Being a sad git I did the BBC national IQ test yesterday (the flash one). It really does demonstrate how dodgy the whole concept of intelligence is. All IQ tests do is demonstrate how well you perform in an IQ test. God help you if you weren’t English or suffered from dyslexia.
This time I got 120, on other tests I’ve got anything between 110 and 140 so what does that say ? It says that no-one really knows what intelligence is. It also says that I’d had a couple of bottles of wine beforehand…not that I’m trying to find excuses of course…grrrrr
On the other hand, there was someone in the studio who got 140 – bastard! And he was a city trader. Bet he’s got a big cock too.
[ additional – I just tried this IQ test and got 159 – even more confusing. If you need your ego boosted after the BBC one then give it a go ]

Michele bought me some really appropriate birthday presents this year. One in paticular really got me going: a pack of paper for printing onto black t-shirts. What a toy. We had our first go on saturday, printing a t-shirt for Steve the Copper with a picture of Mr. Slow on it (look at the photo and you’ll see why). After wasting about 5 sheets dealing with the usual printer type problems…grrrr…we got one that looked great. Steve certainly seemed to like it. After presenting it to him, Brodie, Steve, Michele and I went down to the Curry Centre in Lewisham and ate too much. It’s so good to see that place open again. They’ve been there since 1965 and when they got closed down recently Michele and I were quite upset. Especially when we noticed the Bailiffs notice pinned to the door. Not to sure about the new “modern” decor, I always liked the traditional taj-mahal/flock wallpaper style, but the food was still good – and they gave us all Brandies on the house – nice people.

It’s another Bank Holiday weekend thank god. So far I’ve done another t-shirt, for myself this time. It sort of looks like this, and we’ve done a card for Ralph (michele’s step dad). Quite a creative weekend all in all.

A good friend of ours lost his family, his job and his home recently. He stayed on our sofa for a few days with the few posessions he could grab before moving on to stay somewhere else. It isn’t fair and would bring the strongest person to despair. From my position in a marriage, with a steady job, a place to live and a potentially stable future it could have made me feel thankful and relaxed. But it didn’t. It just made me feel angry and unstable. Even the most civilised society is only three meals away from revolution. While we can look back with pity at all of the historical bollocks-ups we’ve made, we still can’t feel comfortable that we won’t make the same mistakes again – in fact it’s almost a certainy. It doesn’t matter what you do, you still live on a razor edge. It could be due to capitalism, madness, stupidity, or nature, but you could loose it all instantly. When a species has developed enough to be able to produce its own complete destruction then perhaps it’s time to call it a day. We’ve had our chance, let’s just leave it to the next lot.

Hmm – what a load of maudlin crap. Sorry. The guy I was talking about will end up winning again, and I’m sure there are many more happy-days to go before I croak. But surely it’s not a bad idea to occasionally go full-on with the paranoia, depression and mean waves from time to time ?
No this is all wrong – this was supposed to have been an “up” blog entry that went on about what a piece of brilliance the first series of “The Office” was and it’s turned into some sort of Joycean stream of consciousness from the arse of the world’s most miserable bastard.
Sorry. Here are some reasons to be cheerful:

• It was quite nice out for part of the day
• This wine isn’t bad considering it only cost 2.50
• Tomorrow is friday and then there’s a bank holiday weekend
• Epitonic
• The Iraqis are fighting back against the fascists
• Adrian is getting married this month