Propaganda antidote.

have you been swayed by the media into thinking that Saddam should have the crap bombed out of him by the combined forces of Dubya and his cronies ? If you have then you need to read this, (just wanna say).

Four steps to a happiness.

Read this book, watch this film, listen to this album, and eat this pudding. When you have done all that come back here and tell me you didn’t enjoy yourself.

Your time is nearly up.

The puzzle will officially close on Saturday, if you need a helping hand between now and then, drop me a line.

I'm going to try and make the move away from blogger in a couple of weeks when I'm next off work. All the blogs I read that have made the change seem to load faster, and have more creative control. Add to that the fact that the ad at the top of the page spoils the look and I would be stupid not to move. Having said that, blogger has been invaluable for me, it's got me started in a relatively painless way and for the most part has managed to keep all my posts where they should be. So, I shall thank them and leave on good terms.

G-Granville, fa-fetch your cloth.

We should be opening our new shop in a little over a month. It will be called “LOCK&LOAD” and will sell computer games, peripherals, and DVDs. We plan to buy and trade in previously owned (second hand) games and consoles as well as the new stuff. We will be the only shop in Workington to do this. The web site will also offer help for people who need advice on game suitability, or if your plain stuck and need to know where to find the lens of truth. I say “we” but in fact it will be Tracy who runs the shop, unfortunately I can’t leave the hell hole just yet, but I’m working on it.

Today I have sorted through all my water colours, and on Wednesday I’m going to use them, I’ll try and get an image of the finished article on here for you to critique. In the mean time you can see the new photo’s I have uploaded on the photo’s page.

There is sand in our bath and a little bag of pretty pebbles in the kitchen sink, can you guess where we have been ? It’s a lovely day so we decided to take a walk along the beach. The tide was just going out, so the whole beach was calm, not even a whisper of a breeze. Although the smell of a bar-b-que still managed to reach us, making us both hungry enough to head off home for tea. Now as I sit here in a post feed fog, listening to Tom Waits sing the heart of Saturday night, all’s well with my world. Hope you had a nice bank holiday weekend.

Music to eat the miles.

Just had a couple of day's away, we needed to chill out a little.

I have just listened to the best album I have heard this year, Come away with me by Norah Jones. It's a must hear album. I am working on a bank holiday post, a proper one instead of the crap I have inflicted on you in recent days.

City chalked up their first points of the new season with a fantastic display of football, and took all three points off a very usefull Newcastle team. It all looks good for the coming months.

Sorry.

I seem to have confused some people, thanks for the birthday wishes but it wasn't mine. the tax dodger has the same christian name as me, and I was wishing him a happy nineteenth (cryptic clue in the title). It's not mine till January.

Twelve months till Sgt Pepper’s class.

Happy birthday Si, have a good one.

I'm feeling old today, and I'm full of a cold. Some disease ridden work colleague breathed in my general direction and now I'm paying the consequences. Beer will cure me, it always does.

Annoying !

Why oh why do the archives keep fucking off ? One minute they are there and the next…poof ! gone. Anyway I’m going to play on Silent Hill 2, it’s very spooky with some really good puzzles.

Other blogs.

I have been agonising over the last few days, about the way I present the links to other peoples blogs. For a while now I have split them into two parts, those I read every day and those I read irregularly. However, recently I have found myself linking to those who first linked to me. My first inclination was to put those links with my daily reads, I didn't want to segregate people into more and more little pigeon holes. So now all the links to other peoples blogs are in one place, all are there for different reasons but all are there because they are worthy places to go. I have reluctantly removed concerned (but powerless), but only after an email asking him what's wrong. There are a couple more blogs to go on the list soon, which for one reason or another have been stuck in my favourites menu. I have also been looking at the lists on the sites that I read every day, and they are becoming more and more alike, birds of a feather and all that ?

Frustrations.

I have had serious problems with blogger over the last twenty four hours, and have only just got back on. The previous post was achieved using msn messenger and the valuable time of the tax dodger, who had no problem getting on the site. For some reason my version of w.bloggar isn't working at the moment, it says my version of oleaut32.dll is out of date. I have resorted to using netscape navigator, it loads ok in that. My head hurts....

I have to say that the decision to sue Roy Keane is misguided, he has done enough harm to our beatiful game, without dragging it further through the mud. It was a disgraceful tackle, and there are those every week. It was also an error of judgement to admit to it being on purpose, but lets leave it at that and put our energy into taking six points of them this season. Come on Alfie, treat him with the total disregard he diserves.

If I had world enough and time….

If time travel is possible after all, then how many paradoxes will come to haunt us ? If someone goes back in time will all the photographs in your album change ? Will we all speak a different language if a time traveller alters the path previously made, and will a long dead relative suddenly materialise in your living room ? But, perhaps the most disturbing of all these paradoxes is this: will you disappear ? and along with you, all memories of your existence, your loved ones left with no knowledge of your life. To go, and not be missed is the ultimate sadness, but then you wouldn’t know.

Authors have tackled this subject many times, and usually with a mind boggling storyline to carry it along, but so far none have really come up with a convincing argument that has made me think that it could actually happen. (Philip Jose Farmer and John Brunner came closest) The paradoxes are too numerous, the universe would be totally fucked. I don’t want to run the risk of inadvertently diverting my great grandfathers amorous attentions from my great grandmother, that would be a bit of a downer, and not just for my great grandmother. The original film of the time machine used to make me chuckle because of the inconsistencies in the science, the fact that when Rod Taylor fired up his machine it didn’t move in space, he stayed in the same room, even though the earth would have been long gone when he materialised in the future. I have read books about space and time, about Schrodingers cat, and about wavicles, Busard ram jets and all manner of fantastical contraptions to propel us at immense speed through the vast depths of space. And the defining fact that constrained all these theories and treatises ? The theory of relativity, that light can only travel at 186,000 miles every second, and now that Einstein has been caught out on his maths the flood gates will open, and all manner of new and head-fucking paradoxes will be trotted out as possible futures for our unfortunate universe, or pasts for that matter…..who knows ? this present could be the result of a time traveller dropping his digital watch whilst taking a peek at Christ’s crucifixion.

The one fact that makes me feel a little better about the whole thing, is that at the moment to travel at the speed of light you need infinite velocity and zero mass…………so that’s me fucked then.

In a way we are all travellers in time, we all inch forward one day every day, one year every year, one lifetime every lifetime. Lets not get nosey or greedy or any of the other reasons to remove ourselves from now and go to then. We can exist quite nicely whilst manipulating three of our dimensions, lets not fuck with the fourth.

As a bit of an appendix to the time post. Whilst waiting for Blogger to sort it’s server problems I checked my stats, and here’s a coincidence: Someone has done a search for “the flipside of Dominic Hyde” a drama about time travel, and they found my site. I posted about the TV program in June sometime. This got me thinking about how many posts I have made about time and it’s puzzles, so I checked……and it’s quite a lot, it could even be bordering on an obsession, so this will be the last one for a while. Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the box, and unlike Gert’s cowardly commenter, please leave your name and e-mail.

Chop chop busy busy work work bang bang.

I’m off work for six days, and there are lots of things to do. I have to work on the new site, I have the new China Meiville book to read, and I would like to do some painting while the weather is nice. In between all this I hope to find time to post on here a couple of times.

Tracy is watching Dungeons and Dragons, not my thing though, especially since we bought lord of the Rings on DVD last week, which in my opinion is the best fantasy film made so far.

Today we got the confirmation we had been waiting for, the terms of a lease for a new shop we are opening…or should I say Tracy is opening. I will tell you more later.

Clutching at straws.

I nicked this off Stuart because I still can’t string two original words together. I have limited myself to one word answers were possible, so it’s a bit terse. These things come round every few months in my inbox, but this is the first since I started blogging, so here it is.



1. LIVING ARRANGEMENT? Home.
2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Dreamcatcher.
3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Mouse.
4. WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE BOARD GAME? Chess.
5. WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE MAGAZINE? Punch.
6a. FAVOURITE SMELLS? Mimosa.
6b. NON FAVOURITE SMELLS? Vomit.
7. FAVOURITE SOUND? Music.
8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? Pain.
9. FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP? Coffee.
10. FAVOURITE COLOUR? Blue.
11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER? Some.
12. NAME OF FUTURE CHILD? Pah.
13. MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE? Love.
14. FAVOURITE FOODS? All.
15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? Chocolate.
16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? Yes.
17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? No.
18. STORMS? Brilliant.
19. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? Avenger.
20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON? Lennon.
21. FAVOURITE DRINK? Beer.
22. WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN? Aquarius.
23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? Yep.
24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED? Journalist.
25. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? Definitely.
26. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? Full.
27. FAVOURITE MOVIES? Numerous.
28. TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? Eh?
29. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? Spiders.
30. FAVOURITE SONG? Abundant.
31. FAVOURITE SPORT TO WATCH? Football.
32. YOUR FAVOURITE AGE IN LIFE SO FAR? Now.
33. SAY ONE NICE THING: Too young to be so clever.
34. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND: Someone.
35. WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND: Bin-laden.

Bert got his sums wrong ?

It seems Albert Einstein got his math’s wrong when he worked out his theories on relativity. A team of scientists has discovered that light isn't the constant it has been believed to be. It may well have traveled faster in the first few moments of the big bang. "So fucking what!" I hear you cry, well....if light doesn't travel at a constant speed, then time travel may well be, or have been possible. All those flying saucers that have been seen all over the world could be our future historians coming back to see what the earth was like in the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Alien abductions could be future doctors looking for antibodies to long dead viruses. My mind is boggling at the moment, I'm going to have a think about this in greater depth and get back to you later. Or maybe in a few years time I will come back and post this yesterday......just a thought.

Time may change me....

As you can see I've changed the colours again, with the new pictures at the top it gives it a more Autumnal feel. The truth is, I couldn't think of anything to say, so I arsed with the scenery. Hope you like it, it's probably here till Christmas.

When Saturday comes.

One week to go, then it all starts again. Nine months of agony, (I was going to comment on childbirth at this point, but thought better of it). As usual I start off with the utmost optimism, then as soon as something goes wrong I get all down and start thinking of relegation (If you didn't get it till that last line you may as well go now). With one week to go I'm mostly just worrying about injuries, and I'm also jealous that the nationwide are already underway and fans can already gauge how their team might do this season. So, next Saturday at approximately three in the afternoon I will be listening to the live commentary over the net, whilst watching how everyone else is doing on Sky Sports, it will be an afternoon of cheers and boos and lets hope the blue half of Manchester will be happy come five o clock.

I bought a copper bracelet today, to see if it helps with my aches and pains. Has anyone got any experience with these ? apart from the fact that it has left an ugly green ring round my wrist.

Two words

Thanks to Molly for this little thing.

Your home: Third floor.
Your car: Very Blue.
Your job: In hell.
Your S.O.: Significantly another.
Your Family: Spread out.
Your Friends: Fuck them.
The Internet: I'm hooked.
Television: Mostly crap.
Books: Ever present.
Today: Same shit.

What the fuc....

I dont know what happened then, and I can't seem to edit the post. here's the whole thing again:

I was going to post about work, but it's too boring. I have sorted the template problems, thanks to Stuart, Hope it's worked. My brain just locked up, it must be coffee time.

Thanks Squodge.

Post removed, due to it's fucked up nature.

By the way...

There is a new poll up.

Cushions are the thieves of comfort.

Of all the poll’s that I have had, the current one has attracted the biggest response. It has also gone a long way to prove my theory, that only women know what cushions are for. I suspect the three men and one woman who went against the trend were tactical votes, meant to debunk the theory. In my opinion there is no valid reason to own cushions, if your settee is not comfortable you don’t add extra lumps, they take up valuable lounging space, and contribute nothing to your comfort. They should be outlawed with immediate effect.

I don’t usually watch opening or closing ceremonies, but last night I made an exception because it was from my home city. I have to admit it was a bit dodgy ! Mr Fennel seemed to have a problem with syllables, missing them wholesale from his speech and leaving us to guess what he had actually said. Queeny looked sour faced during most of the proceedings, and Phil kept himself amused playing keepy-uppy with a balloon. The Blair’s looked on pins, probably thinking about there trip to Provence. Grand master flash ? who’s bright idea was that ? It was only a couple of minutes after his toe-curling DJ’ing started that I gave up and turned over. It’s the last one of these I will watch for a long time, it’s only saving grace was seven hundred kids with a bucket of paint each, it was original and inventive and the only part of the whole night that didn’t look contrived.

Our new domain is up and running, LOCK&LOAD is a website dedicated to computer games, it’s a bit empty at the moment, but things will start to happen soon. If you have any suggestions about the site, or if there is something you would like to see on there, just drop us a line or stick it in the box below.

Looks like summer has finally arrived in Cumbria, this is our second day of sunshine, and it’s very warm. Lets hope it stays for a while, I might get an opportunity to use the air conditioning in the car.

I have been thinking about blogtree, I have seen it on a couple of other blogs. When I started in March I hadn’t read any other blogs, a friend of mine had told me about them and after looking into how you start one I decided to give it a go. You could say that this blog is illegitimate, and to my knowledge it’s still childless, but that could change. If anyone wants to adopt this poor unfortunate blog, and give it two loving parents, I’m open to offers. Similarly, if anyone fancies having a couple cute bloglets just let me know.

Come friendly bombs....

Driving through deepest Cumbria, by lakes and woods, listening to Charles Dance reading the four feathers, while the rain battered our car. It was like being in a betjeman poem. It made me feel very English, and it's not a feeling I am accustomed to...........come liberty lampshade and shine on us all.

I've just downloaded a couple of Thea Gilmore tracks off Kazaa (someone recently called it Kazoo which made me piss myself laughing) she has a nice easy style of singing and her lyrics are inventive, she sites Tom Waits as one of her inspirations and it shows, well worth a listen.

I see the queen got out of Manchester as fast as was humanly possible, I know it's not the nicest place on earth but it's not that bad. It gives the impression that the royals have an intense dislike for the north of England, but I suppose we're not that fond of her either.

Phew !

OK, everything is going according to plan, with a little luck I will be able to tell you what's been keeping me occupied lately, apart from the tax dodger being here, (he goes back to his hovel tomorrow). We have paid for a new domain and hosting, so things will change shortly. I don't think my blog will move for a while, but the new site will be up and running soon. Everything is linked, so I can't say too much, watch this space. It may be another couple of days till I post again, we take the tax dodger back to Manchester tomorrow, then more work on our new thing, then all will become clear. Hope you don't get bored waiting !