Today I decided to wander down to the sports center. Not by my usual route along the main road, by the back trail, an old abandoned railway line. This railway runs through a cutting near the old town station site (now an industrial estate) which is composed of Jurassic rocks - I've mentioned it before. So, in the spirit of optimism, I climbed the muddy bank to have a look at the rock face.
The imprint of a barnacle shell. Large too, about three times the size of those I picked off the beach
Mr Palmer, the leader of East Lindsey District Council, is unhappy. Strange lights have been seen in the Midlands sky for a while now, and now a turbine blade from a wind generator tower has been ripped off near his turkey farm. He wants the authorities to look into the recent UFO activity and in particular the damage they caused to one of our turbines.
The Ministry of Defence however has shown absolutely no interest in the goings-on, telling us that they won't investigate unless they percei
On a normal working day, our local high street is busy. Two lanes of cars jostling for position between parked vehicles and the intermittent movement of buses. Pedestrians bringing the whole thing to a temporary halt on crossings, shoppers carrying heaps of plastic bags, queuing at ATM's, or simply standing around at bus stops for the next smoke belching leviathan to appear.
On a Sunday, the same street is empty. A few moslems walking to their local mosque but otherwise you wouldn't know the
Another sunny day? Yes, it is. Another chance then to get out and about, doing stuff, meeting people, filling my day with endless blog anecdotes. So let's start as I mean to continue. First task is to extricate myself from bed.
Get out of bed? There was a time in my energetic youth when I thought nothing of leaping into clothes and bursting out into the big wide world before being crushed utterly by fate. Now I grimace and debate the relaive merits of warm comfortable beds and the bracing we
There are two ailments that are so beloved of the British working class. The first is flu, or rather a bad cold, which has to be responsible for more days off than anything else. The second is backache.
I know a lot of people pull 'sickies' with this excuse, but honestly putting your back out for real is astonishingly easy to do and excrutiatingly painful when it happens. What makes it worse is that no boss in the whole united kingdom will believe you if you report your suffering.
The fi
A doctors appointment at some ungodly hour of the morning forced me out of bed long before my unemployed body was ready to face another day. After all the trouble of using iron discipline and sheer willpower to push the duvet aside and start my epic journey to the bathroom, not to mention a long walk across town in the dark, they were locked when I arrived. Brilliant...
Good Morning Swindon
As the sky first began to brighten a bright star, or more properly some planet or other, was low abov
With a sigh I switched my computor off yesterday afternoon. Nothing to do with recalcitrant programs, impossibly tough game levels, or yet more analysis of the Tottenham Riots. It was the approach of the thunderstorm. In my experience, thunder and lightning invariably causes a blip in the electricity supply when it hits the pylons that criss-cross our local area, and that can spoil your whole day when your data vanishes into digital smoke.
So I retreated to my favourite seat with a good book
Last week was a plethora of cancelled appointments. Yet another landed on my doorstep on Friday. In formal and impersonal style the date was set later, leaving me free to answer the call of duty at the museum. Well, that's volunteering for you.
Monday opening? The museum tried that before and gave up. Today however, a coachload of french students are to be transported across Britain to our sunny old Swindon, for a special open day all for themselves.
Forty seven bemnused french youths sa
For a few days now cheery weatherpersons have smiled and siad we're all going to get wet. Amber triangles are shown on the screen with Heavy Rain! in bold black lettering. Risk of local flooding. They might be right I suppose. It's just that so far we've only had one day of rain and that was drizzly. I must also confess, that as I write this, I can see the library window splattered with raindrops. I knew I should have brought my canoe with me.
The damp conditions now spreading across Swindon
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
Friday was a quiet unassuming sort of day. Not really suprising since the bulk of the population were either glued to their television sets or heading for the hills in a desperate attempt to avoid watching yet another wedding video. So we had a sort of hazy murky day that never quite made up its mind what it wanted to do about Britains latest extravanganza.
Ricky Is At It Again
I see Ricky gervais has been giving us all the benefit of his well paid opinion. I shouldn't really criticise
There's been a four-day tanker driver strike in Britain this last week. You probably saw that on the news, or searched around for an active petrol station if you're living in Britain. The cost of fuel is rising steadily, and people are complaining. But the strike wasn't about that.
The tanker drivers earn something like
Woke early this morning to the sound of demolition next door, as it appears the old college building is finally being pulled down. The older vicorian block is to be preserved and redeveloped as luxury flats, but the 60's eyesore attached to it is coming down. I spent five years studying there and funny enough, I don't feel any sadness at its passing. I must admit, I would be sorry to see my old high school vanish. There have been plans to close it
Thats happened a lot in Swindon over the yea
It was quite a sight this morning. Further down from the library I inhabit is a hotel, a building that might not be the tallest in Swindon but certainly towers over everything else around it. There was a column of thick dirty brown smoke pouring out of a roof vent like one of those dark satanic mills the government banned so we could all breathe. Can you imagine booking a room there?
"Can I help you Sir?"
I'd like a room please.
"Certainly Sir. We have accomodation in Admin, Mechanic
Its almost impossible to escape the news that the global banking system is wobbling. Governments are stepping in and in some cases, falling out (I refer to Britain freezing Icelandic assets over concerns about the amount of british money held there).
One chap contacted the news team and said that forty years ago he needed an interview with his bank manager for a loan of
Now that I've been unemployed for a year, I must face the Inquisition. It's a ritual designed to help me get back to work, though to be honest, it rarely makes any difference. They change a few conditions on my jobseekers contract and send me to a special unit where I can learn how to be a jobseeker again.
There were a few us waiting for interviews. A woman walked up and asked if we were in the right place. The guy opposite me looked puzzled. "In the right place..." He mumbled, staring empt
There are certain things in life that you know aren't entirely sincere but you do them all the same, such as buying cars, watching party political broadcasts, going to church, or reading horoscopes. Sometimes you just can't help yourself.
I glanced at my horoscope this morning and this is what I read...
Have you been thinking about writing an article of some sort, perhaps involving travel or a fascinating new field? If so, Libra, you might want to start it today. Your creative juices are
Lately there's been a few dictators receiving redundancy notices. As if unemployment wasn't bad enough already. We seem to regard dictators as a modern phenomenon but if you think about it, there's always been aggressive nasty individuals who rather like throwing their weight around. Something imbedded in the human psyche means that although we usually co-operate as a society, there's always going to be one or two individuals who want to run it.
That trait doesn't always mean politics. Crimi
It had to happen. I've watched news reports and read the papers about how one company after another has raised energy prices enormously, and felt very smug that mine hadn't.
Until now....
Usually I get pamphlets from them telling me about various offers and schemes (which cost money of course) but this time I got the letter that said sorry, but you're going to have to pay more. They're raising my electricity and gas prices by a third. Ouch! But then the prices they pay are nearly 200% hi
Yesterday was signing on day. My fortnightly ritual has now changed from late in the afternoon to first thing in the morning, except that no-one seems entirely sure when. I approached the reception and handed them my booklet. The young man glanced at it and very helpfully told me to go away and come back in half an hour. Then he noticed some other detail on the page and looked confused.
"Wait here please."
Wait? At a dole queue? Thats novel....
Initiative of the Week
It seems our se
Ladies, Gentelemen, and Swindon Residents, I have gathered you here on the Blog Express to inform you that something terrible has happened. First, let us look at the clues.
Clue No1 - We've run out of August.
Clue No2 - All the librarians are telling us how much they enjoyed their summer holiday.
Clue No3 - An increasingly blustery wind.
Clue No4 - Weather forecasts predicting heavy rain on a regular basis.
Clue No5 - Slightly shorter days and less urge to get out of bed.
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.
Now this is a much warmer day. After a thirty minute walk to the programme centre I was sweating.
"Lovely day isn't it?" Said the young lady on the front desk. How she noticed that buried inside her air conditioned laminated trench is a mystery to me. Oh look, now I'm getting sweat all over the floor...
My mentor popped into the foyer to collect me with her usual polite cheeriness. She also mentioned what a nice day it was, and obviously concerned at my sweaty face enquired whether I had
I remember there was a hullabaloo some years back when some young man killed himself listening to suicide solution by Ozzy Osbourne. The tragedy is one thing, the association is perhaps a little strained because if you pay attention to the lyrics you discover the song is actually about alcohol abuse.
There was a publicised court case when Judas Priest were prosecuted over someones elses death, the idea being that the lyrics contained reversed messages. Ridiculous. Who bothers to listen to mu
I know the foreigners reading this will find it hard to believe, but by midday yesterday the rain stopped. No, really, it did. Taking advantage of the sudden spell of damp conditions, I decided to wander down to Mouldon Hill and see if the cew from the Swindon & Cricklade Railway had laid tracks as far as the park yet.
You might have realised by now that I don't get out much at nights. Fear not, I'm just setting the scene. There will be no further mention of matters relating to trains, r
