I could see myself stacking a shelf.

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mount McKinley. His name was Christopher John McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a Moose hunter…….

Into the wild – Jon Krakauer.

That excerpt is written on the front of the book, it really grabbed my attention and fired my imagination. The book cost 50 crowns and was well worth it.

Tracy whisked me away to Prague for my birthday, it snowed, it was cold, it was very romantic, it was fantastic.

When I got back I found out that I had passed, with credit, my NEBOSH exams. Anyone out there need a health and safety advisor ?

There's too many bad memories.

This is about my old home town. (via Momo)

It's funny, but a bit harsh.

A small remembrance of something more solid.

#3 My little eye.

Almost heaven.

I made the ribs. They were fucking gorgeous. So nice in fact that I’m going to tell you how to make them. This recipe will make enough sauce for three medium racks of pork ribs.

This has been translated from the original American recipe, so I have given everything in metric volumes instead of cups.

250 mls Ketchup.
250 mls Apple cider vinegar.
125 mls Muscovado sugar.
100 mls Molasses sugar.
0.5 ts Salt.
0.5 ts Black pepper.
0.25 ts Onion powder.
0.25 ts Garlic powder.

Wack it all in a pan on a high heat, stirring continuously, until it boils, then turn it down and simmer for half an hour. It should be a nice thick velvety consistency.

Marinade the ribs overnight in the fridge in about half the sauce.

Make some foil pockets and pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Put the ribs in the foil pocket, coating them with half the remaining sauce (this should leave a quarter for the end bit). After 2 and a half hours the ribs should be done. Open the pockets and coat the ribs in the remaining sauce, then grill for about 4 minutes on either side. They should now by sticky and smell gorgeous.

Prepare to get messy.

And I laid traps for troubadours.

This is the six hundred and sixty sixth post on this little virtual backwater, so it would be fitting to dedicate it to Lucifer, prince of darkness, lord of the flies, overseer of the dark domains of hell and leader to the hordes of evil souls that infest its putrid depths. But I don’t believe he exists so fuck it !

Instead we’ll look at numbers. If I had posted every day there would be one thousand and twenty nine posts by now, and that’s if I only posted once a day. Lazt twat eh ?

Last week I found myself watching prime time BBC for the first time in ages, and now I know why. Martin Actor was a tough uncompromising judge, in Judge John Monkfish. It was straight out the fast show, he fell just short of telling the young girl to put a pair of knickers on and make him a cup of tea. It was riveting and I’ll be watching again this week.

I must admit I chuckled on Saturday when Jerzy Dudek gifted Rooney the goal that lost them the match, even though it was man u. When David James is your keeper you get laughs wherever you can. But tonight’s own goal by Djimi Traore, as well as being hilarious also knocked them out of the FA cup. Football, it’s a funny old game.

This beautiful creature must die.

Whilst we were in Mexico last year, we ate at a restaurant called Tony Roma’s. It’s apparently an American franchise, it’s specialises in spare ribs and steak. Very nice it was too, so much so that I have decided to try and recreate the taste of the Blue ridge smokies. However, all the recipes on the internet call for “liquid smoke”. I presume this is an American thing, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Does anyone know either how to make it, or where I can buy some ?

No one else can make you change.

I’ve been tidying up a little around here. Some things have been moved and some have been removed. I must be bored because I’m thinking of changing the colour scheme.

You should be bludgeoned in your bed.

The BBC news has had me pissing myself with laughter today. On two separate occasions the newsreader and his autocue parted company, and pure comedy gold was the result.

#1
“Here are the pictures sent back by the Huygens probe from the surface of Titan, and in the foreground you can see what is believed to be solid liquid.”

#2
“If you are waiting to watch match of the day, and don’t want to know the results, look away now. (pause) Spurs haven’t beaten Chelsea in 29 attempts…… now it’s 30.”

He went on the read out the results of all today’s Premier league games.

A small remembrance of something more solid.

#2 Vodka and Orange.

It could make a million for you overnight.

Sometimes you come across a blog, and you read a couple of posts, and you think to yourself, “why the fuck do I bother doing this ?” Go and have a look at the latest place to be added to the list, it’s excellent.

At times like this I find it beneficial to get a large glass, pour a very large measure of pot distilled Smirnov black label that resides in the bottom drawer of the freezer, add a good handful of ice cubes and top up with fresh orange juice. Quaff large and feel life’s tribulations drift away !

Sweet moderation, heart of this nation.

Prince Charles has been in Carlisle today, to visit people made homeless by the floods. No doubt he asked them a load of pointless fucking questions and then fucked off somewhere for a slap up lunch.

Am I the only person to think that Harry’s fancy dress costume has been blown a little out of proportion ? What do you really expect from a member of the royal family. He’s apologised, let it go for fuck’s sake. My grandad fought in the war to get the freedom of expression that this young man took advantage of. What are we to do ? Ban fancy dress parties ? Maybe we should have strict rules about what one should wear at such festivities. Fuck it, lets bring in an enabling act and give Blair the powers of a dictator. Have we not seen that somewhere before ?

It’s just a shame the press don’t feel as strongly about the real fascists in this country !

And the rituals of a Saturday afternoon.

I have just finished reading “Blue blood” Mike Doyle’s autobiography. I was really looking forward to it because he was a member of the City team that ruled English football in the sixties and seventies. I only saw him play a handful of times, and to be honest I don’t really remember anything about those early games. But he was a link between my dad’s City and mine. Before I started reading the book I already liked Doyle, he hated Man U and was very vocal about how much better City were. I only wish we had players at the club now who were as loyal.

In the book he settles a few scores, and has some less than flattering things to say about the likes of Rodney Marsh and George Best, as well as some less well known individuals. The last couple of chapters are a little too bitter and self indulgent for my liking.

A far better read, in my opinion, is a book called "Kicked into touch" by Fred Eyre. A City player who didn’t scale the dizzy heights, and consequently had a lot more to be bitter about. His book is full of wit and wisdom, and leaves you feeling a lot happier.

Well here's another place you can go.

I need some feedback on an idea, so I thought I’d ask you. You see I’ve exhausted my brain trying to come to terms with this theory. First you have to agree with some basic principles:

1. The speed of light is constant, and cannot be surpassed.
2. The shortest distance between two points is a curve.
3. Space-time is linear.

The taxdodger’s theory goes like this:

If you stand at any point on Earth and travel to another point, you are traveling a curve (the earth is spherical). But if you tunnel underground and travel in a straight line, you cover less distance. Therefore, if your speed is constant you will arrive earlier. If we view the universe as an onion, with the skins as definite pockets of time, then under normal circumstances we would travel over the surface of the newest skin (again a curve). If we could find a way to travel through the skins, we would surpass the speed of light. In effect we could travel anywhere in the universe instantly.

My problem is this, what the fuck does a four-dimensional onion look like ?

A small remembrance of something more solid.

#1 Coffee cup.

Looks like we’re in for nasty weather.

As Carlisle was flooding, I lay in bed listening to the wind try and rip our roof off. I went out in the morning to check the house and survey the rest of the damage, a shed roof lay about a foot from Tracy’s car. Luckily our house was ok, probably something to do with the roof tiles being of the fucking huge variety. Others had fared worse, there was a chimney leaning precariously against a roof at the top of our road, a little further towards Workington there was about three tons of bricks and slate piled up in the road. Many trees had met their doom and one Vauxhall Tigra had a shed stuck out of the rear window.

As I write this the wind is picking up again, as forecast. I can hear wheelie bins trundling about the street outside, like some insane Womble/Dalek hybrids. Even though it’s dark I can still just about see the sea, and tide is on its way back in. When it gets here it will bring the wind with it. It’s due in a couple of hours, I think I might stay up and see what happens.

City obviously weren’t up for their trip to the land of hills and chip shops. What can you do with a team that one week gives a good account of itself against one of the top teams in Europe, and the next can’t beat a team sitting in the bottom half of league one ? Strangely enough, for a side managed by Kevin Keegan, the defense is pretty good but we can’t score goals. In my opinion we should get rid of Anelka and spend some cash on a replacement. Next up, Palace and West Brom. Any other team sitting in ninth place would be relishing back-to-back relegation candidates. I just don’t know what will happen, which says it all about City really.

Also, I can’t believe I forgot to mention this, I passed last years open uni’ course. So, this year I embark on a second year course, which covers things like the rise and fall of leaded petrol, and nuclear power. The last section is all about the deep oceans. It really does look a lot harder, but also a lot more interesting.

I know you're closed eye watching me

I’m thirty-nine this year, also this place hits the third anniversary of its inception. It has passed very quickly, maybe because I don’t post as often as I used to. The thing about not working is that very little happens on a daily basis. There are only so many rants I can have about the dole office. I really don’t want to spend this year unemployed, so I have to stay positive, and reading other people’s blogs keeps my spirits up. Maybe some inspiration will grip me this year, and I’ll manage to post a little more than I have recently.

I have created a little mini-site for the holiday snaps. Only have a look if you are really interested, the images are quite large, and if you have a dial-up connection they could take a while to load. Finally, after three years of shyness, there is a picture of me. Another reason not to look !

Hope you all had a fantastic new-year celebration.

I’m off to see what damage last nights wind did.