Here's an article I wrote for the Times Educational Supplement Online a couple of years ago. I just discovered it when doing the narcissistic google search for my name. It turned up on a teaching resource site All I can imagine is that it struck a nerve. Quite chuffed about that!

In my second year of Senior school, I remember one of my teachers telling us that he would be teaching differently from then on, that we would be given “Occasional Days” off, on an occasional Monday so that the new system of examinations, GCSE’s could be prepared for. I remember a very real shift in the emphasis of their teaching from rote repetition of facts and figures, from the practised and somewhat staid imparting of rules, to a more hectic, unfamiliar Hands-On approach, which was most evident in my English and Science lessons. At that point, I’d had two years of schooling under the GCE system and had done well. My Junior schooling had prepared me well for the “Big School” and I felt content under the system that had, for 30 years or so, been the recognised system: you got your O levels, if you were lucky or clever enough, you went on to A levels and eventually on to a Degree, though at the age of 14, I had trouble imagining getting into College, let alone the hallowed halls of University.

Then one day, I think in the Summer term of my Second year, June 1986, we were told the news that would in turns elate and frustrate us, that we would be the second year of students to sit the new style GCSE exams. I admit at the time I didn’t like the name and couldn’t see the point in restructuring the whole system - I couldn’t see the reason for altering a proven, worthwhile and respected qualification. Teachers from then on, especially in the first year of the new curriculum, became more and more hectic in their preparations, in their teaching style. Well loved methods of teaching were abandoned in favour of hastily prepared “Question and answer” type sessions where we were expected to read a passage and debate it, while we had been made aware that the teacher would be grading us on our participation. For a shy, mildly spoken 14-15 year-old, it became apparent that his grades would fall in favour of the loudmouthed, show-offish, bully types. It became a regular occurrence for us to receive letters at morning registration time telling us that we had a one-day holiday the following Monday for the purposes of Teacher Training, something that in two years, and I suspect for a good few years previously, had been all but unheard-of, especially in our modestly sized, 400 strong school in the suburbs of Birmingham.

Maths lessons became, conversely, less “Hands-On”, with teachers doling out new handbooks as we shuffled into the room and slouching at their desk while we performed three months of trigonometry, three months of fraction work, three months of calculus and – horror of horrors – three months of differential equations. While their professionalism could never be brought into question, their love of the job began to waver noticeably.

It was difficult to see how much this change altered the attitudes and enthusiasm of the teaching staff from our point of view, 96 teenage hormone packed boys who became increasingly aware of their position as government Guinea Pigs, perhaps more so than the year above us, who would be the first to sit these exams, because we would be the first year to be taught the new syllabus from their “Options” onwards, when, in the opinion of our school, the teaching really began, we would be the first year where results would be compared to other GCSE results, where league tables of schools were already being discussed in Whitehall, where we would go into the workplace facing the aftermath of the confusion over this new system, no longer GCE A-C, or CSE 1-5 but this baffling A-G scoring system, where one would be faced with the daunting and enviable task of explaining to recruiting staff, heads of departments and recruitment consultants that it wasn’t a CSE C grade, which was rather bad, but it was a G-CSE C grade which amounted to a GCE pass. This is something we all had to contemplate, and we were not getting reassurances we needed from Government that these results, our final grades would be worthwhile qualifications that would be taken seriously by employers after school, and indeed a certain number of my friends and peers did face discouraging results after gaining good exam scores, as employers simply did not accept the calibre of the new system.

As the years droned by, “Occasional Days” or “Baker Days” after Education Secretary Kenneth Baker under whom the GCSE’s were established and implemented became more and more frequent. Occurring at least once a month, and followed each time by newly despondent haggard looks on our teacher’s faces. After two and a half years teaching us Physics, one of our teachers went so far as to leave on health grounds, to be replaced by a wonderful inner-city teacher who taught us the entire syllabus in three months and saved at least one class from failure. It was obvious that this man was not coping with the change in emphasis and the undermining of his subject, one that he’d taught, presumably for at least two decades. It was only two years after his departure that we began to see the integration and further denigration of the sciences and “Dual Certification” introduced, whereby the study of Physics, Electronics, English and Biology became, instead of separate, specialised subjects, one general and unsatisfying mess of a subject, with chameleon-esque course titles which would baffle parents for years to come.

Our mock exams approached with trepidation not just from us but our teachers. This would be the first time they would be able to prepare a group of students thoroughly for the tests ahead, and we were aware of it. An undercurrent of dissatisfaction and “make-do” was obvious as we sat cobbled together pieces of previous exam papers in an attempt, with only one year’s experience, to prepare us for the exams we would sit in one month’s time, then again “for real” in another six months.

My grades eventually arrived, whilst I was on holiday, in late August. To my dismay, and over a background of tumultuous praise and, I suppose Politicians Spin that the GCSE’s had again shown an improved standard of excellence, with 85% or some such number attaining some grade or other under the new exam structure, I learned that I had only gained three usable grades, and had, for some unfathomable reason, failed Maths by one grade (But it was all right, I had passed ALL my GCSE’s, albeit with four D’s (CSE grade 2) and a mortifying G (CSE grade 5)), so there followed the inevitable and rather easy Resit Year at Sixth Form College, where I quite satisfyingly breezed to a C in Maths and to a B in French, a subject I was new to and at which none of my year at Senior School had gained more than a C. Armed with my five good GCSE’s (GCE’s) I discovered that these qualifications bore far less weight than they did a year previously, as the country had hit yet another depression and jobs were not just scarce but unbelievably rare, with one source quoting that at least 200 people were applying for each and every job on the market, with even slightly imperfect applications and Curricula Vitas becoming bin-fodder without so much as a second glance. It was an employers’ market and there was no place for a shy 17 year old with a vast naiveté of the world of work.

So I sat A levels.

Meanwhile, my younger sister began studying and sitting her GCSE’s some three years after me. By then more Training Days were being sat, Maths teaching had joined the ranks of the ridiculous with coursework being set and agonised over by teachers and pupils who together couldn’t figure out what the coursework was supposed to achieve. I remember sitting with friends of mine who had been set Maths coursework, which involved dividing a field of sheep into units with certain lengths of fencing, and having read the aims of the coursework, and the instructions, coming away truly and thoroughly baffled, with no more clue of how to proceed than, I had been informed, the teacher had.

Shortly after completing my A levels, I fund myself, like so many others at the time, on the dole. Collecting my Income Support, once a fortnight and waiting the three months until the dull and pointless Restart Interview, where you would be coached, finally, on how to construct a C.V. that someone might actually read. A job did come to me through the Interview, albeit a month of Temping for an insurance firm that believed that Asbestos was a healthy atmosphere to keep its workers in.

As can be imagined, between the ages of 20 and 25, heavily involved with clubs, pubs, girlfriends and bedsits, my knowledge of the secondary education system becomes somewhat diminished, and the tidbits I have gleaned in that time lead me to believe that Teacher Training days became a fortnightly event, even occurring once a week. That new schemes, incentives and pressures were being piled, almost weekly on already emotionally and professionally bruised teachers. It became a recurring news headline that once again the Government planned a review and alteration to the system of teaching one subject or another. Each time, as in my school days, there would be images of haggard teachers, buckling under the strain of having to rethink their lesson plans to fit in with new practises and guidelines as handed down from the great LEA in the sky. From 1986, teachers have not been left alone, the profession becoming more and more about paperwork and meetings and less and less about teaching and providing social skills. Good teachers these days have to surf waves of red tape and tiptoe around international childrens’ rights laws, to the extent that a teacher has become barely more than a target and not the figure of respect that they need to be in order to do their jobs.

These days a teachers lot is certainly not a happy one, with danger and inco-operation classroom norms. Traditional methods of controlling a classroom, including the ability to exclude disruptive students are being frowned upon from the ultra-PC powers that be. Teachers have also to learn to tread the ever-shifting sands of the curriculum changes, new memos and edicts being forced on overworked staff on a far too regular basis. Teaching is definitely NOT the career it used to be.

So why do I want to follow that career? Why in gods name would I want to be subjected to the demoralising undermining of my hard-won respect? Why would I want to force unwanted knowledge down uncaring gullets? Why would I want to sit up for ¾ of the night revising class schedules and re-marking term papers in accordance with the guideline memo from the EU that got Emailed to me during Eastenders? Why would I want to be complaining to the unions once a week about how I can’t do my job under these conditions, that I need more money for the work I’m expected to do, that I’ve destroyed my social life, for no reward so that a bunch of the ungrateful children can trampoline or play football until 8 at night? Does job satisfaction really take any part in a modern, 21st century Teachers working life?

The answer is, of course that I have no idea. Education is the one job I have any protracted experience of. Education is the one job I feel that I could make a difference in. Education, teaching is the one area of skill where I feel that I have any aptitude at all. I’ve given short lectures, successfully. I’ve given practical demonstrations and helped difficult students to understand simple problems. I’ve sat in a classroom and had nothing to do because my opening comments have been good enough to settle the class down to a productive and satisfying day’s work. I’ve made class schedules and kept to them. I’ve been a teacher, even for the shortest while and I know I enjoyed it, I know I can do it and I know I can be good at it. I also know it’s the only damn job I have any chance of being any good at.

Also, I want to make a difference to the education system. A bold statement indeed. I want to make Whitehall sit up and take notice of the plight of our profession. I want a better working life for these hardworking, underpaid punchbags that we call teachers. For many years, since the introduction of the GCSE system it has been obvious to me that the revisions being constantly made to the curriculum, that each fine tune and re-working makes teachers jobs more and more difficult, that it is becoming glaringly obvious that any system that has so many flaws in it as to need constant reappraisal is not fit to be taught to our youth. At least that is what non-participants would surmise. That is what the outsider must be thinking – there’s something wrong if the system needs constant revision.

This is simply not the case. GCSEs DO work, and they work well, just as they are. It’s true that the education system pre-1986 was in a rut; it’s true that the teaching styles used for O levels were outdated and were in need of an overhaul. But 15 years of constant overhaul has murdered the profession to the point where the government has to offer sweeteners and higher education incentives to would-be teachers. Disillusionment, the undermining of and inability to enforce discipline and the constant monitoring and revision of the education system and of individual syllabuses are the major causes of teacher dissatisfaction at this moment in time. So my message to the powers that be, a simple message that would have profound affects on the working lives of the teachers and the learning lives of the students, is this:

Stop analysing.

Another study of how the subject can be taught is simply not needed. One thing we MUST learn from O level days is that the longer we stay with a certain system, the better teachers get at teaching it, the better the students get taught and the more confident teachers get. Confidence is at an all-time low, faith in the system is at an all-time low, and it can all stop, it can all be turned around if you just stop mucking about with the curriculum. Once a decade is fine. Once every five years is perhaps more reasonable. Once a year or once a month is shattering the profession. Let the poor sods do their job and stop lumbering them with more and more rules to adhere to, stop thrusting new angles and new goals at them, stop introducing new exams and new streaming methods. Let these people do their jobs.

To the supposed New Government, I would say this: Get the beaurocrats out of the classroom and let the Teachers teach.

Mark "lost in the desert" Thatcher has been accused of trying to take over Equatorial Guinea.

Equatorial Guinea has responded, saying "We're not that desperate, thanks"

Tell me it's not true!

Star Wars creator George Lucas could be poised to make three sequels to the original space opera trilogy, according to insiders at Lucasfilm.

According to fan site Theforce.net, employees at Lucas's company Industrial Light and Magic have all been made to sign non-disclosure agreements to promise not to talk about the possibility of episode's seven, eight and nine being made.

Now industry insiders are predicting the director will make the follow-ups, which pick up where 1983's Return of the Jedi left off, despite insisting he would never be lured into filming them.

A posting on the site says, "You didn't hear this from me, but you might be curious as to why everyone at ILM just signed NDA's saying that they will not discuss Star Wars episodes 7, 8, or 9.

"Since they're not being made, why the NDA's? Of course, since when has Lucas been consistent?"

This is my mum:

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

(Jenny Joseph, 1961)

Get this: Eight pixels cost Microsoft millions!

Just when the antitrust case went in sleeping mode, Microsoft managed to get into yet another fiasco. This time the software giant is hit by information misrepresentation or shall we say goof up.

The lack of multicultural savvy attitude cost the software giant millions of dollars.

Microsoft products have been banned in some of the biggest markets, including India because of eight wrongly colored pixels, a bad choice of music and a bad English-to-Spanish dictionary.

Tom Edwards, head of Microsoft's geopolitical strategy team told a conference in Glasgow, how one of the biggest companies in the world managed to offend one of the biggest countries in the world with a software slip-up, CNet Asia reported.

When coloring in 800,000 pixels on a map of India, Microsoft colored eight of them a different shade of green to represent the disputed Kashmiri territory. The difference in greens meant Kashmir was shown as non-Indian, and the product was promptly banned in India. Microsoft was left to recall all 200,000 copies of the offending Windows 95 operating system software to try and heal the diplomatic wounds. "It cost millions," Edwards said.

If this was not enough, Microsoft used chanting of the Koran used as a soundtrack for a computer game, which led to great offence to the Saudi Arabia government. The company later issued a new version of the game without the chanting, while keeping the previous editions in circulation because US staff thought the slip wouldn't be spotted, but the Saudi government banned the game and demanded an apology. The game was then withdrawn.

The software giant managed to further offend the Saudis by creating another game in which Muslim warriors turned churches into mosques. That game was also withdrawn.

Microsoft has also managed to upset women and entire countries. A Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch," because of an unfortunate error in translation.

Microsoft has also seen its unfortunate style of diplomacy have an effect in Korea, Kurdistan, Uruguay and to China--where a cartographical dispute saw Chinese employees hauled in front of the government.

Edwards said that staff members are now sent on geography courses to try to avoid such mishaps. "Some of our employees, however bright they may be, have only a hazy idea about the rest of the world," he said.

Letdown of the weekend:

Jeepers Creepers

I had been sort of looking forward to having a look at this film. I normally can't bear horror flicks, having watched far too many "the making of..." documentaries to take any of them seriously. But I'd given myself a task of at least giving the benefit of the doubt to the recent revival of the genre with films like "Urban Legend", "Scream" and the like. I quite like a few of them, even.

But this film...

I spent the whole time ranting at the screen. The leading male has a facial range equal only to Keanu Reeves - that is, one expression. The girl, while displaying some redeeming qualities is not much more than a cliche. There's the usual self referential in-jokes and something at the end that the reviewers on IMDB seem to think is a shocking twist. I was reading the titles waiting for the twist to appear. I mean, what kinda twist is this: "Buffy"-extra-monster-bloke sniffs both siblings, "buffy"-extra-monster-bloke chooses the lad, "buffy"-extra-monster-bloke flys off and kills the lad. What did I miss? It was funnily ironic that this guy's one expression was wide-eyed cartoon horror and he ends up with big gaping holes where those eyes used to be.

Although not quite as bad as Ven Helsing, this film is a terrible failiure.

Biggest Waste of Bandwidth this Weekend:

School of Rock

God I tried to like it. Anyone who's watched "Spinal Tap" is probably supposed to adore this film. Well, I didn't and I make no apologies. Jack Black, the lead singer of Tenacious D and the lead in the film comes across as nothing more than a sad loser desparately trying to "keep the dream alive" despite being - let's face it - delusional and embarrasing.

The feeble attempts at a morality tale fell thoroughly flat, the abortive semi-romance with the headmistress of the school felt like an embarrassed nod to the hollywood executives demands for "something for the chicks" and the whole central plot seemed heavily false and forced.

This is a film which simply does not satisfy. I caught myself huffing impatiently as laboured scene after laboured scene was scraped over my retinae. Like the music, it's not big and it's not clever. While I like Tenacious D's music, I do hope Jack Black doesn't get back to the silver screen again.

I've been downloading a few albums I've been fascinated by but never got around to buying today:

• Led Zep's greatest hits
• Cream's greatest hits
• Nirvana's back catalogue
• Pantera's back catalogue
• Three volumes of Air Guitar classics

Now, my Missus and I have a game we play with compilations, which basically involves me trying to name tracks from the first few bars. I did wonderfully well on the 80's collections we got recently and reasonably well on the Air Guitar albums, but it got me thinking, what if I'd been born ten or twenty years earlier and gone through my formative years in the 60's or 70's? What music would I have been into?

Well, I know I would have loved the Beatles for a start - the psychedelic stuff of their later period for sure. I like Aerosmith's 70's tunes nad I've always had a weak spot for Dylan, Hendrix and Marley. On the other hand, I love Motorhead and Rush. On the whole though, I think I'd have been a hippy.

Queuing up Led Zep and Cream in Winamp, I skipped quickly through the Led Zep classics - Kashmir, Whole Lotta Love, Dazed and Confused, Immigrant song (I avoided Stairway to heaven), but sat entranced through Cream's sublime sound. Clapton surely is a god.

Yeah, I would have been a hippy - until 1976, then it would have been punk time. After that? Well, it's gotta be rock, heavy metal and grunge. All this interspersed with healthy doses of live jazz and good ol' chicago blues.

Yep, that's me. Contradictions all over the place.

(For the record, we have about three and a half weeks of continuous music on our computer, two and a half days of which is bloody christmas music. Now I know at least two people who are reading this and thinking "is that all?" Well to you I say "Yep, and I'm happy with it")

Finally finished "Billy"

It's been a while since I read a book that made me think about my outlook on life. Am I really so comfortable with myself? Is this, the sum total of who I am and who I always will be, this package of flesh bone and mind, is this the thing I'm pleased to have ended up with?

Yes.

I have something in common with Billy Connolly. He too would love to be a travelling hobo, carrying his world on his back, living on his wits and the goodwill of humanity. I dream of just walking out on all this, of following my heart and disappearing. The Australians call it "going walkabout".

There's a little story in one of my Doctor Who novels, about a travelling man who keeps scraps of paper in his pocket with pieces of his name written on them. Now and again, he invites people to join his journey and gives one of these scraps, a part of his name, so that they might be changed by it when they leave him and carry on their own journeys.

When all the little pieces of paper are gone, the little wandering man knows he will fade away, but he doesn't mind because all those parts of himself he left with those people he's met along his path keep his essence alive in some small way.

It's just a little silly metaphor in the book, relating to how the Doctor makes an impression on the companions who share his adventures, but I loved that little story. It kinda spoke to me about my own hopes and ambitions. I hope I've had an influence on the people I've met along the way. I hope someone I've touched comes away a little richer for the experience.

I think that's the greatest compliment I could be paid, that I'd changed someone's life.

That's why it's so important that I do a good job raising my children. It's my job to mould their small lives, to write their future to an extent, to armour them for the battles ahead but also to help them recognise the joy of living.

It's not entirely satisfying to know I'm third on Yahoo's results when searching for "pictures of diseased genitals"

And let's all join hands in shouting out a big ICK! To the person from Toronto who came here after doing that very search.

Hope you found what you were looking for...or not...

Yes, I know it's late.

I've got insomnia thanks to my latest attack of gout* and a desire to finish "Billy".

Tonight we listened to a recording of one of his Albert Hall concerts, and I have to say, listening to his stories when knowing the background to them and knowing the context, what else is going on in hs life at the time gives a far more profound edge to his performance. There's a new respect for him, now I know the hardship he's faced.

Billy Connolly will never fail to bring out a true aching laugh, but now also, in his more introspective moments, like we see in his "World Tour of Scotland", he'll also manage to bring a lump to the ol' hedgewitch's throat.

--
* - Quick shout out to the Lloyd's Pharmacy at the Fox & Goose, who originally stiffed me for 38 gout tablets, but saw me right in ten seconds flat. Cheers!

Not much going on at the moment, so to fill a gap, here's a list of the world's 100 most powerful women.

Who would have thought that just three miles from our house is a hotbed of Terrorism and Illegal Immigrants?

OK, the illegal immigrants I find easy to believe, but terrorism?

*** UPDATE ***

OK, so the actual target house is only two houses away from where friends of ours live. They looked out the bedroom window when they heard a scuffle to see police with automatic weapons storming the place. Our mate Mike is on the reports, being interviewed by the BBC and Independant news.

Very good, and just a little scary. They only moved in a few weeks back. Good choice guys!

The cameraman who filmed The Blair Witch Project has been killed in a plane crash in Florida.

The report says he'd worked on over 30 other independant films, and dies at the age of 35, only 4 years older than me.

I really liked Blair Witch - I didn't think it lived up to it's hype, mainly because I'd never been duped into thinking it was real, but the cinematography was astounding. The man did a great job on that film and I hope to see more of his stuff one day.

A sad loss of a growing talent.

I like it!

Ad-free blogging is here thanks to the New Blogger Navbar

It comes in blue, tan, black or silver and is very cool.

Just ignore the "Go to next blog" button when you get here.

I used to write the odd poem or two. I have a notebook that's full of synopses for stories I'll probably never write. I have the first 10,000 words of a novel I always meant to write.

Yesterday I came up with the first poem I've written in ages. It's about my childhood:

Tap, tap tap tap
Thud....Thud...Thud
"Did you see that thing on the news yesterday?"
BAM

and that's all I'm saying about that.

Just a quick head-up for some huge spoilers for the next Harry Potter book

And as a followup, let me offer wry thanks to google for lumping me with some BiPolar Disorder self help course, and the "Ultimate Personality Test".

OK, OK, you got me too...

Twins rowing in their blogs here and here.

Now, as I know these people, I could start going on in a similar vein about blogs being weapons of mass distraction or somesuch.

But instead, I'm just going to point them at Google's excellent and hilarious contextual advertising. One brother has US election and Toy company ads, and the other has Charity and Disabled Organisation ads.

Thank you google for your accurate and frankly rather funny appraisal of the whole event.

It's late, and I really wish I'd seen those posts a lot earlier!

Are you a trekkie?

Are you bored?

Try this.

We live in a world where innocent tourists die in a coach crash and a convicted rapist wins £7,000,000 on the Lottery.

I'm not as disgusted as I might be at the latter story. It's more a case of...well...despair really. Here I am, doing my best to raise my kids well, doing all the work in helping my partner strugle out of disabling depression, working my backside off when I get to work at all, wondering from week to week how we can find the money to cover all our expenses, watching the red letters come through the door each and every day, but twice a week I watch those balls get chosen and twice a week my fantasies of buying a farm and opening it as a campsite, setting up trust funds for the kids and working out both our families financial problems evaporate as we match less than two numbers.

I mean, where's the justice? We have a hard life - granted not as hard as some, but much harder than others, so when do we get a break? When do we get the well deserved rest? There's a millionaire rapist in prison while we go without.

When's it our turn?

Okay, I know this looks like a joke, and believe me I checked the date, but you have to believe me, this is really happening:

A US University research group is using common inkjet printers to print BIO-ORGANIC material!

Flesh!

Heart tissue!

Bone tissue!

I'm still not sure I believe it, but Canon is already hard at work trying to PRINT actual ORGANS!

Read the report here.

Dear God, have a look at this

It's the "educational Philosophy" behind Boohbah, the ITV equivalent of Teletubbies.

They look like furry foreskins and the show is frankly the freakiest thing I've seen in a good while. And I watch Cbeebies every day!

The message this "Philosophy" imparts is that everything can be learned through dance.

Dance can teach you maths, increase your language skills and - most controversially - involve you in activity.

Well, if I'd only known before! Does that mean I'm retarded because I can't dance?

*sigh*

One thing is beginning to really get my back up - not realy a hissing, spitting, kill-someone kind of rage, but more like the jar your spine gets when you go over a speed bump:

It's this American custom:

"The dollar hovered uneasily at lower levels versus the euro and yen Monday after weaker than expected U.S. jobs data Friday sent it spinning to its biggest one-day loss..."

"top weekend movie with $24.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday."

"Jeff Gordon couldn't wait to kiss the bricks Sunday"

Gaah!

It's that stubborn refusal to separate the day from the event with either a word or a comma. "Euro and Yen Monday" - that's a title, not a timing. "Euro and Yen ON monday, or "Euro and Yen, Monday" scans so much better!

As a rule, I couldn't care less about grammatical abberations - languag's first duty is communication, and if the meaning is successfully communicated, the choice of words is up to you. But this one thing, as I read a lot of US-based news reports, is really beginning to rankle.

This place is five minutes walk from where i live




And to prove it, I'll post some pictures of it and the other building, the wonderful "Saracen's Head".

It's in the middle of a graveyard and for years i assumed it was the Gravekeeper's Lodge. It is however a five hundred year old grammar school which has just won £3.6 million in the BBC's Restoration series. Now, at first glance this show seems a bit harsh: There were some beautiful buildings in the competition and many of them are incredibly worthy of saving, so to imagine that these buildings get immediately bulldozed as a result of losing the show is quite distressing.

Luckily this isn't the case. The publicity of being on the show has raised the profile of all the contenders. On the final show last night, most of the contenders, when asked how much money they'd need said "We've got most of what we need". So this show and the public exposure it's lent the contenders is a priceless champion in the fight to preserve our rich heritage.

I'm melting!

According to the EVIL clock in our living room, it's been over 27 celcius in the house for three days now.

OK, there's places in the world that would pray for it to be that cold, but here in Birmingham we're just not used to it.

It's been to hard to sleep, got four hours last nigth, which is about all I've had for about a week. I'm officially exhausted and the kids are running rings around me.

So I'm letting them run riot and get nice and burned outside while I upload a video of them at a funfair that happened around here over last weekend. Check the Clan on Camera site for that and other vids, optimised for Dialup connections.

Now how about this for a good idea?

Clear solar panels.

Not satisfied with providing solar electricity, it can act as a regular projection screen too, so you can turn your office into a powerhouse by day and a cinema at night. I'm impressed!

I'm a day late but Happy Lammas!

Also known as Lughnassadh, this is what the Byzant Scriptorium has to say about it:

The autumn season contains three harvests, and Lughnassadh is the first of these, the time when the first corn harvest is cut. Lughnassadh is named after Lugh (pronounced 'loo'), a Celtic deity of light and wisdom. At Lughnassadh, bread from the first harvest was eaten in thanks, and this tradition was continued in the Christian church's Lammas ('loaf-mass') service, where the first loaf would be blessed at mass.

In terms of the Goddess cycle, Lughnassadh is sometimes considered as the time of transformation of the Goddess into her aspect as pregnant Earth Mother. The God is getting weaker as the days grow shorter, but his rebirth is assured as he is also present as the Goddess's unborn child. Though the God is often considered as dying at Samhain, there is a sacrificial aspect to Lughnassadh, with the Corn King being cut down to be transformed into the life-giving fruits of the harvest and resurrected as the new crop the following year. Deities and symbols associated with agriculture and harvest are all appropriate for Lughnassadh, and a symbolic eating of bread is often an important part of celebrations at this time of year.

Lughnasadh is a time to take stock and be thankful for what we have and what we have achieved. It is a time for sharing and appreciation, a time to consider our situation and learn the lessons of the ways in which we have reaped what we have sown, for good or for ill. It is also an auspicious time for deciding how to get the most from ongoing situations or projects, and how to bring more negative influences to an end.

Well, I'm definitely spending some time taking stock of my life, and what I see is relatively good.

Wahey! More than 1,000 people have graced this little corner of the interweb, and it just so happens that I know the person who was the 1,000th visitor...

So everyone head over to Mark's Blog to congratulate him!

And a big "Hello" to the latest subscriber to the Hedgewitch mailing list!

Yes! It's personality test time again!

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Just added some stuff to the Yahoo group and added a google search box to the site. Nothing interesting, just stuff I've meant to do fro a while.

Bit of an update on the Clan on Camera site too.

Smash 'em, boil 'em, crush 'em, nail 'em to a tree, give 'em to your kids, digital memory cards just keep on going!

Get this: My results from the Neuroses-o-matic!

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Low
Schizotypal:	Low
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Low
Narcissistic:	Moderate
Avoidant:	Low
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Low
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

(Taken from Mark's Blog)

Moderate Narcissist huh? Funny!

We watched "Sex Lives of the Potato Men" last night.

Usually when I explain movies to someone I like to say it's like a cross between X and Y, but not this. This film (which really doesn't warrant the title "Movie") stands on its own, and not in a good way.

You get the impression from the outset that its production budget is slightly less than your average monthly grocery budget, which for some films fills them with innovative low-budget genius. This film just ticks over though. It uses out of town locations (and I know because there's some I walk past every time I step foot outside my house), untried scriptwriter and apart from the three c-list headliners, a largely unknown and never-will-be-known cast.

The plot is pretty much described by the title. Four potato delivery drivers try various ways of getting laid. One - Johnny Vegas - is removed from the family home and somewhat half-heartedly enters the suburban swinging scene, which is realistically portrayed as being full of middle-aged bored couples in towels.

Another , Mackenzie Crook (from The Office) is shagging the girl from the chippy while living in the storeroom. This girl turns out to have a voyeuristic husband whose aggressive insistence on hiding while she gets shagged leads to some disturbing but genuinely funny moments.

Our next protagonist, played well by the talented Mark Gatiss ("League of Gentlemen") stalks the daughter of a client, steals the family dog and meets a nice woman who he settles down with. This makes a nice semi-romantic grounding which helps keep the film from flying off into complete bizarreness and farce. Strange considering what Gatiss is used to writing.

The final member of this quorum is unbelievably the most gruesome and as such is the most comical. After using strawberry jam as a sex aid, he's become addicted to the taste, trying in turn fishpaste, kippers and squid in an attempt to recapture the taste he became addicted to. He eventually rediscovers it in the voluptuous form of Kay Purcell, an actress I quite enjoy watching and who really doesn't get enough screen time in this. A fate which befalls the very watchable Lucy Davis too.

The film is an excellent antidote to the mass produced let-downs coming out of Hollywood lately, gross and unpalatable in places, stark throughout, it manages to maintain the level of humour we have come to expect from Johnny Vegas, which, as cheeky, rude, gross and wry as it is, is not a bad thing.

Let's not paint it in a false light. This is not a film that would make your top ten. This is not a film you'd run out and buy on DVD. It may not even last in your memory further than the Odeon lobby, but it's a worthy and realistic slice of British institution comedy. There's also something reminiscent of Ealing and Brian Rix about this film, which in my eyes saves it from total unwatchability. I won't say go and buy it, but if you're planning a night in with the lads and a few bevvies, I'd say there were far worse films you could lift off the Blockbuster shelves - especially if you come from Southwest Birmingham, as it makes for a good game of "Spot the location".

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog because the Blogspot ones weren't working and I couldn't be bothered sorting them out.

Hopefully at the fourth attempt at installing the code, it'll actually work too.

What if HR Giger did batman?

For those of you that are interested, check out the latest Batmobile (described by someone on Slashdot as a "Hummer taking a dump") in the pictures section of the Batman Begins website.

I'm bloody starving, so it's time to get on with roasting potatoes and tomatoes with garlic and sage, then doing home-made garlic bread, grilling some nice smoked bacon and frying some mushrooms.

I may even be tempted to fry some eggs too.

Drool drool!

God knows I've tried my best to keep away from the US Elections, but I have to say there's a bit of a phenomenon going on in Boston at the moment.

The Democrat Party's National Convention has allowed special access to a number of Bloggers. For whatever reason I don't know, but it's created quite a stir.

Here's a few links to some of the News reports and Blogs involved:

Blogger Live: A self-refreshing ticker of the latest posts from bloggers attending the Convention.

Yahoo! Article on the Convention Blogs.
Blogsphere at CNN
Hardball's MSNBC Blog

Seeing the forest: Dave Johnson's team blog.
Pressthink: Jay Rosen.
Mark's Liberal Blog.
Talking Points Memo: Joshua Micah Marshall
Daily Kos: Fair and Balanced
Centerfield: Blog of the Centrist Coalition.
Burnt Orange Report: Three students from Dallas University.

Some important information from the Department of Vague Paranoia.

If you're living in fear of zombie invasion or alien abduction, this is where you can find the official UK Government pamphlet on how to deal with these threats.

Getting close to my 1,000th visitor. Woo! If things go as usual, number 1000 should be on Sunday or Monday. Also coming up is my one-year anniversary. Can't believe I've actually kept up some kind of diary for a whole year! First time ever!

My site-traffic counter takes notes of returning visitors, but its criteria means it doesn't catch a lot of people, so in time for my 1,000th hit and my first anniversary, if you're a regular reader please take a few minutes and leave a comment somewhere so I know who you are.

Thanks for reading and thanks to all the Google clickthroughs who have boosted my hit rate over this last year.

How gullible are you to Email Fraud?

Take this test to find out.

I got 100%. So no pressure.

If I won the Lottery tonight...

I'd faint!

Also I'd get to do something I've worked out in the last few days. I've been teasing myself looking through the houses for sale on Rightmove, checking out all the quarter-of-a-million-pound own pool, acres of land type places for sale around the country and it occured to me that it would be a great idea to buy an old farm (which seem to go for anything from £150,000 to £800,000) and convert it to a Campsite, with the old barns and outbuildings being turned into dormitories and a canteen for youth groups like the Boys' Brigade or the Scouts to use, or for using as a base for Corporate outward bound weekends and the like.

One thing I'd offer is the opportunity to hire specialised tents. I've seen a place that will make you a genuine Native American Teepee, and all sorts of other historical style tents. I'd love to have a stock of Teepees and offer Pagan events, with a sweat lodge and huge campfire and so on. Waht a wonderful way of celebrating the Sabbats!

Of course there's much more I'd do with a Lottery win, but this one would suit my longing for the Country life and for the outdoors. And if I happened to find a place near Snowdonia, well, so much the better...

If I was Prime Minister...

I'd trashcan the new Wembley Stadium and recommission the one they were going to build in Birmingham.

Ban big business from investing anywhere inside Greater London, concentrating instead on areas direly in need of investment and jobs, like South Wales, Tyneside, The East Midlands and suchlike. My chamber of commerce would be instructed to offer extra incentives to big foreign businesses that invested in such places.

Cancel any new homebuilding and roadbuilding schemes. Concentrate instead of redeveloping the huge empty stretches of brownbelt land and derelict housing lying empty because of planning restrictions and red tape.

Fire or heavily fine any manager who earns over a million pounds a year. There's no need for it. Economise, buy British and get your heads from up your backsides, you drain on the nations resources!

Emasculate Manchester Utd. They're too rich, the players go to pieces as soon as they leave the club and football is now the least important part of their business strategy. That's wrong and it's bad for the rest of the football league.

There's more but I'll come back to it later, as I remember what I was going to say.

I just discovered the wonderful sound of Hayseed Dixie. Bluegrass versions of rock and pop classics. Well worth a listen and a chuckle.

"I can afford any game I like but I rarely have the time to play them."

If this sounds like you, then you need to read this article from GameDev.net about the requirements of Wage Slave Gamers.

Look at This article on CNN. One for the Darwin Awards I think.


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- When a pickup truck crossed the double yellow line along Seward Highway and killed two occupants of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, police initially thought the accident was another tragic mistake by a momentarily distracted driver.

Then they spotted the dashboard DVD player.

In what may be the first trial of its kind in the nation, prosecutors have accused the pickup truck's driver of second-degree murder for watching a movie instead of the road when he crashed head-on into the Jeep.

The pickup's driver, Erwin J. Petterson Jr., denies using the DVD player as he drove north on October 12, 2002 and contends he was only listening to music from a compact disc, said his attorney, Chuck Robinson.

"It's an excessive charge for what happened here," he said. "This was not a murder. Even the state medical examiner said during cross-examination that the manner of death for the people in the other car was accidental."

Petterson, 29, is accused of killing Robert Weiser, 60, and his wife Donna Weiser, 56, of Anchorage, while on a three-hour drive between Kenai and Anchorage. In his truck was the equivalent of a home entertainment system -- a DVD player, speakers and a Sony PlayStation 2.

While no Alaska law prohibits operating a DVD player in view of a driver, prosecutor June Stein said the facts warranted charging Petterson under one of two theories: that he knew his conduct was substantially certain to cause death, or that he knowingly engaged in conduct showing extreme indifference to human life.

Initial Alaska State Trooper reports said Petterson was at fault when he took his eyes off the road to reach for a soda. Stein, though, will try to prove that the DVD player was on, apparently playing the movie "Road Trip."

"We know it was," she said. "It was wired so that the screen was in the open position when the ignition key was turned out."

The murder trial, which got under way last week in Kenai Superior Court, may be the first of its kind in the nation, said Matthew Swantson, director of communications for the Consumer Electronics Association, a trade association.

Installed as recommended, DVD players and TV screens are either visible only from the back seats or will not work unless the vehicle is in park. But owners can defeat the safety measures by installing the devices themselves, as Petterson did, according to prosecutors.

Robinson said he expects prosecutors to have trouble winning a second-degree murder conviction. "I think the prosecution is going to have a tough time proving the mental state of Mr. Petterson," he said. "It's a tragic accident that happens all the time on our highways."

Liz Neblett, spokeswoman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said more than 25 percent of police-reported crashes are distraction related, which covers everything from cell phone use to changing channels on a radio, screaming at kids, eating, applying makeup or reading a newspaper.

Vehicles can be equipped with fax machines, cell phones and two-way radios. But none should be used if they interrupt the concentration of drivers, she said. "It's a no-brainer. If it's distracting, don't do it," Neblett said.

After the crash, Petterson and his passenger, roommate Jonathan Douglas, were transported to an Anchorage hospital. Within hours, Douglas called his ex-wife and told her he was not sure how the collision occurred because he was "spacing out on a movie they were watching," according to prosecutors. The woman is scheduled to testify.

David Weiser, 34, the son of the slain couple, said only two people know what happened in the cab of the truck. But equipping a truck with entertainment options that can be used while driving goes beyond a momentary distraction of putting on makeup or using a cell phone, he said.

"This takes forethought, this takes methodical steps," David Weiser said. "You have to go to the store, plop over money, install it, and install it so it can be used without a brake employed.

"I view it as no different than walking into a bar, having five beers within an hour and getting behind the wheel," said Weiser, who quit an eight-year career as a loan originator in Boston to attend the trial.

Driving laws have not kept up with technological changes, Weiser said. He plans to work toward changing that after Petterson's trial is over.

"I would like for the jury to sit and hear the evidence, and if the evidence shows what I believe to be true, that his conviction reflect that," he said.

The first trailer for the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Movie is online.

You can choose the AVI or Realmedia versions.

It doesn't give anything away but it looks cool.

Thanks to CmdrTaco at Slashdot.

One of the discussions that goes on quite regularly in Harry Potter circles is whether the books are satanic or anti-Christian in nature. This is a fascinating article from the New York Times which requires registration in order to read articles. But don't bother doing that because I'm pasting it here:

G. P. Taylor, an Anglican vicar, onetime roadie for the Sex Pistols and former all-around sinner, was roaring across the Yorkshire moors on his Yamaha XV1100 in a lightning storm when the idea for his hit Christian children's book, "Shadowmancer," came to him.

Like some other committed Christians, he had been disturbed by the amount of witchcraft and the occult in children's literature. "Harry Potter," for instance. The best-selling author J. K. Rowling gives too much power to the forces of evil in her books, he told parishioners. Well, one congregant replied, why not write your own book then?

So Mr. Taylor created a story deeply imbued with Christian imagery and set on the 18th-century Yorkshire coast in Britain with its rugged cliffs, hidden caves and smuggler's legends. It is about an evil vicar, Obadiah Demurral, who tries to take over the world but is thwarted by three teenagers and a smuggler.

When "Shadowmancer" was first published in Britain last year, it was soon dubbed the Christian alternative to "Harry Potter" and surged to the top of the paperback best-seller list, outranking its secular rivals, the "Harry Potter" books, for 15 weeks in a row. And in May when "Shadowmancer" was published in the United States by G. P. Putnam's Sons, it beat "Harry Potter" for six weeks straight on the children's chapter-book best-seller list of The New York Times. There are 300,000 copies in print, and now booksellers are eagerly expecting a similar success when the sequel, "Wormwood," is published here in September.

Some of those sales have been fueled by the Christian media, which has hailed the "Christian Harry Potter" for its religious references and its celebration of God's power. Mr. Taylor's American promotional tour not only included the predictable appearance on the "Today" show, for instance, but also an interview with Pat Robertson on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club." A reviewer for Pluggedin.com, the online magazine of the conservative Christian group "Focus on the Family," wrote, "It could be just the thing to counter Harry Potter's magic." And while Christianity Today magazine was more critical, it nonetheless credited "Shadowmancer" for showing "something that some of the others do not — characters relentlessly calling on God to shine his light into the shadows."

That was what attracted Anne Pouns of Houston, who describes herself as a born-again Christian. She had not allowed her children, who are now teenagers, to read "Harry Potter" when they were young, and hadn't read the series herself. "I don't desire to have it in my hands because of the witchcraft," she said.

But Ms. Pouns said she found "Shadowmancer" to be "a very fascinating book. It reminds me of `Lord of the Rings' and C. S. Lewis. If you have a knowledge of Scripture, you will realize how much he has interspersed the story with it."

Michelle Black, who works at His Way Christian Bookstore in Eldersburg, Md., said she also tried to avoid books containing references to the occult or to gods and goddesses, and appreciated the Christian message of "Shadowmancer."

In the beginning, for instance, an Ethiopian boy, Raphah, washes up on the coast bearing a fragment of the ark of the covenant. "He's willing to sacrifice his very life to prevent the darkness from overtaking the world," Ms. Black said. "It's like when Christ said, `Greater love hath no man than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends.' "

Yet Mr. Taylor, who says he was influenced by the X-rated rapper Eminem as well as Jesus, insists he didn't set out to write a book against "Harry Potter." He has never even read the "Potter" books, he says, though he has seen the films. "I liked parts of them," he said on the telephone from Yorkshire, "though I found some of them theologically a bit difficult to handle."

" `Shadowmancer' isn't an alternative to `Harry Potter,' " he says, adding that he was simply writing "as a Christian."

Still, Mr. Taylor describes himself as a committed Christian who has ministered for two decades to those involved in the occult. "Shadowmancer," he says, shows that the true power in the universe is God.

Mr. Taylor, 46, was not always moved by evangelical fervor. Much of his youth was spent, he said, in the precincts of "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll."

His father, Frank, was profoundly deaf, a shoe repairman or, in Mr. Taylor's words, "a mender of soles." ("I am a mender of souls," the large and jolly Mr. Taylor likes to say.) His mother, Mary, was severely hearing impaired and worked in a cafeteria. As a child, Mr. Taylor learned to communicate with them by watching them talk to each other in sign language.

The family, which included two sisters, lived in a government housing project. When he was 13, Mr. Taylor was expelled from school. "I hung a friend out the window," he said, "set fire to the desks. I'd taken a radiator off the wall, dyed my hair bright red."

At 15 he moved out of the house, lived with a girlfriend and became part of the punk rock scene, imbibing quantities of drugs and alcohol. "It was good fun," he said. "But it was stupid and dangerous."

When he was 21 Mr. Taylor found God. He was working in a community center for the deaf and elderly. "I had been searching for the truth," he said. His co-workers began talking to him about the power of Christianity.

"Very gently and very slowly they dismissed every argument I had," he said. "I didn't become a born-again Christian. It wasn't like Saul on the road to Damascus. Over a period, I realized this was the way I should follow."

In 1983 he married Kathy, a policewoman who dressed as a decoy prostitute in the Yorkshire Ripper case, which terrorized northern England during the 1970's. The couple have three children: Hannah, 16; Abigail, 13; and Lydia, 5. The two oldest have read "Harry Potter," Mr. Taylor said, and "they love it."

In 1986 Mr. Taylor became a policeman himself in Yorkshire. He attended night school at St. John's College at the University of Durham, earning a postgraduate diploma in theology and ministry. Then, in 1995, he was severely beaten by a gang including a man he had arrested. He lost part of his hearing, developed a benign tumor in his throat and was forced to resign the force.

He was now a full-time vicar. One of his churches, St. Mary's in Whitby, was said by Bram Stoker to be the site of Dracula's grave. Each year thousands of people dressed as vampires converged on the graveyard. Mr. Taylor tried to convert them to Christianity, he said.

In "Shadowmancer," Mr. Taylor turns the power of the occult celebrated in "Harry Potter" on its heels. Demurral is a sorcerer who uses witchcraft to carry out his devilish schemes. But Raphah (the name is from the Hebrew for "healer"), and the two teenagers who join up with him, Thomas and Kate, defeat Demurral through prayer and the intervention of a savior figure named Riathamus (a Latinizing of a fifth-century British word meaning king of kings.)

In writing the book, Mr. Taylor said he wanted to emulate the adventure tales of Robert Louis Stevenson. It took him eight months to finish, he said. He sent it to an on-line editorial service, but got back a nasty letter, he said. He figured it would never be published, so he sold his Yamaha and used the money to print 2,500 copies himself. Another parishioner sent a copy to her uncle, David Reynolds, one of the founders of Bloomsbury, publisher of "Harry Potter" in Britain. Mr. Reynolds sent Mr. Taylor a letter predicting it would be a best seller, and the name of an agent.

Faber & Faber bought the book for about $13,000; later he made a three-book deal with Putnam's for $500,000. The sequel, "Wormwood," from the falling star in the Book of Revelation, is about a comet hitting 18th-century London and a kabbalist, an angel and a servant girl who set out to save the city.

The film rights were optioned by Lisa Marie Butkiewicz, of Fortitude Films, a leader of Women Influencing the Nation, formed to support Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," which was criticized for being anti-Semitic.

"It is my hope that Mel Gibson would direct the film," Mr. Taylor said. Fortitude has just sold the rights to Universal for $6.2 million, and has also taken an option on "Wormwood."

He is now at work on the third book, "Tersias," about a boy whose mother blinds him so that he can become a beggar. The boy has the gift of prophecy, and "all sorts of elements want him," Mr. Taylor said.

Mr. Taylor has resigned his church post, but will remain an itinerant vicar. He has moved out of his shabby vicarage into a four-bedroom home near Scarborough that he describes as modest. And he will still tithe 10 percent of his income to the Church.

"Oh yes," Mr. Taylor said, "I'm a 10 percenter."

Postman shaped doggie biscuits

Click on the pic for the story

Revenge of the Sith. Dear god.

The original name of Starwars Episode 6 was Revenge of the Jedi. Lucas changed it as he believed revenge wasn't something Jedi would do. So he recycles the title he really wanted to use 20 years later.

So now we have it:

The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
A new hope
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi

For the record, I'll just mention that I had to look up Episode 2's title as I'm so used to calling it "Send in the Clones".

I wonder how much of this next chapter's essential story will be buried under Lucas's catering to the fanboys? What's got to happen in ROTS? HA! ROTS! Nice one George!

Anyway, What's got to happen? Anakin & Amidala have to do the deed, Amidala has to go into hiding on Alderaan, under the protection of the Organa family, before Anakin finds out she's pregnant with twins. She also has to die less then a few years after giving birth. Anakin has a date with a pit of lava, from which he's saved by some element of the Dark Side which rebuilds him as Vader. Palpatine has to declare himself Emperor and start killing off the Jedi, Yoda must begin his exile on Dagobah, Obi Wan must begin his exile and watch over Luke and the Lars family on Tatooine.

Pad that lot out with eyewatering but uninspired CGI and as many fanboy characters as you can cram in and you've got another cash cow.

George, take note. I will not be paying to watch your film. I will download the pirate version that someone filmed and put on the web. I'll wait a while and pick up the six-film box set on DVD off Ebay. You are not getting one brass farthing off me. You don't deserve it.

Revenge of the Sith. I ask you. Sheesh.

Google, 60's stylee, as spotted on "Chasing Daisy"

Yes, it's true, I have three books on the go at the moment.

Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting is the modern classic which spawned the great film. It's written in Aberdeen dialect, so isn't over-easy on the eye, but is a grim insight into the minds of a collection of junkies, pimps and headcases. This is a collection of short stories and episodes mostly narrated by Mark Renton, Francis Begbie, Simon Williamson (AKA Sick Boy) and Danny Murphy (Spud). Together they leave you with an insight into the drugs and violence culture in modern Edinburgh, although you could quite easily find these people in any town around the world.

For me, the most fascinating characters are Renton and Spud. Theirs is a genuine friendship, with the hippy Spud and the world weary Renton genuinely caring for each other, as opposed to the acts of affection and solidarity Begbie bullies into his circle of friends and the jealous, usurious acquaintances that Sick Boy forms.

The book goes into every horror of Heroin addiction, pulling no punches when it comes to issues like overdosing, death, withdrawal, HIV, prostitution and mindless violence.

But despite all this, you're left with a strange sense of hope. As the film and book have both been around for about 10 years, it's no giveaway to say that Renton ends up by stealing thousands of pounds from his friends and leaving the country, and thoughout the book you have the recurring theme of Renton's attempts and desire to kick his habit and better his life. This is juxtaposed with his overpowering nihilism, but at the end of the day, when the opportunity presents itself, his ambition, his desire to escape and make something of his life beats everything. I find wonderful hope in this fact, and I think, especially given his continuing story in the sequel "Porno", Mark Renton has to be one of the bravest, most hopeful characters I've read about.

Spud is also a character full of hope, but his is a naive, frustrated, apathetic hope. One of the phrases you most associate with Spud is "But what can you do?". He accepts his role as junky and punchbag with philosophical apathy and resignedness and as such becomes a truly tragic character.

Irvine Welsh spins a wide web around these friends and associates and brings them to life in all of their glory. An incredibly well done crawl along the underbelly of Aberdeen's junky society.

Where did this come from? Suddenly it's summer again. My lips are salty with sweat, as is the rest of my body, the thermometer on our living room clock steadfastly refuses to drop below 24 celcius and al the frozen shopping we did is re-freezing after being put away.

We have a wonderful way of doing shopping: We travel eight miles into the centre of Birmingham, laden with barely enough money to keep the kids hydrated and to fill the fridge and freezer, with enough left over for a Taxi from somewhere six miles closer to home. We don't do this in ther car because we don't own one and neither of us can drive. We do this with a 75 litre rucksack, which comfortably holds something like 30lbs of food, which then sits on my back.

Some days are easier, when we only go about two miles to the closest Sainsbury's and stock up on expensive salads, crisps and "American Range" Southern fried chicken and ribs.

Our kids are funny buggers to buy groceries for anyway, with Bethan refusing anything with any goodness or nutritional value and Allison telling us she's gone off everything she's been happily scoffing down for the last two years. It doesn't help...and I mean it really doesn't help...when Charlie says "I don't know what I feel like eating this week, let's go into this shop and play it by ear". We invariably come out £20 lighter and 10lb heavier.

Me? I like lots of things, I like variety. But I don't like roast dinners and stews on the hottest day of the year and I don't like steak. I can't bring myself to eat a meat which, even at its leanest, makes your teeth spring back like they're trying to chew through a trampoline and makes your jaw ache so much that you can't bear the thought of tackling the ice cream you've got for pudding.

I can make chinese. I'm good at chinese. My satay's a hit, my stir-fry has to be tasted to be believed, I've done a chop suey which went down a storm and I fry my own prawn crackers. I do excellent Italian, I like my Texmex efforts and I like experimenting with combinations of ingredients. I'm easy to please. I could live happily off 20p packets of noodles, a bag of rice, jar of soy sauce, some eggs and a few chicken breasts.

However, I live with the most picky eaters ever, and it drives me frankly nuts. I love food shopping but having to cope with "I don't like that anymore" from three sides simultaneously is making me hate it.

So I've developed a system for food shopping. I give them ten minutes to decide what I'm supposed to get. If they don't make a decision, I go out and buy what I think they're going to eat, or more precisely, what I can bear to cook, plus one or two treats. It kinda works, but only when I'm doing the shopping alone. When I take them with me, all bets are off.

Thank god you don't have to pick out your own birthday presents.

Well my adventures with defragging seems to have paid off. From a disturbing 60% fragmented, my "D:" drive is down to an unhealthy but vastly improved 43%. The report advised me to defrag again. Can't argue with that.

My computer's organised like this:

Two 60Gb drives, the C drive holding my system, program files, the annoying "Documents and Settings", my 20Gig music directory (4 Gigs of which is Christmas Music!) and my rather large Movies directory.

The D drive holds stuff I've downloaded and disk images to use with Daemon Tools' Virtual CD-Rom.

Before I started backing things up onto my last ten blank CD's, I had 6 gig left on the C drive and 8.5 gig free on the D drive, and that was after deleting upwards of six gigs between the two drives in order to gain the 15% free space the defrag app needs to work in the first place.

so now I have no blank CD's, a little less space in my BIG cd pouch and a search set up on Ebay for DVD-r drives and disks.

Bearing all this in mind, it's no wonder I'm dreaming of multi-terabyte RAID arrays.

My next PC will be a Network Fileserver.

I like Windows XP firewall
I like Shareaza
I like HTML that works
I like Macromedia Dreamweaver
I like simple solutions
I like the "under the hood" options in Windows which make it possible to concentrate the virtual memory on making the system work as opposed to the programs I run on it, which switch off the FUCKING annoying "Report this to Microsoft" error reports and which make Windows look after its own virtual memory, all of which factors have made my PC virtually unusable for days now.

But most of all I like not being stressed out just because one line of code isn't working properly, when I don't have a clue what line it is or how to make it work when I find it.

Tonight, my job is to defrag my "files" drive. Only 65% fragmented, so not much to do really.

OK, so there were exactly two lines of code I needed to change to make sure it shows properly in Netscape, Mozilla and Opera.

They're done now, and I've got rid of the old comment system in favour of Blogger's own brand.

I love it when a code comes together.

Done some satisfying work on The Clan On Camera site. It's fit for human consumption now, so pop over and cast a glance at our holiday pics.

Videos coming soon, as are links to the software which helped me build the place.

Media news...

Entire cast of "24"
sacked.

Season 2, Episode 1 of Dead Like Me is out on Bittorrent. Link coming soon in the usual place.

Brent Spiner is to appear in Enterprise this year. The show is struggling on an embattled station. Lets hope this and the recent reshuffles at Paramount and UPN make a difference. The feeling among the fanbase is that Enterprise is doomed. Happily they've made Manny Coto a co-executive Producer, so at least we can say there's one competent writer at the helm.

Spiderman 2 is navel-staring, wishy-washy, cheesily written, boredom inducing nonsense.

"King Arthur" comes out very soon, as does Jonathan Frakes' live-action Gerry Anderson-free "Thunderbirds". Guess which one I'm looking forward to?

Erm, no. Not "Thunderbirds"

The Hedgewitch Clan on Camera website is now live!

OK, well there's only the front page done so far, and I'm slightly annoyed that 50megs.com only allows its free members 12 megs of webspace, but that should be plenty really.

There's two galleries and a few videos to go up yet, and I think I'll be doing them at some point today or tomorrow, then it's prety much done until I can find a way of paying for more space.

But there you go, anyway. Now the Grandparents can't argue about who gets to see the holiday pics, eh?

I hate Firewalls
I hate Kazaa
I hate Virus scanners
And I hate security patches that turn your computer into the buggiest piece of crap that ever wasted electricity.

Even more than them I hate security patches that screww up your computer and which you then find you can't uninstall.

Fuck it all.

It has not been a good night.

Oh, and I hate flies and moths too.

I am Kung Fu Master. I like to be in control of myself. I dislike crowds, especially crowds containing people trying to kill me. Even though I always win, I prefer to avoid fights if possible. What Video Game Character Are You?

Courtesy of the good people of Something Awful

We're back off holiday!

I'm building a site at 50megs.com to show off all the pics we took, so keep an eye out here.

Free Speech takes another backwards step in the states.

Probably my last entry before the holiday...

And the Forecast? Wet.

Bloody English weather.

If you want to keep an eye on how wet we're getting, check this forecast page

*** Update ***

It's not actually looking too bad now. Maybe the British Summer didn't end in June this year.

Gawd, now I've damned myself...

*** See Ya Next Week ***

When I get back, I'll put all the pics online for the grandparents to coo over. And of course, I'll post a link here too.

We're packed!

Despite the countdown, there's actually about 36 hours before we go on holiday, and all we have to do now is tidy the house.

It might only be 20 miles down the road, but I'm still looking forward to it. It's a new base from which to visit places we've never been before. I'm planning a trip to the Royal Show, Warwick Castle and a few other places.

So you can expect yet another fallow week as I'm not going to be here.

And if the graphics all go missing then you will all know that my ISP has finally had enough of me not paying them. In that case, normal service wil be resumed just as soon as I can sort out another site to host the graphics from.

Right! Let's get cracking - there's washing-up to do...

This blog looks terrible in Mozilla.

According to W3C there's over 250 errors in the HTML code of this site.

Unfortunately, I don't know the first thing about how to put it right, so if you're visiting using Mozilla or Netscape, do yourself a favour and use Neoplanet or Opera or something.

Just Stop using Internet Explorer

There's been a bit in the News lately about the poverty gap, or specifically, the percieved difference in affluence between north and south.

This is a subject that's close to my heart, as I've spent ten years on or near the poverty line, on benefits and handouts and unable to get a job because my rent was too high.

So I've gleaned a few articles from my usual source: BBCi

This article points out the evidence that the poverty gap is getting wider. It says that there's a migration going on, with more and more people moving south in order to take advantage of the more affluent society. There are, according to the report, some signs of hope. Several northern cities, including Liverpool, Manchester, Gateshead, Newcastle and Birmingham are ungoing somewhat of a renaissance, with big businesses being attracted back to the areas. Whether this stems the flow of people away from the cities, it's probably too early to tell.

This article is written by a resident of Hackney, one of the poorest places in the UK. He tells a tale mostly of hope and imported affluence, telling about the high profile nightclubs and galleries which have sprung up in the borough, but then points out that the actual residents of the borough are more likely to be found in dingy sub-post offices and grubby pubs. This gives the unnerving implication that although businesses are coming to the area and bringing wealth, that wealth is not benefitting Hackney's residents.

A possible reason for this can be seen here in an article which points out the damning fact that the most affluent parts of the UK are the least likely to give to charity and conversely the biggest contributors come form the most poverty stricken areas.

This acknowledges an opinion I've had for quite a long time, borne out by the prevalent attitude on such London-centric gossip sites such as Popbitch that the further south you go, the less community-minded and less tolerant people get.

As the first report points out, Britain is rapidly turning into a city-state, with the whole country, the media and the news largely dominated by the sprawling metropolis of Greater London, which these days seems to extend from East Anglia to Sussex and everything outside this corner of Britain is referred to (even in the case of Cornwall) as "Up North" or "Regional".

I cannot agree with the love affair people have with London. To me, London equals concrete claustrophobia, snobbery, paranoia and cloying pollution. I haven't been to London since I was a boy, but the memory of the crushing crowds, grubbiness and the smell remains with me to this day. I couldnt work or live in an atmosphere where one is expected to keep glancing over one's shoulder to keep an eye on how much richer your neighbour is getting.

The popular impression I get from people I know who have spent time living in London is that it's a melting pot of all the character traits I find least attractive - jealousy, selfishness, the ambition to acquire as much wealth as possible and the belief that they're better in some way because they pay more for what they have.

Let's be honest, the cost of a pint of milk is 30p and if you choose to live somewhere where you have to pay £1 for it, that makes you stupid, not superior.

I'm not planning on getting any further south than I am right now. My ambition is to find a comfortable job to settle into for the next 25 years. I won't find that down south. If you don't want to be the manager befor ethe end of the year, or don't want to screw over your colleagles for a promotion, you're ridiculed and scorned. Maybe this is the way of the world these days, maybe there's no nice people left in business. So maybe I'll start my own business and do things my way.

People have called me an old hippy for a long time now and I guess they're right. The thing is, I'm happy with the description. I'm comfortable with my spiritually rich life and my happy family and I have no plans to have my light snuffed out by the melting pot of greed and insincerity that is our Nations' Capitol.

My family comes mostly from the North, Dad's parents came from Tyneside, Mum's parents came from Wales and Thailand, so my "regional" preferences are perhaps easier to understand, but then, is it really so incomprehensible why someone would favour vast swathes of countryside, mountain ranges, huge lakes, majestic valleys and spectacular seas over the concrete and limestone jungle of London?

Nah, give me greenery. I like breathing air you can't slice with a knife.