moving home

Moving blog sites can be so painful. I don't want to lose anything, entries, comments or photos but the more I contribute the longer it takes. If Google ever decide to charge for this service, I think I am going to pay, just to avoid the second most boring job I have ever done. The first most boring....adding collar stiffners to shirts for eight hours a day. And yes, it is a real job; I just wish I imagined it.

head in the sand

It is funny but the first day back at work after a long break is always a little scary. Having not been at my desk for over two weeks, these were the questions running through my head on my journey to work today.

• What will I have been blamed for while away?
• Was my neatly wrapped up work load before christmas just a figment of my imagination?
• Do I have a desk?
• Has there been a world change and so everything I know is now useless?

My worst fear relates to email, and not reading it for two weeks.

Over the holidays this was quite a liberating feeling, however, today I begin to believe that may have been a mistake. Hey, if it was important they would have called but come to think about it, I have been ignoring those calls too.

random thought #11

Version numbers go up. Not down, across or sideways. Things are supposed to get better as you go and finding the last month of your life was more pointless than usual is not a place I enjoy habiting.

mexican army

At the weekend I got into one of those usual conversations you get into while at a party. Bit by bit, step by step, the conversation was moving around to the "so what do you do for a living?". There was even a pause just before I got asked. I usually have a stock answer prepared for those people who are generally interested and another for those who are not. Today's non genuine answer was going to be

Richard Branson's private helicopter pilot

but I never got the chance. Instead it was the honest response which ended with the line "based in London just on Fenchurch Street". The response to my description was not what I expected at all or ever heard before. The lady I was talking to said, "did you know there are half a million cleaners that work in the city, so when you go home a large army is mobilised and invade London". I had never heard that before, 500,000 people to wipe, flush, vacuum our waste and we hardly notice them. But when you discover the fact you begin to notice that nearly all of them are Mexican. Granted, some are old Asian, African women but I don't put then in the invading army category. Mexico must be the cleanest place in the world that they dispatch their resources across the globe to clean up.

And another thing, when the contract cleaner does finally get to aisle seven, he will not speak the language.

act your age

When a six year old asks if you know any poems, resist the temptation to mention the one that starts "there was a man from Venus". Nothing good will come from it.

south paw - not quite

Barclays have introduced left handed cheque books. How cutting edge is that? Or have they only just realised these strange people are out there? My parents spent six months teaching me to unlearn being left handed when I was five or six years old. What a complete waste of time or did they realise I would have cheque book difficulties when I grew up. Hmmmmm.

balance

A while ago it had become very busy at work, which happens to most of us during our working life, and so I was not spending as much time as I would like at home with Suki, Maia and Kai. I tried hard to get home at a reasonable time and help put the children to bed but maybe not as hard as I could. I tried hard to ensure any jobs I am asked to perform by my wife are done, but they got forgotten or delayed sometimes. The same could not be said of my professional life - things don't get forgotten, delays are explained and justified, we work as a team and don't let each other down. The people we care the most for and the people we could not imagine life without are the ones which we find the easiest to disappoint. It is easier to phone home and say "I'll be on the later train" than to tell the team "this will have to wait till the morning". We make these decisions to let down our nearest and dearest so easily that it scares me. We hold doors open for strangers but take the special people for granted. We work for companies that pay lip service to the benefits of a balance but are not held accountable when the balance favours their side. Your working week is becoming exactly that - the week you work. We are even finding new a clever ways to work from any location, we can be in the office, on the train, in the plane, at HOME and you can still check your mail and connect to work. If only as much time and money was invested in ensuring you could give your child a kiss goodnight, every night.

What is your secret agent name?

Take your mothers maiden name and add your favourite body of water. Mine would be Chatha Thames.

tight clothes

Tight clothes are not meant to be squeezed into by anyone, they are designed by thin people, for thin people to look thinner still. Tight fit does not excuse anyone from showing all there bumps and lumps. The fashion of the day seems to include, almost as standard, your belly button must be on display; it is minus six in the shade but the midriff must be exposed. Again, this is a style for a certain shape and physique, not for all or the faint hearted, but I spend a large portion of the day turning my head away. Evidently, these people's perception of themselves differs widely from the general opinion. I don't want to see the belly of a burger munching, horizontally unchallenged, second helping, don't do restraint, extravert. The thought that runs through my head is "I don't want to see your ankles, what possessed you to think I wanted to see your tummy". Maybe I am being a little too sensitive on the subject. I get embarrassed when I am getting changed in front of the mirror, the need to apologise and leave the room is almost overwhelming, and I would never dream of inflicting it on others.

my mistakes

It is funny how your world can change in just a few days. Recently, I was spouting some self righteous clap trap about other people's mistakes and now I find myself in the same position. There is a poem about triumph and disaster and treating these impostors equally, I can't remember the name of it but you know the one I mean. This is impossible to do, how crap would your life become if there were no highs and lows. If you did not leap for joy, if you did not wallow in sorrow. It is the extremes that make us who we are. I am not saying that everything in-between is pointless, we achieve an awful lot during this period both professional and personal, but it is the sharing of our joy with others and the understanding of each others mistakes and foibles that make us remarkable. Hey, misery loves company too.

da plan

The plan is a tool to achieve an appropriate end goal. It should be watched, maintained, amended and loved even to ensure you know where you are in the process. It should prompt question like, "when will we finish?", and "where is the critical path?". The plan is not a hammer to beat on your head when things change. The plan is string estimates, which are wrong, added together in the hope that all the errors cancel each other out. Nothing can "go to plan", if it ever did then it was probably shear luck. Why people get away with this is by factoring in some random fudge factor and calling it a contingency.

Can you read this?

Can you read this?

random thought #10

The first ninety percent takes ninety percent of the time. The last ten percent takes the next ninety percent.

birthdays

Every year the same problem; Suki's birthday comes around and I never plan anything for her. It is not because I do not want too, it's just because everything else gets in the way of buying and gift and card. Work gets hectic, the plumbing begins to leak at home, unexpected visitors arrive for the weekend. All these random events coalesce around her birthday and the consequence is that she ends up with a crap and hurried present. Maybe next year I will get it right.

the corporation would like to apologise

Next time you complete your CV and apply for a job, don't write your greatest experience involved you having a conversation with Dalai Lama. It ended up in the dalai-bin.

my dad's keys

Lately it has become almost impossible to use or examine any piece of technology in the house with my kids leaping on it (no!) and me (ouch!).When they hear the computer booting up, I get attacked by the questions of the six and two year old. "Can I go no the cbeebies website?", Can I sit on your lap?", "Can we play the Star Wars game?", "What's this button do?".
If it is a phone I am examining then the questions range from "can we play a game on it?", to "make it shake daddy?". I have even resorted to scribbling this blog in a note book hoping to copy it on-line later (is it still a blog then?).

When I was young I only had two toys. The first was a small football that spent more time in the neighbours garden then our own; the second and my favourite by far, for reasons I will go into later, was my dad's keys. Dad hand the bunch of keys that everyone's dad had, too big to get into my hand. The set contained every key he needed (car, house, locker at work), every key used (shed, back door, outside toilet) and also some keys he could no longer explain. The bunch of keys was huge, it weighed almost as much as I did at the time.
Plainly the keys did not weigh as much as me, that would not have fitted into his trouser pockets and if they did he would have looked silly, but the point carries more weight (ohh sorry) having made the ridiculous statement.

When dad returned from work the keys entered my possession and never left it again until the following morning. The key could be anything I wanted them to be, army tank, alien space ship, rattle or anything my imagination could stretch to.

Back then the toys and games required you to push out from your imagination, whereas, today's equivalents are designed to push into your imagination. Designed to take over your imagination and encourage you to buy the expansion pack, the new module etc. Society looks for new and better ways to seek thrill, drive faster, jump higher, win quicker. The intention being to find the new rush and see how you feel after it. You must remain at the centre and the best way to do that is, like some big ball of gas in space, is to just keep pulling it in. We have all forgotten dad's keys, where the rush came from inside out, we have forgotten that another way to remain at the centre is to be the source for everyone else. Push out always and never be sure of what could happen, pull in and be limited by others.

We admire those that have great holidays and travel far, gawp in amazement at wonders experienced. We are bored by those who write a poem. This is not how I want to be anymore, this is not how I want to be remembered either.

This blog was supposed to be a witty entry about childish toys and how we chuckle at these shared memories. Instead it has gone someplace darker. I don't think this should go in the blog.

random thought #9

What happened to random thought #8?

other folk's mistakes

A while ago, my personal and professional lives had some form of synergy. Synergy is usually a good word, things working in harmony together, that kind of stuff. I would like to use the word in a bad way to represent both environments having a person about to make a big mistake. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and all that. My quandary relates to how I can help them both without offended either of them. The advice giving sort I am not, I like to give everyone enough rope to hang themselves by. We are all grown ups here. If my advice is sort I try to be honest and clear, concise and direct. But my advice is not requested. My advice is definitely not to be heard, so how do I get myself heard without coming across as a complete ***. The fact that I am battling with this questions make me an *** already. Neither mistake has any impact on me, it is just a matter of decency that I feel I need to say something. How do say what will not be heard? If no one hears you shout, have you said anything at all?

reason not to garden

While scooping up dead leaves from the garden floor with your bear hands, discover you have picked up the skeleton of a dead frog too.

write don't type

There is something special about scribbling on a piece of paper, it is something I had forgotten until recently. The feeling of thoughts flowing from your brain, down your arm, through your pencil (and is has to be a pencil) on to the paper. The process is creating content just feels more connected and natural. There is a smooth sensation that makes the words appear more easily. The mistakes should be crossed out and not rubbed out; the page should be an evolution not regurgitation. The way your letters change shape over a long writing period seem to be important too, lean to the left, lean to the right, italics, round chunky letters, circles above the letter 'i'. I have had to type so much recently; I was beginning to think my handwriting was in twelve point, times new roman.

style and content

I am always amazed with how the “great unwashed” out there find it so difficult to distinguish between style and content. Items are endlessly re-branded, re-packaged or updated and the lemmings are happy leap of the end of the cliff again. There are two forces in the world that are wholly responsible for the phenomenon, Daz and Persil. They go from new, to impoved, to white, to biological, to ultra, to concentrated, to tablet, to microgel. It is just soap powder, probably the least interesting thing in your shopping trolley on those dull Saturday morning. It is not like you have a choice between every version of Daz anyway, there only one or two to choose from. If you are a Daz man or a Persil lady you will, more than likely, remain so for the rest of your washing days. The brand relaunch is a pointless exercise with crap marketing statistics to prove its success, an excuse to keep the beast fed for a little longer.

I feel I have moved away from my original line of thought but it felt good anyway.

Oh yes, style and content. Books suffer from this disease a little more than they need to, “The Lord of the Rings” novel gets reprinted every two to three years, hardback, paper back, in three books, in six books, combined, with pictures etc. The herd of sheep buy the book again and again. It doesn’t end any different. The characters are not brought up to date with modern day habits like calling each other “mate”, being of the gay dwarf persuasion, mentioning their last holidays to Mordor before it went commercial and let the riff-raff in, or single elf mothers. No, the words are all the same, they have even left the words in the same order. Am I the only person who would feel better if every future copy, of a current book, added a small degree of randomness to the order of words? In the case of the lord of the ring who could tell the difference.

I have done it again, I am ranting, come on Lap, stick to the point…basically:

Style is temporary, it is content that rocks.

random thought #7

Hang over top tip. Get to work first no matter how bad you feel. Make a big show of feeling great and being in a happy place. Once your spirits (no pun intended) are known to all, retreat to the toilet cubicle and spend an hour with your head against the cold tiled wall.

next time....

When bored, try to pass wind silently near people you don’t like. When trying to impress someone, belch as loudly as you possibly can and then pretend like nothing happened. When someone asks you if a colleague is around tell them he is more oblong than round. The next time you have to shake someone hand, use you left hand. The next time someone belches near you, belch back louder still. The next time someone passes wind near you, do the pull your finger trick. The next time someone introduces themselves, ask for identification. The next time someone over fifty talks about how hard things were, tell them “when I am fifty you will be dead”. The next time someone spouts mindless rubbish, tell them to STOP.

random thought #6

Why do important events in your life coalesce around the same day or time? A long planned dinner with a good friend is ruined by a spouse’s sudden need for aid or support and error prone day at work. There will always be an emergency at five forty five. When giving someone a choice they will always opt for the one you wish they hadn’t.

Kai's comment #5

Lets PIYAOW da monster.

random thought #5

Think of things over a long period of time. An annual pay rise sounds great over the year, ok per month, rubbish per week, and suicidal per day. If you find twenty pence one morning then that is seventy three pounds over the year….how cool is that! The plan is fine until you have to spent time with people you don’t like….then one hour today is fifteen days over the year. :(

busy doing nothing

Recently someone I know said "I don't have a blog but I do have a life" and "no wonder I can't find anything I need on the net because it is cuttered with so much junk like blogs". My first reaction was to get violent, but then I realised he was probably right. So much space taken up by random dribbling, photos of drunken nights in the pub, photos of cats, photos of children. Surely there must be a better way to do that. What did we do before 1996? The amount of technology implemented just to allow you to share your embarrassment. Less technology was required to put a man on the moon. Imagine where we could have landed if all that effort was invested in the space program, or food and water distribution through the third world.

You begin to realise that most things in the internet are developed from an American centric view of the world. The internet as a means of performing business transactions, share trading, home banking, instant communication, media distribution. These are all ideas that originate from one part of the world. The desire to help the have-nots is not the priority because, lets face it, what can they buy. Why should I do anything for you if you don't have anything I need. The barter system is still in full effect in the year 2006.

To go back to my original point, why clutter the airwaves with such noise, what justification for adding to the chorus - the small hope of being heard.

crap cars

Where have all the crap cars gone? There was time when the cars on the road ranged from the high end Rolls to the thirty year old Austin. These cars did not even have seatbelts in the front, yet alone the back. I can remember cars having a “double shift” (or was that double drop….something like that) clutch. My neighbour kept the crank for the car in the boot and was heard every morning, swearing and yelling, trying to start the cold motor. I hardly see any cars more than twenty years old anymore.

I have a little Fiat Uno, which is getting to the “Logan’s Run” style retirement age. The red lights are flashing a little more than they should, and no amount of cleaning and polishing is going to change the fact that it is not long for this world. To my knowledge this is the only working Fiat Uno in existence. Fact! I love this car. Fact! It is small, it rattles, it shakes, it is slow. Fact!. I believe a small mouse is setting up residence in it too (fact maybe) but I can’t part with it. I bought a large TV recently and the box would not fit in my family car, but ahh ha! Never fear, Uno is here. With the seats down and the driver seat pushed all the way to the front, the box fitted. When driving the TV home, my knees were someplace around my ears and every time I hit the brake petal the box crushed me into the dashboard. The unusual seating position actually led to the splitting of my jeans, the split in an area I am too shy to talk about. Bring back crap cars, don’t put them to sleep, keep them alive forever. I don’t even bother locking the doors anymore, no one would steal it, no-one even looks at the car. The car is invisible. Some poor chap reversed into it recently and was so embarrassed about damaging the car. He could not understand why I was so calm.

your next big thing

What will be your next big thing? Will it be the Sony PSP, IPod, Sienna Miller, Big Brother, Argentinean beer? The next big thing is already on its way, it is being planned, packaged, focus grouped, and given a release date we all know (the date will be something with an aesthetic quality like 4/5/6). We will be informed that it is the best thing since sliced bread, not including hot running water, electricity and indoor toilets. You will start to question why you didn’t think of it yourself, or how you managed without it, think bag-less vacuum, and microwave oven. You may even purchase the “What Big Thing” magazine and start reading the reviews to determine the one with the best features and support for next-gen. You will then purchase the one which looks nice next to the last big thing you bought. You may even convince yourself that the old one needs to be upgraded or encourage young children to play near the old one in the hope that it gets fruit juice into it.

This is the way of pain, nothing lasting will be found here. You will regret most of it, live alone and perish in some freak electrical burst. Be the blade not the wood.

Then again, I am writing into a web log.

england's ashes

Today, England won the Ashes for the first time in eighteen years. There is a nice warm feeling flowing through the veins of every Englishman in the country and that’s not the several pints of Timmy Taylors Landlord. We won, fair and square, no excuses, no uneven luck, no further debate required. The journalists will spend the next few days trying to dissect the performance every which way they can, try to find that unseen angle, some human interest story (an interview with some kid that was born when we last won), pages of pulp devoted to the simple fact that for the first time in eighteen years we were better than Australia.

No will mention that we will certainly never hold on to the little trophy, for as long as we have had to do without it.

random thought #4

How to be happy - make one person you know really laugh, not just chuckle and smile, but laugh until their sides almost burst. The effort exterted should make the recipients jaw ache and whatever they were drinking at the time come out of their nose.

ten times ten for ten

Today I saw a queue of ten people waiting to use the cash point during their lunch hour. Ten individuals prepared to spend ten minutes staring at the back of the head of the person in front. Ten times ten is one hundred. One hundred wasted moments, just lost doing nothing, with nothing gained except a small shuffle forward closer to their ten pounds. People just stuck in the process, work, money, lunch, work, (maybe a drink), home, eat, sex, sleep. I may have just described the working day for just about ninety nine percent of the working population, the endlessly looping tape that is the flow of the day. Why not try again later? Why should lunch be between twelve thirty and one thirty? We all race for the same seats at the same time, we don't like to stand, we like to be near the front, we like not to be spoken to by strangers, we feel uncomfortable admiring other people's children and genuine warmth towards us is always treated with suspicion.

These people were happy to stand in formation and wait their turn without a word uttered even though queuee number four was not in the queue at all. He had just stepped out of his office for a cigarette and the queue had formed around him. People were annoyed with the smoker.

Today was a good day for me but I still felt sad and I am not sure why.

where did the time go

There are twenty four hours in every day. There are an infinite number of days ahead of me. Why do I always find myself thinking or saying "I can not make that"? So is so easy to end up thinking in chucks of only two days, today and tomorrow. An appointment planned six months ahead get canceled so easily when the date finally approaches and some thing else has cropped up. There is always enough time. We just don't spread it around correctly. We waste time as if it were free - there is always a cost which is only sometimes financial.

I am not saying we should live our personal life like our professional life but some tools are worth carrying over. From now on there must be a plan for everything, things must be written down and every minute accounted for. Learn one new thing everyday.

A friend pointed me in the direction of an interesting gentleman called Chris Croft. Some great tips and tools to help you avoid saying "I do not have the time".
Time Management by Chris Croft

Suedive

Suedive

Kai's comment #4

Spiderman, spiderman. Do whatever he wants to.

fat people

I like to think I am an even minded person, valuing my fellow man and hoping for equal treatment in return. Where I am starting to find this philosopy difficult is in the presence of fat people. Here are a group of people getting a bigger chunk of the pie (quite literally) than anyone else. This group of people:

• consume more food and soap,
• utilise more natural resources like water and petrol,
• take up more than their alloted space on public transport.

The only natural resource they give more than they consure would be heat, try sitting next to one on a hot day. I don't think this could really be added to the plus column though.

Where am I going with this you may be wondering? A better balanced tax system, we already factor in your marital status, children, savings, car you drive, why not include you waistline. The bigger you get, the more they tax you. Fat cats no more unless you really can afford it. This would all be backed up by a Government issued "Fat License" which would state the particular fat bracket you fitted. The Government could then influence the health of the nation by ensuring retailers only sell appropriate food for the bracket you were in. "No more cream cakes for you tubby". Pushing the fish and chips scene underground could be an issue but the concerns are a little overstated.

random thought #4

How to be remembered - "A third on beer, a third on women and rest I just wasted".

katrina - kyoto

Global warming was overrated. The fear of burning more fossil fuels having an effect on our common environment was exaggerated. Maybe the US will see beyond it's own arrogance once the after affects of Katrina have been fully felt. Sharks are swimming the main road in down town New Orleons, that's pretty far out too.

crowd magic

An interesting thing happened today. It made me pause, think and want to rememeber. While walking across the exit to a London Tube station, I was suddenly swamped by by commuters leaving the station. The train must have just arrived a minute or so earlier and my timing was perfect. My first thought was, "blimey, I am gonna have to navigate through all of this like trying to get through a randomly moving maze". I could stand still and wait for the rush to subside or go for Plan C. Plan C: don't look where you are going, look at a right angle to the direction I wanted to go and see what happened. To my surprise this worked, I got across the exit without bumping into anyone. Everyone avoided the person who was obviously not looking where he was going. The moment you start to think about where you are and how you are going to get from one point to another, the state of play changes and you have to reevaluate. Stop thinking about it encourages everyone else to start thinking - I like my test.

The flaw however is that now Plan C is out I could in the same location as someone else trying it out.

box type thinking

Next time anyone asks you to think "out of the box" just punch them in the back of the head and say "was that original enough for you". My view on this TOOTB is that; too often all we ever do is not truly TOOTB but inside the box of a previous box. Let me explain, folks don't really want TOOTB because that is often expensive, time consuming, unproven and requiring extensive valuation. TOOTB is an attempt to reuse stuff that you did not originally think to be relevant to the current situation. TOOTB is corporate espionage under the covers. TOOTB is cheating the truly bright people out there. TOOTB also goes by the name of "brain storming" or as taught in school now as "thought shower".

The management reserves the right to ignore your comments.

chickens and elephants

We insisted on having the most typical family bank holiday you could have by going to the zoo, Colchester Zoo to be precise. Personally, I am not a great fan of these institution, caged animals, outside their natural environment, not enough space for the animal to roam free and all that. However, after the day around the zoo, the first time in twenty years I might add, my opinions have changed. My reasons? The animals are caged, they can't roam around, and they are in an environment in which I can safely stand around and prod then with a long stick. I've paid my money, I've traveled the distance, why should I not expect entertainment. Colchester Zoo: top tip, more animals dressed like humans, monkey tea parties and an ostrich riding a unicycle. The whole sleepy tiger and pooing pig did nothing for me.

The other highlight was being able to share our sandwiches with elephants. Walking with dinosaurs can't beat sandwiches with elephants. That was probably the best hour of the day. Oh and I almost forgot, being attacked by chickens while we were eating was interesting too. The chickens must have seen us eating and came over for some snacks. The kids thought this was great, we don't have to finish our food and we get chickens to do it for us...cool. It was later when we realised the sandwiches were made from last nights roast chicken. Bugger.

Kai's comment #3

Baby jesus flipped like that.

Kai's comment #2

Don't say what, say hardon.

Kai's comment #1

I want to watch Jurassic Fart.

barcelona food

Next time you are in Barcelona remember to visit the Salvador Dali museum/exhibition. The place is located in the the street that runs parallel to Rambla but not the street called Paral-lel (which made me laugh for no major reason). We did not get the time to really make the most of it but the food in the balcony restaurant was fine. Go for the classics like Paella with a Rioja and you will not be disappointed.

random thought #3

How do buzz words become popular so quick? The latest being random. While during to a teenager at the weekend (strange thing to engage in I know) every reply I got involved the word "random". "That's so random". "Yeah, it's just some random party". For the benefit of the over 34's amongst us, would somebody please
explain.

spanish for beginners

Picture the scene, Café Zurich on the Place de Catalan, grumpy waiters, sitting on the terrace (street to you and me) in the baking heat of Barcelona. This was the first stop after arriving in town and dumping the bags in the Hotel. This was the first opportunity to do like the Catalans do; a glass of red wine and light Tapas just to toast the arrival and dictate how the next few days should flow. Ordering the wine is not too difficult, "vino....tinto/red" seemed to get the message across fine. Ordering Tapas however was another story. Upon my enquiry along the lines of "Tapas?" all I got back was, what can best be described as, noise. Nothing of value registered in my brain. Nothing even sounded like anything remotely familiar. The water was beginning to rise and it was someplace close to my neck. During the tirade of "information", I thought I heard "potato". Bingo, the drowning man clutched at the life-line with both hands. "Si, potato". I even decided to play it cool by adding "Jambon?" which was as close to ham as I could get. That rope started to slip. "Non", he replied, followed by a "Cheese?" How lucky was I going to get today? This was a second life-line, "Si". The water was receding and Barcelona was now looking more inviting place. Sipping on the wine, awaiting our little treat was probably the highlight of the day. Ten minutes later, the waiter appeared and placed a small plate on the table. On the plate was a little napkin and on the napkin was a small packet of cheese flavoured crisps.

Glug, Glug, Glug.

Suki proceeded to remind me of that event for the next five days. She even made me repeat it everyone we met. I probably have not heard the last of it yet.

system.holiday.run()

I have finally escaped from the weekly grind to spend two weeks getting the "knots out my rope". It seems to me that it is becoming harder and harder to remain extremely average. Being surrounded by people who think faster, talk louder and smile brighter may have its rewards but I, sure as hell, have not got them.

This makes the trip to Barcelona all the more interesting and needed. Eat, drink, and be merry. I am planning to make my way through the seven deadly sins, although, "do not covet your neighbours ox" could be challenging. Or is that one of the Ten Commandments. Seven Sins, Ten Commandments and the first to leap to mind is the cow one.

And in the words of songwriter Wesley Willis, misunderstood genius, "Rock over London, Rock on Barcelona".

random thought #2

Her Majesty's Prison Service is being re-branded as Conineer. Beneath the logo of a man hammering rocks reads the tag line "Fight the power, repent at your leisure". That may have already been considered I think.

random thought #1

I must write something clever to prove to people I don't know just how smart I would like them to think I am.

A little bit of politics

John Prescott now affectionately known in the office as "two shags".

delayed shock

I woke up today with that horrible feeling you get when you know something bad is going to happen. Half way through shaving, the light bulb in my head went off and there it was. No waiting to later in the day, in the middle of a of pint of beer to cushion any potential blow. Oh no. It has to happen when I am stripped to the waist, trying to cut the hair around my Adams apple with a sharp blade in hand (your mind is crazy thing, it likes to play practical jokes on everyone, you included). My bag had been stolen a week ago, it contained my laptop, assorted leads, chargers, free cd’s picked up from Amsterdam (not those ones but from Tech-ed 05), standard school photo of my kids and something else. It was this something else that had been bothering me now for over a week. Argghhhh! My USB key with everything I thought was important on my laptop, plus the only copy of the book I am trying to write (more on this later). Basically my backup for the time something bad ever happened to my laptop. My anger at the thief was replaced by the feeling of my complete stupidity. Fate does not want to just laugh at you but call you silly names, accuse you being inadequate in the only department that really matters and then proceed to empty its bladder all other your suede shoes.

There is a lesson in there somewhere…..stick to leather shoes.