caldrail

I know when I'm beaten

I opened the curtains this morning to see a clear blue sky. That happens sometimes, and there's no reason to be concerned, because the sky usually clouds over within a couple of hours. There's a very lazy mood in Swindon right now. The garage mechanics across the yard are more bothered about cups of tea than mechanical problems, but then they always were. The yard isn't full of cars either, but then, with all the rubbish being deposited in the alleyway that allows access, that's no wonder. Over the last few days I've seen a crowd of suits, shirts, and ties wandering down the back road toward the rear gate of the Old College site. Given how rough that part of town is, old victorian brick terraces filled with thieves, layabouts, and druggies, they do get noticed. Looks as if the site will be demolished soon. I was tempted to ask the security man if I could wander around outside and take some pictures of the old place now it's covered with foliage (looking very post-apocalyptic), but he had that 'Don't mess with me, son' demeanour having waited all morning for the VIP's to turn up. Sometimes you just know you're asking for trouble. Unusual Car Spotted I came out of the internet cafe on Commercial Road and hey, what's that? A brutal, muscular car in silver paint parked around the corner. I couldn't resist the temptation to wander past and give it a perusal. It turned out to be a new model Camaro, a suprisingly charismatic vehicle, this one on french plates of all things. You don't see that every day. I'm not sure I want one, but it certainly grabs the attention in dour residential Swindon. Who? I've just a rumour that a Pope has been seen in Britain. Why is everyone fawning over him? I don't get it. Okay, he's the head of a religion, but let's be honest, he's just a guy in a funny costume who pops his head out of a window every so often. I thought God had a monopoly on worship? It was however nice of him to praise Britain for its stand against extremism, such as Hitlers Nazi regime in World War Two. So he should. At least we actually did something about it. Now, what was that about not dealing decisively with child abusers in the Roman Catholic Church?

Bah! Humbug! Why would I spend oodles of cash on therapy? I've got a copy of Grand Theft Auto on my computer. I'm currently taking over San Andreas. Nobody likes me. Only this way I get to shoot people and stuff heh heh heh oh. Darn. Busted. Now I'll have to start over outside the local police station... Life is so unfair...

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 war drama that depicted real events, even allowing for the dramatisation and 60's demeanour of the actors. I can't help it. I'm a complete sucker for Spitfires in warpaint. Last night though they showed First Light, a docu-drama based on the memoirs of Geoffery Wellum, the youngest pilot to take part in the battle. I can excuse the use of a later MkIX Spitfire (real BoB veterans are thin on the ground) but what pleased me was the patina they reproduced. It reeked of 1940's atmosphere. Excellent. Could I do It? A chap at work once asked me if I could fly a spitfire. He knew I flew modern cessnas and such, and he was genuinely curious. I thought about it for a moment and told him that yes, in theory, I could. The spitfire was an aeroplane like any other, it does the same things. It did add a note of caution. I pointed out that I wasn't trained to fly taildraggers, referring to the undercarriage arrangement which demands different skills, and that the spitfire was ten or twenty times more powerful than the aeroplanes I flew, and thus much faster, more demanding, and so forth. For me it would be like learning to drive in a beat-up old mini then getting into a racing car and expecting to stay on the road. But I so want to give it a try! The thing is though is that the Spitfire was designed to fend off the Luftwaffe from our shores. It was good at that, if not entirely perfect, and the airframes they built were not expected to last more than ten hours of operational flying. That's worth remembering. Buried Here Another documentary had one veteran of the battle visit the site where his Hawker Hurricane fighter went down. The archaeologist pulled a bit of metal out of the ground. A handrail, that would have been rivetted to the canopy, probably the last bit of aeroplane that man handled before he baled out in a moment of frantic terror. He was visibly affected by handling it again. As Geoffery Wellum said - "People ask how I can remember all of this. How do they think I can forget it?" On A Different Note The war has left us with more than a few treasured airframes and fantasies. I've just discovered that in the middle of the channel between the Medway and the Thames is an old freighter that sank in a storm, broken in two at anchor as the weight of cargo stressed the hull too far. The cargo was a consignment of munitions. Everything from cluster bombs to one thousand pounder heavies the British and Americans used to haul across European skies to pummel German industry and infrastructure. The vessel is now in a poor condition, threatening to fall apart in the next decade, and if the contents should for any reason ignite - the estimated explosive force would equal a small atomic bomb according to experts, producing a shockwave that would register around the world on earthquake detectors. That sort of puts things in perspective.

This does represent an interesting change of emphasis in Roman religious life. The old pagan temples are places of individual commune. It's the same principle as approaching your patron of a morning and asking for favours, possibly offering some service or something by way of a deal. So the pagan worshipper offers a small sacrifice (and archaeology has shown evidence there were market stalls attached so you could buy the required sacrificial object beforehand - How very Roman) and makes his request. Christian worship of course is very much a communal affair and designed to be from the outset. Whereas an individual in private can request anything he likes, a congregation has a oderating effect on the members, a sort of peer pressure to observe certain behaviour, and in any case, you don't ask God in his temples for favours good or bad. Instead, you're asking to be considered as worthy. Because this recent amphitheatre has a religious context, does that represent a communal service? This might represent christian influence or does it represent religion as entertainment? That might seem a strange concept. Bear with me. Gladiatorial combat used similar facilities all over the empire and we know that despite it's blood sport appeal, it was based on religious observances, and retained much of the significance even though commercialisation had thoroughly converted the genre into a thriving business. So what if a pagan priest (for the sake of speculation) had decided to draw in more punters? Perhaps his 'sacrifice market stand' wasn't bringing in enough cash? So he begins to invite performances of a religious theme. Not quite the conformal mass worship of the christian era (though I accept that might well have been the case), but a pagan priest doing much the same as a modern christian preacher - putting on a show and making a handsome profit?

What a miserable, rotten, rainy day. Sorry to go on a downer, but it just couldn't be any greyer. A fine drizzle driven by blustery winds is definitely dampening my spirit. But Yahoo has the answer. Twelve tips to brighten your otherwise dreary day. Okay. Let's have a look. 1. Resist the urge to

Today I thought I'd stop by the park and spend a few moments enjoying the quiet of a monday morning before having to get on with the real one. As mondays go, this does actually appear to be none too busy. The hill was devoid of cars completely, so either everyones on holiday this week, or the signs displaying the number of parking spaces are working. As it happens, a flock of seabirds have dropped in to enjoy the lake as well. Now they ain't quiet. Frenetic activity everywhere, a constant chorus of caws and eek-eek-eek (Bill Oddie I'm not) made it look like a bunch of ill mannered youths wandering into a devonshire tea-room and demanding lager and pinball machines. One poor duck stood his ground and regretted it. The seabirds pounced on him, hovering and pecking at him. Normally the two resident swans float about serenely and regally. Not any more. Incensed at the rude behaviour of their visitors they decided enough was enough. Both of them shot across the lake, wings beating, leaving a considerable wake, determined to teach these seabirds a lesson, and for once the visitors knew they'd outstayed their welcome. They scattered. Probably a wise move. Angry swans are somewhat formidable. And so peace returned to the lake in Queens park. The seabirds, realising they were going to get whipped for bad behaviour, settled down, and everyone lived happily ever after. Where Are They? On the other hand, I notice the absence of geese. Have they flown south for the winter already? Or are they missing, presumed eaten? Another Day, Another Car As pleasant as it is, I must head back to the hurly burly of life on monday morning. Things seem to be going on as much as before. I see in the news a new supercar is being launched. An entreneur has pushed his AF10 project into the public and hopes the exclusivity will attract people with enough money in their wallets to purchase what is a very expensive car. Looks quite good, I must admit, a low low sports car always raises my pulse rate, especially if it has a bodywork with some allusions to artisitic flair. Hang on though... Isn't this the same guy who released a car a couple of years ago? Is this the same car, re-launched?

The doorbell rang yesterday. Usually when that happens it's a visitor for the downstairs crowd who hasn't realised that two doorbell buttons means you have to choose the right one. Occaisionally I get someone at the door asking wierd questions and I'll have to put that down to mistaken identity. Sometimes there's no-one there at all. Having disentangled myself from the headphones, picked myself back off the floor having tripped on he cables, and repositioning te objects I knocked over, not to mention a perilous descent down the steep and treachorous stairs, I opened the door and.... No-one. Brilliant. Well I'll have a look outside to see if anyone gave up waiting for me to extract myself from my home. As it happens, I didn't need to. An energetic young blonde lady leapt into view and breathlessly apologised for not realising I was actually going to open the door. Normally I dismiss charity salespersons but in this case, seeing as she was so pretty and apologetic, I'll listen. To be honest, she hardly got a word in edgeways. Once someone starts trying to tell me about how the planet is going to the dogs I start on my sermon pointing out that things aren't necessarily the way the climate change brigade like to imagine them, rather like I did in the previous blog entry. (Sorry Your Highness, but you really have been listening to a lot of twaddle) It didn't matter because she wasn't going to get any money out of me anyway. So I apologised and promised to give her a plug. That didn't come out the way I intended. New Home For Nessie? Lake Windemere in the north of England is now being searched for a mysterious monster said to be making appearances. It now exceeds the number of Loch Ness sightings. My guess is that Nessie has had kids and they've found themselves a rented lake south of the border. Nice area, plenty of room, only 13,000 years old. Soon to have posters of Che Guevara and traffic cones decorating the depths, not to mention lots of visitors with sonar and underwater cameras. You know, maybe we should just let Nessie alone. I mean she's been swimming around our lakes for millenia now and doesn't harm anyone (except possibly once, during the Iron Age, when a raft was reportedly attacked by a sea serpent, but hey, we all lose our temper sometimes, huh?). Would you like the natural history paparazzi dogging your every move? Or Bill Oddie camped out by the edge of your lake? Or David Attenborough popping in for tea and biscuits? Sooner or later, if the Nessie's are really there, there'll be a newspaper report with a smiling fisherman proudly displaying his mammoth prize catch of the day. That's the trouble with human beings. We like hunting, fishing, trapping, and selling our prey so that we can put our feet up in comfort. The Promised Plug Ladies and Gentleman, pease spare a thought for animals, because we've been a bit selfish towards them. Support the World Wildlife fund and make an animal happy. World Wildlife Fund

Buckingham Palace isn't happy. The climate is changing. And Prince Charles is dumbfounded by sceptics of Global Warming. Look Your Highness, it really is very simple. There are a lot of people claiming CO2 is destroying the planet. It isn't. The CO2 cycle is almost as old as the planet itself, and for most of Earths history, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was way above what we have today by orders of magnitude. CO2 has been rising again for millions of years, long before we invented dark satanic mills.. As for passing a 'malfunctioning' planet on to our children, what a laughable concept. Do you really believe we can actually control the Earth to that degree? Of course it isn't malfunctioning. It's changing. It always changes. It always has. If the planet becomes an uncomfortable place for us then it's likely we'll die out, just like any other species whose favourite enviroment has vanished. Can we actually combat climate change? No. We might be able to avoid some of the worst excesses of mankind but keep the planet as a perfect paradise? How? There aren't any levers to puill. There aren't any convenient switches. Making lots of impassioned speeches will only add to the amount of hot air anyway. In any case, CO2 isn't that much of a worry. Other gases, like methane, are far worse. And as human beings grow in number, as we farm intensively more and more, that's where the problem is coming from. Stop telling everyone to use their cars less, and tell them instead to stop farting. In any case, if you feel that badly about it, sell the Aston Martin. Hey, it's a start. I hope that relieves your dumbfoundness. Trouble At Mill I see in the news that George Osbourne is planning to tackle 'benefits lifestyle'. Does he actually believe I have a lifestyle at all? I had to give up flying aeroplanes. I had to give up driving fast cars. Heck, I've even had to give up socialising on a regular basis. Does he think I'm enjoying it? His stated aim is to persuade people to go back to work. Thanks, but I don't need to be persuaded, I need to pay my bills. And it's no good complaining about the money I'm costing the government. What about MP's wages? You earn a great deal more for sitting on your backsides and making our lives difficult. Foossil of the Week They've discovered a new dinosaur. Sadly, it too expired lots of millions of years ago, but this one apparently had a tall spine on it's back to communicate with others of its species. That's what the news report says. So.... These dinosaurs had radio aerials mounted on their backs? Cool.

There was program on last night called Bad Boys of the Blitz which detailed the flourishing crime scene and penal regime of World War Two Britain. Most of this activity had been hushed up by the authorities during the war for propaganda purposes, amnd the point was made that our current problems with law and order date back to this time. I had to laugh though. One old crook was interviewed and with a serious look on his face told us that "whenever there's a war you get outbreaks of violence". No kidding. Meanwhile, Back At The Advertising Agency The bouyant lady who phoned me yesterday afternoon offered me an interview today and instructions on how to find it. The address was in Old Town, so hard could that be? Across the street from the wine bar... Got it... Next to the Italian resteraunt... Got it... Ummm - That's a bike shop, not a plush advertising agency. So I investigated and discovered the sign for the resteraunt pointed to an alleyway in which the correct door could be found. What a maze of little companies and hostelries. Okay, I know this is Old Town, but this is like Charles Dickens with a makeover. So one lad came through the door in jeans and was out again in thrity seconds. Another couldn't remember what he'd done at school two years ago, and a young lady applicant grimaced as she saw me emerge from my interview belly first. She of course was turned out absolutely spot on perfect and so thought herself entitled to stare down her nose. I wonder if she too messed up the slightly misleading application forms? I do hope so. Having met Miss M, the bouyant lady I spoke to on the phone, she really is a first class receptionist. Chatty, able to dismiss scruffy applicants with a single sentence, and always smiling, even when her computer can't handle her any more and misbehaves. Best Interview Ever Looking back over the last couple of years one telephone interview stands out. I rang a garden centre to chase up some grotty little job and a woman answered. She clearly wasn't the boss and had a heavy rural accent, all slow and full of wiltshire inflections. Oh.. Hi.. I'm phoning about the vacancy for Garden Centre Flunky. Is Mr Boss there? "Nah. What do you want him for?" Well I'd like to discuss the vacancy as the advert suggests. "Do you want the job or not?" I'd like to know something about it first. "I think you're wasting my time. Click. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

Yesterday I saw a man with wings. Now that might inspire all sorts of derisive comments but this wasn't an angel sighting (my mother will so disappointed), but a gentleman heading toward the local model store with the wings from a radio control P51 Mustang. A big one too. Six feet across although if any criticism were deserved, U.S. P51's in D-Day colours were never painted an overall sky blue. I also suspect, due to the lack of all the other bits like engine, fuselage, cockpit, etc, that we're either looking at pilot error or a luftwaffe kill. Big model aeroplanes are always impressive nonetheless. I recall walking back from the Downs beside Wroughton Airfield with a very sizeable scale model of a C130 Hercules being put through its paces. That was impressive. Not to be outdone, there was the time I built a big one. I take you back to the days when I worked in returns department for a high street retailer. The premises were an old CD factory and it was a shabby, unloved building, leaking water when it rained and leaking goods when we had temps in. It was so grotty that I had to do something to raise my colleagues spirits. Besides, I was bored. So out waste cardboard I constructed a crude model of a Sopwith Camel. The completed aeroplane was huing from one of the chains dangling from the roof. It got a some muted applause but it wasn't enough. Set up there, lonely, flying in static isolation, I decided it needed a buddy, a rival, someone to contest the skies over the shop floor. So I set about the task of creating a Red Baron triplane. That was fine, except I got ambitious. The wingspan was something approaching four feet. Such was the complexity of getting limp carboard to support its own weight and not droop like a soggy box, it took two weeks to build it. Needless to say, I had to hide from the management. To this day I have no idea whether they knew what I was up to, but I think you can see how lax their management was. So eventually the big day arrived and I hung the mighty Fokker from another chain. Even if I say so myself, it was a triumph. Shortly after I was away for a week on holiday, and when I came back, the triplane had gone. I like to think it magically broke its moorings and flew away to an airfield far, far, away, but you just know that wandering managers pack some mighty flak guns. Big Moves On The Dance Floor Yahoo have posted an article telling us that researchers have discovered that women are attracted by lots of big movement. So hit the dance floor chaps. It's just a matter of making the right moves. What it doesn't say is thase same women are too busy shrieking with laughter to find the object of their attention in any way sexually desirable. Not that I have experience of dancing in a big and silly way you understand. I notice the article doesn't list them. I can't help wondering if the researchers weren't a little distracted during their research. One succesful experiment and to heck with publishing a scientific paper on it?

I don't know about technical faults, but if the britons camped out on top of Hadrians Wall, I'd have to say the whole point of the wall was lost!

Now that I've been put on fortnightly signing again I have to fill in a form declaring what I've done to find work. The first question asks whether I've completed the criteria of my Jobseekers Agreement. This means all those weekly activities that the Department of Work and Pensions insist on even if they won't improve my employment chances one iota. If I were to check the 'NO' box, I would have to fill in a series of searching and embarrasing questions, not to mention concoct some inventive excuses before they stopped my money. If, on the other hand, I check the 'YES' box having completed my activities as I do intend to, I still have to answer one question that asks why I haven't completed my tasks. Are they serious? It's a form that either makes me sign as guilty of failing to meet expected standards, or that I'm lying about whether I have. That's called entrapment. No, I'm not having this. Time to go down to the Job Centre and sort this issue out. To my suprise the lady at the desk advised me not to answer the question at all. Good for her. She's gone up in estimations immensely. I've promoted her from 'vacant android' to 'sensible person'. At her advice I summoned the claims manager from his bunker and had a short argument with him. You know, I don't think he's got any regard for claimants at all. I certainly don't fit his stereotypes. Since he's in a position of influence that means he shrugs and assumes that sooner or later I'll be forced to adopt one. Sorry mate. Sometimes people lose their jobs too. Sleeping At The Wheel Some of you reading yesterdays entry will have noticed a mention of a close call in a car when I dozed off. That really did happen, on my way home from Leicester one dark night. Had I not woken when I did, I would have made the newspapers. That sort of fame I can do without. That had been a long day. To leicester and back in one day to meet friends and such. Although I was used to that, having been on the road in rock bands and such, I thought I was okay. I really did. In fine fettle I set off and nearly taught my car how to fly half an hour later. Luckily there was a motorway rest stop twenty miles down the road and I stopped there for a breather. Funny thing was, I was fine the rest of the way home. All it took was a fifteen minute rest. Very strange. Fire! Our local vandals set fire to the alleyway again last night. The flames were quite spectacular when I spotted them, reaching eight feet high or more. I called the fire service out (and probably so did others) and they had the fire out in seconds. Well done lads. Noise of the Week Definitely goes to the garage across the yard. It sounded like a robot being treated at a dentist without anaesthetic. Extraordinary.

Actually they are, four or five hundred pounds return trip if I don't mind standing room only on a cheap flight surrounded by eastern europeans and their chickens. The cost to LAX was because I was booking on bank holiday.

Life is never safe, is it? You can add burglar alarms, smoke alarms, five star crash ratings on your car, health and safety procedures, licensing, all manner of safeguards, and you still get mown down by a runaway hay bale. Soldiers say that sometimes you a bullet has your name on it. I can't help laughing as remember Blackadder's faithful flunky Baldrick carving his name on one of his bullets so he'd never get hit by it. Quite how you'd carve your name on a hay bale to avoid it hitting you is beyond me. Most of us have close calls one way or another. Some of mine have been potentially dramatic. A couple of times I've been close to mid-air collisions, or in one case, unexpectedly dozed at the wheel of a car one night and nearly propelled myself off the edge of a steep drop onto a motorway. Nothing to be proud of, there's no bravado involved, just errors of judgement that nearly got me killed. Sometimes though you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was never a fan of Electric Light orchestra, but hearing that their cellist and founder member Mike Edwards was hit by a giant hay bale is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. Still, let's look on the bright side, he went out with style. On Parole For some reason I've been let off daily signing. I'm back to fortnightly visits to the Job Centre, though I suspect this is a temporary relief from my daily grind. I have forms to fill though. That's never a good thing. If I see a big rotund hay bale in the dole office, I'll know what's coming next. Cuts In Benefits According to the unions, I could possibly lose

The theory presented is all very well, but I notice that the eaten remains were younger. Something similar happened in the aftermath of the Santorini explosion that destroyed the Minoan Empire. With the economy and commercial links gone, the hard pressed survivors turned to eating their children. It's possible that the fertile lands weren't always as fertile as we might expect, and if the inhabitants didn't indulge in agriculture, then any shortfall in foraged and hunted food would necessitate some harsh measures to preserve survival.

My hatred of football is no secret. It's one thing to have a bit of fun kicking a ball around, quite another paying an unhealthy ticket price to enter a screaming contest while a bunch of fashion dummies demonstrate the latest must-have sports wear. Later you'll enter a screaming contest with your kids who demand those fashions to emulate their sporting heroes. It's all just marketing now, isn't it? People seem to worry more about what haircut these people have than the actual score. In the good old days it was all about skill. You had to have a talent for playing. After all, haircuts were pretty standard in those days and teams only changed their colours every century. Sadly my own talent for football was brutally swept aside by a games teacher who marked me as a failure because I wasn't in the school team, as if I was in any danger of being asked. No, that's not correct, the rot set in earlier. I blame my junior school teacher. In Physical Education classes he would have two lads choose their mates alternately and eventually they'd grimace and decide which of the loser brigade was the lesser evil. Coming fifth to a bunch of overweight kids isn't fun. Then again he said I would never make a carpenter but I came top in my woodwork class two years later. Fat lot he knew. I remember bumping into him in a shop and telling him of my triumphal recognition of handicraft skills. Why didn't he believe me? You see, the problem was that I was a clever kid. Clever kids do spelling, maths, homework, and zits. Not football. Being clever is only going to make you popular when your ability to spell certain long words lets the class out five seconds early, and since the average young footballer has that sort of attention span, my tip for any up-and-coming clever kid is enjoy it while it lasts. Now I discover that I could have spared myself the loss of self-esteem by applying some physics to the problem of how to be a good football player. Of course what I actually did was draw some feeble cartoon series in the back of my exercise book, thus I never found out that a scientific equation exists to predict the flight of a football. Factor in the force applied by the foot... The amount of spin.... And there you go. Perfect goals, every time. Well there you go. Scientific proof that football really is as monumentally dull as I always believed it to be. So if you'll excuse me, I have a shelf to mend. So far they haven't invented a mathematical formula for that. Television of the Week This accolade does not go to last nights Great TV Mistakes, a two hour catalogue of minor continuity errors that only a sad loner with a digital recording device and lots of time that could be better spent on Dungeons & Dragons could possibly notice. Never have I been so bored. And that was the first five minutes. Just imagine sitting through the whole show. No, I agree, that was a callous irresponsible thing to suggest. I have a sneaking suspicion the television channel does that on purpose so you watch the football on that other sports channel, which of course you have to pay for.

This is an interesting thread, because invariably christianity takes the credit for changing the Roman Empire. But isn't it true that Christianity was given a Roman character, including provision for earning wealth? That like other aspects of Roman culture Christianity adopted ideas from other faiths? And that local variations were either destroyed or declared heresy, so that a politicised religion governed peoples hearts and minds? Slavery is said to have declined due to christian thought, but manumission had become a popular method of establishing your personal generosity long before that, and as the wars of conquest became a thing of the past, the supply of slaves was no longer inundated by the conquered. Gladiatorial combat did decline in part due to christian teaching, but again, the genre was past its glory days and was declining anyway, for economic and social reasons. The dominance of christianity certainly changed Roman culture to a degree, but I can't help feeling that it was only accentuating aspects that were already there.

Changes are afoot. Lorries bearing scaffolding have swarmed into Swindon town centre and erected makeshift frameworks here, there, and everywhere. There's one across the street from me that looks like a roof repair following our recent strong winds. The old cinema at the bottom of the hill, the one that spent its declining years as a bingo hall, and spent the last decade under offer, has now been propped up with miles of metal tubes. Not only that, but the two metal posts inserted in the pavement just down the hill from me that were put up maybe a couple of years ago, have now been switched on. Motorists can see the LED umbers and know which car park in the town centre has spaces. That's great. Unfortunately the LED's also shine directly toward the slope of the pavement, so we pedestrians get blinded. Official count this morning? All four car parks proudly come up with the intriguing "SPACES", which probably means that despite the advance knowledge, motorists are still going to have to resort to shouting and fisticuffs to get a parking space to pay for. And the council womders why parking fee reductions have not brought car drivers back into Swindon? Icon Of The Week Television is so full of iconic moments and characters. Like the Professionals, when a Ford Granada bursts through a glass screen in the title sequence, or Starsky & Hutch, when David Soul leaps thirty feet to land on the roof of his car sitting down. And so forth. The good news is that I saw Huggy Bear yesterday. Maybe a bit younger, with less of a rubbery walk, but the kid had the image spot on. Not a good look. But he seems happy, and obviously doesn't feel the need to compete for the car parking spacesSwindon offers. I mean, who would want to spend their dole money on a car?

Everything seemed a bit grey this morning. Our first foggy morning in ages. Now that I've signed on at the dole office and wanderd up to the library to see to my jobsearching, the sun has broken out again. Maybe that's not quite world breaking news. Can I do better? Institute Is Falling Down Our beloved Mechanics Institute, a sort of all-purpose community centre built by the Great Western Railway in 1854, is in danger of collapse. The cellars are flooded. The roof is on the point of caving in. Parts of the building are now too dangerous to access. This has to be the most ridiculous situation ever. It's a historic grade II listed building, guaranteed preservation by law, and no-one knows what to do with the place. It's been slowly rotting away since the 70's. The chap who owns it has made a few maintenance efforts in order not to get prosecuted but otherwise this grand old edifice has had it. Okay, maybe that's not quite world breaking news either. Let's try something else. Headline News Local news is all about murder. A man was attacked and found unconcious at his home, later to die of his injuries. Naturally the locals are shocked by this tragedy. The thing is though, why are we so shocked? We know people die by violence. The circumstances of these events make daily viewing on television news, and our entertainment thrives on stories of such activity. Whilst I would hope Swindon isn't slowly metamorphosing into downtown Mogadishu, it does seem that we block out the nastiness and create some sort of 'little world' of our own. It all happens to someone else. Until it doesn't. Then again, whilst for Swindoners the news is disturbing and important, compared to the casualty rate in other parts of the world it's not exactly world shaking news either is it? My World Breaking Shock Horror News Anyone expecting me to announce before the worlds audience that I'm secretly gay is going to be disappointed here. Sorry, guys, I'm straight. So the little runt who decided to lambast me from the safety of his car will have to find someone else to sleep with tonight. Why is this so world shaking? Because some people want it to be. because they make loud noises and a big fuss over it. Because they want to force me to admit to something, so that they gain the kudos of being able to say "We told you so". It has become, sadly, something that fills their dreary little lives with amusement. Seems a bit odd that people aren't really interested in loss of life, culture, property, freedom, or anything else the news finds worth telling us about, but that they'd rather poke their nose into someones private lives. I have to laugh. My private life is about as public as you can get without a crowd of paparazzi following me. You only have to read this blog to know what I'm up to. Everything you ever wanted to know about me. Until it isn't.

As long as historical accuracy is maintained I'm okay with that. Remember that samurai of this period did not use the two swords To know nothing of history is to remain forever a child Cicero

Todays entry is not going to be an epic literary adventure of colossal importance. I'm not feeling well. I have a bug. Not one of those creepy crawly things, though I have evicted a few over the last couple of weeks, but a virus type of bug, a malicious little bacterial psychopath that has reduced me to a coughing, spluttering, dull eyed and slack jawed health problem. It's like being drunk without the fun bits. Also I suspect I won't be waking up with a traffic cone in my bed. This Week On Discovery I see from the news that the Discovery Channel headquarters were in a hostage situation with a gunman recently. In true Hollywood style, the SWAT guys went in and sorted it. That much you probably know already. Perhaps now Discovery will stop doing Shark Week? Someone was bound to complain eventually. Stigness Lost My world is irrevocably changed. The Stig, Top Gear's most famous android, is revealed as Ben Collins. All this time and I thought it was me. All my dreams crushed brutally. That's it, I'm selling my scalextric.

Strictly speaking there was a romano-british farmyard at the bottom of the hill where I live, so I pass it every day. Sadly someone built Swindon on top of it. That said, the area is due for redevelopment soon so with luck some archaeology might turn up.

As if invasions of jellyfish weren't enough. Last night I caught a program on television where some ex-special forces guy zips into chainmail to film vicious gangs of humboldt squid. Apparently these horrible little monsters are spreading like wildfire because they can. We haven't helped of course. I mean, we're always to blame, aren't we? Apparently our fishing habits have caught all the predators that eat squid, so now the little horrors don't have any competitors. They are actually remarkable creatures. They can survive in low-oxygen waters deep beneath the surface. They have some of the fastest growing babies in nature. Although unproven, they seem to have some form of sign language (they can flash colour at each other), and certainly stalk their victims intelligently. Not only that, but this species has the thickest nerve fibres of any creature on Earth. Now if only we could get squids and jellyfish to go to war against each other, mankind will be safe to paddle in the water between shark attacks. Mad Dogs And Englishmen As if getting stung to death by jellyfish, ripped apart by squid, or swallowed in several large pieces by shark wasn't bad enough, I see that half of britons are willing to risk getting sunburnt for the pleasure of cancer inducing suntans. We just don't learn, do we? Only mad dogs and englishmen go out in the mid-day sun it seems. Or then again... Out In The Mid-Day Sun You have to laugh. Now the US mission in Iraq has come to end and everyone is cheerily going home, they still have fifty thousand advisors there to train the iraqi army. One to one tuition? But maybe there's method to this madness. After all, when the squids finally learn how to eat navy seals in chainmail, America is gong to need every ally it can get. We'll be too busy getting suntanned on the beach. Todays Activity Wot a nice day. The sun is shining, the air is warm, the mood is pleasant, and it's nearly lunchtime. See ya later dudes.