Imagine living in a society where, one morning, on the radio you hear “ID cards are to be introduced, voluntarily at first, but the government plan to make them compulsory.”
If on the same day you hear the President/Prime-Minister/Fuhrer/Papa say “Well it’s your democratic right to protest, we can’t do anything about that unforunately, but you are quite clearly wrong and everything we’ve done and are about to do is right and it’s really got nothing to do with you.” you’d probably be justified in thinking that we no longer live in a democracy. You’d be wrong of course: we have never lived in a democracy.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it rains.
– Robert Frost
The co-operative bank refused to pay a direct debit to Orange because it would have taken me over my overdraft limit on an old account. They then charged me 35 quid as punishment, which took me over my overdraft limit. Well it’s only fair isn’t it ? I had transgressed the bank rules so I was asking for it really. Only fair. And on the 21st I’m looking forward to a bunch more bizarre, but legally justified, charges that I don’t understand. So I decided to bring myself down a bit more by trying to reason with a couple of call-centre operatives in Newcastle.
As a co-op customer, and thus investor, I’m a shade irritated that they continue to squander my money on British staff and their unreasonable demands of mediocre pay. What sort of business sense does that make when all of the other right-thinking business have relocated their call centres to India where they can pay shockingly low amounts of money for the same job ? No wonder this country’s in such a state, you couldn’t make it up, we’re going to hell in a bandcart etc etc

Emma sent me this brilliant Meatrix animation. That alone justifies Flash for me. Also, Dave H sent this appropriate picture.

Michele was teaching until 8 tonight so I’ve been at home with Humph. Tonight we shared another tender moment: he climbed up on the sofa, onto my lap, and fell asleep while I watched only fools and horses. Lovely. Eventually he had a small crap and then flew over to his cage. There is no other species on the planet that could worry me less by crapping on my jeans. Poor little sod was on his own all day.

Last weekend was surprsingly enjoyable. Ian and Dave were off work on friday whilst Rakesh and Dan had to leave early so there was no after-work drink for the first friday in years. Saturday and Sunday daytimes were spent doing computer work during the day and socialising in the evening. Saturday night I met Toby, Matt B and his mate Andy in Jordans (The Hogshead as was (The Jolly Farmers as was)). Even though we only managed about 20 minutes of violent disagreement, it was a great night. Michele had the belly ache and so we left early and walked back. Michele was hungry by this time and so we picked up a Hummous kebab and ate as we walked back over Hilly Fields. It reminded us both of when Michele was working at the pub and living in BATavia mews halls. We’d frequently end up getting a couple of Humous kebabs, and eating them on the steps of the halls, near a discarded plastic helment which was affectionately known as the humous helmet…
The next day Toby and Petra came round to meet Humph. Humph liked Petra and kept flirting…TARTY little parrott. She was very gentle and calm, which he liked.

Monday night was equally enjoyable because I met up with Andy whom I haven’t seen for months. I’m so crap at keeping in touch with people. Monday was a shit day workwise and so it was the perfect tonic. We both ranted about work in general and enjoyed the company and cheap beer – have I ever blogged about what an excellent place the Glasshouse Stores is in Soho ?

Tuesday consisted of an awayday with Geoff to a company in Basildon where an old contact of ours, Richard Horney (yes yes yes….but he’s a good bloke and knows his stuff – ok?) sold us some storage.
Odd place Basildon. Id always imagined it as a beautiful georgean village when it turns out to be a nasty essex shitpit. On the way back two classic looking Essex girls got on the train and, once Geoff had alighted, I got to listen to their conversation – nosey git that I am. It turns out they were “models” on some dodgy websites. I heard them talking about “members areas” (not necessarily as rude as it sounds).

Tonight is “Guy Fawkes” night or as it should be known, “Catholic Burning Night”. This is where we celebrate the foiling of a catholic plot to destroy parliament and the king by burning effigies of guy fawkes, or if you live in Lewis, the pope.

Of course, in this day and age no-one takes it quite so seriously and all religions, beliefs and creeds are invited to join in the fun. It’s now simply an excuse for three fun-filled weeks of deafening bangs and screams as children throw explosives at each other. If you really want to burn an effigy then why not have a Burning Bush?

Yet again, Michele and I blew out a couple of promising parties in order to spend the night in with Humph. Halloween was enjoyable nonetheless because, despite trashing our beautiful pumpkin the night before, we got quite a few trick-or-treaters. The kids are really, really into it. They turn up in bunches with parents in tow and when you answer the door they jump out and make scary noises, barely able to contain their excitement. Michele had thoughtfully bought some Milky-bars and chewing gum which we both thought would make excellent “treats”. Michele was looking out of the window while I answered the door so that she could see the costumes. As one set of ghoulies departed she heard a mother repremand one of the witches saying “Be thankful for what you got. You should be grateful you got anything a all”. What do these kids expect ? A full-size chocolate broomstick each ? Perhaps a 6 ft plastic zombie full of Sunny D ? Ungrateful gits – I wish I’d eaten all the milky bars myself now.

An aside…I’m watching TOTP2 and some bland looking, bland voiced bland singer called “Mindy” is doing a bland version of “Jolene”. Why ? Leave it alone. Jolene is a superb song and really doesn’t need fucking up by some generic ponce. Dolly Parton is featured in the video and looks great..albeit with heavy video enhancements. A better singer, better looking and with some soul. See the difference ? She sings from the heart. Mindy sings from nose.

More later…

For some reason, I am the only person in the whole world who can open the lock to our flat, using my keys or the spare set. Today, Michele decided that finding her own keys was too much hassle because she had left them them somewhere stupid so took the spare keys. Last week she did the same thing and getting into the gaff was no problem. However, today sunspots, or something , prevented the lock from working. So, to cut a long story short, I left work and went home to help Michele get in. I’d already insisted that Michele come up to my work and meet me (in the SU bar) to get my keys; which she did. But these sunspots had really done a good job on the lock. Oddly, when I arrived, the lock worked perfectly first time with the spare set of keys. Maybe a cloud was blocking the sunspots ?

A great weekend. Friday Mod, Ian, Rach, Sid, Michele and I went to Kaya house and again had a really excellent time – not to mention really excellent food. Getting this meal organised had taken weeks. This is because we are now all over 30. In fact we nearly didn’t eat at all because, as I never answer my mobile, I missed 2 calls from the owner of the restaurant confirming the booking.

Saturday I worked in Farringdon with Ralph and Emma. However, I did get time to play. Any idea how many open wireless networks there are in London ?
I’d agreed to install any patches on Ralph’s cobalt and so on sunday morning I started the task armed with a cup of chai. For the second time in one week, I ended up trashing the system by sticking to the rules. The story is essentially very dull and so I wont relate it here – if you know what libc is, then you might be geek enough to be interested.

Michele is American you know. As a result we have just been carving a massive pumpkin for Halloween using a really rather cool pumpkin carving kit that Michele’s brother sent us.He also sent us a scary film of the pumpkin that he and Alexandra did. Whooooooooo!

At this time of year it is customary for self-righteous tossers to start banging on about how halloween is an American invention for inspiring people to go out and buy pointless stuff. Well I suppose it is. However it is nowhere near as much of a capitalfest as Christmas or easter and it seems to me that in the US it’s intended more as fun. Sadly, what we have in Britain is a poor pastiche by comparison, created entirely by tat manufacturers. But I love it and wish we had it here like it is in Philly. If we ever have kids we’ll be taking them out trick and treating. That reminds me, I must put our carboard dracula up at the window 🙂

Cheer up you miserable sods – it’s just a bit of fun. You wait til you see our pumpkin.

Last night was a much hyped documentary on BBC1 that involved a reporter going undercover and joining the police. The astonishing discovery made by the reporter was that apparently the force is packed tight with racists. Well bugger me, who’d have thought it ?
Despite the apparent obviousness of this revelation, I’m glad the BBC showed it because I firmly believe that some people don’t have a clue about what goes on.
Michele was pretty shocked by it, and I don’t think it’s because her dad’s a cop either. It really does appear that things are different in the Philadelphia police. As far as I can discern, the British police is composed almost entirely of nasty bastards. Of course there is a proportion of people who join for the “right” reasons, but it is a very small proportion – I would say negligable. Nearly all of the racist comments and actions were directed at “pakis”. As the white recruits became more comfortable in each others company the comments became less vague and more shocking with one particulary odious shitbag (and proud BNP member) talking about wanting to “bury pakis if he could get away with it.” Once he had graduated and been given a beat in North Wales he bragged about the pakis he’d thrown the book at for offences that he usually let white people off for. He even laughed that he made one old asian man cry. Here are some of the enlightened comments expressed by the brilliant new recruits:

• A dog born in a barn is still a dog. A paki born in England is still a paki
• Pakis cause racism
• I’d stop him, because he’s a paki. Because he’s not english.
• I’d go as far as I could get away with, if I could call him a “paki bastard” and that was as far as I could get away with that’s where it stops. If I could get away with burying the fucker under a train track, he’s fucking going under the train track [laughs]

The last comment was in reference to a fellow trainee officer. The only asian recruit in the whole of the intake. He ended up leaving and getting put back five weeks. He was the target of a spectacular amount of, what I can only describe as, bullying.
Yes the force is trying to combat racism, but in a really hopeless clumsy way – all they do is push it underground and so it’s only spoken about in “safe” enviroments. On the streets they’re still the same racist thugs and you can still get a beating.

And predictably this lead me into thinking about the whole nature of police. These people have been ordained with the power to interfere with other peoples’ freedom in the name of what is right. When it clearly isn’t.
This programme made me realise that I had long ago completed the journey from being unsure and confused about the issue to being firmly, firmly anti-police. hear me out.
Even if the force was totally composed of righteous, selfless people, it would still be wrong. The police are not there to protect people, they are there to defend the state against change and shield the privileged from the unprivileged. The Metropolitan Police have even gone as far as to say that they no longer investigate burlgaries and minor thefts.
So what do they do exactly ? Rest assued that if a private, profit making company needs assistance, for example Connex with its with “revenue protection officers” there’ll be fucking millions of coppers mobilised to protect the shareholders. There’ll be hundreds of coppers patrolling the red-routes today making sure the economy can function properly with nice clear roads. At the recent international arms fair in East London there were literally tens of thousands of them protecting the arms dealers, dictators and terrorists from the peaceful demonstrators.
So, next time you get mugged, burgled, raped or harrased in the street you will understand why the only help you get is a crime reference number from a civilian desk worker and the offer of a letter from the victim support charity. The real coppers are out doing important police business. You see.

The 436 bus, around these parts, is commonly known as “the free bus”. This is because of the revolutionary system uncle Ken has introduced where you buy a ticket before you get on and then no-one checks it. Consequently no-one ever bothers and just gets on and off at will. This system radically speeds up the buses as they don’t have to wait for everyone to pay, and radically reduces the cost to the consumer by being free. Brilliant!
On the way home from the union tonight, I started to question the morality of fare dodging and came to the conclusion that it was totally justified and that I have nothing to lose sleep over. Disagree ? Let me know.

Now the sun is over the yardarm, I’m enjoying a glass of vino collapso while Michele drifts in and out of the room, and Humph drifts in and out of his sleep. It seems like a good time to list some media that is currently on my mind:

• SPACED series 2 DVD – the only problem with buying this is that now I have to buy the series 1 DVD, even though I’ve got the video.
• Dude – Where’s My Country – Michael Moore. Chapter 1 is pretty damn good anyway. Half price from Amazon you know. Spent an hour this afternoon in bed reading it.
• Heroes of Comedy – Leonard Rossiter
  On now and a great tribute to someone who made me laugh a lot as I was growing up
• TV Ark
  which has loads of archive TV stuff including old adverts. Watch out – there’s a Humphrey about.
• Bill Hicks – Sane Man
  The best Bill Hicks video out there. If you like Bill, you must see this – in front of an American audience he really gets angry – the less the appreciate it the better he gets.
• Bill Hicks – Rant in E minor
  A compilation of a lot American stuff – another classic

Every day at work I get to fix a random selection of problems from an ever expanding set of potential problems. It’s bloody frustrating knowing that after fixing a problem, it will only be a matter of days weeks or months before it needs fixing again. Some of them could be fixed “properly” with an investment in hardware, time or interest; none of which we can spare. Others are just caused by bogons that occur too infrequently to discover what’s causing them. It’s like the pressure loss in a central heating system. No-one knows what causes them to loose pressure, but as long as it doesn’t need filling up more than once a month no-one’s going to be bothered/able to find out what’s wrong. Without wanting to extend this dodgy metaphor to new-Labour levels: I have to run about 30 similar central heating systems at the same time.

Tensions in the department are high, mainly due to management; not that it’s bad, it just doesn’t exist. As people get more uptight and stressed, they take it out on the people with whom they work, and the vicious circle continues to turn. I’m just as guilty as anyone for loosing my temper, but it’s hard not to.

Anyway, on thursday evening I went to Brighton straight from work – Ben had got a couple of tickets for Mark Steele doing stand up. It’s been many, many years since I’d seen him live and I remember thinking he was brilliant. Well it’s been a long time since I belly laughed as much as that – superb. After the gig, we had a few pints in the pub and went back to Ben’s where he managed to make a gourmet quality meal of bangers and mash. I wish I ever had the energy and talent to knock up a really together meal like that…at midnight…when half cut. I drifted off to sleep watching a rare Bill Hicks video. A Satiritastic evening.

Friday morning, Ben was ill and so didn’t go into work. We started the day slowly and comfortably – tea, more Bill Hicks and a couple of Trisha lie detector results. After this I walked along the sea front and up to the station, stopping breafly at “Bites Cafe” for an egg and bacon sandwich. The weather was absolutely perfect; just how I would have it every day: very bright, cold and not a cloud in sight. I don’t care what anyone says, autumn is the most beautiful time of the year.

From Brighton I went up to Dorking. Adele, her sister, and Stuart had brought Peter down to see his dad. So Brodie went out and bought a massive pedal-power JCB-type-tractor thing and Peter nearly exploded with excitement. Later on, Fino turned up from Wolverhampton and we all had a good day. For weeks now I’ve been working on a picture for the wall of the pub and the day before I’d managed to get it printed out so was able to present it, framed. Printed on that high quality photo paper it really did look good. I also managed to get Brodie’s PC together at last and hook him up to the Internet which provided enough smugness for me to not worry about spending the day in a pub.
But, it was very knackering,I fell asleep on the train and had to be woken up when we hit Waterloo. By Lewisham I was dead and spent the best part of 5 bloody quid on a black cab from the station…worth every penny. I just wanted to fall into bed, but Humphrey had other plans for us.

When I got in he was very pleased to have the full complement of his flock back in the house and so when I left the room he tried to fly after me. Sadly, due to lack of experience, he’s a really, really crap flyer. He ended up on the curtain rail. To cut a long story short we both slept on the floor of living room…with the light on.. in case he tried to come down in the night and hurt himself. Every hour or so the discomfort of our landlady-fitted parquet flooring, coupled with the fact that light was on, woke us up and we spend some time calling him and making bird noises.

We didn’t manage to get him down until late this morning. I had to get the step ladder out and coax him down. Even then it took three or four goes before he actually got down. One time I got him perched on his food bucket and halfway down the ladder when he panicked and flapped off…straight back up to the rail…pillock. He really wanted to come down but was just so scared – I don’t think he managed to sleep last night. Anyway now he’s back down and sleeping on one leg while I end up doing a bunch of work that I didn’t do on Friday and seemingly no-one else there could do. God how irritating….