Wanker and Rumsfeld decided to start the festivities with a “decapitation”, so they send in a bunch of stealth bombers and over 40 cruise missiles to “decapitate” Iraq.
Just before the all-clear sounds in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein appears on TV, his head still very much attached and verbally sticks up two fingers at the west. Aren’t the army a tiny bit embarrassed ?
Mind you, judging from the picture of Iraq’s fatherly dictator on the BBC news site, the rumours about him having a load of body doubles could well be true, and by the look of it they were contsructed by the Spitting Image team.

As Britain prepares to help the US slaughter the next wave of brown people in its mission to conquor the globe, it’s nice to spend time with some nature, before it’s all concreted over. So that’s what we did over the weekend. Two nice walks, one round Hilly Fields and one to the Tarn; one of the few places in Eltham that isn’t totally offensive.
By the way, taking a friday off of work is a really excellent thing to do – all weekends should be three days.

Michele flies off to the states today. Good timing eh ? In fact she may well be in the air when George Wanker Bush starts dropping the first bombs on the opressed masses of Iraq (to help rid them of the evil dictator that the U.S. put in power in the first place). I’m tempted to see if I can get a super-cheap flight and bugger off too. Nothing like a war on terror to clear the seats over the atlantic.

The last couple of days have had what Michele calls “Martin weather”; bright, sunny and freezing cold. I love it. The blue, blue, sky acts as a backdrop for trees and buildings that are glowing in the sunlight. The cold air keeps you alert…and life seems beautiful. God what a hippy I sound like…

Well anyway, I took friday off work for some lounging, and, apart from a brief period of work-related intense anger (fucking academics), it was a great day. Michele and I went for a walk around Hilly Fields and decided that we should pop in on Gina and baby Estelle. They were sitting out on the steps and we joined them for an hour or two, sitting in the sun having a laugh. It’s nice having big steps out front.
We spent the evening watching Red Nose Day….yes I know, I know…

Today I couldn’t bear to be inside so I took my h4x0R laptop into Greenwich to a pub that, I had been assured, has an open wireless network. It doesn’t, it just has a couple of crappy pay-as-you-go Internet kiosks… Arses. Nonetheless it provided a perfect opportunity to get on the DLR (still fun :), have a few pints of Guinness and read more of my book. Lovely.

oh yes, and we moved a day closer to the war.

During one of the pints of Guinness, I had an irritating thought: when you hear about world political leaders like David Trimble and Gerry Adams, or Sharon and Arafat, refusing to talk to each other, or share a table in a debate it makes you (me) think “oh for fuck’s safe grow up! It’s a little bit too serious for that sort of behaviour”.

But, say, what if in the fight against capitalism you were asked to join hands with the fascists…who also oppose capitalism. I’d find myself saying things like “under no circumstances would I cooperate with them”… shit.

Yeah well all I can say is that they don’t deserve to have a decent webmail system – ungrateful bastards. I sweated blood to make it work ok and integrate smoothly and they’re still whinging. On the whole, I’d say academics are scum. People with no discernable skills who think that they are saviours of the human race because they have written a paper on poverty (from the comfort of their houses in Islington, after a night at the theatre and an afternoon of red wine and shagging students). Ok that’s a generalisation….no it isn’t.

The small detached garage over the road is no longer home to an abandoned car, a fox/cat tunnel and a broken up-and-over door. Now it sheilds various piles of old crap from the elements….its change of use was presumably not approved by the council.
I pointed the development out to Michele who then directed me to the back window. Beyond our shabby mud-pit of a garden we are boxed in by a broken-down fence to the right separating us from an overgrown garden and and yet another broken fence directly ahead which borders the house of the junk-hording pymaniac. [sadly the pictures really don’t convey the true picture]. This bloke slowly fills his back yard with a huge variety of old crap, for example amongst other things, it contains

• office chairs, various
• plastic canteen chairs
• a wardrobe door
• plastic crates including bread crates
• a radiator
• wood, assorted
• gigantic metal rack
• plate glass
• loft insulation

Once enough crap is piled he sets fire to it, oblivious to any laws of chemistry which may prevent certain materials burning, or cause others to give of posionous fumes. During each blaze our house smells like chemical weapons research establishment. I’m waiting for the day when Hans Blix turns up with with a team of inspectors.

Then, in the most Philly accent you can imagine, Michele screamed “Look at this motherfucker out the back. Then there’s the smell of shit coming up the stairs…We’re paying nearly 700 quid a month for a place that’s basically in the fucking ghetto”…

Laugh ? I nearly leaked.

The “smell of shit coming up the stairs” she mentioned is a story for another day.

It’s been a long time since I last visited the Wickham Arms in Brockley. In fact it was on New Years Day 2002, and on that day I learned that the most excellent lardlord was leaving. What joy then to discover that the pub hasn’t changed at all since his departure. Therefore it is still my favourite pub in the world!

After work I met up with Pete Bates at his house in Brockley where Pete, Bill and Naomi (who is also Pete’s girlfriend) entertained me with some fascinating works of art that originated from various scrapheaps in South London. They could charge admission to their house…
Anyway after doing some geeking with Pete and his Linux boxen we had a few in the Wickham and listened to the live pub band. I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t beat a good pub rock band. Fuck pub DJs. Ok they’ve got some 0day tunez and a bored looking girlfriend, but where’s the fun ? A decent pub band full of hairy 50-somethings doing what they love is a league away from some pretentious teenager who is too crap to work for a proper nightclub.
Pete lives about a minute away from the pub and has a wireless network so it was only matter of time before I brought my laptop along and had a play. From the “garden” of the Wickham I was able to check my email which is all that matters 🙂 The AP isn’t even near his window! Thanks Pete and thanks for your wireless network.
Once home, Michele and I finished watching “Catch Me If You Can” on the iBook in bed. Sometimes it’s nice living in the future. Red wine and a good film in bed with someone you love….what could be better ?

Night all…

All the years I’ve been using vi as my main editor and I’ve only just discoverd the joy of macros. Doh! All these years I could have been building up a personal armoury of useful vi tools and instead I’ve been typing out the hard way. Honestly, what a wanker.

Talking of arms, the filth have announced a new gun amnesty in march. During this period you may give up any guns you own without risking legal action for posession. This normally results in many, many people handing Grandad’s Luger, or Uncle Nick’s MP5, over to the police. So I have to wonder why there is an end date to the amnesty ? If people want to give up their weapons, and they obviously do, why end the amnesty ? What happens if you try to submit your AK on the day after the amnesty ?
“Sorry sir, I’m afraid the amnesty’s over now – whilst we appreciate your public spiritedness we are legally obliged to bang you up. Tell you what, if I pretend I never saw you, perhaps you could dispose of it yourself. Dump it in the river maybe, or sell it to some children on the estate – and I’ll say no more about it”.

Saturday night – PARTY NIGHT!
Michele is out up the pub with Shiney and I’m sat here writing this. At home. On the computer (teapot). In the dark. On my own. On a saturday night.
How sad am I ?
Well….not very in fact. I actually enjoy it.
One of the best things about being grown-up is the honesty we can afford ourselves. Many years ago the pressure to “go out and enjoy yorself” would have forced me to go out on a saturday night to somewhere I didn’t really want to be and drink too much.
Nowdays I’m happy enough to stay at home and ignore those lying bastard voices in my head that tell me life is better up the pub on a saturday night. It isn’t, it never will be and never was…well probably. Saturday is the crappest night to go out – it’s amateurs night. All these twats come out who only go out one night a week. They don’t drink too much on normal week nights – only the weekend. For the professional drinker such as me, this is a pain in the arse. They get pissed, get stroppy and get depserate. Don’t get me wrong, I love going out up the pub. I do it a lot – but saturday nights can fuck right off. So many times I’ve gone up the pub, not because I wanted to, but because I thought I should. Each time it was ok…sometimes it was good…but then sometimes it was crap. Either way it would have been better, easier, and cheaper not to have bothered. That feeling like I was “missing out” used to tear me apart. Knowing that not going out I was missing out on vital social events felt harsh – until I realised that it makes not one sodsworth of difference. OK, I admit that when you are single it can make a difference – but then that is the point isn’t it ? Isn’t that why we go to the clubs and pubs ?
For men it’s the opportunity to get your feathers seen and (in an ideal world) spread your seed. For women it is the chance to choose the perfect sperm to breed with. Don’t you fucking dare call me sexist… we’re all animals. You may interpret flirting as “a bit of fun” or “making me feel attractive” but it all comes down to animal passions. We like to think we’re more sophisticated than that – but we’re not. People can intellectulise it all they like, but in reality it all reduces down to nature and reproduction. We’re no more in control of our actions than birds, dogs and monkeys.
Hey look – I’ve had a couple of bottles of wine and am rambling. I’m sorry. Why not download some blakes 7, some funky tunes,light a scented candle, drink some wine, and drift off to sleep being stimulated by 4 out of 5 of your senses.

How many mondays have you felt saddened when people ask you “how was your weekend ?”. Well this weekend I can reply totally positively.
To be honest I wasn’t relishing the though of going out with Michele’s friends, the Callaghans, on saturday – I like them and all but wasn’t feeling too sociable – but I’m so glad I went.
In the theatre bar I bumped into an old Goldsmiths student, Phillipa, and remembered her name! 10 cool points to me. She didn’t remember mine (-10) but she remembered me (+2). I then went on to explain to Michele that despite her sounding dreary she was cool and really nice….without realising she was sitting directly behind me at the time (-100).
Oh well. Anyway it was lovely to see the Callaghans, especially Mary. The play was superb – “Iron” by Rona Munro. The only other things she’d written that I’d seen was “Butterfly Butterfly” which was grim as fuck. This was just as good, but not quite so grim.
Afterwards Loch, Mary and Chris took us out for a really good meal in a restaurant called “Oriels”. We ate nice food, talked and laughed, and after all that’s what life should be all about. Ok it wasn’t quite as good as gastro Gastro but as someone who enjoys eating anything, I loved it. A great night.
Today was great as well. Michele and I went down to the ironically named “Good View” noodle bar in Lewisham and ate way too much yummy food. Later in the day we went to my mum and dad’s and ate way too much yummy food. And we laughed a lot. That’s what a good weekend should be about. Work tomorrow doesn’t seem like a drag at all. ENVY ME!

Dreaming is when your mind goes off from reality, usually because not much is going on there apart from snoring, and creates a fantasy world where anything can happen. Our bland, drab, routine lives are left behind as we are free to explore the limitless possibilities the world has to offer without tedious real-life considerations such as wealth, work and phone bills. So, why then are my dreams so utterly crap ?

Rather than dream about going into space to relax in an intergalactic pleasure dome with its own vinyard I dream about forgetting appointements, arguing with people I like and being slightly late for something important.
The worse thing about such crap dreams is when you don’t properly remember them, but the experiences lurk in the dull recesses of your mind and eventually become memories. That’s such a cruel trick. I once had a really paranoid dream about a group of friends telling me to fuck off. I forgot all about the dream, but the next time I met one of them, there was a slight feeling of discomfort in the back of my head.
Then there are the ones where you dream something really cool and wake up to find it’s not true. I used to get those a lot as a kid, like the one where I had a Merlin. Upon waking I excitedly opened my bedisde cabinet to play with it only to find that it wasn’t there – instead there was a marketing pamphlet for Merlin explaining how much fun it is when you’ve got one.
Michele’s dad had a smiliar dream as a child. He came down the next day, obviously very unhappy and asked his mum “where are all the puppies ?”.

So here are a list of some of the crappest dream scanarios I’ve had recently:

• Aries (a UNIX box at work) going down and needed to bee rebooted from CD. This was in real-time.
• Being wrongly imprisoned for tax evasion and being told by another con about the state of the place inside, and how the floor was covered in KY jelly, blood and shit
• Being late for work
• Writing a program in C to do something really unexciting
• Describing, in extreme detail, something to do with cryptography that in reality makes no sense at all
• Getting caught skiving by the boss
• Michele leaving me for a right wanker