Drastic plastic

I've just witnessed a man in Sainsburys buying a 33p bag of crisps using a debit card.

Snowy the builder, can you fix it

Some creative type chap came to my desk with a camera a short while ago and asked if I could help out with a project he was working on. Being the agreeable chap that I am, I answered that I would be happy to. He took me into the boardroom and got me to pretend I was measuring the wall. Then he asked if I could get down on one knee and measure the skirting board. I did as directed and he happily snapped away. This went on for another 15 minutes.

When he was done I asked what it was for. He said they are doing a website for a DIY company. I enquired why he asked me to pose and he said that everyone upstairs thought I looked like a builder. Nice.

Junior scientist

I was browsing the toy shelves* in Woolworths** on Saturday and saw some corkers that I can't wait to buy the little man. Microscopes, ant farms, rock tumblers, crystal makers. But it occured to me that I haven't seen chemistry sets for years now. I wonder if they have been banned?

I recall my first chemistry set with a mixture of longing and fear. I must have been about 7 when my folks bought me it. My dad said I could only use it outside, but the wind kept blowing out the burner, so he let me use it on his work bench in the garage. This is the same work bench that he used to fix the diesel lawnmower on, was covered in sawdust and had cans of spray paint, paint stripper and thinners everywhere, and had no lighting. Safety wasn't high on his agenda. I wonder what parents were thinking in those days. Mine let a 7 year old, with a history of blowing things up with fireworks, loose on a bottle of meths, a box of matches and a fistful of chemicals that, if you had them under one roof these days, you'd be arrested under the prevention of terrorism act.

Like most, I followed the tutorial book from page one, and turned copper sulphate cystals into a blue liquid and then back into copper sulphate crystals. Then I used litmus paper to test the alkalinity and acidity of various liquids. Spit and urine were included on this list. I completely disregarded the instruction book after that and started concocting my own experiments, usually invloving boiling zinc, setting light to iron filings, sticking ants into a test tube with some phospherous and a naked flame - you know, just the type of thing that a normal arsonist-in-training would do. It wasn't long before secrets were swapped at school and some very interesting recipes were brewed on the workbench, generally resulting in a large bang and a bright flash.

I can't believe my parents let me get away with what I did. I'm more surprised that I made it out the other end without losing a finger or my eyesight. On second thoughts I think I will buy the little one an ant farm.

* Research for Junior's Xmas/birthday present
** Since Junior's birth, we can't afford John Lewis anymore

Coward Of the County

I've just realised after all these years that the Gatlin boys sexually assaulted Becky. I always thought they were just mean to her, but the line 'They took turns at Becky...' doesn't tell a lie. No wonder Tommy (Yellow, to you) went bat shit. How horrible.

I'm still here

I just wanted to assure you that, although I haven't moaned about scooters/scooterists for a while, I still hate them.

Cruel parents 2

After my brush with Ronald McDonald a couple of weeks ago, I've noticed that a lot of people have odd names these days. Whatever happened to good oldy timey names like Peter, Mary, Richard and so on? It seems that parents today want to name their kids something that will cause them huge embarrassment on the playground. I take my little one (he has a 'regular' name by the way) to a child minder, and she looks after two other children called Dillon and Barnaby. Now these are perfectly valid labels and the parents obviously had some motivation when they named them, but it almost seems a trend to name children something off centre. I'm discounting hippy stuff like Rain and River and all that. I can't think of anyone around my age group that has an odd name, although what my parents were thinking when they called me Skybluesnowy, God alone knows.

When the missus was preggers, we went to some classes to learn how to squeeze the brat out. We met some nice people there, but nearly all of them have gone the Barnaby route. I'm not going to name and shame, just in case my cover is blown. We have some friends who have named their daughter Tyla. We have some friends who have named their son Tyler. Some friends of friends have named their son Keegan, others have named their pair Mitchell and Jordan. I know two couples that have called their son Reuben. But the Septics take it one step further. We get a weekly newsletter at work where they announce arrivals, and some of the names beggar belief. (I checked the parents names just in case they were foreign sounding, but none of them were). Here are some of the more imaginary ones:
Cyrus Webb, Piper, Hayden Kinnick, Arya, Marek Illia, Tanner Monohan, Lukas Peter Klosterman, Tara Sevan.
Come on guys, stop it now.

Apologies is anyone reads this and has a peculiar name. It's all a bit of fun, and not my fault if you are called Digby or Egbert.

Lyric of the day

Some guy in the office has just been having a row on the phone. Judging by what I overheard (it was difficult not to, he was screaming), I suspect it was a client and he had been dumped in it. He shouted down the phone 'You could at least kiss me before you f*** me!' Pure poetry.

It's a jungle out there

London can be quite a scary place. Lots of cars, buses, people, litter, noise, bright lights, dark alleys, fat people. You know, like most cities. The scariest people, in ascending order of scariness are:
- Big Issue Salesman (Salesmen? Is this a profession?) because they always have a cute dog on a piece of string and make you feel guilty if you don't buy one. They call you sir as well, which is just wrong.
- Beggars. They can cause embarrassment and fear at the same time. Who knows if the guy is 5 seconds or 1 rejection away from a drug flipout. Scare factor increases if they have a wonky eye.
- People with clipboards.

Penshun update

Seems I was wrong and it is prudent to have a pension. Mine has leapt up in value by £1.57 since yesterday. I think I am going to retire on this good news.

Coventry drew last night, so the run of losses has stopped (briefly).

Penshun

I've just had my house valued. I bought it about 2 1/2 years ago, and if I sold it for the asking price, it would fetch a profit of £76 000. That equates to about 30% profit in less than 3 years. Pretty staggering ROI don't you think? Conversely, I have been contributing to a pension fund for 5 months. I checked the figures today, and I am actually £16 down on the amount I have paid in. I've never been particularly good at maths (or 'math', if you are reading this from North 'merica), but what is the point of having a pension? I could have put the money in an Abbey National kids account and earnt more interest.

Sporting disaster

Sporting results over a 4 day period. With reference to the list below, I support England and Warwickshire in cricket, England in rugby, and Coventry in football
13/09/2007 - Lancashire beat Warwickshire in the county championship. Warwickshire get relegated
13/09/2007 - Northants win in the one day league, relegating Warwickshire
14/09/2007 - England get thrashed by Australia in the 20/20 world championship
14/09/2007 - England get thrashed by South Africa in the rugby world cup
15/09/2007 - Coventry get thrashed 3-0 by Bristol City. At home.
16/09/2007 - England get thrashed by South Africa in the 20/20 world championship

Will everyone stop beating us please.

Update:
18/09/2007 = England snatch defeat from the jaws of victory v New Zealand in the 20/20 world championship.

Coventry are away at Palace tonight. Please don't let this list grow any further.

The haves and the have nots

There are 2 main categories of people in an office:
- Them's that are high earners and important.
- Them's that are not

(The latter can be subcategorised as them's that are not but think they are and fratenise with them's that are).

It's very easy to spot and pigeon hole everyone. Them's that are not make tea and coffee in the office kitchen. The others buy their's from trendy coffee shops and drink them out of branded cups. Try it. It works.

Positively autumnal

I reckon autumn is on the way. There are some subtle indications that a man with my attention to detail has noticed. The leaves on the trees are looking a bit old. I noticed some birds flying in formation overhead this morning (fairweather buggers). It's dark when I wake up. It's dark by the time I get home. The late afternoon sun has an orange glow rather than bright yellow. Shop window dummies are starting to wear scarves and clothes that are orange, brown and dirty green. The blurt around London have ditched the skirts in favour of trousers and cardies. All very little signs that my razor sharp senses have picked up on you see. That and it's fucking cold.

Shawshank Redemption

I watched the titular film for the umpteenth time t'other night. I'm not sure if it is one of my favourite films of all time, but I certainly enjoy it every time I see it. For the first time something really nagged at me and I don't think I will be able to watch it again without thinking of it. (It's a bit like my dad telling me as a child to watch the bottom corner of the screen to see the circles appear for projectionist prompt. Every time I went to see a film I would have my eyes glued to that spot, just waiting. The rotten sod). Anyway, I never really got how Andy could have got crawled through the hole in his cell wall, then replace the poster over the hole. That's been bugging me since the first time I saw it. And how did Red remember the exact location of the rock, the tree and the beach after one off the cuff conversation in the excercise yard? I've seen the film a hundred times and I can't tell you those details. But now I've thought of something else.

According to the plot summary, he was digging a hole for 19 years. That's a long time and you have to admire his patience. Bless. 19 years though, can you honestly tell me in that time that he never once had his cell checked, redecorated, or the poster fell down like they do. I had a James Hunt poster on my wall above my bed when I was a nipper and it would fall down at least once a week. And I can't really believe that in 19 years he never once moved cells. Goddamn, it's ruined now. I really need to suspend my disbelief a little further.

Most helpful

I was on cricinfo catching up with the latest scores (Sri Lanka got 260/6 off 20 overs) and saw an ad for an online diabetes test. I'm not the healthiest, and having nothing better to do I thought I'd fill in the questionaire, as you never know. Maybe me being fat is because I have a medical condition and not because I eat three kebabs every meal.This is the helpful result that I was presented with. Tell me something I don't know.

Epiphany

This morning it dawned on me that, although I have been eating them for most of my life, I really don't like bananas.

Lunchtime frustration

I went to Sainsbury's for some lunch. Some bastard was blocking my way to the sandwiches. When he finally got out of the way, some bitch pushed in front of me. Just before I could get round her, some other bitch took what was, it turned out, the last tuna and sweetcorn on malt bread. I didn't have enough money to buy a seafood coctail one, so had to settle for cheddar cheese and onion. And it was horrible.

50k

50000 tracks listened and logged on audioscrob. The offending track was 'God's Away On Business' by Tom Waits. I was trying to rig it so it was The Clash, but these things never work out like they are supposed to.

The Fear

I'm not sure why, but my Sunday's are generally ruined by thinking about Monday. I'm pretty sure it goes back to school days when I would dread going to bed Sunday nights because I knew when I woke up I had to go to Alcatraz. But now I am 38 and I still get it.

Classic example was this weekend. On Friday afternoon, just as I was thinking about the approaching weekend, I got two bugs assigned to me for this website I maintain. I had a quick look at them and they looked like right tricky little fuckers. I created this template that was a fixed width pop up, and data would be fed into it to dynamically change the size an image. It seems that something I had done had been coded incorrectly and the images were wrapping onto the next line, in Internet Explorer 6 only. I had one foot out of the door, so stuck the bugs in my 'something to sort out for Monday' memory bank.

I had a good Friday night, Saturday was pretty cool to and late afternoon drinks eventually turned into early Sunday morning ABFs. I awoke quite early yesterday morning with a remarkably clear head and proceeded to do family things. At about 3pm I settled onto the couch and started to go through all the sport I had Sky+'ed over the day. It was then that the bugs I had left behind started to bother me, and I wondered how I was going to fix them. This went on until the evening, and the later the hour got, the more I began to dread Monday. I had a really restless night's sleep, and kept waking up every half hour or so looking at the clock. The ratio of sleep to clock viewings swung in favour of my digital friend over the course of the night until it was finally time to get up. I had a worrying journey into work and once in, put off looking at the bugs, dreading the mayhem they would cause my day.

After two cups of coffee, I gathered up enough courage to tackle them. It took me about 7 minutes to fix and they were assigned back to QA before she even got into the office. So basically a quarter of my weekend was spent worrying about something that took me less than 10 minutes to solve. Why do I do it to myself?

I've also noticed that my hanovers are getting worse. Not the physical side, that's to be expected as I age. It's the mental side that is troubling. If I have a hangover now, I get The Fear where all sorts of things worry me. Little things normally, but financial matters are most common. It's like a recurring dream although I know it's coming. But as much as I tell myself that it's just a sympton of the alcohol, I still feel irritable, worried and anxious. There is a great Afrikaans name for it, bang babelaas, which directly translates to scared hangover.

Cruel parents

Wandering back from my lunch today I passed a man talking on his mobile phone. The following is all I heard of his conversation, and I swear as God is my witness, that I quote him verbatim :

'...I missed his call, this is Ronald McDonald'

Now I wasn't expecting that

I sparked up the braais (or barbeque if you are not South African) on Saturday and whilst waiting for the coals to ready themselves for the half a cow I had bought, I read the back of the box of matches I'd used. I was expecting was some sort of safety message, or information about 'our matches are chips rom the finest organic Norwegian Pine, sustainable forests, lint scraped from a cave in Southern Congo etc'. What I was not expecting was a recipe for rice pudding.

Sentence redundancy

I was at the driving range the other night and this woman walked past with one of the staff.

She asked 'Do you hire clubs?'
'For the course or the driving range?' he replied
'Both' she said
'Yes'

That conversation went on at least two sentences too long.

It's not over 'til the fat guy stops singing

I heard this morning that The Pav has passed away after a year of illness. I'm not a fan of the old shouty stuff, but by the sounds of it, he was up there with the best. Isn't it sad that he will be remembered by most as 'that fat guy who sang the World Cup song'?

It was cringeworthy on Sky News this morning. The anchor crossed to some reporter in Rome (yeah right).

Anchor: 'He sang to an audience of 150,000 in Hyde Park. That must be a record for a tenor?'
'Expert' reporter: 'Yes, numbers like that ...'
A: 'We've just been showing pictures of him with Princess Diana. They were great friends'
'E' r: 'Oh yes, they were very close...'

And so it continued for 5 minutes. Expert reporting.

Rest in peace big man, and try not to scare the angels.

My weekend

Had my office party on Friday, started at 12 noon. Got drunk. Fell asleep on the train on the way home and ended up in Winersh. Finally got home 3 hours late. Had a hangover Saturday, so kept a low profile and went shopping with the wife. A friend phoned, asked if I fancied meeting up for a beer. Did. Got drunk. Went home, watched the Cov v Preston game, had a few cans. Got drunk. Had a hangover Sunday. Met some of the wife's friends in the local for lunch. Got drunk. As we were leaving, bumped into a couple we know on their way back from town. Went back into the same pub. Got drunk. They invited us over for a nightcap. Got drunk.