caldrail

After the assassination of Claigula the Praetorians took the in iniative and chose Claudius as a figurehead Caesar to ensure their lucrative employment continued. In fact, the senate were generally not in a mood to allow another Caesar, and only the risk of violence brought them to the conclusion (rather quickly as it turned out) that Claudius was going to have to be accepted. At this stage it was by no means assured that the Caesars would continue. Augustus had survived and eventually won the senate over, but Tiberius had not presented an equally capable image and lets not forget that during his reign many senators were disposed of by Sejanus, a regime that was hardly liable to endear itself to the wealthy politicians of Rome. Caligula was brought in with most assuming he was going to be a breath of fresh air. The young Caesar was very popular with the masses and indeed remained so despite the suetonian malarkey. It was Caligula's attitude toward the senators that sealed his fate. Partly Caligula was a young man with little self restraint, excessive personal power, a seriously nasty sense of humour, but also he was regarding the senate as an obstacle to his rule. The story that Caligula wanted his horse Incitatus made a senator was a direct reference to this. Even this horse could do a better job than you idiot politicians. Clearly the assassination of Claigula was unexpected. The senators who had any ideas of ascending to the throne weren't in any position to make their move, having been forced to remain careful about speech and deed, and with the Praetorians effectively forcing the seante to accept Claudius (who was very keen, once convinced to become Caesar by the Praetorians, to cement his rule with acts of political benefice and a military invasion of Britain), the chance of any serious senatorial coup, either personal or republican, had been lost.

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 volunteers. The BBC came in to film a news item (it gets aired on BBC Oxford tonight) and I even got to hold a microphone while the tv journalist recorded his introduction spot..I am now an experienced BBC sound recordist. I should put that on my CV. Why not? It's not as if anyone is going to notice. Rain, Rain, Go Away Okay, who switched the rain off? last night I saw a weather map with a big blue patch spreading across south western england. It's going to rain, they said. Yeah? Here in Swindon the sun is almost winning the battle to dominate todays weather. Why am I whinging? It's a matter of principle. Here I am, all dressed up to cope with dreary wet weather, and the BBC go and cancel the rain due to a news team recording a sequence at the museum. Can't have tv journalists getting all soaked. At least I now see where all our license fees go to. Grey Hari, Go Away Scientists have discovered a cure for grey hair it seems. As a sufferer of this blight for many decades it comes as a shock to discover that it's a disease. I thought hair turned grey sooner or later, though admittedly, in my case it was very sooner. I started going grey when I was 13. One of my grandfathers was completely grey by the time he was 17, so I can only assume I suffer from a hereditary disease. Damn my slightly non-conformist genes! Why is grey hair regarded in such a bad light? Because it makes us look old and past it? Or is it some instinctive thing, where younger people seek to oust the older less capable members of the tribe from eating food or bonking females? Despite the best efforts of television advertising, and no shortage of jibes from colleagues, I've never felt the slightest compuction to dye it. If that's the colour nature has decided my hair shall be, so be it. Remember, grey haired people are no different. I had a dream... Where grey haired people are equal in society... Where grey haired people aren't forced to buy cosmetics in order to lead fulfilling social lives... I had a dream... Okay. I've woken up now. But I can't afford hair dye, and in any case, I'm rather attached to what's left of my grey hair. At least I still have some.

You still waiting too? I don't get it. How come television astronomers always have a clear view of these things? Do I have to bribe Patrick Moore or something?

What the... A cheap east european ploy to get me to emigrate and leave a slot in british society to be filled by immigrants to our green and pleasant land? Sneaky... Very sneaky...

No-one could accuse me of not being prepared. With the risk of heavy showers predicted by our faithful prophets of the television weather report, I was not taking chances. Okay, I wasn't in hiking mode, dressed in outdoors survival gear, but in clothing I know from experience is able to cope quite well with the minor downpour or two. So military surplus it is then. All day long I was going here and there, seeing to my daily business, and to my utter disgust the dark clouds came and went without discharging their load of rain. Swindon does this. No matter how prepared you are, something else happens. I had all but given up. Finally, late in the afternoon, it began to rain as I headed home from the supermarket. Everyone else headed for shelter while I continued on my merry way, beaming with delight that I was immune to the effects of rainfall. At least temporarily. But that's okay. The shower only lasted less than a minute. All In The Stars Would you believe it? A lunar eclipse for yesterday evening. I wonder how many times I've heard of astronomical phenomena to be observed only to find the british weather has denied me the opportunity. It would be worth catching this one as the next won't appear in british skies until 2041. Good grief, I'll be an eighty year old man when that one comes around - and I'll bet the clouds will obscure it. Like they did last night. Patience. Everything comes to he who waits.

It was such a lovely afternoon yesterday that I couldn't help taking a wander around some of our local open spaces. I was in the mood for a break. The aggravations of job searching seem especially aggravating right now, simply because it feels like I'm trying to wade upstream right now. After nearly two decades in warehousing you would think I'd learnt a few things, but apparently job agencies regard me as lacking the necessary experience. Pardon? Anyway, that's enough of a gripe. The weather was fine and a cool breeze made it very pleasant indeed. Maybe it's just as well I took advantage of the sun. Apparently the weather is to return to standard british format by friday (which for those of you who aren't acquainted with England, that means rain). Swindon Indiana Sometimes I get bizarre offers of employment. There' a job for

Unforunately the laws of physics don't always work that way. In some circumstances the vehicle with a higher energy state suffers less in collisions - though it depends what they collide with. I'm thinking of a case where two porsche 911's were racing on a country lane (the drivers both said they weren't but didn't convince anyone) and smashed into an oncoming car. The innocent victim was killed outright and the two porsches, whilst written off, protected their occupants.

A nice day for a quick stroll through the park. A couple amble toward the edge of the lake and the local population of waterfowl converge on them, hoping for their morning supply of bread, which they were duly offered and a mad scramble for damp morsels ensued. One seabird seems to have gotten annoyed at one of the geese. It glided on the wind, stationary above the offending goose, wings gently rocking from side to side as it assumed the optimum position, then dived on him again and again. The flustered goose gave up trying to feed and looking a little dejected swam away from the combat zone. meanwhile in town the drab pedestrianised Theatre Square is slowly becoming known as the Artists Quarter. The old Post Office building is an art gallery, and two empty shops are being used as extensions, including the one that had that 'What Is Hope?' exhibition in the window. Pipes and berets anyone? No, I didn't think so either. Bills That Hurt Gas prices are still set to rise inexorably. How long can this go on? Yesterday I received a gass bill which I compared with one from a few years back. I used half the amount of gas this last winter and owe the company a few quid above my regular payments, whereas back then they owed me more than a hundred. That's quite an extraordinary hike in prices. It means I have to make some very hard decisions about how to keep myself financially secure. Sorry Mr Dentist, but my appointment is cancelled. Nothing to do with an agonising thirty minutes of medieval prodding and suction pumps, but simply a matter of avoiding big bills. It also means that a good hot bath is back on the once-a-year treat list, and again I turn back to sponge baths to keep clean. Little luxuries make life very pleasant but oh how easily we take them for granted. For now I'll have to grin and bear it. Not Always For Free I got an email from my email service provider, or more exactly, their billing department. Apparently they've had trouble processing this months payments. Eh? I thought this email service was free? It says so on their webpage. Why do they need my credit card details and why are they threatening to terminate the service if I don't provide the info? A part of me wonders if this isn't some sophisticated con (apparently it's called 'phfishing' or something like that), or perhaps some incredible bureaucratic cock-up. Anyhow, one strongly worded email sent to Customer Support, and no update. How could I? The bank withdrew my credit card.

Last night I thought I would spoil myself and go for a takeaway. I know, it's expensive, unhealthy, but compared to the rather bland food I normally eat, it makes a welcome change. A little of what you fancy dies you good. So after an archaeological dig into my trousers I discovered an ancient five pound note, still legible after all those years of lying fallow in sweaty conditions. Time then to hit the streets! It must have been a while since I last ventured out into the sunday evening of rainy old Swindon. I never remembered it being this dead. The streets were almost empty and apart from being followed by a pair of drunks with nothing to do but make loud noises, no-one stirred as I wandered from fast food outlet to fast food outlet in the vain hope of finding one open. Eventually I did. As it turned out the burgers were very good quality, far better than the plastic mass produced variety you nornally get at McDonalds. The two drunks ambled in after me, clearly unable to decide for themselves what to do on a quiet sunday evening, and clearly puzzled that they needed to purchase food in order for it to be eaten, and luckily for all concernced, too puzzled to get angry about it. They wandered off to be noisy somewhere else. Doing My Chores Life in Swindon isn't all rain showers and empty sunday streets. It isn't all fast food and traffic wardens. Like everywhere else, the great unwashed have to get on with their job searching and that includes me. The government are setting a new regime in which anyone who fails to adequately impress the world with their efforts to find work will be lined up against the wall and shot (thus no longer requiring expensive benefits). For now, I'm not at risk of execution but that's only because I maintain a level of jobsearching that puts a warm glow on the faces of claims advisors, or at least when I manage to convibnce them I'm not making false claims. They say a job seeker should treat his search like a vocation. I think I pretty much do that already. Which means I've been working on my job search for three years without a holiday. All work and no play makes Caldrail a dull interviewee. Not sure the secret police of the Department of Works & Pensions will see it that way.

Sassanid infantry varied in quality clearly, and the majority, composed of conscripted peasants, was probably every bit as bad as described. That doesn't mean all sassanid infantry was as ineffective since we know there were higher status troops among them who were better trained. You would expect this from a feudal society. A small proportion of trained and experienced troops, plus a mass of peasants dragged in to boost numbers. It's worth pointing out that the perisan society in question was extremely hard on it's peasantry and probably expected more from them than they were trained to give. There must have been therefore an element of 'human waves'. If you bring barely trained peasants en masse to a battle they're good for little else. That doesn't mean this was a primary tactic, rather a situation that the persian generals must have accepted because they had little alternative. In terms of direct infantry comparison we therefore see a mixed ability army fighting a one trick legion. The Romans fought in one style and always did. It worked quite well when they commanded initiative. The problem for the Romans is not therefore anything to do with legion vs feudal infantry, but the application of missile fire, something the sassanid armies excelled at.

There's nothing like lazing in a hot bath. Now that I'm on metered water it's become a luxury, yet the pleasure of lying in hot water and just relaxing for an hour is great. So last night I followed the usual ritual and slid into the water with a satisified sigh. Outside all was not well. The weather reports had warned of showers but what followed sounded like I was under siege. The heavens opened and down came hail, rattling and pinging on the roofs arund the bathroom like incessant arrow fire. I knew the house was a sturdy shelter against ice falling from the sky, but the sound echoes oddly and half the time it sounds like it's coming through the roof and bouncing around indoors. That was pretty savage for a british hailstorm. Mostly we get short spurts, indifferent little pellets that sting annoyingly when they find their target. Most often it's mixed with rain and never lasts long. Yesterdays assault went for ten minutes. Good grief.! Bump I've just watched the video for that alarming crash by Allan McNish at the Le Mans 24Hr. For those who haven't seen it, McNish clips another car and slides off the track and across the gravel trap, hitting the guard barrier with such force the car lifts into the air spinning as it dismantles itself. Such things can happen in motor races. It only takes a little nudge to spoil a cars balance. At high speed, reacting and coping with sudden unexpected forces tests the best racing driver and even they often cannot react quick enough. Walking back from Commonhead a few days ago I heard a horn sounding on the dual carriageway in the distance behind me. Probably someone moved across without careful observation. Actually that would have been much the same cause as the Le mans crash although in this case no more than tempers were frayed. Then a bunch of cars passed me. The dual carriageway is speed restricted these days but no-one seems to have told the driver of a silver Ford Focus. He was determined to push through the knot of cars come what may. Again he blasted his horn, squeezing between vehcles moving at the speed limit with very little margin for error. Now I do admit I've driven cars speedily in my younger days, but never like that! If the road is blocked, it's blocked. Actually it does remind me of one time when I drove into Wales for a day out in the Black Hills. On a nearly empty dual carriageway I overtook a slower car properly and and at legal speed. A BMW behind me decided he wanted to get by. With a low sun blinding my mirrors I had to be a little patient before pulling back into the slow lane - didn't want to cause an accident - but the BMW pushed past me on the right virtually scraping the central barrier. Bearing in mind what I saw in that visddeo, it's a bit thought provoking how a little impatience can create dangerous situations.

Oh goodee! More for me then

By Constantines time the empire was on the point of collapse for various reasons, but actually christian rivalry wasn't a major cause. In fact, Constantine urged the bishops at the Council of Nicaea in 325 to unite, not to avoid conflict (since they also defined heresy there and introduced a major rivalry between early catholicism and arianism), but to extend political control over the empire and thus hold it together, a situation that suited the ambitious bishops considerably. Although the christian/arian schism was not the only rivalry (Mithraism was losing the battle for dominance), there wasn't much internal fighting and the various factions co-existed reasonably well. What might have affected history far more was patronage of religion. For instance, one motive (among others) for Valen's push toward Adrianople ahead of Gratian's reinforcements was that one emperor was Arian, the other Christian.

As for a standing logistical corps - no - i don't know of any evidence for that. It doesn't fit with the Roman modus operandi anyway. As I mentioned previously, logistics was something the Romans preferred to do without. Too clumsy and vulnerable. Before we get too carried away with superlatives, bear in mind that you and I are no really any different from the Romans. We have, more or less, the same physical and mental capabilities, and if you really want a comparison, we also share some cultural aspects as well. My point is that the average base line of logisitcal ability is pretty much the same. It isn't that the ancients were advanced in any way, it's more like we're no better. What has improved is education, in that a body of expertise is communicated and taught (although not everyone today is well-schooled in logisitics - it remains an area of study in its own right), plus telecommunications, computors, road, rail, air, sea, and the machinery designed specifically to faciltate the movement of goods brings us far ahead of what the Romans were capable of. Therefore ancient logisitcs was not 'advanced' as you put it, seeing as the principles haven't changed and were understood in both eras, but rather we have a considerable advantage over them.

For the last couple of days the weather has been interesting. One minute the sun is out and everyone is relaxed. The next a massive spread of towering grey and white cumulus unleashes rainfall on the unsuspecting. I had to shelter in a doorway two days ago while one downpour opened up. Not only rain, but hail mixed in. Ten minutes later the clouds drifted away to reduce someone else to a drowned rat. Now I can go about my business again, safe in the knowledge that my school swimming certificate isn't required. More Parking Costs While Swindon experiments with cheaper parking (about half price if the report I saw is correct), there's a welsh town that took the step of getting rid of their traffic wardens, admittedly because the of cuts in services. Now thee's chaos as drivers park anywhere and for as long as they want, causing frustration and punch-up's as people cope with random parking. The welsh townsfolk want some order restored to their car infested borough. Perhaps Swindon could send them some of ours? Have Some Turkish Delight One of the treats we get in England is Turkish Delight, a sort of sweet purple gel encased in chocolate. Yum. My boss has returned from a holiday in Turkey (Mrs Boss insisted on going abroad) and brought back a colourful box full of Turkish Turkish Delight. Firstly, it looks nothing like the picture on the box lid. Secondly, it tastes a bit bland, if pleasant nonetheless. Thirdly, everyone keeps asking me if I want another one. No, I've eaten loads of them already and I still prefer the english stuff. Come to think of it, we only started getting rain after my boss came back from holiday. That box has altered our climate!

I disagree completely. They were no better than one man's ability to organise and conceive. There was no 'science of logistics' back then, and only people like succesful merchants had any experience of handling networks of any kind. Efficient logistics are limited by the ability to communicate. I know the Romans developed a reasonably comprehensive system of mail (and where line of sight was possible - visual signals for specific purposes), but that doesn't mean logistics was developed to the same peak, especially since communication was for political as much as military control and that the legion was designed to as independent of supply as possible, thus the need for formal and continuous logistics was not present. The Romans only made intense efforts at supply during such situations as sieges, when legions were in one place for long periods of time (thus foraging was ever more difficult and fruitless), and indications are they usually placed contracts with local merchants. There was not, after all, any form of supply corps in the Roman legions. Legions marched on campaign with rations to last, or if that were not possible, foraging and pillaging were substituted. Straegy in the ancient world was not simply a military decision. It wasn't just about deciding where to fight and which route to get there. The requireement of feeding and watering your men during the campaign season was a vital consideration. It brings up the conversation from Hannibals tent, when the starvation among his troops inspired on of his junior commanders to say that the men must learn to be cannibals and like it. The horrified Hannibal did not enact that idea! He had no way to contact his overlords for supplies, nor any reasonable means of achieving a supply. The ;possibility of desertion or mutiny must have been increasingly dangerous. All he could do was continue and hope the army reached bountiful land to forage from as soon as possible.

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 letter following a report of crime, in this case the disappearance of my unloved Eunos Cabriolet. They're sorry I'm a victim of crime. Yes, I sort of noticed that. Investigations have concluded without result as no further lines of enquiry have come to light. After telling me to investigate the theft myself you'd think they'd have the good manners to wait until I compiled my dossier. Perhaps I'm being unfair. I realise that police resources are limited and that my car was no longer a high value necessity of life. It's just that every time something like this happens I'm left feeling as if stable doors are being closed after the horse has gone. Worse still, the nagging idea that a deal was struck behind my back is impossible to shake off. So for now the mystery goes unsolved. Will sensionalist articles appear in newspapers and magazines? Will famous presenters reconstruct their theories in television documentaries? Perhaps authors will write books on the subject, or mount expeditions into south american rainforests in the belief they have a map with an X on it. Give it thirty years or so and Hollywood might make a blockbuster movie Raiders of the Lost Eunos. I hope they don't. I'm english. That makes my character the villain by default. More Letters More letters mean more bills. Worse still I heard on the news last night that energy prices are going up again. Commentators are talking about people having to choose between heating and eating this winter. Now I have my new Microwave of Mass Destruction I can do both. Meanwhile, Back At The Hospital... Time for my appointment and subject myself to some strange gizmo. Sadly I wasn't greased up by a pretty young nurse as I hoped, but the tests weren't so bad. The speakers played tinny gurgling noises which apparently are the sounds the body makes. Of course you can't normally hear them because the missus or the kids won't shut up, and that's if you drag yourself away from sport and soap operas on television. You might also need a military surplus submarine detection kit. "It's a sort of sonar." The operator mentioned when I enquired whether these noises were natural. "Like on submarines." You're not planning on using any depth charges are you? And Finally... The Richard Jeffries Museum was open! Ye gods! After more than forty years of life in this area I finally happened to pass by on an open day. For those who don't know, Richard Jeffries was a local 19th century journalist who also wrote books about the area around Coate Water. The museum is the cottage he grew up in as a child. You know, I can't help thinking that film and television don't get it right visually. I know there's bound to be a change in patina after 130 years, but looking at leather cases, blackened flintlocks, and period clothes laid out or hung in view, there's a quality to them that makes dramatic reconstructions look like fancy dress.

I have stumbled across a mention of Rooman logisitcs in one of the Vindolanda Tablets. There's obvious evidence of preliminary discussion by post before anything gets done. As tempting as it is to suggest this was typical, it's too much of an assumption. Nonetheless it does reveal that administration of supply was more about need and reward as opposed to finely detailed schedules and rotas. It would seem then that logistics was ad hoc. By arrangement. Addendum: Here are three most relevant of the tablets I've seen in print. There is another dealing with logistics but since it concentrates on profit and loss, I assume it was between civilian merchants. The Romans are inverterate stocktakers and accountants. They keep lists of absolutely everything they've got, but every transfer of goods appears to be by request. There's no sign of regular automatic consignments. You ought to decide, my lord, what quantity of wagons you are going to send to carry stone. For the century of Vocontius... on one day with wagons... Unless you ask Vocontius to sort out the stone, he will not sort it out. I ask you to write what you want me to do. I pray that you are in good health. Tab.Vindol. II 315 Masclus to Cerialis his king, greeting. Please my Lord give instructions as to what you want to have done tomorrow. Are we to return with the standard to (the shrine at?) the crossroads altogether or every other one of us? ...most fortunate and be well disposed toward me. Farewell. My fellow soldiers have no beer. Please order some to be sent To Flavius Cerialus, prefect, from Masclus, decurion. Tab.Vindol. III 628 Flavius Cerialis to his September, greetings. Tomorrow, which is October 5th, as you wish my Lord, I will provide some goods by means of which we may endure storms if they are troublesome. Tab.Vindol. II 234 (Incidentially - I've noticed two mentions in sources of cohorts being commanded by prefects).

Nor me. All too clean and sterile. But it's an absolute godsend for heating stuff straight out of a fridge or freezer, and takes very little time. Just as well really. I discovered a spider in my new fridge last night. Didn't take the little monster long to figure how to get into his air conditioned hidey hole did it? He was only a tiny little thing. Shame I had to squish him really. Karma will probably get revenge for that selfish act I suppose. That's health and safety in the kitchen for you. Reduces your reincarnation prospects.

Yeah? Anytime soon?

Time to take Ol' Reliable down from his perch on the kitchen surface. As microwaves go it was a simple beast. Put your food in, select a cooking time... Three minutes?... Yes, let's try three minutes. If I see steam building up I know it's time to cut the power early. How simple is that? No complicated programming or indeed any intrinsic knowledge of cooking required. Just hot food, on demand. There can be no sentimentality in the cutthroat competition of consumer electronics. Ol' Reliable has served his time and the gleaming replacement awaits it's chance to shine, and very impressive it looks. Oh... Hang on... This has loys of heiroglyphs all over it. Ahhh, now, you see, this might be a bit more complex. Time then to swallow my pride and read the instruction manual. Please don't tell anyone I did that. Men aren't supposed to read instrucion manuals. It's why army NCO's have to shout at recruits you see. The list of do's and don'ts is a bit alarming. Apparently I can wreak havoc if the microwave is not used properly. I stand a real risk of being crispy fried, mutated, or spending the rest of my life glowing a shade of neon green. Okay. I get the message. Surely somewhere in the packaging is a rotating amber beacon to fix to the roof so that everyone within cooking distance of the kitchen is alert and stands well back. Don't laugh. This device is the most powerful microwave I've ever come across. It probably registers on orbital satellites searching for astronomical anomalies. So if you're a professional astronomer and you can't figure out that strange blip on the screen - Sorry, I was hungry. It isn't proof of intelligent life on other planets. So if you've already made that hysterical phone call to the President, you might want to start thinking about a career break. Well, no point being afraid of it. Switch on - and the machine gives me a cheerful bleep to tell me that it's primary defence mechanisms are armed and awaiting the ignition code. Put my food in... Now what buttons do I press? I have a horrible feeling this microwave was designed for people who know what they're doing in the kitchen. Let's not get clever. Tune the power down to what Ol' Reliable was and try... Three minutes? Yes. Let's try three minutes... Wait For It... Wait For It... The three minutes went by and no steam rose from the plate. With my former oven, that meant it was still cold. Yet when I try this one I find... The food has been thoroughly re-cooked to the point of being completely inedible. Since there's no Lady Rail to shout at me for being a klutz, I have no choice but to curse and pick up the instruction manual again. Somewhere in this document is the secret of succesful cooking... No. This is too hard. Looks like it's a takeaway tonight then. Am I already too old to operate consumer electronics successfully? No, I can't accept that. It's too much of a blow to my self worth. I'll figure the microwave out eventually. Therefore I've set the scheduled date for completion of this goal to December 2012. Cheap Parking Just lately there's been a billboard outside local newsagents proclaiming that the council are planning cheap car parking. Can you imagine that? Obviously since no-one survives parking in Swindon anymore, no-one stops to shop. The other day I was at the check-out of the supermarket when the lady behind the till looked outside and mentioned that some person was about to get booked by a warden. Funny that. Cars used to be a status symbol, now it's a ststus symbol if you can park safely. In the meantime, roll up, roll up, get your car parking spaces here. Kids at half price. All day family specials. Open all weekend. See real wild traffic wardens prowling in their natural enviroment (Please do not feed).

Heroism or villany is in the eye of the beholder. You could never provide an absolute answer to this question because everyone has a different take on it, to a greater or lesser degree. Human beings love to categorise though. We are very much a race of aggressive accountants. The problem when dealing with dicactorial characters is that however much we might approve of their acheivements, we tend to ignore the motivations that led them to it. Now I'm the king of the Romans Oh, the latin VIP I've reached the top and had to stop And that's what botherin' me I wanna be Alexander, And stroll across the world And be just like the that other guy I'm tired of reading reports Oh, oobee doo I wanna be like you I wanna walk like you Talk like you, too You'll see it's true A guy like me Can learn to be a hero too

As weekends go, this was not a good one. For once monday morning has come as something of a relief (How often do you hear that?). The source of my agony isn't anything to do with the usual gripes. There was no hassle with benefits, noisy neighbours, or things that go bump in the night. It was instead my own fault. Always cook your food properly. How often have I heard that? Normally I do of course, but the exotic flavoured chicken dish I spotted in the supermarket was too good to miss and perhaps I wasn't all that careful. I mean, we all cut corners don't we? Go on, admit it, you do. Anyway I did and suffered a spot of what might well have been salmonella poisoning. There was quite a nasty fever which has thankfully subsided by now, although I'm still suffering mild diarrhea. Not only is the experience incredibly uncomfortable, it also renders you exhausted every time you lift a finger. So naturally when my microwave decided not to play anymore I had no choice but to pop down the road to the local domestic hardware store and - gulp - purchase another. It was then I discovered how weakened i was. Microwave ovens aren't hugely heavy as such provided you don't have to carry them seven hundred yards. I made it uphill with three rest stops and under the circumstances consider that an achievement. Now please, just leave me alone - I want to drop into a chair and rest... A Different Affliction I read this morning of a tragic case where an online-game obsessed teenager killed a young girl to obtain cash to feed his habit. Immediately there are calls to ban the game and statements that games are bad for you. No, they aren't, it's addiction that's bad for you. There's a chap I used to work with who's addicted to bingo. Although on a good wage, he never has any money to spend, because he fritters it away on crossing numbers off on a card, hoping that he at last will be the one to shout "House!" and walk away with a few quid. I honestly confess I'm an avid games player, within certain boundaries. Why not? It passes the time when I'm not busy. Then again, part of my motives for using this software is to add to it. These days it's common to find a cottage industry of talented people creating 3D models and textures to extend the gameplay. I find that an interesting and creative hobby albeit a little frustrating at times. Despite growing up with Tom & Jerry cartoons, years of destroying countless alien and demonic invasions on a computer, and maybe the odd game of Dungeons & Dragons (Be honest - you haven't lived if you haven't), I have not felt compelled to end someones life for another few minutes of pleasure. Most of us don't. Sadly though you will always find people who become too attached to gaming because it allows them to escape the reality of their own mundane or worthless existence. No-one can use these games as an excuse. Nor is some infernal power to blame. We make our own evil. Please Excuse Me I'd love to stop and type more, but my bowels are sending warnings that should never be ignored under any circumstances. Must... clench... buttocks...

That's kind of an interesting view Doc. For me, sport was always about taking part. Whether I'm stood on the sidelines or sat in front of television, spectating was always a crashing bore for me. I suppose then I've had little or no time for commentaries on sporting events. Does that necessarily spoil the spectacle? It is true I can watch motor racing without complaint. It must be something about the internal combustion engine that strikes a chord with my musical sensibilities. Now that racing is likely to turn to electropop instead of heavy metal orchestras I might have to think again!