I'm not really a fan of winter. Don't like snow or high heating bills. Summer isn't a fave of mine either - sticky sun cream and/or stinking hot days in the office. Spring is okay, though I think my pleasure at Spring's arrival is mainly relief at Winter's departure. Autumn is okay though. It has a nice smell, and I like it's colour scheme.
From the garden. Only the middle bush of the three has borne fruit this year ("Careless" variety, the "Invicta" have nothing)
Eaten in a gooseberry-and-apple crumble
Getting ready for the winter holidays is a lot like preparing for armageddon. Tinned food mainly, with some dried stuff. And fresh fruit so I don't get scurvy. The shops will be open for a few more days, but the last morning they tend to be picked locust-clean so I've done my hunting/gathering in plenty of time. Actually I still need to get cheeze and soya yogurt
I haven't been spending so much quality time with the Internet lately. I had an idea that making this moref a photo blog might help it keep limping along, without too much effort from me. On that basis, went for lunch at a localish café. Had a pretty decent vegan breakfast plus decaf coffee.
The boarded-up White Lion pub is a bit melancholy. At least it hasn't been bulldozered yet, like Cine City which was previously to the right
It was a fairly spontaneous thing, and we got the tickets with just minutes to spare. From the description - a kind of punky Bjork - I didn't really know what to expect, but it turned out to be pretty good. Not particularly punk to my ears, but I could detect some of the influences cited like the Stooges, Interpol, the Strokes, Sugarcubes. Put me in mind of the Detroit Cobras. With the added bonus of a top hat.
A sustained period of hot and dry weather has lead me to the inevitable purchase of a barbeque. Got a nice one too, folds up really small but held enough fuel to cook food for the four of us: our guests G and L, my lovely gf and me.
Didn't take any photos till it got dark, and then took a snap on my phone. Photos taken in the dark always look poor, so grainy. I've tried a bit of photoshoppery, but the only technique I've found that improves things is colour invert.
Since I'm on a nocturnal shift this week I had the chance to get a cup of tea with MV at a charming little deli in the village. Licorice tea turned out to be the opposite of normal herbal tea - it smells bad but tastes good. Freaky.
Today I changed the oil in my motorbike. Not a massive achievement you may think, but it's the first time I've done my own oil change and now I consider myself to be among the ranks of people who say "doing your own oil change is pretty easy".
Actually I still need to get rid of the old oil. For this I will need about three old detergent bottles and a trip to somewhere to recycle oil
There's a strange feeling to a house after a party. The cranial fogginesss of the participants (heh heh - i said pants) is just part of it. check out all those empty glasses and half finished plates. A-and the way that all the furniture is pushed against the walls.
Part of the wierdness is that my entire MP3 collection has been on random play tonight, and there has been a number of tracks that I didn't recognise. On the other hand, my MP3 collection has a folder called "Unlistenable" and I don't think any of these have hit the play list tonight - which is probably a good thing. Some peolple may have thought that songs played were in the "Unlistenable" folder but that is their problem
Anyway, it's been good to meet some of the neighbours and to see some of my friends who havent had an excuse to come round until now. Now I'm going to polish off the ?th bottle of wine and the 68th vol-au-vent and get some sleep. The washing up can wait
... we played Risk. I was blue. I had to concede defeat shortly after the picture was taken.
And I updated my blog, something I've not done for a long time. Did you miss me?
I often see references to xkcd but I never really looked at it much,till recently when I saw this one that really made me laugh. out loud. several times.
It took me back to the days long ago when I found matrix transforms baffling. So much has changed since those days. Not my reaction to matrix transforms though.
I think spending time on facebook has resulted in a decline in my blog postings. Now when I have trivial and uninteresting stuff to relate FB tends to be my first port of call. I'll try to fight it though and keep this blog alive. Here's some uninteresting stuff which won't be on FB ever:
Status: I am pleased with the result obtained when I took my bike to the jetwash. It isn't amazingly clean but it's cleaner than I usually get from handwashing and with much less effort
Two milestones in one, but not the topic of the hour. I'm thinking about energy.
After hearing the news yesterday and today I'm disappointed that the UK has decided the future of energy is nuclear. Which I don't agree with, and makes me regret voting Labour. Although since the Torys supported the decision and the Liberals didn't lose the election by just my vote then I guess it isn't all my fault.
Apparently in Cuba energy shortages have brought about the revival of bicycles and animal-drawn vehicles. But that isn't all and this very interesting article suggests that with a bit of help Cuba could have a much more renewable/sustainable energy infrastructure than we are likely to have here in the UK.
Every so often someone wants to involve me in a campaign to lower petrol prices. I invariably decline and in this blog post, or rant - we'll see how it turns out - I shall attempt to explain my reasons.
Primarily, I don't think that petrol prices are too high. I can afford to fill my tank up, and last time I checked the roads were full of other people who had managed to fill up too. If people want to save money on motoring I suggest selling cars and using public transport.
Secondarily, everyone wants public transport to be better but I think the only way this is going to happen is if more people use it. Higher petrol costs would give an incentive to use it.
Finally, since the more people use their cars the more petrol they have to buy this is the fairest way to tax motoring. I think that Road Tax should be integrated into fuel tax, this would benefit people who have a car but use it only sparingly but would transfer the cost of road maintenance etcetera to the people who use the roads most.
In summary, I will not sign your petition.
One of our suppliers decided to show their gratitude today by donating a case of lager to the support team: 24 cans of Stella. I haven't drunk this particular brew because I had heard that it wasn't vegan but since this was free beer I had to check my facts - and it isn't even vegetarian since they use isinglass (a kind of gelatin made from fish) for fining (clarifying by removing the bits of yeast etcetera floating in the liquid)
I must confess to being a bit slack myself with booze, since it doesn't usually have ingredients and normally when people are talking about this topic they are somewhat drunk and unreliable. Also after a few drinks I become unreliable. But I'm going to make an effort. After all most brewers have an Internet presence and it isn't too much work to email them asking if their products are suitable for people who don't eat animal products. If they get enough emails they may even think about the commercial benefits of products which appeal to the 0.3% to 7% (estimates vary) of the population who are vegetarian.
I'm going to email Joshua Tetley right now
As I go about my day, songs from yesteryear jump out of the dark alcoves of my subconscious and start playing themselves. From time to time the songs of Transvision Vamp do this, and that happened recently. I thought to myself "whatever happened to Wendy James?" and realised I had three options
1.) decide I didn't need to know
2.) decide that I wanted to know, but do nothing about it
3.) use the awesome power of google to find out
I went with option 3, and it turns out she's now making music under the moniker of "Racine" and had an album out in 2005. Some (maybe all) of the tracks can be heard on the website (link, use the top player - the bottom one just plays 30 second snippets) and are worth a listen. I especially liked The Last American Hero, but it doesn't appear to be available in the shops.
The music isn't much like TVV, which is probably a good thing - there are enough people putting out 80's sounds nowadays. It does still sound like her singing and the material/attitude is similar. A second album is due early next year.
And if you were wondering about the other members of TVV, have a look here
I enjoy playing football very much, but I'm not any good at it. Tonight however, I ended a dry period which has lasted pretty much all my life* in the work 5-a-side match and got the ball in the other team's net. Obviously football is a team game so thanks to my team for the work involved in getting the ball up to my foot, and apologies for messing up all the other chances I had.
*except for own goals
