What a lovely spring day. It really was. Cold or not, the sunshine gave it that sort of comfortable feel. There's a peculiar smell on days like this. I'm sure it's not my socks or the lack of hot baths until my boiler gets fixed. No, instead I mean that spring freshness.
Oh no. I sound like an aerosol commercial. Can't help it. The back window was open, the sky was blue, the birds were singing, and it just felt good to be alive. When the boilerman turns up it might feel better still.
Cha
In a blaze of media exposure - and no shortage of publicity by BBC News - we finally know who is to be David Tennants replacement as Dr Who. For those who don't know its... ah.... Who?
They chose an actor who despite having leading roles in the past is pretty well unknown. A non-entity? Well, personally, I'm hugely miffed the BBC didn't demand and beg me to play the role. I am after all fully qualified. I turn up, I pull rabbits out of hats, then fade into nonethingness as someone else gets
People do say the stupidest things sometimes. I should know.
"I wish someone would take him away" Muttered one self important lady as I minded my own business with a library book. Her friend obligingly tittered at the supposedly witty request. Carry me away? Sorry dear. Health and safety. Wouldn't want anyone to hurt their back.
As it happens her attempt to socially exclude me sort of failed. It's called not giving a hoot, lady, although normally I use a stronger rude word. Quite why I'
There's a very cold wind blowing through the trees of Rushey Platt. Cold air from Russia has blown in and already the weather reports are warning of severe conditions. The AA have advised motorists to take warm clothing with them as gale force winds and drifts of heavy snow are expected. The reverse is going on in Australia right now, where winds from the continents interior are blowing hot air over the coastal regions where everybody lives.
There's going to be comment about Global Warming o
With the Greek Cities no longer bothering us, and rebels pushed aside on Sicily, my obvious next move was to attack Carthage. Surely a victory would raise our standing in Rome, which I have been informed is not good. We need triumphs!
Herenius Valerius, our adopted colleague, led the assault on the city of the Punes. A small relief force attempted an ambush upon him, led by none other than Hasdrubal himself, who I understand swore not to retreat from the field of battle until we were defeate
Glancing at the local paper today I saw a piece on how some organisation intends to renovate the street I live in. In a sense that's a good thing. With a new shopping centre planned to replace the derelict college buildings almost next door, it hardly makes sense to build an expensive flagship development next to a run down street full of empty and vandalised offices.
Trouble, they intend to use offenders to paint properties and build flower boxes. Oh great. So the local burglars get a chanc
I had parked a car near a friends house for another regular visit. Almost immediately this chap was there, bicycle to hand, asking me if I knew anyone selling a car he could do up. Just an old banger would do, something like the the same make and model I was driving at the time. I had no choice but to apologise and tell him I didn't know of any car for sale. Surely he didn't want my old Green Gerbil? The Nissan Cherry was like a set of clothes at the time and seeing as I was unemployed back then
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
I knew it was going to be slippery this morning and I wasn't disappointed. There was a glass surface on the pavement outside my home. As it happens I was able to avoid a life and death struggle with gravity walking down the hill this morning because someone had thoughtfully cleared the pavement on the other side of the road. Normally that would be a hassle, but with traffic diverted I need only stroll across and around the roadworks. Job done.
Unfortunately not all the ice is cleared in the
Ah yes. The unmistakeable sound of a postman pushing mail through the letterbox. In a way it's a comforting sound, knowing that there's an outside world that wants to communicate with me. Experience has taught me to be more circumspect. Since my last employer decided that I owned the wrong car I must have received something in the order of several hundred rejection letters. Who knows? Maybe there's more waiting downstairs?
In a way there was. The police have sent me the usual summation lette
Way back when I was very young I had a fascination for dinosaurs. Time and again I would leaf through books showing artists impressions of lost worlds, painted images, rather than the photoreal imaging that is increasingly common in childrens books today. Back then dinosaurs were an object of curiosity but unfashionable. Kids generally preferred football. Not me. In my imagination I walked among the swamps andf orests of the Jurassic world.
These dinosaurs are immensely popular. And to under
Another quiet day at the library. It might seem a bit strange that I've opted for a tranquil afternoon, especially since I had a clear business diary, and that my television service has been magically restored. Thing is though I made the mistake of not listening to ta weather report too carefully. So I expected strong winds and heavy rain which of course never turned up. And as for the Box, daytime television is designed to reduce viewers to a mindless stupor. Preparation for Christian Slater's
Its Friday night in Newcastle. Having spent the day travelling there by train and then searching the city center for historical relics, we were in the mood to relax. Drinks all round then. The barman in the hotel suggested we might want to try a certain game played with dice in a box, and that kept us entertained for a few hours. Inevitably we were getting tired, so it was good night and off to my hotel room.
It was hot. Even with the window open I was gasping for breath. Are the radiators o
How could any sane mortal resist a weekend of sword & sorcery on television? Furry underwear and long hair. Incredibly pathetic villains and the violent comedians who thwart their evil schemes. A part of me has some masochistic enjoyment of the genre. The rest of me cringes at the sheer awfulness of the films that portray these invented worlds.
Okay, there are one or two that aren't so bad. Armie's Conan The Barbarian retains a sort of immature exuberance. I still watch Red Sonja for it'
Despite my recent trend of staying bed, I slid out from under the piled insulation into the cold bedroom for an earlier start at the sunday library session. Unusually for sunday there was activity out back. In the yard a large white van burbled past and off down the alleyway.
This sunday is a day that doesn't seem to know what it wants to inflict on Swindon. The pavement is damp, the sky a dreary grey with occaisional sunny spells, and there's a mood of let's get on with another sunday no ma
To say that the museum is a quiet place to work is something of an understatement. All morning the public pass this way and that, going about their mundane business, many totally unaware that a museum exists right under their nose. On the other hand, I suspect many regard museums as boring places that they and their friends wouldn't dream of frequenting for fear their lives would be destroyed by the humiliation. Pfah! What do they know?
In fact, today was quite an exciting day for us volunte
There's an old chap I sometimes see by the cenotaph on Regents Circus. He stands there, breadcrumbs in hand, and allows pidgeons to clamber all over him, and I do mean, all over. He is swamped by the birds clamouring for his limited supply of titbits. Not my idea of fun, but each to their own.
I was passing his favourite spot the other day and noticed a crowd of hungry pidgeons milling around a pile of breadcrumbs on the ground. Hang on... Have they eaten Pidgeon Man? Oh no!
One of Lifes
Not an especially nice morning. Damp and dreary, another Monday, and despite the elation of getting my PC going - or more accurately, going when it can be bothered - today just doesn't have that 'Get Up And Go' feel about it.
Of course my Uncle, now sadly deceased, would have said I wasn't a 'Get Up And Go' person. I think he was wrong there, but I have to confess his determination to find a job when he got made redundant was the stuff of personal heroism. So I must concede his point and cal
Of late the news in Britain has focused on the market town of Wootton Basset, just a few miles down the road from I live, which has the burden of being the nearest habitation to Lyneham Airbase. That's where our fallen soldiers are returning to home shores from foreign entanglements like Afghanistan. So with the recent jingoism to whip up public support for the campaign the town is regularly featured as lining up to watch funeral corteges crawling past. The place has become synonymous with obser
270 to 264 BC
My capital was Capua, south of Rome. Also I started with a colony on Sicily. I had every intention of conquering the entire island for Rome's glory. It seems the Senate anticipated this and urged me to attack Syracuse, a great metropolis under the control of the Greek Cities. Start as you mean to continue then.
Rapid recruitment ensued and my reinforcements arrived by sea from the port of Ostia. There was a minor scuffle with sicilian bandits who soon succumbed to our swords.
In the many news reports I've browsed through lately, I spotted one modest story that Britain is drying up. All this good weather comes at a price which means the lack of rainfall is going to cause the hosepipe bans and frantic questions in the Houses of Parliament. Curiously enough a recent television report showed a reservoir with dwindling water levels. Time to panic? Apparently not. Despite expert advice and lessons of the past, no-one seems particularly interested that our summer might prov
So much for drizzle. We had a right downpour yesterday afternoon. The weather is the same today, a grey day with a sense of dampness in the air. Certainly there's some great piles of darker cloud in the vicinity threatening to make my day wetter than planned, so my trip to the supermarket is starting to look risky. Hey, that's life in the wilds of Darkest Wiltshire.
I find the habits of Swindoners a little odd when confronted with changes in weather. We seem to be a few days behind, continui
The hot topic in Swindon right now is lamposts. The new ones are installed and shining brightly at night already, and as I speak the old ones are being felled like dead trees. It doesn't stop there.
I was strolling along the canal walkway that heads north out of the town centre and on toward a trading estate where I intended to spend a few pence on replacing some broken tools. A couple of workmen were spraying the posts with aerosols. Usually that job is left to youths in hoodies, but I gues
This morning my doctor called me in for a decision on what to do about my health. Apparently if I was 65 or older he wouldn't bother (Heck, I'd probably die of old age anyway) but since I'm such a young man, he'll presribe these very special radioactive kryptonite pills.
I kid you not, the little card box vibrates with strange power all by itself. Reading the instructions is an eye-opener. Some people aren't affected, but the side effects are headaches, tiredness, nausea, and so forth.
Tis the season of dreary grey weather. All the neon signs have been attached to lamposts in anticipation of that supposedly magical commercial festival at the end of the month, not to mention a small village of wooden sheds for a temporary market in the town centre.
Come to think of it, for some reason the public have decided that filling the streets was a good idea. If that was because they had time to spare while they were on strike against government cuts, then it's something of an eye-o
