Happy Halloween!

Right, before anyone feels tempted to complain that I haven't posted for a while- Bite me.

Oh. You did.

Actually this is what I get for tangling with one of the most dangerous creatures known to man: A teething ten month old baby. I thought I'd go for a hug, he thought he'd go for lunch and promptly bit my arm. It still looks pretty bruised even though it's got to be over a week since he did it, although it seems to be healing quicker in the middle of the bruise so I'm soon going to look as if I was assaulted by a hula hoop.

We have had a busy time lately. G has a problem with the tendon in one of her little fingers so she had to have an operation at the end of September. The journey to the hospital was a nightmare as the motorway came to a standstill because of a lorry that had jack-knifed, shedding it's contents of golfballs across the motorway, which sounds like something from a bad sit-com.

Luckily we just managed to get to the hospital in time so everything was able to go ahead. G was in the operating theatre for two and a half hours while Spider and I nervously waited around outside. Everything went well and G was quite proud of her bandage. Even though the op was just on her little finger she had to go around wearing the bandage equivalent of a boxing glove.

Once she realised that it made a fairly servicable club she was fine with it.
We keep having to take G back to the hospital for check ups, which wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that we usually end up waiting for three hours before we get to see the doctor each time. However G seems to be far more patient than me when it comes to waiting around for these appointments.

Probably as a result of the amount of time we have had to spend hanging around hospitals we have all been really ill, first with a major dose of the flu and then with a bad stomach upset. We have to go in tomorrow, so I might go in a containment suit, just in case.

I've taken this week off work and, typically Spider's mum has come down to stay. I suppose I should have expected it- It is Halloween after all, but thankfully she has been on her best behaviour.

I hope you have all had a good Halloween, whatever you have been up to. Here is a link to a Halloween themed game-

Tomorrow it's my birthday, so I hope to be doing as little as possible.

Cat calls

Your Score:

Surprise Adoption

Cat

44% Affectionate, 56% Excitable, 28% Hungry

Calloused. Heartless. Exuberant. You carry the heavy burden of informing children that they are adopted by jumping out of their birthday cake. A difficult task, but somebody must break the news to children on their only day of happiness.

To see all possible results, checka dis.

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid.

"Smoke what you've got to smoke; drink what you've got to drink; I will meet you at the lonely end of the rink."

Yesterday was the night of The Tragically Hip gig at the Astoria in London where myself, my brother and our long suffering partners who have to put up with our musical tastes headed off to see them.





And we nearly didn't make it.





We caught a train in plenty of time but after getting as far as one stop down the line we found ourselves stuck at that station because the Orient Express, of all things, had broken down on the track ahead of us and they seemed to be having trouble getting it shifted out of the way. In the end we jumped off the train and took a taxi to a station that did actually have trains running on it's lines. The end result was that an hours journey ended up taking us nearer to three, so it was just as well we had left in plenty of time.





Luckily the gig itself made all the extra hassle worthwhile.



The Astoria is a small venue, so you don't have to put up with watching tiny people stood on a stage. The band is right there in front of you so you get the benefit of the whole performance; and when it comes to putting on a performance not many can even come close to topping The Tragically Hip.



The warm up act, Forever Like Red, got things off to a good start. A rock band with a definite Jeff Buckley vibe and some great songs. After about the third song of their set my brother disappeared off to get us both a copy of their album.



Once they had finished playing and the roadies came on the stage to set up the stage for The Hip things got a little surreal. Over to our right, somebody in the venue had pulled out a Canadian flag and a large part of the crowd suddenly burst in to an impromptu rendition of "Oh Canada." I had the vaguely uneasy sensation of being outnumbered on home ground so it's just as well Canadians are so nice. Although it does make you wonder if The Hip always find themselves playing to travelling Canadians wherever they go. Even one of our group was from Canada and there aren't many people outside of that place that have even heard of the band.

While The Hip might be used to playing larger venues in their native Canada I would have to reccomend seeing them at a smaller gig like we did, simply so you are close enough to see what frontman Gordon Downie gets up to. Downie seems to have a limitless supply of energy (or suffers from attention deficit disorder), constantly moving around, so that you hardly watch the rest of the band. Even when he isn't singing Downie commands your attention whether he is smashing up the mike stand to hand out to the audience (having already used it as a prop for a motorbike, a dodgem car and a gun) or acting out some of the lyrics to the songs, from swimming at 'The Drop-Off' to reading the instruction manual from 'Springtime in Vienna.'

The Hip are definitely a band you need to see live and it was great to hear some upbeat, rockier versions of some of their mellower songs. I was especially pleased to hear 'Ahead by a Century,' still my favourite song of theirs, but a little disappointed I didn't have enough money on me to get one of the cool looking Hip hockey jerseys.

Anyway, here is the set list from the night, followed by my aforementioned favourite song:
1: Yer Not The Ocean
2: My Music At Work
3: Grace, Too
4: It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken
5: The Drop-Off
6: Ahead By A Century
7: Gift Shop
8: Family Band
9: Springtime In Vienna
10: At The Hundredth Meridian
11: The Lonely End Of The Rink
12: Bobcaygeon
13: In View
14: Fully Completely
15: New Orleans Is Sinking
16: World Container (introduced as 'World Contain Her' and fantastic to hear live)
17: Courage (For Hugh Maclennan)
18: Fireworks

September 19th

I hope you were all doing your pirate thing today.

Thanks for the reminder Xulub!

Fire!

So much for a quite night in. A group of local children discovered a car. The strange technology confused them so naturally they had to burn it as a witch.

We were sitting in our flat when we heard a couple of bangs. Assuming it was some idiot letting fireworks off I just ignored it at first, as we get a lot of that around here. As you can see it turned out that it was a burning car just a little way down the street... Unfortunately we get a lot of that around here too.

We did have a good view of the resultant fireball when the petrol tank went up.

Typical Man

Water, water everywhere...

We woke up this morning to suspiciously brown water coming out of all of our taps.

"It's perfectly safe to drink." said the nice person from the water company when we rang.

"That's lucky, because I wouldn't want to bathe in it."

The disadvantage of having interesting people listed in your email address book...

Most people have mates that send porn to their email.

Not me.

My friends send me pictures of wild animals displaying their disturbing swellings.

What? It is totally different, what are you on about?

Click here for tongue action.

Current Music

I'm currently addicted to the song 'Flagpole Sitta' by one of the lesser known Seattle bands of the 90's, Harvey Danger.
In the UK unless you have seen 'Peep Show' then you might not even know the track, so have a listen and enjoy.

A knackered computer, somewhere in Kent....

I've just been watching University Challenge where one of the questions was a picture of the Rebel Alliance logo from Star Wars, and the teams had to identify which sci- fi film it came from. The guy that answered looked very sheepish at having to admit he recognised it and then the team proceeded to cringe their way through three further sci- fi logos. Why are people so embarrased by sci- fi? How did it come by this reputation where it is something to be looked down on? It's not all bad. True- for every 'Empire Strikes Back' there is a 'Phantom Menace' but you could say that about any genre.
The same group of students later went on to answer a question about the game invented by AA Milne and were clearly far prouder of the fact that they knew the answer to this than they were about being exposed as freakish sci- fi geeks.
I live in a world where it is more acceptable to shout 'Poohsticks' on national television than it is to enjoy a particular type of genre.
Bloody students.

When Badgers Attack

Thanks to Xulub for pointing this one out to me-



"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."



This could well be the greatest news story ever.



I wonder how long it will be until somebody bags the film rights to this?

Lairy Zebra

Strangely not part of the display in Rochester Cathedral in spite of ball balancing capabilities.

Angels... with balls

Okay, that might not have been the name of the exhibition hidden away in the basement of Rochester Cathedral but I'm sure it had something to do with angels and there was a definite mis-shapen weeble vibe going on...

Jurochester Park

Here are some continued pics from Rochester and some pretty cool dinosaur costumes. Although they did make a rather disturbing shrieking noise, possibly designed specifically to frighten small children.

Mythology quiz

You scored as Angel,Angel: Angels are the guardians of all things, from the smallest ant to the tallest tree. They give inspiration, love, hope, and positive emotion. They live among humans without being seen. They are the good in all things, and if you feel alone, don't fear. They are always watching. Often times they merely stand by, whispering into the ears of those who feel lost. They would love nothing more then to reveal themselves, but in today's society, this would bring havoc and many unneeded questions. Give thanks to all things beautiful, for you are an Angel.

Angel		84%
Faerie		75%
Dragon		58%
WereWolf		42%
Mermaid		25%
Demon		17%

What Mythological Creature are you? (Cool Pics!)
created with QuizFarm.com

That was close. Thank god I wasn't a faerie.

Rain Stops Play

I was only at work for two days this week as I have just had a week and a half off, but I feel so exhausted, I keep nodding off before I even get online.
We went up to Sheffield for the first week, so the long drive there and back probably hasn't helped. We were staying with the outlaws, which isn't as bad as you might think, because they are different people when we go up there. All of their drinking buddies live down by us.
Unfortunately the highlight of our holiday turned out to be a visit to that bastion of British tourism- Asda. This was because there was absolutely nowhere we could go while Sheffield suffered from torrential rain and flooding. I think I need another holiday already. We had a close escape on the day it all kicked off. We had gone to Meadowhall, a large shopping centre, when the bad weather kicked in. Spider's mum came out to meet us, in case any roads were closed so that she would be able to guide us back a different way if necessary. We went to leave to find one of the car parks had been closed down due to a fire at a nearby steelworks (how it even got the chance to start in the thick rain, I'll never know). Luckily we were able to get out a different way and slowly crawled our way in to the ques of traffic where everyone was deciding to give up and go home. We got back safely and then saw on the news later that some of the roadswe had taken were now completely flooded, including Meadowhall itself. In fact they weren't even able to get Meadowhall open again the whole week we were up there for.
On top of this Spider was ill with tonsilitis, GF having suffered with it the week before.

Luckily the one day we did have good weather was GFs birthday. We went out for a meal as there was a nice restaurant nearby but if there was anything else anyone wanted to do it would have had to have involved a boat.

Rochester oddness

There were various street performers wandering about when we went in to Rochester.
At one point we were walking along the high street when we saw a washing line hanging in the street with a large pair of y-fronts pegged to it.
Presuming that there must be more to it than that (and hoping it wasn't just some weird fat naked guy) we wandered over to have a look.
What we found was some weird Stepford Wives vibe going on as you can see from the pictures below.







Art? Protest? Irony? Washing?
I have no idea what it was about.

Stained Glass

Inside Rochester Cathedral

Outside Rochester Cathedral

Scary Tree

Rochester Castle

Outlawed

We recently had a really good Bank Holiday weekend.





Nothing odd there, obviously.




Except for the fact that the legendary outlaws were down.

After what happened the last time they came over, Spider had told them that they would have to stay with their friends if they were going to be going out drinking with them, which meant we only saw them during periods of rare but welcome sobriety.
There is still the issue that, once again, they have come down to see their friends and get drunk, so seeing the grandchildren is a secondary consideration but at least we were'nt having to deal with the aftermath of their nights out.
We spent a day in Rochester, which is still a nice place to wander around at the moment but you can see how little investment is being put in to the place now, with a few of the shops now closed (soon to be replaced by a pound shop I imagine). I'll put some photos up soon of some of the weird goings on in Rochester High Street.

At the end of this month it's our turn to visit the outlaws for a week and a bit. I wonder if I should book another week afterwards to recover...

Cones

I got in to work yesterday to find a cracked window and thirty odd pine cones strewn across the floor.

Which was odd.

Everybody needs to be on the lookout for one ticked off squirrel.

Star Wars: The Empire Brokeback

Star Wars Day

It would be remiss of me not to mention that today is the 30th anniversary of the release of the original only Star Wars trilogy.
You might have spotted the link Korova put in a comment on a previous post, but the web page is so good it deserves a mention here- The Star Wars toys that never made it.
I can't help but think that there is probably a bigger market for the 'Dead Ewok' figure than they realise.
I also think that if anyone had ever suggested these toys to the toy company they would have been made. Let's face it if they released a toy of that gonk droid they would release anything.







If today is Star Wars' birthday then appropriately that means the film would be a Gemini.
A quick look for it's hororscope on yahoo reveals:
"Today, 'action!' is your motto. When in doubt, just do." Which already sounds like yoda is keeping his hand in by writing these things.
It goes on to say-
"Think of your life as a good book. Sometimes there are twists and turns you didn't see coming (What do you mean she's my sister? $h!t. This is more embarrasing than finding out who my dad was), but when you think about it, you realize they were pretty much inevitable (*coff*crap prequels *coff*)."

Maybe there is something in this after all...

"I am a Golden God!"

Which God or Goddess are you like? Your Result: Budha   You are Budha. You are a very peaceful person, you love all who love you. You are a cheerful personality, and you have a great sense of humor. Congratulations!! You are Budha!!
Jesus
The Christian God
God Zeus
Goddess Sekhemet
Goddess Bast
Satan
You are your own God or Goddess
Which God or Goddess are you like? Make Your Own Quiz

Back again.

Contrary to popular belief (or maybe just Hageltoast spreading cruel rumours) I haven't been out and about having a life. In fact I'm not even sure what those look like anymore.

I've actually been hard at work trying to write a script for a comic that I now have to convince a friend of mine to draw.
I had this great first issue planned out, introducing a couple of the heroes, a recurring villian, fights, car chases, action, romance, danger, badgers. The works.
Eventually I had to face up to the reality that If I want to write a comic script I have only got 22 pages to work with so I was going to have to cut something out. A lot out in fact.
Then I had to face up to the fact that a comic just about badgers probably wouldn't be as popular as I may have first thought, so I went back to the original idea about superheroes and actually managed to come up with something I was quite happy with.
The story now just concentrates on the two main characters, making it much easier to follow. Now I shall have to get it typed up over the weekend so I can make a start on issue 2.

My bad news for this week came in the form of the bill for my cars service and MOT. I won't tell you how much it was, but let's just say I was glad I was sat down when they handed it to me.
In spite of now being overdrawn I have to say that the car is handling better than it has done for a while. I just have to be careful when I brake as the car stops immediately, meaning I keep stopping before I have actually made it to where I need to be.
It also smells lovely. I know that's not a particularly manly thing to discuss about a car and I should probably be prattling on about horsepower, engine size, miles to the gallon and other such things I don't have a clue about. All I am concerned about is how nice it is to be able to get in to a car that smells of peaches, rather than nappies.
Unless of course, the children have dropped a peach somewhere under a seat which is going to go off any day now.

My good news for the week is that today the post brought my tickets for The Tragically Hip gig that is coming up in September. I never expected to get a chance to see this band so I am really looking forward to this. They have never really had (or pursued) success outside of their native Canada and seem to have been content to be the biggest small town band in the world. I will have to write more about them in a later post.

For now I shall leave you with this video Xulub emailed to me.

His only comment was-

'Inevitable really.'

Adult Alternative

I seem to have stirred up a bit of controversy with the music quiz I took below by getting 'adult alternative' as one of my results.
If most films have soundtracks now, then why not porn films?

Bill Bailey - Medieval Porn Music

Add to My Profile More Videos

There- now you know what you are missing out on.

Music Tasteometer

Your Taste in Music:

90's Rock: High Influence Adult Alternative: High Influence 80's Alternative: Medium Influence 90's Pop: Medium Influence Alternative Rock: Medium Influence

How's Your Taste in Music?

Scary

You Are Not Scary

Everyone loves you. Isn't that sweet?

How Scary Are You?

I can't help but feel disappointed but sadly this is probably true.

Nosey

By now I imagine you are all thinking what hope is there for the children of the world if they are being exposed to such horrific programmes as '...Night Garden?'
Thank god that you were never exposed to such horrific nightmares, warping your fragile, childlike minds. At least you had the opportunity to grow up normally, free from anything that might cause you lasting mental damage, right?

Wrong. There is a good chance that you have simply managed to block these memories out and right now you are living in a state of denial. Here, for example is a clip from a show that used to be on when I was little. I think it may go some way to explaining how I became the man I am today.

Here we go!

There was a scary moment the other day when I logged on to the vampire game and took a look at my character. If anyone signs up for a vampire using my link then they go on to my list of vampires I have sired. Somebody is obviously trying to scare me because they have signed up with the name 'Makka Pakka' which means being greeted by the words 'Makka Pakka has drunk three pints of blood.'
Which, thinking about it could well explain a lot. He does have the cold dead eyes of a killer after all.

But finally the moment you have waited... oooh, minutes for I imagine, is here because some sadistic bastard has actually put an 'In the Night Garden' clip up on Youtube.
Be afraid...



Weird, huh?
What's even weirder is that the guy narrating it is none other than Derek Jacobi. SIR freakin' Derek Jacobi, who is clearly slumming it at the moment since his 'I Claudius' and 'Cadfael' days.

Anyway, here is a link to the song because I know you love it so- Altogether now:
Makka Pakka
Akka Wakka
Mikka Makka Moo...

Lazy Days

Apologies for my lack of recent blogging. It's purely down to lazyness I'm afraid and a slightly annoying online game called 'Robobeasts.'
Anyway now I'm back I shall have to make it up to you all with a really good post. I'll need to find something so amazing you'll be blown away.

But what could possibly live up to the wait...

Life On Mars

The last episode of Life on Mars is on tonight. This has easily been one of the best series on tv at the moment so I'm hoping it manages to end on a high.
If you haven't seen it the series follows policeman Sam Tyler, who is hit by a car and wakes up to find himself in 1973.



This is the setup for Sam's modern by the book policing culture clash with his bigoted, sexist and cynical 70's counterparts. The character of DCI Gene Hunt that Sam finds himself working under is fantastic. A right bastard while still being somehow likeable. There have been rumours of a spin off series featuring Hunt which could be great but I'm not too sure how well the character will work without the relationship with Sam Tyler.
As if this wasn't bad enough Sam also starts to hear the voices of the doctors tending to his comatose body in the present day. Tonight we should find out if he really has somehow gone back in time or if he is actually in 1973 but completely mad, hearing voices and thinking he is from the future (or any number of bizarre theories flying around).

While it is a shame that this is ending after only two series in a way this could be a blessing as it means the series doesn't have the chance to go downhill.

Here is a clip of one of my favourite parts of the show-
The doctors get Sam's medication wrong in the present day causing his 1973 self to start hallucinating. When Sam wakes up he sees himself as a character from the 70's children show Camberwick Green. Classic.



"Stay out of Camberwick Green." has to be one of the best lines in anything ever.

Geek God

I'm not sure what the collective noun is for a gathering of geeks, but that's what I was a part of last Thursday when I went with Redrawn and Rhub to the Prince Charles Cinema in London.


Director and (occasional) comicbook writer Kevin Smith was giving a Question and Answer session at the cinema. We arrived at the venue at about 5.30 and even though the doors didn't open until 7pm there was already a que of people beginning to stretch down the street.

The man himself arrived on stage in his Silent Bob coat and proceeded to chat to the audience for nearly 4 hours. He could have clearly gone on longer but the cinema staff were dropping hints that they wanted to go home, the spoilsports. There were three microphones set up that the audience could line up at in order to ask a question which Smith would then answer with a variety of anecdotes.

The audience spent most of the evening creased up in laughter as Smith touched on a variety of topics from British Porn, Angela Lansbury (sometimes linking the two. He had a bit of an obsession with Bedknobs and Broomsticks) and the strange and disturbing lives of his dogs to Jason Mewes' addiction to police procedural tv programmes (Apparently he can't stop watching Columbo and Murder She Wrote) and why his parties aren't as popular as Johnny Depp's.

So I owe a huge 'thank you' to Redrawn for getting the tickets to such a great event especially as these Q&A sessions sell out so quickly. We will have to keep an eye out for the next one...

More Weirdness

You Are 40% Weird

Normal enough to know that you're weird... But too damn weird to do anything about it!

How Weird Are You?

Only 40%? I guess egg shells don't rate too highly on the weirdometer.

The Six Weird Things... Thing.

A while ago Aliemalie asked me to come up with six weird things about myself, so here goes-

1) Eggs
They scare me. Is that weird enough for you? Actually that's not entirely true; it's really the shells- I can't bare to touch them. The texture of an egg shell just makes my skin crawl. The fact that they normally feel cold only adds to this.
Unfortunately for me I love the taste of eggs, so if you ever want to get on my good side make me an omelette but don't show me the shells. I'm like someone who likes eating meat but doesn't want to know how that meat made it to their dinner plate.
It all stems from the fact that I used to earn money boxing up and selling eggs. I think that all those years of having to handle eggs must have triggered some weird kind of overdose.

2) Superstitions
I'm heavily superstitious. For some reason this always seems to surprise people when they find this out about me. While I am completely aware of how irrational it is to believe in superstitions I can't help but think it doesn't hurt to cover yourself- just in case.
The one that really surprises people is the fact that I think it is bad luck to pass someone on the stairs. People normally think I'm just making that one up, but it is a real one. It's even on Wikipedia if you don't believe me.

3) Repetition
This really freaks me out and is probably why I have never liked dance music.
I don't know why but any repetitive sound or even just somebody saying the same phrase over and over again really bothers me.
When GF was still a tiny baby, if she suddenly started to have a good cry the mother-out-law would say, "What are you doing? Are you pinching her bum? Pinching her bum? Squawk! Pinching her bum?" which really started to get on my nerves. Okay, you are probably thinking that the parrot impersonation might be a bit of an exageration but you would be wrong. Even now people will say that phrase to wind me up and whenever I hear it you can visibly see me tense up.

4) Numbers
Show me a page of numbers and I'll show you a man about to drift in to a coma. You only need to start talking about numbers to me and my mind automatically switches off. Numbers fascinate me but at the same time I just fail to get any particular grasp on them.
Once, when I was ill I had a nightmare that was just a blue screen with a load of numbers floating repetitively across it, thus incorporating two of my least favourite things.

5) Repetition
This really freaks me out and is... oh. I'll start again.

5) Nails
I can't stand people touching my nails. I also don't like feeling other peoples nails and the image of a nail breaking makes me cringe. For some strange reason I've had a couple of women comment that they wish they had nails like mine. I don't know why- It's not as if I have ever looked after them.
Many years ago I was sat with my arm around my then girlfriend at a mates house. The friend saw my hand but thought it was hers, made a comment about how lovely her hand looked and then went to stroke it. Not too weird then.

Below is a re-enactment of that day. The parts of those involved are being portrayed by actors-


Early attempts to set up 'The League of Pirate Librarians' were met with a disappointing lack of success.

I am sat here looking at my hands and I can't see it.

6) Clothes
Spider said I had to include this one, so here it is- Continuing the embarassingly girly theme- I have more clothes than she does (although I feel I should make it clear that she does have more shoes than me).

Did You Even Want to Know...?

I found this on the Wikipedia main page in the 'Did You Know' section.

"Did You Know...
...that the Sound Effects Choir can imitate the sounds of a car using only the mouth or other body parts?"

Other body parts? Some things just shouldn't be left to the imagination.

In The Night Garden

I was watching one of the children's tv channels with GF today when on came this new show called 'In The Night Garden.' All of a sudden GF starts laughing her head off which sets me off as well. This has to be one of the freakiest programmes I have ever seen. I was hoping there would be something on YouTube so I could show you just how bizare this show really is but sadly I couldn't find a thing. I'll keep an eye out though because this show has to be seen to be believed. For now you will have to make do with a picture of Makka Pakka, one of the characters on the programme.

A little friendly competition

I've been having trouble getting on to my blog. Not because of the problems I had before, when my connection went down for a month but because Spider has been getting more involved with her own blogging.

I'm hoping this isn't a hint to get an xbox 360 for her to play Elder Scrolls: Oblivion on, but this could be the only way to sneek a go on the computer.

I wouldn't mind but she's getting more visitors to her blog at the moment...

This morning I had to go to a meeting at my previous place of work so I ended up going to lunch with a few of my friends from there. It really made me realise how much I miss having any geeks around to talk to where I am now. Nobody appreciates the important things we discussed, like the correct way to read Alan Moore's 'Lost Girls (sideways)', how unimpressive Paul Gross' autograph is to a Canadian (very) and just what is the correct mime for 'bondage gear (er, any ideas?).'
Happy days.

The Great Blogger Badger Hunt

Time to catch up with a bit of blogging.

A couple of weeks ago (Friday February 23rd to be precise) Aliemalie, who lives roughly on the other side of the world, somehow managed to be passing through my neck of the woods. While that may sound like a serious wrong turn Aliemalie is currently touring Europe and made some time to meet up with myself and Korova.

Once Korova and I had escaped from work and Aliemalie had found a hotel to stay at we headed off in to the wilds of Kent. Even though the pub we went to was in the middle of nowhere we found our way there easily enough... thanks mainly to Aliemalie. Yes, that's right- the one in our group that was from another country entirely was the one to spot most of the road signs we needed for our 'route' (damn, that joke doesn't work when you type it. Sorry Korova). Let that be a lesson to you- Never trust me for directions. Ever.

Ever.

Anyway, in spite of being in a fairly rural locale we failed to see any badgers, much to our disappointment. They may have gone in to hiding knowing that Korova was coming.
It was great to have the chance to meet up with a blogger all the way from America- someone who ordinarily I would never have met. Unsurprisingly the conversation centred mainly around the three B's- Bees, Badger and Bush (in the political sense I hasten to add), as well as insulting each others taste in music.

While we were driving down the dark country lanes we joked about stumbling across a weirdo walking the roads with a spade slung over one shoulder (as you do). Strangely, once we got back to town and were all stood outside the car Aliemalie and myself turned to Korova to see that just walking up behind him was a weird looking guy carrying what just might possibly have been a spade. Spooky.

It was a very cool night and who knows, maybe next time we could go somewhere the 'locals' know how to get to better than the out of towner. And somewhere with more badgers, obviously.

In other news I had a fantastic drive in to work last week. On Wednesday it took me nearly three hours to get in. There had been an accident on the motorway which when it happens, often backs up the traffic all the way to the town so everyone ends up being late, rushing and then causing more accidents. The 'route' (no, it still doesn't work) I take ground to a complete halt for an hour of the journey, so I just got out a notebook and did some writing while happily listening to my MP3 player. I had the engine of my car turned off so when the traffic started to edge forward again I just took off the handbrake to roll forward a little each time.
Unfortunately my MP3 was having a bit of a mellow day, playing Sarah Mclachlan, Tori Amos and Beth Orton, which meant that by the time the traffic actually started to move forward with all the drivers finally able to use their accelerator pedal, I was so chilled out I had completely forgotten how to drive. I had to carry out a quick mental checklist of what I needed to do to get moving again.
I was probably the most relaxed driver in a traffic jam ever.

Gah! Colour!

Hello and welcome to my new blog that has absolutely nothing to do with any peer pressure to change my template whatsoever. Honest.
I used to be here but now I am here (and if you have just clicked on that second link I hope you have realised just how pointless that was). It's all a bit 'work in progress' at the moment but give me a few days and I'll soon have my sidebar as packed full with rubbish as the last blog. If you are really lucky I might even throw in a few posts.




Farewell to World Called Catastrophe. I shall miss your welcoming... blackness. At least for a few weeks until I decide I'm sick of colour and revert back to my former template. Until then I will start with the end of my last weblog...


Matthew Good- 'In a World Called Catastrophe'