It has been a while since the last blog I know. Lots of reasons for this, the main one being ennui. Sorry.
Also, I’ve completely failed to achieve anything in the intervening time. Ho hum.
Events that occurred:

• Dan’s birthday
• A load of tedious work
• A couple of days off to help clear my head that resulted in a load of tedious work – I’ve had enough you know
• Discovering that students from the Halls in which we live have been taking advantage of our open, unprotected wireless broadband access. Clearly not very good hackers, they weren’t able to overcome the basic MAC address restrictions I put in place (childs play), so I’ve opened it up again and am hoping they deliver a load of passwords and stuff 🙂
• A season of Jack Rosenthal on BBC4, celebrating his life and work. I must admit to not knowing a great deal of his work, but at least two of his productions I regarded as some of the greatest plays/films ever made: p’tang yang kipperbang…(ugh)…and The Chain. How wonderful to discover that not only did he he write loads more excellent stuff, but that he was also a really nice, righteous, bloke. The fact I always secretly fancied his wife is not significant :).
• The SU invited us to its handover party for the new sabbaticals. I think I must have enjoyed it because I don’t remember a bastard thing about it
• Yesterday I took the day off work – would have been perfect if I hadn’t received a work phone-call which infuriated me more than I can say…However, Michele, Humphrey and I went over to sit in the idyllic beauty of my mum and dad’s garden. Lovely. Humph loves it there, as do I and Michele. I’d intended to go out and get a kebab for everyone but my mum, who is a professional mum, had already made much too m,uch food for us all. Lovely it was too.
  Once we got home, I went down the road to get a bottle of wine, and thought it might be interesting to see if any of my work colleages were still in the pub. Surprise surprise they were! So another couple of happy hours were spent in there watching the pub warm up for the weekend. Lovely. Amazingly I didn’t have to give any of my work colleages a paranoid ‘morning-after’ phone call this morning….ok I had given someone one on Friday, but I still think it’s an improvement. In fact I even received one from someone else! So glad it’s not just me 🙂

I never apologised to Toby, Hube and Andy for blowing them out last week. All old school friends, we’d arranged an extraordinary general meeting in “The Jordan” (q.v.) and, due to Michele’s stomach, I had to blow them out. I’d assumed that Andy and Hube weren’t going to make it and didn’t call them. Andy didn’t…Hube did. Hubert, I’m really really sorry…again. Dr J and Andy – I’m sorry too…let’s meet up soon.

We had the Information Services Barbeque on Friday, and it was….good. Not just good, but really good. Absolutely good in fact. No arguments, and everyone, including the most uptight librarians, had a good time. Needless to say I don’t remember much about 8pm plus, but I’m told it was good. These things are very important I think. They give people the chance to relax, be honest, and enjoy each others company – even within the working environment. The best meeting I ever attended was when our heroic (and wonderful) departmental secretary left. I had a couple of chats with members of staff that were more productive than any meetings or chats before or since. We all got on really well for months after that too. All meetings should be down the pub.

Anyway, I’ve no idea what I originally intended to write at this point. But, with Humph wandering around on the table and generally being cute, here are the news headlines:
Bad:

• Blair failing to resign despite overwhelming evidence that he is, genuinely, a shitbag
• Michele’s dad sending us every bit of anti-Michael-Moore propaganda he can find in his right-wing newspapers. Much like the left wing, and independent ones we read, but of course his aren’t “liberal propaganda” – they are the objective truth – as approved by the U.S. government, the oil companies and the oppressive regimes that support them. China and Libya are our friends now. I know, Fox and all of the other pig-media told me. All to do with business apparently. I’d hate to be someone that doesn’t question the things they are told.
• The post office. It is now unusable in London. More on this in a later blog

Good Things:

• Michele and Humphrey
• Macs
• VNC
• Viv Stanshall
• Wikipedia

See yall…

A colleague called me today, after I returned from a late lunch, and told me in a stern voice that she wanted to come and see me, because she had to tell me something. I assumed I was to be shown the aftermath of some cock-up or other I must have made with their server…
When she arrived and presented me with a bottle of Bushmills 10 yr old malt you can imagine how my whole perspective on the day suddenly changed. How nice when someone says “thank you”. All the more so when they get a bottle of your favourite whisky too. What a nice thing. And what a superb experience drinking it is. Even though I didn’t get the wonderful metallic scratchy sound of a screw-top lid, instead I had the satisfying pop of the cork releasing that complex golden smell…

It has recently come to my attention that there is a serious paucity of hate sites for that obnoxious wanky twat Vernon Kay. We are all responsible for this, and as a result of our lack of action, the vacuous bastard is EVERYWHERE. T4/C4/R1/BBC3 ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH! Get that desperate, grinning arsehole off my telly! Thank god for Monkey Dust.

Today the news was full to the brim with live reports from rookie reporters standing by cash machines (ATM and MAC are two acronyms I refuse to use in relation to these devices because they have far better uses in the networking arena). The reason ? A crappy UK bank has decided that the only way to combat cash machine fraud is by asking their customers to use cash machines less frequently…brilliant. Save 1000s of pounds by spending less! Free yourselves from debt by not borrowing! Thanks banks!

Nice week really (despite the perpetual despair track that keeps playing in my head). Michele was 33 on wednesday and so we went to a restaurant that has good reviews. Service: Great! Atmos: Great! Food: Superb! Price: Bloody hells bells… No regrets, but be warned…17 quid for a bottle of the cheapest wine… Nonetheless, a great evening. Happy birthday bat!

The rest of the week was work and very, very tedious and demoralising. Luckily the extra-curricular life made it more acceptable.
I also managed to arrange a drink up with two old and good friends: Hubert and Toby on sunday. Toby doesn’t know about Hubert being there unless he read’s my blog. But as they are utterly bloody-nice chaps I’m sure it will make for a good night. Hube is going to be late because he’s going to be watching the blooking-bastard-fucking football… I despair.

Tonight, Tony is going to come over for the night – he’s on a long weekend from France and has to make an early start tomorrow. Good timing! Can’t wait!

cyall

One of the biggest regrets in my life is that I never went out and bought “Paid in Full” by Eric B & Rakim on vinyl when I had the chance. You know why I didn’t ? Because Stuart “Your MUM” Riches was kind enough to lend me his for about 6 months. Such a nice act, but such a bad outcome.

We’ve just watched Fahrenheit 9/11. We couldn’t wait for the capitalist machine to allow us to go out and pay to see it. Even though Mr Moore doesn’t seem to object, we still plan to go and see it at the cinema and maybe even buy the DVD.

Brilliant. Easily as good as “Roger and Me”. It’s gratifying to see that America seems to love it too.
No matter how much you think you know about the oil wars, Afganistan, Iraq, the Bushes and the Bin Ladens, there will be footage in this film that will astound you.
We’ve been looking forward to seeing it for months and it didn’t let us down. As you know, I’ve been saying George Orwell will be proved more and more accurate as every day goes by. The last quote in the film was from 1984 and could have been written by our contemporaries about either of the Iraq wars.

Last night was our Woollen/Copper wedding anniversary (7 years – no, I’m serious). We spent the day looking through the Time Out good food guide and London Eating for some gourmet, local food. After lots of debate we narrowed them down to two. Both of the buggers were closed on sunday night. The third option, which we both agreed was probably too poncey, I called, and was forced to leave a pathetic message on their answering machine.
Saddened by our shitty luck, we did our best to think of local eateries and came up with Toads Mouth Too. Just as we were leaving, No 3 called to see what time we wanted to book a table for. We had to get the bus because the cab company let us down (no surprises there). Just outside, Michele got sprayed with muddy water from a Lewisham Council paving stone that may well result in a law suit.
However, despite these bad omens we had a great night. Lots of nice wine, food, and company, including the owner. She donated a couple of glasses of champers to our celebrations and then joined us for a long chat. She also let us read the short story that provided the restaurant’s name…you don’t want to know.

The government have prepared in advance for a time of national panic such as a terrorist bombing, a nuclear disaster or the England football team being beaten fair-and-square by a better team.

Tragically, the latter disaster occured this week (apparently) and so the Government have had to resort to using the emergency plan.

Tonight on ITV1, the channel devoted to the sort of people whom government national emergency plans are intended to pacify, is broadcasting a programme that will make everyone in GREAT Britain feel better about themselves, thus averting riots and general unrest throughout the nation. This programe is called “Dumb Foreigners”.

“Dumb Foreigners” is yet another one of those “World’s most stupid cunts caught on video” programme, but with all the British people taken out. With such a cunning formula the British can look and laugh as Dr Fox (Britian’s funniest and most likeable celebrity) takes us on a tour of the world, where foreigners eat bees, set each other on fire, fall off things, get injured by animals (it’s OK – they’re foreign), and generally act like the uncivilised morons they really are.

However, cynic that I am, I suspect that this programme is probably syndicated worldwide and slightly longer than the version we’re seeing. In each country in which it is aired, the linkman is replaced with a celebrity of equal stature to Dr Fox, and the clips from the hosting country removed. This will, naturally, mean that in every country outside of the UK that sees it, will see lots of pictures of Brits acting like wankers and getting hurt. But what would those clips involve ? When do Brits ever behave stupidly ?
Here are my guesses at the sort of material the “dumb foreigners” get to see of the British:

• Teenagers in sportswear sniffing solvents, and then lighting a fag (cigarette) and causing themselves to explode
• Big fat blokes in st george cross T-shrits with one arm round an identical-looking friend, and the other holding a can of lager, jumping up and down and shouting racist chants before puking over each other and pissing their pants
• People being forced to leave the pub at 11:20 and then eating rat, dog and cat meat on a spike in the local “kebab shop”
• Fat people dancing at weddings and then falling over because they haven’t used their legs for 10 years
• People trying to barbeque chicken in the rain
• Dopey women and middle-class men trying to persuade their mates that they not only give a flying fuck about football, but they know and care about “the diamond formation”

Planet Pizza deserve an OBE.

Taken a day off tomorrow. Partly because I need some sleep and partly because I can. The idea of doing another straight 5 days makes me want to cry. I know, in the grand scheme of things, me doing 5 days work really isn’t anything to get worried about – especially after watching a C4 documentary about Palestine this evening – but it doesn’t stop me feeling totally broken. Work today was ok too.We have a new web manager while Heidi is on maternity. This woman really does seem to have her head screwed on properly…either because she does have her head screwed on properly, or because she is a skilled social engineer and knows what to say. Either way she bought me a bowl of Thai soup so I like her 🙂
But last night involved some very late night work on one of our mail servers and so I wasn’t 100% today. So I decided to take a day off to try and get my head together. Humph helped a lot this evening by climbing on me earlier and falling asleep (he even put one leg up). What an understanding bird.
Here are some reasons why Michele and I should be given 10 million pounds:

• So we could sort all of our parents out financially
• So we don’t have to work, which would allow Michele to start a parrot rescue organisation and take care of ill-treated birds
• So we can buy a house in the US and the UK, so we can both stay with our parents
• So we don’t have to work, which would allow me to spend my life creating amusing but pointless programs and websites.
• So we can both become philanthropists…difficult without any dough

The beastie boys appeared on TOTP a couple of weeks ago. Adrock and MCA are going grey…arrrrrgggh!
Not only that, but they have truly copped out by releasing their music on Copy Protected media.
I’ve said it before, but I’m going to spell it out:
If you obey the law and buy the album, you will be purchasing audio of an inferior quality to those that have obtained it illegally. You will also be installing copy-protection spyware on your computer without being asked. It is your moral duty NOT to buy this album.
Pity because it’s really very good.

The only way to stop people copying audio is to make it cheap enough so that no-one bothers.