like they were going out of seasons, others i haven't kept, but have managed to save and secure all the details i would ever want to know about websites i had even forgotten that existed let alone every cared about going back to them.
or then you discover that a simple spelling mistake fucks everything up so badly you are up to your neck in deep cyberpooh. on a positive note i have potentially created an email site for assassins as i have told google my alternative email is on hitmail - that will work.

still the upshot of it all is that i have managed to track down the email login that this site is under (i had forgotten i needed to do that) and after several attempts i have managed to even find the right password for it.

so up and running.
again.
who knows maybe this time i will keep it up. 

belated

just a belated wish to one and all that they have (well now more a case of had) a merry christmas.
a further wish that the new year is better than the previous year and that hopes and dreams come true

merry christmas

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

grimch

it seems that i can officially begin my 'pissed off with christmas' phase now.

shops are talking about christmas.
papers have adverts for christmas.
restaurants and bars are now offering christmas packages.
articles about christmas finances and christmas food have sprung up.
it can’t be long now before the first ‘christmas has been cancelled in case it offends a few people on twitter’ stories appear.

and we are only just in october. 

alright i suppose i should come clean about it – it isn’t christmas i dislike it is the fuss and bother that springs up around it. for most people it isn’t about the religious festival it is about a forced bonhomie so that everyone can get right royally pissed and tell stories of the office party. now there is nowt wrong with wanting to get pissed or have an office party but for fucks sake do we have to plan it and hear about it for three months or more.

for retailers christmas is just a period of profit. the only ringing they want to hear is the bells of cash registers opening and closing: often. stuff bought that you would never normally buy but feel you have to because well it is that time of year.

christmas should be a time of joy and happiness – a time when you can relax reflect on the year just gone and get ready for the year ahead. instead it has increasingly become a time of conspicuous consumption, where joy and happiness can be measured in pence and pound.

so it isn’t christmas i dislike, it is all the commercialism and fake joviality that goes with it that turns me from mild mannered pat into full blown grinch.

my name is pat and i am a grinch.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014


pests



do you remember a time, not so long ago, when the media was whipping up a storm that the british national party were about to make huge electoral gains and that meant the end of westminster democracy as we knew it?
do you remember that pretty much nothing happened?
funny enough you can see the media doing it all again only this time it is the united kingdom independence party. commentators seem to flip from ukip as saviours to ukip as fruit loops. in the end ukip’s appeal can be summed up as being the outsider led by a cheeky chappie.
now this all works when there is nothing real at stake, come the general election that changes as people realise that there is something serious at stake. but they have done well in the european elections you tell me. not really a surprise i reply firstly their success is based on giving the government of the day a bit of a kicking and really does anyone care who wins the european elections?
in a perfect world ukip would get the same sort of coverage that the green party gets (who strangely have an elected member of parliament), but promoting the greens has no traction. pushing ukip allows commentators to voice their agendas against europe and the two main parties. so the continual vacillation between immigrants bad and we need more immigrants can be used either way in order to punish the main parties. meanwhile ukip and nigel farage keep getting plenty of coverage. any attacks on them become a rallying call for those who may have be disaffected with westminster politics.
all ukip are pests, they are not contenders for power and they shouldn’t be allowed to get into a position where they are allowed to set the political agenda.

Friday, June 13, 2014

custard



on one of my periodic health kicks: this is where i realise i am too fat and i eat too much junk food. 

sometimes my battle takes the form of digging up a pair of trainers and going for an early morning run. now i am not the most elegant of runners – there is no rhythmic pounding of the streets, no smooth gliding across the pavements. just lots of huff and puff and lurching and thudding from side to side.  for this reason i either run very early in the morning or very late at night: fewer people to scare and fewer people to laugh. 

sometimes my battle takes the form of changing my diet and eating responsibly. this should be easy except i hate anything to do with food preparation. besides do you know how good a packet of chocolate biscuits and a pint of cold milk taste? not to mention how well they fill you up. double win.
for the moment i am going the way of better food, and less food (like most fat bastards i eat more than i need to). no more cheap chocolate and cakes. much less cheap fizzy pop (well sainsbury’s cheap brand cola is only 25p a big bottle, so what if it doesn’t taste fantastic look at how much there is). cheap fresh fruit from the market – bananas, grapes, oranges – loads of them and still change in my pocket. more veg, less cheese. remember pasta is my friend. 

i can do this. 

there was a pretty immediate effect as my toilet habits had to change. big logs. 

then came a fall. look i don’t claim to have an iron will. i don’t claim to be above temptation, i know i am weak willed so that is why i agreed to have a weekend blow out – yes chocolate you have the weekends. so i was proud of myself when i walked by cream cakes and didn’t even look. who needs cream cakes?
then it happened. sainsbury’s just before closing. custard filled doughnuts. half-price. six of them. custard filled cheap doughnuts. i am a sucker for custard filled doughnuts. i love them. sainsbury’s to their credit make a lovely custard filled doughnut. at half-price i would have to be an ordained trappist monk to be able to resist. 

i am not.
i did not.
i got home. guilty, i admit. 

sat back to enjoy them, ready to savour all the badness that is so good about a custard filled sainsbury’s doughnut. lips licked in anticipation. yum yum. first succulent bite taken - mmm sugar, mmm oily baked dough. second bite: more sugar and strawberry jam. 

what!

strawberry jam, oh dear reader i was mortified. i had broken my good food pledge for just a jam doughnut. not a custard doughnut, a plain ordinary jam doughnut.
the fun had gone. the magic had gone. i didn’t enjoy finishing off the doughnuts. 

next time i will be stronger!

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

quote



funny the things that you read on the bog – there i was working up to doing a big job while reading the programme of a contemporary dance festival. what i know about modern dance could be written in block capitals on the head of a pin. still i am always looking for something new to experience, especially if it is free.
sadly none of the festival’s work is free.

among the articles in the programme is a q&a with korean american director young jean lee, she has created a show called ‘the shipment’ it is an exploration of the continuing effects of slavery.
in the programme she says “europe is much less aware of its racial issues than the usa – and the usa is not that aware. i can’t tell you how many europeans have told me, “we don’t have a race problem in our country” but when the only people of colour you see in a city are servants that city has a race problem.”

pardon?

it is such a ludicrously over the top statement that it undercuts her central argument.
while reading the short article i was struck by how racism has become very black and white (excuse the pun), that it is a simple case of whitey hating anyone of colour. when the fact of the matter is it doesn’t matter what colour you are you can easily find another group to hate. go among any racial group and sooner or later you will discover another racial group they hate. i know japanese who are not keen on chinese, thais who don’t like japanese, indians who don’t like africans, africans who don't like arabs and so on.

by reducing racism to just a white vs colour issue reduces any chance of eliminating racism while tacitly condoning the racism of others as somehow something lesser, when any such hatred demeans us all.

sun


it has only been a few days of sun and already i am hating it.

can we please have winter back? can we please have some cool air, rain, wind maybe some snow. what can i say i don’t like summer.
all summer means to me is sweat and sore runny eyes.
about the only thing that makes summer bearable is the joy of short skirts, yet even that is ruined by the fact that there are far too many podgy blokes wandering around with their tops off.

i don’t like summer.