Some of my earliest memories are of my parents friends. Big, friendly, funny people who used to listen and make me laugh. As I grew up they changed from friendly grown-ups into kind, interesting, intelligent people. I’d want to stay up late so I could join in.
Today during a call to Stella and Chris to tell them out our new parrot (current favourite name is “Humphrey”) I found out that one of their oldest friends, Betty, died on sunday. The last time I saw her was at her partner, Tony’s funeral and at the time neither of us were in a fit state to hold a conversation. Now, after a long battle with cancer she too has gone. This is very, very sad – the wrong people go.
I only hope that I’m wrong and in fact there is an afterlife for the worthy, because she and Tony will surely be there. Probably sitting listening to Jimi Hendrix accompany Billie Holliday as I type.

I miss you both.

Our DSL is fucked – again.
Every time our DSL has gone down in the last few years it has, with one exception, been down to total incompetence within BT. Yet again, it’s BT’s fault. How do I know ? Because we’re no longer getting sync on our line – that means we are no longer talking to the DSLAM – the only explanation I can come up with is that we have been unplugged.
USELESS BASTARDS! SORT IT OUT!
So back to 56k (British bloody fucking telecom yet again)

Clare Short has resigned. Everyone is talking about whether we handled the Iraq invasion properly, and whether Tone has got carried away, and whether we did enough to prevant bad things happening whilst we were ridding poor Iraq of their nasty dictator.
WHAT ?
Why is everyone talking bollocks ? No-one is talking about the fact we’ve been lied to, the fact that this war had fuck-all to do with human rights and WMDs – it’s about OIL!. It’s about GREED! It’s about MONEY! Why are you still pissing about with this pretense Clare ? You aren’t that stupid, you know what’s going on, so why are you still talking shite ? You’re the same as the rest of the scum in parliament – no sympathy from me.
Last night Channel 4 re-assured me that it still does have a bit of soul left. Following that filthy shitumentary on Heather Mills I felt that C4 was finally dead – Michael Grade would never have aired something that cack – and yes I do remember “The Word”.
But last night they showed “Beyond Iraq and a Hard Place” – an hour of Bremner Bird and Fortune that told anyone watching about all of the things that have been coming to light on the underground media for the last few months. Things that should, by all rights, cause the downfall of the UK and US governments.
Sadly the only people watching it were people who already know it. In the old days this would make me feel cynical and despondent – now it makes me really fucking angry.

September 11th

Why did it happen ?
A freely distributable pamphlet that asks some very important questions about 9/11. If you have a problem reading it then try this related site: http://www.rememberjohn.com/

The Stone Roses

Why did it happen ?
Exposing the myth that The Stone Roses were anything more than a poncy talent vacuum.

or “count your blessings” as my my mum would say.So I am.

• Michele and I are waiting for a “Popeye” pizza to arrive.
• Michele’s best friend (and the maid of honour at our wedding) has a new boyfriend who she’s really into, and it turns out he’s a rapper called “Busdriver”. So we downloaded a few tracks and it turns out he’s really bloody good.
• I found a tune by some american folk singer called “Richard Buckner” that really does things for me
• tomorrow is Friday

So it’s not all bad – even though the plastic-buring-psycho has started again…and those jelapeno pepper have given my bowels a load of jip….and…

Being a sad git I did the BBC national IQ test yesterday (the flash one). It really does demonstrate how dodgy the whole concept of intelligence is. All IQ tests do is demonstrate how well you perform in an IQ test. God help you if you weren’t English or suffered from dyslexia.
This time I got 120, on other tests I’ve got anything between 110 and 140 so what does that say ? It says that no-one really knows what intelligence is. It also says that I’d had a couple of bottles of wine beforehand…not that I’m trying to find excuses of course…grrrrr
On the other hand, there was someone in the studio who got 140 – bastard! And he was a city trader. Bet he’s got a big cock too.
[ additional – I just tried this IQ test and got 159 – even more confusing. If you need your ego boosted after the BBC one then give it a go ]

Michele bought me some really appropriate birthday presents this year. One in paticular really got me going: a pack of paper for printing onto black t-shirts. What a toy. We had our first go on saturday, printing a t-shirt for Steve the Copper with a picture of Mr. Slow on it (look at the photo and you’ll see why). After wasting about 5 sheets dealing with the usual printer type problems…grrrr…we got one that looked great. Steve certainly seemed to like it. After presenting it to him, Brodie, Steve, Michele and I went down to the Curry Centre in Lewisham and ate too much. It’s so good to see that place open again. They’ve been there since 1965 and when they got closed down recently Michele and I were quite upset. Especially when we noticed the Bailiffs notice pinned to the door. Not to sure about the new “modern” decor, I always liked the traditional taj-mahal/flock wallpaper style, but the food was still good – and they gave us all Brandies on the house – nice people.

It’s another Bank Holiday weekend thank god. So far I’ve done another t-shirt, for myself this time. It sort of looks like this, and we’ve done a card for Ralph (michele’s step dad). Quite a creative weekend all in all.

A good friend of ours lost his family, his job and his home recently. He stayed on our sofa for a few days with the few posessions he could grab before moving on to stay somewhere else. It isn’t fair and would bring the strongest person to despair. From my position in a marriage, with a steady job, a place to live and a potentially stable future it could have made me feel thankful and relaxed. But it didn’t. It just made me feel angry and unstable. Even the most civilised society is only three meals away from revolution. While we can look back with pity at all of the historical bollocks-ups we’ve made, we still can’t feel comfortable that we won’t make the same mistakes again – in fact it’s almost a certainy. It doesn’t matter what you do, you still live on a razor edge. It could be due to capitalism, madness, stupidity, or nature, but you could loose it all instantly. When a species has developed enough to be able to produce its own complete destruction then perhaps it’s time to call it a day. We’ve had our chance, let’s just leave it to the next lot.

Hmm – what a load of maudlin crap. Sorry. The guy I was talking about will end up winning again, and I’m sure there are many more happy-days to go before I croak. But surely it’s not a bad idea to occasionally go full-on with the paranoia, depression and mean waves from time to time ?
No this is all wrong – this was supposed to have been an “up” blog entry that went on about what a piece of brilliance the first series of “The Office” was and it’s turned into some sort of Joycean stream of consciousness from the arse of the world’s most miserable bastard.
Sorry. Here are some reasons to be cheerful:

• It was quite nice out for part of the day
• This wine isn’t bad considering it only cost 2.50
• Tomorrow is friday and then there’s a bank holiday weekend
• Epitonic
• The Iraqis are fighting back against the fascists
• Adrian is getting married this month

Today is my birthday and also the birthday of Saddam Hussein. All of this time I thought I was against the war simply because it was a violent way of protecting the U.S.’s oil interests, when in fact it turns out that it’s just because Saddam and I are both Taurian.

It should be illegal to go straight back to work the day after not being in. They should give us a day’s grace at least…:(