Finally I find something to believe in....Flying Spagehetti Monster....which puts me in mind of the ancient cult of 'Tentacles on the Head' - for those of you ill enough to have known me for that long.

The above post also makes me struggle with the oft said concept that Americans lack Irony or Sarcasm (lesser gods of the outer circle). Speaking of which-and this is more a note to self-I will be ranting about the American in the Coffee Shop (a close encounter of the the mad scary kind which me and mate R had a few days ago), as well as the larger subject of 'why do Americans seem to hate Sweden so much', which will lead nicely onto the tale (hem hem) of the smuggled, dead, chihuahuas which turned up in Sweden recently and whose demise can be laid directly at the door of one P. Hilton, for starting a craze which lots of brain dead swedish girls are imitating. I presume these dogs have more than a few days life span and I guess it will soon occur to their owners that they are somewhat harder to look after than a tamigotchi. I forsee small shivering chihuahuas being cast onto the side of motorways, or worse, stuffed down toilets. Soon our streets will not be safe as packs of feral chihuahuas, the moonlight glinting off their tarnished rhinestone encrusted collars, hunt unwary children and midgets.

Have a lovely weekend.

The fantastic news is that mate J, has had a little boy O - really really good news......its not so long since we had E so I can remember how great we felt. As I write this the little guy is writhing around on the floor.....must dash!

ouch

And the net coughs up another fur ball of madness, this time the totally lucid subject of turning yourself into a horse, indeed, why not? If WisheRs Were Horses...

and a bit more on Banksy (funny how wankers like Damian Hurst get taken seriously but someone who actually has a message gets called a prankster)....BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Art prankster sprays Israeli wall

What's fucking annoying is my retard fingers just deleted my last post. Fuck.

Deep breath, take a pill and rewrite...not that it was very much but simply thats it sooooooo annoying. As if I haven't got enough to contend with i.e. bad spelling, reduced sleep and bulging midriff but now my fucking fingers have taken it on themselves to stage some form of junta and do their own thing. Which would be okay if something creative came out of it but all it seems good for is poking myself in the eye and knocking stuff over. More than usual.

Anyway, a mate of mine pointed out Banksy's stuff to me a long time ago (in those halcyon days when we all lived in the same country!) so this is a dam good find, especially when it has some cool phots but also bites such as 'You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit.' Banksy - Outdoors...also worth looking at Akayism which has some excellent stuff as well as hailing from Sweden. Which is nice.

Reading: Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (again), and various comics...most recently Joss Whedons Fray (which is a must for all you Buffy fans), 2000AD and Transmetropolitan.

fantastically cool!....Google Maps

Back to work today after 4 weeks of vacation. To a Brit this seems like an excessive amount, or at least, a considerable amount to take in one go but in Sweden its nothing unusual. All of my work colleagues took at least 4 weeks with some taking up to 5 or 6. One of our friends took 8 weeks - using a combination of both vacation time and parent leave. Not that I'm complaining, when I worked in a government lab in the UK I was always way over my leave allocation, I ended up not submiting leave sheets and, in a similar laissez faire manner, just not turning up but even then I still tried to maintain something close to 25 days.....this, however, was the job where as I came to the end of my contract I spent some time hiding under my desk, or under a large cardboard box which I found. This actually was quite an eye opening experience as it allowed me to spy on my boss rifling through my desk, as he foolishly assumed he was alone (not suspecting that a government employed Higher Scientific Officier was crouched under a large box), as I peered out through the little hand slot in the box's side. I stopped doing this when I was almost rumbled by the cleaner but fortunately they fled the room rather than disturb a box from which muffled sniggers were faintly audible. I digress. Yes, 4 weeks holiday and back to a choked email box, nothing horrible lurking and a good start that an application I wrote was accepted by the EU, jolly good.

It occurs to me that I might have mentioned the box situation before, but as this blog has been running for more than a year now you'll just have to forgive me if I repeat myself. Or thrash me soundly with birch branches. Whichever.

Music: None, as the desk top computer has presented us with the error message 'Primary Hard Disk Fail', which does not bode well at all.
Weather: After four weeks of rain, its now sunny again. The norse gods clearly have a sense of humour.
Swedish Everyday Factoid: When the traffic lights are green, for pedestrians, cars can still turn right across the crossing leading to a few scary moments.
Little Gem: Once again the head under the stone syndrome prevented me from finding this little gem....Google Print....I found it when I saw the news article on the Beeb site regarding copyright problems.

Scoffing Japanese fella.....BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Eating champion wins new contest: "Takeru Kobayashi ate twice as many buns as the first runner-up, Johnny Wu, who only managed to guzzle 47.
Mr Kobayashi, 27, used a special technique - squeezing the buns tight and sipping plenty of water while chewing to soften them up. "

Strange what you can find on ebay these days.....eBay.co.uk: Rare Item - Fray Bentos Steak & Kidney Pie (item 7706221318 end time 17-Aug-05 15:10:42 BST)

The vacation is nearly at an end, and signals the return to more blogging. I've been chewing over a number of subjects in my head over the last four weeks, which will no doubt - with bad spelling, expletives and some unusual grammar - appear on the blog in the fullness of time. As a taster I will be considering, in a totally rational and unbiased manner, the beliefs of the Scientologists (because, secretly, we're all waiting for Tom to have a full on break down on screen, spouting off about aliens and L.Ron), the excitement and arse numbing agony of driving 1150 kms in 21 hours (particularly gripping when the ink is still wet on your driving licence), the perils of parent hood, right wing chat rooms masquerading as ex-pat forums (which led me to have a encounter with a Holocaust Revisionist (you know, the people who say the Holocaust did not happen, despite the fact that, erm, there seems to be an awful lot of Jews missing)), movies I should have seen recently (still not heard the lines 'arise, Lord Vader' yet) and the usual random streams of mind farts....

Reasons to be Cheerful, part 1: Great Doddington!: "Two pints, three glasses of wine and overly-garlic'd curry come to the rescue: and the thoughts of the recent failures recede."

Going to charge across at least 4 countries in the next 48 hours as I wend my way across to the UK, via boat, bridge and tunnel, to pick up my remaining kit. Its a lot of effort for a bunch of comics and books but, hey, this stuff is sentimental. So, raging 1.6 litre 16v Zetec engine - don't fail me now!

the last few weeks not withstanding its nice to be part of the minority and actually remain sticky.....one of the nice things about this vacation has been a general clearing out of the 'head junk' which leaves space for the more creative stuff, which hopefully, will spill out into the blog........Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Every second a blog - but not for the long slog: "But the statistics show not everyone who starts a blog stays the course. Although the blogosphere has doubled in size in just over five months, only around half of all blogs are 'active' - in other words they have been updated in the past three months - and just 13% are updated every week or more often."

Hello, me again and with all the shite which is going on in the world I thought it was worth taking a look at the 'hot coffee' controversy which is getting Hilary Clinton upset about, yawn, GTA: San Andreas......Confirmed: Sex minigame in PS2 San Andreas - PlayStation 2 News at GameSpot: "Given that the minigame is about as raunchy as an episode of Sex and the City, cannot be accessed without entering a long string of cheat codes, and takes several hours of effort to access, charges that San Andreas is 'pornographic' may seem extreme to some. However, its existence does appear to contradict Rockstar Games' carefully worded statement blaming hacker mischief for the existence of the Hot Coffee mod. "

2018 And thus the lawnmower of the summer holidays moves ever closer to the hidden frog of destiny. Blogs will come thin and slow over the next four weeks as I sun my palid skin in Sweden and the UK. Suffice to say that this has been a mental six months, and I am very much forward indeedy looking forward to the summer break.

The goals of the summer holidays involve a multitude of familial stuff which I won't go into but also the writing of a complete short story as well as some form of exercise (but not much running).

Take care y'all, have a good summer.

And I've finally managed to get some sleep.

Bugging the neighbours flat tonight.

0445 Tired. My neighbour went to bed about an hour ago. The village is okay, interesting...sky is light now, and seagulls being noisy.

02.59 The neighbours still awake.....odd. Master and Commander rather good, awash with stiff upper lips. Splendid. Now onto M. Night. Shalamamalalamalalamalalamallannn's The Village.

23.49 He's watching Baywatch, closer scrutiny definitely required.

23.45 My nocturnal neighbour, whose bedroom I can see from my front room, is watching TV again! Not healthy, I will keep close watch and see what happens - even climbing in through his open window if required.

23.34 So I think we'll continue with Master and Commander. Ohh, Russell, Command me, Command me.

23.10 Fantastic, Fader Ted episode 'Hell'. 'Sprit, Arsle, Flickor'

23.03 Has anyone actually seen this? Revengers Tragedy (2002) It sounds bloody marvellous (Christopher and Eddie, both in the same movie, with a soundtrack by Chumbawamba no less) but I guess that, due to the Warner Brothers conspiracy to keep any movie from the public which might actually make people think, it was on at the cinema for about 20 seconds.

22.56 Coffee, and not long until father Ted. 11.10, not the 11.30 originally reported. Just been looking at the Fantastic Four movie, is it me, or does The Thing look like a big poo?

22.26 More coffee required. 'if it bleeds, we can kill it'. Indeed.

And another experiment to try out the new image posting thingy....so a cool image of some Aliens hardware finds itself onto my blog, and not before time to.

22.11 Just, as you can see, changed the format of the blog to sort the formatting problem I had a few days ago. Rather utilatarian style but workable. Tea is being drunk, balcony door open, wind in trees, nice.

22.01 So my choices are watch Master and Commander, or M. Night. Shallllamamamamamamamans The Village, and then break after an hour to watch Father Ted which, we've just noticed, is on channel 1 at 23.30. Kind of curious to see how they translate 'feck'. On the subject of movies and subtitles watched House of Flying Daggers last night, good solid 8.5/10.....and with Swedish text as well (which means some subtlies of the plot may have passed me by but its usually pretty straight forward in such movies i.e. boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl turns out to be super stealthy assassin, boy betrayed by closest friend, girl dies, closest friend dies, boy dies, inexplicable tap dance routine, end).

21.49 Just been for a swim, only a few minutes walk from our flat - very nice it was to, about 23 degrees and not salty at all.

Whilst perusing the various postings about the bombing in London I came across this site where some well meaning American had tried to introduce some love and spiritually to help the Londoners. As you might expect the British response was slightly more down to earth.london_hurts: Reflections Upon a River...

more bad craziness from the web, help her with the mouse if shes stuck......

this is not some wierd scat (and if that makes no sense, believe me, you are better off not knowin) reference but instead a tale of internet revenge.........Don Park's Daily Habit - Korean Netizens Attack Dog-Shit-Girl

Looking forward to this movie - WOTWs was one of the first SF books I ever read (along with Day of the Triffids). Film Threat - Reviews: "Finally, the ending came damn close to ruining the whole thing. I�m not talking about *that* ending, where we learn what happens to the aliens (I�ll give you a hint: these aliens aren�t going to fall for a biplane in the tailpipe). No, I�m talking about the scene where we see what happens to Ray�s family. I won�t spoil it, but I think your viewing experience would definitely be enhanced if you left the theater after the 110-minute mark. Rarely has the term �Hollywood ending� been quite as appropriate, and seldom has a denouement of that nature come so close to tainting all that came before (the post-credits scene from the �Dawn of the Dead� remake comes close). "

The good news is that the Driving Test was a 100% success! After a terrible lesson before it - I exaggerate a little, but my instructor was doing his usual groaning at one point as I weaved around the road - I was feeling incredibly cool and iceman like. The whole test was in Swedish to, so I feel suitably chuffed - particularly as I did not get a single negative point (which is a dam sight better than when I did my MC test in the UK!).

Book: Songs of the Doomed, Hunter S Thompson.

Dunno why the formating gone up the spout....arse

I was reading about the near run thing for whales recently, in that the Japanese narrowly avoided getting sufficient votes at the last big international whale meet (ha ha) to slaughter more of the unfortunate creatures. In the spirit of learning stuff I visited the Japanese whale research stations website to learn more about what they had learnt after many years of 'scientific whaling'. Basically it seems to come down to whales are big fuckers and they eat a lot of fish, thus, we should kill them before we starve. I noticed that they encourage questions so I thought 'why not' and sent the email below.

Dear Scientists,
I am doing some homework on whales and I was wondering if you could answer my question. We all eat fish, we need it to survive - but I see from your website that whales eat fish as well. Can we not just kill all the whales so there is more fish for us? Perhaps we could poison them all, or hit them with sticks? My brother says he saw a whale once, and it smelt funny - what sort of whale was it.
thanks very much for your answer.

Donald Thribb, 11 and a half.

I'am not actually holding much hope out for an answer, but you never know

And the other news is Bingo! Its my driving test tomorrow and work summer party - hopefully in that order.

sounds like something Tittwhistle would scribble......EducationGuardian.co.uk | Research | Ode to fart gets airing at last: "Thanke God quoth Sir Edward Hungerford
That this Fart proved not a Turdd"

Seagulls cries fill the air and the suns last orange rays are reflected against Turning Torso's flanks - I'm horribly aware that these are the longest days and we will soon be moving towards winter with ever increasing momentum. Midsommer - this weekend!

Race Day. What an experience. There was about 3 000 odd people, when you include the relay runners as well and there was a mass convoy of buses to get us all out to the start line, on the Danish side. We piled out of the buss on the articifical island of Pepparholm which was scattered with people pissing everywhere. I got as far up the already crowded slip road as was polite and then could hear, but not see, the elite start. We then shuffled up the slip road waiting for our turn to be herded into the start area. Three groups went ahead of us, and then it was our turn, some 100 or so people standing behind the line. The gun went off and a faint cheer answered it before we plodded off. Before, in races, I've tended to stay with the group and then accelerate towards the end. This time, with my carefully thought out strategy, I just ran like hell from the start. The bridge seemed to go on for ever, and was quite lonely, but once we were in town (about 11 kms later) we were cheered on by the Malmöians - which was nice. In the last 1km K, E and K's parents cheered me on which enabled me to keep my flaggin pace up. So - 1 hr 33mins 58 secs, 109 out of 2533 runners - not bad at all! My legs ache like hell but it was so worth it! The suffering I endured between km's 14 - 18 (and pretty much all the others come to think of it!) has faded now and all I'm thinking about is next year - but maybe with the Stockholm marathon as well!

Off to Båstad for the next few days as the floors being sanded and reoiled where the previous owner's dog's (which was presumably fed a diet of toxic waste, stale beer and quick lime) wee has left strange dark stains on the floor - its being sorted on their dollar, which is cool, but we have to vacate due to the use of dust, solvent and black magic.

The sky is blue, theres a light wind blowing and the butterflies are skipping madly around my tummy. Yes, its race day. The last 12 weeks of training, of pounding up and down the beach, along the rainy streets and maddening repititions of the running track have come to the envitable conclusion. In a few hours time I will be at the start line, the gun will go off and I will run like hell. I've really got no idea what I'm capable of doing, 2 hrs is in the bag but a significantly faster time remains to be seen. I know that I can hold a quick pace for 15K but whether I can hold it after that, and bring in a time worthy of cups of tea and medals is unknown. One thing is a relief, after today I can stop the last three days of stuffing my face with pasta - a nice big bowl of pasta this morning at 0730 (the joys of having a child who does not care that you want to sleep!) was very very unpleasant.

Here goes nothing.

I have not actually seen the Paris Hilton (to paraphrase Southpark 'stupid rich whore') burger king ad but this is, I would imagine, far funnier and probably much hotter.....Accolo

My blog seems to have changed from the paragraphs of bollocks to a list of links to madness. Never mind, this probably has something to do with the impending savagery of the half marathon in THREE days time.....I was out for a run yesterday (one of the last before the big day) and was pysching myself up and not being too quiet about it. Must have been rather disturbing for the sun bathing couple I almost stumbled over to hear me mutter, as a I staggered past, 'you have the power...power...strength in your legs, power etc etc'.

Cunning stunt....excellent. Mr and Mrs Wheatley Home Page

I've never been completely convinced by old Darren Brown 'mind control' and my hunch is that this is a fake (i.e blokes mates don't seem to worried, they seem to know where they are going inside the building) but when the hypnotised guy comes to, in the zombie game he was playing in the pub, and starts going postal with the shooter is most disturbing...Wonderland

Lego nudes with assault rifles.......what more can you ask for? Assault Rifle on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Very cool vegetable based parody of Star Wars, fantastic puns....Grocery Store Wars | Join the Organic Rebellion

...and now its time for buffy, catch ya....BBC NEWS | England | Somerset | Dalek 'kidnappers' demand Doctor: "Former Dr Who actor Colin Baker has been in touch with staff at the attraction, and may be asked to send a message to the kidnappers."

I really must go to other places than Boingboing.net but when they supply such excellent links as this, why bother? Daily Dancer

aarrgh, woke up with a strange of nausea which was not abated after my morning constitutional....this is not good news for the carbo cramming and final runs (ha ha) in preparation for the half marathon on saturday. I'm trying a diet of pringles and peanut butter sandwiches to kill the symptons, early to bed and all that (makes a man health, wealthy and dead - if I remember correctly).

Book:Woken Furies, by Richard Morgan - not his best but certainly still shit hot. Now reading The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lingren (swedish author of maudlin and usually tragic childrens stories).

I have not followed the links or looked elsewhere to judge the reality of this but, sadly, its probably all authentic.The Downing Street Memo :: What is it?

You awake, and gradually your vision clears from a smeary blur to clarity. You are lying on your back in a vast room, the ceiling is many 1000s of metres above you - thin clouds move quietly through the air. The vast roof seems to be shiny, oily, metal. Rolling onto your side, against a cold polished metal floor, you see a featureless plain fading off into the distance. Faintly you can see what may be a structure. Light seems to permeate from all sides, though you can see no sun or other source. You are naked, your left leg is missing - ending in clean stump of pink skin a few cms down your thigh. As you move your head feels heavy and unbalanced. Lifting your hands up you find that protuding from your skull is a thick metal rod, about 20 cms long. There is no pain. Lying on the metal next to you is a strange, alien like skull, elongated and disturbing. It is about the size of a melon. You have no memory of who you are, where you are or why you are there.

Will you:

1. Lie on your back, and wait.
2. Examine the skull.
3. Begin crawling to the distant structure.
4. Place the skull on the rod in your head.

stabilise, more like tranquilise or euthanise.....I 

Theres an excellent resource of these at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39887008@N00/  

This is real, and the text reads 'Tyrant in the house? Thorazine can control the agitated belligerant senile.' Fantastic-www.boingboing.net

Take, for example, the 'crazy frog'. Is he really so crazy, sure his small froglike genitals hang out in the breeze (shielded for some reason, on UK TV anyway, by a small black box - but not, I notice on Swedish television) but otherwise, I see no signs of insanity. In fact, his choice of headgear - a rather natty helmet - suggests that he is anything but crazy and in fact quite safety consious. Now, if crazy frog began a dirty protest, and was plunging his boxed over genetalia into a recent road kill then yes, that would be crazy. In case, for some reason, you've managed to successfully hide from Crazy Frog then educate yourself here. And what was it about his little 'protusion' that people (mainly parents apparently) find so offensive, why you don't see parents protesting that George W is scaring their children and keeping them awake at night, and politely asking that he might be taken off air?

Moan: Still have not seen 'revenge of the shit', my starwars buddy is out of the country for another 3 weeks.
Worry:That i cannot find anything deeply moving or spirtual to say about living in a foreign country, fatherhood or the state of the environment.
Moan:That I am already almost halfway through Woken Furies, Richard Morgan's latest, and it will be over soon.
Movies: Pitch Black (again, still good - 7/10) and The Manchurian Candidate - a trying to hard 6/10.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

amusing fanboy rant about continuity....
Metaphilm - Star Wars: "The fictional universes depicted in movies like the Star Wars or Star Trek series tend to get very complex (for beginners: the former features Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, the latter Captain Kirk, the Enterprise, and a loyal crew made up of people like engineer Scotty; if you get them mixed up, you are worthless). "

very cool......E46Fanatics - Coolest thing ever, Half-life in real life

The full phat moon slipped over the sullen night sky like sour margarine sliding across a hot bonnet. Its yellow light ran down onto the city beneath, its alleys and streets sharp with the diseased glare. The moon, at its most round, had made some inhabitants of the city feel a little strange and they paced their drab bedsits howling and shaking. But none so stange as the vast, cement form which lurked out behind the gas works, its girdered sinews and brick dust breath filling the sky. Its eyes were long church like windows and its body a conglomerate of stone and wood. It hunted smaller prey, buildings which could not move fast enough, bungalows which died a quick, panicky death. And as it stared up at the moons acne ridden face it let out a terrible howling blast, which made the shops and offices quiver in fear. Yes - it was that most terrible of lycanthropes, it was a Warehouse.

Nice one France, I mean it would be fine if you voted no for the right reasons but it seems that you did so because you were pissed off with your government. So thats fucked the constituion nicely.

A bit tiresome, but cognitive displaysia is a very familiar feeling.....Merriam-Webster Online

Well, thought Melvin, you don't get much better prepared than this.
He looked down at his thin slender, wet suited body and the layer of grease which he just applied. He stood in an empty concrete floored warehouse, the only other occupant a massive bull indian elephant which stood patiently near the centre of the space. A step ladder had been set up at its rear and it was this that Melvin now strode purposefully towards.

The last few days have spent entertaining the parents, who are down visiting and making all the right noises about E. Me, I'm up to my ass in another grant application - challenging, but fun.

From the trouser wettingly funny link below...... 

I laughed so much milk came out of my nose....really, you have to check this out!
Longmire does Romance Novels - Your Submissions

most excellent museum....almost worth a visit to SeattleScience Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame -- Fantastic Voyages

Today is Tuesday, named after the Nordic God Tyr (God of warfare, who waits rather unhappily for Ragnarok at which time he will be killed by Garm, a rather large and bad tempered guard dog. (Little compensation, I guess, that he is destined to kill the dog as well). Should be quite scrap, Tyr having only the one arm, but thats another story....). I worked from home today, which was cool, as it meant I could listen to Faith No More whilst fiddling around with HTML. Put some curtains up as well, which was very very exciting. I could go on, but I won't.

very unusual indeed......Unusual Cards

In my continued, and somewhat frenzied attack, on the enemies of rationalism I followed up what that node of geekdom, Everything2, had to say about What the Pants do we know, here you can read two measured reviews of the movie, one from a loon and one from someones who not......What the BLEEP Do We Know!?@Everything2.com.....I think part of the problem with this movie is that the idea of this documentary is a good one, it would be cool to see a mainstream movie on the quantum world. For example, I saw today that a pair of scientists have added to the Wormhole debate that it would be almost impossible to create a stable wormhole in space/time i.e. it would be impossible to determine where it would come out - this is not science fiction, nor is it a bolt from the blue, wormhole science is seriously discussed, as is time travel, in many aspects of Quantum physics....so why not a cool, measured documentary on stuff like that?

I'll try and leave such stuff alone now, I'm spitting again.

and as a final comment about What the #!@& do we know, the production company is called 'Lord of the Wind'. I rest my case.

Another week over, its friday which meant a trip to Ikea , a dinner of chips and meat and a splendid purchasing of a sofa bed. Not quite sure whats happened to my syntax buts its rather strange, perhaps too much pritt stick when I was younger. Life in the new pad is starting to settle in something resembling a rhythm, but we still have far too many boxes littering the place. God only knows what it will be like when I get my act together and bring even more stuff over from the UK. As it is, E is living practically feral at the minute, hunting morsels of food between alleys of cardboard boxes stuffed with papers, only emerging to demand that his nappy be changed (which incidently, requires a stable boy these days).

Lamentable News: Its kind of weird to hear a nation that sanctions torture, incarceration without trial and invasion of countries without evidence to suddenly start brandishing the Geneva convention about when its a picture of a bloke in his pants....BBC NEWS World Middle East Saddam underwear photo angers US: "Other pictures showed Saddam Hussein washing his socks in a bowl, shuffling around and sleeping.
The US said the photos appeared to breach Geneva Convention rules on the humane treatment of prisoners of war. "

Recent Movies: Cube (finally, and rather good), Minority Report (finally once again, and okay).
Under the Reading Lamp: Still reading about the Human Genome, but also getting the Gruaniad almost everyday now, having found a new supplier (the newsagency around the corner, sweet).
Recently missed: Getting anywhere close to involved in doing a Sudoku, apparently this is a craze sweeping the uk.....

and here's the rant.....

Current Rationalist Moaning: What the Bleep Do We Know. Clearing of throat. Lets begin. Okay, so I'll lay my cards on the table and say, up front, I have not seen this movie - which immediately makes me a complete censoring surf nazi I know but, hey, ignorance has never stopped the delivery of an arguement badly put so - with the ground truth exposed - lets continue. For those of you who don't know, this is a documentary attempting to answer the bigger questions about life, existance and so on. Very worthy I say, bring it on. It takes on the mysterious quantum world (which is very fucking mysterious, having recently binged on serious academic books about multiverses, uncertainty principle and probababilty waves I narrowly avoided my brain abandoning ship), and - by following the adventures of Marlee Matlin - attempts to explain things like quantum mechanics. It would seem, however, that it quickly delves down in the strange (Japanese scientist controlling water with his brain waves) to the completely fucking mad, to wit, 35 000 year old Atlantean spirit being channeled through the body of some bonkers Washington woman called JZ Knight. As Richard Dawkins said in a review of this movie, Ramtha (for it is he, (see below)) has clearly not lost any of his business skills in his 35 000 year journey to the present day as he charges a 1000 dollar an hour for counselling (exactly what he cousels god knows, presumably how to deal with your entire civiallisation disappearing under the sea or, worse yet, not existing at all outside of Doug McClure movies).

This kind of shit is dangerous - it gives people the wrong idea about science, giving credence to fucked up new age cults and is generally getting away with lieing to people by dressing it up as science and giving 'experts' the space to bullshit away. What the Bleep Do We know? probably Bleep all after seeing this movie other than seeking enlightenment through a 12 stage course, a ranch retreat, and a bio-feed back machine. Wankers.

Ramtha - 35 000 year old Atlantean Entrepreneur

So lets have a quick look at Ramthas School of Enlightenment shall we? And straight away I'm not smiling anymore, when scrolling quickly through all the opportunities to go on retreats with Ramtha (less of a retreat, more like flee for your lives) I see the words 'To learn to heal and rejuvenate your body through an ancient ritual. This discipline has healed every conceivable disease and can extend your life beyond your genetic expectancy.'. Every conceivable disease? Fuck me, this bloke Ramthas shit hot - lets see what else there is.....Ramtha is a Lemurian, and a great warrior, from a time long long ago - 35 000 years ago - in the time when the lost continent of Atlantis was not so lost. Now this is great......Apparently 'Ramtha does not wish to be worshiped.', he just prefers the folding green instead then...He is channeled through the body of a nice wholesome lady (who also owns a gift shop) called JZ Knight but its okay, there is independent proof of his existance after a battery of tests was conducted on JZ Knight, hmmm, I see. It may be that she has physiological and neurological symptons (or pathology) which are unusual but which diagnosis is more appealing? That she has - 1. Some form of mental illness. 2. That it is a con or 3. She is possessed by a dead warrior spirit who, for reasons best known to himself, has come back from the spirit world as the some kind of cosmic counsellor. I could go on but if your ghast still needs to be flabbered a little bit more I suggest visiting the FAQ page of Ramthas website......But before we leave Ramtha and JZ the cost of spending some time with his holiness is around 1000 bucks a throw which, as Ramtha proudly says - 'somewhat lower than the average professional training courses in today's marketplace.' For some pictures of Ramtha in action, you can visit here.

I could rant about this all day but I'll start spitting, and going red, which is never appealing. I need to calm down, wheres my L. Ron. Hubbard tapes......

what with all the excitement, its worth reflecting on the movies that starwars has inspired, and you can't do much worse than Turkish Star Wars.

splendid..... 

"Back once again for the Renegade Master, people damager, powers in the people. Back once again for the Renegade Master, people damager, with the ill behaviour."

So that solves that question, the lyrics of the above have often troubled me - only a google away and there we are, on a similar vein, heres the lyrics (apparently) for those particularly angry chaps opus otherwise known as Killing in the Name of....went something like this

"Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites.....You justify those that died by wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites" You get the idea, all I remember is staggering off the dance floor after having fought my way through this song, still, that was a long time ago.

So the big event of the last few weeks (other than moving, but hey, thats old news now) was the Scandinavian Science Fiction Convention which - has luck would have it -was right next door in the handly placed convention centre. The big news at this event was, of course, the presence of a pissed off looking David Carridine, a very hairy Peter Mayhew (chewbacca), and John Rhys Davies (Asps, very dangerous - you go first). Actually, for someone who promotes a daily tai chi workout video David C looked very much the worst for wear, not so much a grasshopper but more a chopstick, or something. The convention itself was very geeky, and hence a lot of fun, the room being largely dominated by stalls selling star wars figures, piles of old slasher movies and some very realistic rubber swords. I managed to stumble away with a number of Samaurai movies, a collectors edition of Hellraiser and a rather odd comic book (which, it was alleged, was on a par with Watchmen but sadly was nowhere near) called the Filth. Speaking of hellraiser they had, in the prop exhibition, the suit which Pinhead wore in the first Hellraiser movie - very cool, all hooks and rubber. I could go on, but you get the picture. Geeky

Significant event: Passing my theory test brings me one step closer to my driving licence, finally, but every is so slow, patience sorely tested.
Book: Genome, by Mark Ridley - very good (though a bit old) whistle stop tour through the human genome.

......and I've completely forgotten what else I was going to add there so that will have to do for this evening..........proof of the distracting effect of television.

"One nation under god has turned intoone nation under the influence of one drug
Television, the drug of the nationBreeding ignorance and feeding radiation"

Slight panic there, thought I'd forgotten my username...but no. The new flat is now connected, a mighty 8 mbit/s (ADSL - once again, boo) flowing back and forward.

Nothing much tonight, I'm tired, my hands are slightly sticky and my eyes are stinging....yes, E's been eating porridge again.

Just to introduce some sanity, heres Brian Blessed's filmography....Brian Blessed

Greetings. The X family is moving this weekend so all is chaos.....entered the new flat today, fresh from signing the loan documents, to fine the previous occupants wall mounted plasma tv and huge (and I mean huge) standing tv still present - what part of 'we own this flat now' do people not understand? But thats sorted and soon, very soon, we will live in one of Malmös cooler areas.....this is what we see from our kitchen window, which is nice. (I don't want to create the false impression we'll actually live in turning torso, only that we can see it - but given that you can see it from Denmark (and quite possibly space) thats not saying much. Our new flat, on the other hand, could become misplaced in a cluttered medium sized handbag or other leather receptacle). And the seas only a few seconds away, which is even nicer. But its also scary, as the old flat has become the place I hide in when arguments with bus drivers, meat balls and strange sign writing becomes all too much.

But the sad news is that there'll be precious little blogging as the impoverished ADSL connection we will get will not be set up for at least 8 days....keep watching this space but there'll be no rants for a little while (incidently, next on the list is Colon Therapy).

Book: Market Forces by Richard Morgan, bloody excellent.

take care y'all - catch you after the movement.

And the lesson is, when the known issues file says that Blogspot is unstable really believe it. A large rambling post about earcandles has just disappeared, so you 'll have to wait. humbug.

Oslo. Nice. But toilets hard to find and expensive.

The latest thing to annoy me is the subject of ear candles. Thats right, ear candles. And if you didn't hear me straight then pull that burning piece of bees wax out of your lug hole and listen up......you might have guessed that am I not totally supportive of this quackery. Firstly, if you don't know what an ear candle is then take a look here, here or here. And by now you should have got the idea of what you with them, and what they do. Apparently, the application is thusly. Insert candle in ear, lie on your side, light said candle. Now, pay attention - heres the science bit, the smoke from the candle curls down into your ear, heats the wax which is then drawn out by the suction created from the burning flame. After the process, the inner part of the candle stub can be opened to reveal the contents of your ears and other toxins which have been extracted. Well, my first comment candle boy is this (and I'll move my lips slowly so you understand) - its the 21st century. If you've got itchy ears, tinnutis or quivering vapors (or the 1000 other ailments which burning bees wax can apparently cure) then go and see a doctor. Honestly, just because something was practiced in the days of the ancient Chinese, North American Indians or the Greeks does not make it sound treatment. Whats next - Trepanning for a headache (see note below)? Anyway, assuming your still keen to suck wax out of your ears then here's a few experiments to try out. Seal your mouth over someones ear (either one, but make sure theres no hearing aid) and suck as hard as you can. You'll probably find that precisely nothing hits the back of your throat, although you may get a punch to the face if it was a passerby. Up the anti with a vacuum cleaner and, even though you'll probably rupture your eardrum you'll probably still have zero earwax. And you still think the suction of a mighty candle, burning with precisely one candle power, is going to haul out of your ear one of the stickiest substances your body can produce? And, incidently, its there for a reason. Check out quackwatch, always a voice of reason on these matters. But, if you're feeling very itchy and theres no friendly Hopi indians around bedecked with candles I suggest jamming a John Player Special in each ear, that should get any fucker out.

And yes, I did check, apart from being an obscure swear word there appears to be no market in arse candles though I did find butt candles.


Note - Trepanning.

So of course, I had to take a look. And stumbled across several rather unpleasant sites all dealing with the art of drilling holes in your head. However, before we deal with those I suggest a quick trip to Trepanning, which is the worlds first 12 dimensional settlement, somewhere in Cornwall.
This is inspired stuff and much better reading, and far funnier, than the horrors which lurk on other sites googled for about Trepanning. The story of modern Trepanning apparently begins with a nutty Dutch doctor who decided life would be more bearable if he drilled holes in his head, not only conducting this on himself, he also convinced other people to follow suit. His memoir is called 'Bore Hole' (I assure you, this is not a wind up) and he, unsuprisingly, was attempting to reach a permanent high... if you read the stomach churning accounts of this flying dutchmans attempts to drill a hole in his own head (a sentence you don't see so often) you find the fantastic line '...took a tab of LSD to steady his nerves and set to in earnest'. Fucking madness. Except it does not end there, visit the site of the International Trepanation Avodacy Group and you'll read accounts of other morons happily drilling their heads to find feelings of serenity. Whats the words I'am looking for, oh yeah, bunch of dangerous fucking lunatics. Hippies with drills. twats.

I knew it! This has been bugging me for weeks, even though I don't watch the show (yeah, right) I kept seeing this guy appearing on OC which annoyed the hell out of me as I know his face from somewhere Alan Dale (I)......its Jim! Vietnam vet poisoned by his wife, if I remember correctly.

So John Mills has shuffled off this mortal coil, actor in two of my favourite war movies, Ice Cold in Alex and Dunkirk, - ICIA also being one of my favourite movies of all time. John Mills (I)

Ireland was cool, another day trip to another country - after the meeting I managed a quick tourist trip to Trinity college and sneaked a quick look at the book of kells.

Books: Bill Bryson, A short history of nearly everything - which is good, and interesting but ignores (so far) all the science which ever happened before the 15th Century, and particularly that which occured before the Greeks. Also, Greg Egan - Permutation City - Australian computer geek writing the best hard science fiction you'll ever read. And speaking of hard science fiction I read Tau Zero by Poul Anderson which, aside from the noveltly of casting the Swedes as the guardians of the post holocaust world in the future has a really cool idea as its main story i.e. a space ship which can never slow down and goes closer and closer to the speed of light meaning, relativistically, the universe grows older than the crew.

and of course we'll never really know how much useful 'intelligence' was gained from the 'interrogation' (and the dark understudy of torture the use of this word hides) but I'm willing to bet that it is precisely zero. I remember a long time ago, when 9/11 happened, a friend of mine commented that now would be a time for the new world to truly arise and that America could take a lead in rising above the squalor of mind associated with such an attack - but no. We bombed the fuck out of Afghanistan, started an illegal war on the basis of lies and now are rattling sabres with Iran. Perhaps some of this is justified, but I just feel that there must be a better way.BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US interrogation methods cleared

Back from Dublin, begorrah....saw the book of the Kells and a Russian. And, now, to work.

peering into a glass darkly.........RHIC Scientists Serve Up �Perfect� Liquid

EXT. Close up of a road side. All we see are blades of grass, dust and gravel. In the background we can hear a skylark and the noise of wind in the trees. Above the grass we can see a brightblue sky. Its a sunny summer day. The camera begins to move. Drifting through the grass. We now see pieces of rubbish and bits of tyre in the grass. We come to tarmac, at the same time we hear a radio, quietly at first, but then louder. Someone searching through the stations. A blast of music, some football and then....

Announcer

.....volume of holiday traffic has meant the

roads into Cornwall are jammed for almost ten miles from.....

EXT. The camera continues to drift across the road surface. We now see a close up of a car tyre, and then the under belly of a car. The noise of the engine drowns out the radio. Steaming water drips from the shaking car, and there is a pool of oil underneath it. It is a car at breaking point. Behind this car we see others, jammed behind it. The noise of the engine is discordent, the sound of metal on metal. The camera drifts past the other tyre, and we see a nail wedged deep in the rubber and a slight hiss as we pass by it. As the engine noise disappears slightly the radio comes back.

Announcer

......the largest event of its kind, with over.....

EXT. The camera drifts between the cars, jammed on a dual carraigeway. Again we pass under another car, its engine rattling and creaking. We hear, faintly, the voices from inside it.

Parent

Stop it! For gods sake just be quiet!

Child

But look where he's put his finger!

EXT. We now pass onto the central reservation, underneath the crash barrier. We see a corner stretching away from us, one side of the road glistening with heat shimmer, the other full of stationary cars. The camera slows, and stops, resting beside a crushed tenants lager can on the tarmac edge. The radio fades but we become aware of another noise. A high pitched, tuned whistle which has a deeper note buried within it. It becomes increasingly louder, higher in pitch and then, from the left of the screen, there is a bur of yellow and blue as a motorbike screams down the empty road. We see only a glimpse of a fat back tyre before the bike disappears, accompanied by the doppler affect of the sound. The crushed can trembles in the wind it makes. We hear another engine noise, different but just as loud, a lower growling noise as another bike punchs past the can. Again, all we see is a momentary glimpse of bike before it too is gone. The can trembles again. There is a brief pause and we hear the radio faintly.

Announcer

....and the AA saying to only make your journey if

its strictly neccessary.....

EXT. The noise suddenly rises as a bike bellows past the can, travelling much faster than the first two. We have an impression of shape and dark colours before it is gone, with a machined howl from its exhaust. The noise is intense, our ears are ringing. The can is flicked across the verge and out of sight.

Music: Beck, Loser.

EXT. The camera is now swooping down a valley, alongwhich a dual carraige way. Three bikes race down it, alone, while in the other lane hundreds of cars - full of holiday makers - sit.

and so forth, and so on.

Poland was fun, lots of strange dumplings to eat, candles for the pope and cool art galleries. UK this weekend to see the folks, and then ireland on tuesday. Ironic that I get to visit the emerald isle after leaving blighty.

Unconditional moan #1: Canceling Enterprise. And how many seasons more of Voyager did we get, hmmm. Clearly there is no justice.

Unconditional moan #2: War of the Worlds remake with Cruise and SS (thats Steven Spielberg not Steven Seaga, though that could be cool...)....I wait with something close to terror at what they will do to my number one all time favourite science fiction story.

Unconditional moan #3: What the hell is marvin supposed to look like in the new HGTTG?

And a big huzzah, the comic book version of Shaun of the Dead is coming soon!

And Dubya, you fucking wanker, drilling for oil in alaska. At the same time as the Millenium Ecosytem assessment pretty much says we're fucked.

So, my dear friends, it has been 10 days - 10 whole days, my stars - since we last spoke. And I must say you're looking well, almost too well, perhaps that ruddy glow of your skin and the shiver of your shanks is due to, well, methods of rejuvenation which are not quite wholesome, hmmmm?

And what a ten days its been. Lots of work, between both here and Denmark with too much time spent staring at computer screens. We escaped the city last weekend (which makes Malmö sound like a smoggy chaotic hell but thats not really the case, though some of the cycle lanes are quite scary to cross) and drove up to the summer house. This enabled us to do the seasonal ritual of changing the tyres from winter 'dubs' to the normal summer ones which has the immediate effect of removing the constant roar you experience as the metal studs on the dubs wear away the road. And, I'm afraid, thats as much as I can muster at the minute - off to Warsaw tomorrow not, unfortunately, the Free City of Krokow - for all of those who remember Twilight 2000.

Books: Einsteins Miraculous Year - which was tough going so I moved onto steadier ground with Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi. Its very cool, about how the Egyptions etc had invented algebra and geometry way before the Greeks (though I found myself discussing this loudly in the greek restaurant in Malmö today, rather embarressing, especially when you refer to Aristotle as a 'wanker') Also reading Stamping Butterflies by John Grimwood which I was not at first impressed by but now am loving - and hes written loads of other stuff, cool
Movie: Signs by M Night Shalllamamalamalamalamalaamalaman, not bad, 6 out of 10.
Game activity: Currently trying to make my cow in Black and White do things other than pooing and ripping up trees.

The last week has been intense, even the 'red day' of monday was consumed with work - a feverish construction of a database while juggling two or three other projects in the background, I'm not complaining but against the background of selling the flat, and buying a new one, its a little hectic. And squeezing in my shuffles around Malmö.
I sleep very well these days.

Except for the zombie dreams.

The flat looks like something out of house and home at the minute, we've 'styled' it for the viewings which basically means removing everything which personalises the apartment and making it more anonynomous. As we've been having quite a lot of interest it means that we're living very very anally, bowls washed up straight away, books returned to the book shelf and clothes folded and put away. Maybe some people live like this all the time, but god, its hard work. The Swedish system of viewings is very efficient, we're given about a days notice and then have to vacate the premises while the estate agent shows the potentials around, I was tempted to hide under the bed to see what they say but feared I might be discovered. Or worse, they might think I come with the flat.

Books: Calvin and Hobbes, Tears of the Giraffe, Morality for Young Women, The Kalahari Typing School for Men, The Lovely Bones, The Universe Next Door, and the little guide to Sweden I've got (from the Swedish government, because I'm an immigrant).
Notable events: My first Identity card, arrived in the post yesterday. Not only does this represent some kind of infringement of my civil rights (apparently, according to some) but it also means I can finally book my driving test, and pick up parcels at the post office without producing a passport, residence permit, tax details and character witness.
Annoyance: Where the fuck are the 2nd hand games I ordered from Amazon (Myth III and Black & White), they might have only cost a tenner total but I still expect them to get here.

So the last entry may, or may not turn up - the gist is that I'm making excuses for the lack of content and blaming this on frantic attempts to work and sell the apartment. More later.

Heres the link. Check out number 10.

Constantine - nice try, 6 out of 10. Keanu, you're not being Neo now so stop all that acting with the hands business and the falling onto one knee. Gabriel was a bit of a fox though. Travelling onwards, I am once again at a loss for words, probably due to the shock of working normal hours for the last week (and yes, I know its only wednesday)....which is surprising as there is loads going on - not least the purchase of a new flat and the impending move in May. Wierdly, as it was built in 2001, it will be the newest thing I own (excepting a few pairs of jeans and some books). My legs ache, and already I've dropped a running session from my super rigorous running training regime....weak, weak.

The weather has suddenly stopped being winter and now has moved on to a sort of smudgey half baked spring, the sky has no colour and the streets seem to be damp. Not nice, but its still daylight at 5 or so which is a huge relief. Two large projects at work, which I stupidly volunteered for, have put paid to my current slacker part time hours and suddenly I find myself working full time again...as I was trying to juggle these projects today I discovered that I had agreed to do even more work over the next month.....still, I get paid for it and theres a lot of comics out there.

Recent Book: Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis....always makes me laugh. Edmund Campion, Evelyn Waugh...only makes you laugh if you really really don't like catholics, and a Calvin and Hobbes collection.

So I'm indulging the scatological school boy which lurks within me.....Toilets of the World

intensely, I shrugged my shoulders and with a crack, one of them shot off at a right angle at tremendous velocity and, minutes later, entered a safe orbit. curious.

Off to see Constantine tonight, with Keanu (which sounds like I have lots of beret wearing friends) so expect a full report soon - which will instigate a decent blog session.

Quick recap: lots of work, E sleeping well, and - oh yeah - we have strangely found ourselves owners of a new flat.

cool fishy art.

fantastic......Clean toilets in Tokyo: "Washlet is the machine automatically wash your hip after doing your buisiness."

So help me, I'm still laughing....Dirty toilets in Tokyo: "This toilet is not only dirty but poisonous."

their ongoing mission to 'represent the interests and aspirations of 'away from home' toilet providers......'British Toilet Association - Campaigning for better public toilets for all: "Britain's public toilets were once the envy of the world "

Been real busy the last few days - time spent between work, parenting and new flat dealing. Yes, the time has come to get serious with the buying and it looks like we're ready to make an offer this morning - big scary monsters!

I was in Copenhagen yesterday, and am back their again today, all with the object of securing more work - which seems to be looking pretty good! Anyhoo, I've got nowt else to say and my usual blogging juices are pretty dry at the minute so I'll say adieu, but not farewell.


cool....BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Revolutionary bike 'too quiet'

I was hoping to blog something serious or sensible but when flesh encased bone hit the keyboard, all I could come up with was.......

There are many dangerous things out in the dark, not least shrews armed to the teeth with sharp objects or things with tentacles on their heads.

.......which, reminds me, I broke the 'insert' key off my lap top today which is probably symbolic for something but I'm not sure what.

Interesting news from back in the UK, seems the class war is alive is well. I have some previous on Corbridge and in the good old days of rolling half cut out of the Angel or Black Bull a chippy would have helped steady many a stomach trembling from too many pints/bottles of Scotch or Broon.

Joined at the hip - sinister, or what?

worrying, I also remember reading somewhere that you're most likely to be alive just before a population crashes, which is a bit of a truism but thought provoking none the less......The Observer | UK News | Bad news - we are way past our 'extinct by' date

So there you have it, if I ever consider joining the Israeli army it looks like I may risk a low security clearance....interesting concept, after playing Twilight 2000 for a few years I ended up with quite an indepth knowledge of NATO and Warsaw Pact weapons, thankfully this has long since vapourised (equally, however, I ended up with an indepth knowledge of pulse lasers, rail guns, and masers after playing Traveller) Ynetnews - News - Army frowns on Dungeons and Dragons: "'We have discovered that some of them are simply detached from reality,' a security source told Ynet. "

Having just managed to catch up with the very cool BBC documentary about visiting the planets of our solar system I get taunted by another show, which won't appear over here for another six months.....I need cable!.....BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Experts weigh super-volcano risks

Pull ups, weighted russian twists and some odd yoga moves (whose names I'm not sure about but make me stop breathing) have been the evenings entertainment. My contact lens are clouding up, either that or its the fastest growing cataracts of all time - must dash.

Its not often I feel compelled to subject the unwary to such extremes but any article which contains the words duck, rape, homesexual and necrophilia has got to be worth further investigationDeinsea 8...incidently, this was a suggestion and not something I hunted down myself.

CAUTION: Wistful twitterings.....

The usual twoddle must take a rest today, as you'll probably be relieved to hear. I was running again this evening, paddling around the slushly street lamp lit streets with the the slap of my trainers and the odd roar of a passing taxi to keep me company. As is often the case in such situations, and perhaps why I like running, my mind spilled away from the clicking of my knees, and span onto a meandering, somewhat wistful, reverie. I found myself contemplating the last year in sweden, and the fact that the honeymoon is most definitely over. Life is wholly good, but very different from the life I had back in the UK. New arrivals not withstanding, but I am thinking more about the network of people, not just friends, that we tend to take so for granted when we are in one place for a long period of time. K got me thinking about subject this evening when she said 'the times that you really laugh your head off with friends don't happen so often', when we were talking about moving to different countries. This is definitely the case, sure theres people I know and people to laugh with - sometimes uproariously -but never quite as often as with the friends you've left behind, or just don't see so much. As a digression, the sad thing is perhaps, that even when we're in a position to see people most of us -and I include myself here- often don't, couching in front of the television or hiding in work instead. Even the act of contacting people, ironically in a world of increasingly supersonic lightspeed trouser wetting fast messaging still can seem as difficult as when it required 3 days, a man with strong thighs and two horses to send a postcard to the next town.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not moaning here - I'm as bad as they come when its a case of contacting people - but my point is this. The network we have, whether it is the person you nod to when you walk into work, the colleague you have the odd pint with or the best mate whose shoulder you cry on, is absolutely invisible until you leave it behind - even if it is just a hop over the North Sea, and it takes time to build it back up. Thus, the lady who works at the local store who greeted me with a hearty backslap and tickled E's chin the other day, my danish workmate who suggested beers in Copenhagen some night, and the guy who works in the bank, who now says hello and doesn't need to see ID anymore: don't go away - we networkly challenged people need you!

Lewis Carroll - rabbit hole, clocks, etc rather more like wormholes and time dilation I think. And something that the last link lead me to is on a site devoted to diarrhea, what kind of diseased mind comes up with the diarrhea dance machine? And finally, something I noticed in new scientist concerning the internet which can be found here, here, here, and here, but also here as well - one must be the right one surely?

K's gone out, the monkeys asleep for a while and I can turn my attention to the blog. A couple of things have been rumbling around my subconsious recently, not least the riot at an ikea store a month or so ago. You can catch up with this story at the ever wonderful BBC site. Seems that ikea slightly underestimated the amount of interest in cheap sofas and cut price garlic grushers, causing a riot when their new London store opened. I caught this up in the Weekly Guardian which contains a quote from a witness, saying 'people were hitting each other with wooden mallets'. Where did they get the mallets from? Do you pick them up with the blue bags, or are they hidden in the store to reward the real bargain hunters - we should be told.

I stumbled out for a run today, slipping and sliding down the pavements to the now snow free cycle paths, all part of my training for the broloppet, which you can read about here. This little jaunt takes us from the start of the bridge, pretty much in Denmark, all the way over the öresund, to finish in the sports stadium in Malmö. A half marathon no less. I've got no real aspirations of a killer time, I think the training would destroy my knees (pretty much junked from runs over Dartmoor and jumping over things when I was a drunken student) but I'm looking for something under 2 hours - we'll see. The pictures of last years run over the bridge are very inspiring.

Weather: Sunny and below freezing.
Scenes which never made it to the final cut: "Are you listening to me, or looking at the woman in the red dress? Take another look" "Oh fuck, I've been and shat me self"
Animal: The big black pig, again, though it seems to have put on weight.
Films: Training Day, with Denzel and Ethan - gur (gritty urban realism) which was way good and Resident Evil: Apocalypse which if the first one was a piece of poo, this was the dead (or Zombified) dogs arse if fell from. The first movie was actually okay, but this was just so appalling that I actually came close to fast forwarding through to the end, I've seen much much better episodes of Buffy.
Music soon to be bought: Moneybrother, partly 'cos the one song I heard was cool and partly because the lead singer bears more than a striking resemblence to Gary Oldmen.

This turned up in Times' coolest websites, so I thought it would be a good time to return to it....very serene....FLY GUY

well, slap me thighs skipper theres nothing cheers me up more than a good old toot on the ramrod with a fellow shipmate from back in blighty....its sometimes easy to think that you live in a Swedish bubble ('bubbla'- in swedish) and that the rest of the world is just a sitcom played out on the BBC website.

Bollocks, I completely forgot what I was going to write about.

Weather: Cold, so very cold. -5 and lots of snow.
Memorable event of the day: driving lesson in a blizzard, snow drifts lying on the motorway!
Books: Still the same physics stuff as before, though I'm approaching the end (with some relief) of Pandoras Star by Peter F Hamilton - though I will continue with the sequal. I just read some the reviews on Amazon and I'm clearly in a minority here, but never mind. One of the reviews did mention that it seemed to be in need of some editorial pruning, I totally agree, particularly as I keep spotting typos. (which is very rich coming from me, I know, but then I never claimed to be god at spooling). and to keep with the rambling found quite an interesting forum where folks were bitching about the reviewers on Amazon.

Its been a while, and much has passed. I am now, in a rather philosophical sounding statement, permanent. We visited the Migrationsverket (the immigrant office) and got my residency renewed, thus ending the period of limbo I was enjoying for the last few weeks. I had no passport and no residency. Who was I, which country could I live in? Anyway, such problems are passed now and after an amazingly quick issuing of a new passport (one day from the embassy in Stockholm) I was able, despite the efforts of a pissy office worker to put me off Sweden, to get a new residence permit. To my surprise, its now permanent, as a result of E's arrival - which was a pleasant surprise. Whether this means I can leave, if I want to, remains to be seen. But I like the concept of being permanent, its got a ring of - well - permanency.

The other big event earlier this week was going to the skid pan to learn to drive a car on ice and experience the terrors of driving in Sweden. So I spent a happy 3 hours thrashing around in a VW Golf on very slippy surfaces while a funny little guy with a moustache shouted 'brake brake' at me through an intercom system. The elk simulation was particularly memorable.

Shit I'm tired, been out running in the snow for the last hour. Training for the broloppet - more to follow.

Annoyance: 1. People who feel inclined, when you are out running, to shout 'one, two, three' or some such as you run past. Why? I mean, do they run after cars shouting 'suck, squeeze, bang, blow?'. 2. Herbal teas, of any kind but particularly black current. Even the smell (a vile chemical stench) gives me a headache.
Book: Another brain twister, The River of Time by Igor Novikov
Weather: Snowing most of the afternoon, -2.

Annoyed today, frustrated even....seems like my Swedish has completely fossilised without me knowing it and I find myself getting really pissed off as I listen to the lanquage. Its not that I don't understand anything, thats actually okay, but rather that I understand enough to realise that I'm missing important stuff. For example, my interpretation of a conversation is something like this 'It was a whoophurdegurdeh blobble chooopppp that is jooulllooppp sluffff usually on tuesdays but ting ting surprising amounts of pain. Neefff Neefff wookie woo horribly inflated'. And so on. The really annoying thing is that the answers bloody simple. Get your head down and graft - really, its that easy. There is no special magic to learning a lanquage and, unless you've been hit on the head by a heavy object as a child, no reason why you can't learn. Its simply that you've got to put the time in and since November, with the arrival of E, I have spent little time learning despite the fact that K speaks predominantly in Swedish to me. So I guess the solution is simple. Devise some very cunning device which plugs directly into my cerebal cortex and simultaneously translates Swedish into English and vice versa. Or hit the books a bit more often.
Books: Our Cosmic Habitat by Martin Rees, Schrödingers Kittens and the search for reality by John Gribbin, The Next Fifty Years edited by John Brockman

Weather: Cold. Snow. Wind.

Right now my little boy has the slightly less hot parts of numerous viruses wandering around his body and jump starting his immune system, yep, first vaccination day. So we've got the possibility of fever and sickness to look forward to tonight which is a little complicating as we're supposed to be out for dinner - we shall see.

I remembered a couple of things whilst we were at the surgery which I meant to blog about earlier.

Firstly, candles. When the winter months come the Swedish fight back against the dark and have candles everywhere. Not just the little tin foil ikea jobs either but great tubs of red wax burning outside most shop exits. It was really cool over Christmas as there were massive metal frames decked with candles throughout the town centre. But is does not stop there. When I go into the driving school theres candles burning on the desk and when we were getting blood flow scans in hospital there was a little nest of candles burning in the corner of a room. A lot of candles. Lots of wax. Wicks, in excess. Snuffers, probably very many.

Secondly, shoes. The Swedish style is to take your shoes off as soon as you enter someones house which seems to me pretty sound. In actual fact this is something which I believe the English aspire to but can't quite manage. A few years ago I remember someone sayin that they were impressed by a visitor to their house because 'he took his shoes off', but heres the catch - leave your shoes on in an Englishmans house and everyone's too polite to say anything. Its only later as they are scubbing dogshit, diesel, and used condoms out of the carpet that they will say (in typically whispered tones) 'we won't be inviting them again!". Whats ironic is that in Sweden leaving your shoes on does less damage, given the Nordic propensity for wooden floors, whilst the English love for shag pile means that they effectively have a fluffly magnet for night soil. Its easy to visualise an old carpet as a very large flat dogs arse, peppered with dangle berries (clinkers or whinnets). I remembered this today as before you enter the kiddies surgery you have to take your shoes off - to prevent the rug rats feasting on all the goodies you've trodden in.

Incidently, clinkers...wonder if Cadburys actually know. Perhaps they should be told.

strange Walter Mitty type story from India.....Anil's Doublespeak: The boy who topped NASA but didn't..

its not often I give space to fascists but this made me laugh...Robert Kilroy-Silk : Television For A Generation

.....Raging into the dark....BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts | Hunter S Thompson commits suicide

For all you fans of things Brasslike or pale....Moorcock's Weekly Miscellany

Sweden has a real problem with reality shows, for example, just check out tonights' TV listings. On the state channels 1 and 2 no reality shows, so far, so good; but then we turn our attention to channels 3, 4 and 5. Remember, this is just one night. Lets plunge in at the deep end shall we? - Channel 3, has Club Goa (pointless shite), Fame Factory (more pointless shite), and Top Model Sverige (Sweden) (totally pointless mind numbing coma inducing shite), followed by The Swan (utterly banal, shallow smegridden facile shite), which is then followed by Club Goa (PS). So, it is possible to watch nothing but reality shows - on one channel - from 1830 until 0000. If you get bored of watching these (and really, how could that be possible) you can always turn your attention to channel 4 (Paradise Hotel) or channel 5 which has for your viewing delights both Big Brother but also, Amish in the City - you could not make it up.
The Swedes actually invented Bog Brother, so it really is all their fault. Curious as to the sheer number of reality shows I surfed around a little and found a huge amount of nasty natty websites devoted to reality shows - hideous, so much so that I can't be arsed to contaminate my blog.

As Bill Hicks said 'rid the world of all these fevered egos which are tainting our collective unconsciousness making us pay a higher psychic price.'

The kitchen is being taken apart as I blog, the work surface being torn up and a new one being put in place, all part of our masterplan to sell the flat fast - at some point.

Annoyance: spending over 100 kronor on pass port photographs. It all started with my first set of photographs being hurriedly plunged into my bag whilst running for the bus, after they been
taken in the booth in the local shop. Shortly afterwards I inspected them and found a smudged set of photographs with bits of dust and hair stuck to them. So 40 crowns down the drain. Second set, faired better and managed to survive the trip home. But on checking the passport documents I noticed that the UK passport requires colour and full frontal (some kind of fnarr fnarr comment required there, I think) whereas the Swedish machines give Black and White and suggest one ear exposed. So another 40 crowns down the drain with the developing solution. Final set, down to the railway station and managed to fill the machine with 30 crowns before realising that I had no change left. In the quest to find the remainder the bastard machine ate my the money I'd left in it. Rats cocks. 140 kronor for 4 poxy passport photographs. Arse.
Coming up: Incoherent droolings on the fact that we're all living in a simulation. Read more here.
Recent Books: The Coma, Alex Garland (not bad, some good stuff but nothing really new), Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines by Jim Al-Khalili (fucking great).
Music: Bill Hicks, Rant in E Minor. (Inspired by the above quote)

and erm, oh yeah, we're all living in a simulation.