Sweden swelters sexily.....temperatures are hovering around 25-30 and its bloody lovely in the sea. Of course, it also means that my body becomes a smorgasbord for all manner of beasts leaving me with welts the size of golf balls on my shin, that cavity behind my knee and elbow. Why not my biceps? or knob for that matter - at least then it would look vaguely impressive, rather than just silly. I've been up at the summer house for the last two weeks and spending my time playing with the family, digging holes on the beach, cycling, reading and training. To celebrate my 35th year I was purchased a fine mountain bike, which I am now trying to stuff up my arse my jumping over stuff I am far to old, and fragile, to sensibly consider. I took a trek out the other day and ending up carrying the bike up a very narrow cliff path in the baking sun, much to the amusement of the people watching. The stones they threw were affectionate, I'm sure.

Books: Reread the first book of LOTR - 'fly you fools', marvelous. 'History of Ukrainian Tractors', which is an excellent novel and not as dull as the title suggests (if you've ever worked with any Ukrainians, this book will be particularly enjoyable). Currently reading 'Mailman' which is intense as I hoped but I could do with a little less graphic descriptions of panic attacks. And the usual array of comics including Sin City, Bloom County and some cool stuff by Warren Elis.

True Story: I was out with the family cycling last week when we came across a couple of horses quietly grazing in a field by the roadside. As we want the boy to experience the sights and smells of the country we dismounted, unstrapped E from his child seat and proceeded to pet the horses. Shortly thereafter, as I leaned further over the fence to slap one of the beasts haunches, there was a loud 'crack' sound, I felt like I'd been kicked in the ribs and the horse leapt into the air, turned tail and fled. The moral being, don't lean against the electric fence and don't earth yourself through a horse.

I just read the draft of a earlier piece I wrote to start the blog again. It was bollocks, and was not even close to what I wanted to say. So, simply this. I loved A, he was massively important to my life and I will miss him.

And, well, theres not actually going to be much on the blog for the next few weeks. I'm off to the summer house for about four weeks. I may post a little, if I can be arsed, from the local cyber cafe but I suspect a may be a little caught up wrestling wolves and bears (two mammals enter, one mammal leaves).

ta ra for now.

ScienceDirect - Social Science & Medicine : Contesting contraceptive innovation�Reinventing the script.....check out the authors name, bad geek bad geek - abuse of powerful search engines.

The Observer Business New oil shock ahead as $100 spike looms.....forget all the other shit, this is the early notes of the tune called 'run to the hills, run for your lives'.

now, wheres me interceptor?

well fuck me sideways, Nomak in Blade II was played by non other than Luke Goss. I probably shown have known this a lot earlier, but there you go. Incidently, Luke Goss = Bacon number of 2.

The last few days has been bloody lovely weather which means that the whole of Malmö, ney Sweden, has descended almost to my doorstep to bask on the 'sun promenade'. This is the wooden boardwalk which runs for about 200 or so metres down the sea front here. Almost all the buildings on it are flats, so the owners have an obstructed view - in summer - of acres of sizzling scandinavian flesh. I understand that several of the flat's owners wanted to have the boardwalk private but were told, pretty much, to get stuffed, given that the whole redevelopment of this area was partly funded by tax payers money. If you walk about another 5 minutes down the coast you come to the start of about 3 kms of beach which, now, is pretty much deserted as the place to be seen is the aforementioned. Unless, however, you're one of the nudists (who have a little area at the start of the beach, carefully marked out with white stones)and then the place to be seen, or more accurately, get your cock out, is proudly on the beach, idly slapping yourself dry as you gaze, unabashed, at the shocked englishman.

Listening: Arctic Monkeys. Bad Brains. Prodigy.

From the BBC website:

The local election campaign was overshadowed by the flurry of government controversies, including the storm over foreign prisoner releases and John Prescott's affair with a secretary.

Yes, the - ahem - mislaying of rapists, murderers and other violent offenders (debt to society repayed and all) is clearly a major fuck up and thus well fits the controversy headline but two shags affair (which conjures up horrendous mental images) is NOT a government controversy. Sure its a controversy for his life, and presumably for the body of the secretary his whale like mass descended on, but its got fuck all to do with his ability to be part of the cabinet. Politicians are supposed to be representative of the people, but as soon as there is a sniff of 'sleaze' we demand a type of lifestyle akin to that of the pope. Please explain, its only sex. Its not like, oh I dunno, going to war based on a foundation of lies.

and the day starts well by, it feels to me, effectively abandoning my child into the care of strangers. No, i have not converted to Scientology but instead we're in the process of breaking E into daycare (or 'Dagis' as it is referred to here (which is slang)). We spent most of the last few weeks spending each morning there, either me or K, but starting yesterday we began the process of leaving him there without us. Tears, poo and lashings of angst. Was the result for me. Actually, I feel kind of okay about it as opposed to yesterday, when I did not.

Speaking of poo I managed to catch Viral Gastroenteritus off E, he got it mildly whereas as I got it massively. One day lost with lots of backdoor action as I verily squirted through the eye of the needle, this when I wasn't busy shouting down the bog. The end of the winter has been fucking horrible, this is the third time in as many months that I have been bed ridden. Its playing merry hell with my training schedule but has meant I've pretty much lost my love handles.

Reading: Fast Food Nation, excellent. The End of Oil, just starting it but right up my street. Also rereading Woken Furies (Richard Morgan), as always a good read combining, as it does, the words 'cock' and 'blaster' on the same pages.

Listening: The Archers, I reckon Alistair's going to top himself.

The exciting news is that the Scandinavian Science Fiction Convention is back at Malmö Massan which, as luck would have it, is just around the corner. Its a conference centre now but used to be a SAAB car factory. Interesting little factoid there. Among the guests at the convention are Carl Weathers (Major George Dillon in Predator and Apollo Creed in almost all of the Rocky movies.....), Craig Parker (Haldir from LOTR, who seems to have done mostly voice over work in Power Rangers) and Marc Singer (Donavan in V but also Dar, in the beastmaster). So, usual bunch of bitter, slightly mad actors then. Last year had a very pissed off David Carridine, although the guy who was Chewbacca seemed pretty happy. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing Paul Blake, who played Greedo in Star Wars (and, as the ever useful IMDB identified, had a role in Crossroads). And, following on from that, and further proof that the Internet 2.0 is indeed the greatest social revolution of all time check this out.

And yes, the blog is coming back to life which also means tales of sausage bikes will no doubt follow.

Watching: Alien Special edition, Dark Crystal, History of Violence, LOTR, Starship Troopers, Akira.
Reading: Ruth Rendell (shite shite shite, I was stuck for something to read and it was either that or the hobbit, in swedish. Wrong choice). Rough Guide to Science Fiction (which has resulted in me ordering Death Race 2000 from Amazon, we shall see. This is actually one of those movies which got talked about at school, where you knew the lines, the plot and the grossest bits without actually having seen the film. I remember discussing in great detail Alien, countless zombie movies and mad max without actually ever having seen them. The prize was, of course, Texas Chain Saw Massacre, of which, it was said, they used real live people for the actual cutting scenes. It was somewhat of a relief when I finally saw it (ha ha), some twenty years later that it was not actually a snuff movie and was, in fact, not that gory.)
Listening: Guardian podcasts

God, just haven't got the energy to write the usual bollocks (its not as if I can claim some form of writers block, that would suggest some element of actual ability)....don't know whats up but my usual internet frolics have seemed somewhat boring recently. Still, boingboing cheered me up (as usual) with among other things, a link to all the images from Abu Ghairab (that high point of the American version of Pax Romana, i.e. Except democracy or we'll kill you), how to put your eyeball back in and an interview with Alan Moore, which is the link I actually went for. (MILE HIGH COMICS presents THE BEAT at COMICON.com: A FOR ALAN, Pt. 1: The Alan Moore interview

Alan Moore, of course - for those whose life is not brightened up by the consumption of comics, being the creator of V for Vendetta....coming to a cinema near you.

So whats up with the Swedish life....well, looks like the job front is going batshit as the NGO i work for is haemorraging money and has none to give me - so back out in the job market for little johnny I feel. Arse. The good news is that I got hold of the latest Steven Erikson book 'The Bonehunters' which was getting off to a bit of a slow start until Karsa turned up and kicked the shit out of some demon type beastie....fantastic. Actually, thats not the only thing in my life which makes me happy, but its the only thing I can be bothered to write about now.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

Seems like I've had some form of blogging block and, in actual fact, this will only be a short post as I have to get the dinner sorted. However, the news is that an Equaliser movie is in production - fantastic, this was one of my favourite shows in the '80s. Edward Woodward as Robert McCall. Always classic, every episode fucking brilliant and usually ending with him in pursuit of the bad guy, shouting 'stop' and then a split second later shooting him to death, then standing over the steaming corpse and gravely saying 'I warned him'. Director will be Paul McGuigan, who did gangster number 1 and lucky number slevin. I think.

Guardian Unlimited Film News Mads for it: new 007 villain unveiled....given that hes a Danish actor, I assume his planet endangering weopn will be a collection of rather weak cartoons, or some such.

Disturbing images......Atomic Bomb detonation by Harold Edgerton

Things are a little slow right now, but the days are getting lighter.

Me? I'm just keeping my head down (with chin firmly tucked into my Muhammad T-shirt) Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Snow is falling, its cold. I had a series of shite meetings, which combined with my still cough wracked body, put me in a black mood. Then the super new modern metro system in Copenhagen decided it would be fun to not let me off the train (though lingered tantalisingly at my station) before whisking me (and other commuters) off to some god forsaken fag end of Copenhagen new town. Once I managed to get back to the main line then had to endure the train to Sweden being around 20 minutes late (which was made worse by the freezing hail being thrown in my face. I asked the man to stop but he wouldn't). Of course, the train doorway was packed even though the carraige itself was empty and so I vented a tremendously english 'oh for fucks sake' which had the same effect Moses had on the red sea and the crowd parted, and I found my seat. Theres probably a moral there, but I suspect its filthy.

More on the Danish/Muslim war:
Guardian Unlimited Special reports Cartoon conflicts

Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: As usual, its the internet, so its probably all bollocks but about midway down the page theres some real interesting stuff about how this all kicked off....

Some fantastic stuff here...check out the smart materials......Middlesex University Teaching Resources

The cartoon row over the danish muhammad drawings claims a head with the firing of the French Newspaper editor who reprinted them yesterday.....if you want to see all the pictures you can go here, I read somewhere that they were printed as a result of the newspaper, at first, being unable to find anyone prepared to draw a picture of the prop forward Muhammad. My feelings on this, liberalist that I am, is that THIS IS FUCKING INSANE. This is the 21st fucking century and people are being threatened with death because they drew a sketch, what the fuck! I'm sorry, I've very much into right to protest but c'mon, you're acting like a bunch of spastic mentalists.

Anyone want to buy a T-shirt with muhammad on it?

As you may have gathered Swedens noisy neighbour has managed, where the war in Iraq has failed, to set the entire Islamic world aflame....with a cartoon. This one, in fact, which was one of several printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten. Its not even that funny. Its at times like this I'm glad I have no faith in anything supernatural, it seems like so much effort - mind you, I feel the same way about supporting football teams.

Computer fixed, cough is not, snow is melting, eager to see what 'Invasion' will be like (though after Prison Break, I'm not holding my breath. Prison Break, which by episode 6 already has had a full on prison wide riot.....thus if its a logarithmic scale of insane plot devices means that by episode 20 they will all be enlightened higher dimensional beings floating in brane space.)