If anyone out there hasn't heard about it, this year is the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Germans are groaning and shaking their heads. Frenchmen snort and dismiss the whole thing. Americans scratch their heads and wonder how we won it without their air force. Russians declare they won it first.
Okay, once more they showed the 1968 Battle of Britain film. Again. But I watched it all the same, even with those horrible non-1940's mistakes. It was after all a fairly accurate
What a miserable, rotten, rainy day. Sorry to go on a downer, but it just couldn't be any greyer. A fine drizzle driven by blustery winds is definitely dampening my spirit. But Yahoo has the answer. Twelve tips to brighten your otherwise dreary day. Okay. Let's have a look.
1. Resist the urge to
Today I thought I'd stop by the park and spend a few moments enjoying the quiet of a monday morning before having to get on with the real one. As mondays go, this does actually appear to be none too busy. The hill was devoid of cars completely, so either everyones on holiday this week, or the signs displaying the number of parking spaces are working.
As it happens, a flock of seabirds have dropped in to enjoy the lake as well. Now they ain't quiet. Frenetic activity everywhere, a constant ch
The doorbell rang yesterday. Usually when that happens it's a visitor for the downstairs crowd who hasn't realised that two doorbell buttons means you have to choose the right one. Occaisionally I get someone at the door asking wierd questions and I'll have to put that down to mistaken identity. Sometimes there's no-one there at all.
Having disentangled myself from the headphones, picked myself back off the floor having tripped on he cables, and repositioning te objects I knocked over, not t
Buckingham Palace isn't happy. The climate is changing. And Prince Charles is dumbfounded by sceptics of Global Warming.
Look Your Highness, it really is very simple. There are a lot of people claiming CO2 is destroying the planet. It isn't. The CO2 cycle is almost as old as the planet itself, and for most of Earths history, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was way above what we have today by orders of magnitude. CO2 has been rising again for millions of years, long before we invented dark
In case your local or national news hasn't picked it up, there was a massive explosion of a gas main in San Bruno, which is just south of San Francisco. The explosion was so gigantic that people at first thought that it was a plane crash; people inside their houses still felt the heat. Pacific Gas and Electric, the power company here, just confirmed that the gas main was a huge transfer pipeline, a 24-inch pipe that probably carried 300-pounds of pressure, that blew. A producer for ABC News s
There was program on last night called Bad Boys of the Blitz which detailed the flourishing crime scene and penal regime of World War Two Britain. Most of this activity had been hushed up by the authorities during the war for propaganda purposes, amnd the point was made that our current problems with law and order date back to this time. I had to laugh though. One old crook was interviewed and with a serious look on his face told us that "whenever there's a war you get outbreaks of violence".
Yesterday I saw a man with wings. Now that might inspire all sorts of derisive comments but this wasn't an angel sighting (my mother will so disappointed), but a gentleman heading toward the local model store with the wings from a radio control P51 Mustang. A big one too. Six feet across although if any criticism were deserved, U.S. P51's in D-Day colours were never painted an overall sky blue. I also suspect, due to the lack of all the other bits like engine, fuselage, cockpit, etc, that we're
Now that I've been put on fortnightly signing again I have to fill in a form declaring what I've done to find work. The first question asks whether I've completed the criteria of my Jobseekers Agreement. This means all those weekly activities that the Department of Work and Pensions insist on even if they won't improve my employment chances one iota.
If I were to check the 'NO' box, I would have to fill in a series of searching and embarrasing questions, not to mention concoct some inventive
Life is never safe, is it? You can add burglar alarms, smoke alarms, five star crash ratings on your car, health and safety procedures, licensing, all manner of safeguards, and you still get mown down by a runaway hay bale.
Soldiers say that sometimes you a bullet has your name on it. I can't help laughing as remember Blackadder's faithful flunky Baldrick carving his name on one of his bullets so he'd never get hit by it. Quite how you'd carve your name on a hay bale to avoid it hitting you
My hatred of football is no secret. It's one thing to have a bit of fun kicking a ball around, quite another paying an unhealthy ticket price to enter a screaming contest while a bunch of fashion dummies demonstrate the latest must-have sports wear. Later you'll enter a screaming contest with your kids who demand those fashions to emulate their sporting heroes.
It's all just marketing now, isn't it? People seem to worry more about what haircut these people have than the actual score. In the
Changes are afoot. Lorries bearing scaffolding have swarmed into Swindon town centre and erected makeshift frameworks here, there, and everywhere. There's one across the street from me that looks like a roof repair following our recent strong winds. The old cinema at the bottom of the hill, the one that spent its declining years as a bingo hall, and spent the last decade under offer, has now been propped up with miles of metal tubes.
Not only that, but the two metal posts inserted in the pav
Everything seemed a bit grey this morning. Our first foggy morning in ages. Now that I've signed on at the dole office and wanderd up to the library to see to my jobsearching, the sun has broken out again. Maybe that's not quite world breaking news. Can I do better?
Institute Is Falling Down
Our beloved Mechanics Institute, a sort of all-purpose community centre built by the Great Western Railway in 1854, is in danger of collapse. The cellars are flooded. The roof is on the point of caving
Todays entry is not going to be an epic literary adventure of colossal importance. I'm not feeling well. I have a bug. Not one of those creepy crawly things, though I have evicted a few over the last couple of weeks, but a virus type of bug, a malicious little bacterial psychopath that has reduced me to a coughing, spluttering, dull eyed and slack jawed health problem.
It's like being drunk without the fun bits. Also I suspect I won't be waking up with a traffic cone in my bed.
This Week
As if invasions of jellyfish weren't enough. Last night I caught a program on television where some ex-special forces guy zips into chainmail to film vicious gangs of humboldt squid.
Apparently these horrible little monsters are spreading like wildfire because they can. We haven't helped of course. I mean, we're always to blame, aren't we? Apparently our fishing habits have caught all the predators that eat squid, so now the little horrors don't have any competitors.
They are actually re
A lovely sunny morning. It really is. Mind you, despite the sunshine, when I left the house earlier today it was very chilly, clouds of breath marking my progress, and if it hadn't been for my steady pace, I would have felt the cold very quickly.
Today was upposed to be the day I started my forklifting course. Some people people might not appreciate how momentous this opportunity is. I sepent nearly two decades in warehousing and no-one would train me on forklifts. That's what you get for dr
Today is Bank Holiday Monday. I can tell that because everyone is wandering about aimlessly. Small kids weave about main roads on bicycles shouting insults at drivers and pedestrians to prove their stature among their tribe. Ethnic inhabitants lean against the walls outside small shops with strange names, and a few of them hurl insults at passers-by, just for something to do.
I wandered around the old British Rail Social Club grounds this morning, just for something to do. It's fast disappe
How much do you take for granted? It's an interesting question. We all bcome comfortable with our daily routines certainly, but the extent to which we assume we understand our world is astonishing. Let me explain.
Fifty years ago a British astronomer said that spaceflight was impossible. A hundred years before that, powered flight was impossible, or that travelling more than thirty miles an hour would kill you. A few centuries earlier, we all knew the Earth was the centre of the universe and
Across the country, six million cars are parking themselves in traffic jams on their way to somewhere more expensive than usual. Yes, it's another Bank Holiday Weekend. For those of you who don't understand British culture, it's our way of imitating lemmings.
Traditionally the weather always rains on holiday weekends. It's as if the sum effect of all those car exhausts isn't carbon dioxide at all, but water, as the rainclouds make our intended holidays as miserable as possible - unless you h
Yes, folks, I am now reunited with the virtual world and the television world, and damn does it feel good. Even better, I got my couches today. So in all honesty, I can actually start having people over. What a concept!
In all seriousness, I haven't had a place that I could entertain in since I left Austin in 2005. Living with my parents didn't exactly espouse positive feelings in that aspect. In theory the last apartment could have been wonderful, what with the unit leading to the back
Oh hello, what's this? A new television channel? That heralds another quest to reprogram my litle black box and reveal the latest source of boredom dellivered in high definition digital bliss. We often say how odd it is that with hundreds of new channels to watch, there's hundreds less to be interested in.
As to what channel is now included in my daily browsing session, I can't say, because I haven't found it yet. I did stumble on that dating channel again. Shall I? Shan't I? Oh go on then.
I know, I know, I haven't been very active on the blogs lately. No, I haven't fallen off into the deep end. Just that I moved to a new apartment, one right on campus to my main employer. This brand-new construction has had some glitches, including the fact that the powers that be forgot to hook it up to the internet and cable grid. So, it might be another week yet before I have internet at home, or tv for that matter. Mildly annoying, and it doesn't fit in with my plans, but what are you go
Once again I trudge despondently into my local Job Centre. The security guard spotted me crossing the foyer and asked "You know your way, Sir?"
Funnily enough, I do. The office catacombs upstairs are well explored by veteran jobseekers like me. I nodded, and he went back to sleep. Once there I was prevented from going to sleep myself by a crafty claims advisor, whose machiavellian tactic was to wear a flourescent yellow jumper. I don't know if such apparel is legal in Job Centres, but at lea
