Is this still working?

I wish I could communicate more effectively. The following articles and clips are wonderful things that have captured my interest of late:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ePZXjrs4fvY

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZM9I3r11QPY

I am full of beer and brandy.

What should one do when one sees a very pregnant work colleague having a cigarette in her lunch break in a place where she thought noone could see her?

We had a conversation. I think that she is a nice person. I don't like to judge. She seems lonely.

Yay. The latest amazing internet things I have found.

Woo! Embedded video is ace. Or is it? This one made me want to repeatedly bang my head against the ground.

My grandfather was a prominent unitarian minister. He is now very frail and resides in a care home. The belongings from his house have been distributed among the family, and, living in a tiny flat and not having much (any!) storage, all I have are some of his books. He wrote them and self-financed the publication. As I understand it, no publishers would touch the things.

Each book comes with scraps of notes and letters of related correspondence. One from Merlin Books Ltd Publishers reads:

"Thankyou for your letter of the 30th January, and I am so glad that you were able to self-publish your autobiography so very successfully, and I hope that if you do decide to have a further edition printed that it will be equally successful. I hope that you are still enjoying writing and look forward to hearing from you if I can be assistance in any way at any time in the future..."

Great eh?! It seems like Grandpa had written to say "Aah! I published it after all so there! Aah!" Why keep that? The mind boggles.

I know Grandpa was a tenacious sort and spent a great deal of his time in his study, writing and organising his affairs, as evidenced by all the crap that falls out of each book. I know the rest of my family had a beast of a time going through his belongings. He hoarded a lot of stuff.

Having read the first few pages of three of the books last night, I am saddened by how self satisfied and poor his writing was. Not that I can claim to have been published (give me 12 months), or that my writing skills are particularly good, but honestly, you couldn't get away with a lot of this in school, let alone a pseudo-academic environment.

One of the books is a biography of Richard Wright, a unitarian missionary - the only one. Indeed it could be an interesting story given the premise and I wondered if there could be any parallels with the modern day equivalent, the winner or sinner guy. I do generally enjoy reading biographies, but this was just so dogmatic and dimensionless that I found it impossible to appreciate. Also, he endlessly repeats his points and incorporates some hilariously misleading description. I gave up after about 5 pages, but I did find some classic quotes:

"More than once, the young man thanked God that he had been borne of poor parents. This fact convinced him that if he was to make any progress, it would depend on himself."

Surely speculation or revisionist at best. People make do with what they have until they know better. Regardless, Richard sounds like he needs to be punched already.

"...He learnt early how to communicate his thoughts to others and this trick of the mind proved a most useful asset to the end of his life."

Eh? He was telepathic? Cool! I don't think it gets mentioned again.

"One has visions of Richard poring lovingly over chap-books and journals by the light of a candle - a proceeding not unknown within living memory, especially to those who brought themselves up in 'the university of the world'."

Aaagh! Uuurgh! Ok, I don't know what a chap-book is, but it is set in a context of lonely late night gayness. And what is 'the university of the world'? Grandpa was clearly such an original thinker that he never needed to coin a phrase, but would rather paraphrase.

I have no idea what I'm going to do in my retirement, but if I have money and decide to unleash my feebling rambles in print, stop me, call me an undignified shit and remind me about the internet and something I tapped out in 30 minutes in 2006.

I bought a bass guitar on wednesday. It's a BC Rich Warlock. It has two knobs on it and came with a really tough and massive custom hard case. I paid £100. It belonged to the bassist in my band and has been under his bed, needing a home for ages. He offered it for £75 but 6 months ago the price was £100. As he just wants rid of it anyway, I gave him the £100.
I've played a bit of bass before, but don't have a clue really. My motivation is to learn generally and tap out some tunes in my head, as I am quite musical. Not having been around a piano in my living arrangements in recent times, I haven't been able to do that.

Although I love my drums, I often feel I am left a little cold when it comes to being musically creative in the band. I'm thrilled I have this new beast.

Also, Sam is a saxophonist but hasn't played for years. She misses her music terribly and I think that she may end up playing it more than me! That would be ace. A girlfriend who plays a BC Rich Warlock bass. Ah yeah.

Happy New Year

After spending an excellent Christmas with Sam and her parents at their home in Hereford, we returned to Manchester by train then hopped on a flight to Edinburgh. My bro Tim and his wife Josie (and her parents Janet & Joe) live up there now in a big house 30 miles from the city. My folks were there too when we arrived so it was nice for us all to be together. My immediate family aren't really close but we all agreed it would be nice to see each other. And it was - we consumed tons of booze and did loads of cool things in Edinburgh, including being in the centre for Hogmanay.

Bro is three years older than me and still has the attitude that I am a stupid little boy who doesn't know anything. But still, you can choose your friends...... He has the capacity to be bigoted and misogynistic, so often isn't much fun to be around. His wife is platitudinous - she makes the dinners, does the housework and enjoys spending his money. In small doses, they are ok though and we can have a laugh.

On Jan 2nd Sam and I hired a car with the intention of alleviating the need for lifts for a few days and also so we could travel up to the highlands for a couple of nights and see some more of Scotland. That evening, Sam and I returned to bro's house with the car (a Ford Focus 1.6 which was pretty cool), and sat down for dinner with T&J.

Tim began to rant and be rude about Mum and Dad who were now back in Derby - he's terribly insecure and blames them for all of his shortcomings - i.e. that we did without a lot of stuff when we were kids. This is also apparent in his lifestyle - he has an ostentatious car (a land rover) which he drives to and from work and supermarkets, wears Barbour jackets, keeps a golden retriever and has an obsession with showing off his wealth and class. He of course tends to come across foolishly but he isn't aware of this.

Earlier he'd asked me for advice about buying a laptop so he could "work in the lounge rather than the study next door". My view was why bother? They can't get broadband in the country anyway. They should be grateful to be away from internet distraction and enjoy the countryside. Surely if he really needs to *work*, why can't he get a machine through his job? Anyway I expect he took my opinion as a sleight against his lifestyle. People always buy what they want and not what they need.

I digress, Tim was bitching about Mum, and then when I made a comment (sort of agreeing with him) he told me to shut up and that it was his new year's resolution not to speak about it any more. Weird!

Later in general conversation he made a corker of a comment - "Governments won't change their environmental policy until there is a globally catastrophic event like in the movie - The Day After Tomorrow". Indeed, governments tend not to act until it's too late (e.g. tsunami warning system installed after the event...) but I took issue with this statement as the extreme weather conditions in that film are total Hollywood bollocks and wouldn't happen.

I asked, "What event would that be then? Massive flash floods caused by an instant sea level rise? Giant impossible hurricanes and a new ice age in a week?"

He has a degree in medicinal chemistry and should have some understanding of the dynamic water system on earth; water melting from ice caps may mean more clouds and hotter temps rather than a straightforward sea level rise, for example. It's an extremely complex system and such generalisations are ill conceived. Tim was sticking to his guns anyway and wasn't backing down. He’d read a newspaper article about it somewhere. He was making a fool of himself when I was merely asking him to justify his point of view. He was being ignorant and offensive.

Sam then said, "Please can you change the subject? Can you just shut up? This isn't going anywhere!" and went away to the bedroom. Tim looked surprised, and so I apologised and said something about how she wasn't good with conflict and that we weren't listening to each other when I knew that she was just exasperated with his woolly babbling. I went upstairs to reassure and comfort her and then returned downstairs as she apologised for her outburst. Tim's response was a shrug. This upset Sam again, so saying nothing she went upstairs and began to cry. Again, I comforted her and after a while we returned to the lounge and began to read by the fire.

After 5 minutes, he said, "Andrew" - I knew this would be bad; he calls me Andrew when he wants to add gravitas, "I'd like you to pack your bags and leave in the morning".

Shocked, I answered "Why?"

"I just want you to go."

Josie piped up - "And because Sam, you've been consistently rude and I've had it up to here" as she gestured to her brow. "If you ever come here again, and I doubt you ever will, how dare you ever speak to my husband like that."

We weren't expecting this - the day before, Josie had been saying to Sam how much they have in common and were having a great laugh. We were amazed and confounded.

Not wanting to say anything rash, Sam and I went straight up to our room. We packed our bags and rang the hotel in the highlands and asked if they had any vacancies that night. They had, and so we left immediately and drove for 3 hours up there in the dark, fog and snow. We bought a map from a petrol station on the way and arrived just after 11.30 pm. Phew! We were so pissed off but went straight to bed and slept.

When we woke in the morning, we climbed a small mountain (2700 ft) which took our mind off things. Later we assessed the situation and realised that we were going to struggle for money as I am but a poor student and had a limited budget. Fortunately my Grandpa had given me a cheque for £250 for Christmas so we would survive for the time being, and Sam had a few hundred pounds in her account that would keep us going if necessary. She had been saving and wasn't keen on using it, but these were desperate measures.

We actually had a great break for the remaining week before our return flight. We did stuff we otherwise wouldn't have, but it did leave an unexpected hole in our finances. Cheers Grandpa - thanks to you I didn't have to use my credit card.

I rang my parents and told them what had happened when we were back at Edinburgh airport on the 9th. I hadn't wanted to mention it before as I didn't want them to worry. When we were packing our bags in Tim's house, I wanted to cry and ring them for reassurance but I resisted.

Mum answered the phone and everything that had been on my mind flowed out. I was ashamed and disgusted of this fucking idiot, my brother. His cruelty meant I had no reason to protect him any more so I told Mum about all of the horrible things T&J had said about her over the years, the duplicitous cunts. I got angry. I wanted to put paintstripper on the landrover, arsenic in the dogfood, burn down his house, stove Tim's head in and kick Josie in the face. Repeatedly. How could they be so stupid? You can't choose your family. As different as we are, and as much as I have slagged him off (see above) he's my brother and I care about him. Blood is thicker than water. I was deeply hurt. Why did he do this?

Mum cried. She and Dad had already heard the other side of the story, and could make no sense of it as it seemed so out of character; apparently Sam had been consistently rude and then exploded with rage. They felt that it was a shame that they'd had to ask us to leave, but wanted to put it behind them now. The fucking animals. Tim had also been complaining as we'd left without paying him for our Hogmanay tickets. Too fucking right. I had to pay to stay in hotels so needed all my own money and besides, we didn't have any cash on us when we left.

The call went on for a while. I felt bad for upsetting Mum. I said I would call later and speak to Dad. We flew back to Manc and life returned to normality.

I sent Tim a cheque and a short note thanking him for the time we did spend with him and that I was sorry things went the way they did. I sent a separate letter to Josie's parents apologising for not saying goodbye to them, as it became impossible for us to stay in the house. I also wrote - 'as brothers, Tim and I have never been close and don’t see eye to eye about a lot of things. I’m sure you appreciate that for each version of events, there can be another take.' Sam and I had got on really well with Janet and Joe and didn't feel too happy about probably being slandered. Was it ok to write this? I don't know.

I received a card from Tim a few days later thanking me for the cheque. He was pleased to hear that we had a good few days in the highlands. Twat. He said that he and Josie were just as upset as Janet and Joe with the comment in my letter to them. Fucking twats. He said he was sorry that Sam had repeatedly said unkind remarks to him and wished me good luck with my PhD studies.

I hope they die painful deaths.

There is something familiar about the Wilhelm scream.

Subway are bastards.

Have you ever seen an ad in the window that reads 'Let Subway cater for your event'? Having had the following dealing earlier this week, I wouldn't recommend it. Behold the letter I put together for the manager:

On Sunday 13th November, Subway catered for an event held for the Residents Association in Fairfield Hall, Back Acton Street, Manchester.

I think we’ve been overcharged for what we received. Being resourceful, I counted up the number of sandwiches in each platter and did some maths. I understand that each sandwich you provided was a footlong cut into 3. Details of the platters are below.

Subway_complaint.xls

I appreciate that my calculations may be flawed in places and that the prices used may not be correct - we used the price for the 6” sandwich + £1.70 to make the footlong. Can you please clarify exactly how you came to the figure of £397.54 - a significantly larger amount than the ~£280 calculated. I would also like to point out that we didn’t receive any tokens with our order.

I look forward to receiving a full and frank account from you soon and trust that this mistake can be rectified.

The manager was quick to point out that we had been charged their 'catering rate' of £3.75 per serving, which is 2/3s of a footlong. They choose a range of different sandwiches, and it does work out that £3.75 is a middling figure, considering that some fillings are more expensive than others.

We were charged
£3.75 x 106 = 397.54

However, in comparison to the price breakdown in the spreadsheet above, we could have had a lot more for our money if we had ordered individual sandwiches, and asked them to be cut into 3. The manager even said that we could have that done in future. The swine.

So, it was as much the fault of the person who made the order, as it is Subway for ripping off customers. Still, I didn't pay for it, I'm just the one who sorts out gay problems like this.

I've kept all 144 tokens I was given and, as I don't eat Subway sandwiches very often, have distributed them among several friends. They seem pleased.

Behold a response from the PCC about a Daily Express article I was concerned about on July 27th headlined 'Bombers are all sponging asylum seekers'.

They performed an investigation and everything. Cool!

PCC_27vii05_Daily_Express.jpg

The new glasscock!

Yay! I'm studying at silly hours at the moment. In a break at 4ish this morning I saw a beach volleyball competition. It had funny trophies. Heehee!

Guinea pigs are crap

I'm all for vivisection in the name of medical research. I don't agree with testing cosmetics on animals, although rats do look better in mascara.

I'm saddened by the big news today - the guinea pig farm closure. Those ALF people are idiots. They now want the guinea pigs to be released into loving homes. But who would want one?

I hate the little fuckers. I had a friend at school, Greg, who had a guinea pig which landed on its head when he dropped it once. He thought that was cool, and it was.

I'd love to drop-kick one. And throw one against a wall. Hard. And propel one out of my 11th floor window. And squeeze one in my fist until it be dead. That would show them who is best.

Balls to animal testing. Bring on animal torture. Chimps, swans and terrapins should next be made to suffer. Ick.

Woo! My hastily written scrawl has been placed on the Dull Men's Club news page. Does that make me a dull man?

Well, no. I like the Polyphonic Spree. I saw them play in Manchester on tuesday and I'm still smiling about it. Dull Men don't smile.

FSMism is the latest thing in response to those stupid Americans. It shits all over being Jedi any day.

This has made my day!

My inbox this morning held a mailshot from Toby Hadoke, compere of the XS Malarkey comedy club in Fallowfield to all of its members. Yesterday he'd sent out a message detailing this evenings events and an interesting fact or two to boot. One of these was incorrect, so I emailed and told him so. What awaited me this morning was a public apology. Ace!

Lo, he wrote, and I quote:

"Those of you astounded by the dose of arcane facts which laced the
most recent XS Mailout may be fascinated to know that I am a bounder,
indulging in the dissemination of untrue propaganda, as Andy mailed to
tell me :

Andy writes,
"A long-held myth of the bumblebee was that, in terms of theoretical
aerodynamics, it did not have the capacity (in terms of wing size or
beat per second) to achieve flight with the degree of wing loading
necessary. This myth became popular after an aerodynamicist in the
1930s stated that a bumblebee was not capable of flight. The statement
was based upon an assumption that the bee's wing could be treated as a
static aerofoil. However, in reality the bumblebee's flight is
characterised by an oscillating wing that shares more characteristics
with a helicopter rotor than an aeroplane wing.

Come on man, don't perpetuate poor science. The XS-malarkey mailing
list is a thing of power. Check your facts in future. ;-)"

So, apologies.
With plenty of new joinees I'd been attempting to spice up the
mailouts : it would be unfair just to offload a shameless plug for the
club without something more interesting therein. But Andy used the
phrase "thing of power" ragarding the mailout. And what equals power ?
Knowledge. You, the Malarkey massive, are a potential oracle of
beguiling information which, if shared, could make us more enlightenend.
So send me your facts. Tell me something we all should know. And I'll
include my favourites in the forthcoming mailouts.
We all know XS is a fantastic club, so let's find out more about this
crazy world we inhabit. Dunno, could be fun. And then I won't have to
agonise about making the mailouts interesting and maybe use that time
to, I dunno, write some jokes or something,
Peace,
T"