Is Chris de Burgh a miracle worker? the Mail on Sunday...apprently he cured a man suffering from a swollen ankle by simply touching the affected area. 'look, he walks' shouted the excited Chris. To bloody right mate, a paraplegic would use their mouth and eyelids to drag themselves away from the risk of hearing 'lady in red'. Reading the article, and theres much to laugh at (or despair) but one of the best lines is:This is not the first time that de Burgh has professed to having special healing powers.

'In 1993 he revealed that he had warned his wife, Diane, not to move her spine if she should break her neck in a riding accident.' Wells thats just genius.

and.....

' And five years ago he apparently helped cure former Liverpool defender Markus Babbel of Guillain-BarrÈ syndrome, a rare form of neuritis which paralyses parts of the body.
The singer visited him in hospital where he lit a crystal lamp and passed his hands over the player's legs.'

Lit a crystal lamp? What did he use, a fucking blow torch. No wonder Markus claim immediate success and fled the room.

Given the growth of these healing powers are probably in inverse correlation to record sales I expect James Blunt to be merrily working the crowds at Lourdes sometime soon.

and that small thud was my other teste falling off.......very very funny......dTheatre.com : Hilarious STAR WARS Video Mash-Up!

Fantastic mash up, I laughed so much I dropped a bollock. YouTube - The Picard Song

'Bout ten years ago I was did some work out in Eastern Europe, just when I was starting my PhD. I found myself, on a washed out day, walking along an empty piece of coast road on the shores of the black sea. It had rained heavily the night before and the sky had a battered, but bright, appearance. I had walked down a thin set of rickety wooden steps to the coast road, from a park where the autumn leaves had started to bury smashed and disfigured statues of Soviet heroes. As I walked along the road, stepping around potholes and random piles of gravel an old man walked past me, a fishing rod slung over his back. He smiled at me, stopped, and with a mouth which had almost no teeth spoke a few words. I shrugged, smiled, and said 'I'm sorry, I'm English, I did not understand'. He smiled again, stared at me for a few seconds and then carried on. I did to, my gaze flicking across the bay where waves splashed and flickered. Suddenly I heard a shout, and turning, I saw the old man waving at me.
'The storm, he has gone' He said, in English, and then 'now I can fish'. He waved his fishing rod over his head and I joined in his triumphant wave. He turned again, and we walked our separate ways, the distance between us growing as we walked our separate ways around the bay.

Theres something about that chance encounter which has stuck with me and I occasionally find myself thinking about it. I wonder if that old man is still alive, and I wonder if he ever remembers the strange out of place English man he met, miles from anywhere, one day in October. Perhaps not, and perhaps its only something in my head that makes such a random encounter so powerful but it seemed to bright, and vivid, at the time that I find it a comforting memory to return to.

"We are kinda being trained to be warriors.. only in a much funner way".

Watch the future of America:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co1_9lR9EpM

Talk about moving the goal posts - Yisrayl Hawkins With the singular absence of nuclear war since his last prediction of September being the end of the world we have a new date 7 days hence....time to go back to the shelter I suppose.....

aaah, rats cocks. The interview with M was less fun and games and more like throwing rocks at a crippled dwarf in a barrel. This was the second interview, to validate the first (though surely they should have three?) and I would not have been surprised if the guy interviewing me had checked to make sure I really was the person interviewed in the first round. I was blithering like an idiot and would have probably made a better impression had I simply knuckled around the room uttering loud pant-hoots. Arse.

Finally, a serious website concerned with a problem which threatens all our bovine chums......Cowabduction.com
I wish I had the energy to type more, but I'm tired so the news in brief: another interview with M tomorrow, its raining a lot, I can bunny hop my bike on the spot, I am missing skin from my shin (see last statement), my daughter weighs 5 kilos, and I'm feeling somewhat weary.

Moooooo.

Read an interesting article in New Scientist about life online which made me realise how limited my internet life actually is...it occurred to me that I have absolutely zero online pals (i.e. people that I have never met in real life), every one I skype, email or otherwise are all people I have an existing fleshy (so to speak) life with. On those rare occasions when someone contacts me who I don't recognise it gets deleted straight away. Further, theres no way I want to have a myspace profile - I just don't have the time, or give ammunition to a future employer. Living online: Give it a try - tech - 17 September 2006 - New Scientist Tech Anyway, the interesting stat from the linked article is that 79% of British youth utilises instant messaging either via internet or telephone. Fucking hell, my phone does not even have a camera.

Obsessing on: Getting more air on more bicycle, c'mon on weekend.
Hooray for me/sweating about: Got the second interview with M - next week. Golly.
Why oh why: Haven't I seen any movies recently (angst after reading empire magazine recently).
Read: Astonishing X-Men written by the 'we are not worthy' Joss Whedon...most excellent (which the above gag came from).

Not often I poke gentle fun at the Swedish lanquage but this makes me chuckle every time I pass it......

Had my first interview with M today. As they said in there email that the interview would include not only a logical assignment but also a personality test I'd thought I'd preempt them and apply a little reverse psychology. The interview went something like this:

Interviewer: "So, J, I thought we could start by you telling us a little about yourself"
J: "Actually, I thought you could tell me something about yourself"
Interviewer: "But this is your interview, I'm asking the questions"
J: "Does it upset you when I ask the questions? You're being very evasive"
interviewer: "But if you ask the questions then I feel a bit useless...I mean a bit....
J: "inadequate?"
Interviewer: "yes, exactly."
J: "Do you feel inadequate often?"
Interviewer: "well yes, not always but sometimes when I get tired or stressed"
J: "Just at work?....."
Interviewer: "Well (coughs nervously, looks at feet), things have not been going so well at home......"
J: "let it out, its okay if you want to cry"

Surprisingly, it was nothing like that. However, it was pretty positive. I scored in the top third on the logic test and the personality test bracketed me as self assured and analytical with a tendency to sweat the small stuff and not take criticism well. Which, on the basis of a thirty minute chat and a few forms is pretty accurate. Lets see if they think I'm analytical enough for a second interview.

Listening:Benny Hill and Grandstand Tunes...totally recommend spending some time here.
Reading: Hellblazer, Ghost Rider.....erhm, and some shit sci-fi called Polaris which is pants.
Link:Heres a link to the UK skeptics website Home HTML, I have not really checked their site out much so if it turns out that they are funded by Exxon (as http://www.junkscience.com/ is - basically set up to rubbish the 'pseudoscience' of climate change.....check out George Monbiots new book 'Heat' serialised on the Guardian Online pages) then I apologise.

Exxon Secrets......depressing and fascinating. what more could you want.

Yisrayl Hawkins: "The House of Yahweh Prophecy
of 9-12-2006 Has Been Fulfilled "...or, if you look at this woo woo's website, we're seven days into a nuclear holocaust which no one has actually noticed.

Guardian Unlimited The Guardian 150 injured as Hungarians riot over PM's 'lies': "There is not much choice, because we screwed up. Not a little, a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have,' he said. 'Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years.
'You can't show me any significant government measure that we can be proud of, other than, in the end, we managed to drag the government back from the brink.'"

fucking hell, straight talk indeed. Don't even ask me about the Swedish elections......anyway, the toot is that I've got an interview with behemoth which is M tomorrow - so we'll see. Must remember 'bum titty wee. bum titty wee.'.

Yisrayl Hawkins...brilliant, -1 day remaining until nuclear war. Its quite nice out, I'm going to the park with my family. Carrying some Factor 10 000, just in case.

This came from the observer, fantastic. Cannot wait for 'Hot Fuzz' described as Michael Mann directing Midsomer Murders....hows that for a slice of fried gold?

Only one day left! Hurry hurry! Do all those things you've never got around to doing because as from midnight tonight its all going to hell in a handbasket........and its all according to woo woo Yisrayl Hawkins who has found all this in revelations. I tried reading some of his stuff on the website but it was like letting ants crawl around in my head. Anway, as he says on his website '1 day left before the start of nuclear war'. Golly, he's a nut. A brazil nut, or perhaps a cashew.

Just to put your minds at rest I say, in my capacity as Arch Nematode of the High Church of Lost Socks, that it won't happen and the only mishap tomorrow will be the disappearance of a small dog called Alan from his home in Kendel. Don't worry, he'll be found in time for his tea.

BBC NEWS Africa Sudan man forced to 'marry' goat: "'When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up'. "

BBC NEWS Africa Sudan man forced to 'marry' goat: "'When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up'. "

Hitler and Stalin were possessed by the Devil, says Vatican exorcist the Daily Mail.......speechless.