k2

well now the truth can be told about kilroy.
you may remember i wrote about kilroy appearing on some dodgy celebrity programme. his fellow east midlands meps got a little hot under the collar about kilroy being there. he is not doing his job they said. i even got an anonymous message from one of the meps (or their representatives) about the piece. ah fame at last.
now kilroy is off the programme, no one liked him.
so back to work for kilroy.
yet his mep opponents are still not happy. so glenis, roger and others now have a petition to encourage kilroy to give up his role as a mep. not that he will and not that the european parliament will kick him out.
why? i am sure that they are concerned with the democratic process and see that kilroy’s lack of attendance at the european parliament as an insult to democracy and setting back the european cause in the uk. now i have to admit if i had done a little more research the last time (because i always fact check – right!) i would have learnt that roger helmer has form in this as back in 2005 he was part of a group of meps who wrote to the president of the european parliament to complain about kilroy’s lack of effort.
regardless of what you think of the european parliament i have to agree with helmer and colleagues, if you are not going to work as a mep don’t stand as one.
kilroy has argued that in his election manifesto he said he was anti-europe and would not attend the european parliament. so to that extent kilroy can claim to be one of the few politicians who is carrying out his manifesto pledges.
fair enough.
kilroy can claim that his victory was based on the fact that the people of east midlands had cast a protest vote. so kilroy not going to parliament is one on the nose of johnny foreigner. i have no problem with such a protest vote and protest action by an mep, the real problem is that kilroy, for all his problems with the european parliament, is not shy about taking their (well our) money. kilroy’s principled stand against europe might have been better if he wasn’t trousering the cash. it is a principled stand, isn’t it.
i would like to think that roger and glenis are trying to make a serious political point about kilroy’s abuse of the democratic process. i suspect it is more to do with the fact that the next round of european elections are due in 2009 and they are all worried that kilroy has had so much free publicity that he will win his seat again if he chooses to stand again.
i agree it would be a travesty if kilroy was to win again, yet sometimes that happens in a democracy.
politics and politicians have an image problem, we don’t trust them and sleaze plays a big part of it. someone like kilroy doesn’t help them.
the reason we vote is to have representation. it is fine that kilroy wants to be a mep to protest the european project, but that protest has to be more than not showing up for work. kilroy claims he asks more questions of the european parliament than his fellow meps. big deal. it is easy to draft variations of several questions and send them off to the commission and then get some written answers. hell i can do that from here (vote for me people of east midlands).
even worse is the fact that kilroy barely keeps his website up to date, so even those in his constituency who agree with his position and want to know what kilroy is doing to prevent the commission making changes to the british way of life are left in the dark.
contrast his site with the sites of glenis willmott and roger helmer and you can see that they are at least trying to make a difference.

the perma-tanned one is always going to have an advantage over the other prospective meps because even without a few weeks on a celebrity show the kilroy name is one that people recognise.
the meps would be better off ignoring kilroy and getting on with explaining to the electorate why they should vote and what they will get for the votes when they are cast. the more they make it about kilroy, the less important it becomes and more like a celebrity show spat.

cuntsultancy

times are rough at there. woolworths and mfi, two staples of the uk retail scene, have gone into administration. banks take lots of money from the government, though seemingly not enough to actually lend cash to people. car manufacturers want government help. captains of industry turn their back on the principles of the free market and bend their knee in order to say: “please sir, can i have more?”
times are tough.

when things are tough, that is when the tough get going.
in the world of business the toughest of the tough are those crack troops: the consultants.
they parachute in, they survey the scene, they make tactical decisions, they give orders for strategic goals and then leave in the dead of night to go in order to solve the next crisis. they don’t stop for thanks; for consultants don’t need thanks it is all part of the sacred mission.
the only thing that consultants stop for is to cash the cheque and laugh at the money they are getting for old rope.

before i entered this period of post-employment i was lucky enough to benefit from the skills and knowledge of two highly paid consultants. one, rw, was employed on a short-term contract to set up a new division of the company in the uk market. the other, dl, has become a permanent “advisor” to the company.
both paid a hefty wedge of cash, neither providing value for money.
dl has been a part of the company for many years, a smiling affable figure who will happily attend many of the company’s social functions. dl is a financial type person who seems to sit on the fringes of big decisions taking notes (and i have to say i have never seen as expert a note taker as dl – they are lovely), and acting as a go-between for the management teams in the uk and the usa.
other than that i am not sure what else dl does.
one of my favourite dl stories was the last high profile set of redundancies at the company and dl had to pass the news on to one of my colleagues that he was being let go. dl huffed and puffed until in the end my colleague said, “i am being made redundant”. relief all around. (i have to add a caveat here – this story was told to me by my ex-colleague, so it may be false, but given all i know about dl it is a story i like).

the other consultant was rw, brought in to set up new systems, break new grounds and establish a brand new division for the company. initially rw was on a six-month contract. it all started well. rw keen to learn how our core business worked so it could be integrated into the new business.
rw demonstrated one of the key talents of being a consultant: look the part.
rw looked the part.
more importantly rw sounded the part as well – lots of consultancy type speak all in a cut class accent.
as the end of the contract came closer and closer it was apparent that not that much had been achieved, and then others had done most of the work. now this is where another key skill of the consultant comes to the fore: survival. trust me if there is ever a nuclear disaster stay clear of sas trained officers and latch on to a consultant they cannot be eradicated.
amazingly rw got a contract extension.
when rw finally left (demonstrating another skill: exit strategy. knowing when to leave is key) the new division had been established and it was successful but this was more to do with the hard work and dedication of other members of the company than it was to do with rw. yet in company despatches rw was praised to the heavens, this demonstrating another crucial skill: self-promotion. for consultants it is important to take the credit and as little of the blame as possible. when something works it is because of the consultant, when it fails it is because the company/staff are not implementing the consultant’s plans properly.

so what has all this to do with the price of coffee?
i am sure that there are times when consultants do prove their worth, i am sure there are times when all companies could benefit from having a fresh pair of eyes looking over their business practices and recommending areas of improvement. my limited experience is that it hasn’t worked.

but i know i know you are wondering what on earth has brought this on? no i haven’t been reading tom peters recently. it was a comment on the radio from a consultant that sparked this off. the retail consultant was asked what he would recommend that retailers do in the current climate. remember that climate includes woolworths and mfi in administration, retailers starting sales in november rather than january, more and more doom and gloom about the financial situation in the media (though for all that one recent report said that retail spending was down 1% from the previous period).
the show’s presenter waited with baited breath for the answer.
the show’s audience all stopped ready to catch the pearl of wisdom that the consultant was about to drop.
tick tock tick tock the short seconds before the answer were like an eternity and then it came, like a tsunami of truth: the answer.
the consultant said that retailers should be doing their best to do what they do right.
he shoots he scores.
slam dunk.
kerchink!

the presenter’s response? “surely they should be doing that anyway?” which is why they present and don’t consult.

consultants? they con and insult you while they take your money, bizarrely business keep going back for more.

(this advertorial is on behalf of the patcon group – cheap advice for a price).

pass

i love the review sections of the weekend papers they serve to alert me to new and exciting things i should read, watch or listen to. sometimes it may just be that a certain creator has something new coming out and i have to make a note that i want it. what i am i saying want for, i need it!
other times i am drawn to the subject of the review and find myself making a note of yet another item i may have to get (how i love those reviews that put me off).
on rare occasions i just want to find out what other people think before i make that commitment to get something. so it was with the collection of hugo young papers that have been released.

i was never a great fan of hugo young, but i did enjoy reading his columns. so the idea of getting to see some of the background notes and thoughts to his writing is a fascinating one.
the weekend papers had two contrasting reviews: the sunday times had rod liddle, the observer had andrew rawnsley.
both reviewers make the point that hugo young was the outstanding liberal centrist commentator of his generation. from rawnsley that is high praise, from liddle it is little more than a compliment. rawnsley’s work can be seen as part of a continuum with hugo young’s work, while liddle is somewhat more to the right.
so liddle’s review is full of little jabs at the left. he pulls out all the negative material he can find on gordon brown, he hints that hugo young leaked off-the-record comments. furthermore liddle believes that young only interviewed people who shared not only his worldview but were similar in background. in short that hugo young was a snob.
rod liddle not a fan of hugo young, not much of a surprise. a major selling point for the book.
andrew rawnsley is a fan. he sees hugo young as a great reporter who went in search of the answers, who dug beneath the surface to get the truth. for rawnsley hugo young is a man of integrity. the great and the good spoke with him because he would not betray them. not that this protected them from his “magisterial savagings”, because if young felt they deserved it then he would berate them in print.
so far so good. rawnsley is selling it to me.
he even mentions how hugo found gordon brown to be a genial chap.

a slight digression here; there is another book i am interested in malcolm gladwell’s “outliers”. pretty much all the reviews seem to say it is an interestingly written book, but it is not telling you anything startling. the digested version is that genius (of all types) is partly natural and mainly a lot of hard work, with a bit of luck.
fair enough it is a slim volume and i wasn’t expecting the secret of the universe.

however one of the selling point of the hugo young papers is that because of the unprecedented access and proximity to the great and the good that young had that we mere mortals would learn something about those in power.
rawnsley himself says that the notes are “peppered with revelatory and entertaining character sketches”, sounds like good stuff.
then it hits you like a wet kipper in the face, rawnsley writes “from a guardian lunch with princess diana he takes away a prophetic thought: 'although she laments the incessant publicity, i wonder how she would survive without it.’” how on earth was that prophetic? it is just a banal thought that any reader of “hello” magazine could have come up with.

now it might be a little churlish of me to decide to pass on a book because of one less than stunning insight into the people’s princess but there you go.
the book is 800 pages so it must be possible for them to have found something a bit more prophetic than a puff piece on diana. still if you are going to have a book that length sitting on the shelf you may as well have a diana story in it as you know that is likely to get you some copy and some sales.

so the “hugo young papers” might be the work of a titan, i am going to pass on it. who would have thought it would have been andrew rawnsley’s review that put me off?

coffee

drinking coffee.
surfing the net.
weather is mild.
pleasantly happy.
all is well in the world.

humbug

i am not a christmas person. each year it just seems to be more and more commercial and more and more cynical.
each year (and it seems earlier every time) the sounds of chintzy carols piped through buildings, there are tacky decorations around the place, there are stories of how retail is suffering or how some council is trying to ban christmas.
but the lights are up in london and the ones in regents street are quite nice.

but more importantly i see the lights in newark are up, and here they are.



(this one is for jay)

cards

the royal college of art is having its annual “secret art” show. it is a clever fundraiser for the college to help fund students. the idea is that you buy a postcard-sized piece of original art, you can see the work at the college or you can see it online, you have no idea who the artist is. it could be someone famous, or it could be a student. you make your choice you take your chance.
i have been going along for several years.
so far i have yet to choose a card that is by a famous creator, but i have chosen a whole bunch of cards that i like. which is really the point.
back when i first went the selling of the cards went on from a friday evening until sunday afternoon. the first time i was there were a lot of available cards to choose from, the second year i went there were a lot fewer cards available. from that year on the cards were only available for sale on saturday and sunday and now there were queues.
each year there are more and more people turning up to try and get that special card, people have started queuing the night before in order to get that card from that artist.
i have yet to queue during the night preferring to rock up on the saturday and see what i can get, but after last year when i didn’t get any of the cards i really wanted i have decided to go queue. i shall be turning up outside the royal college somewhere are 4am in the morning.
it should be fun. yeah right.
to add to it all i have just heard on the radio there is to be a siberian cold front coming in.
oh joy.
(bet i don’t get any of the cards i want…)

quote

there are certain types of people who just annoy. they don’t mean to annoy, they just do. if you try to explain to them why they are annoying they will just look at you with a questioning look and with hurt in their eyes.
mostly it is people who spend time trying to justify their lifestyle choices. though there are others who are equally annoying and spend their time trying to pick holes in your lifestyle choices (parents are, of course, exempt from this as it is their job to pick holes in their children’s choices).

a sure sign of who is likely to annoy is if they are a “born again” something or another.
at school i used to play rugby. on the one hand there was a chap who was in the salvation army, and while he wasn’t keen on swearing or foul play, he was decent and never went on about being part of the sally army or his faith. on the other hand there was a bloke who became a born again christian and almost overnight he became an insufferable bore as he just went on and on about his faith.

most of the people i know who have quit smoking never shut up about it, especially around other smokers. they replace their addiction to the fags with a need to tell you that they have kicked the habit.

if i had to choose a category of people who are most likely to annoy it is going to be vegetarians.
now that is a large generalisation and i know it.
i am not saying all veggies are annoying, but there are a lot of them who are.
i have been vegetarian several times in my life. the first time i did it was back in school when one of my mates said we should give up meat because of the culling of seals (i suspect it was due to the fact that both of us were fans of the group yes and the members of it were veggie). within a couple of days of this pact i had to get a new pair of rugby boots and i was confronted with the contradiction of my position: leather. ooops. so i dropped the idea of being veggie for a moral reason and just to see if i could do it.
i stayed veggie for several years. my mate lasted a week.
i went back on meat after a year at college. then i became veggie again because of love (and peace) and that lasted for many years.
in my veggie years (a great title for a book) it never struck me that i needed to pick on meat eaters (pot noodle eaters are a different matter).
yet i knew veggies who couldn’t shut up about how much better they were for not eating meat, how they cared more because nothing that was once alive now passed their lips. if someone sat near them eating a meat pie they would complain about the smell and then launch into a long (dull) tirade about being a vegetarian: it is healthier and it is animal friendly being the two main points.
one veggie who often commented on meat eaters was constantly popping vitamin pills and taking time off work for being ill.
another veggie would go on about how terrible it was to eat dead animals, how it was an inhumane practice. yet he was always having to sidestep the question of weather leather.

which brings me to the quote of lauren laverne.
quite why i ended up reading an interview about food with a person i have no idea what they did is beyond me, but i did.

“i couldn't have an animal die just so i could eat it. the way i think about it is if i was to be killed i would rather be worn than eaten. i think eating something is such an impermanent way to express a life. to be minced up and put in a burger is a bit of an inglorious ending, but to wind up as a pair of louis vuitton shoes, well, then your death has meant something. that's how i see it.” (from the observer food magazine)

i can’t help wondering if a pair of clark’s shoes are as meaningful? or if that leather belt from primark is a much more permanent way to express the life of a dead animal.
not to mention that if all of the animal that is used is the skin then there is an awful lot of it that has gone to waste. still worry not those louis vuitton shoes will last a while, so it was probably worth it. perhaps the animals used to make expensive clothes carry special donor cards: “when i die a nice peaceful death of old age please turn me into a luxury pair of shoes or a bag”.
perhaps not.

to be fair ms laverne did not say she wore louis vuitton shoes and so my criticism is unjust.

but it isn’t the wearing of the shoes that annoys; it is just the self-seeking justification of it that gets my (dead) goat. if you want to be a vegetarian fine, be one and enjoy the grub. if you want to wear fine elegant leather shoes, wear them with pride and show them off. live with that contradiction. just don’t try to justify it.

kilroy

kilroy is off to the australian jungle to compete in one of the many reality game shows that populate the tv channels. when kilroy isn’t appearing in reality tv shows he is a member of the european parliament.
i know what you are thinking: he is what?
oh yes the people of the east midlands voted for the perma tanned one to represent them in the european parliament. kilroy is there as an independent, he left his political party, veritas, in order to devote his attentions to the european parliament.
(for those that care veritas still exists. who would have thought it?)
while kilroy is off in the jungle trying to prove he is a celebrity the european parliament will still be sitting. oh no, what will they do without him?
to give credit to liberal party they have not pronounced on this, though it could be that they don’t have a member of the european parliament who can speak on the subject. never fear the conservatives and new labour have combined to point out that kilroy is being paid by the taxpayer while he is also gallivanting off in australia, where he will also be paid by the tv company. both glenis willmott (new labour mep) and roger helmer (conservative mep) have piped up over kilroy’s actions.
now if i was those meps i would have remained quiet and just got on with the job at hand, whatever that is for a mep. also if i were those meps i would be thankful that kilroy was away for a bit, however short that time was.
glenis and roger are busy bees in europe making and issuing statements, they both have decent, albeit functional, websites that allows the concerned and interested elector to see exactly what their mep has been up to and in the case of glenis and roger you can imagine that said elector would be satisfied to see that their vote is counting for something.
the elector looking at kilroy’s site might be a little bit disappointed. a tired dull site. still it does list his press releases, let us go check them out. oh dear nothing since august 2007 (though you have to go back to february of that year for my favourite one “where have all the muslim girls gone?” and no he wasn’t asking on behalf of dating agencies).
on his campaign page he lists the campaigns that to quote him “are the issues which i concentrate on”. they include asylum seekers, child poverty, free speech and human rights among others. pretty heady stuff. click on the links and you get a blank page. ok so kilroy is not concentrating too much on those issues.
let us have a look at immigration. click that link and you are informed it is a very important issue for kilroy, just not important enough to have anything on the page.
still you have to admire his desire for interaction with the electors because when you go to the “uk and eu” campaign page you get “the uk should leave the eu because... the uk should leave the eu because...” unfortunately kilroy doesn’t say how many words you can use or what the prize will be when you enter this competition.
still there is the section devoted to his articles, look there are several of them, such a shame that they all start with: “lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur sadipscing elit.”
so far kilroy isn’t covering himself with glory when it comes to what he does as a mep.
last chance is a look at his parliamentary questions section. can the boy save the day? and yes he can. when it comes to questions kilroy is a veritable industry of questions, often several a day. true not all the questions he has asked have been answered by the commission but you have to admire him for trying.

willmott and helmer’s attack on kilroy just smacks of them wanting to get their names in the media, to remind the electorate that they exist. they would have been better off asking what it is that kilroy is doing there in the first place. he is not interested in the eu; he wants the united kingdom out of europe. his one purpose there seems to send off endless questions about anything that takes his fancy to the commission.

if i were willmott and helmer i would be thankful that kilroy was not about the place and i would concentrate on doing what the electors had put me there to do.


kilroy’s trip to the jungle is nothing new. he is following in the noble footsteps of gorgeous george galloway. let us all hope that he doesn’t offer to be a cat.

want

times are tough for those of us in post employment. it is all about notching the belt a little tighter. it is not about going into book shops and record shops and looking at what they have and going "i want, i want, i want, i want". yet that is what i do. i know it is sad. so today i saw several books i want, many, cds that i want and a few dvds that i want.
it is true that i don't need them, i just want them.
i didn't buy any of them.
i am a good boy.
i rewarded myself with a lovely fresh cream apple turnover from sainsbury's (where i looked at the books, cds and dvds that that carry).

yummy

tesco's banana flavoured milk. delightful. delicious. yummy.
true the sugar rush will give me a headache in the morning, but some prices are worth paying.

election14

the skinny kid is going to be the president. i am going to get to see a lot of michelle obama, and that is no bad thing (hey if you can’t have a bit of leching in politics what is the point).
biden gets to have his time on the stage.
the families come onto the stage.
there are shots of jesse jackson in the audience with tears, as someone said it must be a bittersweet moment for him as he wanted to be the first black president.

america has a new day. americans are bashful enough to say that this is also a new day for the rest of the world. the rest of the world will go about its business as normal (well except kenya who are going to declare a day of national holiday).
no denying it is an exciting day and somehow the future appears to be a little brighter.

and now i need to get a coffee.

election13

obama’s acceptance speech is powerful and schmaltzy in equal measure. he is a great speaker.
bush has gone on record as saying that history will judge him well, but that judgement will come long after he has gone. a commentator on bush recently said that if bush had been a better speaker then perhaps he would have been a better-regarded president, but surely there has to be more to it than fancy speeches.
the time for obama is to come, but his speechifying is first class. let us hope that his leadership is as good.

election12

mccain’s concession speech was very good, you wonder if he had been more like that in the campaign then he might have had a chance.

a couple of vox pops with obama supporters highlight just how much expectation there is going to be heaped on obama’s shoulders. inevitably that means a lot of people are going to be disappointed, the question is just how badly they are going to feel let down.

gore vidal talks about he was surprised that obama got in so easily, and that there were no eruptions. as the conversation went on it quickly become obvious that vidal was talking bollocks.

jeremy vine back in the london office does another of the computer things and then has to look thrilled at the, tacky, cgi ticker tape that looks to be falling down from the sky.

just waiting on obama’s acceptance speech.

a couple of times through the night the point has been that the victory is in part down to the fact that the electorate wanted to get rid of bush and the republicans, on that level it seems that any democratic candidate could have won.

election11

one of the constant themes of the night is that this is an historic occasion: the election of the first black president.
the cynic in me says that he probably isn’t going to make that much of a difference, that big business and vested interests are going to stand in the way of any significant change.
i hope i am wrong.

the magic 270 has been broken. obama is the president elect.
dimbleby declares it as a sensational result – but it is not a surprise to anyone.

ted koppel is now pissing on the obama parade by pointing out that there will only be a short period of a honeymoon. very soon obama will face all the problems that the bush administration and that as soon as he fails to resolve them he will be blamed for them, rather than bush.

oh dear gibbs leger has gone on about how america is the best country in the world. bless.

but everyone agrees this is a time to sit back and bask in the glow of getting rid of the republicans.

just waiting on the speeches now. may pass on that and go to sleep.

election10

mccain is seen as having lost because he ran on his biography rather than on policies. that although he has a reputation of being a maverick mccain is seen as being very much part of the bush administration. so when the economy went into the toilet that was mccain down and out.
the obama victory seems to be down to the fact that he is charismatic and people wanted to get rid of the conservatives. in addition he managed to run a very well organised campaign.
it seems in both cases policy seems to be a distant third concern.

daniella gibbs leger is one of the bbc guests, very hubba. sadly she hasn’t had much of a chance to speak because a number of other guests have been beamed in via satellite.

nancy pelosi is speaking to the crowds. she is a terrible speaker and she seems very patronising. she also looks like her face is very fixed and has false smile. she is not being shy about saying obama has won. even though it is still not certain (but we all know who is going to be the next president).

there is now a 3% difference in the popular votes.
mccain is 141
obama is 207

they reckon the magic 270 number will be reached in the next 10 minutes.

election9

schama and dimbleby are warming up. i am thinking i might have to buy some of schama’s books.
eddie izzard has been on talking about the third millennium starting now and it being the end of slavery. after the less than insightful interview with ricky gervais you have to wonder why they get celebs on.

schama and bolton are going to get into a fight. bolton has the size but i think schama is a street-fighter and bolton will go down.

currently standing at
mccain 135
obama 207

election8

didn’t buy enough chocolate. could do with some right now.
also need to go have a pee, but can’t drag myself from the tv.

i keep getting updates from the “washington post” letting me know what is going on in the election.
the bbc coverage is tops.

the difference in the popular vote is still standing at 1%

currently standing at
mccain 130
obama 207

election7

john bolton, ex american ambassador, is on the bbc. he has a fantastic moustache.
simon schama, historian and broadcaster, has a bit of the ian mckellen about him, he bobs and weaves in his chair as he drops words of wisdom into the studio.

palin is being cited as one of the reasons why mccain didn’t pick up the independent votes. john bolton is missing the point that the bbc correspondent is making and says that palin was important in uniting the republicans.
dimbleby had to step in to break up the verbal brawl.

oprah has been interviewed. talked about pulsating. got me excited.
the dirty digger, rupert murdoch, tells everyone he likes obama but thinks he will be protectionist, or more accurately obama might tax him more.

dimbleby has had a little pop about the american electoral process. can’t fault him. the more i learn about it the more arse about front it is.

cycles and fickle factors are being spoken about.

now stands at
mccain 90
obama 195

(i should be watching basketball, but the bbc coverage is too good)

election6

couple of things that have struck me about the election as it has progressed we have been swamped with coverage there has been a lot of stuff about sarah palin; she has been ubiquitous in terms of the election. it has created a sense that mccain and palin are a team. joe biden? who he? totally out of the picture. this is about obama and biden is just there as the token white politician and no one cares about him and he will have an easy job for the next 4 years of doing nothing.
the other thing about the campaign is how important that the candidate’s families are to the whole thing. it is almost as if the voters are not just voting on the policies of the candidates but they are also involved in a popularity contest and judging the families. one of the ways this is shown is in the photo ops with the candidate and their family. today is an important one where the candidate votes – so the media can cover them voting (hmmm i wonder who they voted for), the family rocks up in support, but they are not seen as voting. the question is: do they vote?

jesse jackson is being interviewed asked what the difference between when jackson ran and now. jackson’s answer 20 years and a lot more money. ted koppel has pointed out that while obama and jackson are cut from different cloth, jackson is one of the reasons that obama can become the president.

money has been cited a couple of times as the night has progressed as a reason for why obama has done so well. considering the amount of cash that has been splashed to contest the election you have to wonder is it worth it.

someone has commented that the bradley effect has not happened (basically white votes lying that they would vote for a black candidate).

one of the bbc commentators has mentioned that a lot of black americans he has spoken to offer up the comment that they are worried that once obama is in that they are worried that something bad will happen to him. he went on to say that all the chances are slim that anything would occur it is not like there hasn’t been form.

currently standing at:
mccain 76
obama 175
(but they are only separated by 1% in the popular vote).

election5

jeremy vine is doing some computer graphic thing for the bbc, not as sexy as the old swingometer that used to be a feature of the election night. he looks like he has a session on the sunbed, and has a little squinty-eyed look to him. he is playing with some touch screen computer graphics. while it is quite nice it does look a little bit like the matrix movie done by the special effects department who worked on blake’s 7.

even in the senate the republicans are losing.

as christopher hitchens says it is a change in the zeitgeist.


mccain 34
obama 103

election4

pennsylvania has gone to obama.
new hampshire has gone to obama.
now they are rushing in.

obama now on 84
maccain in 34

pretty much everyone in the bbc studio seem to think it is obama for sure.

election3

south carolina has called for mccain - now 16 to mccain and 3 to obama.
three states down.

election2

they are talking about how obama is getting the vast majority of the black vote (no surprise there) but he is also getting something like 40% of the white vote. not good for mccain.
they are saying that mccain is doing slightly better with the male voter, but obama is doing very well with the female vote. again not good for mccain.

results are coming in slowly. the pundits are saying that this is because the networks are being cautious in their announcing of the results, because of the mess they made with kerry in 2004.
it seems very odd as you would have thought that no results would be announced until the official count had been done, dusted and confirmed.

so just two have been called/ projected. and it is still mccain 8 and obama 3.

the bbc have a neat little clock counting down when the polls in certain states are closing.

election

so here it is - at last - election night. watching the bbc tv coverage at the moment.
currently they are saying how race is has not been an issue in the campaign.

two states have results (or are projected to have results) and so far it is
mccain 8
obama 3

but the tone of the show is that obama is in.

more to come.

hole

there is a hole in my trainer. i discovered it today. how did i discover it? it rained, it rained quite a bit. the hole seemed to let most of the rain into the trainer. soggy sock. squelchy steps. so nice.
ah winter is here and i am so prepared.

sleep

been an odd day.
looked for one thing and found another. the thing i was looking for doesn't seem to be anywhere and it is annoying because i was planning on flogging it, either i have lost it, given it away or i never really had it in the first place. all three are possible.
the thing i found was my passport. it wasn't in a safe place (i take after my mum that way, she used to have a number of "safe places" to stash stuff, and then she forgot what was stashed and where it was stashed) no my passport was just in a large pile of books and magazines.
it has now been found. i can now travel. where will i go?

the other thing that is odd about today is that i am still awake at some rather late hour (or early, depending on your view).
i should be asleep. so i am going to give it ago and see if i can nod off.

rain

there was a lot of it today.
i got soaked.
i felt chilled.
i am old.

excited

three things have me on the edge of my seat with giggly excitement.

new bond film opens and i will be seeing it at ten minutes past one today! if only it had bruce willis in it, then it would be a great movie.

the presidential election is just around the corner. it does seem that it is too close to call, but you just know on the night there will be a landslide victory to obama. to be fair from a leching point of view i win either way: michelle obama is hot, sarah palin is hot, and both of them can spank me if they want.

finally i discovered i can get a train at 4am to get me into brighton at 5.30am. at the moment 4am is the sort of time i am thinking of going to sleep, but now i can catch a train instead. with luck i should be able to get some good photos, but knowing my luck i will catch flu instead. ah what an adventure.

hotmail

it seems that the boys at microsoft have decided that having a perfectly good, solid and dependable product was not enough. no microsoft wanted to give their product a make over in the style of all those tv shows that seem to say: being good isn’t enough what you really need is to look fabby.
well microsoft have turned their good, solid, dependable hotmail into something that looks quite nice, but doesn’t seem to work for me.
so i can see i have emails. i can read some of them. some i can’t read if they are too long, as i can’t move the page up or down, though sometimes i can. sometimes i can press reply to reply to the email because the “reply” button is there. sometimes it is not. that said it doesn’t really matter because even when i do try to reply i can’t actually write in the message box so i can’t answer. even so that would be a moot point because when i try to send the email it just sits there like a dead dog.
all in all the hotmail change is pretty much fubarred it for me.
i am sure that as microsoft receives more and more feedback they will correct the errors, which seems to be the standard method for microsoft.

“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” seems to be such a good rule, but so often it is ignored. hotmail is a case in point, it did what it promised and it did it well, but that wasn’t enough it had to look cool and that meant it had to change.

oh well if you sent me an email recently don’t hold your breath for a reply.

curmudgeon

recently i wrote that getting older means changes. some you expect, some you welcome, while others seem to be in contradiction to others.

it does seem to be a rule of life that as you get older you become more and more angry. the anger seems to come from nowhere and is aimed at things that a few months ago you would have laughed at, and a fewer years earlier you may just as well have done yourself.

so more and more i find myself cursing and muttering under my breath when i am in the street. more and more i shout and shake my fist at the radio or tv. constantly i shake my head and sigh as i read yet another story in the newspaper.

i am becoming a miserable old git.
i do not mind admitting to this.

so i fume at rude people, loud people. i rail at those who are inconsiderate of others. noise annoys me. litter gets my goat. loitering in busy spaces causes me apoplexy. new peeves seem to appear daily: currently i hate bicyclists from the ones who can’t ride on the road, yet seem to think that pedestrians are taking up too much space on the pavement to the ones who are too stupid to have lights on their bikes.
soon i will be irritated by the owners of umbrellas that are big enough to cover a tennis court. they may think that they are smart to own such a large bumbershoot but they are too stupid to actually make sure that they move it out of the way of other people.

at this rate i shall soon be walking the streets shouting at strangers, while wearing a tin foil hat because i need to protect myself from messages from the controllers.

hand me that tin of white lightning cider now, i need to go and shout at some trees.

run

awake. check time. early enough? yes. time for a run.
ipod? check.
headphones? check.
trainers? check.
keys? check.
tracky bottoms? ooops. better go put them on.
outside. drizzle. nice.
choose music. essential ufo. solid rock. good to run to.
set off. plod. plod. plod.
feeling good. add more to the distance today. not much, just some.
plod. plod. plod. puff. puff. puff. puff. stitch. oww that hurts. keep going.
too many people. do this earlier in future. pavement rage.
nearly home. plod. run. plod. run. nearly there.
done. finished. phew.
pant. pant. pant. pant.
upstairs. grab a coke. chug some. chug some more.
pant. sweat. pant. sweat. puff. puff. puff. more coke chugged.
to the toilet. sit down. big number 2. aaaaaah. relief. bliss.
nothing frees the bowels as much as a run.
nothing lightens the mode as a big number 2.
day has started well.

softie

as i get older there seems to be two opposing forces at work on me.
on the one hand i am becoming more and more the miserable old git curmudgeon who will soon be shouting at passing pedestrians in a loud incoherent voice (more about this in a later post).
on the other hand i am becoming a terrible softie.
generally it manifests itself in the form of tears (they are of course manly tears). it started years ago with “field of dreams”, where i blubbed at the end, until eventually i well up the moment i pick up the dvd.
now it happens more and more, sometimes it is a song and the tears come. other times i am watching tv and then i have to sniffle (darn that “dawson’s creek”), occasionally it happens when i am watching a movie and i have to surreptitiously dab my eyes (oh it is never the expected movie – but some dodgy comedy with will ferrell comedy).
the evidence is that i am becoming more and more sentimental, that i am now a “new man”. in short i have become a softie.
or i have become menopausal.

excitement

in these dull quiet days of unemployment (though i prefer to think of it as post-employment) surprises are few and far between. the days can be taken up with me shouting at the radio (as yet i have not succumbed to the horrors of daytime tv, so i give praise for small mercies).
imagine the thrill i had the other day when i go to check the post only to discover that i have missed the postie with his black and white cat and he wanted to deliver a package to me.
mmm i thought i am not expecting anything from play or amazon.
i have not lost any teeth recently so it can’t have been from the tooth fairy.
too early for santa and waaaaay to early for the easter bunny.
just who has sent me this mysterious package?
what could be in the package? is it something nice? something i want? something i have asked for.
my mind and imagination race. who, what, who, what, who, what, who, what in time to ever increasing speed of my footsteps. steps that soon become strides. strides that threaten to become running.
i get to the sorting office.
just in time. phew.
excitement mounts.
giddy.
hand over the card to the moan behind the counter. off he goes.
wait. (come on postie, come on).
back he comes. box in hand.
ooooh that looks good.
excitement overload.
almost peeing pants.
have box in hand. thrilled.
oh.
is that it?
four bulbs from british gas…. i got excited by four bulbs from british gas.

i tell you i am so rock and roll.
oh well at least i got something free from british gas, no doubt they have put my bill up again.

recycle

i try to be good. i try to recycle as much as i can. in my current battle against the stuff i have a lot has been taken to the local charity shop. a lot has been taken to the recycle bins. there is still more to go the charity shop and still more to go to the recycle bins.
i am also on a be-as-cheap-as-chips phase (strangely this only works on the smaller household items). so who needs toilet paper when you have the london evening standard? not me that is for sure. certainly it is not soft and you have to be a little worried about paper cuts, but other than that is seems to do the job. i have to confess i do not know if it leaves ink stains, i suppose i could go to the local nhs walk-in clinic and ask the nurse: “can you read my bum?” i suspect it is not the done thing and besides nurses have a enough to deal with without bringing my bottom into the equation.
i must admit to a certain secret thrill as i rip a part of the paper up ready to do deed, there is a pleasure in wiping my arse on the face of david cameron, or jeremy clarkson or some minor overpuffed celebrity. it might be a minor victory, it might br a small thrill, but for the time being it is enough.
even better i am doing my bit to save the planet.

cynic

last night there was a small news item about madonna’s directorial debut. i can’t wait. i am sure she has learnt a lot from guy. amazingly the announcer asked is there anything that madonna couldn’t do? act i scream at the tv.
i am so glad i have a working tv again.

this morning the radio tells me that the sun newspaper is announcing that madonna and guy are to divorce.
mmm there was a story they were going to divorce when guy’s last movie was opening. it didn’t make it a great box office success, but did distract a little from the lame reviews.
so call me cynical or is this latest divorce announcement timed to make sure that there is coverage of madonna and publicity for her film?
hey it didn’t work for guy, but it might work for madonna, and there is a chance that unlike guy madonna has made a good film.
a slim chance true, but a chance all the same.
then again pigs might fly.

chatting

unlike my pal ems i am not at ease talking to strangers, it is why i am always in the kitchen at parties. it seems ems will talk to anyone, even tory politicians.
now i am the first to admit that in the right circumstances i can talk for england and my role model is mr. jefferson smith, though my motivation is much less noble.
i am also the first to admit that i am a terrible conversationalist as most of the time i seem to dominate the conversation, i forget that sometimes it is polite to let others speak and that i am supposed to listen. hey can i hope it if i think i am interesting?

but just recently i seem to have started to talk to strangers. now i realise why i don’t do it very often.
first there was the local prostitute. she called me over at first i thought she was going to tap me up for some loose change. she started chatting about my hair (she liked it) then she asked me about what i was taking photos of. she was a skinny woman, with very nice thick black hair and a very prominent pair of tits, which she was quite happy to thrust out. the sexy look was ruined a tad by the stale booze breath and very few teeth. still a chats a chat. we swapped stories of chocolate eating until i noticed her eyes glaze over. i politely took my leave.
then there was the old duffer who asked me what i was taking photos of. he looked like an east end version of burt lancaster in “field of dreams”. very neat and very dapper. we traded stories of photography, he told me about wood flooring (who knew there was so much to know)? he let me know of a great fish supper to be had at gina’s (looking forward to checking that out). then he remembered he had to be somewhere else.
next it was one of the local beggars. two of them seem to have taken a shine to me, well not so much to me but my willingness to put my hand in my back pocket to give them loose change. this one started off with a sob story about how he had done his arm in while working in the market, he was prepared to take his bandage off to show me the wound, i was less than keen as the last time a down and out did that i was put off my food for a couple of days. his accident led to a conversation about how just a few inches can mean life and death. his less than furtive glances around the street told me i was taking up his precious time. i fished out some loose change and was on my way.
when i was in a local gallery one of the owners started chatting to me about the fine weather we were having and the state of art. within a few exchanges it became apparent that polite thing to do was to let him get back to the work he stopped doing to say hello.

so i have learnt the reason why i don’t talk to strangers very often, they really don’t want to hear my witterings, while i am jibber jabbering all over the place they are just thinking of their polite (or no so polite) exit strategy.
it is much easier for me to continue in my usual misanthropic way rather than to go down the path of loquaciousness that ems travels.

i am happier when i am miserable.

sympathy

we are living in dangerous times. we could be on the abyss. we could be witnessing the end of the capitalist system as we know it. each day there are more stories of financial disasters, shares have dropped, house prices have crashed, there is no confidence in wall street or the stock exchange. times are tough.
now we know just how tough times are because the london evening standard has told us all that london’s tycoons have lost billions in the recent credit crunch.
oh woe is me.
no seriously. take poor old lakshmi mittal. mr. mittal is a steel magnate and in these perilous times he has seen his family fortune crash to £11.82 billion. crikey he will have to start buying tescos’ own brand to make sure that £11 billion lasts. while mike ahsley, owner of newcastle united and lillywhites is down to his last £168 million. looks like mike will have to make sure he turns off some of the lights in his house to make ends meet.
as if that wasn’t bad enough it is possible that city bonuses will be down this year. it is thought that bonuses will be down by nearly 60% and only £3.5 billion will be paid out.
oh stop it; i am beginning to cry now. those poor bankers won’t be getting their big bonuses this year that is just so sad. no really it is. no doubt many in the city will be going to their cleaners to tap them up for a loan.

i know that mr. mittal is suffering because he describes money as “a curse”, and i am sure when you only have £11 billion it is hard to know just what to spend it on: football team? airplane? oh hell lets splurge we will get both.

schadenfreude. is what i am feeling. i can’t work up sympathy for a bunch of very rich people who have benefited nicely from the system. we have been told for so long that we need these super rich people because wealth trickles down.
it is nice to see that sometimes misery trickles up.
but we all know that come what may the mr. mittals and mr. ashleys of the world are not going to be turfed out of their luxury houses because they defaulted on their mortgages.
while they have done extraordinarily well they will not be asked to sacrifice any more than the rest of us.
in fact when you look at it in terms of wealth we, the people, are going to be propping up the wealthy, we are bailing them out, we are saving them from their mistakes. would it be too much to ask that all the captains of industry and commerce who have said that the free market is the only way are now choking on the irony of being saved by the state?
you would like to think that if the bail out works and the economy stabilises that lessons will have been learnt. though the chances of that are slim. you can bet that within a few days of the bail out working that the free marketeers will harping on about state interference in the smooth running of the system.

i’ll take my winnings in cold hard cash and not stocks please.

books

sympathy

we are living in interesting times. are we standing on the edge of the abyss?


books
books i love them. i probably (well there is no probably about it) buy too many of them. i find myself wandering into bookshops to look at what is available.
some i sneer at “oh look there is yet another misery memoir”, such books always leave confused. are they so popular because people relish other people’s misfortune? or is that people want to be reassured that there are people worse off than them?
some books have me going “another one” as i spy the latest addition to the ever growing secret mystery thrillers in which some intrepid adventurer solves a clue that has him thwarting an age old conspiracy. so far no one has resolved the mystery that is dan brown’s success.
then there are the comedy books, which seem to have a funny concept but the execution of them makes them as humorous as me. or not funny at all.
as i walk by the tables or along the shelves there will be books that call out to me, my fingers will lovingly touch them, stroking the covers, opening them up, smelling that freshly opened book smell. heavenly.
on a good day i will make a list of the books that have caught my attention and i will walk out of the shop and mull them over. do i really want that new sf novel? will i ever read that biography or that insightful explanation on the political response to terror? do i really need another book on how to compose interesting photos?
the bookshops know i have all these questions so they try to trick me, they try to tease me, they try to bribe me. buy 3 and get them for the price of two, buy this one and get that one half off, here buy this and get £3 off. temptation. temptation, so hard to resist.
but on that good day i walk out of the shop with nothing in my bag.
on the bad days i stumble into the shop and even as i walk across the threshold i know, oh i know, that i will break down, i will give in and i will buy a book. if only it was just the one book, if i am lucky it will be one, but it could be two, it could be three.
save me.
there i was in borders bookshop my bag was already a tad stuffed with the latest dc showcase featuring blackhawk and the hayward gallery catalogue for their warhol exhibition (mmm there is a mix for you) but even with a bag full of book i needed to look at more.
oh no there is a new richard morgan fantasy, no no no polly toynbee’s new look at inequality in the uk is on the shelf. resist. say no. stop. walk out. do not pass the tills. do not spend £20.
one foot in front of the other.
eyes front.
no don’t look at the new ian rankin or the new mark billingham. don’t stop keep moving.
oh what is that is it what i think it is? could it be? yes it is.
by yiminy it is. the new neal stephenson novel is out. look at it there in all its hardbacked glory. big and beautiful. i just know it is full to the brim of fantastic ideas, complex plot and characters and sterling writing. over 900 pages of joy.
did i buy it?
no i resist the jezebel.
i regretted the decision all the way home. yet a part of me thought i had won an important battle.
until the next time i go into borders, or blackwells, or waterstones.

ugh

i am awake far too early.
it feels like i have just gone to sleep.
i have decided that eating tuna and pasta late in the evening is not a good idea. it seems to lie in the stomach, wakes me up early in the morning and making me feel wretched.
feels like it will be a looooong day.

always fun to wake up to hear that sarah palin is once again in the news: this time she is going on about polar bears - they are not endangered. so it seems it is fine to go loaded for bear when you hang out with sarah. she claims that science involved was "bad science", especially the climate change model.
it is amazing that people such as bush and palin can find so much "bad science" is being done when it comes to opinions that differ from theirs.

oh i shouldn't complain at least i am not hearing digby jones.

prezza

two jags.
two meals.
two fingers.
he may have been a philandering bulimic but he still has a bit of rough class.
(it is just a shame that john prescott's spokesman said he was just giving a victory sign for the forthcoming scottish by-election, it sort of ruins the hard man image).

rain

i have manflu. pity me.
i am a bit roasty toasty in my duvet.
i can hear the drumming of rain, it is a nice way to wake up.
now do i go back to sleep because i have manflu? or do i go out to see what advetures a wet sunday holds?

quote

there is a recent study that says that a belief in god can make you a better person. i would like to think that is true. then i realise that there are people in the world i have no sympathy for whatsoever, in fact i would relish the opportunity to laugh in their faces (unless of course they were bigger than me). one such person said the following:

“i bought two two-bedroom apartments, one quite large for £770,000. now i'm trying to get £775,000 for it but it's not looking good. to be honest, i'm very disappointed. i can't afford to wait for the market to recover. from what i can see now people are not buying because they think the market still has some way to go before it bottoms out. i just don't know how much i'll lose. my strategy now is to try to get buyers in russia or perhaps kazakhstan. if the worst came to the worst, i suppose i could live there.”

i don’t know about you but the idea of being able to buy anything for over £700,000 is the stuff of dreams (hell buying something that is £7 is a major expenditure at the moment).
so i am not going to lose too much sleep over someone who can find the money to put a deposit down on two expensive flats. especially as it so obvious that the purchasing of the flats was for the sole purpose of making a killing, there was no intention, ever, of living in them, they were to make money, and lots of it.
ooops. that didn’t work, did it?
i have no sympathy for the buy-to-let brigade, or those who bought “off plan” a few years back expecting to make a large profit when they sold the moment the place was completed.
quite why anyone expected the price of houses to keep going up was beyond me.

when it comes to bleating “investors” my well of human kindness run dry. they have forgotten the golden rule, your investment can go down as well as go up.
this mindless “investing” and hyping of prices is what has led us to the sorry state we are currently in. still never you mind the government is going to step in to make sure that the very stupid people who over extend themselves, not because they need somewhere to live but because they want to screw the profits out of people who need somewhere to live, are going to be protected.

i hate them all.
(crikey that was lucid political discussion there, any more like this and i am getting a job at the daily mail).

return

we are in dark dire times. we need something or someone to rescue us.
cometh the time, cometh the man.
politics very own panto villain has returned to the stage. oh yes peter mandelson is back and no doubt this time he means to stay (well they say third time is the charm).
mandelson is new labour’s very own version of jeffrey archer, you know you shouldn’t like him, you know there is little to recommend him, but you just can’t help admiring the sheer front, the sheer gall. mandelson is one of the architects of the new labour project, and for that alone he deserves thanks. having said that he also embodies some of the worst elements of new labour: the love of big business and the love of wealth.
quite how he is going to help gordon brown and labour is not clear. still at least there will be some smiles ahead.

me

today i had my portrait done.
it was an interesting experience. i like the result. it is me, but not the me i think of as being me. if you see what i mean.
it will be an odd experience to go to the show that my portrait is being shown at. it will be even odder to think that someone might buy my portrait.

chill

so it has gotten a little chilly. there is a bite in the air. a sign that winter might be coming in. time to think about finding the coat or jumper. not a rush to do that mind as it is just a slight chill, still a ways off from being cold.
so why in the name of all things have they putting the heating on in buses and tubes?
i got on the bus and i may as well have been in a sauna.
i got on the tube and i could have cooked an egg.
it is not cold enough to put on the heating and if you have to put it on have it to warm not to the melting point of gold.

better count to ten.
1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10
there you go and now i am all chill on the inside again.

praise

we all like to be praised, to hear words of encouragement, to be told we are good at our jobs, that we are nice people, that we are funny (ok i admit i have to imagine what it is like to get praise).
words of praise must be even better when you have been suffering stinging attacks from colleagues, like water to a thirsty man.
gordon brown had just given a very good speech to the labour party conference. the conference enjoyed it, but they would. ok there were some naysayers over the speech: it hadn’t gone far enough or it was too little too late.
so hats off to the conservative shadow chancellor george osborne who offered up some lovely words of praise to gordon brown. osborne would normally be among the last people to praise gordon brown, so when he says something good about the speech you know it was a winner.
what was it that osborne said?
george osborne said that gordon brown had “retreated to the left”, ok he did say he had done this to save his job, which undercuts the praise a little – but i guess he thought he had to have a little dig at gordon.
but just fancy that a labour politician retreating to the left. amazing. who would have thought it.
so it looks like osborne has given brown’s speech the thumbs up. now it is time for the those labour members of parliament who have been whinging and whining to also give him the thumbs up as well.

cunts

cunts

i know it is not a particularly academic term. i know it is a term probably not used that often by professional political pundits. which probably explains why i am neither.
the labour party conference has started.
the economic situation is dire, not because there are real problems but because of some greedy twats in offices who on the one hand praise capitalism but on the other are doing their level best to screw the system up so badly that they cause a depression.
there are social issues that need to be debated and dealt with – youth (sorry young adults) disaffection and disenfranchisement, growing wealth inequality, the immigration issue and more.
politically there is still the vexed issue of surveillance britain, the growing belligerence of russia and then there are the forthcoming usa elections.
things are in a state of flux.
the labour party conference should be a time of unity, of getting together (and as someone once told me) getting their ducks in a line.
but no.
instead of learning from what happened to john major, the labour party backbenchers seem to be on a course of self-destruct. bitching, carping, moaning, complaining and scheming, in fact they may as well be daily mail readers.

it is time for the labour party to man up. it is time for them to either say we have a candidate to stand against gordon brown and his name is “x” (where x = milliband). or they have to shut up and get on with the job of making sure that labour wins at the next election.
neither will happen. there will not be a candidate who comes forward, the internal attacks will not stop and the government will be felled not by the work of cameron and his conservatives or clegg (who?) and his liberal democrats but by a few no name, no hope labour back benchers who want their time in the sun as they provide quote after quoted against the government – such as this from the daily mail (so there is a good chance it is made up)
“some labour dissidents said they may back off after the banking crisis. ‘we are not daft enough to be accused of undermining the pm when he is trying to save homes and jobs,’ said one.
‘but he has to go - it just won’t be this week.’”

quite how this attitude doesn’t undermine the prime minister is beyond me. though one has to be impressed with the cowardice of the mp for not allowing their name to be used. how easy it is to criticise when you are not prepared to put your name to it.

i blame those faceless, nameless, spineless members of parliament for all the problems that now befall the labour government. they don’t have the courage of their convictions and they are doing the tories work for them.
if cameron gets in it is their fault.
cunts.

shares

can anyone explain stocks and shares to me?
more and more the whole stock market just appears to be no more than smoke and mirrors. if it didn't have such an impact on the lives of everyone there would be a good argument that the london stock exchange is a really a care in the community exercise to keep self-important people off the streets.

i keep hearing that there is no confidence in the financial system, that banks cannot borrow money from other banks. yet lloyds are about to spend £12 billion on buying hbos. you can only imagine what it must have been like back at the boss of lloyds house when he discovered that spare £12 billion down the back of the sofa. and who knew that barclays would find a £1 billion in a drawer so that they could buy parts of lehman bank.
virgin are rumoured to be part of one of several consortium that are interested in buying gatwick airport. i am sure the £2 billion or so it will cost is just pocket change for richard branson.
they will all be paying cash because we have been told there is just no lending and borrowing going on between banks.

the credit crunch is causing house prices to drop. for some that is a disaster for others it is a boon. now the house prices that were over-inflated are dropping to reasonable levels. so first time buyers can get on to the lovely housing ladder. well they could if the banks would let them, but the banks are all keeping their money for a rainy day.
people who have bought houses are complaining that they are not making money on the deal from the moment that they moved in, and there i was thinking you bought a place to live in it.

all of this means that the stock market has seen millions and millions of pounds wiped off the value of shares. where has all the money gone? if it existed it had to go somewhere. where did it go?

marx talked of a crisis of capitalism. the socialist workers party have been talking about the imminent crisis of capitalism for the last 20 or so years now (still at least someone is happy with the current situation and you can see them all telling their mates “see i told you there was going to be a crisis, i told you”).
of course one of the ironies of this “crisis” is that the cheerleaders of the free market who wanted less regulations to free up the entrepreneurial risk taking spirit are the ones who are crying out for the state to step in and save their sorry arses.

no matter what the financial experts say in the media i still don’t understand how shares work. more and more i am thinking that neither do they.

contest

it is pretty much accepted that gordon brown is travelling down shit creek without a paddle. to make matters his canoe has sprung a leak.
it has to be hard when your political opponents attack you for events that are beyond your control. it has to be worse when it is your own party.
there is a double irony here. the conservatives can sit back and goad gordon brown and the labour party over the current financial crisis. they can moan and complain, they can point and sneer. scoring easy points. the one thing they don’t seem to do is provide alternatives.
the labour dissenters seem to be doing the same thing. the difference between then and the conservatives is that they are offering an alternative. well it is an alternative of sorts. they talk about a new narrative (ok hands up who the fuck knows what that means?) or they talk about getting the message out to the electorate. really what they want to say is: “we don’t like gordon and we are scared we are going to lose our seats”.
you expect the conservatives to do it. it is part and parcel of the political process.
you don’t expect it from labour. the dissenters are putting their short-term desires (keeping their nice salary safe) before the needs of the party and the country.

they are helping the tories.

gordon has a few options. he can tough it out, and he more than likely will.
he can give them the leadership election that they want, and he will probably win that as no one of worth will come forward because no one will want to take the chance that they will be in charge if (oh ok) when labour tank at the next election.

i think gordon should go for a slightly more drastic option. he should call a general election right here and right now. what would his platform be for this snap election? simple: nationalise the utilities, nationalise the rail, pull the troops out of iraq, scrap id cards and increased tax on the very wealthy.

i tell you if he did that he would walk the election.

do it gordon – you know it makes sense.

hadron

in case you haven’t heard they are firing up the large hadron collider tomorrow morning. if it works it will help scientists get a little closer to understanding some of the deeper mysteries of the universe, the origin of mass (which in my case is down to the apple doughnuts that sainsburys sell), and perhaps they can find the higgs particle, which may the key to answering some very important questions.
all sounds pretty exciting.
but wait there are a few people who are worried that this is a mad act of science on the verge of going wrong.
they say that the start up of the large hadron collider could create black holes that will suck the world into them. which, lets be fair, is not going to be nice. these doomsayers say, “don’t do it”.
their cries have fallen on death ears, so tomorrow somewhere between france and switzerland a small new universe will be created, which means it, will be arrogant and afraid to commit.

when it comes time to throw the switch will there be a little bit of hesitation? will they think to themselves “mm have we done the maths on this right?” will they have second thoughts? will they just pretend that they threw the switch?
or will it destroy the world?

it should all go well. i hope so as i want to go see the francis bacon show at the tate britain on friday and that won’t happen if the world has been sucked down a black hole.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

mccain ahead in the usa presidential election polls. it can't happen.
cameron ahed in the polls over here. just not right.
it is like we are back in the 80s (at least the music is a bit better).

sensible people want obama to win. the problem is he stands for change. but change seems to be fluffy and nice and in the words of bill watterson, a pony for everyone. it is time that obama started putting more meat on the bones of the dream of change.

over here cameron is in lead position for the forthcoming election. he talks of change as well. change from the current labour party and a hinted at change of conservatism. a bit like obama there is not that much solid about the changes that cameron offers - other than they will not be labour. the main difference is the conservatives have previous form and we all know that regardless of what they say about compassionate conservatism it just means that they will say sorry while people lose their jobs and the rich get richer.

of the lot of them gordon brown is probably the most honest and the one most driven by the right convictions but he is such a dour speaker that he just doesn't inspire.
is it too much to ask for him to have a "palin" moment (it can be sarah or michael, i don't mind).

fault

it is not my fault that i am fat. no really it isn’t.
a few weeks ago i discovered i was fat because my pal paul was on the chubby side and so he enabled me to be fat. my waistline is all down to paul, nothing to do with the pizzas i put away.
then i discovered that i was fat not because i scoff chocolate like it was going out of style but because of the combination of dietary abundance and a sedentary lifestyle. it is true there is no way i can go out and do stuff because i am too busy filling my face with all the food that is there, not only is it there but it is crying out to me “eat me”, “eat me” “eat me and me and me and me”, and there is just no way i can refuse.
just as i was coming to terms with these reasons for my rotundness i learn that it is the fault of pollution. fantastic.
the range of reasons given to why i am fat makes me feel like the first trip up to the buffet bar in a restaurant: which one will i have? then i realised no need to worry i can have them all, and i can come back for me later.

i could go into a long ramble about the loss of personal responsibility that this fosters, but that puts me too close to david cameron and his conservative party. (oh ok you have dragged it out of me, on this i have some sympathy with what he is saying).

but before i worry about responsibility i am going to get a few chocolate bars to wolf down, after all it is not my fault if i get to be fatter.

windfall

to put it politely gordon brown is fucked (please excuse the use of the highly technical psephologist term). well actually he is not just fucked he is right royally fucked.
even worse for gordon is that the laws of physics do not apply to him. in the real world shit flows downwards, yet for gordon it flows from the bottom upwards.

he is attacked and blamed from all sides, from allies and enemies alike.

you only have to look at the increasing cost of fuel. to read the press it is gordon brown’s fault that the fuel companies are making outrageous profits while also putting up the price of fuel (“oh pity us”, they cry, “our costs have gone up and we can’t make huge profits anymore, oh we can if we just put our prices up”).
brown made them put the prices up.
it is brown’s fault that the price of oil has gone up. the increased demand from china and india. not really a factor in this. the madness of hedging the price of fuel has had nothing to do with it. the unwillingness to increase the supply of oil has had no bearing on the increased.
brown has just increased the price of oil on a whim.

but there are times when he is the architect of his own problems. there has been talk of a windfall tax and a £100 rebate to those in need. the story is allowed to float about in the news for a few days building up expectation and then brown says no, it is not happening, was never going to happen, well maybe it was never going to happen, not really sure, if we are going to be honest. i think. possibly. (what makes the situation worse is that we can all remember when it all went tits up (another psephologist term) for brown when he let the talk of an early election to drift about before squashing it when it became apparent that he had lost the confidence of the electorate. you would have thought once bitten twice shy, but nope).

yet if we are honest we all know that a windfall tax or a rebate to the needy is never going to be enough.
thanks to thatcher we sold off our utilities to private companies. there was a lot of talk about competition, efficiency, cheaper prices and a land of milk and honey. like so much that thatcher promised it was a lie.
so what we have are large companies who know that they can screw the punter, because there is no competition, that they only have to worry about efficiencies when they are forced into it.
even worse foreign companies own several of the companies.

see that is how the free market works.

and that really brings me to the point of this.
the only way out of this for gordon brown is for him to pull up his socks, roll up his sleeves, grit his teeth, spit in the eye of the cbi and do what he knows is right and nationalise the utilities. bring them all back into public ownership.

do that gordon and not only have you solved the current issue of prices, but you will be seen as a hero by so many in the country that you will be elected again.

gordon: you know i am right.

ttt

she is no condi, but sarah palin has now entered my top torry totty list (international).
her speech at the republican convention was an assured attack on the democrats and obama. it was the usual mix of personal schmaltz and paean to the glory of the american way that so moves the american voter.
hopefully she hasn't done enough to swing the female vote over to the republicans.
because while the republican convention might be happy to chant "usa usa usa" the rest of the world is not looking forward to them remaining in the oval office.

so i will be checking out mrs palin for the eye candy, but hoping that obama cleans up in the polls.

quote

for some odd reason i was reading a review of a collection of dirk bogarde’s letters. why is this odd? well i have never read any of his books, and i was never much of a fan of him as an actor. so there was no reason for me to read the review, but i did. i enjoyed the review, but i am not going to be buying the book.
in the review there was a lovely line: “the need to write, though, doesn't impose on a general public the need to read”.

i know much of what i write (oh alright all of what i write) falls into the category of “not necessary to read”.
yet that is the joy of the internet (or web2.0 as it is now known) it allows so many of us to express our views, our opinions, our hopes and our fears, to lay bare our souls for all the world to see.

a recent book “cult of the amateur” (a book i own and one day i might even read) argues that the internet/web2.0 has seen a shift from knowledge to opinion. so there has been the rise of the citizen journalist (have camera phone will travel) and the blogger some of whom have influence, but not as much as is often claimed, but the majority are like me read by a dedicated few (and i love you all).

but if you really want to see writing that should not be read then you need to head over to that very special part of the internet: the message boards. it doesn’t matter if the message board is attached to a respectable media outlet, whether it deals with a minority hobby or if it deals with politics, sports or entertainment the message board is a license to write in electronic crayon.
all logic, all rationality and all contact with reality go out the window for many of the people who comment on the message boards.
reading some of their posts you can imagine them searching the net for the story that sets them off resulting in them banging on their keyboards shouting at the screen, their eyes bugging out, the vein in their forehead throbbing.

i blame my pal paul for my current fascination in message boards, when i read the comments on the daily mail’s website or over at the evening standard i can imagine what it must have been like to tour bedlam during it’s heyday.

the message boards are now a guilty pleasure and while they are there i can feel a little bit smug and superior with the drivel i write.

taglines

for many of us our first introduction to a new movie is the film poster. sometimes we are attracted by the image; most often it is the pithy little comment that serves as a pitch that appeals. this can either be in the form of a tagline or a catchy review.
so it was with me. there i was on the station platform and i read.
“guns”
now i am from the school of thought that there are not many films that couldn’t be improved by there being a large helping of guns in them. “citizen kane” is the greatest film of all time but a few running gun battles would have improved it. “toy story” may have been a work of genius, but without the inclusion of an uzi firelight it remains a pale imitation of what it might have been. a few scenes of balletic bullet mayhem would have made “on golden pond” a much more serious movie.
“girls”
guns are crucial but girls are almost as important. i can’t think of an ingmar bergman film that wouldn’t have been made all that much more enjoyable if it had a full on lap-dance scene in it, maybe two for the slower ones (oh that is all of them). “there will be blood” would have been hugely improved by several girl on girl scenes, they may not have added to the story, but it would have made the film that much more watchable. “schindler’s list” would have benefited by having some sultry ladies in uniform.
“geezers’
now tell me what movie would not be improved by having a geezer in it, a slick fast-talking tough guy who takes no shit and dishes out the dirt. imagine “star wars” with a character telling darth vader to “shut it” or during “close encounters of the third kind” instead of the famous notes of welcome there was a shout of “get out of our manor”.

so when a film poster has the world “guns, girls, geezers” i should have been in hog heaven and i was. the elation died before it could be take flight. not only was the poster promising guns, girls and geezers, it was also promising guy ritchie.
when it comes to films there are certain names that just scream “wait till this appears on bbc2 before you watch it”. there is cedric the entertainer (a name that surely gets him arrested for lying), there is danny dyer and then there is guy ritchie. they all provide hints as to the quality of the film.

so in the case of the new ritchie movie the triumvirate of guns, girls and geezers will not produce a fun movie.

oh well the poster is nice.

twix

limited editon.
white chocolate.
twix.
delish.

quote

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

jealousy

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

ban2

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

ban

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

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

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

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

pride

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

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

long may the anthem be heard.

quote

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

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

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

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

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

lazy

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

coins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

digital

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

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

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

ah the joy of technology.

hot

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

quote

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

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

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

1000

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

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

zit

i am eating less chocolate than ever before.
i am eating more fruit than ever before.
the result of this?
i have zits.

there is no justice in the world.

disappointed

first it was the headline in the mail on sunday. then it was a snippet on lbc radio. both were saying that thatcher was to get a state funeral.
how my heart sang!
she is dead.

turns out they are only planning on giving her a state funeral when she finally decides to shuffle off the mortal coil.

for a moment i was very happy and now i am not.
that was a cruel hoax to play.

rain

ah the rain has come. it makes it a truly british summer.
it was a nice break from the heat. i got wet, i felt happy and the clouds were great.
i even managed to step into some puddles.
all in all a good day.

twofer

boris, boris, boris....
two months in, two staff down.
not the best start in the world.

(you have to love the london evening standard though - they and their readers are quick to point out that is just be a smear campaign against ray lewis and boris, whereas the allegations against lee jasper (to the best of my knowledge nothing has been proved against him) and ken were serious journalism that was uncovering sleaze and corruption).

just perhaps the future is not so blue.

60th

happy birthday national health service, the nhs turns 60 this week.
for all the moaning that people do about the nhs it strikes me that we have a very good health service that makes sure that people have free access to care.
the few times i have had to use it i have only been happy with the outcomes.

here is hoping that i don't need to use it that much in the next 60 years of the nhs (mind you it probably won't be around once the conservatives get back into power).

many happy returns nhs - i should go and kiss a nurse, my small attempt to spread some happiness.

summer

too bloody hot.
there you go. i have spoken.

bliss

art.
coffee.
brick lane.
watching the world go by.
bliss.

ice

The chances of anything coming from mars were a million to one he said. Ha! Them odds have now changed.
not only have they found ice on mars, but the sun newspaper (well regarded for it's news coverage) has reported ufo sightings over england. the aliens are here.

So take a belated bow hg and erb.

I am off to read “princess of mars”.

books

i am beginning to hate books. i have an awful lot of books. as i clear up i keep finding more and more, quite a few i never even knew i had and i have no recollection of buying.
yet there they are. a daunting, growing, pile. more than i will ever read.
i should be happy as, logically; i should never have to buy a new book again.
oh if only it were so simple.

even as i sort, stack and pack the books that i find (“oh that one looks really interesting!”) i can’t help but think of the books that i don’t have.
each time i go into a supermarket i drift by the bookshelves to see what is there, and there is always something there to tease and taunt me, something crying out to be bought.
oh it might be a new james bond book but i know what it really is a naughty tease of a book. tempting me, crying out to me “buy me, buy me”. or perhaps it is the new harlan coben book i hear calling to me? maybe it is the new john connolly.
no it is not, it is even worse they have come together in a choir and they all sing out to me. their voices joined by the cherie blair and john prescott biographies. and hark there is the sound of a book about the building of st paul’s and in the distance the golden trumpet sounds the arrival of more editions of marvel essentials and dc showcases.

try as i might i can never quiet deafen the voices of the books. they cry out, they beg and demand to be heard.
so far i have resisted but i know i am going to weaken soon and then it will only be a matter of time before i give in and buy another new book…

“my name is pat and i buy books….”

running

so i have started running. well perhaps running is too strong a word for it. maybe jogging. no that might imply something more athletic than what i am actually doing. perhaps a fast soft shoe shuffle is closer to the mark.
i am not making bold claims here – it is a short route, and i am doing it at a (very) comfortable pace – i am not noticeably fitter but i do feel a little better. it is all very much journey of a thousand miles starts with one step type thing.
i try to go in the mornings that way there are fewer people about, less embarrassment and humiliation.
the other day i was passed by a very petite cutie. she went by me as if i was standing still (to be honest i wasn’t far short of that). she had a lovely bottom. i thought i would pick up my stride pattern (ooh get me…) and catch her up.
then it dawned on me, she looked like she had been doing this sort of thing for a while, that she was at least 20 years younger than me and probably at least 10 stones lighter than me so trying to catch her up was just going to end is disaster.
i went back to ambling and enjoyed the view for as long as i could keep her in sight.