One of the numerous bad points of Boxing Day was that the washing machine decided to flood the kitchen. Not a trickle, oh no. An inch of water pooling on our very obviously badly laid floor.

So I've been putting off the next load for as long as possible. Tonight's the night, however, that we can't avoid it for another day. I think the problem was a temporary blockage in the waste pipe, which seems to have cleared, seeing as the machine's already drained once.

I can hear it on its' spin cycle now, so I'm going to check it again after I click "Send".

Ain't suburbia grand?

OK, if there's anything more annoying than a stinking cold that sneaks up on you and lays you low in the course of half an hour, I want to fucking know about it.

Eight o'clock last night, I was just fine - cooking dinner, getting the kids to bed...getting ready to settle down for the night.

By nine I was a snuffling, snivelling heap of snot and tissues. How the hell does that happen??

It's just about clearing now - in as much as I can actually walk away from the tissue box safe in the knowledge that I'm not going to have to run back to it to catch another sneeze.

I fucking hate colds!

So...

Boxing day was indeed spent at my parents' house - where my sister spent the day getting tipsier and louder and snappier because she wanted to take my mother and her credit card to the sales, my father took to his bed because he'd done far too much over the last couple of days, my mother got a foot massage and made a lovely pork dinner which was left completely untouched by the kids who'd ritually stuffed themselves with chocolate when they got up.

I was made to sit through the hell that was the Coronation Street Christmas Panto and Spy Kids, a film I always swore I'd never watch but which my vindictive kids now love!

Today they slept late. I got a lovely lie in till the mad hour of 9am! Bliss!

The TV was on, but I'm buggered if I know what was on. I do know we watched "Ever After" tonight. If I never do again, it'll be too soon. After that we had a tipple, caught up with Eastenders and the Casualty @ Holby City special via Telewest's Teleport, the poor man's TiVO, restocked Charlie's MP3 player and repaired a few broken programs on the PC. The kids ran riot and played with loads of their new toys, breaking some and doing wonderfully creative things with others.

This is the week where I traditionally take stock and wonder where life is leading. I don't make resolutions, but I like to start the year with at least an idea of what I'll do.

I know now, for example, that I will not be receiving any financial support with which to set up my business. To face the prospect of raising £4000 with a credit rating so red it could be used to tan most of Essex is not the most daunting one I've ever faced, but it's up there. It means a rethink and some quick action in order to keep my long term plans on track...

You see, I was about to go off on one, going into huge detail about just what I want to do, but it's also stultifyingly dull.

Let's just say that by the end of January, I want to have at least one more driving lesson under my belt and I want to have signed up for a couple of night school classes. By the end of February, I want to have shed at least a stone and we should have reinstated our twice-weekly swimming trips. I should also have a job in a school - either as a classroom assistant or IT assistant or something.

And on it goes.

Come June, I have to come to terms with turning thirty-three. Ick. I'm not old, I'm not, I'm not.

Big goals next year:

- Passing my Driving Test
- Taking the family on holiday
- Losing huge swathes of excess weight
- Paying off all my debts
- Keeping a job for at least...well...ever, really.
- Persuading the Local Education Authority to fund my foray back to University - this time to study Psychology
- Ensuring that Christmas does not descend to the usual battle of wills between the Present obsessed Charlie and the practical but perpetually broke Me
- Transferring Allison's huge stack of VHS tapes to DVD, whether by video capture or retail purchase

There'll probably be more added to the list through the week, but for now, that'll do.

* * *

We have an agreement that when Charlie gets to a certain dress size, we'll fix a date for our wedding. Given that the two couples we know who haven't divorced are sinfuly miserable, I may have to work on changing her mind about that.

* * *

It's come to my attention that certain people who read this blog have been blessed with quite a bit of snow.

Gits.

I love snow, and the pathetic dusting we got this afternoon didn't even have the staying power to get the pavement wet.

* * *

Thank god. No really, thank GOD they've stopped playing christmas songs 24 hours a day on the radio!

And I need to have a better selection on my MP3 player than the Gorillaz and Madeline Peyroux I lumbered myself with today.

* * *

Still alive reading? Ask me a question. I'll come up with a seemingly glib but actually rather subtle and insightfully deep answer. Or something.

So that's it then, another one under the belt.

What did I get? A bottle of whiskey, a bottle of special edition Jim Beam, a drinking game (what are they trying to say?), a pocket Zen Garden, the requisite smellies, a nice gothy-type t-shirt, one of those credit card survival kits and a few other lovely things.

The kids got tons of stuff which all revolved around being creative or Pokemon or My Little Pony or dressing up as princesses. They also got a disco projector and one of those revolving balls that shines coloured lights all over the place, both of which are great fun. Oh, and they got a Dalek battle set, which included a posable Christopher Ecclestone, which is really weird as I still see him as Nicky from Our Friends in the North, or the Police Chief that was killed by Robert Carlyle in Cracker and not as the Doctor at all.

I got Charlie an MP3 player to stop her nicking mine and a set of clay sculpting tools because she used to be all arty but stopped when the kids were born. She also got this big scary back massager thing that plugs into the mains and has two horn-type things that rotate and dig into your backeither side of your spine. I tried it for 30 seconds and found it very uncomfortable, but she loves it, so that's OK then.

It was terribly poignant watching the Two Ronnies this evening, knowing Ronnie Barker had it recorded early in the year because he knew his days were up.

David Tennant as the new Doc? Well, I like his style from Casanova, and he's suitably menacing as Barty Crouch Jnr in the new Harry Potter. He does "sinister" really well, and I particularly liked the last ten minutes where he finished off the skullface leader with that wonderfully fierce "no second chances" line, and when he faces off against the Prime Minister after she blows the baddies up. Good bits all round - although I could have done without the schmaltzy ending, but it is a Christmas special after all. I think I could enjoy him as the Doc for a few years.

Dinner, by the way, was a complete work of art. Turkey done to perfection, mash wonderful and creamy, roast spuds, parsnips and carrots done to a tee, chestnut and cranberry stuffing a bit on the strong side but nice enough, pigs in blankets (cocktail sausages wrapped in streaky bacon, for the uninitiated) could have been crispier, but they only had 20 minutes in the oven. All in all, I was very chuffed with myself. And the cheapo table wine I picked up yesterday managed not to be completely horrible. Result!

Tomorrow will be the real trick. We're off to my parents' for lunch, which means the kids have to be on their best behaviour to avoid giving Pater another coronary and I have to try and remember who bought what and what I'm supposed to praise effusively and what I'm allowed to slag off. I think we might have a spate of "thank you" letter writing in the morning.

Right now it's time for a snifter of my lovely lovely new bourbon and off to beddibyes.

Same time next year then? Why not.

Hands up who's off to the sales next week to start buying up next years' prezzies?

Not a bad stash, all told.

Been listening to my nice new MP3 player for most of the day, with a soundtrack which includes Cream, the Pistols, Rage against the machine and Reef.

Dinner's nearly cooked, Shrek's on the box and all - after a severely manic morning - is peace and tranquility.

So...sigh...Time to relax.

Merry Merry.

Done.

Last minute shopping this year consisted of a few late cards for family and a couple of packs of mince pies. That's all. It's gone rather well. There's a load of washing up to do, and the radiators are going to get a good seeing to tonight as we try to dry a load of clothes. We've even changed the rabbit's bedding.

The kids are about to get a shower and get put to bed, but not before we find out where Santa is.

So...you can probably expect some posts and pics tomorrow, if not some video. Anyone that's sad enough to drop in, do feel free to post a comment and let us all know how you're spending your day.

Most importantly, no matter what you're going to be celebrating (or if you already have), have a great time and thanks so much for sticking with Lithaborn.co.uk this year.

Here's a quick headsup for Ricky Gervais fans:

He and Stephen Merchant are doing a couple of stints for Radio 2 - the first one starts in about half an hour, and the second is a week today, New Year's Eve.

He's no stranger to Radio 2, being an almost permanent fixture on Jonathan Ross's saturday show, so it should be an interesting bit of listening.

Me? I'll be listening on the kitchen radio while I divide my time between the loo, the washing, the piles of rubbish and the cooker.

Something else I'm doing is subscribing to as many podcasts as I can so I've got something interesting to do with my new MP3 player tomorrow. Any suggestions?

Ugh.

The shopping went well yesterday. Masses of prezzies bought - which wasn't the easiest thing as I had to plan my day around where the nearest public toilets were.

WhileI was doing the santa thing, Charlie was off geting the last of the groceries in, so now our poor fridge is groaning under the weight of several dozen apples, oranges, pears and bananas (OK, bananas don't do well in the fridge, they're sitting on the top). Even if we wanted to, there's no bloody room to buy any more food.

That's the last time I'll mention food for a while, promise.

I tell you what though, I could really do with changing the channel on the TV and not hearing the words "Christmas Special". Really. Well, until seven o'clock tomorrow night, anyway.

I am awestruck at just how fucking domestic I sound.

I need a night on the lash. Really. Heavy metal and a bottle or four of Newky would be just the ticket right about now.

This is not a good time to get a tummy bug!

I'm sitting here with a belly that's doing a damn fine impression of a speedboat's wake, wanting to be getting on with all kinds of interesting middle-of-the-night-before-the-night-before-christmas type things like putting the last three years worth of kids toys in bags to go in the loft (or to the charity shops) and clearing loads of washing up away and processing the mound of bed linen that desperately needs a trip round the washing machine and all I can do is waft between the sofa and the bathroom hoping that this will be that grand occasion that signals the end of the problem.

Allison woke up with it and promptly passed it on to Charlie, who's kindly lumbered me with it just at my most productive time of the day. They've both happily spent all day lounging around with long faces complaining that they don't want to eat and I've been hard at it - I've even made a mercy dash over to my folks' house to sort out their own present storage crisis. Now it's looking like the only thing I'm going to get done is preparing the rubbish bags for the last collection before the big day, just as I finally get all of the ill layabouts out of my hair.

Arse, arse and buggery.

I even cleaned the fridge.

I should explain that the reason most of my posts lately have been kitchen based is that it's my territory. In a shocking case of role reversal,I'm the one who does the cooking - and I've got bloody good at it. This will be my...fifth? fourth? christmas dinner and wobetide anyone who tries to "help". I know how long the turkey takes to cook, I know when to put the roasting taters on to parboil so I can give them an hour in the oven, I know to give the veg just 20 minutes at the end so they're not all mushy, I know that the stuffing ain't going up the damn bird's arse, but is going in a damn microwavable bowl and getting zapped with five minutes to go because the oven just ain't that big and I hate pissing around inside that icky cavity. Getting the giblets out is going to traumatise me and they're helpfully sealed in a plastic bag!

I also know how to store the remaining three quarters of the turkey we won't eat on Sunday so that we can still be ploughing through it next wednesday. By which time I will never want another turkey, stuffing and cranberry sandwich for as long as I live - for the fifth year running.

Somehow, even though there's only four of us - two of which won't eat anything that doesn't include sugar and E221 - we've managed to fill three huge tins full of biscuits, a giant tub full of sweets and procure enough tins to singlehandedly populate the school stage for next years' harvest festival. As usual we've stocked up for a month-long seige despite the fact that the shops are all open at 10am on Boxing Day...

And I'll bet good money that come Tuesday they'll be complaining that there's nothing in to eat.

Do I sound like a housewife? Is that a sexist statement? I don't care. Anyone want to pop round and cater for us over the next couple of days? You're quite welcome, so long as you can cook without touching my kitchen...

The sprouts are standing by, the bird's defrosting, the kitchen's (almost) tidy, Charlie's reading the story of the Nativity to Allison before bed. Tomorrow I'm off to buy £200 worth of presents in the two or three hours before the crowds get too bad.

Hmm...

Must be Christmas.

Blatantly nicked from a certain ex-Londoner

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Low
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Medium
Pride:	Medium

The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com

Can't be arsed waiting days for your monster turkey to defrost? Sick of getting up at stupid o'clock to put the thing on to cook?

Deep fry the fucker.

I've been making cakes and biscuits almost constantly for a week now. Considering that, it's possibly surprising that this is my first attempt at iced fairy cakes. I looked up a recipe - equal amounts of sugar, butter and flour, two eggs, vanilla essence, whisk it all up - it looks pretty good. Then I check again and they're supposed to be madewith self-raising flour instead of the plain I've been using.

Ah crap!

Cue grand scale dig to the back of the "ingredients" cupboard for some baking soda.

Well, as it turns out, they're light and sweet and tasty and just as spongy as yer average fairy cakes are supposed to be.

We had a little construction line going last night - I did the icing, Bethan did the silver balls and Allison put them in the box. And Nanny ate them. And a very nice night was had by all.

At risk of incurring the scorn of some of my regulars, I'm actually getting into the christmas spirit now - even going so far as to catch myself humming "wonderful christmastime" this morning on the bus.

Now I'm off for a spot of infanticide as they've both come home from school tired and miserable.

Don't let appearances fool you. It might look like a suburban Junior school playground, but really it's an ice rink.

Who knew, eh?

The sheer depth of the spectacle is breathtaking.

The thought that this man is taken seriously by anyone in his country is laughable.

How this can't be seen as the last slide into deep insanity is unfathomable.

Bush's address to his people yesterday is one of the most blatant propagandist confidence tricks I've eevr witnessed.

So it's within the remit of the constitution to spy on your own people? OK, so we're to return to the grand inquisition days of McCarthyism are we? And do you think if enough people say the word "legally" that people will believe you? Unfortunately, it's pretty obvious they will believe him, but JEEZ!

"You should all just shut up about it because it's very embarrassing *ahem* I mean it's helping our enemies."

Yeah, so is keeping your troops there because if you brought them home the Iraqis would have nothing to shoot at, right?

Oh, and there'd be less chance of them electing a fundamentalist government that cuts off your oil supply. What? Sorry? Nothing to do with oil you say? Must have missed that, I was too busy laughing my head off.

And what about Condy Rice saying there's no evidence the FBI flies suspects around the world and tortures them. Fuck me, you don't say! Of COURSE there's no evidence, you idiot! You expect them to leave traces?

There's so much more to say about this last week in the White House but I've got more biscuits to bake and I'm a little distracted.

Just a quick note to say that I've moved this blog to my own webspace. Now, you can't tell the difference outwardly unless you've been using the blogger address - http://lithaborn.blogspot.com, in which case it'll just look like I've not posted anything for a couple of days.

If you're using lithaborn.co.uk (like you should be) then everything will be fine and dandy.

Also, if you're using the RSS feed and haven't updated it, you need to change the feed source to http://www.lithaborn.co.uk/feed/atom.xml.

Apologies to anyone who got lost in the meantime, but you have had plenty of warning.

The mad as a brush but not very welcomein Liverpool train wreck of a politician Boris Johnson is the new Shadow higher education minister.

This man defines the word "buffoon".

It is now impossible (as if it wasn't already) that the Tories will win an election. My prediction will be Gordon Brown's New-old-new Labour, then a spot of Lib-Dem, then...who knows?

A quick quote from my favourite tory:

"All politicians in the end are like crazed wasps in a jam jar, each individually convinced that they are going to make it,"

Gotta love him.

Update on the ol' progenitor's ticker...

He's home and safe and on the road to recovery, with any luck.

I'm not going to get to see him until the weekend now as I'm up to my eyeballs.

Grocery shopping eight miles away, quick jaunt to the jobcentre, cooking for Charlie's college mini-party and making a donkey costume for Allison tomorrow. Nursery, more cooking and a Girls' Brigade party on Wednesday. Thursday I've got a very annoying visit to the Magistrate's court for a fine I forgot I hadn't paid, then a load of christmas shopping on Friday.

Next week should be quite calm in comparison, right up until I get paid on the 23rd.

I then have 36 hours to finalise everything for Christmas - the majority of the present buying, paying the bills, wrapping the damn presents and getting the veg for christmas lunch - all in the midst of the biggest crush and panic of the year.

Ah well, beats working for a living, eh?

Oh shit, I think the washing machine's broken.

Um...

Boom!

For now, I've put a link to a live stream of BBC's News24 Channel in my sidebar. If it doesn't work, or if it's too fast for you lot on dialup, do let me know in the comments and I'll dump it.

My dad had a heart attack this morning.

At least, all the signs seem to point that way.

On the way to work this morning he started suffering from what he called "almost unbearably excruciating" chest pains, popped into the nearest Boots store and was treated by their onsite paramedic, who then called an ambulance. He was taken to the only hospital in the district which has the capacity to immediately operate on suspected heart attack victims and within two hours was in good spirits and trying to cope with being pampered by the hospital staff.

He's a Deacon at the church I grew up in and their support and prayer has definitely had a positive effect as last reports say that he is in high spirits and no immediate danger.

My mum was so panicked that there was a danger she'd end up in the next bed along, but I think the night will help put a less worrying perspective on the whole event and we're now waiting for the results of the 48 hours of close monitoring and the Doctors' investigation into what actually happened to him.

How did I react? In the usual way - calm, methodical and giving hope and strength to anyone who needed it. The way I see it, someone has to stay in charge during emergencies like this and invariably that someone ends up being me as everyone else seems to go to pieces!

It wasn't really a shock to me, as he's always had very high blood pressure and a volatile nature which meant that realistically he was always going to suffer a heart attack at some point. Frankly, I always assumed that his first would be his last, and hopefully it will be - thankfully not in the terminal sense I expected.

What happens next will presumably a fundamental life change for him. No longer will he be allowed to walk everywhere just as fast as his legs will take him, I'd prefer that he didn't try to be in charge of every situation and stopped worrying about the minutiae of his life, such as how many extra phone batteries are on charge, or how many bottles of milk are in the fridge, or whether or not the dog needs walking RIGHT NOW AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME or in half an hour.

It boils down to the fact that he feels he must be a leading part of every decision that's made - and when he doesn't agree with a decision, or can't see the sense of it, he immediately gets angry. This will be the hardest thing he will have to adjust to - the fact that he's not necessarily in charge anymore.

The most difficult part of his rehabilitation will quite possibly be coming to terms with the warning his body has given him. He's always been of the opinion that his way of doing things is the right way and now it should be clear to him that this isn't necessarily so. One example of this was his insistence that we leave his credit cards with him in hospital in case he needed anything. It shows that he is having problems understanding that for the next couple fo days at least he will be bedridden and in need of nothing that the nurses will not be able to bring him.

We didn't leave his cards, by the way, just a handful of short change and a number of admonitions that he let himself be looked after.

I could easily carry on spouting off in this manner for hours, but I'm going to leave it here. I'm looking forward to talking to the aftercare nurses and visiting him tomorrow afternoon, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he adjusts to his more sedate lifestyle. I want to play a more active part in my parents life now as I am convinced that they need a calming influence and a voice of reason - neither of which are character traits associated with my hypertense mother, my overly assertive father or my deeply troubled sister.

Life just got much more complex, a bit more difficult and quite possibly far more interesting.

A snippet of conversation from my darling offspring a few minutes ago:

McDonald's toilet cubicle #1:
"My beard is black,
There's soot in my sack,
My nose is tickly tooo!"

Cubicle #2:
"Grrrrr!!!"

Me, hovering self-consciously at ladies' toilet door:
"What?? What's wrong?"

Cubicle #2:
"I hate that song!"

This poem is printed in Pakistani children's English school textbooks.

I cannot describe the depth of disgust I am feeling towards that man right now. And because I'm not as good with words as a certain Fox, I'm just reprinting the thing here.

Patient and steady with all he must bear,
Ready to meet every challenge with care,
Easy in manner, yet solid as steel,
Strong in his faith, refreshingly real.
Isn't afraid to propose what is bold,
Doesn't conform to the usual mould,
Eyes that have foresight, for hindsight won't do,
Never backs down when he sees what is true,
Tells it all straight, and means it all too.
Going forward and knowing he's right,
Even when doubted for why he would fight,
Over and over he makes his case clear,
Reaching to touch the ones who won't hear.
Growing in strength he won't be unnerved,
Ever assuring he'll stand by his word.
Wanting the world to join his firm stand,
Bracing for war, but praying for peace,
Using his power so evil will cease,
So much a leader and worthy of trust,
Here stands a man who will do what he must.

How long has he got left? Not a day too soon.

Oh god.

As if six months of Elvis at the top of the charts wasn't enough, Michael Bloody Jackson is doing the same thing next year.

That should pay off a few debts, eh?

Maybe not.

Everything's gone a bit quiet around here because I'm concentrating on getting some traffic on a messageboard I run.

Normal service resumes shortly...

So, what's been going on?

Yesterday I got soaked to the skin picking Bethan up from nursery, we've run out of washing powder and I haven't had chance to get some more yet, the tree got knocked over and now leans artistically to the left, we now have Teleport which means we didn't actually miss the excellent new adaptation of a Midsummer Night's Dream, there's parties coming up, we've worked out exactly how much we have to spend on presents and soforth, I've watched Harry Potter, downloaded every Eric Clapton album, got used to using iTunes, finally listened to a whole "Lost" podcast, found out some startling information about someone and I've re-decorated my desktop.

Any questions? Ask away, any subject. Lithaborn's magic 8-ball will answer...

So we got the snow at last. Threeway snowball fights after school, hot chocolate and toasted sandwiches to defrost afterwards.

All in all, not a bad afternoon.

Look what we did today!

Yes, I finally came over all christmassy and got the tree out. After half an hour of fashioning a new stand out of an old plant pot, some playpit sand and a couple of chunks of concrete (because for some reason the original stand went walkies), the girls spent a very seasonal hour dressing the tree.

Now, I know it looks like a dog's breakfast in that photo, but we happen to think that a thoroughly chaotic christmas tree looks very happy and festive!

* * *

My mum phoned yesterday to ask me if the MP3 player she was about to buy was actually the one I wanted for Christmas. Yay! Now I can play the "Randomised Playlist Oracle" game! Although I do have serious doubts what question would require the answer "'Lost' Podcast".

A word about That Memo:

Anyone else get the impression that Bush is just predisposed to attack anyone called Al?

In the absence of anything contructive to write about, except a rambling piece on the mysteries being written into "Lost", here's a Meme I swear I've done before but which everyone else seems to be doing:

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Whatever it is, it would have to be a state everyone on earth reached at the same time, otherwise, I'd be sad that someone wouldn't be experiencing it.

What is your greatest fear?
Some brain disease or other. Being trapped in a body that doesn't work, feeling your memories and intellect dying when there's nothing you can do.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My temper.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
I am the emperor of Rome and the Visigoths are at the gates.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Probably the new computer.

What is your favourite journey?
Birmingham to Harlech via Bala.

What do you like most about your appearance?
When I walk out the house, I look just the way I want to.

Which living person do you most despise?
The kid who burgled us. I'd love to say Blair and Bush and so forth, but really they're just the focus for the corrupt and evil Libertarian states who control them. We look at them and condemn them while behind their facade of rulership, the real power strips away our freedom and dignity.

What is your greatest regret?
I can't make a difference yet.

When and where are you happiest?
No gout, no IBS, kids are behaving (or at school), I've had enough sleep, Charlie's happy, etc etc etc.

What is your current state of mind?
Trying not to go to the loo because I know it'll hurt like fuck. Wishing Bethan would leave the rabbit alone. Trying to watch Doctor Who.

If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
It'd be nice to make my body work properly for once. Failing that, I'd like hair that was less grey.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
The kids.

What is your most treasured possession?
The kids.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Giving up.

A graphical meme blatantly stolen from various residents of Swansea:

This is how you play: do a Google image search of the following and post the first (or favorite if you want to cheat, but label it so) result for each::

The name of the town where you were born
I live in the same town, so I've googled for the district instead


The name of the town where you live now
As above, this is froma search for the district


Your name


Your grandmother’s name (just pick one)


Your favorite food


Your favorite drink


Your favorite song
So many to choose from...I dunno...


Your favorite smell

What's on my mind today?

The country's running out of flu vaccine, and pretty obviously it's being blamed on scared people thinking the jab will protect them from the dreaded bird flu.

Excuse me, but how thick are these people? Have the people asking for the jab not considered tht if bird flu was susceptible to a normal flu vaccine, that dozens of people in China may not have already died? Do the GP's have no clue why they're constantly having to order more phials, when usually they can't give them away?

No, something's fucked up about that, really. We need a definitive advertising campaign telling people to lay off the normal vaccine if they want protection from bird flu. It might help if they stayed away from Essex animal quarantine centres because that's the only place where bird flu's turned up in the UK.

As a small aside, Roman Abramovitch, owner of Chelsea Football Club has been granted special permission to take his parrot to New Zealand. So if the bird flu does surface in the wild over here, blame Chelsea.


* * *

Parents are calling for guidelines on how much help they're allowed to give their kids with their coursework.

This comes back to my favourite pet soapbox subject.

Here's a really easy thing to understand: If your kid can't do the coursework, if everyone is needing help to complete it, then it's either genuinely too hard, or they're not being equipped to complete it either mentally or physically by the schools.

The solution? (long-term readers will recognise this) Stop pissing around with the syllabus. Let the teachers alone long enough for them to get a grip on the criteria neded and to come up with workable, non-baffling courswork assignments that the kids can actually have a hope of completing.

The outcome of this request from parents? Education secretary Ruth Kelly is calling for a widespread reassessment of the syllabus.

AARGH!

* * *

Gary Glitter is being accused of fucking a 12 year old girl in Cambodia - by the 12 year old girl.

Good.

Someone on the radio made an excellent point that might not have occurred to many people. In the countries in question - Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, etc, sex tourism is big BIG business and corruption is rife. Despite all efforts to cease the sick trade in young children's bodies, it continues relentlessly. The obvious conclusion one must reach? That the economies of these countries actually rely on the sex trade. And that's just sick. Continentally sick.

* * *

OK, I'm never going to make the 50,000 WriMo target by Nov 30th, but I am going to keep going with Tapestry because it's all mapped out in my head.

The reasons I'm citing in defense of my faliure are 1) 20 days of writer's block and 2) having just too many other things to do.

I really did want to do it, too. Damn.

* * *

Coming soon - A day in pictures, as inspired by Mark's recent spate of atmospheric urban landscapes, pregnant chavs and commuting endangered species . Now all I need is a nice day and something interesting to do.

And now...to bed.

I sound like a frog.

I'm coughing extremely cautiously.

My phlegm is the colour and consitency of lime blancmange (oh sorry, were you eating?)



"I'll take 'Common Winter Ailments' for 500..."

I've been reading Indymedia this morning.

Not something I usually do, as the site's vast bias leaves me cold, but I thought I'd venture into the pit and have a look at some of the comments made about the articles being published.

Thankfully, the screaming paranoia and self-righteousness rampant in the submitted articles isn't followed through in the comments, with a mix of eyewitness accounts and analysis bringing a balanced air to the pieces.

One article I looked at in particular was the events following the Anarchists Bookfair in London recently, where an incident in a pub after the Fair led to some heavyhanded riot police arresting a number of said Anarchists.

The original article reads as if the peace loving and mild mannered poor little people were being randomly attacked by viscious and bloodthirsty heavily armed police thugs.

The comments afterward paint a different picture, where what seems to have happened is that a couple of idiots took a ghettoblaster into a Wetherspoons pub, got themselves into trouble and left when someone smashed one of their speakers. By then, it seems someone had pressed a panic button or phoned the police, as the landlord closed the bar, which pushed a couple of hundred disgruntled Anarchists into the high street, where riot vans were waiting for them.

As one poster mentioned, putting Anarchists and Police in close proximity is just begging for a riot.

There seem to be a few people on Indymedia who hold the belief that we should not be held responsible for our actions, that one can do whatever one likes without fear of the consequences.

Luckily, there are also plenty of people who do take the "personal responsibility" ethos seriously.

I carried on from there to look up a definition of "anarchist" and found a dull but informative essay written some years ago by a University student. It includes definitions of the various disparate forms of anarchy and non-anarchy, including one I found fascinating and enlightening:

Libertarianism: Libertarians are often confused with anarchists and do, in fact, overlap in many respects. Both share an emphasis on individual freedom and the desire to do away with the state. Many libertarians assign primary importance to the individual and emphasize the principle of enlightened self-interest. Many anarchists tend to focus more on mutual aid and efforts to improve the circumstances of all members of the community. Libertarianism is most often characterized by its economic viewpoint, which places maximum value on unimpeded free market capitalism (some proponents call themselves "anarcho-capitalists"), condones the use of force in the defense of private property, opposes any governmental interference that impedes efforts to maximize personal economic gain, and discounts values that can not be measured in economic (typically monetary) terms. While libertarians are anti-state, they often are not opposed to domination and hierarchy in all its forms (there is often a strain of "survival of the fittest" or "[economic] might makes right" in the libertarian philosophy), and do not seek to radically alter societal power relations, especially those based on economic power. Anarchists tend to have a more socialist perspective, and favor doing away with any system in which the wealthy can achieve disproportionate benefit while the less fortunate suffer undue hardship. While anarchists value individual initiative, intelligence, and creativity, it is recognized that those who possess such talents to a lesser degree should still be treated with respect and justice. Objectivists are an extremist type of libertarian. The Libertarian Party is relatively moderate, and tends to focus on issues like electoral reform, abolishing drug laws, and reducing governmental regulation. Many libertarians are "minarchists" who believe that some form of government is necessary but that it should be as minimal and unobtrusive as possible. The question of what type of economic system would exist in an anarchist society is an open one. Some anarchists believe that all forms of capital and the market economy must be abolished, others favor a system that promotes worker ownership and full participatory democracy within a market economy, and still others believe that a variety of economic systems can co-exist as long as they do not try to impose their systems and values on each other.

Just to be absolutely clear on the part that fascinated me - "Libertarianism is...characterized by its economic viewpoint, which places maximum value on unimpeded free market capitalism, condones the use of force in the defense of private property, opposes any governmental interference that impedes efforts to maximize personal economic gain, and discounts values that can not be measured in economic terms."

When I was growing up, we called them Yuppies.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on libertarianism. It goes on at length about how libertarians believe in the free will to go about whatever business they desire, so long as it doesn't interfere with anyone elses' free will.

A long time ago, I dabbled with this philosophical idea - the idea that you should be allowed to do whatever you want as long as you don't affect anyone else. I found that it was largely unworkable as whatever you do has an impact on someone, somewhere.

Libertarianism also stands for the abolition, to a larger or greater degree depending on the person, of Government control - which includes the cessation of state-funded healthcare, education and social security, preferring instead that a totally free private market economy take care of these issues.

It mystified me how anyone seriously thinks this kind of society is desirable or workable. Then I started thinking about the world we live in, and everything I know about what's going on in the world around us. It occurred to me that the only people who could gain by living in this libertarian society were people who had enough money to do whatever they wanted, the libertarian world order would ensure that the rich got vastly richer while the poor got ignored and sidelined, impeded from improving their lives by the central liberterian principle of non-agression. And then something very disturbing occurred to me.

The libertarians are in control. The society I've just described is - in broad terms - exactly how society is being run at this very moment.

And that is the scariest thing I've ever realised, because a world run according to libertarian politics is a world that inherently rejects everything I stand for and believe.

But anarchy is not the answer. At least, not the anarchy propounded by the likes of Indymedia. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think I might work on it.

It's hard to believe a little bird just like this can generate a huge reaction in anyone, but this site (in Dutch - Babelfish is your friend) is the forum for an outpouring of Dutch grief for a sparrow which was cornered and shot after finding its way into a warehouse where a world record domino toppling attempt was about to take place.

It proceeded to knock down 23,000 of the four million poised dominoes, so a pest control officer was called, who proceeded to corner the little bird and shoot it.

It's hardly believable.

OK, it's freaky coincidences time.

While it's terrible that a policewoman has been killed in the course of an armed robbery, the odd thing is that it's the main focus of the BBC ten o'clock news on Children In Need night.

Why is this a freaky coincidence?

Just a couple of miles outside Bradford (scene of the tragedy) is a town called Pudsey.

No really!

I've broken the ten thousand barrier!

Just another 39,000 to go - 2700 a day - and the 200 I just wrote took me ages.

But you know what, I'm determined to reach the end. It's a point of principle now, a target I have to hit.

Just one problem - the muse has left me.

I know where I want to go now with it, but I can't bloody find the words.

And just to prove it...

(Oh god, I nearly started this post with "Well...")

Flushed by last weeks' success, the Tories are trying to notch up another Government defeat with their loophole commons vote on the extended pub licensing hours due to come into force next week.

Anyone who wants to watch Blair squirm almost as much as last week should tune into the Parliament channel or a news channel around 7pm local.

Thing is, hardly anyone has took up the new legislation - which allows pubs to open all day. Publicans mostly feel that it's unnecessary and punters just can't be bothered, so the chances are that the bill should fail.

Now, to lose one vote is unfortunate, to lose two is...well, let's say the fallout could be...interesting.

Big post disappears!

Where's it gone?

I'll tell you where it's gone, it's gone here.

According to my WriMo Meter, I need to write 10,000 words today to catch up.

Fawk!

Wondering what to get the man who has everything this Christmas?

How about a Lego Death Star?

On the left we find the new design for Dr Who's Cybermen.

On the right, we have Fritz Lang's robotrix from Metropolis.

So...no idea where they got their inspiration from, then.

Wilfred Owen
Dulce et decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. . .
Dim, through the misty panes10 and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Memories of Auschwitz

"Sometimes I was too sick to eat my soup, but I treasured it so much that I hid that little soup behind my bunk. One day when there was an inspection, the guards found the soup I was hiding. We weren't supposed to have any soup in the barracks. They took me outside and beat me. I passed out after three blows. A friend gave me coffee. He saved my life because I felt so sick I couldn't even move. With the coffee I was able to stand up when the camp officials came into the barracks for the next inspection. Anybody who couldn't move from his bed was taken away during the day sometimes.

One time I was taken to do a little work carrying steel beams. It was winter time, very cold. Fifteen or twenty guys were lifting each side of the beam because it was a wide beam. Eventually they told us to place it somewhere. But when we tried we couldn't tear away our hands from the steel because they were frozen to the beam. The skin came off and started bleeding. They didn't permit us to put any kind of cloth over our hands. We had to carry it bare. The next day we put this same beam back in the original spot.

The SS loaded us into cattle cars and took us to a forced labor camp in western Germany called Sachsenhausen. There was no crematorium, so it was by far a better feeling...We could hear the machine guns and the heavy artillery booming and they told us to march. The Allies were getting closer. I marched for about five kilometers to Allach which was a tiny little camp. Then I felt I couldn't walk anymore. The rest of them continued walking. The Germans killed all the people who kept walking. That was the death march. I survived because I could not walk."

Because it's not just about the Gulf.

Points to ponder:

I'm starting to think the world's going to hell in a handbasket...

A restaurant in Baghdad - a favourite of secrity staff and police - has been blown up by a suicide bomber. Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but havent the security services and police been particularly targetted for some months now? How many have to die before they start not hanging around in one place and offering the perfect target?

****

Tony Blair's facing his "blackest day" according to the press.

I know this'll make me sound like the biggest Blair apologist on the planet, but bollocks!

Every government gets its motions defeated sometimes. That it's taken eight years to come around says more about the bullying tactics enforced by the whips and the size of Labour's majority than any measure of faith in their glorious leader.

Imagine, perhaps, that someone had decided that this was to be a "vote of confidence" and left Blair no option but to step aside. There'd be a leadership election. Effective immediately, Two-Jags would be in charge. Then, after a very perfuncory leadership contest, Gordon Brown would become our unelected leader.

Last time that happened, John Major proceeded to run the country and the Tory party into the ground.

Consider why this was not called as a Vote of Confidence then. Should be obvious, shouldn't it?

Consider now what this defeat means in real terms. It means that a few disgruntled backbenchers sidestepped the whips and the rampaging cabinet and stepped to the other side of the hall. It means that the public and the commons will happily accept a doubling of the period one can be imprisoned without trial without so much as a nod of the head.

I've done it a million times. Ask for more than anyone's likely to give you and let them dictate the maximum you can have. Bartering, in short.

You've all been conned, but nobody's noticed.

****

The government is to announce that "alternative" fuel sources should account for 5% of production in the UK within five years. Most of this new fuel will come from the burning of imported cane sugar.

Will this sugar be traded fairly, with the suppliers earning a good, western equivalent wage for their goods? Will the government use this necessary import as a part of their commitment to reduce world poverty?

What makes me think of the word Bollocks again, here?

And I can't help wondering how the sugar will be getting here. They won't by any chance be putting it on cargo planes will they, thus defeating the whole object of trying to create greener fuel production methods?

And in a country on the gulfstream and with thousands of miles of coastline, how come the financial and legislative infrastructure isn't in place to research, develop and implement environmentally friendly power production methods?

I have to go ignore NaNoWriMo so that I can cobble together a pathetic excuse for a Business Plan.

Is there anyone out there?

Hello?

I have downloaded what is quite possibly the most evil Firefox extension ever.

It sits in your statusbar and quitely ticks off your predicted word count on 30th November.

By the hour.

This morning, it was predicting I would manage a total of 35000 words. It's now down to 32700.

Bastard.

And the terrible thing is that I will get nothing done tonight and probably nothing done tomorrow as I have a business meeting that's taking up all my creative energy. I can see a marathon writeathon on the cards very soon if I'm to have a chance of getting anywhere near the 50,000 mark.

Get ready to pat me heartily on the back if my word count soars past 25000 this weekend.

I've been working on my plot options. I now have a sheet of paper upon which I've done some brainstorming. It looks like a spider massacre at an ibiza foam party. Lots of jagged lines and bubbles. But I think I might have almost maybe decided on something approaching a direction. What I'm going to have to do is just write and see where the writing leads me.

In other news, I've discovered a wonderful way of decimating my site hits. Ah well.

Well, that's the computer ready for christmas, then.

This is my current desktop. Yes, I'm still using windows. I've made quite an effort to disguide the fact however. For instance:

This is a tabbed dock courtesy of Stardock's excellent Objectdock Plus.






This is "Holiday Lights" a nifty little program which puts flashing lights on the borders of your desktop.





And this is a Christmas Windowblinds skin.





Finally, this is the desktop wallpaper. I think I got it from Wincustomize.com

Um, yeah, things have changed a little bit, haven't they?

If you're here, then you've made the change from the old hedgewitch blog to www.lithaborn.co.uk

What do you think? Bit of a shock? Good? Bad? What the fuck have you done you idiot?

Thing is, I bought the URL ages ago and just had it sitting around doing nothing.

And then I realised how many different blogs I was actually signed up for, so I just decided this morning to consolidate everything under one banner. So, much like the local council who, upon realising they had far too many sub-committees, decided to convene yet another sub-committee to investigate why they had so many sub-committees, I made another blog.

That blog, Lithaborn Central, will simply be a notification site so you can see at a glance what's going on in my online world.

Maybe it'll take a bit of getting used to, maybe it's a wonderful idea. Time will tell.

1. Were you named after anyone?
No, deliberately. There is a family name that goes back generations. My parents decided to deliberately not carry it on with me.

2. When did you last cry?
Oh god, I dunno. I’m well known for getting a lump int he throat and leaky eyes at the resuscitation scene in The Abyss though.

3. What is your favorite lunch meat?
It’s a toss up between Luncheon Meat and Chicken. Oh, and bacon.

4. What is your most embarrassing CD?
The DVD full of christmas music I’m currently transfering back onto my hard drive in order to avoid the wrath of my other half.

5. Where is your second home?
Pick a cave, any cave.

6. Do you trust others too easily?
That way lies madness.

7. What was your favorite toy as a child?
X-wing fighter

8. Would you bungee jump?
How many pints am I allowed first?

9. Do you think that you are strong?
Mentally, yes. Physically…I have my moments.

10. What are your favorite colors?
Dark green, purple, burgundy

11. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?
The belly, my gouty feet, my overwaxed eardrums.

12. Who do you miss most?

Deceased?
Isn’t that terrible, I can’t think of anyone. A few people I know have died - family members - but none I can put my heart on my hand and say I miss. I’ve come to terms with it and made peace with my grief.
Living?
Some of the girls I used to hang around with at pubs and clubs.

13. What was the last thing you ate?
Mint chocolate fingers.

14. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Gotta be the gold. Everyone would be after me!

15. What is the weather like right now?
Fucking miserable. But at least I’m not too hot.

16. Last person you talked to on the phone?
My mother in law, the dragon.

17. Do you wear contacts?
I did, but the left eye never fitted well, so I left them.

18. Last Movie You Watched?
Serenity. Excellent, excellent film.

19. Favorite Day of the Year?
Midsummer (Litha). I’m pagan and you’re supposed to celebrate by doing a ritual naked, eating fairy cakes, drinking wine and then shagging all night. One day I will.

20. Where Would You Want to Go on your Next Vacation?
The seaside. Wales.

21. Favorite Smells?
Pot, chinese, chlorine, the smell of the seafront - candyfloss, fish, salt, donuts. Oh man!

22. What’s the furthest you’ve been away from home?
The Isle of Wight (stop laughing at the back!)

Ack! I've stalled!

I'm 5,000 words short of the schedule and I don't think I'm going to be catching up anytime soon.

It's not a problem of plot - I've got an idea where to take it, but last night, I added a twist which I'm not sure I can carry off. I now need to do some emergency exposition to explain why I didn't mention it until that point.

Of course, I could take it out, but it's a good twist and works well with where I want to take the plot - it's a good third layer.

I might skip ahead a bit and write the meeting between two main characters which I have an idea about, but then it's a problem of keeping the continuity when I write the intervening chapters.

Right: That makes no sense really, so here's the plot (I hate doing this as I'm obsessionally secretive about my in-progress projects, but I'm breaking the habit of a lifetime just for you!):

A guy has a a nice life doing a trivial buit engaging job at the seaside with a lovely family, only he has a deep dark secret: When he was fourteen or fifteen he lost his virginity to his childhood sweetheart, who he later told to forget he existed. Eighteen years later a kid claiming to be his tuns up on his doorstep.

He accepts it straight away as he heard about her baby and always wondered if it was his. But there's a twist: they won the lottery six years ago and just recently he was interviewed for a vox-pop TV show on lottery winners.

So, is this kid conning him to get hold of some money or is he genuine? Is he actually the man's son? Is he a delusional psycho? Is the mother prompting him or using him to get revenge for years of shitty single parent life? What connotation of possibilities is going to play itself out?

Damned if I know, I haven't got that far yet.

Interesting points to bear in mind: The story is based on an aspect of my own life. I did go out with my junior school sweetheart when I was fourteen or fifteen and the split up happened just as I describe it in the story. She did get pregnant and it is an outside possibility that it might be mine. So it's a situation that's played on my mind for...um... seventeen years?

The story's set on Yorkshire's east coast where I've been on holiday three times - twice in three years and once a decade or more ago. So I know the territory reasonably well, which is why I'm setting it there. I'd be incredibly flattered if anyone can tell exactly where from my descriptions.

There will be a watershed meeting between the "hero" and the mother. When I've decided what twist is to be put into play, that will be the "reveal" where everything becomes plain. Or maybe it won't. Maybe there'll be another secret which only comes out later. Yeah, I like that.

I'm not sure whether to have the hero's family life come apart. I like how I've written the family and I want them to be a strong unit, but that robs me of a fair amount of plotline. Also, I don't like family breakups and would rather not write about them. Would be a nice change, as most of the chick lit and lit fic I've read involves some kind of family breakup. You don't usually read about a strong family reacting well to a situation. Maybe because it's boring. I guess I'll find out.

The narrative alternates between characters, but I don't know whether to do this on a strictly per-chapter basis or just as and when I reach a natural point in that characters' story.

The story is written in "first person present" style - "I am", "I do this, then I do that." - because I find that easier to write in and because I think it helps bring out the feelings and indecisiveness of the main characters. And I've always been crap at tenses.

I'm publishing it myself here because I crave validation and acknowledgement that I'm not writing a bunch of unreadable shite. I think that blog may turn into my literary outlet: a portal to put all of my writing efforts online.

So anyway, I've come to the crunch, where Ive got to decide which twists to use and I know I'm going to take days to work it out - which will probably mean some obsessive pondering and plotting, taking each connotation to see which one excites me most. Hopefully that excitement will transfer to what I write. I reckon once I've decided, I can knock out a good 3-5000 words a day. I'm finding 2000 words absolutely no effort - indeed all of the writing I've done so far has come together incredibly easily.

So anyway, is anyone else mithering this much over their story? Still feeling confident of reaching the fifty thousand target? Am I the only one obsessing over this shite?

Aargh!

Chapter three is done. Slight drop in the word count because I noticed I'd witten something twice.

When I've got a minute, I want to say something about the lego Death Star I found in a shop this afternoon.

There's a few other things I want to chat about but right now I've got to quickly get out the way so certain of my offspring can draw pictures.

Want me to post a couple of their creations?

Chapter two of my masterwork has been published on my WriMo blog.

I'm actually quite happy with this one, even though it's taken three days to complete.

Now what?

At last! Something non-NaNo courtesy of the Peanut Queen.

Name someone with the same birthday as you
Malcolm McDowell, the man who killed Captain Kirk.

Where was your first kiss?
At Junior school. My terrible memory won't let me be more precise than that.

Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property?
Nope, not really had cause to. A friend once borrowed my bedsit and broke the bed shagging in it, though.

Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
In anger, yes - and by god she was asking for it. Divorcees have put up with less than I did, and I really didn't want scalding tea thrown at me.

Also as part of foreplay, but we'll gloss over that one ahem...

Have you ever sang in front of a large group of people?
Actually, I have. I was in a choir at Senior School and we put on a musical about the Siege of Troy. It was quite an experience.

What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?
Footwear and bum. Don't ask.

What really turns you on?
If I listed them all, I would never meet my WriMo target. In short, one word - Charlie.

What do you order at Starbucks?
Coke and a muffin. Coffee bad.

What is your biggest mistake?
Blimey. If you'd asked me fifteen years ago, I could have given you a list as long as your arm. Now? Perhaps staying with my ex - the one I hit in anger - too long.

Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
Only in the sense of going for a walk when I know my Gout will be bad the next day, or having a drink of milk when I know what it'll do to my stomach, that kind of thing.

Say something totally random about yourself
I can neither confirm or deny the possibility that I might have more children than I think.

Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity?
Yes, but drink and lust were involved, so I can pretty much discount it. Also, I don't look like them.

Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?
I have to.

Did you have braces?
Gawd, no.

Are you comfortable with your height?
I stopped growing at five feet ten inches. Always wanted those two extra inches to make six foot.

What is the most romantic thing someone has ever done for you?
Oh no. I'm not falling into that trap. She reads this, and if I don't get the right answer, she'll kill me.

When do you know it's love?
When she can fart infront of you.

Do you speak any other languages?
French and Spanish, very very badly.

Have you ever been to a tanning salon?
Wild horses wouldn't drag me into one of those places!

What magazines do you read?
Thanks to t'internet, I haven't felt the need to buy a magazine for months. When I do, it's the occasional issue of MicroMart.

Have you ever ridden in a Limo?
A surprising amount of the taxi drivers around here own Mercs, and I got a lift home once in a Jag. That's as close as I've got so far. Thing is, those stretch limos are all plastic and fake leather and I'd really rather not bother if it's all the same to you.

Has anyone you were really close to passed away?
My Granny and Grandad. I was as close to them as anyone ever gets in my family, which isn't very, but enough to still miss them.

Do you watch MTV?
Only when flicking past on the TV. They censor too much.

What's something that really annoys you?
Mediocrity. Platitudes.

What's something you really like?
Syrup sponge pudding with cornish ice cream.

Do you like Michael Jackson?
No. I pity him.

Can you dance?
Well, I think I am.

What's the latest you have ever stayed up?
I've stayed up all day quite a few times. On Tuesday I got just half an hours sleep, if you want a recent example.

Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance to the emergency room?
Not rushed as such - it wasn't all sirens and flashing lights, but I cut my foot open on a glass - it was on the floor and shattered as I accidentally kicked it. Charlie was seven months pregnant and just about had one foot in the bath when I called her to help. She ended up washing the dog's bowl to clean the wound in, and when it was obvious it wasn't going to stop bleeding without stitches, she had to tourniquet it and get me to hospital. Thing is, I was quite calm and actually inspected the wound for shards of glass before I called her. She came in and panicked because she doesn't like the sight of blood. All in all, it was far more comical than it was a desperate emergency.

Do you read these when someone fills them out?
Of course. Voyeurism good!

OK, I'm turning into a WriMo bore.

Just one thing this time: I've started a blog where I'll be posting my efforts as they get done.

Check out Lithaborn's WriMo Tapestry.

And yes, I did spot the overabundance of commas and the glaringly obvious bad spelling. I think I'll pass it through the spell checker tonight before I get on with Chapter Two.

Kudos to whoever gets the name of the song I'm taking my chapter titles from (without using Google).

Well, I've started.

Nineteen hundred words, which amazingly took just under an hour to bang out. With interruptions! Only problem is, I might have got the pacing of the story slightly wrong. It may take a few thousand more words to finish the first story, which would leave me either facing a revised 70,000 word target to get everything told adequately, or scrimping on one or two of the other stories.

Oh I dunno, I'm playing it largely by ear, anyway.

By the way, loving the swish preview Author's Profiles!

What's on the Hedgey mind today?

Well, it's Samhain, that time of year when the veil is thinnest between this life and whatever comes afterwards. My mother lives across the road from a couple of hardcore Goths and they've done their house up with gravestones and skeletons and the like, so she thinks we should be incredibly excited about it too and cover the house in cheesy immature crap like they have.

Sorry, but I grew out of that phase fifteen years ago, mother. Putting the Christmas decorations up is crazy enough.

I have bought the pumpkin though. Allison wants pumpkin pie but it needs loads of ingredients we haven't got and can't afford, so it'll have to be later. We'll be disembowelling it tonight. Photos will be taken, naturally.

* * *

Bethan's adventures in TV land are continuing. This morning Allison woke me up to tell me that Bethan had her TV on so loud it had woken her up. And indeed she had. This was 5:30am. So, I switched it off, told her off and put her to sleep.

Didn't happen. I ended up turning the TV off three times and taking her back to bed five times betwen 5:30 and 7:30. Then I had to give up because I had to get Allison's packed lunch together.

Now it's 11am and I'm beat.

* * *

I think I mentioned a while ago that we're on a diet. The rules are that we can eat as big a breakfast as we want, as big a lunch as we want and a carb and starch-less dinner. No snacking.

We've tweaked the rules slightly by having the odd takeaway, but other that that, it's been really good. We've both lost about two stones (24lb) in the last three months. Excellent!

* * *

We've been having a few problems with our new PC. I couldn't seem to get it working with any kind of stability. The monitor would flicker incessantly, occasionally so violently that it would reboot the computer. Not that's extreme!

We blamed the monitor and changed it. We blamed the extension cable that lets the monitor sit seven feet away from the PC box. We blamed the Operating System. We blamed the drivers. We blamed the pisspoor amount of memory in the box.

Nothing we did changed anything, so I eventually ripped out the graphics card and went back to relying on the onboard graphics.

Works fine now. D'oh!

* * *

More on my NaNoWriMo plans:

The song lines idea is still working for me and I've fleshed out plots for each of the eighteen stories.

I'm going to make it serialised - the seventeen chapters will concentrate on the stories of four or five different individuals. Some of it is autobiographical. I wonder if anyone will guess which bits.

I've been looking back over some of the stuff I used to write and what I see is kind of encouraging.

I have a few five or six page stories which total around 2,500 to 3,000 words which I remember only took me one night to write, so that's encouraging. I also have a story downloaded from the internet which totals something like 150,000 words. The one section - the first ten chapters - is just 50,000 words. It took me days to read it - mostly because it's actually crap, but also because it's very repetetive. It's an occasional series that was presented on a website over a few months and the recaps sometimes takeup half the chapter. But at least I have a physical representation of what I'm trying to achieve. An 85 page Word document. Phew.

And it all kicks off tomorrow. Woah. Ladies and gentlemen, sharpen your pencils.

* * *

I see the knives are out for Blunkett again.

Y'know, it makes me wonder. I can't believe he's any more crooked than any other Whitehall inhabitant, so what is it about him that makes him a permanent target for the knife in that back brigade? Maybe that he speaks his mind? Maybe that he does so well in his jobs that his replacements are variously described as ineffectual, useless and worse? Maybe his guide dog pissed up the wrong leg?

Maybe he is morally bankrupt, financially corrupt and a bit of a git, but what politician can't you say that about? So, given that it's a level playing field morality-wise, how come all these stories are coming out about him? What are all these challenges and calls for resignation all about?

Usually I hate Occam's Razor - the idea that the simplest explanation is the most likely - but in this case, the simple answer - that he's made to many powerful enemies - sounds to me like the right one.

* * *

And finally...

I need to watch Casablanca again. Not telling you why.

A little note for all the UK bloggers who happen by:

Time to put the clocks back, folks.

Okay, so I have a NaNoWriMo plan:

I have a song in mind, which I really like. It has eighteen distinct lines of lyrics.

My plan is to write seventeen individual stories, using each of the lines of the song as the titles of the stories. I have complete synopses for these stories all ready and waiting to be fleshed out.

The eighteenth - the last line of the song - will be the ambitious one. In that story, I will attempt - no, I certainly will knit together the other stories into one coherent and wonderfully schmaltzy and heartwarming finale.

That's the plan, anyway.

If I can make each story at least 3000 words, or five/six pages in MS Word, then I can easily reach and surpass the 50,000 word limit.

3000 words at 35-40 words per minute? Between 75 and 90 uninterrupted minutes every day, and I can be finished by the 20th.

I'm quite liking my odds there, y'know?

Everyone else ready?

Georgey Porgey Pudd'n and Pie
Got re-elected and let people die.

Just thought I'd share that with ya.

No, no, no, no NO!

And I had such high hopes after Friday, too.

Ruth Kelly, education secretary has announced the contents of a White Paper which details yet another shakeup of the education system.

It's nothing really new, but it just goes to show how deeply the government just doesn't get the needs of schools.

In short, the proposals are as follows:

* - All schools can be run by 'trusts', with parents, businesses, faith groups and charities taking part
* - Schools commissioner to oversee setting up of trusts and matching them to schools
* - Councils to become pupils' 'champions'
* - Bus subsidies for poorer children
* - Failing schools to 'federate' with better ones
* - 'Easier' for independent schools to 'opt in' to state sector

The idea of these Trusts bothers me - businesses and faith groups getting involved in the running of a school? Bad Idea. Sure, call on them to provide assistance to the school. God knows, every school could do with a tame, competent firm of builders, or perhaps a technology provider, but when those businesses start deciding the focus of curricula, or what teachers are recruited, or whatever, then that can only lead to the same kind of bias we see in other areas, where decisions aren't based on what would be the best option for the kids, but on who the governors needed to keep happy shudder.

"Councils to become pupils' champions? Don't make me laugh! How, exactly? By hiking the rate of insurance for extracurricular activities? Freezing teachers' pay? making the beaurocracy surrounding any activities the school might want to put on prohibitively complicated?

Subsidised bus fares - C'mon, kids don't want to be reminded how poor they are before they even get through the gates - I still remember the stigma of the kids who had free meals. That was bad enough. Also, the best solution would be to make the local schools better, not to send the kids hiking half way across town to the only good (and bulgingly overpopulated) school in the area.

What's the best way of making sure a good school goes downhill rapidly? Overpack it so the previously decent, achieving teachers suddenly find themselves teaching classes of 70 and unable to cope.

From what I can see, these proposals aren't meant to reinvigorate the education system, they're focussed on making sure every school is diminished to the same level of mediocrity.

What needs to be done is this:

Remove the budget stranglehold most schools face. Let them have whatever money they need to get the place running right.

Enhance the "key workers housing" scheme so that teachers can afford to live where the jobs are.

Stop tweaking the curriculum, or scrap it altogether in favour of the International Baccalaureate.

Don't just rename bad schools, remove the barriers to their success - that is, overworked teachers not having time to spend in pastoral activities with the kids, crushing red tape which frustrates every attempt to try new schemes and idiotic legislation which means teachers can't gain control or respect of the pupils.

There's more, but I doubt you're even following what I've said so far, and I'm always struck with the nagging suspicion that I don't actually know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I've got an idea for NaNoWriMo, it's a good one and I might even make it work. Aside from that, I'm keeping schtum.

Oh, and my driving lesson went averagely. I've almost got the hang of changing gear and turning corners, which isn't bad for two lessons.

It's late, there's no kids around and I've still got a rotten gut. Bliss.

Nytol.

We went to bed at midnight last night.

Bethan had been pestering us quite relentlessly - refusing to go to sleep and coming downstairs for spurious reasons every half-hour.

Now, my longer-term readers may recall some consternation I had over her skill at tuning the TV in her room a while back.

Guess what she was watching when we looked into her room at midnight?

That's right, she was watching The frigging Fog!

So, now guess what happened when I turned it off.

That's right, she said "Don't!"

For a full ten points, try and guess what kind of sleep she got afterwards.

Correctamundo.

Nightmares.

At least until 4am when I gave in and let her sleep in with me for a couple of hours.

In all, I got two hours sleep. To be honest, that's about the average.

On the upside, I've just questioned her about watching TV at night - she says she won't be doing it again. No shit!

In other news, Allison's been down in the dumps all weekend, I've got agonising indigestion and a driving lesson at midday and Charlie's gone back to bed till half ten.

So all is joy and rapture chez Hedgey.

Oh yeah, and if I'm left alone for a few minutes in the depths of night some time soon (which doesn't seem particularly likely), I might just try and prepare for NaNoWriMo. If not, I'll just have to wing it and either call it Lit Fic or a Kerouac-esque stream of consciousness, or a compilation of whatever 2000 word story I can dream up during each day.

Burned out cars, riot police on the streets, newsflashes on all the news channels.

Lozells has kicked off again.

It's a rather scary suburb some six miles from where I live and to be honest, it's not somewhere I've been - I've travelled through it and seen the scars of the last riots, in 1985, but I've never had reason or inclination to go there.

Y'see there's a high population of gangs in the area - the gangs that were responsible for the driveby shooting of a couple of teenage girls last New Year. And yesterday a woman was attacked. There was a hastily arranged public meeting, which led to racially - and gang - motivated rioting, the death of at least one person and injuries galore.

To be honest, it could have been worse. And it probably will be in the weeks to come as vendettas are repaid quietly and bloodily.

Sometimes it's wonderful fun living here.