laugh

some bits and pieces really - things that have caught my eye and sort of made me smile.

trafalgar - the 200th anniversary of the battle of trafalgar is soon upon us. and we are going to be celebrating it, but not in a way that is "french bashing" or for that matter in a way that is historically accurate.
the organisers have said there will be no "sides" in the celebration/ recreation instead there will be a blue team and a red team, rather than an english fleet versus french and spanish fleet.
additionally the sunday times reports that the official literature of the celebration is referring to “an early 19th-century sea battle”, as opposed to the battle of trafalgar.
the mock battle that will involve tall ships, fireworks and music is "... not a historical re-enactment. it is a piece of theatre, and not supposed to be historically accurate." (ministry of defence).
perhaps if we actually took pride in these sorts of historical events and treated them with respect rather than hid them shyly behind a pc veneer and a fear of upsetting others there would be less chance of the far right being able to steal the union jack for their own use. perhaps if we were proud to be english we would not be so sheepish about entering europe.

hoodies
bluewater shopping centre has banned hoodies, and people attending the place to shop have shot up by over 20% in the week the ban started. ok i am not someone who shops at bluewater, and i have nothing to say in defence of kids/youths who wear hoodies, but i am surprised at the results of the ban. firstly because who would have thought that there that many more people who wanted to go to bluewater (or were "scared" to go because of some sort of tribal fashion), also i am shocked at the speed that the ban worked - i only heard about it after it had come into affect but obviously there are some keen bluewater wannabe shoppers out there who were just waiting for the ban to come in so that they could rush out to bluewater to spend their cash.
(admittedly hoodies were only part of the ban which was all about anti-social behaviour as it also bans smoking, leafleting, and canvassing)
meanwhile a school has made the hoodie part of its uniform. although the hoodie can only be put up when it is raining (which to me makes it a pointless part of the uniform - but then if i had my way i would also ban people wearing sunglasses on the top of their heads (why?) and people who go around showing their arses off because they think it is trendy to wear jeans very low slung). the headmaster makes two interesting points 1] behaviour is the problem not the clothes (though perhaps this misses the point of the tribal wear - kids want to be part of a group/gang and will dress the part and peer pressure leads to potential bad behaviour - hey what do i know am i an expert?) secondly he says by making them part of the school uniform it reduces the coolness of them.
the independent, of course, rushed to the defence of youths wearing hoodies. the indie, bless it, is fast becoming the newspaper equivalent of the swp in that wherever it sees something that might be a cause it is quick to rush in to get involved.
i am expecting the first hoodie human rights trial any day soon.

goats
the locals are up in arms about the wild goats of lynton. the 80 or so wild goats have taken to wandering off of the wilds and coming into town to dine on residents flowers and such like. the residents are taking this invasion badly and are looking to have a cull of the goats. some goats have already "disappeared", perhaps to be turned into curry. the idea of a cull seems to have caused a division in the area with some residents receiving death threats.
one of the most outspoken opponents of the goats is derek bishop who is not only upset about the fact that his wife garden has become the goats version of a macdonald’s drive-in restaurant, but he has also seen his local cricket club attacked by the goats as they rut on the outfield and have defecate in front of the pavilion (have those goats no shame - it's just not cricket old boy!) bishop points out that the cricket ground twice nearly won the wisden award for the prettiest in england. (well derek take heart the editors of wisden may not have liked it the goats surely do!)
i expect the goats to take their case to the european court of goat rights any day soon.

chainsaws
picture the scene, if you will, you are up a tree using a chainsaw to cut some branches. the ladder you are using is being held by someone. meanwhile in the garden there is a dog playing about. you can almost sense the monty pythonesque danger about the scene. guess what you wouldn't be wrong.
one poor husband is now without his wife due to the fact that the ladder she was holding got banged, he fell, and the chainsaw fell only for it to catch the wife on the way down. it appears that the dog jumped up at the wife in playful abandon and started the tragic chain of events. of his wife he said "she was very special, she worked very hard and was very good at her job."
i just have to wonder what on earth was someone doing up a ladder that needed to be held steady with a chainsaw in the first place? and to let the dog play around at the same time.

additionally the sunday times reports that the official literature of the celebration is referring to an “an early 19th-century sea battle”.
the mock battle that will involve tall ships, fireworks and music is "... not a historical re-enactment. it is a piece of theatre, and not supposed to be historically accurate." (ministry of defence).
perhaps if we actually took pride in these sorts of historical events and treated them with respect rather than hid them shyly behind a pc veneer and a fear of upsetting others there would be less chance of the far right being able to steal the union jack for their own use. perhaps if we were proud to be english we would not be so sheepish about entering europe.

hoodies
bluewater shopping centre has banned hoodies, and people attending the place to shop have shot up by over 20% in the week the ban started. ok i am not someone who shops at bluewater, and i have nothing to say in defence of kids/youths who wear hoodies, but i am surprised at the results of the ban. firstly because who would have thought that there that many more people who wanted to go to bluewater (or were "scared" to go because of some sort of tribal fashion), also i am shocked at the speed that the ban worked - i only heard about it after it had come into affect but obviously there are some keen bluewater wannabe shoppers out there who were just waiting for the ban to come in so that they could rush out to bluewater to spend their cash.
(admittedly hoodies were only part of the ban which was all about anti-social behaviour as it also bans smoking, leafleting, and canvassing)
meanwhile a school has made the hoodie part of its uniform. although the hoodie can only be put up when it is raining (which to me makes it a pointless part of the uniform - but then if i had my way i would also ban people wearing sunglasses on the top of their heads (why?) and people who go around showing their arses off because they think it is trendy to wear jeans very low slung). the headmaster makes two interesting points 1] behaviour is the problem not the clothes (though perhaps this misses the point of the tribal wear - kids want to be part of a group/gang and will dress the part and peer pressure leads to potential bad behaviour - hey what do i know am i an expert?) secondly he says by making them part of the school uniform it reduces the coolness of them.
the independent, of course, rushed to the defence of youths wearing hoodies. the indie bless it is fast becoming the newspaper equivalent of the swp in that wherever it sees something that might be a cause it is quick to rush in to get involved.
i am expecting the first hoodie human rights trial any day soon.

goats
the locals are up in arms about the wild goats of lynton. the 80 or so wild goats have taken to wandering off of the wilds and coming into town to dine on residents flowers and such like. the residents are taking this invasion badly and are looking to have a cull of the goats. some goats have already "disappeared", perhaps to be turned into curry. the idea of a cull seems to have caused a division in the area with some residents receiving death threats.
one of the most outspoken opponents of the goats is derek bishop who is not only upset about the fact that his wife garden has become the goats version of a macdonald’s drive-in restaurant, but he has also seen his local cricket club attacked by the goats as they rut on the outfield and have defecate in front of the pavilion (have those goats no shame - it's just not cricket old boy!) bishop points out that the cricket ground twice nearly won the widen award for the prettiest in england. (well derek take heart the editors of widen may not have liked it the goats surely do!)
i expect the goats to take their case to the european court of goat rights any day soon.

chainsaws
picture the scene, if you will, you are up a tree using a chainsaw to cut some branches. the ladder you are using is being held by someone. meanwhile in the garden there is a dog playing about. you can almost sense the monty pythonesque danger about the scene. guess what you wouldn't be wrong.
one poor husband is now without his wife due to the fact that the ladder she was holding got banged, he fell, and the chainsaw fell only for it to catch the wife on the way down. it appears that the dog jumped up at the wife in playful abandon and started the tragic chain of events. of his wife he said "she was very special, she worked very hard and was very good at her job."
i just have to wonder what on earth was someone doing up a ladder that needed to be held steady with a chainsaw in the first place? and to let the dog play around at the same time what is (to quote the hurricane) up with that?

so these things have made me smile in wry ironic ways.

pants

there are a lot of things that you could say about the sun newspaper (and most of them would not be pleasant), but every now and then you have to admire them for their sheer front.
the other day they printed pictures of saddam in his mighty whites washing out his socks. the headline was "tyrant's in his pants".
there was, rightly, an uprorar over this.
if only because we want to be seen to be better than all the other tyrants around the place.... ooops little late after the abu graibh and camp x situations, but better late than never eh!)

anyway so today's (saturday 21st may) headline is "bush probes saddam's pants: president vows to get to the bottom of it!". it's all you want in a headline really - it tells you the news and has a smutty pun or two in it. plus it lets you know that the sun really doesn't care what anyone thinks of them.

the sun reports bush as saying that the pictures will not lead to attacks as pictures do not push people to murder but backward barbaric ideology does. later on the picture is described as giving a blow to the morale of the resistance as it shows them how saddam is now.
so on the one hand the picture will do nothing.
on the other hand it will do lots.
i like that sort of logic.
(while many would argue that the resistance fighters/ insurgents/ rebels call them what you will are fighting to get rid of the occupancy and not to free saddam!)

best of all the sun leader has a pop at both the bbc and guardian.
the beeb have raised questions about the rights of showing the pictures, to which the sun says:
"only someone recruited via a job advert in the guardian could have such a partial and polluted view of life."

i guess all that guff about us being better than saddam, about us bring justice, about us bringing values to the middle east don't mean that much to the sun.

3000

ooh i have just broken the 3000 hits mark.
ok so most of those hits have been me coming on here and posting, but it's nice to see the counter going up.
is my life so sad that this pleases me?
oh yes it is....

geeks

some of what is wrong with the world can be summed up in this one quote from Sara Freeman, 19, dressed in a brown Jedi costume in Chicago, added: "I didn't expect to see as many girls as I did. There's not usually as many geek girls as geek boys."
how true that young woman is.
many of us male geeks (and i count myself amongst the geek fraternity - yes i know some of you out there think you are above it, but.... yes i am looking at you kenny and you paul....) can spend hours talking about our favourite "subject" superman, batman, star wars, star trek, 24, prog rock. we can wax lyrical; we can make cogent arguments, construct detailed analysis of the latest occurrence in our field linking it all in with the latest in cultural theory and pointing out the juxtaposition between the contrasting elements. But we generally do it with fellow male geeks.
Because it is such a male dominated thing when we are confronted with women we can sometimes get a little too intense or too tongue tied (actually this could just be me…)
So what we geeks need is more female geeks.

Come on girls adopt a geek today.

Failing that I am off to see star wars again!

yoda

well i walked out of the genesis cinema at 3am this morning and i was a happy bunny.
it was wookietastic.
it had all you wanted in itlightsaber duels (look at yoda kick butt), it had big spacecraft, explosions, wookies, more explosions, betrayal, hope, action.
and when the luke and leia themes played ah the fanboy in me smiled and yelped with joy.
there were some things wrong with it and some things i just want more of. the thing i missed the most was being in the cinema with my pal adam and just recreating those great days of teenhood where the only thing you (well i) worried about was zits and helen jones (no longer worry about the zits but there is always a lady or two on my mind).

to those of you who are not star wars fans (that would be you emma and you paul) the attraction of it is hard to explain as you either get it or you don't. but i have been a fan of the movies since i saw the first one. i am not an obsessive about them (honest) i just enjoy the cinematic experience. there was a time when i could have gone all jedi on people - but have you seen the amount of books and stuff devoted to it... no way jose. 6 films to enjoy is enough.
well actually thats not true - lets get that pettition started for the last 3 films to be made.

oh geeky saddnes your name is pat.....

respect

seems like tony has learnt at least one lesson - if you want to win change the name of the game to something that people will like. so we have "respect" bliar is going to build a "culture of respect" in his remaining months in power.
given the attitude towards politician's this is a good idea - but oh look at that here they go with the id card thing again - even though everyone told them that no one wanted them and no one could see the benefit of them. well so much for respecting other people's views.
off to a good start there then!
or perhaps this is "respect" ala galloway when really all it means is that we are using this word so you don't think of that other stuff.

it looks like the next couple of years tony is going to be focused on the domestic agenda. so we will have laws to ban smoking in public places, to tackle hospital-acquired infections (mmm not sure how you can legislate against catching a bug, surely that is just a case of providing the nhs with the tools and resources to keep the hopistal clean ? or does that interfer with the sacred cow of the pfi? then there will be laws to boost school standards (you can already see it - try to tell the teacher your dog ate your homework and you get 10 months solitary...)
but it's ok they are planning to be tough on street crime, asylum and immigration. so that should play well in papers such as the daily mail and the sun.
you know that when the conservatives are planning to back new labour on most of their bills there is something wrong....
can onmly be a matter of time before that have gorgeous george back in.

giddy

been a bad day at work - but do you know what got me through it?
well first off there was the lingering pleasure of having watch two episodes from 24 day 4 - easily the best programme on tv that is not a steve bochco production (rip nypd blue..... boo hoo). then there was the arrival of the latest release in the marvel essential's line: the defenders. how i am looking forward to sitting on the enjoying one of nature's free pleasures and combining that with reading some great marvel comics. bliss i tell you - bliss.
but i suppose the think that is keeping me going most of all is the time 12.31am thursday morning when i will sit down and watch star wars revenge of the sith at my local cinema. i know it is not cool to admit it but i have enjoyed the previous two prequels and i fully expect to be wowed, thrilled and generally excited by the 6th and final star wars movie.
i just know it will be a (dare i say it) "brainblast!"

weekend

spent this weekend being a bit of a fanboy geek.
ok i am in the lucky position that i can say this is all part of my job, but secretly i love it.
i fell in love with a young lady (sadly she is young enough to be my daughter...) she was sexy in a punk way (dreads, tats and piercing...) she talked dirty and was enthusiastic about comics! i wanted to marry her there and then. to be honest sex would never have had to come into the relationship we could have just discussed the merits of hulk vs. thing. for a fanboy it's as close to heaven as we can get....
one of the interesting aspects of the event in bristol was the number of women at the event, who were there as fans or creators. it was a wonderful thing to behold and not only because there are times when i am a dirty old man....
i remember back when one of my friends was being made the manager of a large comic retail store and the flack she got just because she was a girl. it appears that the once male dominated world of collecting is now being invaded by women.
what has brought this about? has it been the success of goth corners in stores or the influx of manga? discuss.

had to rush (well i use that term very loosely because i was on a train - so there was always going to be a delay, this was compounded by the closure for "essential" work on the hammersmith and city line...) back to get over to the excel centre for the london expo - didn't manage to see much there as i got there very close to end of the show. luckily i saw some of the stars of the frontier wrestling alliance (who never seem to wrestle in or near london boo hoo) in action. managed also to get some photos of matt hardy and rob van dam (who is a big comic fan - was tempted to ask him if he was a giggly and giddy as i was about the arrival of the essential defenders trade ... but thought better of it....)
the london show was a mix of various genres so there were stars from current tv shows, movie stars of old, wrestlers, manga fans, gaming fans and more. because of this mix of likes it was not so surprising to see a good mix of sexes and ages. but never fear there were sufficient numbers of lovely goth or manga style clad girls to keep me happy.

aside from the photos of matt and rvd i got nothing this weekend. does it mean i have my collector mania under control? or does it mean i have all i want? or am i just waiting for something else to collect....

speechless

there are times when life really sucks (ooh i sound like a angst ridden sixth former there - still if trent reznor and tracey emin can make a fortune out of teenage self pity, then i can throw a "suck" or two into my own blog) you know the drill work might be getting you down, social life isn't really very social, never getting a number on the lottery, sharron stone never returning your calls - you know the usual gripes.... and then the realisation that sometimes someone else just has it worse than you.
take for instance the italian man who has had his marriage annulled and is now having to pay damages because he is impotent and can't do the business for his new missus. he is apparently guilty of abusing her "right to sexuality", (the italian constitution apparently has a section on sexuality in it - only in italy.....)
so not only has this poor chap become the laughing stock because he has no lead in his pencil and this has been made public, he now has to pay for the fact that his missus couldn't have children by him.
she claims that by not telling her of his problem beforehand was "contrary to the principles of loyalty, fairness and good faith". this is why she can get money out of him.
the amount of damages has yet to be decided - but one hopes it includes the figure 69 somewhere in it.

i have to wonder does this then extend in the other direction can men take their wives to court for not providing enough sex (or for demanding too much sex?) who decides just what is or isn't enough, is it a question of quality or quantity. can you do your duty via a quick fumble that leaves a wet spot but doesn't satisfy or do you have to make her scream like angelina jolie (way to go brad) for it to count.

no wonder the italians voted a porn star into government with such laws to keep them in philosophical mass debate (look you knew i was going to do that joke, i knew you knew i was going to do it - so i couldn't let you down - ok!)

so in this case the missus gets off to marry someone else and gets a wad of cash as well.
nice work if you can get it.

galloway2

i don't like him, i don't think he is going to be good for the people of tower hamlets, i think he is going to cause my trouble in the area as the people who elected him realise he is a fraud, but whatever i think galloway was elected by the people to be their mp.
jeremy paxman laid into him (in the way only jezza can) with the question did he feel proud to have unseated one of the few black women in parliament.
galloway was less than happy with this line of questioning, i suspect not because of the content of the attack and question but more to do with the fact his ego was bruised by not being congratulated by paxman.
but have to i have seen a number of commentators point out that oona king was female, was black and was half jewish as if these personal attributes made her the ideal candidate. (and the corollary of what is being said is that galloway was male, white and atheist and therefore does not fit the pc criteria for holding office).
king was caught out because she was a supporter of the war and of blair, neither of these things were bad per se - but if you are not going to vigorously defend your position and not work hard to get your message out you are going to lose. bottom line was that i saw and heard galloway and respect doing the rounds. i saw nothing of oona king, and now we are stuck with galloway.

howard

sometimes life proves that there is indeed a silver lining to those grey clouds. just as i was trying to get over galloway i am confronted with the news that howard is about to quit as leader of the conservative party. to be fair i doubt anyone is shocked that this is happening, but i have to say it does strike me as being a tad rash and must have had gordon brown rubbing his hands with glee.
why pat why? i hear you cry.
the resignation of the conservative leader is something like a seasonal bloodsport, a defeat and lets get rid of him. sure howard is making the right noises that he is going to be too old to contest the next election, but to step down now seems to be folly.
tell us why pat – stop teasing!
well firstly howard hasn’t done too bad a job making the conservatives look delectable, he seems to have unified the party – sure it was for the simple goal of stopping tony blair, but they were unified. isn’t that enough for him to have done? with his stepping down you can see all the old splits, rivalries and fighting getting ready to boil over again. now more than ever the tories need to decide exactly what it is to be a conservative – to have a vision of a tory england that they can believe in and sell to the country – it’s not going to be easy to get that kind of vision out of them while they are in the midst of a leadership campaign. secondly there appears to be no obvious successor – so they would have been better off to have howard stay in place for a year or so, have the big discussion over what being a tory is about and in the midst of that debate you would hope a leader would come forward.
if that was not enough tony blair is perceived by many to be a big of a lame duck right now – so while they could be scoring some serious points over him and new labour they are going to spend the next few months worrying about is it going to be dr. fox or ollie letwin.
all in all it’s an own goal i am afraid.
tony breathes a sigh of relief as he can slap howard around in prime ministers question time, while gordon brown must be cheering as he contemplates leading new labour to a 4th and then to a 5th term of government. because unless the tories get down on bended knee and beg portillo to come back they are not getting close to be elected next time out and you know what that means? a new tory leader in 5 years time (if not sooner).
if it didn’t go against my class i would nominate myself as tory leader, hell i couldn’t screw them up anymore than ids or hague did.

toilets

it's a late night at work (i hate them, but sometimes you just have to sit here and do the work... not like someone else is going to do it for you....)
the diet of coffee and chocolate i have been on today (i am sure i have had some real food during the day but majority of what i have consumed has been calorie or caffeine rich) has meant a trip to the bogs for a very large number 2, would say it was a number 2 squared but i have no idea if you can do that in logs (boom boom - ah basil brush where are you now!)

any after depositing my load i do the reach for the toilet paper thing (subconsciously i have already checked that there is paper in the bog dispenser) but without fail i discover one of two things about the toilet dispenser.
1] it is either filled to the brim so that the drum of paper will not rotate in the dispenser so you have to claw at the paper to get any out. a design fault of magnificent proportions.
2] even when the drum of paper rotates freely some arcane mystical force seems to keep the paper attached at each end so you can't find a loose bit to pull on. once again leaving you to claw at the paper to allow you to wipe your arse.
why they don't make the drum of paper a little bit smaller than the dispenser so it rotates freely is beyond me, and why the paper can't just hang free rather than be of a virtual velcro style is beyond me....

about a month ago i was attending an electrnica club sprawl and had to use the bog in the rather plush meet bar the event was taking place. and like the club itself the toilet was swanky except the fact that one it was a thin and long toilet - so you could run the risk of being trapped in there, secondly if you were perchance to want to do a number 2 the toilet roll (with super soft paper) was over an arms length away leading to an annoying and, potentially, messy stretch, and if to add insult to injury the bog roll dispenser was also in an alcove - which added to the contortions you had to make to get to the paper.
as i say it was very soft paper - so perhaps this was the way to make sure that no used too much of it. or perhaps it the architect was a member of the spanish inquisition in a previous life....

galloway

he won.

bugger!

democracy

well it’s the big day. cast your vote, make a difference.
you have to feel a little sorry for new labour – they have done some wonderful things for the poor and disadvantaged of the country, but no one wants to hear about that they want to go on about iraq and immigration.
yes both subjects are important and need to be discussed, but they are not the sum total of what this election is about.

over in tony blair’s constituency of sedgefield the following candidates are standing

berony abraham, independent; john barker, independent; cherri blairout-gilham, pensioner's party; julian brennan, independent; william brown, ukip; robert browne, lib dem; jonathan cockburn, blair must go; mark farrell, national front; helen john, independent; al lockwood, conservative; fiona luckhurst-matthews, veritas; terry pattinson, senior citizens party; boney maroney staniforth, monster raving loony party.

and of course there is reg keys, who is standing as an independent. reg wasn’t interested in politics until his son tom was killed in iraq, a war which keys insists was illegal and immoral and therefore makes him the ideal candidate to stand against blair in his sedgefield constituency.
keys says "i'm not exactly what you'd expect of a politician, but i do know that i can embarrass tony blair." he goes on to say “we can use our vote to get rid of those people who betrayed my son and other men like him. that's what i want the people of sedgefield to do” (guardian)
i have to admit i have had mixed feelings about the war in iraq, most of them come not from the fact that an “illegal” war brought down an evil dictator but more from the fact that
1] clearly the operation was done in such a botched fashion we are still no closer to being able to exit.
2] that now that a “pre-emptive” argument has been made there seems to be no political will to go forward with that.
3] the world appears to be a much less safe place than it was before the invasion of iraq.

but the use of the war as a political rallying cry does cry out opportunism (and to my mind an element of cowardice – it is so much easier to be strong on one thing than it is to present a unified package to people). while keys has more right to do this than, say, george galloway, any votes cast for him are still wasted ones.

however it is good to see democracy in action (all over the whitechapel area you can see stickers telling muslims not to vote – because if they do they are no longer muslims. who would have thought the bnp and fundamentalist muslims would have something in common? (the bnp used to be anti-elections because they believed that elections meant that politicians could not really get on with the governing of the country because they were always interested in getting re-elected. the fundamentalist muslims are against elections because they oppose the idea of man made laws.)

it’s great to see ukip, veritas and national front go at it (what no bnp?) well that is going to confuse their potential vote which of the 3 do you choose? so let’s expect them to not be getting their deposits back.
it warms my heart to see the monster raving loony party in there. but where is respect?
the ones i feel sorry for are the independents – it’s almost like they are part of the billy no mates party, you would thought that they could have made up some silly names for themselves, rather than end up with the name of a newspaper that very few people read.

remember you might think it is a good idea to give tony blair a bloody nose, but you run the risk of letting in the conservatives. And let me tell you no one will thank you for that!

co-eds

there are times when catching the number 25 bus is a chore, such as when it is packed, or when the driver is on a go-slow (it’s all about the schedule you know – no actually i don’t what i do know is that you are delaying me from getting where i want to go mr. bus driver!) or when the mad person is on there.
then there are times when it is a total pleasure – normally when it is taking me away from work, or it is running smoothly or nights like tonight.
the area i live in has a couple of universities and a teaching hospital in it, the 25 runs right by queen mary’s (one of the few london campus’ i have not studied at – but give it time…) a couple of times in the past as i wearily made my way home the journey has been made brighter by the arrival of the several lovely young female students who are off out to the student union bar. the first time they got on the bus they sat and stood opposite me, it was also a day when i had nothing to read so i was just looking about me. the students were dressed in very short skirts, revealing tops and high heels, the only thing that saved me from total embarrassment was that there was so much to look at i was 1] spoilt for choice 2] paralysed by the need to choose, so ended up just gazing ahead of me.
i could hear them talking about what they were doing that night (organising some student union event) but what i was most interested in was the amount of gorgeous flesh that was on view. it was a breathtaking reminder of my desire to go back to academia.
since that first encounter i have been smitten and have lusted after another chance to cast my (some would say old lecherous – hi emma) eyes on them. i have been lucky enough to be on the right bus at the right time a few times, it almost makes up for the morning madman.
tonight was another of those nights where i struck gold. several girls got on – all dressed in the regulation short skirt (i have no idea if it is a fraternity thing ala phi kappa spanka spanka but i do know it looks good) the make up and the chat about what they were going to be doing tonight.
now remember these are serious students and they have worries such as essays, exams, uni coming to an end, friendships drifting apart and the world of work. except tonight was slightly different as there has obviously been a change in the old guard of the student union club they were leading members of. in the group on the bus there was the departing president of their club and the new president of the club. the ex and new were trading the usual “i think you should have stayed as president” “no no you will do a fine job, really you will” type stuff.
heaven help me all i could think was that i had ended up in the lindsay lohan “mean girls” – the main difference being that these girls should know better, after all they are all trying to get degrees as lawyers or doctors….
do i feel any differently towards them now that i know they are wrapped up in a tiny senseless world of student politics and point scoring with each other? hell no with legs that good and skirts that short they can do little wrong in my eyes!

me shallow? never.

intelligence

"More than 30 people were injured yesterday after dozens of Oxford undergraduates misjudged the level of the River Cherwell during a May Day celebration." (daily telelgraph & bbc)

now i am a believer in tradition - it can help define who we are, it can help guide us into the future. true not all traditions are that noble. but the tradition of jumping off the magdalen bridge each may day must continue.
why do you say that pat? i can hear you cry, already preparing to curse my name for being a lapdog apologiser for the establishment.
no the reason i want it to continue is not for the reasons that the average daily telegraph or daily mail reader would cite.
no i say it must conintue for the simple reason that it is proof postive that the elite are as stupid as we have always thought them to be and it is only the advantages that money and status confer on them that allows them to succeed in life....
especially when both reports have the local authorities saying it was dangerous (due to a low level of water...) and that these warnings were ignored but even worse:
"All of the injuries could have been avoided and even when those who were hurt were telling people still on the bridge not to jump, they continued to do so."

and these are the people who will get on in life...
when really for all the waste of resources of the NHS (oh like daddy couldn't afford to send them to a private doctor and like daddy isn't working for a company that avoids paying taxes ...) and police. frankly they should all be hit with ASBOs.

you could say i was being unfair to youthful exurberance - and you could be right.
except for two things:
1] the chances that working class estate bound kids getting away with it are slim.
2] i remember years ago visiting my dad at his place of work (the historic wig and pen club) and being confronted there by a very pissed gent (given my dad's choosen profession i had become used to drunks at an early age..) whose nose shone brighter than rudolph's (the only nose i have seen even redder was the catholic priest who visited my mum in hospital - my mum was keen to get a shot (or 5) of what he was drinking....) and whose weaving and bobbing and slurred voice meant that he would not be out of place at whitechapel tube station on a saturday night after closing. when the posh pissed bloke left my dad told me that i had been in the prescence of one of the top consultant surgeon's in london...... frankly he wasn't three sheets to the wind he was a whole flotila and that sort of abuse of booze shouldn't be tolerated.
so i can't help feeling that if you are part of the "elite" your money and status guarantee that you can get away with a lot more than the average person in the street can.

so that is why i hope the tradition of jumping from the bridge continues because hopefully they will continue to hurt themselves each year and who knows it may mean they can't breed anymore.

best of all it means more years in the wildnerness for the conservative party - look at what they have coming along in the future.

addiction

over the last few years i have come to realise that i have an addictive personality (which isn’t to say that once someone meets me they can never get enough of me) but more to do with the fact that i can get addicted to things very easily and that i find myself moving quickly from a case of just using something through indulging myself to outright abuse.
luckily must of my addictions are “harmless” and i can handle them (i can give it up tomorrow if i choose to – honest, just a touch of flu guv…..)
among my addictions i count chocolate, cream cakes, coffee and diet coke (my self love habits i do not regard as an addiction more an exercise regime),
a new recent addition to this role call of weakness is the return of a childhood favourite – nesquik.

i rediscovered nesquik in my local cinema, i tried a strawberry flavoured drink and was hooked. soon each trip to the cinema was accompanied by a large nesquik. each time i ordered i got funny looks. looks which reminded me of the time when me and my mate paul (hi paul!) went to cinema and we stacked up and several large bags of chocolate and then both asked for a diet coke each. well the withering look we got from the assistant there just lead to us (well maybe just me) saying in a whiney voice “but we prefer the taste of diet coke……”
so now the trip to the cinema is worthwhile not only because of the film but because there would be nesquik, ah be still my beating heart…. if only life were that simple and pleasure came that easily.
just as i had gotten into a routine with the nesquik the cinema dropped it.

but now i can have my fix of pink sugary milk at anytime as my local sainsburys now has nesquik on sale. i am fulfilled again – the aisles of the supermarket sing out their greetings to me each time i go in – dance merrily as i search out the nesquik pack.

so i have a new guilty pleasure and it’s name is nesquik.

visit the world of nesquik here

hypocrite

brian sedgemore was a long standing labour party backbencher. now after 27 years as an mp he is defecting to the liberal democrats.
why is he doing this?
because he wants to give blair “a bloody nose” at the polls and this was because sedgemore has had enough of blair’s “stomach turning lies”. (here)
as part of the story over sedgemore’s defection was the implication that more labour mps would defect before polling day. as reported in the independent “declaring that "enough is enough", mr sedgemore also reveals that a small group of unnamed fellow mps who are standing down are secretly planning to leave the labour party in protest at mr blair's leadership after the election.” (april 26th edition - here)


now my mate nick thinks that is a principled move and it sends a message to blair that he cannot get away with what he has done with regards to iraq.
i can see his point, but in all honesty what sedgemore (and perhaps some of his colleagues are doing) is so shallow and so hypocritical you wonder why he isn’t joining the conservative party.
true sedgemore has voted against the government on the subject of iraq (and several other key policies), but he has remained in the party and as part of the government. the timing of his defection is cynical – done to get as much publicity for himself as possible (perhaps he should be joining respect?) but also done at a time which does not disturb his career too much, because sedgemore is not fighting for his seat he is standing down at the end of this parliament.
so for all his criticisms of blair he managed to hold out as a labour politician long enough to retire.
if he felt that strongly he could have defect during the parliament and gone to the liberal democrats and called a bye election to allow the people to give blair “the bloody nose” that sedgemore believes he deserves.
the same go for all the others who are planning to defect once they have stood down at the end of this parliament….

with that kind of backbone in the labour party is it any wonder that blair and campbell got their way over iraq.

for me sedgemore comes out of this as a bit of cynical hypocrite who claims to be carrying out his actions for the noblest of reasons. not sure who he reminds me of most tony blair or george galloway.

election

the 2005 uk election – the handy guide to help you make up your mind.

1] iraq – yes or no?
2] immigration – yes or no?
3] tax cuts – some or more ?
4] everything else – we’ll talk about it later.

the manifestos
new labour – we’re not the conservatives (and remember blair will be gone soon).
conservative – we’re not new labour (but they have stolen our policies & and we hate w(censored).
liberal democrats – we’re not new labour and we’re not the conservatives. (that’s about it).

the others
respect – we care about iraq and palestine (well anything that will get us the ethnic vote and won’t have people asking us about being part of the swp).
ukip/veritas – keep england england (look old chap the rest of the world is a nice place to visit but we don’t want them here…)
bnp – we hate w(censored), we hate p(censored) and we hate y(censored) (we are just slightly right of the tory party and david blunkett).

ID

you have to laugh – no really you do – poor old sir ian blair (commissioner of the met police) has gotten himself in a pickle with his defence of id cards. he has said that the technology of id cards would be very helpful to his officers and that the concept of id cards should be given further consideration in the fight against terrorism.

naturally enough new labour has jumped at this support for it’s (in my opinion madcap) scheme. so you have alan milburn opining that sir ian knows more about fighting terrorism than anyone else in britain (well where was he when the various wmd documents were being discussed, perhaps his insight could have been useful then!) and then going on to say "when he says we need id cards, we say he should be backed," while john reid chipped in with "we have said this all along - you cannot be serious about fighting terrorism, or for that matter fighting organised crime, unless you are prepared to support id cards,"
now interestingly both the conservatives and liberal democrats are accusing new labour of exploiting fear of terrorism in order to push their id card plans ahead of the election. it might be me but isn’t that the way they have always been promoting this asinine plan for id cards? so it is hardly earth shattering news that they are going to grasp each and every chance they get to promote the darned things.

shami chakrabarti (director of civil rights group liberty) was less than happy that sir ian had opened his mouth and said anything on the subject. chakrabarti warned the police commissioner to stay out of the political debate. going on to say “my biggest concern is that there is just a hint of the possibility of a very senior police officer attempting to influence the outcome of a general election. that's not how we do things in this country,"

let’s look at this again. sir ian seemed to say it was an idea worth looking at and that the technology might help his officers. in the past i have been very very sceptical of id cards, i still am, but i can see the sense in investigating whether or not the whole thing is feasible and beneficial. but look we don’t want a professional having an opinion on this we want to leave it to the politicians and various interest groups. surely if the head of the met cannot voice an opinion on this subject then surely the same is true of liberty? its ok we can leave this debate to those rational and balanced newspapers the sun and the daily mail.

both the conservatives and liberal democrats have other plans and both have suggested that id cards are not a practical short term solution.
the liberal democrats talk about putting 10,000 more bobbies on the street. a worthy aim, most of us want to see more plods on the beat. it’s also something that is going to take time, i have two mates who want to join the police and both have been waiting over 18 months to get on the training course at hendon.
the conservatives talk about how the id card might be a solution for the future, highlighting the fact that the scheme will not be up and running for 8 years. so what do the tory party suggest needs to be done in the fight against terrorism (and of course illegal immigration ?) well naturally it is action to secure the national borders by introducing a border police, reintroducing embarkation controls, removing those living her illegally (of course one of the “fears” of illegal immigration is that we don’t know who they are – hence new labour’s desire to have id cards – so just how the tories propose to find all these illegals is not spelt out) and the introduction of legislation to deal with acts preparatory to terrorism (ooh now that doesn’t seem like it will be too open to misunderstanding and abuse does it?)
it will be interesting to see how the tories plan on getting all that set up 1] quickly and 2] without cutting other services. simple answer is they can’t/

the tories are annoyed that new labour have stolen their thunder on law and order by becoming almost a draconian as the conservatives. not only that but as sir ian says under new labour crime has been falling….

is it any wonder that the tories are bleating about new labour exploiting id cards. and lets be fair here the conservatives have the moral high ground – it’s not like they have jumped on any fear bandwagons recently…

cards

if you have been to central london you have seen the tart-cards. if there is a phone box in central london there are three things you can almost guarantee 1] it will have these cards in them, 2] it will smell of very stale piss and 3] it will eat your money up and not work.
i have been interested in the tart-cards for many years now; i have been collecting them since the early 90s. i think the first one i picked up was even early than that, i got it as a joke for my ex as the she shared the name and hair colour of the girl on the card, (i have a sneaking suspicion that i never gave her the card – as i knew that 1] she wouldn’t find it funny 2] she would read something into it that was not there and 3] i wasn’t keen on spending another night on the couch.
so i have trudged the streets of london going from phone box to phone box collecting the tart-cards. i have walked along oxford street, up edgware road over to baker street in the hunt for new cards. i have been in thousands of phone boxes and probably walked hundreds of miles in my search for new cards. i have seen them go from simple black and white cards to glossy colour cards, i have seen dry informative cards and i have seen witty and clever cards that would thrill a copy writer working for saatchi (mind you it probably was a professional copywriter getting a discount for a pithy hook line). i have been a fan of this urban art form.
i remember being excited when i discovered that brighton also had a tart-card culture, sadly it only has a poor selection on display whenever i go there now. i was thrilled when i found 1 card in manchester, and when a friend sent me one from cardiff (cheers ms woods) and then there was the bonanza pack of cards and fliers from tokyo given me by a colleague (cheers rob).
over the years there have been a couple of books on the subject of the cards, there has been an exhibition of the card art, there have been fake cards and there has been merchandise based on the cards (postcards and t-shirts) but never something as wonderful as this.
frankly my words can’t do this card justice – the image may be from the abu garb torture sessions and it offers you “more of the same” and a number to call. the number is the labour party’s northern call centre… as the go here and see some of the places the card has been seen.

while on a jokey political subject go

cats

i am not much of a pet person, which is lucky considering the state of my flat as i am pretty sure that any pet would soon be lost amongst the junk.
most pet people i know are a little like parents it doesn’t take much to start them off on a tale of wonderment about their gorgeous bundle of fun. most of the time the story leaves me a nonplussed and i just smile and nod in an encouraging manner (but with the hope that the look abject fear that they will tell another story is apparent in my beginning to glaze over eyes).
mind you every now and again you hear a story that makes you laugh.
i was out having a curry with my pal joel the other night when he told me this great yarn. a little bit of background first has become a cat-sitter for one of his friends and this regular event has turned him from a “cat’s are ugh” to “it’s not a cat it’s a person “type of person.
so there we are having the curry (and a very good one it was too – soon i must start writing about the curries i have – i am pretty certain that now i have eaten in each of the curry houses in brick lane!) and he decides to tell me his cat story.
he had come back from a gig and gone to bed at some point in the night he was woken by the cat jumping up on to the bed and deciding to snuggle up against joel. past occurrence if this had been pleasant experiences – something warm furry and purry next to you as you sleep – better than a hotwater bottle and cheaper than an electric blanket! only problem was that this time the cat decided to snuggle past joel’s head and as it went brushed its tail against his mouth. said tail was still damp with cat’s piss. now that is what i call an effective alarm.
the closest i have come to that sort of thing was way back when i was living with my ex and we were having a long lazy snooze in bed on a sunday morning. her cat was purring away (no you smut monkeys her cat and not her pussy) making that noise that could have been either let me out or feed me. i was too tired to know which it was and i was too snugily & comfy to want to get out of bed to find out which it was. it was ok the cat had its own way of letting me know what it wanted. it went to the centre of the room, turned its arse in my direction and then proceeded to do a turd the size of a wedding cake in the middle of the carpet, but this thing that grew from the arse of the cat was not a solid rope of shit. oh no my girlie’s cat had decided to unleash the lava pooh, and in a pretty convincing impression of a cement mixer the cat deposited what seemed to be 3 times it’s bodyweight in shit on the carpet. once finished it gave a wiggle of its tail and walked out. me i turned over in bed and fell asleep again – luckily i didn’t dream.
so what has this got to do with anything you scream? both stories seemed relevant in light of this from the independent newspaper.

wisconsin is in the process of authorising hunters, farmers and anyone who owns a gung to take to the countryside and start shooting cats, no not the big game one the cute little tabby ones. apparently the state has a severe problem with feral cats, with estimates saying that there are some two million of the tabbys out there and they are killing between 47-139 million birds a year (nothing like a little accuracy in your stats is there…) this has led to fireman mark smith to proposal that the feral cats be treated like gophers and skunks and become the target of hunters. all cats not with a collar or not under the control of an owner would be fair game.

the governor of the state, jim doyle, should just be singing this bill and moving it into law however he is not so keen and will not put pen to paper as "i don't think wisconsin should become known as a state where we shoot cats," he said. "what it does is sort of hold us up as the state that everybody is laughing at right now."

unease has not been helped by mark smith’s comments that if you kick a cat out at night you change its status, which implies you make it a target.

while i am not sure that as a hunter i would be overly impressed with the challenge of taking out a cat, even a feral one, i can see that there might be a desire to get all the available breeds to have their heads stuffed and mounted on the wall of the den!

perhaps it is something that could be offered to the disgruntled hunters over here. we could pay for them to go to wisconsin to help in the hunt of the feral cats. or perhaps they could start to claim that there is such a problem in the uk and offer their services to help.

one thing i do know is that given the chance that sunday morning many years ago i do know a cat that i would have happily shot in a mr. shush kinda way. (enjoy that reference pop culture addicts!)

howard

well who would have thought it. how did we all miss this?
leave it to the un to point out the obvious as they accuse howard of:
"indulging in "political opportunism" and encouraging hatred of foreigners by dragging asylum-seekers into party politics."
this comes ahead of his first major speech since the election was called - and what was it going to be about - oh immigration and the fact he sees blair and co as "pussyfooting" around the issue.
according to the independent howard is due to say:
""For too many years immigration has been a no-go area for political debate. If you said you thought that too many people were coming here, you were branded a racist. Let's be clear: it's not racist to criticise the system. It's just common sense.
"If we don't speak up now and have a proper debate about immigration we'll only help the bigots who preach racial hatred and the people-smugglers who profit from other people's misery. Mr Blair may want to pussyfoot around this issue, but I don't."

in a sense howard is right a sensible debate does need to be conducted over immigration and asylum seekers. it should be a rational debate, a coherent debate and one that is conducted in the cold light of day and not in the heat of an election.

howard does not help his case by lying. howard's plan for offshore centres and that the eu and un had set them up was met with "It is not correct that overseas processing centres have been established.." from anne dawson-shepard the british representative of unhcr.
ooops thats ok, what do the facts have to do with anything as long as you can claim that you are not racist.

howard seems to ignore that by bringing this (non) issue to the fore he is in fact doing the work of groups such as the bnp for them. it legitimates them because they can now point to the the main parties who are in a tizzy about how hard they can appear to be before they go into goose-stepping territory. the bnp can now campaign on this issue and no one can accuse them of stirring up hate because howard has gotten there first.

as for people-smugglers what is it that howard is sniffing because it is sure powerful stuff. people smuggling isn't occurring because it is easy to get into the uk, it's happening because people are making lots of money out of some poor wretches who want to have a better life for themselves. making it harder for legitimate immigrants or asylum seekers to enter the uk is not going to worry the gangs who operate people smuggling rings, it is going to encourage them. they are going to be making more money out of the misery of others. but it will be ok because the official statistics will be down and howard and blair can say - look what we did.

the worst of it is that we will still go to all these countries and offer jobs to their best people so that we have doctors, nurses, teachers (and of course nannies for the great and good).

howard may not be a racist - he is something worse he is someone who will prey on the base fears of people, he will stoke imaginary fears and he will do it for one reason only to have a chance to be the prime minister.

bomb

the sun does it again. intrepid sun journalists expose lax security at windsor castle. the two journos drove the sun “bomb van” into the grounds of the castle and near where the wedding of charles and camilla will be blessed. the journos had no paperwork, no appointment and a box clearly marked bomb – but they were waved through without a check or being searched.

this isn’t the first time the sun has done this – i suppose we should be thankful to them for showing us how unsafe we are and how useless the security forces are. but i am not.
why pat, why you cry.
well part of it is the fact it is the sun, it’s a paper that is not good enough to wipe my arse on (have used the evening standard though). and the fact that we all know that this isn’t about them doing a public service this is all about selling papers.

the current upshot of it is the two coppers who worked the detail have been relieved of duties.

but i have a number of questions.
1] did the journos really have a box marked bomb? we only have their word for it. and lets be honest it only takes a marker pen to write bomb on a box and you can do it pretty quickly.

2] the security forces must know that this sort of stunt if going to get played so do they let it get through in the hope that in the hue and cry after the event they can get more money (or get rid of the bods in charge – a humane version of the frag grenade in the officers latrine?) or are they so bad they can’t spot the unctuous sun journos?

3] as we never hear about these fake bombs being stopped we can only assume that the sun has a 100% record of success with these sort of things, which makes it an obvious place for bin laden and co to go to get training.

4] if we don’t hear about the failed attempts is that because the security forces have captured, tortured and sent the journos off to guantanamo bay (or gitmo) where they are forced to read good journalism and listen to the reith lectures?

5] given that in some respects this is a prank can the sun and the journos be taken to court for wasting everyone’s time. i believe that if you make a false 999 call you can end up with a potential prison sentence. so surely it’s time someone took the sun to task on this. go on charles, go on camilla take the sun to court on this – but them out of business. do that and i think you justify the monarchy’s existence in the uk for several more years.

6] do the police and security forces when they catch these pranksters give them an extra special kicking for their time. it’s not like the sun can complain – after all it’s the sort of treatment they want to be doled out to potential terrorists.

7] or is it that rebekah wade has photos of everyone doing something rude and lewd so in the end she has a free hand.

on a serious note what the sun has done really doesn’t serve much of a purpose other than to heighten the feelings of anxiety that many people suffer about the country not being a safe place (even though most reports and surveys say the opposite) but that then allows the sun to maintain it’s campaigns against travellers and asylum seekers because they can become the “target” for the unspecified feelings of fear we feel.

it’s a tawdry rag and its influence on the country is too much.
i drink a toast, in advance, to the security force team that catches the next sun bomb van and treats them to a bit of heavy handed policing…..

mugabe

say what you like about the man – but he sure knows how to get a handshake. mugabe is fast becoming the dennis pennis of the diplomatic world. up he pops, gets his handshake, goes back to zimbabwe with the photo opportunity he wanted. meanwhile the unsuspecting target has to suffer the wrath of the press for their mistake.
prince charles has now followed in jack straw’s footsteps.
charlie was sat one seat away from mugabe (which has to go down as one of the best seating arrangements in the history of diplomacy given mugabe’s attitude to the uk. or perhaps these events work on the same principle that seats in the cinema work – you rush in get the one you want and bugger the rest of the people, i can see the various ushers standing in the middle of it all saying please fill up the seats in the middle of the rows while people such as clinton, chirac, blair all sitting on the aisle seats just glare).

clarence house on behalf of charles said he "caught by surprise”. which is better than jack straw’s “….the fact that there is serious disagreement between zimbabwe and the uk does not mean we should be discourteous or rude." (here) (and it’s that kind of polite attitude that would mean I would never make it as a politician – rude and discourteous is best some of the people I work with can expect from me – ain’t that right kenny).

meps glynnis kinnock and richard corbett have criticised the prince. corbett said this was a golden opportunity to deliberately and very visibly refuse to shake hands with this man.
"to fail to do so was, frankly, stupid." (here) which while is fair comment ignores the fact that charlie has been trained from birth to shake hands…. (it’s a trait the political class have to go to special classes for – as well as kissing babies..) so it’s a little harsh that in the heat of the moment that a hand is thrust in his direction that he ends up shaking it almost instinctively.
while you would have liked charlie to have reacted properly the fault must lie with the people who
1] arranged the seating.
2] who advise and protect the prince for not spotting this potential gaffe and either moving him or warning him.
3] the spineless officials who have let mugabe enter europe despite an eu ban on him entering europe.
4] whoever wrote out the invite to him in the first place.

when mugabe isn’t rigging elections it looks like he is blagging his way into the best parties in the world.

crumb

i went to see the crumb exhibition at the whitechapel gallery the other day. have to say the exhibition is a little bit disappointing – not so much in that crumb’s art is not well represented but because there was not enough of his non underground comix work there.

i have to admit that i was never a big fan of the underground comix scene – a little like punk i was there, but it just passed me by (while my school contemporaries were going to see the sex pistols and stranglers i was listening to elp (still am) while they were reading the likes of weirdo and zap i was reading superman (still am). so i never developed a love or an appreciation of crumb and his ilk, while my love of “superhero” comics (and prog) has stayed with me to this day.

that isn’t to say i am not fully aware of the works of crumb (how could i avoid crumb, we share an interest in certain types of women!) having leafed through various copies of weirdo, zap and the collected works published by fantagraphics.

it’s that familiarity that has meant that the show is not as exciting as i would have liked it to be.
for me the problem is that the vast bulk of the material that is on offer are comix pages – while they may show the range of interests and obsessions that inhabit crumb’s work, there is a sense of looking at reproduced work and not originals. (in fact in some cases it does look like they have just removed pages from the comics to put in the frames – however as i do not know enough about crumb it may be that his working method is such that his completed page is pretty near perfect).
as i have said i love comics and i love the comic art form – but it’s not a form that translates well to being hung on the wall of galleries. what makes comics a unique and wonderful art form is the interplay between the words and pictures and it’s all those pesky word balloons and captions that makes it a less than thrilling experience in a gallery (especially if you are like me and read comics on a regular basis). it also means that people can’t appreciate the art from a distance as they need to read the words….

where the show comes into its own is in the few, sadly, sketches that adorn the walls. part of the reason these are so interesting is that they are not as refined as the work that was published – they are looser, more intimate but still concerned with the topics that appeal to crumb. these sketches give fresh insight into the published work.

judging by the number of people who were at the show, it looks likely that crumb has captured himself a new audience.
although a little disappointed with the content of the show, the work on view is great so i know i will be dusting off a few copies of the crumb books and looking again at his work.
go see it – it’s on at the whitechapel until may 22nd 2005.

divine

its a trying time for us catholics - waiting and wondering who the next pontiff is going to be.
its at moments like these we look on high for a sign that shows that there is a divine purpose to the world, that in the gloom there is light, that the clouds do have a silver lining. we look to the things that will bring a smile to our faces.

and bless his cotton socks mark thatcher has stepped up to the challenge and has shown that he can indeed be a bringer of joy. mark, you may remember, was (“nudge nudge wink wink”) slightly involved in a fail coup in africa when he paid for a helicopter that he “suspected” of being used in mercenary activities.
it was.
they were unsuccessful.
the finger got pointed at mark.
he got caught.
in true fashion he toughed it out, it was stiff upper lip time, take me medicine like a man, play on a straight wicket... oh no that’s right he squealed like a stuck pig and plea bargained.

the plea bargain got him out of south africa, where i am sure he has lots of friends just wanting to pop round to “congratulate” him on his result. next stop england to spend time with his mum, the formidable mrs thatcher, no doubt proud of what mark has achieved. the plan was to go and join his anxiously waiting family in texas.

it was a nice plan, but the american authorities hadn’t read the script and his visa application has been turned down.
instant smile on my face.
yes as one of my mates has pointed out, he will get a chance to try again in two years time, and yes he is rich beyond my wildest dream – but for a few hours today he is nothing more than a common criminal, excluded from american because he had links to terrorist activities. (here and
here ).

a close second in the cheer up pat stakes was jonathon king (our very own low rent michael jackson). he has just been released from jail for serving part of his sentence for abusing underage boys. although he has gotten his freedom back he has just lost his bid to claim back some of the costs of one of his other cases that saw him being acquitted of abuse.
but as the judge said he had "brought suspicion on himself".
so king is out of pocket.
like thatcher he is probably wealthy enough not to miss the money, but for a short period of time he has lost again!
though he may just have the last laugh as he is talking about entering the music biz again.
what’s the chances of king, jackson and townsend forming a trio. suggestions for their name on a postcard please – but lets keep fiddling out of it. (go here for the king story)

jpII

farewell john paul II. rest in peace.

in just over 2 weeks the fun begins as we see who the next pope will be.

although there are favourites for the position there is a saying that "he who goes into the conclave a pope invariably comes out a cardinal".

jpII set up some new rules as to how a new pope is to be chosen (so no phone-ins after seeing how all the candidate perform in a series of "tests") among one of the questions as to the process is whether or not the signal of smoke, to announce if a pope has been chosen, will be used. i hope so there is something to be said for tradition.

it'll be interesting to see what george w bush has to say about it all, as according to jack chick of chick tract fame we catholics are just one step shy of being the servants of hell as far as christian fundamentalists are concerned.
(if you do want to have a read that will raise the hair on the back of your neck, but also give you an insight to the workings of the fundamentalist mind go here - be warned though it is not for the faint hearted.)

jokes

there was a story in the paper the other day (and i confess it was the sun and i confess i was reading it in the local pizza place, rocket pizza where i was ordering an extra large country feast thin pan – it should feed 2 to 4 people but just about does me) about the funniest joke in the world.
strangely the winner this time was not the one that won last time.
neither of the two previous winners can i remember, not that means they weren’t funny just i have a bad memory.

so for your edification here is pat’s nominations for the 3 funniest jokes in the world and for all time. but to make it more fun i will give you just the punch lines…
(why just the punch line you ask? well because these jokes are so funny all i need to do is remember the punch line and i am smiling and giggling like a goon.)

so in no particular order here they are

“your granny is on the roof”
“yes it does doesn’t it”
“my mate was collecting coconuts”

i thank you.

fame

today i was told my blog had been put on a blog search engine. in the great scheme of things this is not a big thing but it made me happy.
and of course not that i want to get lots of people coming to my blog under false pretences so i shan't use the words porn sex anal porn sex anal porn sex anal porn sex anal porn sex anal several times over in a feeble attempt to catch those who are looking for a smutty read out - i am above such silly dildo, butt plug, vibrator and love bead type techniques.
nor will i clutter it with needless references to george w bush and his dad george bush, or thatcher (maggie or mark) or noam chomsky, bruce willis, led zeppelin, britney, madonna or outkast.
nope not doing it (porn sex anal porn sex anal) i want people to come here because it is a fun and stimulating read (no not that sort of stimulating....)

poses

for my sins (and there are many of them – not least the sin of onanism – no not conanism, which is the desire to be like arnie, but onanism the spilling of ones seed on the ground (comes from onan the son of judah – see not only is this funny it is informative… what do you mean it’s not funny.) anyway i freely confess that i partake of the pleasures of the fist. some nights i get all sensual, have the lights low, soft music on the stereo and whisper delicate words of encouragement – in those moments i am dr. self-love. other times i like it rough and then i just tug away proud to be a wanker. but this isn’t about my masturbatory talents and techniques. though i will share one more thing with you on this subject we catholics are not supposed to indulge it’s a sin (and i am pretty sure it is a venal one – but jpii has yet to get back to me on that one) but it is also against the sikh religion. there you go it’s that informative but digressive streak again…

anyway as i was saying…
for my many sins i have to read several trade journals to do with marketing (and for that alone i am probably going to hell) and recently i have noticed that the writers of the think pieces are very keen to have pictures of themselves plastered all over the page. we are not talking just a mug shot; we are talking an action shot.
now as a wannabe photographer (and yes paul i can take happy photos i just don’t) i know it is not the easiest thing in the world to get pose and look natural when they do it – the people who can do it are normally the ones that become celebrities and the photographers who can get people to strike “realistic” poses are the ones who go on to get lots of work.
so there i am reading my marketing magazine getting all kinds of fuzzy feelings when i read about brand extensions (ok i get a little beavis and butthead at that), new product development (npd to those in the know), swot analysis unique selling properties, above and below the line… well you get the picture – it’s thrilling, it’s engrossing and in so many ways.
but for some reason these gurus of marketing have decided that they need to be brands in and of themselves. the first way they do this is not by the stunning lucidity of their prose but by having their full length picture appear in the body of their article. with a touch of photoshop the image is cleaned up to be dropped into the layout, a dab of quark makes sure the text flows around the image in a pleasing and delightful way. so what was once a piece about the strength of a brand becomes something more, it becomes a brochure for that marketeer, it becomes their vanity publishing piece.
it wouldn’t be so bad if these people didn’t try so hard to “sex” up their image so they look dynamic, thoughtful, knowledgeable, with it, calm, in control and so many of those qualities we should respect in the form of the modern business person. all of this has to be conveyed with stock poses – a pointing hand, the hands on hips, the holding the glasses by the arm of the frames, the one leg forward pose, the solid pose of arms folded, suited, in shirt sleeves etc. it would work if it wasn’t for the fact they all look so obviously posed and the various characters look so uncomfortable as the picture screams love me trust me.
it wouldn’t matter that much if it was just the trade journals that this happened, but i can’t help noticing it occurring in the opinion pieces of newspapers where the headshots of the various writers have begun to appear like they are dodgy ads in contact magazines (some one really should tell bruce anderson at the independent that his picture makes him look like he has had a large sharp object inserted into his arse).
i blame it all on celebrity we seem to be obsessed with it and those people who are involved in the media, no matter how minor that involvement is seem to want to have their faces splashed all over the place. perhaps they hope that we will see them in the street and thank them for their insightful commentary and how they have made our lives complete.
so expect to see a picture of my ugly mug splashed on here sometime soon – i shall look to have a dynamic pose and have a cheeky grin. so conveying that i am both kind and loveable, but firm and in charge and that you can believe everything i say.
right – that’ll work.

springer

you would have thought that by now the furore over the televising of the jerry springer opera would have been over the done with.
nope.
the bbc’s complaints committee has reported on the complaints and cleared the show 4-1 of breaking the beeb’s code of standards and practices. the committee admitted the show had caused offence but said it had been justified by its "outstanding artistic significance". (here)
the one hold out, angela sarkis, accused the bbc management of a degree of naivety in failing to realise that the show would cause offence.

the report pointed out that the tabloid press exaggerated the use of swear words by saying there were thousands of uses of foul language. in fact the report says there were around 200 “f-words” and 9 “c-words” (i wonder what they could be. interestingly this is quoted in the article after they have quoted the show when satan threatens to have springer “fucked up the ass with barbed wire” i guess that could be a clue to what the f word is….)

the article points out that the bbc received 63,000 complaints about the show, 55,000 of them before it had been shown. so only 8,000 people actually complained about what they saw, the rest were just complaining because they were told to….


angela sarkis accepted that jerry springer the opera was an exceptional piece of work in the theatre disagreed about it being on television. now sarkis is a former chief executive of the church urban fund, so we can probably guess where she is coming from (and let me make it clear i do hold religious beliefs, but appreciate that my faith is not something that everyone shares) and it is more than likely her views on the matter are not going to be unbiased.

there are several points about the whole springer thing that i would like to make (and they will be brief – honest).

1] we seem to want to live in a sanitised world where no one is offended or challenged by ideas that are different to their own. this is not a cry to allow the inciting of hatreds, but if thoughts are to be “policed” so that one merely has to be offended (or dislike) by an idea for it to be banned or attacked then i believe we open ourselves up for the creation of an increasingly intolerant and bland world.

2] as the figures show it was only 63,000 people who complained. that is not many when compared with the total population. no one forced those people to watch the show. yet their complaints have the potential to deny many more people the pleasure of being entertained and challenged.

3] who gets to be a bbc governor and be part of the complaints committee? i am pretty sure it is not ordinary folk like me and thee. so not only is there the chance that shows like springer have to pass the “complaint” test but they are going to be subjected to the cultural filters of people who believe that the work is fine in the theatre but somehow can’t be viewed by many more people in their own homes.
sarkis and the like are snobs to believe that they somehow can view springer in the theatre and understand it and appreciate it but joe sixpack at home is somehow going to be tainted by it.
either that or she is pretending to be liberal by saying it is fine for the bohemians and rich to go see it in the theatre but it must never be shown to the masses.

(by the way anyone from the beeb reading this – i am up for a governors job if there is one going spare.)

4] some people just need to get a life, find a sense of humour and stop worrying so much about some things. sometimes all you need is a bit of a laugh and a cuss word or two and world is a better place.
for those of you still wondering what the f and c words are they are fuck/fucking and cunt, and lovely words they are too.

jacko

there is going to be a terrible miscarriage of justice in this trial.
it's not going to be the guilty verdict that should be handed down to jackson (regardless of his claim that there is a conspiracy against "black luminaries"... and if there was ever someone who should not be playing the race card it is mike!)

no the injustice is that all the adults who seem to have seen, thought or realised that there was something going on. or all those parents who sent their children to neverland are going to get away scot free and nothing said about their unsuitability to be responsible for kids.

while jacko is learning to play the part of prison bitch to pretty much everyone inside jail he goes to. the various parents and ex-employees will all be doing the talk show circuit or writing books. frankly each and everyone of them is partly guilty for any recent activities that jackson has undertaken with children.
after all it's not like accusations have not been leveled at him in the past - there was jordan chandler in 1994 and jason francia, both of whom got generous settlements. so for the last 10 years there has been a cloud over jackson's head when it comes to his conduct around children - so frankly any adult who let their kids (or anyone's) near jackson should be brought up on some sort of charges.

still jackson can take some heart as he gets ready to go down (as it were) as over here in dear old blighty we are seeing the release of jonathon king who has just described his time inside as "fantastic". he is planning on devoting his time to helping those who have suffered miscarriages of justice.
i suppose we should be thankful for small mercies as it means we will never have to hear any of his "music" again!

laugh

a few things that have made me laugh over the last couple of days.

bernie ecclestone the man behind formula 1 has just recently had the wheels nicked off of his car. the wheels are supposedly worth several thousands of pounds each….. what is bizarre is that although he has the theft on film he is not planning on reporting it to the police.
even funnier was that he has only just had the car delivered and it is one of the first of its type in the country.
this is not the first time this has happened to ecclestone he had the wheels of another stolen in 2003, and his wife had a £650,000 ring stolen.
obviously the ecclestones are a tad careless but hell they can afford to be.

christian theme park, there is a bid in place for britain to have its first christian theme park (america already has one... no surprises there). the biblical theme park (“where disney meets the bible” – i am hoping that is not their slogan….) gives people to the change to experience the expulsion from the garden of eden, being swallowed by a whale, escaping the lions den and walking on water (mmm perhaps a tad blasphemous there?)
to fund the park andrea webster is hoping that a million christians will donate £144 each, or failing that will pray for the success of the park. the project has been her life’s mission as she believes “it’s a vision from god,” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1544218,00.html)

while i can see the attraction (geddit) of turning to entertainment in order to get people interested in the bible, i can’t help but think it truly demeans the whole thing. i mean why not just churn out computer games that have some basis in the bible – at least that way you could go for some of the real good stuff – the slaughter of the innocents (you could choose your side – be a roman and see how many you can kill, be a mum and see if you can save your first born son….), the martyrdoms of the disciples (can you martyr them all?) the beheading of john the baptist, sodom and gomorrah …. so many to choose from.

by the way mrs webster is a creationist……

mobiles – i may have mentioned that i hate mobiles and i do. i was excited to read about a device that blocks the signals of mobiles. they come in two forms the personal and the base unit. both are illegal in the uk and the usa. though the personal one is selling like hot cakes in new york (where users face a heavy fine if they are caught).
but while i was saddened by the fact that i will not be able to get one to block all those pesky people who use mobiles in my local cinema i was shocked to read that prisons in the uk are not allowed to have the base units on site.
why would they need them is the first question that sprang to mind. but apparently one of the big problems for prison authorities is the use of mobile phones by inmates to order drugs from the outside world.
although that left me a little gobsmacked there was no explanation of why it was illegal for a base unit to be installed in prisons.
oh well as long as o2, vodaphone and orange are still making money i guess its ok.

tories2

while certain aspects of the conservative party can’t let go of their recent fixation of imploding every time an election comes along, another part of the party has embraced the internet.
oh yes the tory party are turning to blogs to get their message out there. they are hoping that people will bypass the media and put forward their views on how the party should evolve.

the old myth of this being away to overcome media bias (mm maybe they should just talk to murdoch then?) is rolled out. and in support of this is the way right wing bloggers toppled dan rather. while what they did to rather was impressive it sort of ignores all the work that the democratic supporters did and what that lead to… oh yeah that would be four more years.
perhaps the internet only works when it is in the hands of the right? because as much as al franken and his crew are air america tried bush got in and kerry didn’t.

it’s an interesting idea and i will admit that i will visit the website – if only to see who the next group is the tories will attack for being wasters, spongers and generally abusing the system (mm that would be the cbi then).

go to www.conservativehome.com to see what it is like.
i have been there once and already i feel the need to wash.

tories

you have to admire the tories, no really you have to. there is an election looming and for all their guile, cunning and planning the labour party (oops sorry i mean new labour) have gotten themselves into a pickle.
first off there is the internecine fighting between the blairites and the brownites – something that has seen gordon brown sidelined for the start of the campaigning in favour of the works of alan milburn and ali campbel.
secondly they have been caught napping in the lull before the election storm – there was the poster campaign that got them into trouble and then there was the tactic of the tories to pick on perceived “weaknesses” in the government’s strategy and performance.
this was all so good that people were beginning to whisper that the tories had a chance, they might just pull it off and overturn the government’s majority and there they would be making policy after so many years in the wilderness.

oh dear just ad the goal was in sight along comes … howard flight. flight was the tory party’s deputy chairman and was also responsible for getting money from the city into the tory party coffers.
now flight has had to resign his position and howard has taken the swift, if draconian, action of suspending him as an mp and not allowing him to fight his seat of south downs and arundel.
why has this come about? well because flight had been recorded it a meeting suggesting that the tory party planned extra spending cuts when they had gotten into power and these cuts had not been (and by implication of the revelation) would not have been mentioned during the election campaign. (oh the tories lie? well who would have thought that?)

of course what he said has enormous implications to the tory party for several reasons.
1] he was telling the truth which meant that the tory leadership is deliberately lying to the general public (see above for my view on that).
if this was the case then flight has shown a huge error in judgement and has proved he is not really capable of being a trusted member of the party.

2] flight was actually talking about what a hardliner party would do when it was in power, which either indicates that howard is there just to be the pleasant face of conservative policy (now there is a scary thought) or there are plans afoot to ease howard out if the party gets into power and a financially more radical conservative leadership will take over.

3] flight was just showing off to impress his right wing buddies.

any of the above proves he is not a man to be trusted and that howard had no real option but to get rid of him.
now you would have thought that sort of decisive leadership would have gone done well with the tory faithful, but no they are talking about it being brutal (lady o’cathan) or it being the nuclear option (norm “on yer bike” tebbit).
and what of flight? well he like so many before him has fallen on his sword… ooops nope that’s what used to happen, what he has done has called in his lawyers.

and this of course has lead to the potential act of flight standing as an independent against the official tory candidate.

and all of this has overshadowed the recent announcement of the conservative’s plans for increased maternity and childcare packages…..

it’s amazing once they were the kings of the election process and now try as they might somewhere or another they always seem to have someone who will do their best to make sure that they do not get into power. howard flight now joins such notables as john redwood, teresa gorman and iain duncan smith among others as people who make the tory party unelectable.
and long may they continue to come out of the party closet. howard flight let me buy you a drink for making sure the tories do not get in for another term.

travellers

in the run up to this year’s election travellers have emerged as being one of the issues of the campaign.
the tories and michael howard are being called racist because they are “attacking” travellers. so much so that planning minister keith hill said the tories were "tapping into the biggest vein of bigotry - prejudice against gypsies and travellers". and i am sure the asian and black communities will agree that the bigotry and prejudice that they have suffered is nothing compared to that shown against travellers.
howard and co are using the travellers as a way to attack the human rights act as they claim it makes it easy for travellers to exploit loopholes in order to get planning permission.

i like most people am not bothered by travellers and their chosen lifestyle – after all variety and diversity is the spice of modern life. the problem with travellers is that they do not extend this courtesy to others.
over the last few years there have been three illegal travellers’ camps near to where i work. in each case within a day the area they had occupied had become a dumping ground with heaps of refuse scattered all over the place. in each case the site they had occupied had been landscaped by the gypsy equivalent of laurence llewelyn-bowen visiting the site and making it over with a water feature (some old disabled washiing machines) and piles of tyres to break up the monotony of the car park they have inhabited.
it’s this complete disregard for their surroundings that means most of the public have little time or sympathy for travellers.
it is the local council who is left to pick up the bill for cleaning these sites once the travellers have moved on, and the mess they have created means that no one wants to fight for them to remain in the spot.
no one wants travellers near them because they have seen what they do to an area. it is not prejudice, it is not fear it is just a certainty that the area will be turned into a dangerous mess and it will become one very quickly.

however this is not quite the rallying cry the tory party want. they want to make travellers out to be exploiters of the system, people who are getting something for nothing, people who are using the law to get one over the rest of us.
moreover he doesn’t want to solve the problem he just wants to make it worse.

but it’s ok mr howard is about to unveil a new softer version of himself, a more caring concerned michael howard.
too late mike – anne had you pegged from the start there really is something of the night about you….

enemas

there i am reading the latest edition of private eye when one of the stories just jumps up out of the page and grabs me by the short and curlies. so much so i think i have to share it.
it’s one of the stories that appears in the victor lewis smith (who is not as funny as he thinks he is) section of weird stories from around the world. this particular story is of a death in strange circumstances and the question is “is it murder or just an accident?” if this were tv then we would call on the expertise of gill grisham to solve it – but alas it’s real life and while life is messier than tv it still has the ability to through up stories such as this which make you go – nah that can’t be right.

so what is the story pat? i can hear you all screaming (except those of you have read private eye and already know about it… but fear not there is more to this blog that what is in private eye so keep reading.)

the short version is this “investigators say a lake jackson woman caused her husband's death by giving him a sherry enema, leading to alcohol poisoning. the enema caused his blood alcohol level to soar to 0.47 percent — almost six times the legal intoxication limit, a toxicology report showed.”
michael warner was a drunk who wanted to get rat arsed (geddit) as often as possible but because of a medical complaint he couldn’t ingest booze through his mouth without a great deal of pain. the solution? sherry enemas (george best eat your heart out!)
as the investigating detective, robert turner, said “"we're not talking about little bottles here," turner said, "these were at least 1.5 liter bottles."”
he goes on to point out that if you are drinking booze you will generally pass out before you can drink a lethal dose – have it floating around in your bowels you can keep ingesting it while you are passed out. (go here)

his wife tammy jean said “that’s the way he went out and i’m sure that’s the way he wanted to go out because he loved his enemas”. (now i have a certain amount of sympathy with this as when my dad, an alcoholic of many years standing, died in hospital after not coming out of a coma we discovered that all he had in his coat pockets was half a bottle of scotch, which my mum swore was not there when she dressed him for the hospital. knowing my dad the one thing he would have wanted was that last drink or 5).

she continued by saying “he did coffee enemas, he did castile soap, ivory soap,” she said. “he had enema recipes.” (go here)

tammy jean is also accused of burning michael’s will.
so you the court decide was it suicide by enema or murder at the end of a nozzle?

now this story struck a personal nerve with me (not just because of my dad) and here comes the gruesome confession time so i warn those of you of a delicate condition to turn away now.
when i was kid still in short trousers i had a serious bowel problems (yes those people who know me and have worked with me will say i still have…) which culminated in a period where i was just constipated for a very long time, i can’t remember how long it was but it was long enough that i had to go to the hospital for a consultation.
looking back on it now even then i realised it was a serious issue as i stood in the pharmacy with my mum waiting to get the meds that has been prescribed to me by the doctor and the chemist had them over to my mum with the words “if this lot doesn’t work we will use explosives next time…” i am sure that was hospital humour, pretty certain back then it scared me – but not quite shitless, unfortunately.
among the meds that were given to me were several enemas and these were going to be given to me one a day for a week by a visiting district nurse.
for those of you not fully sure what an enema is: it is the injection of liquid into the rectum through the anus for cleansing, for stimulating evacuation of the bowels, or for other therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.
all of which has a nice shiny ring to it…

anyway the moment of truth was fast approaching and i had made some preparations- which mostly amounted to making sure i had loads of comics in the toilet to read (a habit i maintain to this day…) i figured that i would be in there for awhile – if not because of the cure but because that was what was going to be expected of me.

the district nurse arrived and i am instructed to lie on my side trousers down, naked arse facing the nurse. the enema bag is prepared, it has to be body temperature, and the hard plastic nozzle is lubed and then inserted into my anus. once in the full length, a gentle but firm squeezing of the bag sees the emptying of the bag and the filling up of me. now given that i was full of shit (and some would say i still am!) it didn’t take long for this fluid invasion to go from being uncomfortable to painful.
job done and i am full of sloshing laxative filled fluid.
now all i have to do is make my way from the bedroom to the toilet. but i am half naked, having to waddle to keep my bum cheeks tight and i am trying not to spill a drop, it was not as easy as it sounds.
i make it to the sanctuary of the toilet.
i sit on the seat breath a sigh of relief and pick up a comic to read.
one of the first things i do is to relieve the pressure on my bowels and let the water flood out. ah the blessed release of that torrential gush. earth moving pleasure, but as yet not quite bowel moving.
one comic, two comics, 4 comics read. i can feel my legs going numb. nothing has happened. i keep reading.
now dear reader you have probably worked out what is going to happen and know where dear young mr pat went wrong. and i can tell you now that i did make a mistake.
what the nurse had forgotten to tell me was that the enema would work, but what would be a good plan of action would be to keep the fluid in the bowels for as long as possible and not let it flood out like the tears of a bad actor.
why you say – why keep the fluid in?
well i remind you i have not had a shit in a while – there is a lot of it there and it is hard and solid, and thanks to the enema it is going to come out. now if i had kept the water in for a length of time it would have served to soften it up, turn it into a bit of mush. but i hadn’t.
mmm i can feel movement – i can feel stuff wanting to come out. what i can also feel is my arse stretching to let it out.
now many men might pretend they have an idea of what childbirth feels like but i tell you this i have come close to feeling that pain. oh for sure it didn’t go on for as long as child labour does, but i was in the process of stretching muscles that were not designed to work that way.
i can remember the pain – i can remember the red haze that covered my eyes as this titanic turd decided it was time for it to exit my body and set up home in the outside world. nothing was going to stop it, what used to be a conglomeration of daily turds had merged into one large unstoppable cannonball of shit, and all that stood between it and freedom was my woefully small arsehole.
with veins throbbing, and hands scratching at the walls of the toilet i did battle with that turd – it was trying to break free in one almighty shit comet and i was trying to break it into little pebbles of pooh. sweating breathing heavily i fought against this force of nature.
in the end i survived but it was agony.
i was weak with effort, unable to stand but i was light headed.
i had done the largest shit of my life….

needless to say the next enema i was given i made sure i kept the fluid in until there was no choice to expel it and all the mess in my bowels that came with it. over the next few days the ritual became easier.

now i have to say this childhood experience could be described as a tipping point in my life and is more than likely the explanation for much of the things that i like today. the one thing it as left me relishing and that is the feeling of a good satisfying shit – sometimes the simple pleasures are the best ones.

ephemera

some things in life are meant to be transient – here today and gone tomorrow, it’s just a shame that for the last several years i have forgotten that and have gone into major hoarding mode.

ok i suppose i should confess at this point i am a collector. i collect a lot of things – there are comics (thousands upon thousands of them), there are books (more than i will ever read in my lifetime – and more being added), there are dvds/videos (a backlog that will never be cleared, but nice to know i have something to watch in the dull moments) there are the cds (but then can never have enough music….) add to all of that the toys, the prostitute call cards, photographs and you can see it soon adds up.
and i am not in the same league as some people who collect comics, books, cds, dvds etc – it’s just that i seem to collect them all….

none of this would be so bad if i was organised. i am not. this has meant that my flat is a landscape of heaps, piles, bundles, stacks of stuff.

recently i have taken it upon myself to get to grips with this state of affairs and clean my flat. now we are not talking one of those tv make over shows, we are talking about something that approaches the labours of hercules the only difference is that my efforts will not be written up as an heroic epic poem and what herc did in the aegean stables was child’s play compared with what i am undertaking.

why am i doing it?
1] after several years of letting it accumulate even i am now embarrassed by the mess.
2] i am getting too old to be climbing, clambouring and stepping over precarious piles of stuff in my own flat.
3] i wanted to use the microwave i bought several years ago but had stayed in a box untouched in all that time – but the box was being used as a place to stack books.
4] even i could see it was posing a health risk.
5] i needed a new challenge.
6] gas board needed to get to the gas meter and frankly i did not want to be liable for any injuries they may have sustained in my flat.

is it a scary picture i paint? trust me it is not as bad as it seems it is worse!

so for the last couple of weeks or so i have been sifting, sorting. moving, packing and stacking stuff/ i have been throwing out junk, i have been washing down surfaces, i have been recycling, i have been hovering and i have been making progress.
literally a ton of stuff has been either thrown away or recycled (i was a little shocked to realise that i had newspapers in the flat from 1999 ….. ooops). but it’s not finished – oh no not even close to it – but i have made that all important start. the kitchen is clean (though not spotless) it no longer looks like i could grow potatoes on the work surfaces in there. i can walk the length of the hall without having to stretch over a heap of stuff.

ok it means i am sleeping on the floor in the front room as i have turned the bedroom into a storage/sorting area, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

and as the saying goes where there is muck there is brass – i have found a range of things i had simply forgotten i had ever bought (have also found a lot of things which have left me wondering why i had bought them in the first place…..) i have found lots and lots and lots of loose change, not enough to make me rich, but enough to make me happy (and leave me wondering which books, cds or dvds shall i buy with them) i have found a stash of porn videos i forgot i had, a pair of glasses i thought i had lost, but i still haven’t found the batmobile bubble bath i know i bought and looked pretty darned good.

why am i telling you this – partly it is to embarrass myself to make sure that now that i have started this task i finish and maintain the flat in a state of tidiness.
and secondly it is my feeble excuse as to why i have been absent from the blog in such a long time. but i am back now and raring to go.

one of the really odd things about admitting that you are about to embark on a mammoth clear up is the amount of offers you get from women who say they will come around and help…. geez if only the place wasn’t so much of a mess……..