Thursday, August 19, 2004

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

Monday, August 16, 2004

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'

Thursday, August 12, 2004

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.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

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

Sunday, August 08, 2004

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

Friday, August 06, 2004

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

Thursday, August 05, 2004

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'

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

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