Top Tip: If your car battery goes flat (which you only realise when it has been packed with Christmas presents, pram, baby and assorted baby equipment (including pram, lift, clothes, stun gun)), call a taxi company who will charge you 100 SEK to jump start your car...cool.

pork chops, brie and cashew nuts are all food stuffs which have a slightly sinister aspect to them. Mince (lamb or beef), cheddar, and grapes are all foods which seem quite jolly. Kiwi fruit, lockets (cough sweets with a foul vomit inducing centre), and meringue are all clearly quite mad.

interesting. We're preparing for the exodus to the summer house so unless I can hijack a wireless network there will be no blogging for the Jule period. Peace on Earth, seasons greeting etc etc.

recently watched movie: I indulged myself yesterday and bought two DVDs from the super low price display at Hemköp, Highlander and the Big Blue. Highlander, top movie, but its suddenly looking old - also, Christophe Lambert is difficult to take seriously any more. The last movie I saw with him was Druids, where he played (I think) Vercingetorix. Actually not true, I saw him in something more appalling but my brain has excised all recollection of the movies name. It involved jungles, and monkeys (and it was not greystoke).
weather: fucking cold, theres a storm coming.
music: radio 4
book: still slaughtering my way across Genebackis with the Malazan empire.
No link

its early, a night of broken sleep and strange dreams (Mr Sandman is depositing his load nightly now, rather than a sprinkel, I wake up with a bed full of gravel, or night soil as its known). Last day at work before the Christmas break which means, yet again, silence here as we run for the North and disappear until new year - alone, in the summer house with only thick fantasy novels and the playstation for company - and the laptop, aiming to write a short story by the end of the holiday, something inspired either by Erikson (expect lots of loving descriptions of 'blood spattered armour') or crap detective thriller (expect noirish 'the rain ran down the window as he looked out onto the dark, lonely streets').

things making life easier: the video shop has installed key pads to enter your personal number so I don't have to struggle with '7' anymore, with occurs in my personal number no less than 3 times and, with my accent, can sometimes give people the mistaken impression I was born in 1921. In explanation, (for those of you who don't live in Big Brother countries (in the Orwellian rather than the furtive sex under duvets on prime time sense)) the first six digits of your number are simply your birthday, the last four the unique part.
music: none, way to early
weather: its dark, 4 degrees
film: Shaun of the Dead. Bloody excellent. I waited long enough to see this, but in my defence I don't think it got released in Sweden for much more than 10 minutes. The last zombie movie I saw was 28 Days Later (thats the title, not some strange temporal comment) which scared the hell of me, the last comedy I saw was well, I'd love to say Dodge Ball or something else which shows I'm up with the Zeitgeist but I have not seen a new comedy for ages. Anyhoo, Shaun of the Dead was very very funny and K, who has not seen any Zombie movies, thought it was excellent. I guess a good chunk of the humour comes from an appreciation of 'spaced' but also the fact that this was set in the UK - Crouch end rather than LA, thank you! It was scary in places too. Factoid, Simon Pegg will play a Zombie in Romeros new movie, Film Threat - Reviews, will apparently features humans holed up in a walled city protecting themselves against the dead (so we've had Shopping Malls, Pubs, Mansions, Farm Houses and now walled cities - whats left, entire planets? hmmmmm). Finally, this would be a really good time to revisit Bad Taste by Peter 'Look at my Ring' Jackson and see if its still funny, given that the last time I saw it was over 12 years ago. Last factoid, the new movie from Pegg and Wright will be called 'Hot Fuzz', I kid you not.




looks pretty cool, probably a lot better than the spotty wizard and a good hold over until His Dark Materials turns up....inspired me to go and read the books as well.....Film Threat - Reviews

The comment about Dead Poets Society obviously needs to be taken in context. Clearly any film with Robin Williams in is a pile of pants.

I started watching the Astronauts Wife last night (the movie, before you think I've become 'my name is Michael Caine, and I am a nosy neighbout') but gave up about half way through when I realised that 1. I was very tired and 2. This was in fact a cheap rip off of Rosemarys Baby - possibly one of the best horror movies ever made. I'd also already watched Mona Lisas smile, not by choice I hasten to add as Ks friend K brought it around (also with toffees and icecream so it was not all bad) but even so, such excriating pointless shite. The film started only in that it obeyed the laws of physics and went from a state of not beginning to beginning, after that it ceased to have a middle or indeed any form of ending other than, after the passage of time, it stopped. This was a truly terrible film with any messsage about the emancipation of women or challenging the establishment lost in a slush of weak script, tired cliches and too much acting. Dead Poets Society is far superior. Fortunately I'd watched Conan the barbarien the previous day so happily fantasied about combining the two films. This culminated in Arnold hacking off Julie Roberts head (rather than James Earl Jones) in front of the assembled cast of all the St Trinians films. Splendid.

holy vesicle bioreactors radioactiveman! BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Artificial life' comes step closer

this just creeps through the news rather than instigating the debate which it hints at.....having lived for almost a year now in a country with a very different attitude to alcohol I do sometimes wonder if we drink a bit too much in the UK....BBC NEWS | Wales | Mobile hospitals to treat drunks

So after a few nights of battling sleeplessness I retreated to the sofa last night...six hours of sleep, the most I've had in weeks and sufficient to let the creative juices flow at work today, all going very well and it looks like my contract is being extended throughout next year, very very good news.

music: none
book: Deadhouse Gates, a Malazan tale of the fallen. Speaking of books I've put down Banks new book after a few chapters and feel unwilling to pick it back up, I'm sure I will but it has not gripped me in the way his other SF did. Sadly, I almost feel like he's trying to hard.
weather: damp, dank and daylight is in short supply
top tip: rather than using a knife, use scissors to divide a pizza - much less mess and you can pretend to be a surgeon.



repeat after me, this is not funny....this is not funnyBBC NEWS | Scotland | Krankie hurt in beanstalk tumble..I expect there will be some terrible end to this which will make me feel stricken with guilt but right now just keep repeating...this is not funny

Its Skåne, its december and as a result its cold and overcast. After 5 weeks of hospital, then a further two of NeoNatal we have been firmly at home - as nuclear family (whatever the hell that is) for the last few week or so. I return to work tommorow, not something which totally fills me with joy - given the extreme cosy factor I've been enjoying but still, we can't live on air.

As a result of the broken sleep my mind is feeling rather cabbaged and I wander around being a little 'punchy' (as in punch drunk rather than violent). My various projects continue at different states of activity, the quest to build my own PC continues with a loose idea of specifications and the spring campaign of bouldering is being gradually built up to by feet off training on the fingerboard. The sit up regime begins again on monday (which, in the words of Mr T in rocky II will lead only to 'Pain') and my copious mental and scribbled notes for a novel will begin to take some concrete form. Speaking of books I see that Pullman has written two new kids stories, should be worth checking out (you can probably visit his site ....here). I noticed, on the bbc site, that they are removing direct references to god from the forthcoming film, as there was a concern it would offend. The film makers actually stated that this was a result of stronger, more religious beliefs in the US .....God botherers.



weather: overcast and 5 degrees
music: none
book: Deadhouse Gates: A Malazan Tale of the Fallen (again!)
Thought: Just counting for Elias, we will use approximately 10 000 nappies in the next 3 years - if we have another child soon this figure will, of course, double. Nice to know that we are creating a rich vein of shit for some future civillisation of scatophillics to mine.


always worth a look....NASA - Home

this is priceless, the more ignorant racists get showered in 'slurry' the better...BBC NEWS | UK | Kilroy-Silk attacked with slurry

and so shaking off the dust off the site I RETURN with a difference and differently......more to follow but never fear the blog is coming back to life.


cool flash....Alexis Tr�panier

Normal service still not continuing - imminent arrivial of child into the world. Maybe I'll start some kind of diary as life as a parent, and then maybe not as theres plenty of blogs which cater for that particular wierdness. Postings will start again at the end of next week and then increase in frequency from then on..........

recent movie: Spiderman II 6.5 out of ten
recent book: quicksilver, Neal Stephenson...bloody excellent
weather: sunny, 3 degrees above freezing
music: Everyday is like sunday, Smiths

how fucking cool is this - new project (as if I haven't enough!) is to build my own PC...which of course means creates a monster as theres no need for half measures so presently looking at Pentium 4 with 384MB ram, or something, I have not a clue what clockspeed is or what 16 bit means, which is the point of doing this...Computer Cases, PC Cases - Starting at $24.99!

one of many sites devoted to the dark materials trilogy books.....and, again with the life under a stone, the movie!!His Dark Materials .org

Yeah, I know I said there would be no activity but lifes full of excitement isn't it - check out this blog, very interesting and at times disturbs......Jon's Jail Journal

The news is just in - Nevada has just declared for Bush. Bloody hell.

And yes, the blog has been very silent but baby related events have somewhat taken over. Thus, there will be a reactivation of it when the dust settles somewhat and K escapes hospital. Expect service to return in the next 2-3 weeks. (assuming that we're all still here and Bush has not declared war on the devil and starting drilling huge holes in the ground and lobbing nuclear bombs down them - it could happen). I've actually started to really get upset about the US, particularly when I read an article about 'intelligent design' (a dressed up version of creationism) being taught in American schools.

horrah...our generation of geeks come up with the goods, fuck you hollywood.....Film Threat - Reviews

More to come, expect changes, a slightly less burbling tone.....and heck, I dunno, c'mon....things are different.

so no surprises there then......Film Threat - Reviews

lovely cold crisp weather. but the temperatures already dropping beneath 10.......it bodes ill for the winter!


and it would appear that even the bogs are better here.....BBC NEWS | UK | England | Tyne/Wear | Call to end 'bog standard' loos

Sunday, and the day of the worship. I myself spent the morning in blissful workout mode which involved lots of sit ups and then a tendon testing session on the newly installed finger board above the bedroom door frame (the installation of which was one of the more nervewracking things I've done in while, drill on hammer setting against very hard brick - nasty noise, clutch continual slipping, scary monsters. Once again fertile imagination imagining drill bit suddenly snapping and burying itself in the wet bits of my head). Wandered off to one of Malmös coffee houses and drunk a vat of latte, washing down a rather nice and budget falafal.

film recently seen: Bourne Supremacy, fucking great. Really good.
book: Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland. I was expecting some kind of introspective on growing up but, as well as that, got a post apocalypse novel as well. cool.
music: Mirror in the Bathroom

minor disappointment: finding out that ICO, which I've meaning to buy for ages, costs over 50 quid on Amazon Uk as its now collectable.



nice pac man game.....Moonflip.com - Free Flash Games

So. A while ago, when I was in Iceland, I saw one the more disturbing and upsetting things that I've seen in a long time. Me, and my chums N (a chap, Dansk) and E (a lady, Svensk) were wandering up Rekjavik high street looking for somewhere to grab some food and maybe a beer or two. I was actually not that into a drinking fest, which N was, given that I'd just shook off a massive hangover. The last few hours had been spent being parboiled in the blue lagoon so I was feeling pretty mellow. So, we wandered up the hill, looking into restaurants when we heard raised voices - sorry, thats very English. These people were screaming at each other, a man and a woman. She was attractive and well dressed, he was a tank - a brick shit house. So they are walking towards us, still arguing, when suddenly, shockingly, he lashed out punching her in the face and then twice in the stomach. She stumbled to a halt while he simply strolled on. It was so brutal and so quick, that we were shocked into inaction. I put my hand onto her arm, but then she ran after him shouting and screaming incoherently. Me and N looked at each other and then he said - we should do something - so was went back down the street where the couple were shouting at each other again. Only about 20 seconds had passed. Even as we arrived she then punched him, in the face and he, once again, began to wade in. So, after only some minutes ago thinking about what to have for dinner I now found myself in between two stangers, trying to stop the guy hitting the girl again. As I put my hands on his arm and chest, I realised that his bicep was fucking huge - it was at this point I wondered vaguely if they'd fly my body home or just leave me where I fell. Fortunately he backed off, but the weird thing was - as N said later - was that it was almost as if we were not there, he seemed completely oblivious to our presence. He then began screaming at her, she screaming back. Her lip had been split and there was blood on her face. He suddenly stalked further off the street, checking his face to see if he was bleeding from where she had hit him - yeah mate, real fucking hero that you are. She realised we did not speak much icelandic so dropped into English, which was totally surreal. N, who is a trainee Doctor, checked out her face while reasuring her - one of her teeth had been cracked and broken. At the same time the guy had returned and was now prowling around us, him speaking in English now, demanding that she give him his money. So, she says that he can have his money and we end up in the surreal situation of escorting her to a cash machine where she drew out a load of cash and threw at the blokes feet. She then staggered further off down the street with us all in tow, the asshole picking up the cash from the street and then leaving up another street.
She was now in total shock, shaking and continually touching her already swelling face. She was crying like mad, so we used her phone to call the cops. Well, to cut a sad story short the cops turned up and while she was talking to one of them in the back of the cop car we gave our details to another. But heres the kicker, while we talking to her - waiting for the cops to turn up and trying to comfort her - turns out the guy, who it seemed was her boyfriend, was on steriods. Which went some way to explaining his total wierd state of mind when were trying to help her.

So, the post match analysis - in the pretend world we would have righteously waded into the bloke, beaten him up and sent him running home, she would have escaped a probably abusive relationship and everything would of worked out fine. In the real world we did little but pick up the pieces. We helped her, sure, but did we help enough? We have not heard from the Icelandic cops so either she pressed charges and the physical evidence was sufficient or, perhaps she did not.




well, I was going to blog another site but this one fought the law and broke in.......six degrees and the power of networks will have to wait. This is more geekness but its cool.....Quarks to Quasars, Powers of Ten

Morrisey, down boy....down, I'm not telling you again you muscled daffodil dispensing shambler.

A bit more sane today after a quick snooze on the couch. This afternoon was the first baby class which in true Swedish style involved coffee and cake, and some candles. It was all in Swedish, which truly tested my new found lanquage skills, so now I'm loaded up with the swedish for dilation, cervix, mucus plug and bloodbath.

Yesterday was a haze of proofreading which drifted into today after only five hours sleep and then back into copenhagen, though I escaped early for the afore mentioned baby class.
One of the Danes I'm working with made me most happy (i think) by saying 'your English is very good', under the impression I was Swedish. For the last few days I've been speaking Swedish to Danes and English to Swedes - confusing.


Train, Plane and Automobile interest circles. 'nuff said. Stoatface @ Fotopic.Net

I'm in proof reading hell.


and this ones going out to all you Billy Ray fans .....Questia Online Library - The Online Library

(a background of sawing guitars, blurring through a haze of holophonic static)
You remember the dream. Rising out of cool water, the sun suddenly warm on your chest as you look up to the infinite blue. A light smile passing across your face as you throw your arms sideways and float, the pressure of the water stopping your fall.
waking
Theres nothing to see on this ocean that cannot be seen on another day.

the devil will find work for idle hands to do.........

working my ass off in Copenhagen, tired, hungry (only consumed one Frankfurter in the last 6 hours) and really need to work out.

oh the devil will find work for idle hands to do...........

but I'm still fond of you, oh ho......


so, so, so cool. BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | SpaceShipOne rockets to success

but I'm still fond of you, oh ho ho. Morrisey revival going on here. stay in touch, mans been moving around Sweden and Denmark and been way to starry eyed to blog. So a hypercast update, conference in copenhagen, parents in Ronneby and pram buying.

I was happy in the haze etc etc


interesting and rather sad at times....mans inhumanity to monkeyFamous Monkeys Through History

The dark rolled in off the sea and crashed onto the glass sand of the beach in a silent wave of static. In the purple sky a lone paper bag blew on the mauve thermals, a sad song playing in the background. The hills on either side of the bay were dark and thoughtful, brown flecks of grazing perms moving slowly on their tight flanks. Far out, past the line of singing fish, just on the straight line of the horizon sat a group of fishing boats. The water slapped their cork sides as they wallowed in the warmth, the ruddy bearded children who worked the nets persuading the fish, politely, to step inside.

book: Finished the Iron Council by China Mieville, definitely his best. Clearly he's been reading his Gormenghast again. Also read 'I don't know how she does it', which was cool. Reading Dr. Miriam Stoppards book on raising children, so now becoming expert on breast pumps, the billion or so illnesses children can get and sleeping patterns.
film: Saw Crimson Tide all the way to the end, finally, and was rather disappointed. Like Logans Run (though clearly not in the same class) a film which benefits by stopping watching five minutes before the end. Soon to go and see Wimbledon (gak, gak.....vomit), Bourne Supremacy.
music: Lauryn Hill
weather: nice, sunny


very good, if you are in any way a Tim Burton fan this will be most appreciated.....AtomFilms - Robot Boy

nearly nothing but something, not quite a quickening but more than a mote appears a little speck of substance. Twisting and dancing now like a mad jot it appears small to the inhuman eye but on a scale of zeros has mass and a potent velocity.

quite enough of that. two cups of coffee today, more than I've drunk in ages (again), it'll be the fags next. Parents have been here the last week, its good for them to see me settled here. I'm away for the weekend along the coast, should be interesting.

incidently, I have not forgotten - more tales of iceland coming, including hangovers from hell, violence and Wolfgang.

where were we.......the great bulk of the slave ship tumbled from null space with arcane energies still flickering around the twisted metal of its hull...........




quite incredible news, medical science takes another bound....BBC NEWS | Health | Baby for ovary transplant woman

strangely, after yesterdays blog, this turned up on the gruaniad site today.....Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Guardian special: the world in 2020

Heres a thought for you, ten years ago (or maybe 15 if you really want to be sure) few of us had mobile phones, lap top computers (or those that we did have had the weight of a baby elephant and burnt a hole in the desk), cars were not stuffed full of microchips, cds were pretty cool, mp3 was an obscure piece of compression code, DVDs were the next big thing (yeah, right we said) and the effects in terminator (either one) were cutting edge. Now, think of this. Going further back, before us Generation Xers, our parents thought the humble tape a revolution, the transistor radio amazing and the mass production of the car astounding. Where am I going with this. Well, in ten or 15 years time mobile phones will not exist, none of us will carry lap tops and familar technology, just as in our parents time, will have changed beyond all recognition. This is the way things work, mobile phones will become smaller and smaller until we can place them inside our bodies, computers will have become completely commoditised and things like washing machines, microwaves and ovens will have ceased be commonplace because other technologies will have replaced them. They are just tools, and when we have self cleaning clothes and food which heats itself, they will be moved to the history books. Further, things we totally take for granted, like microsoft windows, html, the internet, petrol and film may have been completely replaced and rendered archiac. My point is this (somewhat based off a recent guru's lecture) that we (and certainly me) tend to base our idea of the future on what the present feels like. It will be completely different, even in the short space of 10 years. And if that doesn't seem realistic remember 10 years ago, 1994, we'd only just characterised stem cells, pentium I was pretty damn fast and the human genome was just a bunch of poorly understood letters.

nighty night.



very very cool site, well worth surfing around, very nice. One day all
sites will be like this. tokyoplastic v.2

its tiring to build an Ikea Hemnes cupboard, even harder to carry it 4 flights of stairs when it weighs more than you do. But now its assembled, and all that money and effort (and I include the diligence of the nimble fingered children in some far off land with their well honed drilling and measuring skills) has meant that we can now put stuff in another place, rather than leaving it somewhere else.

book: Gemma Bovary by Posy Simmonds; Modernity at Large by Arjun Appadurai (which is doing nothing but make me feel really thick) and, wait for it, China Mievilles new book - very exciting.

rather like e2 (remember that from ages ago, back when this blog was youthful and innocent, like a virginal rabbit skipping towards the chopper of doom), well, this is a little like that...but of course, more in homage and well, more worthy. Its a liff thing. BBC - h2g2 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Poopsie Chuckle Chunks

Tuesday, started with a spirited driving lesson and then a quick comuter trip into work........look, I'm struggling to write anything remotely witty or interesting here, its been a long day and I've drank half a bottle of red wine for dinner. Actually, that should be with dinner otherwise that would be extremely worrying.

Started a new project at work today, linking together various business support mechanisms in the New European states. This therefore includes Lithuania, which has one of the highest rates for suicide in the world, according to a recent study by the WHO. Its apparently due to the very high rate of alcoholism....interestingly the USA is quite high up in the list of popping ones cork, due this time to easy access to firearms.

weather: its dark and mild, the second Swedish summer has arrived.
music: Morcheeba
book: oh god knows, same old bollocks about globalisation.

very noble Mr Blair, but you wonder how much of the argument he will take to his chum in the White House....BBC NEWS Politics PM gives dire warning on climate

Iceland, what a blast. Probably one of the most memorable trips I've had in a long time, incredible fantastic place. I'll scribble more later (when I'am not in my underpants and need to get to work soon), but some of the highlights are, one of the best nights in a bar in a strange place, bizarre scenary with little vegatation, geysers, lava (though the cold kind), geothermal power, terrible hangover and hours in the 'blue lagoon' sitting in 40 degree water in the rain, in the dark, surrounded by rolling clouds of steam. The conference was okay, though the two hour pep talk from a business guru was cool. More stories will include waterfalls, violence and evil lava.


given that my photo uploader piece of software has gone up the spout heres a website from Iceland from the totally trippy and surreal Blue LagoonBlue Lagoon this photos don't really reflect my experience of this place which was in the pissing rain (not that that mattered), in the dark.

music: the zeros, Icelandic strangenes, already very cool and I've only listened to a few minutes.....

I have to pack. Expect an update soon including blue lagoons, Björk and ponies.

old and dusty, but quite strange.....Chrome Moon FAQ V2.01

and some idle curiosity turned this up.....Max Headroom

blogging at the minute on something like the set from Blade Runner or Max Headroom (theres something to hunt for).....the rooms draped in thin sheets of plastic which gives it the appearence of afore mentioned cyberpunk movies or low buget pop videos. Yes, we've got the painters in. They burst through the door at 0730 every morning full of thinner and camel hair with a churlish yell of delight, never mind that I'm stumbling around SBN looking for a towel....oh well.

The blogs going to be quiet for a few days again, I'm off to Iceland this thursday so there'll be no blogging then (but such things will change when I get hold of my wireless laptap, cool). Its wednesday tommorow, yes I know, but thats also lanquage school night so there may be a lack of motivation.

heres some images of Sweden, from today:-

the brown spot on the skin of the woman who sat next to me on the bus.
the sun reflecting off the shiny steel of the observatory at the university.
the bill board guy mopping his face with a dirty hankerchief.
my driving instructor grabbing my foot.
the rumble of some studs car in the streets.
the realisation that I was an English man, reading a book about globalisation, on a bus in Sweden going to a company which has offices in Denmark and represents a network of 11 different countries.
a motorbike with two people on it.
the christmas carol.
the fingers.

The driving lesson was cool this morning, learnt how to crawl drive and change gear properly. I assume the handbrake turns are next week.

music: usual mixture but at the minute, Chicks on Speed
weather: lovely sunny
cute little flash site.....yugop.com

"and thats the way to crucify a fish" said my latin teacher, stepping back from the tree and letting the black and decker with dual hammer action slip from his scale encrusted hands.

its the weekend. enjoy it. there probably won't be another one like it.

most excellent D&D parody.....actually a little to close to the truth8bitDandD

Good morning.

Its been a lovely day today, no working late, no sweating feverishly and wishing for more hours in the day. Start the working week on wednesday and end it on friday, nice.

Completely lost my thread of thought there, listening to BBC and suddenly heard the news that SETI may have picked something up but turned out to be nothing....bugger, as the great man said.

The other good news out today was that I'm off to Iceland in a weeks time, the land of geysers and Björk (which means birch in Swedish, incidently), looking forward to that I must say.

One of those little differences which mean a lot (number nothing of an irregular series): in supermarkets you always wait to pay the cashier rather than the usual british style of scurrying after your shopping and then frantically running back to pay while the people waiting behind you click there teeth and hiss with disapproval. Here we wait patiently, pay, and then pack our goods while, wait for it, they use the divider to segragate your goods. ordered. scented. nice.

it took me a second to remember who Tom Lehrer is, which is a real shame as I really used to like listening to this guys stuff, his most famous tune being 'Poisoning Pidgeons in the Park. Here, in this lovely site, a cunning flash maverick has put the elements to a little flash animation, good stuff.....incidently, you do need speakers...Mike Stanfill, Private Hand - Flash Animation - The Elements, by Tom Lehrer

music: Radio 4, news
book: still the Lexus and the Olive Tree
weather: nice.
new skill: using the brake before changing gear, much smoother.

again with the question, why exactly did we come down from the trees?....BBC NEWS | Europe | Turkish man eyes squirting record

oh dear me.........BBC - 6 Music - Robert Smith Lookalike Gallery

more proof that the world is going mad....- More Useful Everyday

a you thought I'd forgotten the link......one man/womans crusade on the net to poke fun at the evilness of 419ers..What's the bloody point ??

and as the world goes to hell in a handbasket again I resume the frippery which is this, lovingly incoherent ramble through the backwaters of my mind. I've read, as I expect you might have done, my fair share of blogs out on the net. So things you won't find here is sneering commentary or insightful thoughts on the world we live in. Those of you who know me well will know that such insight occurs rarely and sneering even less (usually in sentences which include the words conservative, reimagining or piers anthony). This is not to say that all blogs are sneering or/and insightful, many are truly awesome whereas this one, like its author, is random, inconsequential and troubled by corns.

For the minute the great onslaught at work has calmed down. It all culminated with a two day trip to Finland last week which was most excellent. The reason was our yearly forum (conference under another name) which collected the movers and shakers from all over the Baltic region. Finland seemed cool but to be honest I saw little but my hotel room, the conference centre and a few choice bars. The days of giving presentations whilst still drunk seem to have gone, after a few beers I made my excuses and went to bed.

The weekend, and indeed the last two days of vacation, was most excellent.....English chum came over to visit and thus a trip to the summer house and Copenhagen was in order. All good.

music: creedance clearwater revival.
book: Lexus and the Olive Tree by T. Friedman (all about Globalisation), The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapiscinki (about Africa, fantastic) and Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (very good thriller by the chap who wrote Mystic River). Also Camelot 3000 (as reminded to me recently) and HellRaiser (collected best).
weather: overcast.

and having read all that I'll invest some of the below mentioned tokens on a dictionary.

so my little darling blog, all dusty and moth eaten....nerry a word of wisdom spoken nor anything insensible said, not that there was never anything much of that but nothing, well, thats just indefensible. So the story is that I'm working like hell at the minute which is nice, for the hourly rate I currently get is somewhere between miserly and mean (though the word on the street is that a rise comes soon, very nice but lets wait until we're spending it before we crack the champagne and dance the light fantastic) and more hours means more play tokens. But the downside is that the blog suffers thus, until the dust has settled, I intend to take a short break rather than demoralise you with empty and unchanged pages. This is a declaration, if you will, of a short period of silence to follow which will last until I return, Gods willing, from Finland which will be in a weeks time - thus waitress service will return on the 1st of september...yes I may find time for the occaisonal snippet and if the above is a rule then rules are made to be broken but at least I have not the guilt of considering you sleeplessly waiting for a fresh update on my continuing campaign against the dark overlords of chaos and the harbingers of insect doom that they verily ride. You have been warned, I repeat full uncensored service will return on the 1st of september until then it will be light showers and occaisonal sea frets.

love a duck? I'd rather not thanks.





following on from the 'the chap', heres some find apparel to gad about in...Classic Tweed Trousers and Breeches from Scotch Corner

so a quick little sniff here as I'm off to class in a while, back from work, have some dinner then off to Swedish class for three hours, quite a full day.

Sadly its raining, which means that the death metallers in the Malmö festival ( a week long event, but its the heavy stuff this evening) will all get damp. Not me, as I'm definitely only a fairweather festival goer. No doubt it will turn into some kind of mud fuelled orgy.

its the bit about the 'fight of champions' which made me chuckle BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | HK arrests 'insect gamblers'

you can tell its a lazy day today, lots of time wasting fun here.....I'am well on the way to create a despotic state, I've just abolished democracy.Jennifer Government: NationStates

check it out, the Swedes just made 9 000 000, which puts them about 3 000 000 short of the population of London and something like the 83rd largest population in the worldBefolkningsklockan - Statistik fr�n SCB

jeesly crow, almost forgot.....today is two days into my sixth month in Sweden - so lets recap:-

I am about to become a father.
I have a new job.
I can sort of speak another lanquage.
My world possessions have been whittled down to a suitcase's worth.
I have eaten one, exactly one, fried breakfast in the last six months.
I have lost 6kg.
I dont queue anymore.
I eat pickled cabbage with pizzas and think its normal.

and so forth and so on.......98% all good.

so there was much sniggering this afternoon, as I walked back from the railway station (I'd had a meeting in Copenhagen), when I noticed a ladies shoe shop called 'Viscera', the mental image of people shuffling around with their feet draped in offal (and other soft parts) caused no end of amusement, but thats me and mine sense of humour neighbours.

Other chuckle today was at my expense for the good people of Denmark and Sweden. I cut my hair this morning, using the clippers anand returning myself to a dirty tennis ball impression rather than the coconut I was beginning to resemble. Yeah, so walking past a window in town, checking myself out, looking good but wait.....it seems I've become a Hare Krishna disciple as there is a huge chunk of hair protuding from the back of my head. Particularly funny as I was presenting the last few weeks of work in Copenhagen, I carried it off, however, my chanting and wearing orange robes so they did'nt think I was wierd.

weather: Sultry like the harems number one
music: coldplay, but I'm hoping for the Dixie Chicks


one of the better U-31 sites on the net (and yes, I've been to pretty much all of them)......The Ulysses 31 Information Resource Centre.

so how the hell are you doing, trees are sweating, dogs are panting and the sun is affectionate towards the brown.......new language course began yesterday, evening classes this time, twice a week for three hours. My class, at the minute, consists of me, two guys from Iraq, one chap from Lebanon and a woman from China. All nice and multicultural, and yeah, thanks to the Tony and George roadshow for making me feeling instantly guilty when the Iraqis introduced themselves.

music: Erasure, A Little Respect
weather: hot
book: Across the Nightingale Floor, Lian Hearn

practice those handshakes why don't ya.....Order of Former Freemasons :: The Secrets of Freemasonry

Woke up feeling strangely nostalgic today, not so much for the UK but rather for childhood which suddenly seems very fresh, I guess its something to do with impending fatherhood.......'nuff said on that self indulgent riff anyway.

Jesus am I grumpy (as well as nostalgic obviously) today, I've got a whole new brace of mozzie bites (approximately 13 or so) which adds to my already insect ravaged body - since the trip to Rhodes i've accumulated somewhere close to 30 odd bites, knibbling and general insect assaults going from the mundane (wasp sting on inside thigh) to the interesting tick between my toes (removed by suffocation with vaseline, really works!), waiting for symptons of lyme disease to show themselves. There was a full on tactical assault on my legs during bouldering yesterday, little bastards. Bouldering though, bloody good, went to Kjugokull for the second time and had a triumphant time, sent a high ball problem which scared the hell out of me (particularly as the base of the rock was teeming in huge fucking ants - again with the insect thing). Having just read up on mosquito bites on the net it seems that the number of bites I've experienced means I am resensitised to the proteins the little fuckers inject into you - great.

music: Chicks on Speed
weather: lovely, 25+ and the tarmacs dry
book: nine mil, Rob Ryan
inconsequential thought: staggering geometric progressions filling the sky
recent film: I, robot, 4.5 out of 10 but also Magnolia (on tv) bloody excellent.

Please don't put your life in the hands of a rock and roll band....indeed, my nostalgic muse extends to the music of day.......

remember the days of playing 3D monster maze, fantastic, check out the adverts pages....lost saturdays of yore hammering away on the shiny little keyboardZX81 THE ARCHIVE

yeah yeah, its been short on blog and long on silence but my eyes are stinging from staring at the computer at work so no blog until the weekend........or maybe its my urinating in my eyes party trick.
love and peace.

apparently there was only 13 episodes made of this before it was canned.....in the realms of nostaglia it always seemed like more....STREET HAWK

Good morning. As the late Alastair Cook used to say in his letter from America, I used to try and listen to it when I was a kid but there was never anything about the America that I was interested in....i.e. no interesting features on Knight Rider or The A Team. Had a real beasting in the climbing gym last night, met up with one of the chaps and, once again, was subjected to a plethora of crimps and steep climbing. The climbing wall is currently quiet with a clique of half naked very strong men occupying one of the boulder caves. After the climbing wall I went out for a quick skate around town and took a humilating slappy fall, whilst stationary, when waiting for the lights to change. Ouch, pride doubly hurt.

I registered at the local driving school yesterday and received my text books, all nicely translated into English. The main book has the first few chapters totally devoted to being a safe driver and not giving in to peer pressure and driving recklessly in the quest to 'find oneself'. Every other page seems to have a photograph of a mangled car with oil and blood leaking out of it - scary stuff.


Weather: Sunny and fluffy
Music: Charlie Feathers 'That Certain Female'........and now some New Order 'Love Vigilantes'
Book: Scorcese on Scorcese, Da Vinci Code, The Death of Cinema, Stray Bullets, Arkham Ayslum.

and the internet becomes a mechanism for world peace....BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Finnish army 'drops web addicts'

greetings one and all. Freshly groomed and back from the summer house, I can't go to work straight away as I have to go and book some driving lessons - yes, that day has finally come when I must, as the toecutter said, 'ride a rubber road to freedom'. As myself and K are now the proud owners of a splendidly red car I've been spending some quality time behind the wheel, and not just sitting in the drive way making 'vroom vroom' noises. Going from nervously puttering around country lanes on friday to driving us most of the way home on monday, I don't see any major obstacles. I realised that I already know how to drive, I just needed to learn how to drive 4 wheels rather than two. But blimey, cars are boring - no sensation of speed (other than your partner saying 'your're breaking the law now, and the sound barrier' - as our awesome 16 valve 1.6 litre engine powers us across the Swedish landscape) and you've got a blind spot the size of, well, a car....never mind, all good fun.

I've just finished an awesome book, 'A heartbreaking work of staggering genius' by David Eggers, which was funny and sad, and lots of other good things as well. Just started Dan Browns Da Vinci Code which seems to be intellectual wanking, its actually quite interesting but the characters are tottering hulks of rotting cardboard who can only think in italics.

as well as twisting your optic nerves around this will also get your brain trying to jump out of your skull as you try to grapple with what a hypercube actually is.......otherwise known as a TesseractStereoscopic Animated Hypercube

Yeah, its been rather slack recently but we've had guests camping out in the front room so no blogging I'm afraid.....and I'm off to work in 10 and then the summer house for a longish weekend so nothing doing this weekend (unless I can get to a computer, my the power of my mind). Normal disservice will be restored as soon as possible.

weather: Sunny
book: The Long March by William Styron (him of Sophies Choice (not Sophies World, very very different)) and Number9dream by David Mitchell, which is bloody excellent.
Oh my god, Wes is still alive.....STARTREK.COM

 

praise be to the gods of the net....awesome awesome siteThe Project Apollo Image Gallery

its early, and I can't sleep. In fact, I've been awake for the last three hours, sufficiently cognisent to finish the Arthurian swashbuckler I was reading and hear the newspaper being delivered at 0430. It could be that my impending trip from the UK is keeping me awake as I chuckle with excitement at the thought of seeing many of the things I hold dear, or it could be the 3 cans of lager and Chicken Balti i had last night........as I get older such things seem to have a rather detrimental affect, still, no signs of leakage yet - which can only be a good thing.

I would write more but the keyboards bloody loud.

Blogging will return from tuesday, where the sites and sounds of blighty will be faithfully recorded.

weather: grey and overcast
apparal: towel and Professionals T-shirt
inconsequential desire: cheeky 6a problem on lovely dartmoor granite

looks interesting.......nice flash site toSaints and Soldiers

If you've come looking for inspiration and wit then, by god, you've come to wrong place - actually, if you ever came here for that then you really need to surf some more. I'm tired, by brain is fuzz, I've been working on the marketing for a conference for the WHOLE DAY! Crikey, its almost like working for a living, not used to it at all - and I'm feeling out of sorts because it was raining this morning and I could not get out roller blading before work, hummmpfh. Actually, it was the Captain who suggested that we roam through no man's land during a lull in the shelling. So, with our hearts deep in our boots we slithered over the earthern wall into the grey light of the dawn. The sky was a bruised blue colour and, high above, we could see the faint contrails of high altitude cruise missiles. The ground beyond the trench was ripped and torn, the earth splayed and torn by the bombardment of the last few days. The soldiers who had fought and fallen over this nondescript were evident, though none seemed to be intact, eyes, ribs and guts all exposed to the light and the crows. Billy, his face even more sallow than usual took the lead and I crawled after him, my only view the mud caked soles of his boots as we advanced, slowly, towards the enemy trench. After what seemed hours, but in reality was no more than twenty minutes we rolled down the edge of a huge shell hole and paused for breath. The base of the hole held a small puddle, and curiously, a perfectly intact flower floated on its oily surface its white petals glaring bright compared to the dun colour of the abused and burnt ground. There were five of us, Billy the squad leader, Cromwell, Mack, the new guy and myself. We huddled together at the base of the shell hole and then, as Billy dropped his clenched fist down, we stumbled to our feet and charged recklessly over the top of the enemy trench. The fear was always there, the blood thundereing in my veins and a feeling like my guts were made of liquid. My rifle felt like it weighed a hundred kilos and I tried to hunch down behind my helmet and body armour. We floundered over the last few metres of mud and dropped into the gaping blackness of the trench like demons returning to hell. It was empty, it always had been.

music: StarWars - The Imperial March. Again, why is it that with 200 odd tracks currently on the real player it insists on playing Coldplay again, good taste I agree but a little boring....lets see, , Meja - intimacy....possibly better.
weather: 21 and sunny.

hell, its monday - you're bored, I'm bored, even the floors board, why not waste a few minutes with this.......kinda like Jet Set Willy, if you excuse the pun........Supershag Land

Well, I'am always the last to know. Somehow my geek sense totally failed me and everytime I saw an advert or article about this I just thought, 'consigned to development hell' and paid no more attention. I have been waiting for this for some time, right since Darkhorse (I think it was them) did the comic book series.....Lance 'Bishop' Henrikson is in it. Which has to be a good thing. Signourney has clearly managed to wrestle her way out of the franchiseALIEN vs. PREDATOR. Talking of movies I also notice that the Sequal toPitch Black is coming soon.....

continuing my armchair obcession with splatter zombie movies.....Film Threat - Reviews

Lovely morning, the sky is blue and looking out the window I could see the sharp shadows cast onto the ruddy bricks of the flats opposite.....after days of dull light and mizzle this is refreshingly lovely.

Can't remember if I mentioned this or not but I went to the climbing gym on tuesday night, only spent an hour traversing but it was time well spent and no pain from my shoulder - most excellent. I've spent some time on the blades this week with some spectacular crashes, as I now seem to have a modicum of balance and skill which means I stay upright for far longer when things begin to go pearshaped.

Should be working today but I think I'll give myself the afternoon off - why not? I do however, have to figure out photoshop in the next few hours.


Again, some of you may not totally enjoy this but - for the odd - check out the gallery and download of the mighty Ken Palmer soloing an 8a - really nice piece of film. Many years ago I had the honour of climbing a couple of routes with him, well cool.BigPebbles Media

brain dead from hours staring at exel database, computer sickness has set in.

recent book: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, really good and very black humour.
recent comic: From Hell, Allan Moore and Eddie Campbell - its about Jack the Ripper, very very good.
I really should read something I don't like to make this seem more balanced.


lovely thought, these little chaps roaming around the martian sandsBBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Rover 'in training' for hill trek

computer......running slow...........like running through custard....must stop and eat.........need more RAM.......

well hello. So it seems that the whole of Northern Europe is about to be washed away in a biblical flood. Very frustrating weekend of rain, when it final broke on sunday afternoon me and K managed to get out for a quick skate/cycle and then a trip to Hovs Hallar to get some rock in. Managed to scare myself witless by finding myself a long way off the deck on slightly slippy slopey holds....nasty nasty.

The roller blade project is progressing nicely, invested in some elbow and knee protectors on Friday which gave me more confidence in practicing turning and stopping a little more agressively.


weather: damp, overcast. Its summer, right?
music: Stereolab 'ping pong'
last book: Axiomatic, Greg Egan. Usual quantum physics tomfoolery.

Interesting......Straight Dope Message Board - powered by vBulletin

The words downpour, tumult and cloudburst are insufficient to describe the deluge which I found myself cycling through to get to the job centre. The rain was insane to the point that from the holes on a manhole cover jets of water spouted a metre into the air as the drains all backed up. So, like a drowned rat I squelched into the job centre to let them know I was working half time (although its more like full time these days) and found the office completely empty, after a few minutes of wandering around marie celeste like offices I found the staff all busily eating lunch and generally ignoring the inconvience of an English invandrare dripping on the floor.

Most excellent Swedish word: lagom, meaning neither one thing nor the other. Theres no real English equivalent.
Desire: Good weather over the weekend so I can enjoy more bone crunching impacts with tarmac (memo to self: must not skate downhills before I can brake) and hopefully some rocky pleasures.
Music: The Specials, James Bond Theme.
Weather. The very opposite of very dry.

Possibly one of the greatest comedy moments, ever. 

I am battered. Two evenings of my new 'sport', roller blading, have left me with bruises, cuts and general light damage. Three spectacular falls to date.

Its fucking raining....how can it rain so much. Apparently this is the wettest summer on record for Sweden.

I would write more but I need to risk drowning by venturing outdoors.

anarchic art proffessors making trouble The Scientist :: Prof to be arraigned today

For some reason the sites poping up a 404 message when you click on the site, hit refresh and its okay - strange, but then if you are reading this you've figured it out.

the little old, rather grey, librarian suddenly vaulted over the desk of her musty dusty library where the hundreds of dog eared and hounded volumes had been her solitary companions. She ran out into the street, tearing her tweed asunder and casting her spectacles into a privet hedge. Squinting into the horizon she hitched the shreds of burberry around her knocky knees and fled to a better life on the high seas.

A strange thing I've noticed in both Malmö and Copenhagen is the presence of the outline of someones feet drawn onto the pavement in white paint. About a size 10 I'd say, quite wide feet, and always standing rather than walking. Not everywhere, but here and there.

Weather: Close, damp.
Music: Primus (precisely now, John the Fisherman)
Book at the minute: Mara and Dann, by Doris Lessing. Just finished by How the Dead Live by Will Self, very most modern, apparently.

shame on you Blair....so how, exactly, is the security of the UK 'enhanced' since the war, fucking wanker BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair says WMD 'may never be found'

yep, proof of the below heres me enjoying an easy V0 traverse above the sea. 

Its rollover week as I slip from 32 to 33 with only a little grease and almost no effort. Remarkably I can actually remember where I was last birthday, UK natch but I clearly remember being in my old place - the strange thing is it seems only like last month. Very cool present came via the UK from the parents, 1 and a half seasons of Father Ted....absolutely fantastic for a humour starved ex-pat.

Its very 'close' today, as Thor whacks his mighty tool and damp emissions spray on the ground. Interesting that we say 'close', but you never hear anyone say 'oooh, a long way away' when refering to the weather.

Splendid weekend of rock activity - the first in five weeks of recovery. Most excellent fun at Hovs Hallar playing on strange granite of dubious quality above landings of varying death potential. None the less top fun.

its quite possible I've sent y'all to this site before but what the heck, its way cool and I cannot be bothered to surf the dirty corners of the net today, especially after 7 hours of staring at a computer screenXIAOXAIO MOVIE

Cover art from Moonshadow, one of the most splendid comic books I've read in years. Top. 

Very quickly as I'm jomping to the railway station in 5, off to the summerhouse for the weekend.
Spent the last two days sweating a database into shape, lots of illogical computer fun. Saw the LadyKillers, full review to follow but I'm afraid it scores a lowly 4 out of ten, half a point up from last night score.

yep, have a trevlig Helg.

excellent advice for a gentleman around town..- More Useful Everyday

Its that kind of day.......and it also seems to have made me go ginger. 

At last the rain clouds seem to have gone and the constant drizzle, mist and occaisonal deluge has been replaced by blue skies and sunshine. Lovely.

The Coen Brothers version of the Lady Killers has been released over here, so I think thats next on the list to see. K can't be convinced to go and see Dawn of the Dead, which is fair enough and has the plus that she does not witness me wetting myself in fear and trying to climb under the seat. Be interesting to see what the coen brothers have done with this movie - can Tom Hanks et al replace Sellers and Guiness - according to my recently found cast notes the original movie starred a young Frankie Howerd (oooer, missus).

Music: Apocalytica. Strangely my winamp player seems select the Andrews Sisters and the Beastie Boys an awful lot out of some 300 odd tracks when on a supposedly random setting - odd, well, its good to have varied taste.
State of mind: pressured, it needs to thunder.
Interesting: For though of you who are metallica fans (you know who you are) this may be of some interest Metallica - the Movie

Just back from the cutter. Spent the last hour with an oral hygienist which, under any other circumstances would be opportunity for some low brow smutty humour. However, given that I can use the words gore, blood and pain to adequately describe the eternity of cleaning, picking and general abrasive tooth action I've just experienced I'm in no mood to descend to such frivolity. Yeah, and the really good news is that I'm going back at 1300 to finish off the top set - well done that man for the cancelation. I was hoping for a few weeks to let my bleeding gums recover. The moral is, of course, don't wait 5 years before you go back to the dentist and don't brush your teeth like a murderer scrubs blood out of the carpet. Thankfully I still appear to have no cavities but the build up of titanium reinforced cement was extreme, to say the least. The pain was not actually too bad, but the amount of water, blood and pieces of 3 year old burger caused me, at one point, to spectaclarly choke leading to a coughing fit and random arm flailing - humilating? You bet.

Assuming I don't need a blood transfusion after the next bout, and that my mouth enables me to me to interact normally I'll be working again as from tommorow. Which is nice, two days in the apartment is about as much as I can take these days.


Weather: Grey, overcast and 12 degrees.
Music: none.
Latest desire: Rollerblades.
Inconsequential observation: Swedish midsommer, which we celebrated on friday, involved - like most Swedish festivals - extreme amounts of food and drinking, over a two day period. There was also dancing and singing. Similar, in fact, to Christmas and Easter. This, I believe, further supports my theory that Swedes are in fact hobbits.
Intriguing website name which sadly is not as worrying as you first might thinkCorpses For Sale

'may monkeys infest your foreign parts' muttered the old man as I brushed past him on the sidewalk. I paid little attention to his half mumbled curse until, much later, a small scruffy body pushed its way past my plastic belt and trouser top and, pausing briefly to sniff the air, knuckled away with hoots of glee. This now happens on a regular basis.

Its raining, its thundering and outside all is damp. I am dry inside, well not literally, otherwise my metabolism would grind to a sudden dusty halt but you know what I mean.
No work today, meeting in Denmark in a few days time so I've been doing some personal administration stuff - I was just about to send off my tax return (the first one I've ever done on time) but decided to avoid getting soaked to the skin so decided a blog a little.

Weather: Raining and thundering. 15 degrees C
Music: 5,6,7,8's and a little bit of Apocalytica...amongst others.

Recent books: Obviously Erikson, but apart from that.....I revisited V for Vendetta by Allan Moore, most excellent and even though it was written in the late '80s it still feels important. Finished the penultimate book in the 'Gap' series, just when I was getting tired of this series it notched up a gear, very exciting. Also, and very much recommended, is 'The curious incident incident of the dog in the night time' by Mark Haddon. Bloody great.

blatently strange (and Swedish)
Ja Da

Back again, browner and wiser. (the browness from basking in the radioactive sleet of the nearest celestial nuclear furnace (as Steven Baxter would say) and wiser from, well, just another 14 days of existance).
This is just a quick note to get my bloging muscles back into action, in the mean time heres a quick link to an old Erikson fan site....
Steven Erikson Fan-Page...yeah, I know I've waxed lyrical (what does that really mean? Curious mental images) about this guys books but really, they are the best fantasy I have read in a long time. A few comments are needed to put this into perspective, they are better than the dreadful dragonlance rubbish (don't even go there), superior to the Dragonbone chair bollocks, more exciting than the dreadful lament of the leper (you know who you are, unbeliever), and well, simply awesome. Yeah, I could mention the Wishsong of Shannara series, the Magican series, wagon wheels of time etc but people will start getting offended. Actually, I could go on here for a while and show off the rather dubious fact that I've spent an awful lot of my life reading quite simply terrible books. I could mention perhaps, Piers Anthony, who wrote a number of series, some good and bad, but I always had my doubts about the curious sexual undertones. When he produced a book called, I kid you not, 'the colour of her panties', I gave up. There is, of course, good stuff out there but this guy, as you may of guessed, has really got me gripped.
Read Eriksons books - message ends.

On a completely different note my friends 4 day old baby fell asleep in my arms today, quite incredible to hold an entire human being so easily and strangely relaxing.

so. A quick break in the holiday before we skip to the summer house for the remainder of the week. Its swedish week this week, me and K are conversing only in swedish with the exception of English Hour, where we can fit in all the angst, wit and repartee that my Swedish fails to accomodate.

So, Rhodos, the food, the 6 hour battle with the nocturnal blood suckers, the fantastic swimming and the cool scenary. More to follow.

The bastards in Malmö stad (city council) have cut the trees down outside our apartment - gits. I assume it was them, rather than a sudden and wholly unprecedented plague of beavers.

Recommended books: Collected short stories of Neil Gaimen, Smoke and Mirrors, as well as the comic book, by the same author, The Sandman. Jolly good. Currently ploughing through the latest book by Steven Erikson, Midnight Tides, once more with the rampant hacking and slaying but with a previously only hinted at rich vein of black humour.



Keep on eye on this, the final frontier awaits...
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Countdown to private space trip

I promised this months ago, the best Swedish advert (to my mind), click on Polly-Sången (the Polly Song)
Polly - Karaokemaskin

so you don't need to come here for a few weeks as I'm buggering off on holiday - for the next week me and K will be investigating the cheese mines of Rhodes and then, for the second week, collecting tennis players sweatbands in Båstad - charmed, I'm sure.

In actual fact, I've now been in Sweden for exactly 4 months, so heres some highlights.

1. The Potato Day in Båstad, no not an episode of Father Ted but the annual potato event in a small coastal village in sweden. Lots of potatoes, lots of swedes.
2. Watching tv a few weeks ago I stumbled across a variety show style program - part of this was an open mike spot. I saw possibly one of the saddest pieces of tv ever. An old wrinkled man came on to the stage clutching chains, a plate and a trumpet, he smashed said plate on his head (cutting himself quite badly in the process), then wrapped himself in the chains, and then attempted to do a handstand. This failed miserably, sending him sprawling across the stage whereupon he blew a single pitiful note on the trumpet before hobbling off stage. Odd.
3. The lanquage thing. Mistakes to date, saying loudly (in Swedish) 'I think I might have pissing icecream', 'I'll just go and fart', and numerous mistaken references to the past, future, and quite possibly the fourth dimension.
4. Th job. Pleased with this, and seem to be going well. I've managed to offend latvians by calling them lithuanians, and estonians by saying their conference was a summer school, but no major international incidents yet.
5. Accent (Language thing part II)-my accent seems to change on a daily basis as I attempt to learn the Swedish vowel sounds, sometimes I seem to sound like a strange american person other days simply like a muppet.

and theres probably more - rereading this list I realise these are not actually highlights (there are thankfully, more rich and rewarding events occuring)but I lack the stamina to go into details this evening. I'm off the Rhodes horribly early tommorow morning, I still have to make pancakes, pack, and get to bed. Speaking of which, a brand new bed which is blooming huge - IKEAS's flagship bed no less, fantastic. I assembled it today, an early attempt was aborted last night by the downstairs neighbour banging on the ceiling as I toiled away with a hammer, cursing those IKEA sweatshop workers with their nimble fingers and penchant for soft metal which breaks, folds, and threads. Last nights other highlight was an extremely hot curry, possibly one of the hottest I have ever consumed whose after shocks are still causing some tremors now.

be good y'all. Don't have sex with animals, make sure you wash your hands after using the toilet and never attempt home surgery.

Your husband has gone Mrs Brown, I am X1-11, the exterminator.

oh, as you asked so nicely - this site, and others like it, have become somewhat of an interest......
Infiltration

Sorry sorry sorry - the neglection shows, moss grows over the blog and small animals ferret in the dirt, mushrooms grow and the flowers have not been watered. I've been working my curvy yellow butt off (to quote the great Homer J Simpson) and staring at a PC in the evenings loses it charm somewhat. This will be sorted, but this week has been kinda crazy, ya?

Anyway. I'll post again before the weekend when I'm being forced to Rhodes for a week - tough life.

if i even thought you said the word 'muggle', I'd shove the snitch far far up your cauldron.

and again with the html not working.

Finally the school outside our flat has got around to their leaving ceremony, this means loads of flash motors, trucks and wagons festooned with balloons and branches full of kids wearing sailor hats and posh clothes. Talking to my work colleagues today, apparently the game is to have the best vehicle to get you to the ball from the school - E said the girl who won in her year used an elephant!

The buses are very clean here, and they have earphone sockets so you can listen to the radio, nice.

weather: blue and nice
music: Santa Esmeralda, Don't let me be misunderstood.


I spent a fairly listless 30 minutes of surfing before I unearthed this gemROCKETBELT

and a little bit of a close up of venus
The Transit of Venus June 8. 2004

Holy cosmic planetoids! This has happened only six times since the invention of telescopes apparently.......
The Transit of Venus June 8. 2004

So back for a little sniff.

Muscle cars and harleys. The streets are full of them, on my way to meet K earlier the streets reverberated to the roar of a mustang, a few harleys and numerous Japanese customs. The interesting thing is that there are no real rusty wrecks driving around, and I've seen loads of old motorbikes in really good condition. The thing is, you absolutely cannot ride your bike, or drive your classic car, during the winter - remember it gets to -10 here no problems and snow tyres are required by law - so two wheel fun is just not going to happen. Thus it is pretty hard to take your bike out in really bad weather, and they don't salt the roads, so bikes tend to stay in pretty good nick. Plus, theres a scandinavian obssession with big engined vehicles, particularly the two wheeled flavour. Remember, the meanest hells angels outside of the US are in Sweden and Denmark - I kid you not. Plus we've got Bandidos and numerous other gangs roaming around.


Check this out - truly did something good come from the abortions which were the Matrix II and IIIMatrix Ping Pong - Bullet Time

The duck, a hat and a pebble.

yeah, I'm probably obcessing a little bit but I found this site during one of my electronic forays - not bad at allMedlinePlus: Shoulder Injuries and Disorders though the calm all american voice gets on your teats a little bit.

More to follow, off to meet K from work. Finished at about 1600 today myself, busy day getting the newsletter service sorted out and learning a new software package, I like my job-interesting work, they pay me and I get free bananas.

After yesterdays self serving maudlin rant back to the normal bollocks......indulged myself with a few DVD-skivors last night, K was out with her school group. Thus, I watched the last two episodes of band of brothers and then Bad Boys II, which had, for my money, one of the best car chases I've seen in a long time..the end of the movie was a bit strange, ending as it did in a full on invasion of Cuba and finally seeking the sanctuary of Guantanomo bay, rather ironic I thought.........Band of Brothers has been a bit of a trek for me but finally got through all the series, I actually read the book years ago and was pretty impressed with the series, I really should not watch stuff like that though, Saving Private Ryan gave me nightmares for ages.....sleep patterns seem to have recovered after fridays onslaught, slept in this morning and did not even wake at 5 when K went off to do a story for the newspaper. Actually going back to the Second World War, I note with some interest all the activity on the bbc web site regarding D Day, while surfing through the various sites I found the interactive SMS mobile phone game where you take the role of an SOE agent, this has - I feel - moved someway past remembering the carnage of yesterday all those years ago.

music: Jonathan Ross (repeat of saturdays show)
weather: Unusually overcast
worth watching once, funny in places....YogaKitty Home Page

A well known household cleaning product and a duck.

Well. Its been a while and this week has been somewhat of a watershed for my life in Sweden. An ephiphony, perhaps. The week started well with a lazy few days spent at the summerhouse, interspersed with climbing and training. And that was the first incident, I contrived to pull a tendon or muscle in my shoulder which left me in considrable pain and clearly not able to climb for at least a few weeks. Now, almost a week later, its certainly healing and I anticipate training beginning next week, perhaps. But this was not a disaster for me in itself, but it suddenly made me very unhappy and it seemed to amplify all the feelings that I have, to a certain extent, been repressing as I strive to make a life for myself in this country. Thus, for a few days, I felt very down about the whole concept of Sweden - very down indeed - but then came somewhat of an ephiphony, as I mentioned, this is this, as Bob Deniro said in the Deerhunter, and 'this' is very fine indeed. Life here is good, and it was if I needed to get through a barrier of dejection before I came to recogonise this. Now I hate being injured, and not able to train or climb, but in someways the injury made me confront the fact that I have a new life, in a new country - it threw everything into perspective. Perhaps, god forbid, I actually discovered a little bit of maturity.

So what else is new? Well, the climbing I did do last week was bloody great. I prospected for new problems around the coast and came up with some gems, which certainly don't seem to have had that much traffic, really good. On the tuesday I took a day trip to Rostock, via southern Danmark, which was really good - I'm now involved with a European Framework Project which looks quite interesting. I will get more work from this towards the end of the year. It was a fun trip with one of my Danish colleagues, really good.

And so today, VHO, as Banks would have it after a night carousing in Denmark, Copenhagen. We had a brainstorming session in the office which lasted from 10 until 4, very good and then hit the gin and tonixs. Some hours later we staggered to one of the poshest and newest restaurants in Copenhagen. Gourment food in the extreme! I reckon we had a bill of about 100 quid each - reet posh like. I could get used to this lifestyle! Then left there and back to one of the directors houses where we imbibed more liquor - why do I never learn, after champagne, gin, beer, stout, never never finish the evening with a ten year old malt! Hells teeth, me and E managed to escape back to the safety of Malmö before the guys headed off for more corousing! The Danes are party monsters.......indeed. We had lots of fun navigating our way around the Danish subway system and the night train, full of drunken Swedes........so, as usual, spent the night having a good conversation with Mr Armitage Shanks.

Music advice, get hold of the soundtrack for Kill Bill Vol.1 (which I finally managed to see), absolutely shit hot, as they say.

So that brings us nicely up to date, sorry about the delays in posting but for a while the heart and ability was not there, but onwards and upwards. Come in red 5, your time is up.

Music: Hotei Tomoyasu, Kill Bill Theme.
Books. Currently ploughing my way back through Donaldson's Gap into Conflict series - I think this series uses the words sweat and dread more than any other book, ever. Managed to get hold of Baxter's evolution which I'm looking forward to.
weather: high octane blue
Link: ya, ska vi se nu.......
chop suey sillyness

Today was groovy, upshot of the meeting (conducted munching bread and cheese, sitting on big pink beanbags) is that I'm off to Germany on Tuesday to be brought up to speed on a new project, all good. Plus I got more hours on some other projects as well, nice.

Well, this weekend will not see much of a blog nor monday either (I suspect) as it is Pingst (Pentecost) and we have the day off. Thus off to the Summer house, hazzah.

this gets better and better, I love the idea of the powder being called Forbid...further down the page someone talks about 'spanking their dog', please tell me someone else finds this funnyI have a 7 month old male Chihuahua, he eats his POOH!!!He... - Q&A

The schools are all finishing for the summer so the streets are becoming full of teenagers finishing their last year at high school. This means the wearing of white suits, or evening dress, sailor caps and lots of champagne - mixed with driving around the streets in open top cars, trucks and trailers - all jolly good fun.

Off to Copenhagen tommorow for a meeting which is nice, travelling across the bridge on a train, can life get any more exciting.


Just the first sentence had me laughing, but thats just me....I particularly like the bit about pineapple chunks, how do they know? Did someone test it? and how do you make feces (sic) more distasteful. My Pet Eats Really Strange Stuff

More lanquage course, usual line up of insane people, teacher with dangerous with dry and dangerous sense of humour, yep. All feels pretty normal to me. Amusing situation when the Irish girl ran through the alphabet and the teacher, after listening to her a talk a bit more, asked her if she would like to move up to the next class, suddenly every one who could speak a sentence was asking if they could move up too! I stocially stayed silent, dammit, I want to learn the alphabet again.

Woke up feeling a bit rough, either its lactose intolerance (finally), the chicken from last night or I'm getting a cold. I may even cancel climbing this evening, how mature is that!

weather: chilly and overcast.
last book: Timescape by Gregory Benford, old school science fiction from the Scifi masterworks series. Pretty good.
last movie: some dreadful shit with Tommy Lee Jones (was he born looking old) and a few minutes of Tango and Cash. That reminds me, finally saw Copland all the way through, very good and Stallones actually acting.


interesting and quite patrioticDoctor Who vs. Star Trek

Just a quick update on the new lanquage course, lots of new faces including Croats, Serbs, Nigerians, Hungerians, Londoners, Irish and Americans - once again all of lifes rich tapestry. Now this is a free course, sponsored by the Swedish government, and it seems to be really good. Nice teachers and free pencils, hoorah. The teacher explained where we lie, at present, on the A to D scale of learning Swedish. We can write and read our own Language so we automatically move to B, where we'll be assessed over the next few weeks (I guess) and then maybe moved up if required. Amazingly if you come as an imigrant to Sweden without being able to write or read your own lanquage they will teach you, for free, before you then learn Swedish - how cool is that.

On the bus on the way to Lernia (which is where I'm being taught) heard an English voice so kept an ear open to hear a fellow brit....Jesus, moaning about how shit the buses were here and how in London you did not get barged into or knocked about by people getting on or off...yeah, right, like maybe if your're dreaming and not actually on a real bus....so, this guys annoying me already because nothing sounds worse than a whinging pom, especially one who seems to assume that nobody understands him and then when someone gets onto the bus wearing a top with an English flag he's like, whys he wearing that, whys a Swede wearing the English flag etc etc. Numbnuts. Well, thats my moan out of the way - just a grumpy old bugger I expect, but hey, its a living. Incidentally, the moaning brit is in my punishment wardrobe, he's been there for a while now...........

kinda funny in that mad way people get when they can put any old shit on the internetT33n G1rl Squ4dx0rx!!

Monday. Day of Mon, the Greek God of Dough, Plant Pots and Aubergines.

Well, I should have been in Swedish III this morning but after waking up horribly early (after being up horribly late helping K format her thesis) got a phone call from the organisers saying it was postponed due to sickness of the teacher - bugger. Presumably they've got a bad case Stockholm Syndrome (see below). The weekend was very triumphant, started to get a tan after lolling in the sun for more than a few hours. Actually, it was about as loll worthy as I can get, so mowing the lawn of the summerhouse, working out in the rocky gym and running down the beach were all involved, one day I'll be able to sit still for more than a few minutes. Just spent the last hour trying to figure out how to get a Swedish driving licence, not too complicated and the pathway to learning to drive is pretty similar to the UK. I.e, permit (provisional) and then onwards to test and full licence. Only main difference is having an eyesight test before you even get into a car, not just a few minutes before your test as in the UK-I always thought that seemed a bit strange. Well up for learning to drive 4 wheels, after years of not being particularly bothered, after spending the weekend throwing K's mothers car around a beach - loads of fun!!

The other lanquage news is, however, that I will start my free government course this afternoon - its a 48 week course, every afternoon for 4 hours, crikey. Should be interesting to see what its like, probably a good mix of people on it.

Radio 4 is the background, the weather is overcast and the flat is a little chilly.

yeah well, this is something which Sweden gave back to the world - if you're at all interested in the dynamics of a hostage situation that isThe Peace Encyclopedia: The Stockholm Syndrome

So it was Ascension day yesterday and being a good Lutherian country we got the day off yesterday, which was nice. This has the added benefit of today being a 'squeeze' day (yep, the Swedes have a specific word for the day between a bank holiday and the weekend) which means that things are pretty quiet today to. We wandered off to the Summerhouse yesterday and then zoomed back for work today - I did not have so much, just database work but was all cool. Off to Copenhagen next week to meet the rest of the team and have a slap up meal, should be good. Copenhagen is basically one very large pub.

It occured to me the other day that I have been here for over three months, (3 months and 9 days, to be exact) gosh - time flies like a very fast flying thing........

trevlig helg!!

music: Faith No More
Weather, 12 degrees, windy and sunny. Theres been some chuffing great windy storms over the last few days.
Indeed....Kill Your Television

Why can I not stop thinking about Mork and Mindy?

more to come, but bloody hell - I hope this gets released in Sweden!
working title films official website

So, today saw the end of Svenska III. I only turned up to say good bye to fellow students as I've been working the last few days and had to leave early today as well. So farewell then, to P the Rumenian, P the Thai Mud Wrestler (titta ye not, its the truth) and I, the crazy turkish pizza maker. I'll be seeing some of the others at Svenska III in Malmö, which starts next week. Yeah, such is my thirst to understand what the hell people are saying about me that I'm repeating the course. No, its not because I'm a retard but the last one was supposed to last 4 weeks but instead only ran for two - hence the repeat. And today was my last lesson for a week or so at the school, after the tour de force of yesterday I found today really hard work, but never mind. Its the 12 years old next, should be fun. Going back to Svenska III for a minute, T, the Russian Au-paire was going to do course III but told me today that her family, as in the one she works for, decided that she did not need to - fair enough she works for them but it all sounds a bit too much like slavery to me. 'decided' indeed. Presumably they have her passport locked away in a nice safe place to.


Check out some of the MPEGs on this site, awesome sparks and stuff blowing up - perfect Plus, who can resist the title - Three Phase Disconnect Switch Opening Hot! High Voltage Sparks and Arcs, yeah and while we're on the geek phase of today let me point you towards Ghost Stations which is something that has always intrigued me.

In response to a few comments recently, note the above picture from the fine anime show Battle of the Planets. Please note that you can clearly see, as a result of princess wearing a very short skirt, the merest hint of knickers. Observing this does, in no way, make me some kind of freak (unlike the recently mentioned obcessive of breasts in the Day the Earth caught fire). C'mon you can't miss them - through me a bone here will ya! 

Oh yeah, this is the film I was trying to remember the other day
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) quality stuff, as I searched around the web for this I found a site where some strange sweaty person had devoted an entire site to a scene where you get a glimpse, and I mean just a peep, of Janet Munros breasts, odd to say the least.

After classes today, which were fun but my best group - the ones doing a marine biology module - were all rehearsing a play so did not turn up I wandered my way through the sunny streets of Malmö to the Nya Invandrare (new immigrants) job office to register myself in the system. I was very proud of myself as I managed to do most of the conversation in Swedish but managed to say, at point, rather than 'will you send me a letter' , 'will you shit me a letter', I think. Most amusing.
Yep, no pictures today, just good old fashioned text - we'll see how the new look feels. Still yet to get rid of the pop ups though.

Weather: 19+, sunny and blue skies.
Most recent movie: Madness of King George, bloody great it is.
Bizarre and quite funny, and also an example of viral advertising.....
Subservient Chicken

Most recent book: Memories of Ice, another truly awesome hack and slay saga - with more than a little wit and black humour thrown in. 

So, some format changes as well, don't know how long this one will last for but it will do for the minute. I think I like it. Perhaps some font changes, ahh, endless timewasting pleasure.

and did not that work rather well.......so, more picture fun in the future.

Something of a test this, just to see what happens....... 

Now this does not look half bad, I was really into the old style disaster moving starting from when I saw the, Jesus, forgotten the name...well, old black and white movie about two nuclear tests being conducted simultanously on opposite sides of the planet which throws it closer to the sun, fantastic stuff. Later on I was really into things like Earthquake and the Towering inferno. Yeah this movie will be effects riddled and the characters most likely reduced to shambling hulks of rotting cardboard but never mind, we want to see big waves and stuff.
TDAT High
Also looking interesting is Shaolin Soccerwhich seems to me the perfecy cure to Pitt taking himself way to seriously in the massacre of the Iliad, furthermore two comic book characters have wandered there way into celluloid heaven, Hell Boyand The Punisher which, as is usual for comic book translations to cinema are getting mixed reviews. Punisher looks like pants where as Hellboy looks fantastic, which is fine by me as I never really liked punisher anyway - I prefer my superheroes to be, well, super.

Well, the week staggers to a close, and I find myself stumbling like Willem Defoe at the end of Platoon out of the blackboard jungle, my clothing in tatters and my morals damaged. Yes, I've been supply teaching and have found new levels of respect for teachers. The life of the supplier is a strange one, an unfamiliar face in the teachers rum you are treated with mild contempt, a lackey if you will. They know you can smell the bitterness, and they know that you will soon escape-free from the tyranny of marking and adolescent filth. I've actually been lecturing on chemistry, which is a joke (given that I only remembered how to draw a benzene ring minutes before the class began) but the kids seemed to like the stuff on Polar Bears changing sex from PCB exposure - all good clean fun. I've also been working in my new role as an assistant web administrator and business support person up at the science park - lots of fun but very PC intense, not so keen to surf when I get home which is why the blog has not been so regular.

You see Bruce Willis character names don't even come close, John McClane (Die Hard 1,2 and 3) is cool, but the rest, Joe Hallenbeck (Last boy scout) is instantly forgettable......see.....whereas Harry Stamper (Armageddon) is, like the movie, just trying too hard.
Arnie, well, given that in some of his movies his name is his job description (Terminator, Mr Freeze) he's just not trying but, and its a big but, he does come close to Seagal like style with John Matrix (Commando), Dutch Schaeffer (Predator) and Douglas Quaid (Total Recall).


Look, I don't know why but it makes me laugh - and who buys stain resistant trousers, and do they admit it. "yes, these trousers are stain resistant, so handy during those intimate moments in the adult cinema" - never sit next to the man with a hat on his lap, thats what my dad said.
Men's > Dress Pants > Pleat Front - Lands' End

Without question Steven Seagal (him of the very quiet derision attracting ponytail and soft 'acting' voice, oh yeah, and the ability to pop your eyeballs out and crack your teeth with one buttock) has had the honour of some of the best action hero names, check it out.....Austin Travis (Execeutive Decision (notable as well as he karks it within the first 30 minutes-bravo, well done that man), Casey Rybeck - now theres a name, played twice in Under Sewage and Under Sewage 2. But these all pale into insignificance compared to the name which is Forrest Taft, the name of the film was ironically, On Dangerous Ground....I'll say. Oh yeah, the final one has to be Mason Storm...please stop it, my sides are hurting.

Come back Snake Pliskin, all is forgiven.




Last watched: an episode of buffy, the really cool one where their voices all get stolen by the freaky toothy floating guys - cut to hell though on the early slot.
weather: nice and sunny
something....
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Swedish army underpants are MIA

Something of a phenomenon here is the use of Snus, a ground tobacco project if you want to be exact (check out
snus, swedish snus, sweden snus, swedish snuff for more information). Yep, the Swedes really like their Snus. For the uninitated its a fast delivery system of nicotine without having the irratation of lung cancer or heart failure. It comes in two forms, one is a little teabag like thingy which is inserted beside the gum (though contact with any membrane is probably sufficient though under the eyelid or up the rectum would probably sting a little) and the other is the black tar like stuff which is its true form. The latter is squidged between the fingers into a little pellet before being pushed between upper lip and gum, giving the user a kind of rat boy appearance. The advantages of this is that the user has none of the negative aspects of fagging (shivering in office doorways, setting fire to the bed or yellow fingers) while still getting their nicotine fix. I've seen chaps down the climbing wall using the stuff as they send another gnarly 6c problem, trying doing that with a fag on the go. Possibly as a result Sweden is the only country which has acheived the World Health Organisations goal of bringing its share of smokers down to less than 20% of the population. Further more, half of the Snus users are former smokers.

Now, in good old blighty and indeed in the rest of Europe Snus was banned because of the fear of the risk of mouth cancer. Now, if this were the case the one would expect to see half the population here shuffling around with half their face missing but this does no appear to be the case. Swedish deaths from lung, larnyx, mouth and bladder cancer are the lowest in Europe, which must be in some part attributable to the lower numbers of smokers, who have turned to Snus as a means of getting their nicotine. At the end of the day, if you introduce anything to your body which you know can affect it is not a good thing, but it seems strange to me that Snus, which would seem to be a safer alternative to fags is not made more commonly available. Something to think about. Here endeth the sermon.

music: none
last book: Ethal and Ernest by Raymond Briggs - same chap who did 'when the wind blows' and 'the snowman'. Very moving, very good.
weather: raining a little