It's amateur review time again...

Long-time readers (of which there are certainly three) will recall my shortlived attempts to review a number of chart-topping albums some time back. Well, it just so happens that I've been frittering some of my extra cash on a few more, so here goes again:

First up is the record breaker. Was I one of those 363,735 people who got this album in it's first week of release? God knows. I just popped in and picked it up as I'd heard the buzz. So far it's come round twice on my player and it's kinda growing on me. Can't for the life of me work out why it's gone ballistic like it has, but there's some good, funny, catchy tunes on the album: "Mardy Bum" has to be my favourite. And you have to give some kudos to someone who rhymes "ford Mondeo" and "Say Owt'".

The Editors.

Well.

I thought I'd heard this before, but I couldn't find my Menswear album, so I can't say for sure. The first time this came round on the player,I managed three tracks before skipping to the next album. Samey, miserable old hat. I want my fiver back.

Ordinary Boys are seeing the fruits of their lead singers' efforts to pull Paris Travelodge in the Big Brother house.

Fair play to them, but you can read what you like into the fact that I couldn't tell when the Hard-fi album finished and this one started. Guitary, poppy, nothing special. It's the kind of thing I like, but it's not gonna shake the world really, is it?

Usually, I'm not drawn to this kind of thing, but to be honest the singer intrigues me. I like the breathy style she uses, and her elegant look is a refreshing change. Of course I like "Ooh la la", and there's maybe another couple of decent tracks on the album, but I don't think it'll last too long before going into storage, really.



See Ordinary Boys. Much the same fare, really. Inoffensive jangly stuff.

Auricular Vermitude

For your listening pleasure, those Earworms are now happily residing at Swiss Toni's place. Thanks Swiss! Bad news about your tickets, that's bang out of order!

And now folks, as my day started at 5am with a little girl that wouldn't go back to sleep and has so far continued to include much shouting and a burned pizza that seems to have much more symbolic importance than I ever imagined bacon, cheese, tomato and mushroom on bread could ever posess, I shall bid you adieu and bon nuit.

Sorry, had nothing useful to say lately...

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee
That mordiously hath bitled out
Its earted jurtles
Into a rancid festering
Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts
And living glupules frart and slipulate
Like jowling meated liverslime
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon
See if I don't.

Dammit...dammit!

Why can't the UK and US air Battlestar Galactica at the same time, like they did with the first season??

If they did, I could bemoan the hideously executed supreme Shark Jumping event I've just witnessed!

Aargh! Why?!

Now I've got to watch the latest episode all over again with the commentary synched in so that I can wait to hear whatever lame-ass reason Ron Moore's got for not doing what he damn well should have done!

Aiko Aiko ay-yay...

As those of you who read my comments will know, I've been asked by Swiss Toni to contribute my selections to his compelling Earworms collection.

Well, I just emailed my finished column to him. God only knows how I'm supposed to follow Graham's impassioned contribution, but hopefully you'll find some interesting and surprising tunes on my list, which I think will be published on Friday...or at least, some time next week...

Speeeeed...

I just phoned Telewest and pointed out how we'd dumped our 2Mb ADSL in October on the promise of an upgrade that hasn't happened to this day.

After calmly pointing out that I was feeling cheated, frustrated, kept in the dark and other choice negativities, I was put on hold.

When the Customer service bod came back to me, he offered a free temporary upgrade, with the potential systemwide upgrade due any day now, it means that for a while we may have 10Mb broadband for £15 per month.

Now that's what I call a result!

What's on my mind tonight?

Firstly, the fifth season of Kiefer Sutherland's show 24 started with a bang last night. And I have to admit to being just a mite underwhelmed. With each successive season the writers are relying on larger and more spectacular hooks to bring us into the show, stretching the "real time" structure of the show to its limits. Unfortunately, this time they've stretched that limit a little too far. It's going to be a couple of months beforeanyone over here gets to seethe series over here, so I won't go into specifics, but it's almost impossible to imagine that the events so far fit comfortably into the timeframe available. It shouldn't be a shock toanyone that watched season 4's final episode that this season appears to be focussing on yet another bad guy pulling out all the stops to get to Sutherland's character, Jack Bauer. But I fail to see why this invariably has to include trying to bring down the government. Once, I could accept - in season 3 a former colleague of Bauer's is recruited by an anti-american terror cell and he uses their influence to track down Bauer, via his friend, the President - but now someone else is seeming to do the same thing. Too much. I'm going to keepon watching, but it'd betterget a little more on track and back to the well plotted sequences we saw upto season 3. As an aside, Manny Coto, the man who nearly saved Startrek Enterprise is now an executive producer, so we'll see how things pan out with some pedigree new blood onboard.

Second, time for a bit of nostalgia. Eagle eyed bloggers and newshounds may recall some discussion last month about how America defines the word "torture" - now when the stories broke about how prisoners were being shipped to other countries, for whatever reason, the newswires went a bit mad...

But to this old hippie there was no sense of surprise. Instead, a sense of deja vu. Look at this article from New Years' Eve '04 that I linked to in this post just two days later. Told you it'd be worth keeping an eye on, didn't I?

And finally - I've been reloading my MP3 player after getting bored of having Sgt Pepper, Rubber Soul, Revolver and the White Album on there. I've gone for a completely different soundtrack. Now I have half of the first phase of the Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy radio series, a select few episodes of the Goon Show, including one whose title may spark a little bit of interest in a couple of my readers - an episode entitled "Ned's Atomic Dustbin" - and an episode of "The Navy Lark" which featured some grand old names such as Jon Pertwee, Leslie Philips and a very young but utterly unmistakable Ronnie Barker. A bit of class for my bus hopping adventures.

That's all for now. Fuck me it's late.

I am a leaf on the wind, see me soar...

There's a bit of non-religious fervor happening in various places around the blogosphere.

I'd spout on, but I've got two episodes of "24" to watch, then I'm going to bed.

Let's wrap the whole thing up in a neat package by remembering that we live in the most secular country in the world and should view religion as the minority activity it is.

More later, when I can be bothered. I've been saying what I'm planning to write for most of my life - adult and child - and I have to work myself up to face the banality of it all.

Arses...

The RSS feed is fixed. Just don't look too closely at the URL - this blog is being hosted on the webspace of one of my other projects (which is going a little slow, so has plenty of unused server space and bandwidth).

Tsk, naughty me.

We apologise for the incovenience...

Despite having two weeks' notice,and knowing precisely whatIwas going to do about it, Telewest decided to deal with our outstanding bill not by giving me two extra days to stick the fifty quid in the account, but by cutting us off completely and charging us a tenner for the privilege.

Fuckers. Should have paid the bloody BT bill and stuck with my nice 2meg ADSL.

Anyway, I'm back on now and I can tell you, it's more than a little annoying when all you can do is listen to music and play games.

Those who can't...

Today I made the decision to train to become a teacher.

For about the millionth time.

OK, that's not strictly accurate. Today I made the first positive and decisive step towards becoming a teacher. I started the enrolment process which will get me onto a University access course which will, in 18 months' time mean that I am qualified and prepared enough to go back to Uni and study for a PGCE.

I'm qualified enough now, but having been totally out of the loop for far too long, I made the decision to take an extra year to get my bearings, slip back into the worlds of study and work and knuckle down to the career I desperately need.

Now, the question is "Why on earth would anyone want to be a teacher in this day and age?"

It's about the only job I can see myself being comfortable in - despite the bad pay, silly hours, unpaid overtime, crippling red tape, a constantly changing curriculum and all that. I've taught before and have never felt more like I just fitted.

Over the years, I've worked as a Mobile Phone supplier, Barman, Filing Clerk, Secretary and Network Technician to name a few and I've never really felt like it was the thing I could do for the rest of my life. Since the age of sixteen, I've been convinced that education is really the only industry for me. Informally, I've taught on numerous occasions. Formally, I've taught for just a few days, but they were the most fulfilling few days of my career. I did well and I knew I'd achieved something. The class worked well and produced good results and that was down to my skill. I felt alive, important, in control. I felt like I was making just a little difference to these people's lives and helping them to achieve something and that gave me a rush like nothing else.

Let me tell you a story:

From the age of six to nineteen I was part of the Boys' Brigade at my local church. I made some good friends and built up relationships that last to this day. I also earned a lot of respect and worked my way through the ranks, eventually reaching the rank of Staff Sergeant, which was the highest rank I could achieve without formally joining the membership of the church, being baptised and recieving my commission (The Boys' Brigade is run on a loosely military structure, with Commissioned and Non-Commissioned officers).

During my time as an NCO, I was in charge of the younger Boys in the Brigade, ranging in age from 10 to 17 and in number from three or four to about a dozen.

Together with my C.O.'s, we worked towards instilling the Boys with a sense of discipline, respect and hopefully provided a positive role model in their lives.

As is the case with teenagers, a good number of them drifted away over the years and we heard little more about them.

Until one day I saw, on the cover of the local paper, a face I remembered. He was being praised for his actions in defending a pensioner from a mugging and apprehending the mugger. The article made mention of the time he'd spent in the Boys' Brigade, and how it had had a great influence on his life.

And for one glowing moment that will stay with me forever, I realised that one of the people who'd acted as a mentor and given him that terrific start in life was me.

It is the world's greatest feeling to feel proud of someone whose life you've helped mould. To say that my heart bursts with pride at this young man's actions is no understatement.

Of course my kids make me proud, extremely proud, but this is something that happened a long time before I even imagined I would ever be a parent. This was me influencing a peer to do good deeds and be a good person.

I'm not conceited enough to take all the credit. He comes from a good family and I have no doubt that his good nature comes from them, but the very thought that I might have had just that very small influence on his choice to be a good person is overwhelmingly incredible.

And it's this that drives my desire to teach. The chance to be responsible for the achievements of all those young people. To help them acquire the tools to make something wonderful of their lives. To be able to look back and know that I helped them achieve whatever successes they have. That motivates me to be the best teacher I can be.

I need a little time...

With Charlie at College starting her reflexology course tonight (she qualified as a professional aromatherapist in December and now has letters after her name!) and the kids in bed, I had hoped for some quality blogging time. No such luck.

Instead, I have a constant stream of stomping fairy elephants coming downstairs telling me what their sister's doing wrong now. Gah!

Well, it's kicking up a gale outside, the dog's been through the rubbish and sicked up piles of rancid chicken, the idiot, and there's absolutely nothing of any value on the TV.

So my thoughts drift to how we can fill up the year with interesting things. There's a holiday to plan, birthdays spread liberally through the year (one falling on Easter Day, no less), there's our ninth anniversary in a couple of days time, there's a job to find, a new school to prepare for, bills to pay off, college courses to sign up for, social lives to rebuild...

It's quite daunting really. Much easier to sit here and read blogs and news sites, but we need to face up to our challenges.

For the holiday, there's three possibilities - a Gite, North Wales or East Yorkshire. Each has it's merits - neither of us has ever been abroad, so having a week or two in a little Gite in Normandy would be a total thrill. I grew up holidaying in North Wales and know the area pretty well. Haven't been back there in maybe 15 years, so I'm eager to reacquaint myself. Or there's the familiar option of East Yorkshire. We've been there twice times now and loved each time, but due to being stuck with public transport, we haven't been able to really explore. With any luck, I'll be driving this year, so we can get out and about and go to all the places we've been wanting to go.

Idon't know how to end this post. I was going to go into detail about all the decisions we've got to make this year, but I can't do it without getting into subjects I shy away from, like Charlie's past and my frustrations and what we've rowed about and specifics about our lives that I feel would be a step too far.

On the other hand, the blogs I read whose authors do share their most intimate feelings with the world tend to be showing mega hits, so I'm torn. Maybe it'd be cathartic to just bring everything into the wide open spaces of the net. Maybe it would spark such blistering rows that it'd be the end of our relationship. So many possibilities.

How much do you think you know about me? Could you answer quiz questions about me and my life? Would you like to hear more about the real reasons I don't like my father in law, or why my family's not close-knit, or my efforts to track down my Thai ancestors and whether or not my great grandfather was royalty? Do you want me to be more open about why we've spent the last six years in social isolation?

How do you percieve my style of blogging? Am I just an article and soapbox blogger? Do I share my life with you? What are my tastes in music or clothing? What hobbies do I have?

If you can't answer those questions and you've had a good look through my archives or (god forbid) you've been reading for a while, I must ask myself why you can't answer those questions. Do I want to remain the Man of Mystery?

Oh I don't bloody know. What do you want to know?

I'm getting more and more frustrated by people who bleat on interminably about how terrible it is that the Democratic system we're supposed to live under is breaking down.

Pedantry is all very well, but the first thing it is is annoying. We do not live in a Democracy, no matter what they tell you. We do not live in America, no matter how much it might feel like it. We do live in a society run by big business and self-serving beaurocrats. Our government is a powerless figurehead designed to portray the unacceptible face of Democracy so that we don't question who holds the real power.

Ack! There's so much more I want to say. I really want to be lucid on this point, but I have to stop the kid from destroying the house and I really don't want to be writing this post for the entire afternoon.

It's not paranoia, it's being able to see the wood for the trees. Bollocks to Whitehall, they don't run the world. The Man runs the world and I don't answer to the FUCKING Man, OK??

When you gotta go...

Much more interesting than Big Brother has been the downfall of Charles Kennedy.

I've laughed along with everyone else over the months at the teasing suggestions that Kennedy had a drink problem, I watched with fascination as he admitted it with such dignity that he left himself no choich but to resign or face immediate re-election.

And all along, I couldn't help wondering what the big deal was. Arguably the best Prime Minister we've had (Winston Churchill) was a interminable drunk. Each generation after Churchill has had its' share of high profile drunks in power, so what's the problem with Kennedy?

Perhaps that he was stuck in third place, perhaps that the face of British politics is gradually changing into an organisation that doesn't include him, perhaps that the media has become so intolerant of any personal quirks or problems that the slightest admission of weakness is like a green light to every assassin on Fleet Street.

Don't believe the hype...

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone why I haven't been watching this year's Celebrity Big Brother.

What is it that comes beneath Z-list in celebrity stakes? Whatever it is, Endemol have filled the house with them this time:

Five people I've never heard of (one because she's not actually famous), three complete has-been's, two freaks...and George Galloway.

A bona-fide Member of Parliament. They've actually outdone themselves after last summer's Derek, the black tory speechwriter. I'm looking forward to seeing Gordon Brown on the next edition of "I'm a Celebrity..."

Well, despite not watching it, I've been keeping up with the news from the house - and the news surrounding the house - and it seems that Galloway's entry has caused quite a stir. Well, according to the press - the LABOUR press - it's caused a stir. According to his opponent at the General Election, he's a self-serving egotist. According to some unheard-of Labour frontbencher, he's abandoning his constituents.

Out of interest, how many months did Tony Blair spend abroad last year? How often did he appear on the floor of the house? Are there no politicians that have spent less time in the house? I wonder. Yes, Galloway's outspoken. Yes, he's obnoxious. Yes, he's unpleasant. But exactly how does that single him out?

So he met Saddam Hussein. Who didn't?

So he didn't want the Iraq invasion to take place. Doesn't that make him a good guy?

There's a lot of hypocrisy and media manipulation spinning around right now. We need to look through the hype.

Lorem ipsum can't be arsedum...

Stupid bloody cold. It won't go away! I got some decongestant tablets, like the nurse said and yes, they did make a difference. My ears clicked like crazy all day and I could hear properly again at last, so I said to myself "that's the end of it" and vowed not to have any more.

Then I woke up half deaf again the next day. Fucker.

Thing is, now I'm feeling uncharacteristically low, drowsy, achy, sometimes when I blink, I open my eyes and everything's blurred or I'm seeing double. But in my mind, there's noting wrong with me because I can still get up, potter around the house, make everyones' dinner, fetch the kids from school, handle business phone calls - you know, the run of the mill stuff that I usually can't do when I'm all flu'd up.

So I'm fine - it's just that I've got all this misery and achiness to deal with. Added to that, something's going on in my left upper gum where there seems to be some pressure on one of my molars. I'm assuming there's a wisdom tooth coming through. When I was fifteen, I had an X-ray at the dentist's and they said all four of my wisdom teeth would come through with no problem, but this one's forcing the teeth in front of it forward (which is OK because I've got a convenient gap from a previous extraction), which means I've got all these odd sensations in my jaw.

I haven't been able to concentrate properly lately, either. Thoughts seem to leak out of my head like water through a colander. I start on a subject, trail off after about three seconds, then have to say "forget it" because...I have. It's pissing me off. I know it's this bloody cold that's doing it to me. It's put me in this realy black mood which I just want to snap out of because I'm just not like that. I can't be. There's too much to keep in the air. I have to keep the kids from trashing the house, Ihave to rein in the expenses so we can afford the necessities, I have to cope with phone calls from parents which take up our full attention for what could be three hours at a time, and I have to work out how I'm going to fit in a college course and a job around the increasingly full week while ensuring Charlie has as few parental duties to perform as possible. It's a juggling act, and I'm shit at juggling.

I want to keep rambling on for ages about god only knows what, but I really can't be arsed. It's this black mood settling over me for the night. Also, this seat feels saggier than usual, I have things to do before I go to bed and I feel like what I want to do is just bash the keyboard and see long strings of totally random characters fill the screen.

Ah well, tomorrow's nearly here. Time to hit the hay. Maybe things will look AND sound a little clearer then.

It's oh so quiet...

In a mere six hours' time, both kids will be back at school.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.

Adult conversation! Grown up telly! We can tidy up and not have a little imp follow us round destroying everything again!

Oh, and the decorations are coming down. Christmas is officially over. So now we can get on with work and college and dealing with psychological problems and the daily grind of watching January turn into April before we've had time to draw breath.

Sigh... Onward and upward...

I am the morning DJ...

A couple of the blogs I usually read have published their (and their friend's) favourite music of the year. Would that I could do something similar, but really I haven't been too impressed by anything I've heard chart-wise this year.

So instead of a list of songs I have been listening to, how about I regale you with some oddments from the tracklists that regularly make their way onto the ole' MP3 player?

Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols
Kandy Pop - Bis
Bullet in the head - Rage Against the Machine
Sunshine of your love, Crossroads - Cream
S & M - Nekromantix
Oh Bondage, Up Yours - X-Ray Spex
Blind - Korn
Ratamahatta - Sepultura
Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper (whole albums) - The Beatles

Also appearing are various Ska and Pop acts such as Desmond Dekker and Madeline Peyroux, and you can bet K T Tunstall, the Beach Boys and quite a few Jazz and Blues artists will find their way into the ranks by the end of the year.

The only problem I'm going to face is that I sometimes find music with no chatter or commentary or at least without a break to be a bit...well...monotonous, which is why I've been favouring the radio through my Nokia over the past year or so. To this end, I will most likely be adding the odd podcast from the likes of Lostcasts, Ricky Gervais, Podnography or (gasp shock horror!) Chris Evans.

All in all, a nice eclectic mix of stuff.

Any recommendations - as long as it's not wrist-slitting stuff like Coldplay or that whiny bloke who likes stripping off and jumping off cliffs - gladly accepted.

Joy is in the ears that hear*

This bloody cold's left me half deaf. Isn't that annoying?

Mind you, it's less annoying than what I originally thought - that I'd perforated my eardrum listening to Metallica, Pantera, Machine Head and Fear Factory waaay too loud for four straight hours on Friday.

According to NHS Direct, I'm to invest in some decongestant medicine and avoid loud noises for a couple of days. Should be easy, the kids go back to school on Wednesday and Thursday.

In other news, I lost my wallet on Saturday, which means my coveted Driving License now has to be replaced, along with the usual round of Bank cards and stuff. Could have done with the £25 I had in there, too. Good start to the year, don't you think?

(* - I've started putting titles to my posts, after many months of not bothering. To avoid having clever dicks trying to pinpoint where the titles may have come from, you can expect most of them to come from pre-21st century songs or books I've read. Thank you, carry on...)

Back in the old routine

My monitor broke this morning, so I've been forced onto our backup fifteen incher, which means I have to view everything in much lower resolution than I'm used to. As a result of this, I discovered the nice christmassy white template looks absolutely pants at 1024x768 screen resoultion, so I'm sticking the old red & grey template back on, which looks much better.

Oh, one day I swear I'll just leave it alone and be happy.





Nah...

Happy New Year!

We've been having a bit of an Alien marathon after being tipped off about the Quadrilogy 9-disc boxset being on offer at Tesco's for the ridiculous price of £23.

We've also polished off a bottle of rather nice Asti and had a couple of belters out of my Jim Beam stash.

So I'm just going to say Happy New Year from all at Lithaborn Towers and we wish you all the best in the next twelve months!