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
There was a time when music store assistants smiled when I entered their shop. That was back in the eighties of course, when money was easily had and quickly spent, and a time when we were more prosperous even if we didn't know or felt it so. Whereas once all I seemed to do was buy things, all I seem to do now is repair things, or rather pay someone else to.
Last night I got the call from the music store to tell me my latest repair job was ready for collection. That particular box of tricks
The plan was to head for the hills and spend the day wearing myself out on the ridges of the Marlborough Downs. On the way I took it into my head to investigate a corner of the local countryside I'd never strayed into before. The grass was incredibly thick. The blades were almost six feet long, though not standing upright, growing sideways in thick layers of the stuff. I've never seen anything like that in England before.
After ten minutes of wading through that lot, I was knackered. It was
As shocking as it is, it seems that piracy is becoming more commonplace again. Never mind the brazen Somali's and their multi-million dollar ransom demands, now we have ships boarded in the English Channel, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and right on our own doorstep.
Noticeably during the Cold War piracy wasn't an issue, what with naval vessels everywhere and so forth. The reduction of military ships since has made itself felt, and pirates now believe they are safe to conduc
The plumbers turned up at the door last night. "We need to check for a leak in your bathroom." One boldly announced, "'Cos we cut a hole in the downstairs ceiling and the waters coming from upstairs."
I had visions of a domestic disaster looming as these people disassembled my home in the hunt for a few drops of water. Two of them bounded upstairs and proceeding to dismantle the bathroom as expected. One brought his young duaghter along. Thankfully she was well behaved and was more concerned
Monday morning... Usually the Monday Blues are associated with dragging yourself out of bed to go to work, but since I'm unemployed, you'd think that wouldn't apply to me. Oh but it does. For today is my Signing On Day, my fortnightly ritual aimed at convincing the authorities that I've something toward getting a job thus entitling me to receive my meagre handout from the government. Typically for a Monday the good weather has vanished with the weekend. It's damp and grey out there. What a miser
The news last night had a breaking story of a mid air collision between a light aeroplane and a helicopter over the Hudson River, resulting in the tragic deaths of nine people. How? With the entire sky to fly through, how is it that two aircraft can collide like that? The truth is that it's all too easy.
In the earliest days of commercial flying, just after the First World War, a new regulation to pass on the right was brought in to prevent head on collisions when following linear features l
The weekend is here and the rain has gone away. It's official. The weatherman ruefully told us to look forward to a good one and he was was correct. He so loves those amber triangles on the screen with "Weather Warning" emblazoned upon it. I think it really makes his day.
The Hybrid Is Here
Quite a few years ago, on another site, the discussion on the forums got around to the merits of the hybrid car and its ecological impact. At the time, I was wholly dismissive. This was of course the era
Today the sun has made a hesitant reappearance. The thuinderstorms and prolonged heavy rain we got yesterday has moved north, and hopefully I won't get drenched again today. Mornings like this are to be savoured in Britains new globally warmed (and definitely wetter) climate. So in a relaxed happy frame of mind I sat down at the library computer.
As it happened, I was answering a question made by someone else about Roman legions. It deserved a fuller answer than a few sentences, so I got typ
Sooner or later they infiltrate your home. No matter how secure you believe your privacy to be, they find ways to intrude upon your premises. Even when you discover their presence, there's a good chance they will find a way to escape you, and worse still, no matter how hard you try to push them out, they will find a way back against all adversary.
Yes, the spider is at large in my home. I know he's up there, I've seen him, scurrying across the no-mans land of the carpet in a mad dash to find
I am by nature a creature that likes his food, and feeling a little peckish, I ventured into my diminutive pantry to determine what wonderful and exotic ingredients I had lurking in there. Ooh heck, this looks a bit sparse.... Uhhh... Any pot noodles left? Nope. Looks like another trip to the supermarket is in order.
The weather of course was damp and miserable. There was a time when we used to get scorching summers, but now the green brigade have banned noxious gases and nearly everything t
TV personalities often describe Swindon as dull and rainy. Well, nothing has happened in the last two days and today... Yes... It's raining.
So I'm sat in the library typing this out desperately trying to think of something meaningful to write.
Life, The Universe, And Everything
You can tell I'm bored, right? In todays blog I address the most fundamental question of about everything. Douglas Adams attempted this and got the answer of 42. Can I do better?
Lets start at the beginnin
Over the years I've met people on internet forums. We all say that. The truth is we haven't met them at all. They're just little icons and text messages from people far far away. How well can you know someone on a website? That's difficult to say. If there's one thing the internet allows, and indeed one of it's greatest dangers, is the anonymity of it. You can invent a persona and people do exactly that.
Time and again I hear stories of 'women' being unmasked as male teenagers (Good grief,
Human beings are creatures of habit. We soon find a comfortable routine in any enviroment, finding a way of life that suits us just fine. Why then do we worry so much about lifestyles?
Everyone likes to suggest how we ought to live. Religion has been doing that for thousands of years of course. It's no coincidence that churches and temples demand attendance and regular prayer. The government very kindly makes lots of rules to persuade us to adopt their own sanitised version of behaviour. Not
Occaisionally I get stray phone messages. I suppose we all do from tiime to time, and there was a time you always got double glazing companies trying to sell you more replacement windows.
Sometimes you get strange characters phoning for strange reasons. I remember one chap called me and I made the mistake of assuming it one of my mates (he used the same name). He then proceeded to ask where his hammer was. Hammer? What hammer? He then got irate because I'd 'lost' his hammer. Sorry mate, wro
Yesterday afternoon I braved the rain and popped down to the supermarket for my weekly needs. There's a magazine rack near the door from the central concourse and to be honest, I've long given up any interest in it. Basically the magazines on sale either tell you what's happening in the private lives of celebrities, what they're wearing this year, or how men can have a flat six-pack stomach like theirs.
This time though I noticed a copy of Mojo, an indie music publication intended for people
I had thought that today I would venture out into the wilderness yet again, pack on back, braving life and limb in the Rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire. If you intend a journey out of doors it's always wise to consult the weather reports and make an informed decision on whether the trip is worth the trouble. I know that sounds extrene - it is only the grassy downlands of North Wiltshire and that's fairly local to where I live - but all the same it's suprising how harsh conditions can get up ther
I see from the news that there's plans to create a new bank holiday. Another one? hey I don't mind at all, it's another day of work... Or it would be if I had a job. It does seem a bit strange though. For a government trying so hard to oil the wheels of transport policy, why do they want to clog up the motorways with parked cars again?
Is it merely another example of the Labour Party attempting to buy favour with a disillusioned public? Vote for us and have new holidays? Given that this gove
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
The lightning revealed the outline of the brick terrace house in Swindon's Old Town. There, perched on the side of a hill, a terrible scientific experiment was about to take place. In the beige dungeons of of the house, beneath the slanting archways, Doktor Kaldrailstein made the last few adjustments to his work. Soon he would pull the industrial strength lever that allowed the electricity to flow, and breathe life into his creation. The terrible hybrid creature, made from the parts of deceased
It seems the Norwich By-election was grabbing the media attention last night. For those confused by the subtleties and intricacies of British politics, a by-election is the one where you don't get to run the country, so quite why the Tories are making such a big deal of Chloe Smiths victory is beyond me.
Newsnight, our regular evening current affairs program, ran last nights show asking 'How did the Labour Party lose the election?'. I already know the answer to that one, it's called the vote
I sat down last night to write up my thoughts for the day as I usually do. Most of it concerned the days odyssey into the wilds of Darkest Wiltshire, walking the hills and dales of the Marlborough Downs, documenting the variable weather and its obvious effect upon me. Truth is, what happened yesterday was something more important than a mere journal of yet another hike along familiar paths.
Instead, it was two encounters with wild animals that made all the difference. Usually such meet
Browsing through the local paper this morning I came across an interview with Master Shortie, Swindons very own rap star.
Who? Never heard of him. I suspect no-one older than eighteen has either. The interview was of course unintentionally hilarious. I'm sure his music career is taking off and I wish him well, but since he made such an effort to say exactly lthe same things every other rap artist in the business does, you could hardly claim he was being original.
He also proclaimed that
The living room floor looks like an air accident hangar at the moment. Bits of crashed computer all laid out as I sift through the wreckage for some clue as to what happened. I've ruled out pilot error. Now to check for sabotage... Any loose chips or suspicious cabling?
So far the rescue services haven't located my black box recorder. The investigation goes on.
Shock Horror Revelation of the Week
It turns out that computer repair shops are havens of dishonesty, as if I didn't know tha
My last day at the Programme Centre today. I don't think they succeeded turning me into James Bond, but at least I learned a few things about getting a job. Of course it isn't just me. Most of the job seekers there are struggling to find work - although apparently one was struggling with Minesweeper, one of the games that comes with Microsoft Windows. Ahem.
By chance I got talking to the lady on the PC next to mine. It was quickly apparent she was a little emotional, and inevitably the sorry
