For many years Belfast was bereft of cinemas, because they where one of the many props of British imperialism in the occupied 6 county bastard statelet the republican movement took it upon themselves to burn them down blow them up or force proprietor to put on 1960's Czech art house movies.of course I have horror stories about cinemas

Falling over
Going back a few years. The unfunniest man in the cinema sat behind me quipping about Falling Down. Didn't say anything. But vowed if it ever happened again I would follow them home whispering about their journey home, how great it was and stating the obvious...

Dinosaurs
A kid been right we shit during Jurassic park. He was standing on his seat and jumping up and down, his mother being a modern parent was trying to convince him to sit down...thankfully after a very high jump, the seat folded up, he fell quite badly and smacked his head  off the seats in front. I laughed so much popcorn nearly came out my nose.

Scream
My visit to the scariest film ever made The  Blair witch project. Some couple talked and bicker through half of it and most of the people in there had told them to shush. My then girlfriend  shushed them. The girl said 'shush yerself' I stood up and screamed 'QUIET!' they looked a bit scared. And got up and left... supposedly . I'm a  bit scary

Glandular problem
Wallace and Gromit curse of the were rabbit, I knew I was going to be in for a good night before the film even started, how can I put this a lady of the larger persuasion had her arms full of cinematastic goodies and was also using her son as a stunted pack animal. She approached her seat with a certain gusto that was probably in part due to her need to gorge herself because of a 'glandular' problem.

But cinemas, fate and nachos are hard task masters, this lady slipped and fell face first into her nachos and large coke, spilling the contents of the coke and nachos down herself over the back of her son and down the steps. I laughed quite a lot. Until it went a bit pathetic as she tried to scrabble all the content s back into their respective containers...

Theirs nothing funnier than a fat person falling over. Apart from the fat person hurting themselves in the tumble

Tramp
I was one of the four people who went to see quiz show and all and all I still think it is a good movie, the cinema was pretty empty, me and my lady friend sat down to watch the film. I'm one of these annoying people who pay money to see a film on a 'date' I want to see the film, if I wanted any of 'that' I could have a knee trembler out the back of McDonalds and it would cost me nothing(well maybe a cheeseburger and small bag of chips)

Sitting in a virtually empty cinema, this 'man' carpet thing came and sat beside me, I was going to explain that this was not the queue for the soup kitchen and he could sit anywhere he liked, but Mr. Redford's pacey direction and Fiennes captivating performance made me think other wise..

A funny smell, not like clown aftershave, but a musty, street wee meths thing going on. fairly sure that it was me or the girl I was with, the carpet man was wafting, the only thing that was missing was him muttering about something under his breath and him going through his shopping trolley.. The film ended the gentleman left, but my skin had begun to crawl for some reason (and I'm fairly sure it wasn't the prospect of getting physical with my drab woman friend) I looked a t my leg, it had a number of red bits up it from some 'thing as did my arm and shoulder nearest are homeless friend..

Things not to do :

1. Go out drinking on a school night

2.go back to gav's and have more drink(i think)

3. not eat for 16 hours

4. think it's a good idea to sit up until 2 in the morning

5. get up at 6 in the morning and wonder why all the lites are on

6.log on here and find new photograph of yourself

7. not realise when or where you'v taken the photograph

8.look at profile and realise that it was taken in gav's bathroom

9. don't take photographs in other peoples bathrooms

I left work today at 17:40...l ploughed headlong down the road because it was bouncing down, by the time I reached the black bull 2 bus had pulled away and were heading down towards town..

Thinking ,stupidly, that at 17:55, it being rush hour that their would be a bus every seven minutes (as stated in the timetable)..so I waited

And waited

And waited some more..

looked at the wall board, no fewer than seven bus..didn't turn up..of course plenty of No Service ones drove past

Finally at 18:34 the 62 turned up..and by now it was heaving..so much so the top deck's inside ceiling was dripping with condensation, sweat and other unpleasantness

Got down to Sheilds Road..secure in the knowledge that it now being 18:50 that a bus was due.. I was glad because it was bouncing down, I pulled up my hood, closed my coat up properly put my Mp3 play on and head to the bus stand

Unfortunaltey the number of people at the bus stand, who had just got off the 62 had made the bus stand a bit 'cosy'

so I went and stood under a door frame..which thankfully was under a leaky drain pipe..so it helped me reach a level of dampness only full body submersion could acheive..in a matter of seconds

I spent some more of my life waiting.. You know because I love it

By 19:20 I was wringing/dripping wet.. so I thought well I can do one of four things,

1.stand here until the bus turns up

2. fuck this for game of soliders and go and stand in the grace Inn and see how long it would take me to get stabbed in the head with a philips head screwdriver

3. really fuck it for game of soliders and undertake the unenviable walk down to my flat..and run the risk of getting stabbed in the head with a philips head screwdriver

4. Stand here for the bus to turn up only top be told their is no more room on the 39 but we do have a stable out back you can have(no i'm getting my stories mixed up)

Drenched, more miserable than usual I decide to go for the third option, thinking that getting stabbed in the head/beaten up would at least divert the attention from how cold and wet i was..

i ducked my head down and marched with a protestent fervour that is only achieved by way of my ascendency and generations of my ancestors taking tradtional routes over a period of 300 years.

I made good time, like an orangeman on the garvaghy road.

I was half way down Welbeck Road before a packed bus drove past me..

Got into my flat and for once was not greet with the horror of bad post, I took my coat off, my phone was drenched, my shirt trousers and my usually reliable army boots had actually let a bit of mositure in..my wallet and the reminder of my money was paper mashed around the inside of it

I stumbled upstairs muttering(I say stumbled becuase like any man I can't walk and talk at the same time) and check my clock..19:40

Another two hour adventure home.. On Monday during the bus strike it took me an hour to walk home, thats just over 3 and bit miles

I'm not entirley sure why they have timetables, yes i know that it is some thing for 'MiCky' from 'Byka' to scratch his name on but really what baring do they have on reality?

I've thought of better solution that is probably more accurate and was used by the romans..

Soothsayers, all I need is a small temple in each bus stand with white robbed acolyte..who will sacrifce a chicken and read it's entrials in an attempt to predict the arrival of a bus..and if the gods shine on him he will be accurate to ten mintes..which is currently 15 minutes closer than the current timetable..

I mean think of the advantages of having an acolyte at a bus stop, for one it would stop charvers from messing the place up..incase the hippy in the toga reported them, the acolyte could have small market garden form which he could sell herbs and elixirs, and of course his flock of chickens would produce eggs up until they where..um..required..

I think it's a great idea..It would also give me a nexus employee to beat to death when the fucking stupid cockrotting fuckbag of bus didn't turn up

I was reading over some of my earlier rants I came across my oldest surviving one which appeared on DB Humiliation site sometime ago, it was about one of my old favourite subjects, vegetarians. However, My attitude to most things has mellowed over the years, to a level that is akin to the general throb. Their always a moment in ever angry person life that this rheumatism will flare up once more.

My girlfriend is a vegetarian, so of course my attitude has changed a lot, however she has her own wee prejudices, and these are from the uber vegetarians – the Vegans, the dietary equivalent to the rock scenes Dj's. These waif like behemoths stride the fair trade stalls like pasty gods, sneering at the genocide of animals. Wearing their tofu diet as some sort medal

Genocide of animals, the very term sticks in my throat.one vegan commnetator went on to say that this is the biggest annihilation of fauna on the planet has ever seen…does anyone remember the Permian-Triassic? Nope didn't think so that's because 96% of all marine species went extinct and 70% of land animals..plus you would need to be about 251million years old to remember..

As they sit and type away on their pc's saving the animals singing the priases of the wonder of plastics and synthetic creations that replace what 'natural' goods we evil ominvores have raped the earth for.

Now plastics, are derived predominantly from oil, oil is widley regarded to be the by product of dead organic material predominently Zooplankton (a living creature)..all be it a creature that died a couple of million years ago. Therefore is it morally wrong for a vegan to use plastics because they do not use anything derived from animals, the elctricity that powers their printing presses their PC's the Tofu facortys the majority use electricty made by coal or oil..therefore they are hardly livng the vegan ideal.

Okay so it died 30million years ago, but does that make it alright? Does your ideology have a time limit? Would it be okay to eat a 30 million year old kebab? Use the hide of 10 million year old cow to make a coat?does it even have to run into millions of years?, could only be decades? Weeks? Months?..okay they are silly examples, but they illustrate a point that the holier than thou attitude of some vegans really does not hold up to closer scrutiny.

Animals..just incase you hadn't notice vegans love animals, of course they do they don't eat them and they don't use anythign produced by them(apart from plastics) however this is not to say they have a problem with soemone else killing them so they can survive..the pesticides kill insects that feed on the crops, vermin that living in the area are systmaticlaly aniihilated so the farmer can prodce the crops to feed are vegan kin…

'But we use organic fruit and veg'

good for you your absolved from any guilt, you're a better human being than everyone else..

oh wait I took leave of my senses

your crops get harvested from an enormous field, that was created by a farmer that ripped up all the hedgerows, destroying the home of countless animals…but I suppose like oil it's okay because it happened long ago to feed the ravenous murdering masses..but now they are being used to feed the idyllic vegans who love everyone.

Fair enough if you can live with using the fossilised remains of animals to fuel your cars, I'm sure can you can live with apportioning blame to the evil meat eaters for destroying hedgerows.

But can you live with the deaths of animals duirng the harvest? Vowls ground up and spat out by harversters worms crushed under foot, do these animals not mean anythign to you because they are not cute and cuddly? Or is it okay because their deaths where accidental(the farmer was probably a meat eating pig anyway)?even if it was an accident caused to feed you that makes you compliant in the act.

Natural predators

Some of these self confessed aniaml lovers love their animals so much that they try and change the very nature of them..some vegans raise their cats and dogs vegan.god it must be fun in their house..fido blind and bald, walks clumsily into a door snapping one of its legs.

Extreme ..no not really, cats and dogs are obligate ominvores, they go blind among other things if feed on avegetable diet..sorry lads if you want an animal to have ahigh quality of life and be heathy your gonna have to feed it meat..if not get a hamster.

I read that vegan(froma vegan boards hey I like to try different things okay?) had raised his cat on a dry vegetarian diet, the cat was a tom and dry food can cause crystals to build up in the bladder and uretha that lead to an un[pleasant condition for all concerned (its copstly) this gentle man not only happy with truning his tom cat inot the a doemsticated sheep, but when he had the cat 'done'
He also had the genitals removed and the urethra moved further back.

So, not only did he fed his tomcat vegetarian food (going against what they were designed for) but he also turned his cat in to a woman. How can someone who purports to love animals do something so hideously unnatural?

Another thing I can't understand, is why when you meet one they insists on telling their a 'Vegan'
' Hi I'm Tarquin, I'm a Vegan don't you know.' good for you my names Andy and I drink Spam margaritas and wear dolphins on my feet, when I get cold I burn kittens and I work in an animal testing laboratory, where I rub make up in the eyes and anuses of guinea pigs, dogs and fish. I hope we can be friends

I don't care if you a Vegan I don't really want to know as soon as I meet someone what their dietary requirements are … eating out with these freaks is irritating in the extreme.

Not only does the poor kitchen hand get a third degree about the contents of the meal your might order, yes the bread is organic and it was harvested with a oxen'
I'm sorry I can't eat that because I would be endorsing the servitude of animals and blah balh drone drone drone

I'm tempted to fling a napkin at them and tell them to tuck in and f**k up, but it may have depiction of an animal being looked after or used by a human being. So they couldn't even eat that

Why do they always insist in making a big thing out of it? They would begin to lecture the poor guy who earns four fifty an hour. He probably stands their wondering if the journey over in a refrigerated container lorry from Poland was worth it.

So really if you want to be a perfect Vegan, you cannot do any of the following
Ø Don't use plastics

Ø Don't eat harvested grains or pulses

Ø Don't use electricity from oil or gas fired power stations

Ø Only use coal that was dug from the ground without harming anything
when planting grains, ensure that it is in a field that was naturally deforested and when planting ensure that all worms insects etc are out of the way.
Ø When driving to harvest your crops in ethically mined coal, please do not kill an insect or endorse the culling and murder of animals when the road was built, I would suggest cut across a field but make sure you don't hurt or kill anything

Ø When you finally arrive exulted at the field to harvest please ask all animals to leave and take up the emergency accommodation you hand built for them. Remind them to be sensible, badgers in the big homes, field mice in the small ones

Do they not realise they would all be up creek without a paddle if an asteroid hit the planet? I would not be I would eat a vegan organic corn feed meat always tastes better, and they can't run away from you because they are mildly anaemic

It happens twice in a lifetime, not not marriage or divorce but the internet has help a number of bands shoot to stardom, we all know the 'dream like' rise to fame of the arctic monkeys they 'may' have actually worked their asses off.. But I'd never heard of them and pride myself in listening to crap music.. I also know people who have done the same sort of thing and work really hard and have an equally loyal fan base but they've never been plucked from obscurity

Suppose its like that Sandi Thom thing.. you know how she lived in an apartment in prohibitively expensive part of London doing web casts of her music which 100,000 people where tuning into every night.. what was she doing? It can't possibly have been her puerile run of the mill feminine whining that got her all the web traffic, she must have been doing that stuff with two German plumbers and a donkey called Rodriquez..

Sandi must also have had the 'bestest' most 'kindest' broadband provider.. streaming video and Audio to a 100,000 people completely batters your sites host server and your broad band provider..

Not only was she infinitely talented to actually play her own unique brand of quirky female music, but she also had the time to build and maintain a website that streams video and udio....musically talented and knows how to build websites.. she really is 'the voice of generation'

And her technical skills are even greater than Google's because she can hide all this traffic from them.. Google reported that they did not experience a spike in searches or traffic to her site.. the record company said it was because the web casts where announced Via Email.. yes that was met with a certain scepticism

Sandi managed to maintain a website, live an apartment in fashionable swinging London, pay for a hosting package that big businesses would be hard pressed to justify.. but she also managed to hold down a full time job to pay for all this..

Maybe she is that musically talented, technically gifted with a fervent work ethic, coupled with her good looks..she is must have on any record labels roster..or maybe, just maybe all this is just marketing tool to sell records, to up the anti to get the publicity machine and the media chomping at the bit..

it would take a few press releases and a couple 'stunts and I could make anyone famous and the idiot public would buy what they were selling

been a busy and thoroughly enjoyable week, didn't step out of the house on Saturday because I wasn't feeling great still, but on Sunday I won tickets from Taintedlover to go a floorshow gig in the head of steam, for those who don't know what the floor show is go here, if not in brief It is orgnaised by the same guy who does the Excellent TWf magazine and all the charnel house crew..

 Since I won the tickets of TL I thought that it was only fair that I would finally come out from the cold and go and meet these peeps who I have been annoying for the past three years. it was agreed that they would meet in trills at 6 o'clock, I'd agreed to meet mark and he could hold my hand going to a night full of gofficks and give me pointers on what to do (don't smile and you must drink pink diesel, young diddy Goth) as if fate had known my plans..Trillians was closed. So I walked the streets, seen mark at the cash till and was have tempted to try and rob him, then I remember he did that wax on wax off shit and didn't fancy having to get my arm re attached...

Early we head down to the Head of steam. Distinct lack of Goths upstairs, unlike the projekt gig where the where a couple of familiar faces from the days of yore... chcuked about five pints down my neck before the gig had even started, went downstair to catch the 'support band' and ran into the Taintedlover lot. Well when I say lot I mean Paul (G_M), tracheal (Duxey) and Feral (I've completely forgot his real name) talked shit and drank

 the support act adfenium and they where excellent a three piece two guys on synths and the lead singer had phenomenal voice, fitted in with that whole minimalist music I'm into at the minute, sounded not unlike Depeche mode, mesh, and even a bit of wolfshiem, I got a free cd of their stuff which I review and chuck onto the site and radio station when I can be bothered. The support band we excellent...

I and Paul ranted about the state of music scene like two grumpy old men complaining about it why the support band where making a living out it yet turgid derivative shit can...

The main act came on action directe, I was fearing the worst they where described as a cross between the sex pistols and ministry and I suppose that is not a bad approximation of their sound... and when I was younger it was the type of thing I was into, they where full of energy and the small crowd seemed to get in to it.. Unfortunately I couldn't their was something about their sound and style that was very dated, very 1992.

Paul suggested we cut are losses and go to trillians for last... Mark Rachael Paul and I left in an undramatic fashion and went to trillians... chewing the fat and telling Rachael i was that annoying wanker on TL called NSFTM...she seemed suprised becuase she thought i would be an arrogant obnoxious Geordie. Instead of an obnoxious Irish wanker...

Things get a bit hazy, Guinness, discount cards, taxis home, getting into my flat and thinking it would be a good idea to sit up all night :(

The idea to sit up all night became stupid at half two in the morning

It was even unfunnier at 6oclock when my alarm went off

Dragged myself into work pushed bits of paper around my desk…though about setting a community up for angry civil servants. Took satisfaction in Marks hangover.

Left work, charged home got changed, and went to meet the Baron and Liam. their flight wasn't in until 10:30..plenty of time to settle down with a pint in O'Neill's and walk past the Mos eisliena horror of the Bigg market on the first Monday night all the students are back..

Baron called me at 10:30 and told me he had landed and they where just waiting for their bags and they would see in me in the next twenty five minutes. I necked my pint and wandered up to the Haymarket, passed a lot of obnoxious students, that all seemed to be called 'jonny' (its not that annoying but talk through your nose saying 'jonny' .yeah it is irriatating isn't)

Got to the Haymarket metro stop and rang Baron. Of course their bags hadn't turned up. so I stood in the metro station watching the world go by, I wish I could say it gave me heart warming insight into the human conduit but no it didn't

In the 45 minutes I was there I seen

   1.A couple having an argument

   2. Lots of drunken students called 'jonny'

   3. A man who obviously fell asleep on the metro and walked around the small and empty metro station lost and confused

   4      Getting asked the time of the last metro on three occasions. I think this was my own fault for putting on my nexus fleece; high visibility jacket and walking around with a clip board…I only dress like that because the ladies love a man in uniform. I mean look at the people who work in McDonalds. They're covered in love bites so they must be getting action...
 

And perhaps funniest 

Was a gangling angry drunk student(probably called 'Jonny') who got laid into the three Lloyds cash tills outside the station, I was going to explain to him that you can crash cars into those things and the only thing that would break would be his effeminate knuckles.. Unfortunately for him the coppers pulled up in meat wagon. So he tried to walk off all casual like. The coppers stopped him and the idiot swung at the woman police officer…he then proceeded to shout 'I'M Not Stoo-pid...Stoo-pid...Stoo-pid' when he was getting restrinaed against the meat wagon.

Rang baron again the bags had turned up they where now standing waiting for the metro. But the last one had gone. The sign didn't say this of course because what use would a timetable board be if it actually told you what time the next train was at?  

I told them to go up and get raped by the local taxis drivers that knock around airport and drive foreigners the long way to any where. After waiting for another half an hour they final made it to the Haymarket, we hopped in a taxis and buggered off home...

Tired, tetchy I sat and talked for far too long. And went to bed at half one, to be woken up by my alarm at half five so I could get in and out of work as quickly as possible. Good thing about me working in the morning is that I don't start to function properly until about 11 and by then I'm more than half way through my day...  

Agreed I would meet Baron and Liam in trillians, for a few beers... its thirsty work walking around grave yards and looking at pissy mattresses.

A thing you should know about the Irish is that we're a bit friendly to everyone, are parents would shout at us if we are ever ignorant to anyone... because of this we have an uncanny ability to end up talking to weirdos pretty much every where we go. Coupled with the problem that none of us like silences we inevitably end up sitting in bars talking to the nearest care in the community case. Some of us exploit this and enjoy it (goatboy) others just grin and bare it and then fake our own deaths, set the fire alarm off at the first opportunity...  

I walk into Trillians fearing the worst… but it was only goatboy but what was this... yes hmmmm what can I say 'any conversation that starts with ' do you know anything about lea and Anakin sky walker?' is bound to slip into the territory of random twitching , knife sharpen and banjo playing…the conversation flitted between him running my space, his success with women (they must have been desperate or those mad tramp woman who sleep with you for Tennents Super), working for Sage and signing on*.. Thankfully trills was closing early for a band that was going to be on. So we made our for once valid excuses and left...

*Turns out he is a nutter from TL.. once again I completely plead ignorance to it's existence  

The night just degenerated from there, when we went to enigma, the new bridge (Baron and Liam insisted on taken photos in front of the 'Scout' Fiddler. yes it is like drinking with Beavis and butthead) the tanners (hiding Liam's cigarettes for the 63rd time never ever gets tired) the Cumberland (goatboy thought the olives I had where potatoes???.. he's Irish for Christ sake) somewhere along here goatboys mate scogg or stoog turned up) down to the Tyne where Liam fell asleep, then up to the Free trade, after being beaten again in the beer garden game, goatboy drag us to the Archer/lynches because it was open to 2 o'clock.. Which drunk though I was is still an abhorrent shit hole full of 'Jonny'

Got home at about half 2 sat up playing shit 

Went to bed about three ish because tomorrow where were off to beamish

Got into town about 11 ish and had to take baron down to have his photo taken in front of the pig and whistle. Probably the 90th photo of the weekend in which baron or Liam had their photo taken by something shit... took a quick squint around black friars, and then got the bus to beamish... 

Some how I manage to get off at the right stop and everything. Even though I had baron whining about not feeling well for the entire journey (fag) in beamish all manner of shit photos where taken

Liam beside 2 cows, 2 grand father clocks, photos of paintings of over fed  cows, a couple of horses, a sign that said 'pigs bite' thankfully the picture of the rooster wasn't great but watching Liam and baron chasing with their cameras ..Was sad and funny... 

We got out of their after enjoying a nice pickled egg and pint in the museum bar and headed up to the beamish Mary for a pint and some food. For the second time in day I actually managed to find the place I was looking for and none of my companions died in the process... a couple of photos of road signs later we we're well  ensconced in the Mary only after  few mishaps.. baron getting chased by the bar maid because he didn't allow here to top the pints up, Liam trying to get cigarettes and having to walk to east Stanley and asking directions from a poetic tramp. Only to be turned down because of his Ulster bank 20 quid note…

Liam returned waving his 20 quid note and complaining about it and he had used his last English 10 quid note... 

Tam turned up after spending an awful lot of money at home base, and suggested we go to the pack horse in Burnopfield because the buses through their where more regular quicker than the one that went through 'No Place'

Ended up in the pack horse playing pool and chucking more drink down us. Liam once more tried to off load the offensive 20 quid, under closer examination by both the bar staff and the manager they wouldn't accept it. Tam went home and we head to the bus stop, with Liam's carry out with a good 20 minutes to spare. And we waited 

And waited some more

We waited and we Wee'ed 

By 23:10 it was obvious the 23:00 bus was not going to turn up. So I tried to book a taxis with some local firms…surprisingly they had nothing. Every taxi in east Durham was booked out. So we walked into Burnopfield in the off chance some kind, blind and stupid motorist would give us lift... unfortunately three drunk irish men walking around with carryout in sleepy villiage F'n and Blinding at each other was not really conducive for lift... laim suggest one of lie in the road to stop a car, he then suggested we sleep in the nearby woods..

Quite frankly these ideas where stupid. So I rang good ole byker and waterline and they could n't find Burnopfield on their system unless I had a post code…I woke tam up and got the post code. And they obligingly sent thee most bitter (but funny) taxis driver. I have had the pleasure of his driving skills previously, thankfully he likes the same pubs as me and talking about drinking stopped him getting any angrier...

Got in about 12:30 wrecked I went to bed and got up once more at stupid o'clock

I discovered my cat Murphy as soon as he gets out runs across the road to the old peoples home…

I've caught him with another person's hands all over him. And he loves it. The harlot

I feel betrayed and used

Yesterday I got back from work quite late; Sonny was at the door but no Murphy.

Left the door open for ages (until 10pm) and he did not return.

Fearing the worst, I donned my army coat pulled the hood up and I walked around the block, staring into peoples back gardens, under cars, coal sheds. Unfortunately there was still no sign of him


It was not a fruitless exercise though from the amount of curtain twitching I gave our neighbourhood watch something to talk about

I got back into the house a bit worried, I thought that he had been abducted by the blue rinse brigade and I couldn't find out if he had been in an RTA until tomorrow. I opened my bedroom window and went to bed

I am a notoriously light sleeper I was woken at about 11pm, I heard someone trying to coax a cat to follow her, I stuck my head out the window, and there's Murphy being his overly friendly and trusting self following this large lady down Welbeck road.

Next thing you know I am running around my room trying to find my jeans and chuck my clothes on, I legged it down Welbeck Road after her. Surprisingly quick for fat lass, she was way down the road with Murphy in tow

I can only imagine what It looked like, a man charging down the road with his NIN t shirt on back to front towards a loan woman, I got down to where Murphy was standing looking gormless, I called him but being a cat he just looked at me wondering what to do?

Murphy stood thinking to himself will I go with the big lass, she obviously has plenty of food? Or will I go with the crazy homeless looking man shouting something at me. The lass continued to coax him along the road. Noticing Murphy's indecision (and the reality that he'd probably follow his stomach.) I grabbed him…. Of course he wasn't very fussed, probably thought I was going to carry him down the road to the woman's house. To save him the indignity of actually having to walk

A this point the lass turned round and looked a bit guilty
'Oh is he yours I thought he was my next-door neighbours. I was stopping him getting run over'

I thanked the 'lady' for stopping my cat for getting 'run over'

Of course carrying Murphy up the road, in the opposite direction of 'Food' has it's own problems and he didn't recognise me (there's that anonymity thing again). He proceeded to howler and scratch. So much so I had to double check he was actually mine. Thankfully he was. I can't imagine the look on the lasses face if I had pegged it down the road to her again and handed her the cat, giving her my most convincing excuse, the only one I could think of was ' um. I'm feline fetishist' or 'You look like a cat poisoner'

I then struggled to open the front door thankful Murphy being a bit agitated decided to latch on to my chest ('look Ma no hands').

Of course he behaved like I had abducted him and tried to escape, meowed complained whinged and ran away from me… until I fed him….

Once he stuffed his face and batted sonny about the head for a bit he took up his usual position at the bottom of my bed.

So now Murphy is grounded, he obviously goes over to the old dearies across the road for some Lap and Nap time and then at night they throw him out, where he returns to me, eats again and sleeps some more

traight edgers,
Now I , rightly or wrongly, associate the vegan movement with straight edgers, not because by definition you need to be a vegan to be straight edge but because straight edgers are inherently dull people. Like vegans... let me give you quick bit of background on straightedge. straight edge was a term first coined by a band called Minor Threat(sorry kids it wasn't  funeral for a friend..) who endorsed a no drink drugs or promiscuity type of life style. It all seems wholesome and decent...

However, I may have missed the lines in there songs about 'oy oy, I'm better than you because, you drink beer and puke in the loo' I've said it before and I'll say it again I don't care what you dietary habits or sexual persuasion is. I just don't want you sneering at me for doing things that I want to do...

What is perhaps most humorous about straightedgers is the need to put 'for Life' after straightedge, the vast majority of these people are in there mid teens. So they are not legal allowed to drink, can't afford drugs and can't get laid. .. really how difficult is it to be straightedge?

By that reckoning my Da's been straightedge for years, and how cool is my 75 year old dad? Big man Geordie? Does he feel the need to get it tattooed to the bottom of his back and get an offensively bad haircut  that would leave you open to abuse at a flock of seagulls concert? No he doesn't

Does he tell you he doesn't drink? Nope
Does he tell you he doesn't take drugs? Nope
Does he tell you he doesn't take part in promiscuous sex? Nope...

So how cool is straight edge now

What I find even funnier is that most of these straightedgers 'break the edge' (see I have done my research) when they are old enough to drink and can afford drugs...'hey straight edge for life or until you turn 18, whatever one comes first'

Interestingly in all my encounters with people, in the length and breadth of this country I have never met a straightedger over 25. And between the straightedgers I meet aged between 21 and 25 are single ugly string of piss blokes

what does that tell you(apart from beer makes you fat) yip you guessed it alcohol is the on draft sexual lubricant of society, without it straightedgers will never breed, the one hope these NHS bespectacled loners ever had of getting some action is beyond them..

They must return sober unsaited to their bed-sit stacked high with pornography in the hope that at that very moment a single lonely straightedge woman will walk past

Their eyes will meet; they'll go out on date,
They'll go back to his bed-sit for a nice cup of herbal tea...
They'll talk about vinyl and veganism and how everyone as against them...
An awkward silence falls between them the first of the magical tofu fuelled evening...
'This is it!' the bloke thinks finally!

'I have the opportunity to throw her out of my room and get back to looking at Razzle!!!'

Straightedgers the rock equivalent of the free Presbyterians anal, preachy and dull

The Arctic Monkees

What can I say? a marketing machine of Blair Witchen proportions , telling us every five minutes that they owe it all to Myspace, and they where undiscovered..

We're all familiar with the story of how this working class inner city lads jamming together and it all started by word of mouth, because their pedestrian middle of the road down tune garage rock is really what the kids are after, then mypsace came along and woo every one signed up to be their mates, and because of this they where signed to an independent label  released an album called something 'profound'  which for the fastest selling album ever in the history of everything I can't remember the name of. Probably midgets tall view' or something

They drudge through hackneyed and clichéd music and  when you put a fucking irritating accent on when singing does not, make you working class, working down a coal mine, drinking all your wages in the Ferret pub on Friday and going home and kicking the fuck out of your wife. That makes you working class that makes you gritty and earthy not writing songs about the working class from their comfy penthouse.

So they appear on all the quality middle of the road music mags, the NME's of the world or the 'Q's and now they win the greatest prize of them all the mercury music prize...

Propelled into the higher echelons of the musical elite with previous winners like the 'M' people and Dizzee Rascal, and who can forget that fat hairy fella from last year...or was it the year before

I will leave you now with what I feel says so much, by doing so little, means so little but implies more than even I can comprehend. I was moved to tears when I first heard this...how I can put it...i'm sorry the words fail me...
This stunning prose,
This street poetry,
This almost Shakespearian approach,
Swiftian in its subtlety

'I bet that you look good on the dance floor
I don't know if youre looking for romance or...
I don't know what youre looking for
I bet that you look good on the dance floor
Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984'

WOW. Im choked up. Im sure dancing like a robot from 1984 is better than making a career from dredging up music from the era.

Yeah sure it's not my type of music, yeah sure its not aimed at me, after all I have huge disposable income and I like good music

I spend alot of my days looking for the perfect job and bitching about my current job..becuase of this the rest of my time is spent filling in application forms..their gets to a point when i get sick of all the postive words and spin  you use to describe yourself. below is the blurb I was going to use for an internal diversity advisors job  (and really i care that little i still might)

I was anti racism officer for the university of Sunderland students in 1997/98. I dealt with all diversity and equality issues of union members working closely with external organisations (including the anti-nazis league, young arthritis care etc) I also liased with the Student support areas of the Union to quickly identify and remedy any problems that arose.

 I spent a lot of the time arguing with the rest of the union and it's members because they where all simpering idiots, who we're nothing more than self serving wannabes who deluded themselves into thinking they where great orators. Even though they had only a fleeting relationship with intelligence.

To salve my aspiring middle class conscious I volunteered for a couple of organisation that encourage social inclusion, such as YAC, university of Sunderland Bright sparks scheme and most recently the S and S Charity who run workshops etc for those considered to be disenfranchised (immigrant communities, LGBT, the unemployed etc)

Thankfully I didn't have to live their horrid lives, I stood on the side lines giving them piece meal assistance, and then discussed their disgusting existence over a double frapocinuio with my mates Tarquin and Felicity

Academically my first degree included a considerably amount of work in social policy including exclusion, race relations and modern government legislation. (Not that it really matters how well qualified or experienced you our in this place, but I thought I would mention it)

Unfortunately it also gave me the ability to think for myself and hit tight deadlines, things that seldom happen in the civil service, I can assure you that over the passed few years I have begun to miss deadlines increasingly frequently, and I stopped thinking long ago. So much so that this response is being dictated to me by a person TDA'ed to one of the  'thinking grades'

The reasons I wanna do this role is because injustice and hypocrisy boils my piss I would also like to use the skills and experience obtain from my degree and voluntary work.  skills I might add have never been utilised before, so it is unlikely they will be now

The latest McDonalds ad is all about the new summer menu, quite what is summery about force fed cows sphincters ground up and put in a bun, by an acne cover youth with blue water proof plasters around his neck, Ill never know.

McDonalds realising the have to make offal fun, which is offally difficult. Have taken it upon themselves to make it fun by having an inflatable bouncy castle McDonalds which is a great and good looking place to visit

Now I have no health and safety training (which is pretty obvious when you see how I wired my new lamp, not only does it give off light, but it also works as I deionizer) but I can see a number of flaws in having an inflatable fast food restaurant the most unnerving one is 560c vegetable oil they cook in, one minute your standing happy as Larry in you dirigible restaurant, they some wee shit bounces off the restaurant wall.

You realise in horror that the wave is heading straight for your inflatable fryer, unable to move because of the annoyingly bouncy floor, you cant get away

Next thing you know the badge with the wee gold stars on it is but a melted remnant of your once proud rank, your polyester shirt cauterised to your torso.

You swim in and out of consciousness

You catch delirious snippets of Ronald McDonald standing over you trying to administer first aid with his big red clown hands.

You lie on the undulating rubberised canvas as your life fleets before you, you realise that ham burglar has joined the fray (or should that be fry), only to run off and vomit and at your maimed appearance in the inflate-a-loo, unable to flush it because of the bendy handle.

Your dreams of becoming a wide boy are in tatters, as the life ebbs from your to the weeping of Ronald and the stench of Ham burglars half digested chicken Royale (he eats in BK because he is evil)

With your painful and embarrassing death (sorry mate you soiled yourself) the great inflatable restaurant experiment comes to an end...

Will your death have taught McDonalds anything? Will this madness ever end? We dont knowbut the health and safety executive to a massive pay off not to investigate it

 
Through my job, I have to keep astride of all the latest goings on in the world of web development. I'll admit that the majority of it is not terribly exciting or relevent.and it has increasingly become the forte of people who have realised that any Tom, Dick or Harry can build a website, so to protect their jobs, they have to start thinking outside their corporate synergies, attach overly complicated and meaningless terms to the most mundane of web technologies and applications.

I was recently invited to a network meeting for Public sector web designers by some fancy IT consultancy, the main purpose of the get together was not only to get trollied on free drink and eat an inhuman amount of sausage rolls. But to discuss emerging web technologies, specifically around this wondrous invention the blog and how it could benefit your organisation.

Some speaker  was an expert in blogging and how it can benefit your company, this gentlemans credentials where impressive, his résumé weighty and his use of terms outside of his comfort chimney was enough to make me realise that if I went to the event, giddy on the free champagne, sausage rolls and the electric atmosphere caused by nylon suits, I would probably lunge at him and tell him he is talking out his hole and that this type of talk only impresses fecking eejits.

After I turned down the invitations for the meeting, the expert sent me a link to his blog and the minutes of the thought shower I looked at his blog, I read the gushing reports of the meeting and how it had helped people factor in realisation paradigms into people engagement e-frameworks.

And then I read some of his postings. Yes they where dull, though the layout was pretty nifty. But really it was just a blog with a style sheet stuck on it

Apparently blogs are the new newspapers of the 21st century according to some reports 54 Zillion people have them and they are fundamental in the development of everything, reduce green house gasses, and I even heard reports that a blogger in India died and his blog still writes, heals the sick and has become a place of pilgrimage for other bloggers.

 To help with blogs the press has latched on to how great they are and they dig up blogs that pander to their agenda and use it to justify their stance because the common man has written about it in his blog.(Slugger i'm Looking at you)

Ah yes the common man who makes up the silent majority the media justifying its findings by some unquantifiable invisible mass (you would think we would notice the majority. regardless of how much noise they make).

Unfortunately, this media frenzy has fuelled people like my consultant friend to make stupid amounts of money, by selling the media ideal of what blogs are like.

Well he made stupid amounts of money up to about a month ago

I got an email from another big government department asking about the functionality of blogs and that he had heard someone mention forums after a bit of digging he discovered that forums had been around for years. What he wanted to know was what the main difference between forums and Blogs was.

After laughing for a bit, shaking my head, making a cuppa tea, talking to my friend surfing the internet. I decided to reply

I explained that Blogs where generally the property of one person, they would post an article (most of the blogs Ive been on are about alienated teenagers who want to be vampyres) and everyone else would comment.

Forums on the other hand, allowed anyone to post a topic and allow anyone to comment, they also had a lot more scope for customisation and their where a number of open source forums out there, that quite frankly pissed all over blogs.  They where more likely to add value to your business and anything that could be put on a business blog could just as easily be put on a companies intranet/internet site (made even easier because a lot of large organisations use Content management systems).

I also explained that blogs where not a new thing, in fact they had been around for years, the one that always sticks in my mind is live journal which has been pretty popular with the alternative types since it spewed forth onto the web in 1999.

Blogs are in no way new thing only idiots think that and people who think it is a phenomenon are also idiots. I mean really out of all the blogs youve been on, stumbled across are actually worth anything?

Most of them are I got up to day and I went to work. I hate my job they are  also a depressing number of them dont get updated ever and have disconcerting number of people not reading them and probably isnt helping the online cry for help from DaRkWeB who is struggling to become a vampyre bi sexual and her unrequited love for Dani Filth. The lack of views comments etc must nearly push them over the edge

The way blogs are marketed makes people think that people trawl through reading them and that one day a national newspaper will notice it and youll be swept away to an international jet set lifestyle reporting on big brother for the News of the World

Blogs are not the saviour of the free world,

Blogs will not make you your fortune,

Blogs are not a new thing

No one will read your blog if they do they dont care what you think you sound like a rambling idiot who should get out more

Blogs are never used by nubile 19-year-old nyphos.

Blogs are used by lorry drivers called Keith from Ipswich who pretend to be nubile 19 year old nyphos

I must confess I have a blog and I love it, I like venting my spleen to the widest possible audience.

you can view this rant and many others at www.leavinghope.co.uk

Ive recently been asked to put timings on the creative process (so 'Andrew how long does it take you to think of a poster/ mag design and how long does it take you to do it' )this is the conversation I had with my line manager on Monday  

Manager : 'I want the magazine out on the first of every month'

Me: That isn't possible, we still get articles in late, things need to be redesigned, layouts altered and stuff checked and rechecked

Manager: well why don't you just set the completion date earlier

Me:  the information would be out of date and other things take priority

Manager: well we need a cut off date and what other things take priority?

Me: stuff that you tell me to do right away and we do have a cut off date, but you want me to tell senior managers, 'sorry but I can't accept your article in your magazine'?

We always aim to have the Future mag out in the first week of the month and we have done this for over a year now, and never had any complaints, the reason we have the week window allows us the flexibility when your are doing this type of work. It is not like processing a claim we don't miss a specific deadline, because when we miss a deadline I end up in meetings like this. I explained to you over a month ago because of other commitments we would not hit your deadline 1/06/06. You chose a deadline with out understanding the process in place.yout making a huge issue out of this even though we got the  Magazine out on the 03/06/06

Manager: I think you haven't managed you time very well

Me: If you don't like the work that I do get someone else to do, I put a ton of work into this and I get nothing but flak for it, I am sure you could find someone who is better at it than me, afterall  I seem to miss deadlines all the time. Could you give me examples of what deadlines i have missed?

Manager: you seem to have missed a lot of them recently

Me: for example

Manager :maybe that's the reason you haven't got the jobs you've applied for

Me (fuming) how would they know how bad my time management skills are?

Manager : we will work on your planning, you have the next three weeks to rebuild my faith in your time management

Me:.........

I was/ am furious , she may as well have held the meeting without me there for the amount she listened i could bark on about how the software i do this Publication on is web design software that is 6 years out of date, i could tell themthat the job would be quicker if the PC i was doing it on actually work

Did they give me any credit for single handedly developing and producing the aforementioned magazine, and making it look 'non' shit i did this in from proof of concept  to final product in three weeks and i recieved alot of positive feedback for Differnt areas of the Division and the Wider DWP did they fuck..they where too concerned that a page number was missing..

But then i remember that this is the civil service, why would they listen to the person who has been doing their job for three years,Did they listen to me me when i was having problems with the centralised team which i warned them about for 18 months that they were waiting for an excuse to fuck us over ..when they did ... did they blame the central team did tey take any of my advice on board..did they fuck

or when they sent me down to the CSA to try and 'learn' something about their Intranet site,even though i explained they used a different system and different rules and regulations surrounding it..did they listen..did they fuck. i went down their anyway, it turns out that i had been doing the job longer than everyone else at the CSA and  ended up giving them advice..did my management team listen did they fuck

Did my management team give me any credit for saving the department 100k plus 18 months work and a potential lawsuit for breach of the DDA, did they understand all the character assisination that went on ..did i get any credit, did i get a thank you or an apology..did i fuck

Did they give me any credit for redeveloping not one, not two but three complete sites(500 plus pages) and converting them to CMS, uploading and linking them in two weeks to have a fully populated site the only one in thethe entirity of the pension service..did they fuck they where too busy trying to get me to do a fucking pissy shit poster