Here, deep in the rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire, the evenings are a time when the animals of the forest gather for their nightly mating rituals, challenging rivals, announcing themselves to all the other animals as big, hairy, and completely sozzled, and so for a few hours the cacophany continues.
Later, when most of the animals ave either found a mate, a hospital bed, or a ride in a police van, there's an occaisional outburst from young male apes, hooting loudly to proclaim the success o
Swindon as a town always had ambition. Once the railworks closed in the eighties, the town brought in investment and new business and was always pushing to be raised to 'city' status. Back in 1994, I flew over Swindon in a Cessna and was stunned at how much dereliction the town still had, much of it ex-railway land. Since then these brownfield sites have been developed.
More developments had been planned. Artists impressions of Swindons Brave New World have been published locally and present
Now this is more like winter. A sharp frosty morning, gloves required, my trainers crunching on thin ice and feeling very insecure. As if it wasn't cold enough inside, at the job centre was Big R himself. Yes, Big R, the yorkshire brawler who gave me the benefit of his opinions somewhat strongly not that long ago.
Try as hard as I might, I could not help snarling inside. There's something feral about human beings, or at least the male half of them, that doesn't sit easily with humiliation a
No matter how long you've lived in Britain you never learn. By sheer chance I heard a weather forecast and guess what? Our balmy relaxing weather is about to go siberian again. I must admit we did get sleet on sunday. Today though is a slightly chilly sunny day. No-one would know it was monday morning.
Of course having watched Kate Humble breathlessly roam the globe to show us what a breathtakingly wondrous planet we live on, I now know that Britain sits under a boundary between arctic and t
The doorbell rang early in the morning, or at least, it was early for me. In true jobless fashion I muttered a few curses and rolled over back to sleep. About an hour or two later I got up, and got ready for a hike in the local area. Down the stairs, pack on my back, out the door, down the alleyway and....
I stopped short when I spotted the door to my car left wide open. The soft top had been cut with knife in three places, not as random vandalism, but with every intention of obtaining acces
Back to school again. Every week I have to attend a session at the programme centre and sit through the lessons intended for people who don't have any education whatsoever.
Our groups subject was Child Adoptions By Same Sex Couples. The discussion of course immediately turned to football with me sat in the middle of opinions and observations about a game for which I have nothing but disinterest in with every fibre of my being.
Each group had to nominate someone to stand up and deli
I woke this morning earlier than I wanted - another job interview today. As usual, the bedroom is mildly cold but probably warmer than the front room! Anyhow, I threw back the duvet, shudderred in the loss of warm air, and tip toed to the curtains for a look outside. Snow!
It snowed last night. Not a huge blizzard by any means, more of a thin coat of that fine wet snow that quickly clogs and becomes frighteningly icy. We don't usually get any snow in January. These days, we tend to get a lig
Can you trust statistics? Anyone who watches the tv news or reads the papers every morning is bombarded with facts and figures, most of which are selected to prove a point. As a schoolkid I once had a maths leasson that illustrated how the display of statistics can affect your perception of the result.
The latest statistics about crime are in the news. Murders are down by 17% to a twenty year low, despite the shock horror stories about knife wielding kids stabbing crowds of teachers to death
I've decided cars are female. They just are. most are frumps unfortunately. Some are reliable, others not. Some have interesting personalities, many simply don't talk to you or keep on nagging because you left the bootlid up.
Then there's cars like Ferrari. Curvaceous redheads with tight leather, vivacious, demanding. You just know she's going to be trouble but you can't help yourself.
I say this because going through some old papers I discovered my report from a racing school where I dr
Friday morning and a chance to nip down to the local library and do my internetting for a couple of hours. The onlydrawback to friday morning is that the Lady Who Objects To My Internet Use is often on duty then.
Deliberately I stroll in after the doors are open to avoid attention. Up the stairs... Oh no. She's there, at the helpdesk. For some reason she thinks I'm up to no good. No idea why, but as you can imagine, having her stare at me all the time and glance over my shoulder on the off
Walking along an old railway cutting near where I live, I noticed the rocks had fallen away. Now I know the rocks of that particular place were once the sandy floor of a shallow sub-tropical sea during the Jurassic Age, so out of curiosity I clambered up to where the rock face has come away and examined those rocks for any sign of fossils. As much as I'd like to find something special, it wasn't likely. This area was an archipelago back then, a coral reef to the northwest, and right here a seasi
Tis the season for tree surgeons. The groundsmen at the park around the corner from where I live are still burning foliage. It's a wonder there's any left. That far side of the lake might be tidier but come summer it will look bare and artificial if they manage to keep the nettles and thorns back.
Last night I took a look out the back of the home and saw that old elm tree at the other end of the alleyway was missing some foliage too. The entire left side of the tree was denuded of branches.
Every so often we museum folk like to do something different. Some people might argue that museums are inherently dangerous with hazards that include customers, tyrannosaurus rex skeletons, or egyptian pharoahs with chips on their shoulders and enough bandages to cope. I would have to admit our little museum is a little less well stocked with such horrors.
Today we had Robot Day. Over the years there have been all manner of commercial robots available to the public. Some are clothed in fals
Here we go then, monday morning. By the time I've posted this most people have alreadty had the bad news from their boss or failed utterly to get to work thanks to illness, car reliability, road maintenance, idiot drivers, or simply a desire to avoid monday morning at all. I'm not one for pulling 'sickies' but I know some people do. There used to be a guy at work who always seemed to phone in sick every friday. His boss realised quickly he was getting drunk on thursday evening with a paypacket i
Okay let's see, what can I write for the blog this friday? I've done hikes, injuries, insults, urban foxes, job searching, and finally resorted to lame gags about badger culling. Luckily for me, I didn't have to think too hard about anything else because the museums resident journalist, DW, made his appearance.
I first met DW when he was running a modelling agency which he assures us with a big grin was earning him truck loads of cash. After organising one event at a local night club with a
I apologise. I have just seen an artists impression of the new Swindon Library on the wall as I popped down to log on this morning, and the carbuncles are indeed shown. The colours used by the artist played down the visual effect and therefore I hadn't noticed them.
Plane Crash In Kent
A tragic accident in Farnborough, Kent, where a Cessna Citation business jet ran into engine trouble after take off and attempted to return to Biggin Hill, only to lose control and crash into a housing estat
That about wraps it up for the warmest October on record. Still humid, still sweaty, and a damp drizzly day. "That's a right ol' rain that is." Commented some old guy as I left the library this morning. He was right. It was like being sprayed by a fine hose. Clearly a gentleman with much experience in the ways of Wiltshire weather.
Yesterday was of course a good deal sunnier and I wandered around Croft Wood, taking in the solitude between dog walking shifts. It's never going to be as quiet a
If you've wondered why I don't say much about fun things at work, its because work isn't fun right now. AD, the guy I've been trained to replace, has decided not to retire after all. Orders are small and right now I spend about ten minutes every morning labelling goods for transport. Job done. I know there are people who would give their right arm for a laid back existence like that, but isn't an inactive workplace the worst possible place to be stuck in? The clocks move backward, everyone else
Oh look. It's the end of the world again. Someone has worked out by complicated mathematical formulae based on a date arrived at by a medieval monk (no doubt according to complex mathematical formulae too) that the end of the world takes place on May 21st.
So if anyone fancies the pretty girl in the office and never had the courage to make a pass, better get a move on. Time is running out. Joking aside though, how you would you spend your last 24 hours on earth?
This subject came up with
Yesterday, in a decision that only an englishman could make, I went out in the midday sun and visited Lydiard Park. The local council make a big deal of the work they've done there which was supposed to restore the grounds of Lydiard Manor to it's former magnificence.
I've got many photographs of Lydiard as it was. Secluded bayous, wooded paths, a warm natural patina. There used to be a waterside platform where you could look out across a small lake and view cranes resting on a dead tree in
There's always been a certain amount of sexual cross-over in human societies. Most cultures have stories of woman who take on mens roles. We read of a female samurai, capable and deadly. We read of women hiding amongst the ranks of redcoats pretending to be boys. The native americans, of the plains tribes at least, tended to accept that not all men wanted to be warriors, and if a man wanted to stay in the camp and do womens work that was his choice. And so on.
Today we see all sorts of mani
Why? Why did they do it? Why did they make Ed Milliband leader of the Labour party? He makes you wince every time he stands in front of a microphione. It isn't the first time the Labour Party have made an odd choice. Remember Michael Foot? Probably a great guy, but not the man future prime ministers are made of.
Politics is a funny game sometimes and I can't help wondering if the sole reason Eddy Baby got the job was to stop his oolder brother David from achieving his ambition. He was disap
Greece has gone horribly wrong. One expert interviewed on television predicted that Greece was doomed. I must admit, as a casual observer, you do get a sense that Greece is sitting there waiting for the final catastrophic collapse. Not even the barbarian hordes of english holidaymakers seem to be making any difference. Increasingly it looks as if the EU want to dump it by the roadside.
So what exactly do you do with a bankrupt country? Oh yes. I remember now... Cue UN food relief and huge po
Coate Water is a local beauty spot. Built as a reservoir for the convenience of the 18th century canals that passed through the valley, its now a nature reserve and a pleasant walk. In the local paper however I discover that a weekend walker had discovered a body there. Apparently it had been there for months, almost reduced to a skeleton, hidden in a stagnant pond near the lake itself. As yet no-one knows who he is or how he met his fate, but the disturbing thing for me is that I've walked past
