This morning was wet. Not heavy rain, but that persistent drizzle that dampens everything. Quite a change from the cloudless sky I saw last night. Most of us star gaze once in a while, and that's exactly what I did from the back window of my home. Sadly, the atmospheric conditions and the glow of street lighting meant you could only see the brighter stars. The night sky is sometimes so much more vivid in the countryside. But there was the Big Dipper, probably the only constellation I recognise.
I was browsing the news on the web when I stumbled on a story about an asian couple who ran a petrol station in Rotorua, New Zealand. Apparently Westpac Bank had deposited ten million NZ Dollars into their bank account by accident. The couple are now on the run and some of the money has been recovered.
A few times there's been stories of ATM's going haywire and spewing out money like no tomorrow. I remember one news story going back a few years where people were queueing up to fill their poc
What a weekend. Hot sunny weather is something to be treasured. On my way through Town Gardens I just couldn't resist the temptation for a midday siesta, so I chose a wooden bench in a secluded spot and leant back. The sun was very hot. Even with my eyes closed I could see the light as a pale redness through my eyelids. Although the air wasn't actually warm, the gentle breeze felt like a welcome break.
My first interruption was a wood pidgeon making his moves on that classy female on the nex
As I write this I'm listening to the guy sat in the next cubicle as he tries manfully to arouse interest in a young woman of his acquaintance. He keeps insisting he needs to buy a hammer in order to bang some curtains in. Whatever that means. He insists that intelligent people should use double beds to sleep in. By now you're probably getting the idea of what he wants.
His girlfriend asks why he needs a hammer anyway, because he can't afford one. Apparently he can, the 99p shop does them. No
Today I'm at our local sports center. I have to, because the main library is being visited by Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, and for security, us plebs are forbidden from accessing the premises. Personally, you have to wonder if she only wants to reserve the computers for a quick surf whilst she's in town.
Actually I don't have anything against her at all. I do notice that a certain Shirley Burnham, a pensioner campaigning to keep the Old Town library open, was planning to use the event t
There was an obituary in our local paper recently. Bill Slater had passed away at the grand old age of 65. I don't think many people outside the Swindon area knew him, but he was an Oxford man, a rugby player, a stage performer, but most relevant to me, my old history teacher.
I read that small story on the bottom of the page with mixed feelings. In all honesty I wasn't aware of his understated stage career performing the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, and I knew from another source that h
Despite getting out of bed late this morning after too much cider the night before, I made it to the library for the grand opening ceremony as usual. Thing is though, the mood seemed very muted. Nobody was massing by the door to be let upstairs. Not even The Flash, who lives for his mad dash round the coffee bar every morning.
I should have guessed. I should have realised. The computors were down. The lady on the helpdesk approached as we filed up the stairs on autopilot and delighted in tel
The weather yesterday was nothing short of a battle between the gods. In the blue corner, the sun god, a warm and comforting brightness in his perfect blue realm. In the red corner, the rain god. A bringer of greyness and wet, master of dampening chaos, riding the wind to wreak rainfall upon the land.
All morning the wind was dragging ragged grey cloud across what was otherwise a fine and sunny day. By lunchtime, the first heavy grey mountains were on the horizon, and by the time I was walki
Nature is such a fascinating subject. You can't help but admire those colourful documentaries, even if they're carefully constructed and selective in what they show. It is supposed to be entertainment after all.
Still, the program about the South Pacific was of interst to me. It seems the 'Bird of paradise' has a habit of making a stage and attracting a mate by going into a song and dance routine. In effect, so do human beings. Birds have mating dances, we have nightclubs. In fact, the only
Amongst the crop of job adverts I've had to trawl through this week is a remarkable chance to be Country Manager in Denmark. They want a new ruler who can increase their market share. So if you want to blitzkrieg Europe at the command of the Danish armed forces apply now.
Of course armed forces need fuel. I was interested to discover a vacancy for an oil company in Kyrgyzstan. Managing a pileline in some forgotten corner of the world doesn't strike me as an exciting opportunity, though it w
Job searching doesn't get any easier. Now that Honda have cut back on production, they've started seconding their employees to local firms which means potential jobs won't get offered to the public. Jobs for the boys in other words. Now if full-time jobs are filled before I find them, I'm left with only the possibility of part-time work.
The other problem I face is that agencies aren't keen on putting me forward. If I apply for part time jobs I get asked why. Because a lot of shirkers have b
The Programme Centre has moved. They were inhabiting a pokey little place in that peculiar brick complex in the corner by the pub. You'd think that was very convenient, except the pub in question is a real 'sawdust on the floor and spit your broken teeth in the bucket please' kind of place.
I was in there a few years back, quietly minding my own business, nursing a pint like several others. In came a bunch of lads, making a lot of noise, bouncinng off the walls. To be honest I didn't pay mu
For a couple of days now the weather has been very warm and sunny, albeit a tad windy. The rainfall that has drenched France has threatened to claw its way north and finally today, it's here. Not heavy, just that dull drizzle that makes everything damp. It always brings that dull greyness that I associate with Swindon. It also brings a subdued mood too I notice.
It also brings out the dull people. It really does. Now the sun has gone away and the bright cheerful crowd with it there's a crowd
One of the joys of opening my post box every morning is the flyers and handouts that fuill it. After all, most of the letters I get are no more than rejection letters from employers, so it gets a bit depressing reading them. Thanks for the application, you're not shortlisted, please don't feel upset or suicidal, and apply again whenever you like. I'm starting to think the post service is making bogus job adverts to keep their members in gainful employment.
The flyers are different. Some are
Picture the world in prehistory. No television, computer games, or cars. In between hunting wild beasts I guess they had a lot time on their hands. So bored was one ancestor of humanity that he discovered rubbing wooden sticks together made things catch fire.. Can you imagine how excited he was to discover that?
Later, when voluminous wigs were fashionable, Newton discovered that sitting under apple trees was not only painful, but seriously enlightening. Sometime later, Einstein discovered t
Right then. Time to to meet my contractual obligations and earn my benefit payments. So its off to the office and another session of the training programme. Seeing as I'm officially famous and a genuine unemployed person, I think today I really must make the effort and dress in typically grungie fashion. Cue Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees and lots of silly dancing in front of mirrors.
Having dressed the part it's down the stairs and out into the big wide world. There's no stopping me today...
There was a time, before the BBC discovered computerised special effects, that we used to see those fifties 'B' movies. You know the ones? A terrible threat to mankind emerges from its hiding place and lays waste to the nearest big city before mankind finds a way to destroy it. Good wholesome family viewing. All these films followed a familiar pattern. Whether the threat came from space aliens, nuclear radiation, meteorites, or chemicals, it all started with an innocent small town slowly becomin
Last night I strolled up the hill to get a bag of chips. Yes, it's true, I did. Sometimes my spirit of adventure gets the better of me. Anyhow, this was during the twilight. On the horizon, the last angry embers were fading out. The sky was that deep blue you get shortly before dark. As I looked up, dark grey clouds were wafting silently past. I've always thought how strange it is that clouds move at dusk without any wind.
Even stranger is that spell the moon casts on you. There it is, a pal
What is art? that's a very philosophical question at first sight but a very important one if you intend earning your living from it. For most people, art is either pretty, pretty horrendous, or pretty well mystifying how someone got paid megabucks for a pile of oversized kiddies building blocks.
There have been some incredible attempts at labelling mundane objects as art. There was that display in the Tate Gallery of a cube of unmortared bricks that earned the creator two million pounds. Mos
In some ways I'm lucky. I'm just old enough to remember seeing steam locomotives working mainline services on British Rail. Steam engines have this animistic quality which endures despite the nerdy image of those who like them. As for me, I've always had a soft spot for this powerful works of art that belch smoke and hiss and chuff... Well, you know what I mean. The distant sounds of whistles still draw my attention. I remember this forgotten world. All those sounds behind rows of trees, the exq
Every year the English go one better than spending a weekend parked on a Bank Holiday motorway. They go on their summer hols. I always find it remarkable that the English generally regard the rest of the world as their playground.
The most popular playground for many years has been Spain. Now up until now I always thought this was because Spanish hotels were so unfinished that it didn't matter if drunken English tourists wrecked them. We English do like to remind other countries of our victo
It's Bank Holiday Weekend in Britain again. Those of us not busy demolishing our properties with ideas for home improvement will be heading for the coast, a mass migration of people desperate for fun and sun away from their daily grind. The government have issued a warning to those intending to travel that they can expect long delays on trunk routes.
We know. Everyone knows the motorways get jammed up with cars every Bank Holiday Weekend. But then, since the government have made our lives du
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
Some time ago on a job website I was asked if I wanted to take part in an online questionaire. The questions were fairly moronic but I hadn't anything better to do. One listed a load of organisations and asked me to describe them in three words. One was MI5, our home defence secret spy unit. I wrote 'Probably boring, but?'.I did kind of wonder if that answer was going to get me held in custody for three months under the Prevention Of Humour Act, but I never got an interview.
Yesterday was my
During my high octane, non-stop, action packed lifestyle as an unemployed job seeker, I occaisionally get a few moments to myself in which to relax. Yesterday was one of those, so in an uncharacteristic bout of feet-up laziness, I sat back and switched on the television. Hey, they've added some channels sonce I last watched telly. So I discovered this music channel showing all the hits from the eighties. Wow. This is so nostalgic. Phil Collins still had hair. Adam Ant still had warpaint on his f
