This sounds promising.

Linky !

These things take time.

I’ve been playing about with Google earth for a couple of days; I downloaded it months ago but then promptly forgot about it. The program is still new and loads of bits of the country aren’t as clear as the cities. You can’t see our house, but I can see the car parked outside my dad’s house. What struck me was that I was using a brand new piece of technology for purely nostalgic purposes. I was looking at places we had been, and houses we used to live in. Even places where we’ve been on holiday. Then, within a couple of minutes, I was checking directions for next Saturday. I found that, although on a road map junction 3 of the M60 looks like it has an exit onto the A34, it actually doesn’t. In fact if you want to get onto Kingsway from the motorway you have to go via fucking Birmingham almost. So Google earth has two distinct and opposite uses. A little like an exercise bike, workout and coat hanger. Any more ?

I may have mentioned eating at the Toby carvery in Carlisle. We were there yesterday after a whirlwind trip round Gretna outlet village. If the definition of a village is a group of shops next to a huge car park then it’s a village, but I suspect someone has to actually live there for it to be an official village. If it depends on the appearance of an idiot, then yeah, it is one. Anyway, back to the Toby carvery. They have prompts sellotaped to the till, presumably to ensure the waitresses don’t forget to ask things. Apart from the usual lack of punctuation and the odd missing apostrophe, there was a glaring spelling mistake. When I pointed it out to the waitress she looked at me like I was complete freak. I know I’ve said this before, but I am going to start photographing these things. These lazy fuckers need to be named and shamed.

And another thing, spurious statistics in adverts are getting worse. A new tooth brush makes your mouth “five times cleaner” Than what ? It’s also been mentioned on another blog (I forget which one) the ads that use the new flavour-of-the-month strap line “you do the …., we’ll do the ….” Fuck off ! Nescafe are doing it now with a Roland Rivron voice over. Fucking whore. How can these ad’ agencies get it so wrong ? Whichever agency does the Honda ad’s is the only one with any originality at the moment, the one with the choir is ace.

Distraction.

Meme: An annoying little thing that you hate, but find yourself doing.

This one from Lyle.

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:

1. Tyre fitter.
2. Rubber glove maker.
3. Chemical process supervisor.
4. NVQ trainer and assessor.

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. The quiet man.
2. Breakfast club.
3. Lock stock.
4. The empire strikes back.

Four places I have lived:

1. Hyde.
2. Newton.
3. Hayton.
4. Harrington.

Four TV shows I love to watch:

1. House.
2. Lost.
3. Titty bang bang. (don't look at me., I'm shy)
4. Soccer saturday.

Four places I have been on holiday:

1. Mexico.
2. Tunisia.
3. Egypt.
4. Prague.

Four of my favourite dishes:

1. Chicken Tikka Jalfrezi.
2. Full English breakfast.
3. Roast beef.
4. Tracy's cheese and onion pie.

Four websites I visit daily:

1. BBC.
2. Bluemoon.
3. Ebay.
4. Google.

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Mauritius.
2. Rio.
3. Fiji.
4. Tierra del fuego.

Tempus fugit.

Today is the last day of my thirties. I wonder when the depression will kick in ? So far I’m having a great time. I don’t feel 40 though; maybe that’s why I’m not that arsed about it. Tracy took me away for a couple of days to Scotland, Ballachulish (pronounced bala-hoo-lish). We stayed in a nice hotel, ate and drank too much and stared at the dramatic scenery. As you travel along the A82 towards Fort William you turn a corner and are presented with a set of brooding mountains, capped with snow, dark and foreboding. I thought we were going on holiday to Mordor. Unfortunately we were both too awestruck to get any pictures. I’ll never make a photographer; too busy staring to get a good picture. I did get a sea otter on film, or it could have been a seal. The lack of a definite description of the animal will probably give you some idea of my video camera skills as well.

Ah well, I did get a bottle of ten-year-old single malt that was bottled on my birthday. Edradour is the smallest distillery in Scotland and my numbered bottle was aged in a port cask. I’m not of those people who “put things away” to save for special occasions. I’ve opened it already, and it’s gorgeous. It’s technically a work night, but I can see me knocking back a few more of the pale yellow stuff.

We came home by a circuitous route, via Oban which was closed. It was a nice drive back, nothing like the dramatic scenery of the journey there. I can recommend driving to Fort William on the A82, especially at this time of year, and keep your camera charged and ready.

To celebrate the last day of my thirties I had a breakfast that I’ve never had before. Eggs Benedict.



I’ve always fancied it, but hadn’t got around to it until this morning. It was worth the wait. Is there anything you’ve never had, but always fancied ?

It was 24 years today.

That I asked Tracy out, we had been to Manchester shopping for my birthday pressie. It was a week early but my dad had given me a tenner for the Beatles white album. I got it from Robinson’s records after traipsing all round Manchester. City didn’t have a match that weekend, can’t remember why, but we lost to Coventry in the FA cup on my birthday. Today we were out again looking for my birthday pressie, this time for my 40th not my 16th.

Obviously I’ve been thinking about City all day, it being Derby day. I remember reading an article about supporting the blues by Paul Morley; luckily I found it again the other day on bluemoon:

To support Manchester City is to believe that God might have trouble running things on this planet, but he's in control of the next world. He has to be. The Devil rules this world and always will, because his team are Manchester United, and they are world famous and monolithic.

Manchester City, who's name travels the world about as well as Gracie Fields or Pulp, are on the side of the angels; the poor, sapped, unfortunate angels who still believe in quaint antiquated notions of earthly good. To support Manchester City is to accept with heroic willingness the dead-flat that the universe is cold and hostile, and nothing good will become of it. To support City is to tackle head on the crushing pointlessness of existence and to attempt to make something of it. It is hard work. So why do it? Because somehow this seems ultimately more dignified and fulfilling than taking the easy way out and supporting the lulling and obnoxious United.

To support United is too easy. It's convenience supporting. It makes life too easy. There is no challenge. It is a cowardly form of escapism, a sell-out to the forces of evil. United fans have no soul and will spend their eternity neck deep in boiling vomit. City fans retain their soul and will spend their eternity forever reliving the moment their team beat Newcastle 4-3 away from home to win the League Championship in 1968, beating United into second place. Surely we will have such eternal bliss again, for why do we spend so much time suffering in this life watching our team climb to the summit only so that we can watch them dive, dive, dive to their pitiless bottom of the heap while United, of Manchester, but nothing really to do with it, float every more triumphantly skywards?

Heartless United are the incarnation of shamelessness and to support them is heroism in a can. Cavalier City, however awry their football, however dire their straits, glow with something mystical and transcendental. City have soul. United do not.

When they are great again, City will have shown that they are worth their extraordinary fans. To this day these fans will walk a million miles for one of Joe Mercer's smiles. They'll sing a million songs waiting for some new Mercer-like magic. Because they are City, and Christ do they know they're born.

-

It’s my 40th birthday a week on Monday, but I got my present early, 3:1 with four young lads that cost us nowt.

Happy days !

Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with ancestry, the man ate a fucking Indian.

This and many more stomach cramp inducing Chuck Norris facts can be found here.

[via Maff]

Film.

I’ve just sat through possibly the worst film I have ever seen. Some claim eh ? There’s lots of shite out there to choose from, and maybe it’s just because I’ve only just seen it. For the record here are my top five worst films, in descending order:

5. Lost in space. (Joey in space).

4. Star wars – episode 1. (Lucas’ retirement fund).

3. Reign of fire. (Matthew Popeye McConaughey).

2. Battlefield Earth. (John Travolta with Klingon war boots).

And straight in at number one

1. War of the worlds. (Tom Cruise plays a piece of wood).

I kept waiting for it to get going, it didn’t. Even the special effects were shit. This film had no redeeming features. As usual the story was ripped up and re-written like only Hollywood can, it had no direction, no tension and no climax. My two-word film review for War of the worlds – Monkey shit.

We went to see King Kong on Friday night, I thought it was excellent. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so don’t read on if you’re going to go and see it.

Are you sure you want to know ?

Ok.

I really liked the way he stuck to the story, ok so we knew he was going to after LOTR. It was set in the 20s/30s and had the atmosphere to go with it. The whole film reminded me of the old monster films we used to watch. Unlike War of the worlds the special effects were amazing, the monkey was so lifelike and the dinosaurs were miles better than Jurassic park. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the ending; he hadn’t changed it to fit in with the US test audience’s need for a happy moral loaded ending full of cheesy one-liners and thousand yard stares. No. the ending was proper. The monkey plummeted from a great height and expired on the snowy streets of New York. I did keep expecting Jack Black to say “and the beast was stunned” (if you haven’t seen the video to Tribute download it now). So, my two word film review for King Kong – Monkey love.

TV.

Has anyone else noticed the similarity between the new Thompson’s holiday adverts, and fly guy ? Also, is it just me that thinks eBay’s new ad’, encouraging us to flog off our unwanted Christmas pressies, is just wrong ?

The Jeremy Vine show this afternoon discussed Religion. Vine had an atheist professor on the phone to defend his new TV program about the evils of religion. The bloke was so crap he allowed himself to get verbally butt fucked live on the air by a Home Counties housewife who had found god. I’m not saying Home Counties housewives are incapable of arguing a point, but this bloke was a professor, he didn’t even put up a fight. A great opportunity was missed to put forward a cogent argument against organised religion; instead we got a numpty who couldn’t even defend the title of his TV program.

Lost finishes next week, what a fantastic series, it’s been the only thing on worth watching. A host of other series have started over the last few months, all sounded promising, all failed to deliver…. Threshold being a prime example. On Monday another new series starts on BBC. Life on Mars, it sounds like a new version of quantum leap. Let’s hope it lives up to the hype because there’s fuck all else on.

Mini site

Some of our holiday pics are here.

Enjoy !