Top of the bell curve

2010-07-27T13:57:00.001+01:00

test number 3

Blog title...

2010-07-27T13:03:00.001+01:00

this is a 2nd test of ping.fm

2010-07-27T12:59:00.001+01:00

This is a test of ping.fm

So much news

2008-04-04T10:41:00.002+01:00

There is so much news to report. 1vs100 - ick! That has embargoed until after it has been broadcast. Probably a good thing - let it all die down.

Grand Prix performances have been ok - another one tomorrow yay! I am crawling up the ranking steadily and am hopeful a few months away from being promoted to Candidate Master status. Hoorah! No longer to hold a mostly meaningless title that you could get just by turning up to enough events.

And Mastermind - ah yes Mastermind. Still a little way off but close enough to make my tummy do cartwheels.

All will be revealed in due course dear reader(s).

Life sucks

2008-04-02T16:30:00.002+01:00

I've just found out that a friend of mine has died suddenly and unexpectedly. He was just 32.

Of all the people I've known in my life I don't think if I've ever known anyone so 'good'. Not holy, not sanctimonious - just a good guy. I never heard a bad word said about him and he would always go out on a limb for you.

His death is so senseless, so perverse that it cannot be anything other than random. Forget Pascal's wager - there ain't nothing out there or this wouldn't have happened.

Yan Tyan Tethera

2007-12-30T15:51:00.000Z

So I've been trying to tackle some of my areas of general knowledge weakness. I know there areas in which I need to improve. There are a lot of them. So step 1 has been to identify those areas. Step 2 is to collect together all manner of resources that can help me to improve in those areas. Now these resources can come from all over the place. The internet is of course a great resource but table-spoons full of salt need to be taken with every nugget gleaned from a less than gold-plated source.

Therefore I have also been building up my library of reference books. Here's a quick rundown:

For Christmas I got the following:

Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Now this is a corking book that gives you the origins of words, phrases, sayings etc. Fantasitically useful and incredibly comprehensive it was however a little disturbing to find that the first entry I stumbled upon was wrong. The Duke of Wellington is known as The Iron Duke. According to Brewers it is due to his "iron will". Which is utter garbage. Wellington was nicknamed the Iron Duke because in 1829 he forced through the Catholic Emancipation Act and due to its unpopularity he put iron shutters over the windows of his London home (Apsley House) lest they be smashed by an angry mob.

Still nonetheless a fantastic book - but a reminder that just because something is in print it is not necessarily more reliable that an internet source.

England in Particular
At the risk of being accused of parochialism there is much about England that I don't know. Whilst international general knowledge is still firmly on the agenda it would be foolish not to brush up on local knowledge. After all, Euro and World Championships aside UK general knowledge remains a staple of quizzes from pub level through to Grands Prix.

Whereas the first nugget I stumbled on in Brewers was a disappointment, the first in this book was a corker. In Yorkshire, Cumberland, Cornwall and Suffolk sheep farmers count their sheep using numbers derived from ancient British languages. All have enough similarities to one another to indicate a common ancestor language. "Yan Tyan Tethera" is 'one two three' in Cumberland whereas "Hant Tant Tethery" is the equivalent in Suffolk.

Some people can learn general knowledge from lists. I can't. But I can learn when something is interesting, which is perhaps why I am more of a general knowledge magpie. As a magpie I will remember this nugget about sheep farming.

101 World Heroes
As I don't learn well from lists I like to learn by placing information into its context. On the face of it this book looks like a kids book. 2 or 3 page potted histories of key figures from history illustrated with nice pictures. However the text is aimed at adults and provides the context around key events not just in the individual in question's life but also the age in which they lived. Context. As I write I have it open at the write-up for Brunelleschi. I know his name and I know one of his claims to fame. Through this I hope to understand more of his story and in doing so set additional information into context in my mind. It won't necessarily help me in a buzzer-quiz or Quiz League of London environment where speed of recall is important. But this method has definately helped me in Grand Prix events, where I come at an answer by recalling something else from the contextual story and gradually piece it all back together until I get the nugget I want. Other people may find all this easier. But as I'm not blessed by autism or aspergers I have to find long hand ways of learning.

Whitaker's Almanac 2008
Current affairs is another area of knowledge that you simply can't ignore. Yes the internet is a fantastic source for this knowledge, but Whitakers has it all in one place. Having said I don't learn well from lists, sometimes it is unavoidable.

what a world

2007-12-30T15:34:00.000Z

We live in a crazy fucked up world.

A couple of days ago Benazir Bhutto was assasinated. As per custom in that part of the world she was buried the next day and (thanks to her family's wishes) no post-mortem was performed. Now her body is at the centre of a storm, because the precise cause of her death is of political significance. Was she shot as some witnesses and the doctor on the scene suggest? Was she killed by the subsequent bomb blast? Or did she hit her head when she tried to duck inside the car?

Such is the significance placed upon a death that can be considered a martyr's death that there is now talk of exhuming her body in order to prove she is a martyr. If she died from a blow to head caused while ducking the bullets/bomb she would not qualify as a martyr. I repeat, this is a crazy fucked up world.

And now, in the latest twist in the history of the young Pakistani nation Bhutto's legacy has been placed in the hands of her 19 year old son. I fear for him.

Blackpool

2007-12-07T18:03:00.000Z

So the European Quiz Championships have been and gone. The crème de la crème (plus me) of European quizzing assembled on a very very windy, grey, wet, November weekend in Blackpool for as intense a quizfest as you could possibly hope. I'd not spent that long in Blackpool since my days as a Students' Union activist. It hasn't improved.

FRIDAY
You know it’s going to be a memorable a weekend when you go into your hotel room and find a stick of Blackpool rock with Quizzer written through it, and a QUIZ ME KWIK hat on your bed.

Sadly, what was missing was my nice bright red polo shirt, the team colours of the Welsh Quiz team. For I am a member of Cymru’s B team. Yes indeedy. Don’t be too impressed though. The first quiz of the weekend was the qualifying tournament for the international team tournament. Wales B didn’t qualify…..by a long way. By the end of this quiz some of my teammates were losing the will to live. We beat Hungary’s first team who put in a valiant showing on their first outing, and 3 other scratch teams. In one round we even outscored the Welsh A team. But at the end of the qualifiers we were left out of the reckoning. Shame.

I enjoyed the qualifier so little that I am seriously contemplating not putting myself forward next year. But there is plenty of time for me to talk myself round.

Later that evening we had an icebreaker quiz where teams were drawn at random so as to let everyone mix with people of other nationalities. It was great. On my team was Tom, European quizzing’s true prodigy. A fixture of the Belgium international team, Tom is an exceptional quizzer. His knowledge of European tv programmes came in handy when the xenophobia of British tv programming executives became increasingly apparent throughout the quiz. How do all of the other nationalities know about German soap operas? Because they aren’t so close minded about such things as the Brits. Shame on us.

We did fairly well. Certainly well enough to partially erase the trauma of the earlier quiz. The evening’s quizzing finished with some buzzer quiz action. The questions were supplied by a contingent of North Americans who had joined us for the weekend. Sadly a lot of the questions were so US-centric that no-one had a clue. Still, my knowledge of Buffy the Vampire Slayer won my team a few points.

SATURDAY
This was the big day, the highlight of the weekend for most. Saturday morning saw us file in for the Individual Championship. Allotted to tables, your finishing position owes almost as much to the arbitrary draw as it does to your answers. There was a top table, then 3 columns of tables. I started on table B1, one table below the top. To be in with a chance of winning the tournament you need to be on the top table in the last round. So I felt that I had a slight outside chance of being there or thereabouts. Certainly a lot better than in 2006 when I started on table 9. I just needed to get promoted up one level and then hope there were always 3 people worse than me each round.

I didn’t do well enough in round 1. I ended up moving sideways. Still there was always round 2. I stayed where I was. But by round 3 the best players were starting to appear near in greater numbers in the higher tables. I got relegated. After some table pingpong I finished on table 2. One row below where I had started. Officially I came 36th, although if you go by points scored I was 49th out of 92. I’m not unhappy with that, although it was tough. Oh yes it was tough. I scored a whopping 10 points less this year than last. At this level that’s a lot! The winner was Nico Pattyn – for once not the bridesmaid. It completed a bad year for Kevin Ashman who has lost his British, European and World crowns in the space of 12 months.

At this point it is sad to note that Lieven Van Den Brande, who was this year’s runner-up, died about three weeks after the event. A great loss to the quiz world, and of course to his family and friends.

In the afternoon there was the team (club) competition. Not having a club I tagged onto the Finnish national team. There were only 3 of them but they are phenomenal. It was probably the toughest quiz of the weekend but they were so good that we came 6th. I probably contributed a half dozen answers at most. Those guys are simply awesome.

It’s at events like these that the whole ‘big fish small pond’ thing comes to mind. I’m a good pub quizzer, and probably one of the better players at the pub quizzes I go to. At Grand Prix events I am a medium sized fish in a bigger pond. Always somewhere in the middle of the pack. But at the European Championships the sheer quantity of information that I don’t know (or even knew existed) astounds me. What is more astounding is that people for whom English is at best a 2nd language are so incredibly good. While I may still finish in the middle of the pack the gap between me and the best is huge. Admittedly some of the best players do have 20+ years on me, but still….

Saturday evening saw the final of the International Team tournament, and England edged out Belgium to retake the crown for the first time since 2004. But look out England and Belgium, the Finnish and Norwegians are on the cusp of becoming genuine contenders!

A trip to a pizza restaurant, some ‘beat the intro’ music quizzing and Singstar karaoke saw the night to an inevitable drunken conclusion.

SUNDAY
Despite a 3am finish, at 10am on Sunday morning my partner JR and I were in our seats ready for the Pairs quiz. It was good fun and probably the most enjoyable quiz from the formal programme. We could have done better than we did, but we kept talking ourselves out of answers when actually we should have gone on gut instinct grrr.

The ‘gala’ dinner and presentations rounded off the main part of the event. After which a bunch of us experienced Blackpool at its best. Tacky amusements and the Doctor Who exhibition. On the way back to the hotel David Stainer gave us the benefit of his quiz machine expertise. Our winnings went some way to paying for a curry we stopped off for on the walk back.
Drinks were had at the final pub before the hotel. We met the Norwegian contingent there who were amazed to find that they were no longer serving food. Well it was 8.01 and the restaurant shut at 8. Great customer service! What do you call somewhere where the beer is warm, the staff are rude and they have just stopped serving food. An English themed pub!

Still Jenny got her Bamber Gascoigne quiz book out an impromptu buzzer-less buzzer quiz began. I was doing rather well, second only to Stainer when we were joined by the Norwegians, and some more Brits. It was tougher but I still managed to hold my own, despite some ill-informed barracking from a member of the Wales A team.

At kicking out time we headed back to the hotel. But that wasn’t the end. Oh no. We found some buzzers and carried on. At some point the evening morphed into an episode of QI, with people venturing supplementary ‘interesting’ facts in an attempt to garner extra points. With the added spice of innuendo bingo the evening carried on until 3 am. At which point we all retired to our respective rooms.

MONDAY
Monday was all about farewells. Next year we head to Oslo. It can’t come soon enough!

Ick

2007-11-07T10:42:00.000Z

I’ve been ill, on and off for the last few weeks. Not seriously ill, not even man-flu (thank God). Just a succession of colds. Each time I think I am over a cold a new one emerges. I am now well and truly fed up of it. I am also fed up of being treated as a latter-day Typhoid Annie, blamed when anyone else in the office succombs.

There is now an urgency in my need to recover. The European Quiz Championships start in 2 days – the individual contest being 3 days away. Competing with a thick cold has in the past cost me at least 10% of what I could otherwise have scored. All thought processes slow. Valuable thinking time is wasted in the fumbling search for a tissue or a Locket [tm] to suck on. It is a struggle just to focus on what you are being asked.

It has been a while since I have competed in a top flight quiz feeling on top form. Lack of sleep, or illness have hit my performances. It hasn’t made a great difference in the grand scheme of things, but you just know when you are firing on all cylinders. It would be nice for once to sit down at the start of a competition with a clear head and be able to focus fully on the task ahead.

So as I write this I am supping hot water with a slice of lemon in it. I’ve popped a couple of Beecham’s capsules and I have a tube of Lockets comfortingly to hand. I feel better today than yesterday, which has to be a positive sign. So I hope I will be functioning somewhere near to my best when Saturday comes.

I am woefully under-prepared compared with where I would like to be. I’ve done much less revision than planned. However compared with last year my preparation is streets ahead, and I did pretty well last year. Unfortunately I feel it will be tougher. This year’s contest has been written by an international panel. With the fiendish Belgian question setters having played a role it could be traumatic. What will be will be.

The onward march of middle age

2007-11-02T12:09:00.000Z

I was a little concerned a while back that in liking painting and gardening I was becoming middle aged. Well if these were the warning signs, surely it was confirmed a few months back when I took up golf.

I think it is the knowledge that save for a miracle my cricketing days are nearer the end than the beginning that drove me to it. When I started playing cricket in 95 I had never been coached, had played it twice at school and other than that it was back garden or park stuff. In 95 I started playing for a team in Kent called Beltinge. They welcomed me because I was committed. My ability was less important than the fact that I would turn up every week.

I used to bat at numbers 10 or 11. Occasionally I would bat higher. I remember one attempt at opening the innings. I didn't last long. As I moved round the country in subsequent years I worked on my batting but was still very much a low order batsman. Then about 7 years ago I transformed myself into a stubborn but not spectacular opening batsman. I started by becoming difficult to dismiss, then added more attacking shots. By 2004 I had got to the point that I won the League batting award. Added to there were sundry club awards. 2005 and 2006 saw me score fourteen 50s in total and amass loads of runs.

However things are now not so rosey. From 7 50s in 2006 I dropped to 2 last year. What was worse was that I knew I wasn't playing as well as I could. Partly it was due to a lack of fitness, partly to a niggling back injury, but I felt that it was also partly that maybe I had peaked the season before and was now on the decline.

Having fought so hard to get my batting up to standard I am not sure how much longer I can play when I know I am not playing well. And if I find myself dropping down the order again, at what point do I call it a day?

Because of this I took up golf. I've fancied it for a while. It's a sport that you never master. It's also a sport that you can play on your own. This appeals to me. If I fail with the bat at cricket I let my team down. If I play a bad round at golf it only impacts on me.

Now I'm not that great yet. I still have the beginners' handicap of 28. The lessons are ongoing and I really enjoy it. Yes I play some god-awful shots but the occasional good shots erase the bad ones from my mind.

So if this is middle age then I think I welcome it. There's a lot to be said for being content with yourself.

The Sage Returns

2007-10-27T21:25:00.000+01:00

It's been a long time, but I'm back. There's so much that I could stay but for now let's return to the general premise from the last post: my adventures in quizland.

Since the last post I have risen to number 46 in the UK quiz rankings. This doesn't mean that I've suddenly become good. I'm just a little less average than I was before. In the Order of Merit I was awarded the rank of Sage. A naff title, but what it means is that based on performances last season I am in the 4th tier of quizzing (after Grand Masters, Masters and Candidate Masters, but better than Novices). Actually my performances weren't of Sage standard (IMHO), but I simply didn't attend enough events to earn enough points to qualify for Candidate Master status. So far this season I am comfortably ahead of the qualification pace for CM. So hopefully this time next year I will have moved up a grade.

In 2 weeks time I head off to Blackpool for the European Championships. These promise to bigger and better than ever before. But Blackpool???? Bad memories of NUS Conference squalor come flooding back. I'm sure it'll be great, and with people coming from all over Europe not to mention India and the US I'm really looking forward to it.

So I'm back. Older, and a little wiser than before. But I'll leave it there while I ponder which nuggets of my life outside quiz to bore you with.

Take care

General Ignorance

2007-02-16T10:29:00.000Z

I'm pretty good at pub quizzes. When I go to a pub quiz I expect to be there or there abouts when the winners are announced. I started quizzing regularly around 94/95 in Canterbury and I always had this ability to fish answers out that I didn't even know I knew. One case in point was the following question:

Which British composer wrote an aria entitled 'motherfucker'?

Walton, Arnold, Handel? None of them seemed right. From somewhere, at the last minute, I came up with Michael Tippett. It was correct, and from that point on, any answer plucked from nowhere was known by our team as Tippett of the week.

Much of the skill in quizzing is making educated guesses if you don't know the answer. You come up with a shortlist of answers and discount those that don't fit the bill. Often this leaves you with two options invariably including your first thought. In that case you should always go with your first thought. Cognitive scientists will tell you this is because you subconsciously processed the question as soon as you heard it and called on knowledge that is salted away at the back of your mind to come up with the answer. It's not foolproof but you would be suprised at how often following your instinct works.

This all came to mind a few weeks ago when I was at the Northampton Quiz Grand Prix. Pretty much every month the creme de la creme of the quizzing world (plus me) get together in a different part of the country to take part in some intensive competition. You start with the individual competition: 6 genres, 30 questions per genre, 80 minutes to complete your answers. Yes we really do sit exams for fun! Your worst genre score gets dropped leaving you with a score out of 150. I had my worst grand Prix performance in terms of score and ended up just on the downward slope near the top of the bell curve (approx 40th out of 62). But there were positives to be taken from it. I remained strong in my best area - entertainment and I picked up some points in my weak subjects - science, classics due to some revision I had undertaken in the lead up to the event. Nonetheless it was a disappointing result.

After lunch there was a round of buzzer quiz matches (think University Challenge). My team lost by virtue of a, not buzzing in quickly enough an b, when we did being rewarded with bonus questions on things we didn't know, whilst c, the other team got bonuses we'd have been alright on. Such is the way of things.

There was a film based bingo quiz where we performed very strongly. Whilst we didn't win (due to the bingo nature of the game) we did outscore the winners and the team with the current European numbers 1 and 2.

Then I came into my own. There was a team quiz in a pub quiz style but much much tougher. In the rounds on film, music, tv etc I shone. We were in a good position but in the end fell by the wayside. And who should crop up in this quiz? My old friend Tippett. Based upon my experience of over a decade ago, when asked about a classical piece debuted in the 60s Tippett came to mind. I was right, alas my team over-ruled me.

After dinner there was more buzzer quizzing and general chat. The quizzing fraternity is really, in general a fantastic body of people and I am booked in for the next Grand Prix in sunny Wakefield on March 3rd.

So how did I get into all of this? Well, I currently attend 2 quizzes per week. One a general knowledge pub quiz and one a music quiz. Then one night myself and my partner were in a local pub when we noticed a different type of quiz going on. 2 teams of 4, a question master, and questions that were both hard and interesting.

After the match was over I approached the home team and offered my services if they were ever short of a player. I ended up playing for the rest of the season and in that time we only lost one game. I was now hooked on higher level quizzing. Unfortunately the quiz league folded at the end of that season and I was now suffering withdrawal symptoms. Then by chance I found out about the 2006 Northampton Grand Prix and went along. It was brilliant. Not only did I perform suprisingly well but I was in the company of Mastermind winners, Brains of Britain, two Millionnaire winners, two Eggheads and the reigning British, World and European champion - Kevin Ashman.

After that I only managed to attend one other Grand Prix in 2006 (Slough), but I did compete in the European Championships in Paris last December. That is a post for another day.

Future posts will also cover my subsequent quizzing adventures and also progress on my master plan to improve my quiz performances. But enough for now. Until next time.

I've been bad

2006-12-13T11:42:00.002Z

No posts for such a long time. Well, the blog is going to have a revamp an a refocus. watch this space.

Those were the days my friend

2006-07-25T14:10:00.001+01:00

This is my penultimate day in my job. On Thursday I suffer the ritual leaving do, with all the accompanying speaches and flattery. Am I happy to be going? In a way I am. I will really miss the people and I will miss the job. I wish I had had the chance to do this job with more resources, or indeed with the resources that my successor will be getting (on my recommendation). It wasn't to be.

But I am so very tired, and I will not miss my commute. The new job, let's call it 'Envirocash', is a massive new challenge. If I don't do my job, people lose theirs. I am ready for the challenge. It is time to stretch myself and reawaken the potential that I know is inside me.

As one door closes another opens. My cricket team call me 'cliche man' because of my on-field verbosity. I suppose I have just proved the truth in that nickname.

Could be worse!

Feelin hot hot hot

2006-07-17T17:08:00.000+01:00

We are in the middle of a July in a Summer that is destined to be known as "The Long Hot Summer of 06". In my office the temperature is currently 27degreesC. Outside it is 32 or 33. In my garden I am having a constant battle to keep this season's plants alive whilst battling the weeds that perversely don't seem to require water.

Not so long ago I was a tourist in !Paris . The temperature was around 27 every day and it felt too hot. Now I long for such moderate temperatures. At the weekend I played two cricket matches and it really took it out of me. The first wasn't too bad, but yesterday we spent 3 hours fielding in 30+ degree heat. So what? you cry. Well in my case as a wicket keeper that meant 3 hours of squats in 30 degree heat with the (more than) occasional dive for the ball. Despite two drinks breaks during that innings, at tea I worked my way through over two litres of fluid and was still thirsty when I went out to bat. Lucky then, that I wasn't batting for long. My dehydrated body was unable to cope with a delivery that would have probably beaten me at my peak. As it was I stood statuesque as the ball swung like a banana and took out my leg stump.

Apparently we might be due a drop of rain in September. Here's hoping! For the foreseeable future there doesn't seem to be much chance of relief from the heat. It'll be 36+ on Wednesday and I'll be commuting to London. Hurrah

Peaks and troughs

2006-07-01T21:31:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since my last post. That's not due to a lack of things to write about, in fact quite the opposite. For the friend who asked what my new job is, I suggest that you google my name. I just did and the bit about me by my new employers featured on the first page of results.

So what has been going on. Well for the past month I have been working part-time between my old and new jobs. It's been a killer and to be honest I will be glad when I am full-time at the new place. It's not that I dislike my old place - in fact I love the people there. It's just that I am working 2/3 days a week there and trying to do a week's work in that time.

The new job is a challenge. One hell of a challenge. It looks as if it is not just my job riding on my ability but those of the other staff. There is some breathing space before things start getting dicey but this is very much the real world!

So amidst all of that, I went on holiday last week. Paris was the destination and we had a hotel in a fantastic location near the Arc de Triomphe. We did all the sites - Eiffel Tower, river trip, Notre Dame, Les Invalides, EuroDisney, Louvre and had a great time.

After 17 years my schoolboy French was a little rusty. I'm sure my grammar may have been poor (it always was) and I was told I speak French with an English accent (well duh) but I managed to engage in numerous conversations and make myself understood.

The French people were wonderful. They were helpful and hospitable. French schoolchildren obviously undergo a metamorphosis at some point because they were loud, rude, pushy and jostly. It is hard to believe that they turn into the courteous and polite adults we encountered.

The holiday was a real high in a tough few months, even though an accident on the motorway near Charles De Gaulle airport meant that our return was a whisker away from being thwarted. We made it to check-in with 90 seconds to spare!

An hour or so after arriving home last night I watched the second part of the West-Wing election. One of the main actors died earlier this year and this episode dealt with the death of his character. I cried, I'm not sure whether the tears were for the actor or the character, probably both. It was a fitting send-off.

The World Cup has been an obvious major factor in the last few weeks. Tonight England went out. We've been poor throughout the tournament but I felt that today we got rough justice. Portugal were cynical and it hurts to see them progress. But we would not have made it past France/Brazil anyway. So after the holiday high the football provided a real low.

That low was followed quickly by a punch-the-air brilliant episode of Doctor Who. The first episode of a two-part season finale was so good it gave me an immediate lift.

So where does that leave me? A cricket match tomorrow and then back to my temporary job-share. Au Revoir for now mes amis.

Holidays (or vacations)

2006-05-11T11:19:00.000+01:00

Last night talk turned to holidays and where we are planning on going this Summer. J said that she would like to go to Scotland as she hasn't really seen much of it. Another option was North Wales because Snowdonia and the North Wales coast are my favourite bits of the British Isles. We didn't resolve anything, but this got me to thinking about past holidays. So here is my rundown or racent favourites:

South Africa
I've been to South Africa twice - in 97 and 99. It is a stunningly beautiful country. On my first trip I drove round the country from Johannesburg down through the Zulu War battlefields (Rorke's Drift and Isandhlwana) to Durban. In Durban I stayed with John and Hillary and their family (friends of my cousin). From Durban I drove along the South Coast to Grahamstown where I met up with a pen friend. Then I continued along the Garden Route to cape Town. I have to say that Cape Town is my favourite city. I love the place and could quite happily live there. A short stay in the winelands of Stellenbosch and Franschoek were a prelude to a drive through the Karoo desert to Kimberley and its Great Hole. Then from Kimberley it was back to Pretoria and Jo'burg.

On my second trip I spent less time in the car. I started off in Cape Town staying with my friends Antony and Tina. Then I went to Stellenbosch for a few days before heading to Durban. With John, Hillary and some friends we went camping in a game reserve in Zululand. Having met up with my cousin, he and I headed to the Mkuzi and Kruger game reserves and saw wonderful animals in their natural habitats. Lions, zebras, rhinos, elephants. The list goes on.

I would recommend South Africa to anyone. Just do your research, don't take unnecessary risks and you'll have a great time.

Rome & Pompeii
I've been to Rome 3 times now, twice with J. It's a great city for someone who loves history. Each time I've discouvered wonderful new treasures. A personal favourite is Nero's Golden House (Domus Aurea)which is currently closed due to water damage. Nonetheless this buried palace is a fantastic insight into the life of Nero.

Pompeii is just incredible. In Britain our Roman remains are usually a line of bricks on the ground marking where walls used to be. The baths in Bath and Hadrians Wall are as good as it gets. Yet Pompeii actually feels like a city. You don't need much imagination because it is all there, complete with graphiti and lewd brothel paintings. The plastercasts of dead inhabitants are incredibly moving and all in all it is the sort of place that you need days to explore, rather than the 2 hours we had.

Crete
This was the first holiday that J and I had together. we stayed in Agios Nicolios (forgive my spelling). This is a lovely quiet town, away from the clubbers and ravers. The highlight of the trip was a hike through the 18km Samaria Gorge. Plunging into the sea at the end of that was the very definition of the word "aaaahhhhhhh".

40 hours

2006-05-11T11:13:00.000+01:00

This new job that I've got will free up at least 40 hours a month. That's 40 hours that I won't have to spend on a train. 40 hours that can give me back a social life. 40 hours that will mean that I am not permanently knackered.

40 hours is more than a working week that will be returned back to me. I will be able to take up my painting agin, spend more time in my garden, go to the cinema on a week night. The options, while not wildly exciting will make a massive difference to my quality of life.

The fly in the oinment is that my new job is a tough challenge. So if things don't go so well, my 40 hours will be eaten into as I work longer and longer hours in order to generate the cash needed to pay my wages. However I have confidence. Confidence in my ability to succeed in this new role. Confidence that this is an opportunity before me and not a threat.

Only time will tell.

I cried twice on Saturday

2006-05-01T10:39:00.000+01:00

in a good way.

On Saturday afternoon my football team, Northampton Town won promotion to League 1. It was a tense, nervous day and we scraped the 1-0 win that took us up. At the end there was a massive pitch invasion but I stayed in the stands, observing with tears in my eyes. It was a sense of overwhelming relief rather than joy, and that is not at all what I would have predicted beforehand.

Then on Saturday evening there was a fantastic episode of Doctor Who. There was a scene right at the end which brought tears to my eyes for the second time that day. If you are unfamiliar with Doctor Who it is probably too difficult to explain what made me cry and why. Suffice to say that this this is Saturday tea-time sci-fi for a family audience. So to have such an emotional impact is credit to the fantastic writing and acting.

Exciting News

2006-04-19T16:24:00.003+01:00

For a while your life sputters on, nothing much happening and then whammo! Everything is thrown up in the air.

In ascending order of importance

Exciting news 1
Doctor Who returned to our screens on Saturday. 3 more months of sci-fi genius to follow!

Exciting news 2
The cricket season starts soon and I have had a new bat made. The exciting news does get more exciting - honest.

Exciting news 3
At the weekend I found out that 2 of my friends are expecting babies in September

Exciting news 4
I was offered a new job yesterday. A very exciting job, closer to home (so adios to the commute) and a little more cash.

Judas

2006-04-18T17:01:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday night I was on a boat on the River Thames. It was a wedding reception for an old University friend and it was a darn good evening.

During the course of the evening I got into a discussion with a friend (let's call him Alf) about Judas and the newly discovered gospel thereof. A drunken discussion ensued - the sort you had at Uni and when you thought you were being terribly profound.

My theory was thus: I think Judas got a bad rap and was the victim of some extremely negative spin.

Theory 1, - Jesus knew that Judas would betray him because it was predestined. Therefore Judas had no choice in the matter whatsoever. If the gospels are right and that the devil entered into Judas at the last supper then it is the devil's work and not Judas'.

Theory 2, - Jesus knew that in order to fulfil prophecies and his teachings he had to be betrayed (a martyrs death) and then triumph over death (the resurrection). Without his death and resurrection Jesus could simply be dismissed as one of the many holy men or prophets that were around at the time attracting followers. Messianic cults were numerous although most were based around the violent overthrow of the Roman occupation.

Therefore Jesus had to have an accomplice to facilitate his martyrdom. Step forward Judas. Was Judas the only one Jesus could trust with this task? What about Peter? No, he showed his lack of spine by the triple denial. Judas on the other hand is the only disciple called a friend by Jesus.

As a Judean Judas had greater access to the Sanhedrin (Jewish high council) than a Galilean. Perhaps only he could convince the High Priest Caiaphas to send troops to arrest Jesus.

One final point - Jesus need not have died. He knew he was going to be betrayed, so why did he not 'out' Judas at the last supper and let the disciples deal with the traitor. why did he not flee as soon as he got wind of treachery? He could still have fled from the Garden of Gethsemene, why didn't he? Jesus knew he had to die. If his death was necessary then Judas was necessary for it to happen and he should not be damned for it. For only by Christ's death and resurrection are people saved (according to Christianity)- Jesus had to die and Judas helped it happen. But was he a traitor? We shall never know. But we do know that history is written by the winners and Judas was certainly not amongst those.

The glass half full

2006-04-13T10:47:00.000+01:00

I came across this in a book the other day. It was written by a guy called Robert Ardrey.

But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may become battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.

Rediscovery

2006-04-11T17:24:00.000+01:00

A couple of months ago I replaced my Zen Micro mp3 player with a Zen Vision:M. Without getting involved in techno-wank I have to say that it is a phenomenal piece of kit. For the first time in my life I have become an 'early adopter'. Which means I bought the ZV:M as soon as it was released, while there were bugs to be fixed and before accessories were available. Why did I do this? Because it is a bloomin brilliant object.

So far I have filled up 15gb of memory with songs. I prefer to have the Zen running on random which means that I get some wonderful suprises. Mostly these are due to the fact that a little while ago I bought a dvd off ebay that contained all of the Now compilation cds. that's 60 double albums dating back to the early 80s. On my Zen Micro I had to be picky and only upload the songs I knew I liked. But with my newly expanded memory I was able to put all of the albums on.

Welcome back, "Camouflage" by Stan Ridgeway, and "Land of Confusion" by Genesis. I had forgotten about you. Welcome to the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure - I hated you at the time, but now appreciate you. The Christians, Utah Saints, Carter USM, McAlmont and Butler - all groups that produced songs I love but not albums I own. I had forgotten how good they sounded and now I have them back again.

The downside is that there is also an inordinate amount of shite on those albums but it takes just a second to skip past Darude and on to Shola Ama, or bypass DJ Sammy and check out They Might Be Giants.

I feel liberated by my rediscovery of the past. For a while I have felt my musical tastes contracting into a narrower band. Now my tastes are broadening again. When I get a new cd I don't have to worry about putting the tracks I like on the mp3 player, I can put them all on. The Arctic Monkeys being a recent beneficiary. And of course my 200+ cd collection is slowly being uploaded and I have taken a decision to only exclude songs I know to be crap rather than to only upload those I know I love. Today I felt the benefit. Once upon a time Symposium were the next big thing. I bough their first ep and liked some of it. Then they disappeared. Yesterday I uploaded the ep and today one of the songs cropped up. It wasn't one I knew but I liked it. If I had been picky I would probably have never known that.

So my advice, for what it's worth, is to get a large capacity mp3 player (30gb or more) to fill it with everything you have and to put it on random. Go on a journey. See what you will discover!

can it really be amonth since I last wrote?

2006-03-24T11:15:00.000Z

Well yes. But there are good reasons for that m'lud. Firstly my girlfriend broke her wrist so I have been having to drive her to work before hopping on a train to London every day. Then the same thing in reverse. This has meant that I am not working my full hours and have to cram everything into a shorter time. Secondly, I'm knackered because of it. Thirdly we are now in the busiest time of the year at work, and to make matters worse a third party is trying to sink our charity.

So here I am, back again, not really raring to go but I thought i had better stop the rot.

What's happened in the past month? It's kind of hard to recall. But here are a few highlights.

A couple of days ago I met up with an old University friend. I knew I hadn't seen her for a while but it turns out that I hadn't seen her for 5 years and a day. since her wedding day in fact. Time really does pass quickly as you get older.

A couple of weeks ago I made a big leap and changed cricket clubs. I had played for my old club for 8 years and needed a change. I have been playing formy new club on Sundays but now I have gone the whole hog and will be playing Saturday and sunday throughout the Summer.

Talking of which I hope the Summer will turn up at some point. Because we are now a good way through Spring (according to the calendar) and yet Winter seems to be reticent to leave. Despite what I have just said the garden is starting to come to life with my bulbs making an appearance. It's nice to have some colour in the garden after the drabness of the past few months.

The football season is drawing to a close and my team seems to be stumbling in its efforts to gain automatic promotion. Just 8 games to go now and we need 5 wins if we are to avoid the dreaded play-offs.

Other than that, I don't think there is much to report that would interest anyone. So I'll stop until something comes to mind.

Good to be back!

Sod the rising sea levels....

2006-02-24T10:42:00.000Z

...global warming is affecting me in a much worse way. here in the UK we have had a dry and mild Winter. As a consequence all of those evil little bugs that come out to play in Winter have been able to breed unchecked.

Pretty much everyone in our office has had the flu. I had it a couple of weeks ago and it was a nasty b'stard of an illness. Aches, a fever, coughing, sweats, shivers, headaches - the works. Then, having just got over that my beloved came down with what has been dubbed 'the winter vomiting virus'. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

It has been nearly a week and she seems to be over the worst which is great. But on the train this morning, jammed in like sardines I suddenly started to feel nauseous. A swift drink of evian allayed the danger. I made it all the way to work, and now I feel a little better, but I wonder whether I am now going to think myself ill.

So, positive healthy thoughts from now on, and I will try to supress and rumblings/gurglings from down below.

Curse you damned cfcs!!!

Brits

2006-02-17T11:18:00.000Z

They say that you should never meet your heroes. Well I'm not so sure about that. As long as you haven't built up an unrealistic picture of them in your imagination you generally get what you expect and often much more.

However, watching The Brits last night I decided that perhaps the maxim should be changed to "you should never see your heroes drunk". The Kaiser Chiefs won three awards and each time they went to collect an award they dropped in my estimation. I had based my perceptions of the band on their lyrics, music, and image. What I saw last night was a bunch of incomprehensible drunks who were incapable of stringing a sentence together or saying anything remotely interesting or witty. What a shame.

Coldplay on the other hand were every bit as you would expect. Bland. I like their music but it rarely shocks you, and that was like their behaviour at the Brits. You can't imagine them trashing a hotel room after a riotous night of drinking. But you can imagine them folding the towels neatly and doing the dusting before checking out.

Paul weller won the lifetime achievement award. Well deserved, but strangely he didn't seem to have the requisite gravitas to close the show. An odd choice of songs didn't help and I felt underwhelmed - which is a pity because I love The Jam, The Style Council and much of solo material.

Highlight of the night for me was Prince. Years ago when I was at University I bored people rigid by insiting that although he had gone bonkers and was purveying paint-by-numbers funk/soul he was actually a fantastic guitarist. Well at this years Brits he rolled back the years and put on a show-stealing performance with some exquisite guitar playing. The guy still has star quality and I hope we see more in the vein of Purple Rain in the future.

Other than that, awards went to James Blunt (most annoying twonk in popular music) and Green day (most over-rated bunch of middle class white boys playing at being punks).

Tonight it's the Bafta film awards. Hurrah!

You say tomato...

2006-02-16T16:56:00.001Z

The big topic in conversation at work today has been how to pronounce the word croissant.

M pronounces it crossont whereas I pronounce it kwasson. Now clearly I am right and M is wrong. The question of course is - who cares? A rose by any other name smells as sweet and no doubt M's crossont tastes as nice as a normal croissant.

Still it passed 10 minutes of the day.

The Passing of Common Sense!!!

2006-02-15T15:03:00.000Z

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who
has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was
since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as
knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the
worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend
more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not
children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but
overbearing regulations were set in place.

Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for
kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash
after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student,
only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the
job they failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental
consent to administer paracetamol, sun lotion or a sticky plaster to a
student; but, could not inform the parents when a student became
pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became
contraband; police forces became businesses; and criminals received
better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a
burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to
realise that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in
her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust;
his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son,
Reason.

He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else
is to Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realised he was gone.

-------------------

sadly I can't take credit for this but I like it nonetheless

So much to write about....

2006-02-03T11:47:00.000Z

... but I will have to compress it all into one post.

Last Friday I went to lunch at the Reform Club with a University friend. A fine day of fine food, fine wine, and fine company ensued.

On saturday, (with only a moderate hangover) I went to Northampton for the Quiz Grand Prix. Run by quizzing.co.uk the Grand Prix provide a very tough quiz and from the results compile national rankings. The current Mastermind champion and past Millionairre winner Pat Gibson was there. As were Kevin Ashman and CJ Demooi from BBC1s Eggheads.

180 questions (6 rounds of 30) in 80 minutes under exam conditions. At the end of it your worst round is eliminated to give your final score out of 150. I scored 73 which I was informed was a very good score for a beginner. I was 40th out of 61. Now I'm a competetive soul and would not have been happy with that beforehand, but after doing the quiz I doff my cap to those who scored higher than me.

In the afternoon there was a team quiz. There were 2 superteams who unsuprisingly came 1st and 2nd, but the team I was on came 3rd. Hoorah!

10 seconds

2006-01-24T23:36:00.000Z

10 seconds shaved off my best time.

I thought i was doing well....

2006-01-19T15:38:00.000Z

because I have got my up-the-stairs time down to 3 minutes exactly. Then one of my colleagues did it in 1 minute 6 seconds. Ok he's hyper fit and pretty much ran up the stairs but really! There shouldn't be 2 minutes difference between us.

More work needed I think.

Still no chocolate, am eating less thanks to Paul McKenna and I have a Max&Paddy session this evening. Onwards and upwards!

4.5 minutes

2006-01-16T12:57:00.000Z

that's my lunchtime up-the-stairs benchmark. I expect to improve significantly

You Fat Ba*tard

2006-01-16T09:40:00.000Z

Evrey year after Christmas I start to get myself fit for the new cricket season. This means I have 4.5 months in which to shake off my excess bulk and gain the ability hit a ball and run backwards and forwards along a 22 yard cricket pitch.

I don't so much go on a diet as cut out the crap. That means no crisps, chocolate or sugary fizzy drinks. In previous years that has been enough for me to lose as much as 1 stone.

This year I need to lose more. I weighed myself the other day out of interest and found that I am heavier than I have ever been. The weight doesn't bother me so much as the lack of fitness. We had a fire alarm last week at work, which involved walkiing down 12 floors. That was no problem. When we went back into the building I did what i usually do and walked back up rather than wait for a lift. For the first time in a long while I struggled.

So this year I have more work to do in order to lose more weight than before and to get fitter.

Here is the plan:

1, Cut out the crap as usual
2, Eat according to Paul McKenna's plan.
3, Walk upstairs to my office every lunchtime
4, Exercise more often - at least 3 times a week for 1 hour minimum at a time.

To help with point 1 I have gone back to an old favourite - popcorn. Popcorn has virtually no calories and if you microwave it there is no fat in it. It is an ideal food to fill you up without fattening you. Perfect for those mid-morning munchies.

Paul Mckenna's plan is interesting. It is currently on tv and really it is just about sensible eating. I eat very quickly. McKenna says that people who eat quickly do not give their stomach enough time to send the 'full' signal back to the brain and therefore overeat and end up feeling bloated. These extra calories become fat if not burnt off. By eating more slowly I have found that I am eating less because I am stopping when my brain gets the 'Full' message.

The walking upstairs thing starts today. It is the part of the process that I am least looking forward to.

Exercise. Well i have cricket nets on Sundays, but added to that I have bought "Max and Paddy's Power of Two" dvd. I did my first session yesterday and found it to be a good workout. I get bored with plain exercises so the fact that they combine comedy with exercise meant that the process was more bearable. How I'll find it when I've seen the dvd a dozen times - God only knows.

So there we are. I have the ambition of losing 18 pounds. Thats roughly a pound a week and I know it's a tall order. I will be pleased if I lose less but feel my fitness is up to scratch.

I will keep you updated.

Nothing much to say...

2006-01-06T15:33:00.000Z

...I'm in a post Christmas slump :(

So I thought I'd post a couple of photo montages taken from my office. They were attempts to capture a beautiful sunset using my phone.

Click on th eimages to make them larger.

By way of explanation, the sunset is just slightly to the left of the Houses of Parliament. At the join between photo 1 and 2 you can just make out the London Eye. In the right hand frame you can see St Paul's Cathedral

9 Days that shook London

2006-01-04T13:44:00.000Z

I watched the above titled documentary last night and it made my blood boil. It purported to examine Live 8, The Olympic Bid, The Bombings, the G8 and the VE Day celebrations. Instead it was a snide, snipey piece of character assassination.

The Live 8 segment concentrated on trying to demonstrate how Make Poverty History was betrayed by Bob Geldoff. Looking as if it were put together by a 1st year media studies student, all it did was to make the anti-poverty movement look petty and childish. Yes it was an achievement to get all those people to Edinburgh, but to then bleat about the fact that Live 8 got all the headlines misses the point. Demonstrations do not make attractive news stories. Whereas Live 8 got an anti-poverty message across to millions if not billions on tv, and then again through acres of press coverage. Organisations like WDM moande that Geldoff was too close to the Government and thus he was more welcoming of the outcome than the main Make Poverty History activists.

Well I think that perhaps getting an intimate dialogue with Government might be a more effective means of changing policy than dressing as clowns in camouflage gear and painting lipstick smiles on police riot shields. No the Government and the G8 did not completely cancel 3rd world debt but they did move in the right direction. Without Live 8 would they have gone further? I seriously doubt it. These campaigners seemed like people who were almost happier to stay untainted by association with the Government and thus fail, than to engage with the reality of the political process. I bet at University these people stuck stickers on lamposts.

The bombings were handled sensitively, and the Olympic segment was perilously close to being interesting, although the snide suggestion that Live8 only got the go-ahead in order to boost the Olympic Bid was tittle tattle worthy of the Daily Star. Of course the bid team used it, they would be fools not to - but really! You just got the feeling that throughout the documentary axes were being ground and to criticise the VE celebrations for stage managing the visuals just seemed pathetic.

The 9 days featured in the documentary included a number of triumphs and one tragedy that was dealt with fantastically. If I hadn't lived through it all, based on last night's programme I would think that the only people in London are bumbling buffoons, out of touch remnants of the 60s, egotists and terrorists.

I'm sorry, but good as the MPH campaign was, it was never going to fully achieve its aims in 2005. Prior to the advent of Live 8 it was only really achieving public awareness in the liberal/left, people already susceptible to such arguements. To really pressurise the G8 there needed to be something big, something crossing boundaries of age, class, race, religion, politics, and nationality. Live 8 provided that platform. People will survive hunger, and fight Aids now because of what happened at the G8. If even one extra life was saved then it was worth the effort.

The question is how to keep exerting the pressure. There can't be another Live 8, so what next for MPH? Wrist bands are so 2005!

Mixed Feelings

2005-12-18T18:53:00.000Z

I got back from my holiday in Rome on Friday evening. We had a great break - too short if the truth be told. On Saturday my post holiday euphoria was brought down by the news that the actor John Spencer has died.

Spencer played Leo McGarry in the West Wing, one of my favourite shows. In the series currently being shown in the US he was playing a central role. Previously the Chief of Staff to the President, McGarry is currently runnign for Vice President. How the writers will cope with his untimely death remains to be seen, but whatever twists they introduce into the plotline the fact remains that the actor and the character will both be sorely missed.

r.i.p John

incommunicado

2005-12-11T18:00:00.000Z

No not the Marillion song. I am not going to be online for the next week. More info when I an back in the land of the functioning computer.

Cameron

2005-12-06T17:42:00.000Z

So Tory-boy David Cameron won the leadership election. That really should not bother me, not being a Tory and all. He really ought to represent everything that I despise, I ought to find him odious. And to be fair at times I do. The problem is however, that in respect of the voluntary sector (in which I work) he speaks sense and has been doing so for quite some time.

So whereas at the moment the voluntary sector is in an abusive relationship with the Government (after every slap in the face we come back for more), in Cameron we see a sexy potential new partner. A partner who is whispering sweet nothings in our ear, and in doing so is showing up quite how bad things have got in our current long term relationship.

I had got to thinking that maybe I was just being seduced by a Siren, luring me onto the rocks and that he really wasn't as sound (in voluntary sector policy) as i thought. But then colleagues of mine went to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations annual lecture a couple of weeks ago. They are all much more radical lefties than I and yet they came back impressed. Innovative ideas and nothing you could disagree with.

It reminds me of the Alan Alda character who has just cropped up in the West Wing - a Republican you like - shit! It's much easier having certainies, us v them, good guys v bad guys, but the lines are now blurred.

Of course when Labour were in opposition they made much the same noises that Cameron is and then once in power their views changed. I have no reason to believe that the Tories would be any more trustworthy, but what they will do in the meantime is eat away at a core component of Labour's support.

I'm not ready to jump ship. I know that there are an awful lot of good people working for Labour, but this Government needs to get its act together. One Govt department that I have dealings with operates in a way that borders on corruption, whilst another is plainly incompetent and in trying disguise its incompetence it creates even more problems. The brunt of which are born by the voluntary sector because we are just dying to alter our services on a whim in order to deliver the Government's agenda. Yeah right!

My only hope is that a senior cabinet minister who may one day be PM has now been made aware of the chaos. Perhaps - perhaps - s/he will pull the rug from under Cameron as far as the voluntary sector goes. I hope so!

the world ended last week

2005-11-26T23:21:00.000Z

Well you'd have thought so by the way the press was wittering on. The reason? Britain finally got some pub licensing hours that treat us like adults.

If you believed the right wing press then chaos would have been unleashed on the nation as we all turned into binge drinking asbos-in-waiting. So what happened? On the first night, no problems. Since then? No problems. And whys that?

1, Closing times are now staggered meaning that everyone isn't pitched out onto the street at the same time, fighting over cabs and in other ways clashing.

2, Without so much time pressure people don't drink so much in a short space of time

I knew this would be the case because of my past experience as the licensee of a small students' union. After a couple of years of having to go cap-in-hand to the magistrates court every time we wanted an extension to our hours I decided to apply for a Section 77 Special Hours Certificate. This meant that we could serve until 2am on Thurs, Fri & Saturday (rather than 11pm). Did chaos and disorder descend? No - there were no more problems than before. Did people drink more? No our takings remained the same, so actually we lost money because of increased staff wage costs.

There will be some teething troubles and cultural change is not a quick process, but it is about time this particular change was made whatever David Davis or the Daily Mail think.

Harry Potter

2005-11-24T17:39:00.000Z

We went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night. I was interested to see how they would distill a sloppy 750 page book into a decent film. I knew there would be fantastic special effects, and due to the actors involved, some great performances too. I needn't have worried - the film is pretty good.

SPOILER ALERT

Firstly, I think at times too much prior knowledge was assumed. Of course most of the people watching the film will have read the book, but nonetheless Death Eater related matters for example were never really explained.

Secondly, the Quidditch World Cup was a missed opportunity. They almost pulled it off, but it appeared to be the victim of savage editing.

Onto the positives. The chemistry between the stars is great. Espcially Hermione at the end of the Yule Ball.

Two of the new characters are outstandingly portrayed: Mad Eye Moody and Barty Crouch Jr.

The visuals are at times breathtaking. perhaps there are too many to cite - so I won't try.

The biggest downside to the film is that it is a trifle long. It was almost as if the Director did not know whether to have short hair or long hair and ended up with a mullet. There were plot-lines that did not make much sense because crucial scenes had been cut. The film would have been better without such sub-plots.

But on the whole it was an enjoyable film, and one that I will be buying when it comes out on DVD. So it can't be too bad!

today's last song

2005-11-24T17:38:00.000Z

"Sound of the Underground" by Girls Aloud

today's last song

2005-11-23T11:14:00.000Z

"The Price I Pay" by Billy Bragg

today's last song

2005-11-22T10:08:00.000Z

"Shoulda woulda coulda" by Beverley Knight

today's last song

2005-11-21T13:03:00.000Z

"Give it away" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

today's last song

2005-11-18T10:29:00.000Z

was "Never can say goodbye" by Gloria Gaynor

yesterday's was:
"Set adrift on memory bliss" by PM Dawn

This morning's last song

2005-11-15T10:13:00.000Z

"Reward" by The Teardrop Explodes

Today's final song

2005-11-14T09:53:00.000Z

"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths

11/11

2005-11-11T20:52:00.000Z

I was at a meeting in Cambridge today when I heard a loud bang. It was a field gun signalling the start of a 2 minute silence.

There was a time when I was so terribly right-on that I wouldn't wear a poppy. I viewed it as a symbol of militarism and made an unnoticed statement by not wearing a poppy.

But something happened about 10 years ago that changed me. My Great Aunt died and when we were clearing her house we found a box of letters. The letters were from my Great Uncle Sam. Samuel Parry died on 27th March 1918 in the second battle of the Somme. He was 19.

Samuel enlisted in 1916. He was underage, but when he had failed to join up with other young men from his local church the minister sent him a note with four white feathers in it. So Sam lied about his age and joined the Northamptonshire Regiment.

The letters he sent back were heart-breaking. This young lad saw things that no-one should ever see. His letters to his sister were full of the bravado one thinks of in relation to WW1 - Dulce Et decorum etc etc. But the letters to his parents were painful. He was trying to put on a brave front but between every line was the heartfelt cry of a scared young lad who just wanted to go home. I wept for him.

His last letter was the worst of all. He gave up all pretence of a stiff upper lip. The German Offensive started on the 21st March. On the 26th the Northamptonshire Regiment took heavy losses and Sam's best friend died in his arms. On the 27th Sam was killed. His body was never found.

So I felt like a fool. My pathetic statement did nothing except fail to show appropriate respect to the countless people like Sam who answered their country's call and gave up their lives.

I certainly do not agree with many of the decisions that have led our armed forces into conflict situations, but all along my problem was really with the politicians not the soldiers. So every year I wear my poppy as a symbol of my gratitude to Sam and others like him and pray that future politicians make wise decisions.

Who knows if I would ever have met Sam had he survived the war. In some way, through his letters I feel that he has already spoken to him.

Rest in Peace Sam.

Name: PARRY, SAMUEL WILLIAM
Initials: S W
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Private
Regiment: Northamptonshire Regiment
Unit Text: 7th Bn.
Date of Death: 27/03/1918
Service No: 25255

today's last song

2005-11-10T09:53:00.000Z

"Buck Rogers" by Feeder

today's last song

2005-11-09T15:42:00.000Z

"Everything Must Go" Manic Street Preachers

brush with mortality

2005-11-08T21:10:00.000Z

Two weeks ago I had to go and see the doctor with severe chest pains. I'd had them for a week and initally brushed them off, but gradually they got worse, and at times the pain was debilitating.

I'm carrying a some excess poundage and so naturally 2 & 2 were put together and a heart related problem seemed the obvious cause. It's at times like these that all of a sudden you come face to face with the prospect of death. No longer an abstract or far off concept it was at my doorstep.

As a pre-emptive step I started taking aspirin, garlic tablets and pro-biotic yoghurt drinks in the foolish hope that I could turn back time. It's funny what you do when you realise how careless you have been.

I am at an age where you can no longer think that these things can't happen to you. 2 of my contemporaries have had breast cancer - so perhaps I should have been more on guard.

Anyway, I went to see the Doctor and after examining me he diagnosed me with costochondritis (Tietze's Syndrome). Not a heart related condition after all, but the inflamation of chest cartilage. It's rare and unexplained condition that hits men between 20 and 40. I've taken anti-inflammatories and the condition has eased but not entirely disappeared.

So what has this experience taught me? Well, I'm eating more healthily and aim to do more sport during the cricket close season. But fundamentally it just made me more aware of the passage of time. I'm now turning my mind to other issues - what do I want to do with my life?, is it time to start a familly?. Both issues have implications that are far from easy to deal with, but more on them another time.

today's last song...

2005-11-08T09:54:00.000Z

...was "Fell in love with a boy" by Joss Stone

this morning's last track...

2005-11-07T11:07:00.000Z

was Happy Hour by The Housemartins. I came perilously close to Pure & Simple by Hear'say. Phew!

Last song of the morning

2005-11-04T09:56:00.000Z

Each morning I list to my mp3 player on the train and as a sort of recurring feature I will post on here what the last song was that I listened to. This isn't some attempt to show you what a cool music collection I have. If the Ketchup Song is the last song I heard I will put it down. So today's last song of the morning tm was:

Rocket Man by Elton John

eye eye

2005-11-04T09:51:00.000Z

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. In a sense .Yesterday i got contact lenses, and today I am freaking out everyone in the office - none of whom have ever seen me without my glasses (except for the 2 that have seen me in the shower - but that's another story).

So the journey in to work today was spent looking out of the train carriage (something I never do), appreciating a beautiful crisp late Autumn morning. All the while i am thinking is this better? I am sure everything looks sharper but in the middle/long distance (delete as applicable) is it a little bit dodgy?.

I know they are an improvement in terms of optical correction. The very nice Kiwi woman at Vision Express was very thorough. So I am sure that in a short space of time I will wonder what the problems were. I just hope that getting them in and out gets easier with practice.

Fantastic

2005-10-21T09:56:00.000+01:00

Now that is really whizzy!

nope

2005-10-21T09:53:00.000+01:00

here's another try

Video code provided by HotCodez.com

The ghost got the nod

2005-09-28T17:32:00.000+01:00

With 100% of the votes I start my latest blog with a rave about Hex http://www.skyone.co.uk/programme/pgeProgramme.aspx?pid=5 . We are 2 episodes into the 2nd season of Sky One's occult/fantasy drama. It's been compared with Buffy, but it's cleverer, darker, more complicated and funnier than Buffy ever was. Where it does compare is that neither were afraid to have lesbian characters. In the case of Hex there is a twist. Thelma, who suffers the pain of unrequited love in the form of Cassie, was killed violently and unexpectedly in episode 2 of season 1.

But thankfully that wasn't the last we were to see of her. For reasons that I shall not go into she was prevented from entirely leaving this world and is now a lesbian ghost. Her unrequited love now even less likely to be requited. One benefit that this wise-cracking ghostie has found is that she can eat all the chocolate she wants without any impact on her ghostly shape. Alas she was murdered in a tasteless party dress and doomed to wear it for the whole of season 1. Season 2 at least brought a change of clothes.

So what makes Hex so good? Well the dialogue is fantastic for starters (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423668/quotes). The casting is terrific, and the complexity of the mythology/back story just draws you in. Season 2 has taken things further - new characters, massive plot developments and shock upon shock - at the end of episode 2 Cassie was killed. Tear jerking stuff as Cassie passed away with Thelma desperately trying touch her hand as she died. To kill the lead character takes balls, but of course there will be twists to come, and in the meantime we have an amazingly sexy new character in Ella to drive the plot forward.

There are so many nice touches with Hex that it is hard to articulate what makes it so good. Thelma discovering another lesbian ghost from the 1920's was superb. You've just got to love dialogue like:

Thelma Bates: So, what are you doing here?
Peggy: Actually my father used to own this place?
Thelma Bates: Oh. Sorry.
Peggy: I died here in 1923. I'd like to say my husband caught me with the scullery maid, but actually it was the flu. How about you?
Thelma Bates: I was ritualistically sacrificed by a fallen angel.
Peggy: Ah, the flu, too, eh?

Apparently Thelma is to get another love interest this season. Hopefully it will be done well - it has thusfar - Libertas said: "one of the best lesbian characters to have hit our TV screens in a mainstream programme in some time". But there is so much more to Hex than sexuality, although the ways of the flesh have been rather a theme in the show since Cassie was impregnated by a fallen angel.

Hex is part Omen, part Carrie, part Buffy, part Randall and Hopkirk, and totally brilliant. Of course now I've raved about it it will probably be rubbish from now onwards. The same happened with Moonlighting I recall.

Last Sunday as I watched episode 2 I actually found myself shouting at the tv trying to warn Cassie that Azazeal was nearby, I found myself holding my breath due to tension, and i had to fight back tears. What a show!

So much...

2005-09-27T00:23:00.000+01:00

...to write about I don't know where to start. So here are some topics and I'll get round to writing them up in due course.

- The formation of the National Union of Mascots
- The return of Hex and the world's coolest lesbian ghost
- My Guernsey muppet experience
- Paint woes

If anyone has a preference let me know and I'll do my best to write about the one that interests them most

Ghosts

2005-09-15T16:26:00.000+01:00

Do I believe in ghosts? You know I'm not sure. Wegg (http://wegglywoo.blogspot.com/2005/09/shades.html) wrote a blog that evoked some memories from my childhood. I thought I'd share them cos either I was weird or my experiences were weird - and I'm not sure which.

The first occurance happened when I was aged around 6. I had been off school for almost 2 weeks with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, but by the time of the occurence I was pretty much recovered except for the blister-like marks that come with the disease. I only state this because it could be a possible explanation.

Anyway, I was off school and had been doing a jigsaw. At that time there wasn't much in the way of daytime tv and in the early afternoon there would be no programmes at all apart from the occasional schools programme.

On this day the tv was off, I was sitting on the sofa doing my jigsaw when I saw, reflected in the tv, the lounge door open and a girl walk in. She was my sort of age and height-wise judging by the reflection she would have been about 4-5 feet high. I turned around and the door was closed and there was no girl.

I looked back at the tv and she was still there, standing just inside the doorway. I went over to the tv (no remotes in those days) and turned it on, thinking there might be some fault and a programme was somehow being displayed. It wasn't - there was only the test card. So I switched the tv off and once the screen had calmed itself down I noticed that she was still there, standing in the same position. I looked closer and noticed she had a tartan skirt on. I don't remember what else she wore but i remember she had long hair.

By this point I was pretty freaked out. I left the room and went into the kitchen where my mum was (she always seemed to be there). We went back into the lounge but she couldn't see anything on the tv or elsewhere. I could, the girl was still there. I confess that I burst into tears and refused to stay in that room. The next day when I went into the lounge there was no girl but I remain convinced to this day that I saw her. Who she was, I have no idea.

The second occurance was stranger still. I was still young, under 10 but I'm not sure how young. I went into my parents' bedroom and on the other side of the room, sitting on an ottoman (a chest not a Turkish person) were my two Great-Aunts. I recognised them instantly. I said hello to them, they said nothing but just smiled. I went into the kitchen (yep she was there again) and asked my mum what Auntie Nel and Autie Eileen were doing there and why I hadn't been told they were coming. She just looked blank and said that she didn't know what i was talking about.

I went back to her bedroom determined to bring them out and prove that they were there, but alas nothing. They had gone. I can still see them now in my minds eye, as clear as day.

Of course it would make a great ending to the story if I said that we found out that evening they had both died that day, but that wasn't the case. Nel died 5 years or so later and Auntie Eileen only died about 3 or 4 years ago at the venerable age of 92.

In both of these cases I know what I saw, and I can still picture those moments very clearly even now. What the explanations are I don't know. Perhaps I was able to tap into something unworldly, perhaps I was bonkers. We shall probably never know.

This is what it should have been like back in July...

2005-09-15T10:21:00.000+01:00

...when we won the Olympic bid. We should have had a rosey glow for days on end. The joy of seeing the victory scenes replayed endlessly on tv. The reams of press coverage. The sheer unadulterated feelgood factor.

Well back in July 4 guys with bombs put a stop to that, but only temporarily. The win for the England cricket team in the Ashes is perhaps all the more sweet as the series was born in the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks. Where was the fear on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people crammed the streets of London and Trafalgar Square to cheer their Cricketing heroes? Let's also not forget that the England women's team won back the Ashes after a gap of over 40 years.

So even on this grey, rainy miserable day - there is still a lingering afterglow of Summer in the feelgood factor created by a bunch of guys who slapped leather with willow.

Damn those pesky Australians...

2005-09-08T17:55:00.000+01:00

can't they just roll over and let us have the Ashes? I know they are a one man team (Warne) but they've really disrupted the whole working day today. Half of us were listening to the cricket via our pcs and the rest were asking us what the score was.

Don't these Aussies know that some of us have work to do?

;)

So here's the dilemma...

2005-09-08T11:24:00.000+01:00

I love where I work, I like the people and I get great job satisfaction from what I do. However, changes are afoot. It looks likely that increased funding is coming our way which means that as an organisation we will expand. We will fill posts that have never been filled but have always been on our organisation chart, and we will be a more dynamic and effective charity. The downside for me is that whilst the rest of the organisation grows, my role will contract.

Due to the lack of staff and resources I have had to get involved in all manner of things outside of my job description. I have dealt with the Government and the unemployed, worked on national policy matters as well as event management - the list goes on. For the last 4 years I have loved this diversity, and yet because we as an organisation are about to get what we have always wanted, I will perversely lose much if not all of the work that lies outside of my job description - the very stuff taht I love the most.

So stop moaning you say. You will be doing what's in your job spec so what have you got to complain about? Well I suppose I haven't, and to be fair I'm not. If I was given a choice between my charity staying the same size or getting new funds and growing I would take the latter option every time. But what is best for the organisation is not necessarily best for me.

So I have started the process of looking for something else. I'm in no rush, and the change management process over the next couple of years would prove interesting enough if I were to stay. But if the right opportunity comes along I think I will take it. I'll keep you posted.

marriage and memories

2005-09-07T15:17:00.000+01:00

When I was younger, I had more crushes than Big Daddy wrestling Ronnie Corbett. I got used to the girls I fancied being with other guys, often complete muppetts who treated them appallingly. I hoped they'd get sick of the b*stards (their words), and when pouring their hearts out to me about yet another let-down they'd realise that I wasnt like that. I always comforted myself with the thought that girlfriends and boyfriends split up, it's not a permanent thing.

Well now all these year's later I am happily in a long term relationship. And last night I went out with an old friend and her fiance. I used to fancy her (please note: used) but long since got over it. So now she is getting married, and her fiance is a really nice bloke - not a b*stard, just a regular guy. But I couldn't help thinking: If you are happy to settle down with this guy, how the hell did I miss out all those year's ago? Why did you persist with b*stards for all that time when I was ready to worship the ground you walked on?

Of course there are no palatable answers to such questions, and perhaps I am better off not knowing the truth. So after a very pleaseant evening hearing about wedding plans and catching up on gossip I retired home to my girfriend, who I love, without regretting how things have turned out.

More on Katrina

2005-09-05T12:11:00.000+01:00

Britain isn't perfect, I don't think any country is or can be. But I would like to think that our Government would respond to a New Orleans-eque disaster in a much more effective fashion than the Bush administration.

In fact I am pretty sure they would. I have a friend who did a Phd in disaster management. He's now working in the Foreign Office (and not really in a disaster management role) and yet when the bombs went off on 7/7 he was drafted in immediately to help deal with the situation. To me that shows a rapid and intellegent use of human resources in a crisis situation and it is very comforting.

I found this quote from American political commentator Bob Schieffer:

"Finally, a personal thought. We have come through what may have been one of the worst weeks in America's history, a week in which government at every level failed the people it was created to serve. There is no purpose for government except to improve the lives of its citizens. Yet as scenes of horror that seemed to be coming from some Third World country flashed before us, official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality.

As the floodwaters rose, local officials in New Orleans ordered the city evacuated. They might as well have told their citizens to fly to the moon. How do you evacuate when you don't have a car? No hint of intelligent design in any of this. This was just survival of the richest."

This tickled me

2005-09-01T11:13:00.000+01:00

Not so much the news itself, but the sense of humour with which the article is written.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050828/wl_uk_afp/britainaustriaoffbeat

My Good List

2005-08-31T17:38:00.000+01:00

As an antidote to my last post here is a list of things that are giving, or have recently given me a positive boost:

* 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith - I've not finished it, but it's a good read

* The Journey by Amsterdam. A great cd, chock full of feel-good tunes

* The Ashes - Come on boys we can do it!

* The Cobblers have won 3 games on the trot including knocking QPR out of teh Carling cup

* My dahlias are f*cking amazing even if I do say so myself

* I am portrayed as a diy muppet but I did the loft boarding all by myself - and the house hasn't fallen down yet!

* I look like being a dead cert for the batting trophy for my Sunday cricket team

* LOST. I'm not entirely sure what is going on, but I like it

* The All Star Celebrity Cup (www.skyone.co.uk/allstarcup/). By the climax I really cared about whether Ronan Keeting and Damian Lewis could seal a win for the European celebs. And by jove they did!

Looking the reaper in the eye

2005-08-31T17:25:00.000+01:00

Last night I watched a documentary about the Beslan school seige (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4187924.stm) . It was harrowing stuff, very graphically told with footage from the seige and first hand accounts from the children who were there. It is hard to understand what went through the minds of the terrorists. It is one thing to plant a bomb and indiscriminately kill, but the deliberate slaying of these children was a whole new level.

One particularly horrifying moment was a girl of 5 or 6 who told how she had escaped from the school building. Having been deprived of water for 3 days her eyes lit up when she saw 3 schoolmates drinking from a stand-pipe. Before she could join them a terrorist fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the children and killed them.

My mind cannot begin to conceive of what the children of Beslan went through. Only twice have I thought I was about to die, and in both cases the fear was fairly quickly extinguished. But to live with that fear for 3 days, to witness horrific acts of violence culminating in a massacre...those poor poor children.

We live in a f*cked up world. I only hope that those kids can grow up without being too scarred.

One To Win

2005-08-30T10:19:00.000+01:00

My second tv gameshow experience was "One To Win". I had graduated from a BBC daytime show to Channel 5 late-night slot. OTW, now sadly defunct, was a resurrection of the popular 80s/early 90s daytime quiz - Going For Gold. Alas no Henry Kelly when I appeared on the show, nor the massed ranks of sundry Europeans.

Fancying my chances against Hans from Dusseldorf and Inga from Sweden, I applied for the show. It was only when I arrived at the studio that I found out that the international element of the show had been dropped and that all of my fellow contestants had English as their mother tongue too. Unless that is you count Trevor from Liverpool, who had a unique take on the English language.

Like most shows of this ilk, each day features approx 5 different recordings, and I was scheduled for the first show of the day - winner stays on.

Round 1 - show 1. 4 contestants 10 points needed to qualify for the next round. Only 3 qualify for the next round. Once you answer a question correctly you are given the next category and can choose whether the question is worth 1,2 or 3 points. I was nervous and was beaten to the buzzer on the first few questions. The spectre of first round elimination was sitting on my shoulder and was weighing very heavily. The next question: "Which Scottish snooker player lost in the final of this years....." BUZZ. I knew the answer, I had watched the match. "Mick McManus" I said as quickly as I could, relieved coursed through my veins and I relaxed. "Incorrect" said Robin Houston, the host. I was stunned then realised what I had done. Mick McManus was a wrestler from the Big Daddy era - I had meant to say Alan Mcmanus. What crazy short circuit in my wiring had caused that cock up? Nonetheless I was now more relaxed. I answered the next 4 questions and was the first player to qualify for round two.

Round 2 - Four in a row. You pick a category and have to try to string together 4 correct answers. A wrong answer sends you back to zero. No problems here. I cruised through the first 4 questions and was into the final.

Round 3 - the Final. You need to get 21 points. The person 'in control' can choose whether to play or pass. There then proceeds a long question in the form: who am I? , What am I? What place? What event?

As the question progresses more clues are given but the points diminish. Also the chance to buzz in alternates, and with each switch of control the available points reduce. With me? Well perhaps this screen grab from Going For Gold might help. I'm not in the pic, but saddos might recognise Daphne Fowler - Quiz Show Queen.

So anyway I was up against a very nice woman from Birmingham. It was nip and tuck, and we got to 20 points each - real nail biting stuff. I had control and the category was America. "Which event in 1773..." BUZZ "Boston Tea Party." I knew that the date preceeded the American War of Independence but not by much. It was a guess but fortune favours the brave. "Correct". I'd won. Blimey it was tese and exhilarating. I was £200 better off (you play for big stakes on C5) and my poor opponent was given Microsoft Encarta despite not having a pc.

Well I was confident as anything now. I breezed through the next show and added another £200 to my kitty. In the third show I was even better - I beat my opponent in the final 21-0. By this point it was mid-afternoon and I was starting to wilt. 3 shows under studio lights and my addrenelin had been pumping for hours. Between the 3rd and the 4th shows I overheard production staff discussing whether I could be beaten. I felt on top of the world. Of course when you are on top of the world there is only one way to go.

The 4th show began and I was running on Red Bull and nothing else. Nonetheless I got through to the final albeit as the 2nd qualifier. I was playing against a nice oap with lousy dress sense. He was a bird watcher although I didn't realise that until I watched the show later. It was mentioned in the matey chat between the host and my opponent, but I was either so confident or so out of it that I missed that point.

I started ok, but was under tough pressure. It was neck and neck and then I started floundering. "Which fast food chain.." BUZZ "KFC" incorrect. Control passed to my opponent. As an OAP he wasn't a fan of fast food. He took an age to buzz and then BUZZ "Wimpy". Incorrect, control passed back to me. Could I think of another fast food outlet? Could I heck! "McDonalds" Pigging McDonalds - how the hell could I not get that? And yet my brain was frozen, I knew I knew it, but I couldn't fish it out. In my time I have come up with answers that I didn't even know I knew, and yet on this occasion I couldn't even guess that a fast food outlet might be Mcdonalds.

I still had control, the next category was birds. I was on 18 points my opponent on 17. I figured that as I only needed 3 points I could safely pass control over and would get the 3 pts needed. Of course I had missed the crucial point that my opponent was a bird watcher. He duly buzzed in very quickly to steal the 4 pts and the game.

Deflated I congratulated him, I felt like a party balloon 3 daysw after a party, all shrivelled and pathetic. Nontheless I was £600 better off, and had a copy of Microsoft Encarta as well. Of course as I didn't have a pc either it was a white elephant. To this day I still have that boxed Encarta as a reminder of an enjoyable but gruelling day. A 3 game winning streak - still my best game show run.

Good News

2005-08-30T10:13:00.000+01:00

Last night at the quiz, we heard that Paul (our friend and team-mate) has been told that his cancer op was a complete success. The surgeons whipped out his prostate and in doing so got all of the cancerous tissue. For a couple of years he will be monitored at 3 monthly intervals but essentially he has beaten it! Suffice to say that we were cock-a-hoop. Jim (Paul's son) was understandably relieved. In public at least he had succeeded in putting on a brave face but it was very clear that a weight was lifted from his shoulders.

Blog Lag

2005-08-26T17:54:00.000+01:00

I am suffering from Blog Lag (tm). There are so many things I want to write and then when I come to writing I am daunted and end up writing nothing, checking the cricket score, re-doing my to do list.

I promise I will do better over the bank holiday weekend

shattered

2005-08-17T10:26:00.000+01:00

Last week we had my niece (11) and nephew (9) to stay. Afterwards I was well and truly shattered but it was great fun. We started by going tobogganing at the Xscape Snow Dome in Milton Keynes. Brilliant - what a regression to childhood, and the competitive tactics that developed between us trying to find the fastest, most compacted route - great fun.

On Monday we went to the London Wetland Centre at Barnes. I must confess to having been scpetical but it turned out to be wonderful. They have recreated a number of habitats and in doing so have attracted over 170 species of birds including some very rare specimens. The highlight for me was sitting in a hide, watching a heron hunt and then catch a fish.

In the evening we went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's a great recreation of the book (albeit with a few new touches). I much prefer it to the twee Americanised Gene Wilder version. It's darker, funnier and visually stuning.

Tuesday saw us hop on a train to Brighton where we visited the Doctor Who Exhibition, paddled in the sea and got soaked. In the evening it was a trip to Northampton for the first Cobblers home game of the season. Floodlight failure and a 2-1 defeat meant that this was the lowlight of the week.

On Wednesday we went to Bletchley Park aka Station X and visited a brilliant heritage site. Bletchley Park was the centre of British code breaking during WWII. Enigma was broken here and you can see Enigma machines as well as the machines designed to break the codes. We followed that by going swimming. When I realised that adults were allowed on the slide that was me sorted for the afternoon.

Thursday was a big expensive day. The London Dungeon followed by the Tower of London. A fantastic day but a tad harsh on the wallet.

Friday, the final day of their stay we went to Woburn Safari Park. Always a great place to go if you like to see lions, tigers, heffalumps, wolves, sealions etc etc.

At the weekend I tried to play cricket but was thwarted by the rain, and on Sunday the in-laws came to visit. So by the time Monday came and I headed back to work I was absolutely shattered. It's Wednesday now and I'm just about fully functional again. I need a holiday!

Oh Morrissey...

2005-07-27T10:06:00.000+01:00

When I last fell in love - during that golden glowy period I couldn't hear a song without thinking 'Yes' that's exactly how I feel (particularly Marvin Gaye). Then of course you move through that period as your relationship deepens and you stop having such thoughts.

Well in this tense, scary period of London's/Britain's history I am once again noticing lyrics that seem appropriate. I posted the Jam lyrics the other day. This morning on the training my mp3 player chucked this song out:

"Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again ?

The Leeds side-streets that you slip down
I wonder to myself
Hopes may rise on the Grasmere
But Honey Pie, you're not safe here
So you run down
To the safety of the town

But there's Panic on the streets of Carlisle
Dublin, Dundee, Humberside
I wonder to myself

Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music they constantly play

On the Leeds side-streets that you slip down
Provincial towns you jog 'round
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ "

Ok perhaps not all of the sentiments are apposite. And I'm not advocating hanging DJs although there are a few I would like taken off the air. But what really gets me about this song is the reminder that musically we have a political void. Artists address issues but no longer through their music. They wear t-shirts, they sloganise at Live8 but that's it. Where is the next generation of protest singers? Where were the anti-war anthems?

The Manics, Elvis Costello and others don't seem bothered any more. Billy Bragg is still doing his thing but (much as I love him) he is irrelevent to the mainstream of music buyers. His songs about asylum seekers, racial integration and anti-facism are great but who hears them? Perhaps there is no appetite in Britain for political song anymore but I can't believe that's true. Step forward the new voice - PLEASE

In The City

2005-07-25T15:38:00.000+01:00

"In the city there's a thousand men in uniform
And I've heard they now have the right to kill a man"
The Jam - In The City

The recent shooting in Stockwell has left me in two minds. My libertarian side baulks at the concept of armed police and yet this scenario is not black and white. The death of this man is a tragedy for his friends and family, but also a tragedy for the police who shot him. They made a tough call in a split second. To take someone's life in the belief that it would save others must be hard enough to do but at least it can be rationalised later. But to find out that you got it wrong and that an innocent man is dead. Well that's a hell of a burden to live with.

I find myself erring on the side of protecting the many by sacrificing the rights of the few, even if that is the right to life. I do not believe that anyone has the right to commit mass murder. If the only way to stop them is to kill them then so be it. Do two wrongs make a right? I don't know - there will be a lot of people on the left shifting uncomfortably in their seats right now.

What I do know is that if I saw someone trying to kill one of my loved ones I would do whatever was necessary to stop them - yes even I'd take their life.

Hopefully I'll never be in that situation and thankfully I'm not a copper.

Alas poor xxxxxxxxxx....

2005-07-21T10:35:00.000+01:00

I just finished the latest Harry Potter book. Note to self: in future do not read death scenes on the train. Trying not to cry whilst surrounded by harrassed commuters is not much fun.

So in the end I didn't cry when xxxxxxxx died. But it was certainly moving. No grand heroic self-sacrificing death and probably all the more real for that fact. And now the final book is set up to be a cracker. A quest novel with the confrontation to end all confrontations to look forward to at the end of it. And only 2 years or so to wait before it comes out.

My shiner....

2005-07-20T12:17:00.000+01:00

Is turning from purple to yellow. MMMmMmmm. How attractive!

My friend Paul...

2005-07-19T14:32:00.000+01:00

...is in hospital as I write and by now should have had his cancer op. We missed him last night at the quiz where we tied for 1st place. He would have taken us over the line.

Get well soon Paul - we miss you

big BIG bang

2005-07-18T16:57:00.000+01:00

It's been a crazy few days, starting with the vigil in Trafalgar Square and ending with a black eye. I shall go through it all in chronological order.

big - Thursday 14th July
So I went to the Trafalgar Squar vigil. It was a good turnout although not as many people as for the Make Poverty History demo a few months back. The speakers were on the whol very good although a few bizarre poem choices were made. Following on from my we're not afraid post there was an incident just before the vigil started that served to reinforce my views.

From just behind me I heard this horrendous scream. I turned round to see an African woman in loose fitting robes. As she stopped screaming she started muttering under her breath. Now both of these things were worrying. The first because the bus bomber had apparently let out an unearthly scream before dying, and the second because Israeli guidance on how to spot suicide bombers includes that they mutter prayers under their breath before dying. Being So terribly terribly British we all edged away from her until there was about 2 metres of clearance around her, but bizarrely no-one ran or panicked. I think we were all too spooked. Then she started saying "Don't take my picture to make money from. Don't you dare make money from my picture". Again, very worrying. At that point a policeman came onto the scene and asked if she felt hot (ie have you got sunstroke or are you drunk). She replied "no but I will be soon". Again another comment that could have indicated a bomber.

At that point I decided to move on, no panic but my heart was pounding faster and faster and my legs were getting wobbly. I decided that she probably was either a particularly sick individual drawing attention to herself or was perhaps mentally ill rather than being a suicide bomber. But I did not want to push my luck. Of course as we know there was no bomb in Trafalgar Square and after over 2 hours it was over.

For some reason I made my way by tube to Euston. Coming out of Euston I could see Russell Square still sealed off. As I made my way down the Euston Road to Kings X, heartbreaking posters lined the walls from desperate families clinging to the hope that their missing loved ones might have survived.

I popped into the Kings X branch of WHSmiths to get a magazine for the journey home and noticed that outside there was a book of condolence. The queue was not too long and as I wasn't in a rush I thought I'd pay my respects. I got talking to a couple of lads in front of me. They were friends of Richard Ellery who whilst missing, they accepted had died. These were lads in the truest sense of the word and they did not know why they had travelled from Ipswich except they knew they had to do something. Richard had only come to London for a one-day course and it cost him his life. A week after the event they couldn't get their heads around it.

So I signed the book and as I headed to Pentonville Road I spotted the small garden of remembrance, chock full of flowers and tributes. It moved me to tears, and I think I needed to cry because afterwards I felt much more comfortable. Very sad still, but perhaps it just helped me deal with a few things.

BIG Friday 15th July
And I was back in London on Friday with my g/f to see Queen in Hyde Park. What a show! I won't bore readers with a blow by blow account, but 85,000 people singing Imagine in tribute to the victims of the bombings was mindblowing. To cap it all, during the finale the band played We Are The Champions and on the big screens they showed pictures of members of the emergency services, 5000 of whom had been given free tickets to the concert. Wonderful. Queen aren't the same without Freddie, but Paul Rodgers proved himself to be a great showman in his own right.

Bang Sunday 17th July
So there I was playing cricket. I was keeping wicket and halfway through the innings my friend Subash was bowling his spin and I was right up to the stumps. The next thing I know the ball has lept from a good length and smacked me on my right cheekbone just below the eye. Quick as a flash I was on the ground clutching my face as my teammates clustered around me. Cuts below my eye, swelling and a nice shiner are what I have to show as a result. At least my eye went black or people would have thought I was some sort of freak with a deformed swollen face.

To cap it all we lost ending a record 4 game winning streak. Still at least the weather was nice eh?

We're Not Afraid....

2005-07-14T00:33:00.000+01:00

...or are we? The werenotafraid.com website is at first sight an inspiring a fortifying website and I do not wish to knock it. Indeed I've submitted a picture to it. And yet the wary glances around my train carriage at new passengers, the way my heart sinks like a stone when I hear sirens - surely these are symptoms of fear.

So I've come to the conclusion that yes i am a bit afraid and there is nothing wrong in that. The challenge is how you deal with your fear. My response is to not let it govern my life.

In the middle of writing this blog came the 2 minutes silence. As I headed to the lift I could see people already outside their offices in preperation. All of the local eateries and hostelries had closed their doors, their staff outside with their customers.

Outside in the beautiful sunshine with it's cooling breeze we observed the silence and thought of the victims. Looking around I could see what London is all about - a real cross-section of humanity, male/female, all ages, all races and united in a resolve to stand up to terrorism. I am sure that each one of us who marked the 2 minutes is dealing with last week's events in their own way - but I found it extremely heartening to have shared such a communal moment of defiance and remembrance.

This evening I will go to Trafalgar Square for the remembrance event and tomorrow I am off to see Queen in Hyde Park. If I were letting fear dictate my actions I would steer well clear of such attractive terrorist targets. But I am in charge, not the terrorists. So I will go tonight and remember, and on Friday I will enjoy the concert. And at the back of my mind will be the knowledge that I could be placing myself in danger - but that's where it will stay - at the back of my mind. Defiance trumps fear every time. This is my life and I will chose how to live it.

Getting back to normal

2005-07-11T15:11:00.000+01:00

First day back in the office after last week's bombings and.... pretty much back to normal except it's not. Everyone's showing a bit more interest in everyone else. It's as if we all know that we could so easily have lost one of our number. Well, I guess that's true. Some of my colleagues came pretty close to being caught up directly in the bombings and while we waited for news of the no-shows on Thursday there was that awful possibility that we could have lost someone. We didn't, but it could so easily have been a different story.

And then at lunchtime today London Bridge was evacuated and we heard the tell-tale bang of a controlled explosion. It turns out that the suspect package was in fact the belongings of a homeless person, stashed in a skip for the day. You can't be too careful but interestingly now that we know we are targets, the feeling looking out of our window wasn't terror but fascination. After all, Al Qaeda don't give warnings so the chances were it was a false alarm. The police yet again did a great job, the area was cleared and the whole thing was over inside 30 minutes.

A selection of t-shirts are now available showing defiance against the bombers (http://www.spreadshirt.net/shop.php?sid=73338&op=articles). I can't decide whether I think they are cool. I think they are as long as the chap selling them does as he says and donates the profits to the Red Cross. Otherwise it would be a rather ghoulish enterprise. And that dilemma in a nutshell sums up the Brits. We are both bloody-minded and sceptical. God Bless Us!

Bastards

2005-07-07T12:53:00.000+01:00

I missed being caught up in this mornings bombings thanks to the lateness of my train. When will these bastards ever learn that you win no arguments by killing ordinary people in indiscriminate attacks?

I refuse to let my life be dictated by these people.

My thoughts are with those who lie injured today, and the families of those killed.

God speed.

What's an E between friends?

2005-07-03T21:37:00.000+01:00

Today was a special day for my cricket club. Having endured 2 years without a pavillion as a result of arson, today was the official opening of the new pavillion. The guest of honour was Derek Randall, former England batsman. Randall was one of the first cricketers I remember watching along with Botham and Bob Willis. He was the finest fielder I have ever seen, a great batsman and someone who was always entertaining to watch.

And today, Derek was great. He did the ribbon cutting duties with aplomb, and made a great speech which entertained everyone from the 100+ junior players to those with many more grey hairs than I.

What a shame that the plaque that was put up in the pavillion to mark this momentous day spelt his name wrong. Derek Randell indeed - ooooppppssss! There but for the grace of God....

Make Poverty History

2005-07-01T17:37:00.000+01:00

After my exploits yesterday it might seem a bit hypocritical to post this. But as tomorrow is Live 8, and the G8 Summit is soon to begin in Gleneagles, I thought I had to give a shout out to www.makepovertyhistory.org

It is about time the world grew up and realised we are all in this together, and it's not just 'someone else's problem'.

Right - I'm off my soapbox - have a great weekend

I could get used to this

2005-07-01T12:27:00.000+01:00

So as I alluded to in a previous post I spent yesterday afternoon and evening out with an old University friend, 4 hours of which was spent in the rarified environment of a Gentlemen's Club. The club was of the Philleas Fogg variety and not a Minty Rhino.

It was an incredible insight into days gone by. I was greeted at the door by a servant who then showed me to a large day room filled with old red leather sofas and arm chairs. People were sat around reading the paper or dozing. There was more than one Roly Birkin on show.

Then my friend arrived and he showed me around. The central atrium has a mosaic floor, marble columns and large portraits and busts of Victorian notables all around the oak pannelled walls. A 1st floor mezzanine provides a wonderful view, and above is a glass vaulted roof.

We went into the dining room and for the first time in my life felt pampered by servants. The menu I was presented with had no prices on. Apparently it is deemed vulgar for guests to see such things so only my friend knew how much things were going to cost. The wine cost £44 for a bottle, but that was at wholesale cost price - a members' benefit. In a restaurant just around the corner the same bottle would have been £200+.

The food was very nice and afterwards we moved upstairs for a couple of games of snooker. Neither of us were particularly good, but playing there, smoking a havana cigar, hmmm it felt good.

Afterwards we left and went to a pub where much ales was consumed. Eventually I hopped on a train to go home, and in the words of Samuel Pepys: "and so to bed".

Unfrtunately the worst part of the ageing process hit me today. I can still drink like I used to. When my drinking boots are on I can consume vast quantities. However, I no longer wake up fresh faced in the morning. As I write it is nearly lunchtime and I still feel a bit worse for wear. Even 5 years ago I would have been as fresh as a daisy.

NTL update

2005-06-30T11:29:00.000+01:00

I rang NTL but this time went past the frontline muppets and straight to management. It turns out that as I told the guy I spoke to this morning, it was a fault in our area. It should be fixed by 1pm and there is no reason for me to take time off work on Monday.

The chap I spoke to this time was very critical of his colleague saying that based on the info I gave him, he'd handled my call incorrectly. Blimey - a mistake admitted!

Of course the proof of the pudding will be this evening when I try to watch Big Brother.

Talking of pudding - I am going for lunch at the Reform Club today with my predecessor as SU Prez. I'm dressed to the 9s and very excited - it's the nearest to the ruling elite I'll ever get. A full report will follow

Fuming.....x&%@&@(* NTL!

2005-06-30T10:01:00.000+01:00

Last night I had a nightmare 2.5 hour journey to get home. Bloody Thameslink decided to keep cancelling trains but neglected to tell us poor saps at London Bridge Station until we had been waiting over 45 minutes. So I made my way to Kings Cross Thameslink only to find the platform jam packed. 4 trains later I managed to get on a train, and of course it stopped at every poxy flea-bitten backwater between London and Bedford.

I got home frustrated and knackered, sat down on my sofa, switched the tv on and...... nothing. No channels were working. I rang NTL's customer service line and after a 5 minutes of "if you want.... press 3" finally got through to the right department only to be told that customer services shuts at 8pm. Grrrr.

My g/f was out and so I decided to pop across to the chippy. On the way I stopped by at my neighbour's to see if their tv was ok. Nope, same problem. So clearly an NTL fault and not my set-top box. Not my fault Your Honour! And to cap it off I found out later that Broadband wasn't working either.

On the plus side the fault meant that I watched 2 episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and most of an Indian film called "Lagaan", DVDs that had been sitting on my shelf unwrapped and unwatched for months.

Anyway, back to the grumbles, this morning I still had no TV and so on the dot of 8am I called NTL. "The earliest we can get an engineer out is Monday". Monday!!!! MONDAY!!!! a whole bloomin week with no tv!!!!! And to cap it all I have to take 1/2 day of annual leave to sit and wait for NTL. Last time I did that they didn't even come in the house.

So I am about to ring NTL again and ask why I should stay with them rather than going with SKY.

No tv - no Big Brother - God how we depend on the Gogglebox

Bizarre

2005-06-30T00:33:00.000+01:00

After the seriousness of the last post I thought I'd just share this bizarre dream that I had the other night. Before you cry "Oh God there's nothing more boring than someone talking about their dreams" stop! There is nothing deep about this and its pretty short.

So a few days ago, 2 nuggets were buried in my mind.

Nugget 1 - I saw an advert on tv for a new version of Monopoly where the London properties have been changed as have their values.

Nugget 2 - I bought some Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream from Tesco.

When you add them together you get:

A dream whereby I buy the latest Monopoly which when I open it then morphs into a massive board that I have to walk around rather than moving a counter. To make things stranger, this game was on 2 levels. Level 1 was your standard board and level 2 was a Strawberry Cheesecake. For a while I just took this in my stride thinking it was an interesting innovation. And then eventually sanity prevailed and I realised it didn't make sense. At that point I woke up.

I am sure there is no deep Freudian meaning to it. But imagine, how cool would it be if it were true? If you got a giant strawberry cheesecake for winning at the end of 3 mind-numbing hours it would almost be worth playing!

Old Certainties Challenged

2005-06-29T23:12:00.000+01:00

WARNING
This post is the result of a mounting frustration. It may not be coherent and I may disown it when my mood improves. There is no levity or humour in here. If you want that scroll down.

I have always voted Labour. I've done so at every local and General election, and in '97 I pounded the streets several nights each week and all election day knocking on doors canvassing votes. That election victory in 1997 still ranks as one of the greatest nights of my life. Old friends in the constituency party told me that they had the same feelings of euphoria in 1945 when Attlee won. For weeks afterwards I felt like I was walking a few inches above the ground. At last it was OUR turn. At last we were going to put right society's wrongs.

Well it hasn't quite worked out that way. In 1945 Clem Attlee's Government set about giving us a country fit for heroes. They didn't quite pull it off but they had the balls to try. Blair's first term started superbly. Loads of new ideas and some amazing successes, but then the focus changed and re-election became the target. It's ok we all said - Labour will be radical in the 2nd term. The first term was all about proving they were competant to run the country. We were wrong. Despite another landslide where was the radical programme?

And so now, where are we? A much reduced majority and a PM who probably won't see out the life of this Parliament as our leader. No chance of the Grand Vision coming to the fore then. I hope that Brown becomes the next leader and becomes PM with a majority strong enough for him to take radical action. I have faith that he can still prove that the euphoria of 97 was justified. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have preferred any other party to have been in office despite everything.

But what really worries me is that I was at the launch of the Centre For Social Justice last week. It is an Iain Duncan Smith led project with support from members of all parties. I have my reservations about it (it has a very Tory view of how to achieve social justice) and yet I heard more coherent ideas that evening than I have heard from the Government recently. A case in point being a different conference I was at last week where a very senior civil servant was suggesting what in effect was a nationalisation a large swathe of the voluntary sector in order to make up for 8 years of failure in a particular policy area. I won't name names lest I compromise my employers.

Part of the problem is that there are people and organisations who have the Government's ear, and for the rest of us it's so damn hard to get heard by people that matter. Another part of the problem is that I am just not sure what Labour stands for any more and I don't think they do either. Their mission has become muddied by the myriad pressures they face in power. What I do know is that there are a lot of good people in the Labour Party (in parliament and the country as a whole), and that they need to reclaim the agenda from Blair.

Billy Bragg once wrote the following (while Labour were in opposition):

Another day dawns grey, its enough to make me spit
But we go on our way, just putting up with it
And when I try to make my feelings known to you
You sound like you have changed from red to blue

You're a father now, you see things in different ways
For every parent will gain perspective on their wilder days
But that alone does not explain the changes I see in you
The way you've drifted off from red to blue

Sometimes I think to myself
Should I vote red for my class or green for our children?
But whatever choice I make
I will not forsake

So you bought it all, the best your money could buy
And I watched you sell your soul for their bright shining lie
Where are the principles of the friend I thought I knew
I guess you let them fade from red to blue

I hate the compromises that life forces us to make
We must all bend a little if we are not to break
But the ideals you've opted out of, I still hold them to be true
I guess they weren't so firmly held by you

Labour has moved from red to blue under Blair. In little over a decade the party is unrecognisable from John Smith's Labour Party. It was an absolute tragedy for the country the day he died. I only hope that his legacy will live on in Brown, if and when he gets into number 10. They need a clear vision and a radical programme - I hope to god they come up with the goods.

Whitely, Peel, Freddie et al

2005-06-28T19:39:00.000+01:00

It's struck me in the last couple of days, the unexpected impact that people you never meet can have on your life. It was all brought about by the death of Richard Whitely, presenter of Countdown on Channel 4. Now I'm not a massive Countdown fan because I'm pretty poor at the letters game and never beat the studio contestants at the conundrum. And yet when I've watched it I've always enjoyed it.

The reason for this was that Richard Whitely, with his 'favourite Uncle' persona and warm harmless humour made him a perfect afternoon tv host. So watching his obit on the Channel 4 news unexpectedly moved me to tears. Now I can be a funny bugger in this regard - I can't watch Animal Hospital because it upsets me too much but on other occasions I have no problem absorbing very sad events in a matter-of-fact manner.

The first celebrity death I remember affecting me was Dustin Gee. He was Les Dennis's comedy partner and his death was out of the blue. Sure, other celebs I had known about had died and Gee was never really one of my favourites and yet it really hit me hard.

Later the death of Freddie Mercury devastated me for weeks, but at least I had a long track record as a fan of his music. And last year the death of John Peel was a real body blow. Peel along with Tommy Vance (who also died last year) had provided me with the soundtrack to my teens, a window to new horizons (although despite all this Queen remained my favourite band). I know that when Nelson Mandela dies it will prove to be very upsetting although I will at least be able to console myself with the memory of having seen him in the flesh three times.

So why Whitely? Why a man who I only watched if there was nothing better on? Why should he move me to tears? I guess there is fundamentally an innate sadness when a good person dies before their time. It doesn't really matter who it is because when one of these dies it reminds us of the others. So my tears for Whitely were probably also tears for others we have lost too soon, and miss.

So my thoughts are with Whiteley's family and friends, but they also turn to people like Dick, my boss when I was a kid, to Emma - a girl in my class at school killed in a car crash, and to Stephen my old next door neighbour's son who died in a climbing accident. Next time I have a drink I will raise a glass in a silent toast to all of these and more - Rest In Peace and thanks for everything.

Ode to Glasto

2005-06-27T18:49:00.000+01:00

Glastonbury
my spiritual home
the music I love
all in one place

You and I
are meant to be
and yet
fate keeps us apart

So I watch you
from a distance
our love
unconsummated

Because you
wont give me tickets
and I
hate camping anyway

Goodbye to the 9th Doctor

2005-06-20T15:36:00.000+01:00

Who could have guessed that the resurrected Doctor Who would be that good? My God, after watching the last episode of the series and the Doctor's death/regeneration there is only one word to sum it up - FANTASTIC

It wasn't just that it made such a welcome change from reality tv and AntnDec, Doctor Who took us back to the days when the BBC was not afraid to make challenging, brave drama. For Chrissake, Doctor Who this series brought us a male/male kiss at Saturday tea time (not a passionate kiss, but it was on the lips nonetheless). And that's not to mention the 51st century sexual freedom of Captain Jack who "dances" with both men and women. Russell T Davies stopped short of banging a drum for gay rights - instead he did something far more clever. He made sexuality a non issue - it's just how you are! How many kids, having idolised the Doctor, Rose and Jack will have a slightly different view on sexuality now? God knows, and only time will tell.

So now we have 6 onths to wait until the next installment. A new Doctor and different issues but with RTD at the helm it is certain to be a hell of a ride!

My nephew...

2005-06-17T19:20:00.000+01:00

....was hit by a bus on Wednesday. He's ok - fractured skull, bruising etc - but nothing too serious. Nobody quite knows what happened despite there being loads of people around. The police have just written it off as a kid running out in front of a bus, but everyone says that he didn't although they don't know exactly how it happened. Very weird. But the main thing is that he is ok.

Apparently the bus wasn't so lucky and he managed to destroy the front windscreen.

Meeja Hor

2005-06-17T02:04:00.000+01:00

Not knowing what else to write I thought I would let you all into a seedy and sordid area of my life - my television career.

A number of years ago I decided that it would be fun to liven up my drab existence by applying to go on a tv gameshow. I was lucky enough to get picked to go on 'Pass The Buck' a BBC daytime gameshow hosted by Eamonn Holmes. It was filmed in Manchester and so they paid for me to head up North and put me up in a hotel. Now it just so happened that in the hotel there were a lot of other PTB contestants because PTB has 10 players a show and films 6 shows a day.

So needless to say in the bar we were all sizing each other up - wondering how we would all do against each other. Me, being in it for a laugh, was one of the last to leave the bar (at about 1am) despite having to be in the studio to start filming at 9. It got worse than that, because as I headed to my room I heard noise coming from another bedroom and as I unlocked my room a head poked out from next door - it was an Irish chap called Ian and he invited me to join an impromptu room party. Ah the memories of Uni flooded back.

It was 3am and 2 complaints from the hotel porters later that I eventually crawled into bed. Suffice to say when I got to the studio the next morning I was not on top form. Despite this, in the first show I did well enough to get to the final 3 players and secure an invite for the next show. God knows how, but I remember it involved picking mercilessly on an OAP. By the time show 2 was filmed it was 10.30am and being hungover and having already spent an hour under lights I was feeling worse and worse.

So in round 1 of show 2, the question was - "Name something that runs on batteries". I was the 10th in line to answer and couldn't repeat what anyone else had said. So after all of the options I had thought of had been used up it got round to me and there was only one thought in my drink addled, dehydrated brain "vibrator". I couldn't say it, surely? Well if I said nothing I was out - and so like the muppet I am out it came "Vibrator Eamonn". Hushed silence, then laughter. Clearly my answer couldn't be used. So we were given another question. By this point my brain was in meltdown and I was unable to even come up with a smutty answer to save myself and was eliminated.

Despite everything I had had a great time. A ray of light had shone in my dull life and I knew I had found my spiritual home - daytime tv gameshows. But with 3 caveats - next time I would not get drunk beforehand, next time I would play to win, and in future I would apply for quiz shows (more my forte).

Since then I have been on a number of shows with a fair smattering of success. Maybe one day I'll share some more of my exploits.

luv and best wishes.

Eat That Frog

2005-06-16T09:52:00.000+01:00

I recently had a downward blip in my performance at work. I decided that I needed to do something about it and searched around for the causes and a structure to help me improve. I found it in a book called "Eat That Frog" (ETF). ETF is a lightweight book in terms of length but packed into its pages are loads of useful tips on time management and prioritisation techniques.

So I implemented elements of ETF about 3 months ago and the benefits are really showing. I am immeasurably more effective at work. Results are improving significantly, and as a consequence of being on top of things more I think my staff are feeling less under pressure than at any point since I've been here.

I'm not saying I was bad before, merely that I wasn't performing to my own expectations. Now I can't see myself ever slipping back to my old practices. So that's today's lesson folks. Make sure that the first thing you do every morning is eat the ugly frog on your to do list and the world will become a better place!

The big C

2005-06-11T00:29:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine has been diagnosed with cancer recently. I have suprised myself with my reaction. I am really calm and confident that he will recover. He has one of the less aggressive cancers and I think they have caught it early. But nonetheless I am sure I should be more worried than I am.

I think it has something to do with the fact that my Mum, my girlfriend's Granny and also her Uncle have all had cancer in the last few years and have all beaten it. Perhaps I am living in a false world of confidence, but I really believe that he will win this battle.

Hi .... err... this is me

2005-06-10T00:26:00.000+01:00

Look, I'm new to this whole blog thing. So what am I supposed to write? Well perhaps I ought to start with a bit about me. I am 32, live in Bedfordshire (England) and own a house with my partner Jen.

I am a little concerned that middle age is starting to hit me. Why's that? In a word - gardening. Not so long ago I thought the preponderence of gardening shows on tv on a Friday night was criminal. Now, since buying a house with a garden I've got really into gardening. I perhaps lack the patience of the seasoned gardener (I risk ovedosing my plants with Miracle-Gro in the hope that they'll grow quicker). I even bought a gardening magazine teh other week for Chrissakes!

When I took up watercolour painting a few years ago I decided I wasn't becomming middle-aged, everyone needs a way of de-stressing. I cn get away with that once, but not twice. So be it. I have grey hair and I like to garden - bring on the zimmer!

Other than that, at the moment the cricket season is in full swing. I play for 2 teams: Cranfield University on Saturdays and Olney Town on Sundays. Last year I had my best ever year, winning the batting award for both teams and the League as well as Player of the season for Cranfield. I didn't think I could top that, but so far this year I am doing even better. It can't last of course, but please God let this be my golden season! Just one year where everything goes right, I get no injuries and the fickle finger of dodgy umpiring stays pointed downwards.

Well, that's my brief intro, a kind of 'State of the Union' only without the lies.