Not that I’ve got anything to write or anything interesting to say…
Today was another pub experience. Geoff, Paul the pick, Brodie, Benners and I ate and laughed about stuff. Michele came up after work and we had a quick drink with Claire, Liz, Alan, Zap (whose voice now sounds much less like a 10-year-old dalek), Geoff and Lynn.
Michele and Claire, both being girls, spent ages discussing small glass bottles of coloured liquid. Bless their little female hearts.
Then Michele and I went to Gastro Gastro – a really nice (although fucking expensive) restaurant, in deptford. The chef came out to accept compliments, although I have to say they were deserved. The food is great. I’ve no idea what sort of style you could say it was, but it’s good. At a guess I’d say it was a sort of anglo-italian-carribean-spanish sort of thing. The chef is a really nice bloke anyway.
To round the evening off we caught a cab and had a typicallly unimaginative argument on the way home. Pity, it was going really well until then.
Ah but a brief soujourn in the local Spar got us both Laughing. If anyone is interested in nominating someone for an MBE, I suggest Jay from the Tyrwhitt Rd Spar. How he keeps up his level of humour and sarcasm is anyone’s guess. Such a good shop that.

A nice few days really. On saturday we went on the biggest anti-war demo in british history. Possibly the biggest demo about anything in british history. “We” was me, Alex, Mod, Ben and Michele. Yes Michele came! Her first demo and what a demo it was. Everything you could ask for drummers, banners, whistles and 2 million people! Fantastic. We got to Hyde Park and spent long enough there to take a picture and then fucked off to find an empty pub. Obviously we failed and ended up sitting outside in the freezing fucking cold. However we did meet up with Toby, Petra, and Mod’s friend Justine. After following some shit advice from Ben (sorry Ben 🙂 we walked about 200 miles to find a pub that had closed down and ended up in a very poncy wine/cocktail bar in Kensington. It wasn’t all bad tho because apart from being reasonably priced they gave away plates of Nachos and we got a seat. Cool.

Since then we’ve had Tony “The right cunt” Blair changing tack and trying to convince us that the war is going to be after a humanitarian cause, and the U.S. chucking their toys out of the pram and organising sactions against Germany because of their recluctance to kill thousands of brown people in order to build a new world fascists order… Funny old world….

On tuesday I went to an Apple seminar with Dave Riddle. An interesting day, but a bit Mosley: they all wear black with small white logos on the breast and start by telling you how cool and empowering their software is. They smile and talk about how mellow macos X is..until you ask them a question….then their faces turn stony as they announce “we can’t tell you about that”. Yeah.
Here is my list of question that are guarenteed to reveal the corproate fascist lurking behind the facade of a friendly Apple salesman

• How much is the upgrade from MacOS X server 10.1 to 10.2
• Will MacOS X ever support smb (Windows Networking) for home folders ?
• I bought 10.1 and it doesn’t work, where can I download the upgrade to 10.2 where the bugs have been fixed
• I’ve been a hardcore mac supporter for 15 years but for some reason you won’t let me upgrade to your latest system…why not ?
• Your open source policy is great and I’ve spent many hours developing chunks of your lucrative system for you for free, but I can’t seem to find the source to aqua/quartz/etc – where can I download it ?
• Are there any seminars planned that don’t involve making us, your already loyal supporters, sit through your latest diabolical advertising propaganda ?

Well yes, it is a bit crap that I haven’t written since Jan 23rd. The problem is that the longer I leave writing something the more difficult it becomes to write because I know it’s going to have be quite long. This why I’m so crap at keeping on touch with people. For example, Marla. Marla is someone who I really miss, but only write to once a year. By the power of e-mail we could talk daily but we don’t. After a week of no contact with someone you realise that the next time you write it’s going to be a long, long letter and take ages to write. So you better wait until you have time to write it properly, and of course that time never comes. The longer you wait for a “suitable time” the more difficult it becomes to write. Then people think you just don’t write back because you’re an arrogant wanker. Oh dear… Sorry to Marla, Alex, Tony, Dave, Andy, Tina, Nicola (not necessarily in that order of course) and all of the other people I love but never write to. I’m just crap.
Anyway, since Jan 23rd my life has consisted of

• Being really bloody ill for a week
• Completing my Tax Return Yay!. Even though it turns out I owe the cunts a grand because of the incompetence of an account at a previous job it’s a weight off my mind
• Being depressed by the state of the world
• Being brought out of depression by crap thinks like AC/DC
• Working
• Sleeping
• Drinking and Laughing
• Being angry with Connex

Saturday will be very interesting. Never, in my entire life, have I heard the Police estimate the number of people at a forthcoming demo to be 500,000. Coupled with the fact that just about everyone I know is going makes me think that there will be millions of people there! Even Michele is coming!

And how amusing to watch the yanks and the government struggle to scare the population into agreeing with the War on Iraq (previously the war on terror). They even put a Tank at Heathrow…you sad wankers. Some poor bastard had to go on “Today” this morning and explain to Jim Naughtie what it was for. Eventually he had to admit it was totally pointless and was just there because “if Al-Quaeda were planning to drive a van full of explosives into the airport, they’d think again if they saw a tank”. Laugh I nearly shat….which would have been very bad, because I was in the bath.

20 minutes ago this blog would have been positive and mellow.
Now it’s full of venom and anger.
What changed ?
3 minutes of “question time”.
How Robin Cook, Tony Fucking Blair and Jack Cocksucker Straw sleep at night is beyond me. A few years ago I used to get pissed off with people slagging off Labour, because I knew that they were socialists and socialists are nice. My dad was a communist and I love him, and I love his politics. His friends are sound and I agree with them. Then I realised that you can’t trust anyone. Despite this I still trust him. He feels betrayed by the Russian communist party. Hardly surprising when you consider what a shitbag Joe Stalin was. The worst thing is that while Joe Stalin was masscring his people and lying through his teeth, the western communists defended him – and I’m convinced it’s because they believed. They believed that communism was the way, and that other communists were therefore righteous. Joe would never do that.
But he did. The socialists surrounding me as I grew up weren’t like Stalin – they were genuinely sound, and genuinely believed that people should be equal [ yes that is what socialism is about – equality. If you think that socialism is about dictatoriship then you are wrong. The problem is that so far all socialist societies have been far from socialist.]
The reason for the problems is power:
“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
This is why I’m now totally convinced of my political outlook: I am an anarchist. To me, “anarchist” means nothing more than “being against rulers”. That’s it. If you are against rulers, you are an anarchist. If you disagree with my definition then let me know. I can help you 🙂

When Jack Straw was a student, he was your typical public-school lefty. PC to a bizarre degree and all surface. As soon as het got a taste of the power he turned into the worst sort of fascist. Fuck you Jack. Fuck you Tony I hate Margaret Thatcher more than I can tell you – but I would prefer her in power now that these cunts. At least when she tells you she’s going to close the hospitals, cut the working-class’ income and piss over the miners, you can believe her. Tony and the rest of the Labour cabinet are a bunch of weak-kneed lying bastards. The only reasons I would ever vote labour again (even though I probably will never vote for them) are:

• There are still rightous people in the party, stuck there because they think it will, one day, change
• er…that’s it

Tony – you’re supposedly a Christian. In that case, according to your own doctrine, you will burn in hell for killing so many people unjustly. You won’t tho’ because God is just as much of a cunt as you. I know – I’ve read the Bible.

Saturday night – shit telly night!

Both Michele and I quite enjoy shit telly and it doesn’t get much shitter than “ant and dec” followed by “who wants to be a millionaire”. The viewing audience of the latter can be equally divided into two groups: those that want the contestants to win and those that want then to walk away with 100 quid and feel totally humiliated. I’m with the first lot – every time someone wins a large sum of money I feel really uplifted – how sad is that ? Just knowing that they’re going to have a really fucking good night celebrating and then giving family and friends a way out of their shitty debts…ahhh!
But it’s on ITV which means ads. I hate every add more than the one before. This means that by the end of the night I am swearing out loud and breaking things and my wife had her finger poised over the ‘9’ button on the phone. It’s a family trait you know. My dad even told his (NHS) psychiatrist about how worried he was about the anger they generated within him. If an advertising executive were to turn up at the door at the right time (like during a Vodaphone picture message ad, or a “get out more” bloody car ad) I would have no qualms about sliding a knitting needle through their heart and laughing as they crumple in agony.

Come to mention it, that vodaophone add is extra irritating as it uses a piece of late 20th century pap indy music called “can u dig it”. Any tune called “can u dig it” better be funkier than the love child of James Brown and Aretha Franklin or so rock-and-roll that cocaine shoots out your speakers. But this is that unspeakable shit that looks like rock and roll (floppy hair, guitars, lights and drums) but sounds like Barbie and Ken humming to the test-card. WANKERS! Get some self respect! Listen to some proper music…Jimmy Hendrix, Led Zep, Public Enemy, Prodigy.. or something.. before you even look at a fucking guitar. Grrrrrr.

After a hard days work rewriting perfectly good bits of PIC assembler, a yummy dinner (chicken and date spicy stew sort of thing) we’re going to watch “Moulin Rouge” in bed.

Good night.

I forgot to mention what a good selection of films BA had on the flight back. Thankfully they’re sorting out 747-400s with personal TVs as opposed to those bloody projector film things that you can only see if you are right at the front of the cabin. Christ I hate those. Economy air travel is bad enough to get you irritated by your fellow passengers at the best of times…what you really don’t need is an extra reason to hate the tall bastard in the seat in front of you with elongated head for 8 fucking hours…
Anyway…
Outwards I got a chance to see S1m0ne – not bad at all. I was hoping that Kate Winslett was watching it two seats away, what with it being an entire film about replacing primadonna actors with computer simulations. But I don’t think she was; she certainly wasn’t laughing whan I was…but that could be because I was drinking quite a lot and laughing at most things.

On the way back I watched “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “Barbershop”. Both made me laugh shockingly loud. Although again I was pretty pissed. The young air steward who had given us the 5 seats obviously took a liking to me because he kept giving me more red wine. Every time I asked for a bottle he handed me two. I wonder why ?

Since returning we’ve been grooving to Marvin Gaye “Got to give it up” because it reminds us of that scene in Barbershop.

A reasonable day at work, despite having a sysnet meeting. Managed a lunch at the pub drinking only grapefruit and soda. What a pain in the arse/gut.

Back in the UK,
Back in the UK,
Back in the shit-ty UK!

But it’s not all bad. Ok we didn’t get upgraded to business class – but at least we got 5 seats for the price of 2. OK I had to go to work all day, but at least I got stuff done. OK I didn’t go to the pub at lunchtime – but at least I got a load of smug satisfaction from the fact.

Being back isn’t nearly as bad as it appeared from 3500 miles away. In fact, once I get the tax return done (no, still) things will be ok…providing the work keeps coming in and I don’t end up dying of TB/Lung Cancer/CJD/or whatever other illness I feel like Iv’e got.

“Happiness” on BBC2 was brilliant BTW.

Passengers are advised to arrive at least two hours prior to departure. Evidently this is so that you can spend two hours in a very, very tedious queue at terminal 4 only to discover that the late arraivals have all been told to go stright to the check-in desk. After two solid hours of queuing I would probably attempt to bite an airline employee if they tried to tell me they’d run out of seats – but I didn’t. I smiled and attempted to exude an air of friendly easy-goingness. Not because I’m a friendly or easy going person, but because “you catch more flies with a spoonfull of sugar than a barrel of vinegar” and I’ve never travelled in business class before. Fuck me, it worked. Myself and another girl, who had also been conned by the two-hour rule, were upgraded. Seven hours of “Club World” luxury, coupled with being two seats away from Kate Winslett, really makes the peasant seats seem very sucky indeed. This must be how capitalism works. You get a taste of honey and become determined never to go back to dry bread. The determination is enough to make you forget all of your morals and ethics in one go. Although I have to say that everyone in business class was quite simply a cunt. But I could do that.

An hour before we landed in Philadelphia it started to snow, heavily. The place looks like fairyland now. Just before typing this message I’d checked my e-mail and read several messages about how South East England has had to stop because of the snow. It’s amazing how unprepared the UK is for weather – odd considering how much of it we get. You’d have thought that we could at least handle rain by now. WRONG! It rains, people get flooded. Two months later there’s a drought. A bit of snow and everyone’s snowed it. Autumn comes and the trains break.

Anyway – I’m staying in Helen and Ralph’s new house. It is gigantic and cost about 2 quid to buy. It’s also a two minute walk from a couple of good bars and “Bob’s diner” where I had my first tast of “Philly Scrapple”; basically mashed pigs bollocks, tails and eyelids, fried. Super yummy.

Oh yes, the parrot plan has fallen through. Several reasons behind this probably not suitable for a blog. However another reason is the spectacularly bizarre bureaucracy insisted upon by the various quangos. For the Record, DEFRA were extremely helpful and got us an import licence within a day. No, the problem was that we needed a second licence from a quango I’d never heard of before. They won’t accept a faxed application. However they helpfully suggested that we get someone in the UK to send it, and forge Michele’s signature (seriously)…then they have to spend a couple of weeks faffing about until they have a completed licence, which they can only mail by post. Even then, they can’t process the form until they have a copy of our….US export licence…..WHAT ? EXPORT LICENCE ? WHAT ?
It’s a fucking pet parrot for fucking fucks sake. Oh yes, each one of these licence applications incurrs a charge. Because they can I suppose. Can anyone set up a quango ?

The day before I left, Ian and I had arranged to go and see The Two Towers in the West End. Because I had a load of stuff to do before flying we arranged to meet at mid-day in a pub on Charing Cross Road. Ian was a tad late due to “feeling sluggish” after the night before (q.v.) – but still, we had plenty of time. So we had a pint in the pub, and then a couple of pints. Then we had a pint or two until Ian suggested we find a cinema. The Odeon Leicester Square had just started showing it, so we looked around for somewhere else – and failed. What choice did we have ? We booked two tickets for 7:20 pm (it’s a 3 hour film) and went off for a few pints…it was a great film….and I got home at midnight 🙂 Just in time to pack, wash clothes, finish some coding for Palms and then get up at 6am to get to the airport by two hours before departure…..

You ever have one of those nights where you were surrounded by people you like and really enjoyed yourself ? That was tonight for me. Lots of laughing. Thanks to Zap, Brodie, Shiney, Ian, Matt, Jay, Cate, Claudia, Beth et al – sometimes I love the pub. Lunch and dinner 🙂 Pity about having to sort out Palms this afternoon – would have been better to fix it a while ago but….well I won’t go on about it.

Laugh today for tomorrow you may be dead.

We’re getting a parrot BTW!

Two days of dark grey weather. Yesterday also included perpetual rain – not heavy but just wet and constant. Never have I been as wet whilst wearing clothes. Serves me right for going up town I suppose but I was bored and wanted to get a present or two.

I met up with Mod who was working…not as bad as it sounds, her boss wasn’t there so they all brought their games and toys in. Her and a couple of mates were meeting in an O’neils (I know I know, but this one was empty and not too expensive, in fact quite a find for a west end pub.)

After years of avoiding it, I’ve finally started using IRC. Not chatting of course, I’ll leave that to the h4x0rz n w4r3z d00dz, teenage twats and social inadequates, no I’m using it for something far sadder: downloading Blakes-7 episodes. It’s taken me two solid days to get hold of two episodes but with ADSL who cares ? Cheaper than a video, DVD or Sky subscription. Might start on the Simpsons after that.

Well, New Years Eve – and with it the usual let-down of the celebrations, forced jollity and drunkenness. Then we’ve got the hungover misery of New Years Day. Rather than looking like a glowing, joyous, prosperous time, the future looks just like the past – grey, unfulfilling and with a bit more debt.

Happy fucking New Year.