Monday, August 29, 2005

engagement

On Saturday night I went to a party at a friend's brother's house . Being a bit of a lad in his day it was a complete surprise to have received the text message earlier in the week from his sister . The big fool had gotten engaged and the party was going to be at his house in the country - a farmyard . Although it sounds a bit naff there couldn't be a better location, perched on a hill overlooking the town we all grew up in . As with previous parties there he'd sorted out food, a barbecue, tower lighting, gas heating and seats for the open ended barn and when I arrived it was in full swing . Part of me was looking forward to it, part not . Let me deal with the "part not" first . Last time I was there I arrived late making a grand entrance in my sexy black TT driving into the courtyard in the darkness with a boot stocked with enough drink and miscellany to guarantee the contentment of a small posse .

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Having drawn everyone's attention I set up my ingredients on the tables acting as bar . White Russians all night reduced me to someone who needed a pep which of course I'd brought along . Some of his more sensible guests caught me hoovering up some when they went to use the bathroom . Unfortunately it was too late to do any good and I ran out of pep before I ran out of white Russians and I got sooo drunk I don't even remember spending the last hour of the night crawling around the courtyard trying to light cigarettes and find my car keys in full view of the audience I drew the attention of on my arrival . At some point of the night I had sex over a car too and chose to take control of the selection of music . What a dickhead . I knew that most of the same crowd would be there on Saturday night .


I was looking forward to seeing my friend . I had only seen her once or twice in the last year as she works away mostly . We'd spent a lot of years getting really good at taking drugs - she was better at it . She has also spent most of her adult life as a non-drinker but with the help of some other friends we had cured her of that , eventually ! Her younger sister was going to be there too - she used to live with me .

On arrival the first person I met was D . (D is a friend of the host's younger sister and a bridesmaid for the betrothed) . She seemed pleased to see me - we have had an occasional dalliance in the past . I'd talk to her later but wanted to catch up with the host who I had seen walking into the house . When I caught up with him he was standing in the kitchen with his fiancée . I'd been out with them the night they first met celebrating D's birthday . Anyway , his fiancée started to introduce herself ( forgetting that we'd already met ) when I interrupted with "you're a very STUPID woman!" . She remembered me now . Two of her friends immediately joined us one of them planting a soft kiss on my lips on her way to the toilet . The host announced that they were carpet munchers . She seemed familiar and I know I've seen her about in some of the city bars I drink in . For the rest of the night she engaged me in eye contact wherever she was and though her partner seldom left her side kept moving to be in my line of view right up until her taxi came . No doubt we'll cross paths again .

D was telling me she'd been to get a fitting for a bridesmaid's dress and was bitching about it . I took the opportunity to remind her about her aborted wedding - she stropped off . Blame it on lesbian lust and illicit eye contact . Anyway she works about 300 yards from where I live and she's such a fantastic kisser !

I pretty much came out of the night with no real negatives bar the hangover . The sound system was powered by an i-Pod all night , I never ended up on the floor and Percy was kept in the pants . During the summer here the nights never get completely dark , there's always a glow in the west and it was fantastic to be in the country and see the clouds silhouetted by the long set sun . Rounded off a great evening .

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Can you identify this?

Just a spider attached to my bin . Not one of the usual kinds I get 'round here .


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1 Sept. - UPDATE - apparently it's a type of garden spider commonly known as a cross spider . well , I've made a few spiders cross in my time so perhaps it's appropriate .
you can just about see the upside down crucifix on it's back .

Friday, August 26, 2005

Is f-u-c-k a bad word?

Is fuck a bad word ? It's origins don't come, as is popularly believed, from 19th century English prisons , fuck being an acronym for "for unlawful carnal knowledge" . The shorter f.u.c.k. was supposed to have been written on the inmates' clothing .
It actually comes from a pseudo latin word "fuccant" meaning , well ... to fuck and was spread in various forms in north european languages "fokken" dutch for thrust/copulate , focka , fukka and fock derivatives in other languages and all meaning broadly the same thing .
Do you use it ? If you were to write out the names of ten friends (include yourself) what proportion of them use the word occassionally ?

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Balance

On my way to the airport to catch a flight I pulled into the airport car park
with 45 minutes to spare . On the way into the terminal I discovered I had
forgot my driving licence - so no ID to get on the plane ! O.K. let's not
panic . I live near the airport and I can go home to get it . I won't make
the flight but I can get a later one and who knows , the flight might just
be delayed anyway . So back to the car , quick jaunt through rush hour
traffic , home and back to the airport by 5.15pm - fifteen minutes before
scheduled departure . Straight over to the ticket desk "what times the next
flight ?" . "Actually that flight's delayed" I'm told . Can't believe my
luck . But ....."It's delayed until 9.15pm" . I have about an hours journey
on the other end so I don't fancy that and am offered another flight to an
alternative airport at 7.10pm . Great ! So as i queue to check in I make a
phone call to cancel the car that would have been sent to pick me up and
arrange another one to pick me up from the new airport , I should be in by
8pm . On board the captain says it will only be 25 minutes flying time due
to the fact strong winds are behind us . Fantastic ! I'm picking my bag off the conveyor at 7.45pm . At 8.30 still no-one has materialised to pick me up . I grab a taxi from the rank which costs me £70 . Fuck's sake !

Anyway , stay the night , have meetings etc. and then back to the airport this evening for a 7.30 pm flight home . You guessed - delayed for 2 hours .

Just goes to show luck finds a way to balance itself out very quickly .

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Human nature

I'm not sure what it is that makes some people so callous , to set out to inflict pain on others they come into contact with . Especially those whose attentions they have encouraged and sought . That's a special kind of cruelty . The premeditation involved just makes it all the worse . Perhaps when we were young children we caught spiders in the palm of our hand and took delight removing their legs one by one or cut a worm in two . We did this because we didn't know better but we grew out of it very quickly . Some are unable to leave this developmental stage and despite gaining a wealth of knowledge and honing talents their fascination is now attuned to emotional decapitation . Obviously it's Pariah I'm speaking of . He has cultivated his audience through subtle manipulation . At times he's picked fights he realised he shouldn't have or caused offence to someone he values ( though he denies valuing anyone who visits ) and had to backtrack making whatever excuses or apologies were necessary . But something's always been bubbling under the surface . He needs to hurt others , he enjoys it and anyone could be next . I take no joy from watching that . I'm done with pulling legs off spiders . I'm not like him .


I know he'll show no real discomfort from my words , but I know he occasionally visits and will no doubt read them . He'll probably have a well worded rebuke of some sort on his Space and will either do
1. the "whatever" rebuke or
2. the "unload" rebuke or
3. ignore it altogether if he thinks this is the most likely way to cause me offence


If others continue to visit his Space I'll think none the worse of them , this is my choice - I'd feel uncomfortable watching that spectacle any longer . A disingenuous smile and a dagger thrust up through the ribs just doesn't do it for me .

Early Autumn


Summer, it seems, is cancelled this year . The leaves are already turning and the nights are well and truly drawing in . I took a walk on Saturday to a tower near where I used to live . On the way back I took a few shots . The light was incredible with the soon to be setting sun backlighting the trees with a neon green . The only sounds to be heard was the deafening buzz of thousands of flies, wasps and bees as they raced against the changing seasons . Long shadows and shafts of light mottled the paths .
This is a panorama I assembled from 21 shots on the way back to the car . I wish I'd recorded the sound too . To see it click on the thumbnail below . When it opens up click on it again to see it full size .




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Thursday, August 18, 2005

just one more for the road please


Cameroon's got the right idea . Or more accurately the beer companies in Cameroon . Rather than type up my version of this I'll just cut and paste from the BBC - It's o.k. , I pay my licence fee .


Cameroon's beer bottle 'currency'
Billboard advertising a beer promotion in Cameroon
Cameroonians are among the biggest alcohol consumers in Africa
Beer bottle caps are being used as currency in parts of Cameroon, which is in the grips of a promotion frenzy by rival breweries.

Intense competition between beer companies has seen 20 million bottles given away since the start of the year.

The prizes, which are revealed beneath the bottle top, include mobile phones, luxury cars and of course more beer.

With a beer costing $1, some punters are using their winning bottle tops to pay for taxi rides.

Big drinkers

"Virtually every consumer of beer in Cameroon has a chance of winning," says local journalist Martin Etonge in the capital, Yaounde.

"Sometimes you go out just for a bottle and you find yourself coming back with four or six free bottles because of winning caps.

"A bottle of beer costs about $1 and that's just over the cost of a township taxi drop."

He says five beer caps would be enough to cover someone's taxi expenses for a whole day.

"Taxi drivers are also using the caps in their fishy deals with the traffic police," adds Mr Etonge. "So they can get off by giving one or two caps to the officers."

He says Cameroon traditionally has one of the highest levels of alcohol consumption in Africa and authorities have not expressed concern about the current trend.

"Nobody seems to be worried about the health implications," he says. "The government is saying nothing about it. But people are certainly drinking more than before."

link


Indigo - any African holidays planned ?


Tuesday, August 16, 2005

shame on me


Well boys and girls . The answer . I had just met up with my friends when I spotted her . X came up to meet me and we had a brief chat . X said I was looking very well , younger and that I'd lost weight . X too was looking very well - very tanned - she always had some colour and good skin but then she is 13 years younger than me . Apparently my new phone number had been sought from some mutual friends . X asked me for it anyway and keyed it in to her phone . As she was tired and hadn't been feeling well for a day or two she said she'd be going home soon leaving her friends to continue drinking but now that she had my number would give me a ring during the week to meet up for lunch .......

Monday, August 15, 2005

Dilemma



Saturday night I went back to my old hometown to meet some friends for a drink in what used to be my local . Within 2 minutes of arriving I found sitting 6 feet away from me was an ex girlfriend ( I thought she was in New Zealand ) who is home for 3 weeks .

My question is what should you do if you meet up with an old girlfriend unexpectedly in a bar ?

1. give her one
2. get her number and give her one
3. talk as friends and agree to keep in touch
4. pretend you haven't seen her

Comments welcome .

Thursday, August 11, 2005

climate change - a new worry


Just in case you're still on the fence about global warning ......what if there was an area of permafrost the size of France and Germany combined that was rapidly thawing and could release enough trapped methane to cause a larger effect than gas emissions polution .......


click the link It's happening

My opinion on the global warming is-it-or-isn't-it debate , would you let your kids be driven in a car if one of mechanics at the dealership said the brakes might not be working right ?

Do you want to take the chance ?

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

nearly £ 1 a litre - thanks George


George , this is your fault . Oil was affordable before your leap into the deserts. Now it just keeps hitting new highs . I'm glad your oil buddy friends are doing well - you should be very proud about the loyalty you've shown them and it's only cost 1800 of your countrymen's lives ( although this seems to keep hitting new highs too ) . Still , contracts never come cheap do they ?


I'm paying 96.9 pence per litre for fuel . At 4.54 litres to an Imperial gallon that's about £4.50 a gallon - best part of $8 .


George , you truly are a cowardly , conniving , pseudo-Christian hypocrite . Your people deserve better . Shit , I deserve better !

Monday, August 08, 2005

Pestilence

No , I'm not still talking about comment spam . Last year I had a mouse problem . They weren't in the kitchen but running under the floorboards in the bedrooms and above the 1st floor ceilings in the roof space . I got friendly traps which they didn't take to - more fool them - and quickly went for old style traps . Within minutes the little buggers had decided to throw themselves into the traps with gay abandon and I could quite happily watch my favourite t.v. programs to the accompaniment of rodent neck snapping . If I didn't clear them often enough they turned cannibal and started nibbling on their furry brothers' still warm corpses . All was going well and I'd worked out that they were coming from my neighbour's house . Whilst laying traps in the roof space I encountered pestilence number 2 - giant mother fucker queen wasps . You can empty an entire can of wasp killer on them but it only makes them slightly dizzy and really pissed off . After hours of nervously clearing debris left by the previous owner in crawl spaces I contented myself that there were no nests and the morning ritual of dodging them in the bathroom came to an end .

Some months have passed and I reckon the neighbour has got to grips with his mice city but still occasionally hear the odd scurry - perhaps an elderly wheel chair bound mouse who was abandoned by his kin or could it be something else ? Current thinking is that pestilence 3 is most likely bats .

I'm long past the days of Sunday School but perhaps someone could enlighten me . Are locusts , plague and famine still ahead or should I just crack open another can of Guinness ? If a sacrifice is necessary I'm not sure what currency God accepts these days so some help on that would be welcome too .

Sunday, August 07, 2005

tomorrow will be spread the spam day


Are you like me ? Approachable but not universally welcoming ? Selective at who you choose to speak with ? O.K. , then you can read on .

I don't want to sound like a grump but these days when complete ( even in the web sense ) strangers pop round Spaces spamming the comments sections with things like "spread the love" - they really fuckin' wind me up . They grow like a virus as a few others join in .

I don't need your love and any I want to share I'll share by visiting a person's Space and leaving a comment which has something to do with something they've written . It could be Hard love or Empathic love , Humorous love or Love love . But it won't be Spam love .

My house has a garden . It's not exactly how I'd want it to look . Some of the hedges are being eaten by ivy . Weeds are popping up through the pebbles . The whole thing runs off at a slant . Nobody would say it's the nicest garden they'd ever seen . All those things are wrong and ultimately they're down to me , but I wouldn't let the neighbour's dog shit in it .

D'ya get me ?

Friday, August 05, 2005

500 firefighters getting hot and sweaty


Now , this doesn't light my candle but I know how you girls ( and some boys ) get all in a lather at the site of a man in uniform whose ressusitation skills can suck start a Harley Davidson .

So , if you're at a loose end this weekend , here's where you'll find them ....
link






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Thursday, August 04, 2005

Londinium - the return

Just a quick one ....

Well , there was no fancy restaurant - we ate in the board room ( have I spelt that right ? ) . Views were exchanged and nobody took offence . This wasn't how I'd planned it ! Meal over @ 9 so out to take in the evening air , a Marlboro red and some Guinness .
Down to Covent Garden to mingle with the tourists and then off to Farringdon on the advice of a colleague . No lap dance bars and in bed by 4 .
All very sensible . Not a huge lot happens in London on a Wednesday night , most bars seem to shut early .
Pre-arranged wake-up call @ 7.00 to get up , cleaned and breakfasted . Just 5 more minutes ..... woke up at 8.45 , plane leaves at 9.05 - I thought the flight was 10.30 ish . Even Scotty couldn't have beamed me in on time for that one .
So just when I think it's all going smoothly and I've acquired some wisdom I'm proved wrong .


Time to brush up on the "I was supposed to be on the 9.05 flight , but..." conversation . It always ends with a credit card number .

So much for the corporate freebie .

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Londinium


I've been summoned to see someone right at the top of the organization I work for . He's the top guy in the U.K. . His number 1 underling will also be there - this is my boss's,boss's,boss . The one I told their annual get together in January was shit . To his face . Two weeks after I started . How I wish free drink and diplomacy mixed .

So , anyway , invitation to a top London restaurant to hear me give "my frank opinions on the organisation and my experiences over the last six months" . I really hope my boss's boss's,boss has told him what to expect . That's the problem with people like that . They always ask me what I'm thinking even though they know I'm outspoken . Never in a million years does it seem to occur to them that I actually will . Then I get the phone call from my boss telling me that my boss's,boss has been on to my boss's,boss's,boss to ask him what I said . Are you still with this ? So , invariably people start to make apologies for me , or should I say on my behalf .
This is where it gets really painful . Why ? Because now my boss's,boss's,boss's,boss ( the top man , the big kahuna ) who's become my buddy , knows I'll tell him .

I'm not playing the game very well am I ?


Taxi !!

- Thanks Sonia ( you bas.....)

I know everyone has already done one of these - I think ( can't be arsed looking back to check ) that this is the first one of these I've done . I'm quite private so I've been sitting waiting for the right moment to do this . I'm tired and weak , just enough energy to hit "publish entry" .


Three screen names you have had (other than this one):

For security reasons I don't tell anyone – no exceptions

Three things you like about yourself:

My eyes

My cutting sarcasm and dry wit

My determination

Three things you hate/ can improve about yourself:

Discipline ( or lack of ) - sort of conflicts with one above

Procrastination – gonna get round to sorting that out one day

Eat healthier – very sweet tooth , my dentist will vouch for this

Three parts of your heritage:

Irish

Scottish

What ? You want me to make 1 up ?

Three things that scare you:

Heights – though I've climbed a mountain

Water ( can't swim ) - though I've scuba dived and jet ski-ed

The thought of going blind – still working on that

Three of your everyday essentials:

News

The internet

My car

Three things you are wearing right now:

Damn , I'm gonna have to put something on .....

Three of your favourite bands or artists at the moment:

Faithless

1 Giant Leap (o.k. These two are constants , so what ? )

Radiohead

Three new things you want to try in the next twelve months:

Visit Eastern Europe – possibly September

A vasectomy

At least 7 hours sleep a night




Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):

Room to breathe

Humour

Spontaneous sex


Now that I look at those any man could have written them

Two truths and a lie, in no order:

I worked in intelligence

I can use a Kalashnikov

I only choose to live in places where I can piss in the back garden

Three things about the sex you are attracted to that appeal to you:

Smile

Nice skin

A good dress sense


Do I have to stop at 3 ? - I suppose that weeds most of them out for a start

Three things you just can't do:

I can do anything – I just choose not to

Three of your favourite hobbies:

Taking pictures

Drinking- pathetic I know

Snowboarding – two truths and a lie , right ?

Three things you want to do really badly right now:

Retire

Have another cigarette I don't need

Stop smoking

Kill Paris Hilton

Learn how to count

Three careers you're considering:

Full time masseuse guinea pig

Bank robber

The one I'm supposed to be in

Three places you want to go on vacation:

Vietnam again

Japan – they're completely nuts

Venezuela


Three kids names:

Naimh ( pronounced Neave )

Aoife ( pronounced Eefa )

Connor – you can manage this one on your own

Three things you want to do before you die:

Learn at least 1 language fluently – English would be a good start

kILL pARis HiLToN - sorry getting twitchy

Lose 1 1/2 stone - well , funerals , big day and all that - you wanna look your best

Three people who have to take this quiz now!!!:

MizzVee

Michael

I leave this last spot open – first one to volunteer can have it