Tuesday, April 30, 2002  



Vanity has finally got the better of me, I've installed a counter. It's an odd thing, that part of me wants the appreciation of total strangers, whilst another part is telling me that I am writing this for me, and if anyone else reads it then fine ! When we register our blogs with various sites, we do it to drive traffic our way. Let's face it, it's pointless having an opinion if you're not going to share it with the world, and that's what blogging is all about. You put your two pence worth in black and white and wait to see if anything happens. At the end of March I did a Google search for bluetealeaf......nothing, yesterday over 40 results. My opinions are out there being read, and I just want to keep track of who is reading them.



| posted by Simon | 2:07 pm | 0 comments


Monday, April 29, 2002  



Someone has stuck a big metal tee-pee in the middle of the roundabout near our house. I’m all for community art projects but this looks like the scrap yard truck has shed it’s load. The north east got the “angel of the north” and what did we get ? a pile of old iron…….typical !



| posted by Simon | 3:33 pm | 0 comments


Sunday, April 28, 2002  



mmmm… seven deadly sins !
[ pride ] [envy ] [ gluttony ] [ lust ] [ anger ] [ greed ] [ sloth ] Outdated methods of control ? or just there to be broken ? You could always sin to your hearts content, then go [ here ] for on-line absolution. Do society’s older control measures mean anything to the people of today ? Or is it just another nail in the coffin of organised religion ? Lot’s of questions from me today, and very few answers. Who needs answers when you’ve got so many links to look at ? Another question , or just the end of this post ?



| posted by Simon | 5:27 pm | 0 comments


Saturday, April 27, 2002  



Travelling without moving, today I have circumnavigated the globe from my swivel chair, and it’s taken me nearly twelve hours. My mind is full of the detritus of other peoples lives, or the slop of other peoples cerebral buckets. I have been captivated, horrified, bored, annoyed and swept along on a tide of emotion. I usually go to work for twelve hours , but this was far more exhausting, I feel like I’ve run a marathon. One quote that has popped up with alarming regularity today just say’s it all really, it’s apparently by Proust.



"The only true voyage of discovery, the only really rejuvenating experience would not be to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees."


Today I have possessed the eyes of hundreds of others, and I feel all the more enriched for the experience.



| posted by Simon | 9:44 pm | 0 comments
 



I don't normally take these test's [prevoius post] that you see on other people's blogs, and there are hundreds of them. This one seems ok though, although you may not like what it tells you about yourself.


| posted by Simon | 7:13 pm | 0 comments
 



DisorderRating
Paranoid:Low
Schizoid:Low
Schizotypal:Low
Antisocial:Low
Borderline:Low
Histrionic:Low
Narcissistic:Moderate
Avoidant:Low
Dependent:Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:Moderate

[Take The Test]





| posted by Simon | 7:08 pm | 0 comments
 



Today I have mostly been reading hundreds of blogs, in fact my eyes are about to explode. I have added the ones that interest me to the "other blogs" section. If you don't like them you can go here.



| posted by Simon | 3:02 pm | 0 comments
 



The Levellers sing as song called “ Boatman ” and part of the lyric is “…..if I could choose the life I pleased, then I would be a free man”. Like most other people in the world I am not free to live the life I please, although I am considerably more free than the vast majority of the third world, we all want different things in life. Once you have ensured your survival by providing food and shelter, you then look elsewhere. Abraham Maslow, a human psychologist, produced a pyramid of human needs , I’ll not bore you with it here, but most people in this country are off the bottom level, and we all want to move up. Now, you can use Sartre’s argument that “ man is inescapably free ” and you can do pretty much what you want. I don’t subscribe to this theory, only when you have sufficient funds can you follow your chosen path…. sad but true . We still have obvious boundaries, law’s and societies rules and regulations to keep us in check, but if you have enough cash you can do pretty much what you want to. Cash = freedom, I know this is not a revelation, and it certainly isn’t an original idea, but when you reduce our society to that tiny equation it just illustrates to me how fucked-up this world really is , and what little hope there is for the future of our race.


| posted by Simon | 10:50 am | 0 comments


Friday, April 26, 2002  



A large curry, a cheesy feel-good movie , then Peter Kay on Jonathon Ross. I’ve seen him twice this week, and he has to be one of the funniest comedians around at the moment.


| posted by Simon | 11:30 pm | 0 comments
 



[via Barroomphilosophy ]


Blair and Bush have been nominated for the Nobel peace prize ! No it’s not a joke, I’ve checked it out, and after I had finished laughing I felt sick. Then I filled in the online e-mail to the Nobel prize committee urging them to reconsider. I am asking you to do likewise. [ - online form here - ]




| posted by Simon | 12:26 am | 0 comments


Thursday, April 25, 2002  




It had occurred to me that this blog might grind to a halt after the first week or so, as I struggled to think of things to write. Happily I have to say that it's getting easier as I become more relaxed talking to you. I thought a good yardstick was that if it kept me interested then it would probably interest others. At the moment I am still enjoying it, and thinking of ever more things to write about. The only obstacle in my way is finding the time to do it all.



| posted by Simon | 11:50 pm | 0 comments
 




Does anyone really care who Sven Goran Manager is going out with ? What is the fascination with gossip in the mainstream media ? I know it’s aimed at a certain target audience, but why put it on Sky sports news ? Your average punter who watches the aforementioned news program isn’t interested in such snippets of tittle-tattle. We don’t need to know which make of jeans David Beckham is currently favouring, or that Graham Le Saux reads the Guardian. The subject seems to become sport news by virtue of the fact that there is a sportsperson in there somewhere. Yesterday’s lead story on SSN was Robbie Savage taking a dump in the reff’s toilet……is there really so little going on in the world of sport ? Even Stefan Effenberg creating a couple of million disgruntled unemployed Germans with his unapologetic comments made the Sport news, why ? I’m sure Murdoch has a master plan to turn us all into identical, asexual, malleable spending machines. I’m going to be watching soaps and make-over programs, and if I see one football I’m going to expand this idea into a full blown conspiracy theory……......watch this space !





| posted by Simon | 10:32 am | 0 comments


Wednesday, April 24, 2002  




You think you know someone, then boom they’re a total stranger again. It could be one of your oldest friends, you know their likes and dislikes, you know their moods, you know when you’ve gone too far and so do they. Then out of the blue you discover that you new very little, you only scratched the surface, or maybe you only knew as much as that person wanted you to know. The transition from friend to total stranger is rapid and awash with emotion, the more information that is revealed, the more layers you uncover the less you wish you knew. In fact I wish I knew nothing, and that I wasn’t as persistent in my search for the truth. The new knowledge is gnawing at my conscience and producing ever more questions, ones that will probably go unanswered. But….a friend is friend, and nowadays more than ever we need all the friends we can get. Like kipling said “…..to the gallows foot and after”.





| posted by Simon | 2:09 pm | 0 comments


Tuesday, April 23, 2002  




Life has been compared to many things. Gump’s mother said it was like a box of chocolates, it’s been described as “a bed of roses ” and “a bowl of cherries”. Fun boy three had their money on “a game of chess” and one of my favourites was John Lennon’s observation in "watching the wheels" that “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”. What life is not, and let me be quite clear about this, what life is not………….
IS EVERY ONE TO ONE YOU’VE EVER FUCKING HAD !





| posted by Simon | 11:44 pm | 0 comments


Monday, April 22, 2002  



This has been troubling me for a while, and things just took a turn for the worse. Lets hope it’s a French tactical thing. If not, then some people have got very short memories .



| posted by Simon | 7:58 pm | 0 comments
 



Three questions, all sent to me via e-mail. This isn’t thought provoking stuff, just some Monday evening light reading.

Question 1:
You are driving home one evening, you drive past a bus stop, at the bus stop is an old woman who is dying and needs to go to the hospital, and old friend who saved your life once, and finally the woman of your dreams. Unfortunately your car only has one passenger seat, who do you give the lift to ?

Question 2:
If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Question 3:
It is time to elect a new world leader, and your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:
Candidate A:
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.
Candidate B:
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.
Candidate C:
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs. Which of these candidates would be your choice?



Candidate A is Franklin D.Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler


The answer to the abortion question: If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven.


The answer to question 1…….well…. this was an interview question and there is no right answer, but if you want the answer of the person who got the job e-mail me.



| posted by Simon | 7:36 pm | 0 comments


Sunday, April 21, 2002  



Taurus ( April 21st – May 21st ).


The five planet alignment this month will make absolutely no difference to your fate, but take a look in your tea cup next Thursday, if you see the letter F, you’re done for. It’s entirely possible that you aren’t actually human, you may have started out so, but your preponderance for drinking human blood has changed you into……..a new labour lackey. What you need is a dose of cold reality, followed by a couple of weeks living on an inner city council estate . Or alternately fresh cut flowers in your conservatory will keep you in check. If it’s your birthday this month your lucky colour is Magenta and you have a 12% chance of winning the cup final .

Do: wear odd socks. Don’t: try to sing, you can’t. Say: Pint of Absinth please mate !



| posted by Simon | 1:06 pm | 0 comments
 




Last night I saw a playable demo of Final Fantasy X, I sat in awe at the amazing graphics. Not just the FMV, but the in-game graphics are simply the best I ever seen. It's a shame that the I've never liked this type of game. Playability is the key. You can have amazing graphics, a soundtrack by the current flavour-of-the-month, loads of FMV, and a whole host of extras but it wont guarantee it's a good game, it needs to be playable. I used to have a Binatone pong game donkeys years ago, and it kept me happy for hours because it was addictive and satisfying when you got it right. You're probably shouting at your monitor that I enjoyed it so much because there was nothing else out at time, OK.....I have a challenge for you, go HERE and if you don't find this game extremely addictive and satisfying, and also a fantastic use of resources currently available to web designers, then I will get my coat and go.


Now I know you can argue that millions of people think the Final Fantasy series are among the best games ever released, but that's the whole point, it's all subjective, and this is my blog so you get my opinion. At the moment I'm waiting in anticipation for Tomb Raider - The Angel of darkness, but my current game of choice is Wipeout Fusion, it's extremely addictive and very satisfying when you get it right.


| posted by Simon | 10:57 am | 0 comments
 




The Ikea conversation




| posted by Simon | 1:07 am | 0 comments
 



I've been trying for hours to post the Ikea conversation, but it keeps crashing Blogger edit page. it must be too big ? I'll stick it on my web site and put a link from here. I am also toying with the idea of putting the whole blog on my site, but I will have to look into it a little deeper, I don't fully understand the way it all works yet.

Just watched Peter Kaye live in Blackpool, well we didn't actually see him live in Blackpool, it was on Paramount but he was live in Blackpool. My sides are aching and my eyes are still stinging, crying with laughter is so good, laughter is the best medicine, unless you're a diabetic then it's insulin.......




| posted by Simon | 12:33 am | 0 comments


Friday, April 19, 2002  



There are strange things going on in space for the next few weeks, five planets are all visible in the same area of the sky. In a few days they move a little bit and form an equalateral triangle, spooky ? coincidence ? or just relativity ?......I don't know, that's why I'm asking you !


I have been reading "Perdido street station" again, watched "Blade 2" this week, listening to "the Levellers" probably because we got tickets to see the acoustic spin-off "Drunk in public" in May. Isn't escapism brilliant ?


This series of mark Thomas on Channel 4 has been very good, three down three to go. You can't afford to miss it.


| posted by Simon | 10:05 pm | 0 comments


Thursday, April 18, 2002  




when you heart is black and broken, and you need a helping hand, when you're so much in love you don't know just how much you can stand. when your questions go unanswered, and the silence is killing you, take my hand baby I'm your man, I've got lovin' enough for two....... ten story love song, I built this thing for you, it can take you higher, than twin peak mountain blue, oh well I built this thing for you, and I love you true.......



| posted by Simon | 8:42 pm | 0 comments


Wednesday, April 17, 2002  




I have been at work all day, and it's an effort just to pick up my knife and fork, let alone make a reasonable attempt at something resembling a decent post. Yesterday's issue was a bit dark and I think it took it out of me a little, although that one has been on my mind for a few weeks now, I just didn't feel ready to share it until yesterday. (large pause). I have just been staring at the screen for about five minutes, I think I will call it a day and hope that tomorrow I'm back in the groove.......who am I kidding ? it will be weekend before you read anything meaningfull on here, time to chill...........Oh, and happy birthday Andy !



| posted by Simon | 8:48 pm | 0 comments


Tuesday, April 16, 2002  



I need your imagination for a few minutes. Picture this, in fact if you could sit back, close your eyes and get someone to read this to you that would be better.

A man is sitting in an armchair, papers in an untidy mess strewn all around and a lap-top sits on a coffee table in front of him, blinking in anticipation of future commands. On the floor a little to the man's right is a revolver, lying where it landed after the last time it was used. The man's lifeless corpse lolls slightly to the left, his now destroyed head hangs limply to one side. A man who used to be so fastidious about his appearance would be perturbed about the mess he had made. On the wall, behind the chair in which the corpse sat, the contents of it's head had begun to congeal and set, but before this drying process had time to take effect some of the liquid and softer particles has begun to run. Under the influence of gravity this mess has started to spell out a word, just visible in the organic detritus the outline of a name was taking shape, and the word was..............[insert company name here]



| posted by Simon | 12:46 pm | 0 comments
 



There's a song by James called "sit down" and part of the lyric is; "......if I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor". Interspersed with my normal existence of dull ignorance there are flashes of brilliance, like a layer between my sences and the outside world has been breached, or a light that briefly illuminates a darkened room. Most of the time I feel two dimentional, but occationally my mind gets fat and pops into the third, it inspires me. I have been told that ignorance is bliss, but I think I'd rather live in the bright realm of understanding, than my world, and like the song it bothers me !


| posted by Simon | 11:11 am | 0 comments


Monday, April 15, 2002  



It's nearly our nineteenth wedding anniversary, and it only seems like five minutes since that warm April Saturday morning in 1983, time really does speed up the older you get. Thing is, I still feel seventeen and i think this is mostly to do with having kids young. They keep you on your toes, when I was my son's age my dad was forty four and a grandfather. So as i sit here desperately clinging to what little youth I have left, whilst hurtling towards middle age at break-neck speed, I want you to remember this; you are as old as you want to feel.


| posted by Simon | 10:24 pm | 0 comments


Sunday, April 14, 2002  




I've been having real problems with internet explorer, so I just upgraded to IE6 and it seems to have solved my problems. I have also visited pcpitstop, this site runs a free check on your machine and gives you advice on what needs to be done to optimise the equipment you have. In all this has taken me about an hour, but it has ironed out quite a few glitches I had. All I need now is a couple of 80 gig hard drives, another few hundred meg of ram, and broadband....oh and a bigger comfier chair.



| posted by Simon | 9:08 pm | 0 comments
 



[via http://www.ananova.com]


Ancient fire and handprints rewrite history. The remains of a 20,000-year-old fire have been found in Tibet. Handprints nearby have been dated to the same period and prove people were living on the plateau during the Ice Age. This is 16,000 years earlier than historians had thought and raises doubts over the belief a giant glacier covered the area. The marks of at least six people, including two children, were found in rocks which were once soft mud. David Zhang and S H Li, of the University of Hong Kong, found the prints and the primitive stove. They then dated them by using the age of the quartz trapped inside the rock. Until now the oldest known settlements in the area were thought to have been around 4,000 years ago. A very hot spring probably attracted the settlers and preserved the 19 hand and footprints they left there.



Construction worker says Great Pyramid was a 'water filter' A Canadian construction worker claims the Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a giant water filter. Gerald Dupont has spent the equivalent of £8,700 and six years carrying out research into the pyramid which he's never visited. He believes the world would have needed fresh water if there was a Great Flood as detailed in the Bible. The Great Pyramid was believed to have been built about 5,000 years ago to serve as a tomb for an Egyptian pharaoh. The structure consists of approximately two million blocks of stone, each weighing more than two tons But Mr Dupont, from Transcona, says its design is similar to a water distillation system. He told the Canoe website: "I'm in construction and read blueprints all the time. It caught me by surprise and I started to explore its potential. I was looking for evidence that would refute the theory, but instead I found evidence to support it. "I decided to build a stainless steel replica scale model of the interior chambers of the Great Pyramid. What happens is in the subterranean chamber, if you introduce water and a heating element, you create vapour and have a perfect working water distillation system." Mr Dupont, who is writing a book on his research, added: "Nobody, in my research, has looked into the Great Pyramid as a machine. It is a machine. I can get you a plumbing engineer, a steam engineer and a refrigeration engineer that will say this works."


| posted by Simon | 1:38 pm | 0 comments


Friday, April 12, 2002  



Do you think there are an infinite number of new ideas ? or are there only so many to go around ? we could get to a point in the future where we reach the end of our creativity, and old ideas will be recycled in old ways. Maybe that's the point when nature gets rid of us, the point at which we stagnate will be our end, to make way for something new and original. I think we've got a while yet though !


| posted by Simon | 6:28 pm | 0 comments


Thursday, April 11, 2002  



Night shift

Every minute gets slower, till at around half past five the clock stops and I'm here forever. I see rats out of the corners of my eyes. Life progresses in a series of frames, like the old "what the butler saw" or some weird flow chart. Sounds take on new meaning, resonating in my hollow shell and making me float. Senses go into stand-by mode and I lose my appetite, instead I get a powerful thirst that not even ice cold water can quench. I read the same line in my book over and over again and even now I can't remember what it was about. I think the clock just ticked backwards sdrawkcab dekcit tsuj kcolc eht kniht I


| posted by Simon | 3:38 pm | 0 comments


Wednesday, April 10, 2002  



I've been thinking quite a bit recently about why I'm actually doing this, why I'm posting my thoughts to be read by all and sundry ? or not, as the case may be.


I've come to the conclusion that it's because I'm fascinated by communication. Not just written communication, but all kinds such as paintings, poetry, sculpture, music, film, and a host of others. One of the most enjoyable forms of communication must be face to face conversation, there is so much information to take in apart from the actual words; there's facial expressions, posture, hand gestures, tone of voice, all of which gives us a complete picture. This makes the other, more abstract forms of communication all the more interesting, you don't get the complete picture yet a poet for instance can evoke an emotion with just a collection of words,



I have no life but this,
to lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
dispelled from there;

Nor tie to earths to come,
nor action new,
except through this extent,
the realm of you.




A film maker can terrify us or have us doubled over with laughter, or a sculpter can move us to wonderment with a piece of stone or wood. A painting can generate so many interpretations, and none of them will be what the artist had in mind, for instance; the angelus by Jean-Francois Millet, when I first saw this painting I imagined two peasants standing in a field after planting their seeds, praying to their god to give them a good crop.







this was interpreted by Dali to have themes of sex and death, he was so effected by this painting he had several paranoiac-critical transformations. He later created his own interpretation of the painting with the peasants appearing as giant architectural structures, the woman resembles a preying mantis, or is this just my interpretation ?







All methods of communication are open to interpretation, and that's the part I find most fascinating, that you are reading this in a different place and time to me, yet you will have some understanding of what I mean. If that is the case, and I have managed to communicate my thoughts and ideas across space and time then this site is a success, I've done what I set out to do.


| posted by Simon | 1:30 pm | 0 comments


Tuesday, April 09, 2002  



Call centres are our new sweatshops, our twenty-first-century dark satanic mills, and on the whole employ fairly well rounded mostly intelligent individuals. So, how come I always seem to get saddled with someone who was raised by chimps in the Belgian Congo ? I know "care in the community" is a worthy cause, but do we have to give them jobs on a switchboard and let them converse with the general population ? Information is a valuable commodity these days, why entrust it to someone with a seven-second memory span and only a rudimentary grasp of the English language ?

I have had bad experiences with a few call centres recently; BT, Index, MFI, BskyB, but the worst without doubt was Ikea. If you ever buy anything from these Scandinavian nik-nak purveyors make sure you check that's it is in tip-top condition before you leave the store, if you don't you may have the same surreal experience I did, it was like Alice in wonderland ! If I can recall the conversation well enough I will post it sometime, suffice it to say that I hung up the phone with an extremely baffled expression on my face, and the feeling that the thirty minutes I had just spent conversing with the disembodied Ali G sound-a-like was entirely wasted.


| posted by Simon | 3:22 pm | 0 comments


Monday, April 08, 2002  




Billy Brag said "nostalgia is the opium of the age" and I think most of us are already junkies, so here's my daily fix

Long summers, someone's dad spraying you with a hosepipe, cider lollies, British bulldog, garden hopping, rope swings, Ducky scraps, mambo's, cutting through Mrs. Banisters garden, compstall lake, heads and volleys, silver jubilee, the backies, Peg and Mary's shop, and Mr. Garside, being served with cigs and booze for your dad, knock and run, 10p mix ups, the banana splits, strike cola, sapping apples, nestles chocolate milkshakes, the bread man, not having a care in the world.

The smell of freshly mown grass just brought it all back to me, and for one brief moment I was seven years old again.



| posted by Simon | 2:09 pm | 0 comments


Sunday, April 07, 2002  




the cage



| posted by Simon | 2:14 pm | 0 comments


Saturday, April 06, 2002  




Manchester City improved on last nights promotion by clinching the first division Championship with a win over Barnsley at Maine road today. They did it in style with a hat-trick from Darren Huckerby, two from Jon Macken, and an imperious midfield display from Ali Benarbia.

Those are the facts, but they don't convey the emotion of this achievement, and I wont even try to put them into words. What I will say is that this ranks alongside only a handfull of other moments as a City fan, and gives a new sense of optimism for next season. Thank you City, you are the best football club in the world, supported by the best football fans, bar none !




| posted by Simon | 8:19 pm | 0 comments
 




Aries (March 21st April 20th).



If you have a K in your name make sure you sit by the phone on the 17th, your appendix is going to explode. For everyone else, this is a good day to eat grass. Due to the moon being in your kitchen window this is an excellent time to rub Mimosa and ylang ylang into your feet whilst chanting your shopping list. You have a tendency to march to a different beat, but this month you need to get in step with your psychic drummer, and for this you will need new shoes - brown ones with a Cuban heel. Your lucky colour is aquamarine and you have absolutely no chance of winning the lottery.

Do: Buy blue light bulbs. Don't: Look like Kyle Mclachlan. Say: Fuck it.







| posted by Simon | 3:33 am | 0 comments


Friday, April 05, 2002  



Promoted !


| posted by Simon | 11:39 pm | 0 comments
 



Why ?


why is it acceptable for Britain and America to manufacture and use weapons of mass destruction, but not for Iraq ? Why is the war on terrorism not directed at the IRA and the PLO ? Why are Mr. Farrakhan’s’ racist views tolerated but not those of others ? Why does the Catholic church do nothing about paedophile priests ? Why are people surprised that soldiers that used depleted uranium weapons are getting cancer ?



These any many other questions will probably never be answered, but that’s no excuse for us not to try and find the truth.


| posted by Simon | 3:29 pm | 0 comments


Thursday, April 04, 2002  



I'm back at work tomorrow night and just the thought of it is like a cloud descending over me, closing me in and darkening my mood. It happens every time I've been off for a break, it has a leaching effect on me, staunching what little creativity I may have, and replacing it with a dread like a tooth ache, niggling and relentless .



I don't want to be part of the solution, I enjoy being part of the problem. I want to be the disgruntled employee, it stops me being like them ! it stops me from wanting more than I need and needing more than I have. I feel no loyalty to a faceless group of shareholders, and no compunction to go above and beyond for a company that operates a policy of whatever you do is wrong, and who would end my livelihood in a heart-beat if it balanced the books for the year end. What we have here is a mutual lack of respect, but unfortunately for me the company would survive admirably without my continued service, and until I can claim the same I will turn up and do my job, accepting the small victories that occur from time to time. All the while treating with disdain, those for whom I have no respect or trust. My only hope is that my capacity for original thought will help me through the days when being at work is like being an inmate in a nineteenth century lunatic asylum, tied in a straight jacket made of red tape. Surrounded by corporate warders all with PhD's in self importance, and post graduate diplomas in arse covering.



| posted by Simon | 12:45 am | 0 comments


Wednesday, April 03, 2002  



Starting points:

including but not limited to, globalisation, euthanasia, the arms race, e.c.g.d, prejudice, new labour, pay per view, public transport, spin, the internet, religion, the disposable generation, genetic manipulation, foreign policy, politics and the unions, football (not the egg shaped variety), nostalgia, music, poetry, food, and the human condition.


To start a discussion on any of the above, e-mail me with your thoughts.



| posted by Simon | 10:16 am | 0 comments


Tuesday, April 02, 2002  



..........Linkin Nicklebizkit !! ha ha ha






| posted by Simon | 11:22 pm | 0 comments
 



Today the football league have threatened to sue ITV digital for half a billion pounds.
This is because ITV digital are claiming they can't afford to pay the remainder of the cash owing on the contract to televise league matches. Now…….the legal aspects of this argument don't interest me very much, apart from the way it will effect the finances of the smaller clubs, I think the most interesting thing about the whole thing is this:

Which of the two parties involved imagined for one moment that a televised match between Rotherham United and Stockport County would create the same revenue as Arsenal against Manchester United ? no offence intended to the smaller clubs, but you don't need a degree in business studies to work out that a premier league match probably has more television viewers than the smaller clubs get in actual attendance at the game. I think that the league are guilty of extreme greed and ITV are guilty of gross stupidity. Unfortunately neither of the parties involved will be as effected as those who subscribe to this service, as in a lot of cases in football, the fans are the ones who will ultimately lose out. Another case of money ruling and ruining what was a working class sport, and now is background entertainment on the corporate gravy train.


| posted by Simon | 8:28 pm | 0 comments
 



It took me three and a half hours to get yesterdays post published, at first I blamed Blogspot but I think it's more likely to be internet explorer.
For some reason it keeps freezing up and I have open the page in a new window. When I finally got yesterdays post on my page, it was in triplicate which meant more editing. I have since tried to view these pages in Netscape navigator and I have found that it isn't compatible, the page layout is all wrong.
If anyone has any info or can help me solve my explorer problems please e-mail me as it's driving me insane with frustration.



| posted by Simon | 12:47 pm | 0 comments


Monday, April 01, 2002  



Very slow at the mo'


| posted by Simon | 11:05 pm | 0 comments
 



We have a Chinchilla, she lives in a reasonably sized cage in the corner of our living room, she's very intelligent and always hungry. It would be very easy for all concerned if we just put her food in a dish once a day, and stuck it under her nose, easy for us because less time would be wasted, easy for her because she would have no thinking to do. Instead, to enrich her life and to keep her occupied, we think up ways of feeding her which involve some thought and a little work, it stops her going mad (we've all seen animals in the old zoo's, stood in a corner rocking from side to side) we don't want that.



I think what I'm trying to say is that at the moment the internet spoon feeds us our information, we don't have to think very hard to find what we want and I think this is a down side of blogging, it's all there in front of us. We don't want to end up in a corner rocking from side to side, so I urge you all to use the blog as a starting point for your daily feed of information, use the links that you find here as a launch pad to learn more, then post on your own bloggs what you find........the result, hopefully, will be a free flow of ideas and opinions and not just a regurgitated diatribe of vacuous irrelevancies.



| posted by Simon | 9:43 pm | 0 comments
 



Whilst listening to commercial radio today I noticed that the advertisements have to read out the “small print”, which on television is getting harder to see by the day. Advertising in general is changing rapidly, when I was young advertisements were aimed primarily at adults, with kids ads on a couple of weeks at Christmas. Nowadays most ads are aimed at kids, watch out for the new breed of trendy mineral waters on the market in Britain, they are going to replace fizzy drinks as the “must have” accessory to go with the mobile phone and mp3 player. Advertising has been changing in America for a while now, with advertisers using television in schools to promote companies like Nike, Pepsi, Reebok and Coca Cola. In return for forcing kids to watch an hour of ads per day the school gets sports equipment and computers etc.
This new idea in advertising will be in use over here very soon and your children’s curriculum could be forced to change to accommodate the television hour. Now imagine a school in a reasonably well off area whose pupils are your target audience, they will get the best equipment, whilst inner city schools whose pupils have little or no disposable cash will not even be offered the opportunity to participate. We already have a two tier education system in this country, very soon that could be replaced by a three or four tier system. Let’s see what that does for the governments beloved league tables.




| posted by Simon | 6:05 pm | 0 comments
 



I'm listening to my team move ever closer to promotion, will post more later.



| posted by Simon | 1:59 pm | 0 comments
 



Been slumming it tonight, first we watched Jerry Springer (Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve), and then club reps uncut. Some people really are desperate to get on television. At what point in your daily life do you think to yourself "I know, I'll go on Jerry Springer and tell the nation all about my particular perversion". I can understand the fascination of the television cameras to a group of young single holiday makers out for a good time, but the reps ? Their parents are watching, what must go through their minds when all and sundry are witnessing their offspring’s career opportunities going down the toilet ? Ah well, each to his own I suppose.




| posted by Simon | 12:00 am | 0 comments
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