It would be dreadful if you started to think I had anything but contempt for advertising, but there is something about this Toyota ad that cheers me up. Also, and I may be wrong about this, wasn’t that the same truck Top Gear repeatedly tried and failed to destroy ? Even after being dropped off a building, into the sea, crushed, smashed and set on fire, it still started up [picture courtesy of Rakesh].

Despite the fact that last night was a brazen pissup, I remained relatively sober. The pictures pretty much say everything that can be said.

Nice day today too. OK it was another day on the dreaded sofa with the evil ibook writing Java, but:

• a cup of tea, a banana and a plate of cockles for breakfast
• watching a bit (enough) of Airport 1975
• watching Brewsters Millions
• watching Jeeves and Wooster with Michele

made the day seem like a good one. The anti-TV middle-classes may sneer, but they don’t know what joys they are missing. And while I watched them, my Java started generating better XML and Humphrey craved attention on the keyboard…

Germaine Greer on Big Brother! Oh hells fucking bells!
Caprice – of course. John McCririck – what else has the odious, cunty, right-wing, racist arsejam got left ? Brigitte Nielsen – mad as arseholes. Bez – is he intellectual enough ? Myleene Klass – born to do it. But Germaine Greer ?
OK, she shagged Jonathan Aitkin…we all make mistakes…but perhaps this revolutionary person is actually a total wanker! What if “The Female Eunuch” was a fluke, or the result of some really strong acid ? Maybe she’s a complete arsehole!
I don’t know who’s up next, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Noam Chomsky, Nelson Mandela and the spirit of Ghandi make an appearance.

There is a spectacularly brilliant piece of advertising running on TV at the moment, hawking some cold remedy or other. In order to avoid inadvertently promoting this crap we’ll call it “Coldaway”.
It goes like this:
Bloke gets called into the office of this (clearly sexually frustrated) woman. She calls him by his first name; how well do these people actually know each other we ask. She tells him that, despite knowing he has had flu, she was depending on his report. What is he to do ? With flu, he surely would have been incapable of producing a report of any quality! No report means he has let her down! He will surely be punished! All of the workaholic office worker viewers will surely identify with this dreadful predicament.
But, there’s a twist! “Haven’t you seen my email ?” he asks, immediately shifting the fault back to her – brilliant. “I’ve already done it!”. “But how ?” she and the audience ask in unison, clearly astonished. He then explains how Coldaway cures the common cold, flu and cancer probably, so that he could work on this vital project. Not only that, but he was fit enough to book a table at a, probably very expensive, restaurant for him…and her. His uppity female boss is therefore put firmly back into her place and, like all women, realises she is no match for a tall intelligent man. So she offers to make him a cup of tea as she kneels in front of him and starts to unzip his flies.
Acually the last bit isn’t in the advert, but I think that’s just because it would be unnecessary as the message has already been made clear.

Here’s a game for you. Go to this trivial, sycophantic fart of a website and try to find one sentence that isn’t either:

• trying to whore the author out to anything that pays
• pretending that it has serious readers outside of the “editorial staff”
• trying to whore the authors friends out to anything that pays
• totally devoid of actual content
• simply an advert for some shitty product/service/person that has asked for a plug in return for a freebie

and I’ll send you a prize: a flying pig, together with some egested remnants of my hat.
My favourite section is the “Celebrity Fashion, Fitness & Beauty” section, which is merely a vehicle for the talentless, Frankenhooker-wannabe Sally Farmiloe [Update 2008 – latest website at http://sallyfarmiloe.com/] to brag about her pathetic, tawdry lifestyle. In fact, on her website, Sally herself describes this section as “by far the most popular and covers international stars and products”. No point being falsely modest is there ? The best quote concerns her doomed “mini it-girl” daughter: Jade. Sally declaimed:

We didn’t have a butler at JADE’s recent 13th birthday party cruising down the river on board THE EDWARDIAN (welcome to teenagerhood, JP) but we did have the best cake anyone’s ever seen. Made by the delightful VICKY at [blatant, corrrupt whore-plug supressed] the beautiful chocolate cake was in the shape of a LOUIS VUITTON handbag, just the right symbol for today’s designer-mad young gels.

Those designer-mad young gels eh ? Tchoh! I blame the parents. Personally I favour the creams over the gels any day.

2004 is nearly dead, and I say good riddance. Personally, it has been one of the shittest years of my life. Just when I thought nothing more shitty could happen, something did. Right up until last week in fact when for me it all started perking up, just when over 100,000 people were killed by one of the worst natural disasters for many years. As shocking as that figure is, may I please remind people of some of the man made achievements that make this massive number look pretty small:

• Nanjing Massacre saw between 100,000 and 200,000 chinese killed by the Japanese in 1937
• 160,000 killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• 800,000 killed in Rwanda – Almost no UK/Europe/US aid.
• over 3.5 million killed in Cambodia between 1970-1987
• 4-5 million Jews murdered by the nazis during the holocaust
• 20 million Russian civilians killed in WW2 – Russia became the enemy after WW2

Not to mention the massacres that are “only” in the tens of thousands such as Iraq. The numbers stop meaning anything after you get to about 10. And I’m not suggesting that we discount the current tragedy – quite the opposite. I just wish people would care about stuff like this more often…you get a bigger crowd at the average football match than you do at most of the protest rallies.
Our gracious Government is sending a pisspoor amount of the national budget over to asia as I type. Meanwhile they are helping to kill even more people in Iraq…damn I wish there was a point to this.

Maybe there is. Maybe it’s time for some New Year Triteness. So how about this for trite: count your blessings every day. Every day! I’ve been trying to do this recently and it has the interesting side effect of making me feel a lot happier. That wasn’t the intention. Really!

So get stuffed 2004 with your wars, murders, torture, nob operations, suicides, evictions, and systems crashes.

Love.

Well I’ll admit that the Mitsubishi ad got me hooked. Sadly I can’t find the version they used in the ad apart from the one you can download in that link. Jim Croce does sounds like a top bloke tho’.

A great christmas day. Top food, champers, wine, sherry and more wine followed by a nice sleep, more wine and a great load of chatting. Humph is staying there the night. Nice texts from a few top people – thanks! This is my ideal christmas. If I didn’t send you a crap ecard then it was either a technical problem (too technical to explain in a blog) or I forgot you, which was clearly a mistake and only because at the time my head was f*cked.
Merry Christmas again folks!

The last day of work was pretty predictable. It has been the same for the last 10 bloody years. One pub or another, only with far fewer people than anyone anticipates, because people get on trains, go home to pack, or just can’t be arsed. The false memories of pubs packed with laughter, friendly faces and jolly japes stem from two sources: firstly, the few occasions where Christmas lands on the weekend, so we have more pre-Christmas break, and secondly, rose-coloured bullshit composite memories of previous pissups. The pubs were depressingly empty. I was utterly knackered, following the recent work stresses, and the relaxation affected me, causing me to be extremely bored and disconnected. I would probably have fucked off early had I not prearranged to meet Tony and Andy. As it turns out, I had a second wind and once they arrived it was pretty good fun. We went down to Madras (q.v.) and had a wicked meal, then all piled into Andy’s car and came back to ours, where I promptly fell asleep on the sofa. And snored like a chainsaw apparently.
Today was great though. The first time away from a CRT/LCD for months. Christmas Eve, and I went up town. If you’re thinking “what a twat – it’ll be jammed”, then I’m afraid you have fallen into the trap that has caught so many before you. The trap that says “don’t be stupid, the west end will be rammed. Why not go down to Sainsbury’s – that’ll be much more pleasant”. Did you go ? Was it ? Was it bollocks! The West End is emptier than a normal weekday and extremely pleasurable. The pubs are busy, happy but not so busy you can’t get a seat. So I went to the John Snow based on a peculiar desire to celebrate an extraordinary man. Andy was doing some last minute xmas shoppery so we met up and had a pint and a chat. Afterwards, we went our separate ways and I bought a couple of presents and then…went to the pub. In these 30-something days, there is nothing I like to do more than go to a nice pub, have a pint or two of bitter (“Boot Warmer” in this case), and read a book. Top stuff. Try it, really!
Eventually I came home and wrapped our presents. We didn’t have any wrapping paper so I used newspaper. We didn’t have any sellotape so I tried, unsuccessfully, to use pritt stick and ended up using Gaffa tape. These could possibly be the worst wrapped presents ever.
Michele, being crap with presents, got all excited and unwrapped hers. It’s like living with a 4 year old 🙂
Now here’s a thing. Michele has developed an amazing maternal/sporty skill. If Humph does his little pre-poo dance, she can get her hands under his (her) arse in time to catch his warm jobby 🙂 Keeps the carpet clean, but OTOH forces her to run to the bathroom screaming.

To Frances, Dave, Tobe, Tina and all of the other people who won’t be around this Christmas:

Merry Christmas

Please get in touch when you get dahn the smoke next time.

Add Widdecombe was just on the telly banging on about the main problem with christmas being political correctness. And I agree! I long for the days when I could have called her an ignorant, white, ugly, deluded, frigid, neo-nazi, fat-arsed, reality-detached, tragic bitch, without fear of being branded a “sexist lefty” by the PC brigade!
You couldn’t make it up. We’re going to hell in a handcart etc.

For some reason, suprnova has packed up. A typically ill-informed Guardian article quotes someone called “John Malcolm” as saying:

These people are parasites, leeching off the creative activity of others. They serve as traffic cops connecting those who want to steal movies with those who have a copy and want to provide it.

In my opinion, the only thing Johnny-boy has to worry about losing is his job, when people realise they are being ripped off by the industry. When the day comes that the RIAA, the MPAA, the BPS, Dr Dre and Lars Ulrich end up on the scrap heap, I will join with the masses in dancing in the streets…to music that has been produced by people who will be earning more than they would have done under the fascistic control of the record company scum.
Anyone wishing to discuss any of these topics with me would be:

• Most welcome to join me in the pub at some point
• Ill advised (I’m an argumentative mf)
• Probably the sort of person to take Lawyers seriously…and therefore a very foolish individual
• A tragic character, as my opinions are totally worthless

A great night at my parents. My mum is the best cook in the world, and they are both the best entertainers. If Christmas is half as much fun, it will be the best of all time. If only my sister was there too…
But I’m happy as I type, especially as I’m watching my second favourite film of all time: Jabberwocky. The only sad aspect of this is that it reminds me of a lovely person called “Andrea” who died too young. The good do die young you know. As far as I can tell, nothing in life is fair.
Good night.

The final file restore really hurt – it was only 134G but it took nearly 48 hours! Mainly because of one particular pillock who had over a million messages in one mailbox. Yes a million. And as the mailboxes are actually stored as directories with each message a file, it meant that poor UFS had to keep adding files to this million inode directory. The one folder took about 20 hours. I haven’t looked up his photo on the stalker^H^H^H^H^H^H^H user database in case I should happen to bump into him. If I recognise him, the bump might result in bloodshed.
But mail is now back, more or less, and we survived it, more or less. We also managed to have a staff party and two birthday drinkups in the mean time. Now I have to get back to my project….arrrrggghhh