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