Update on the move

This is the first chance I've had to write an update on the big move.

Despite all the assessments that were due and needed processing I was able to get 6 days annual leave from work. Hubby was supposed to be doing the same with the exception that he had to go into work for a software presentation one morning. We should in principle have then had a whole week with both of us, sorting and packing, making the job easy and stress free.

Things didn't go exactly to plan as can be seen from the saga below:

Monday, 12th Dec (7 days to go)

Hubby went to work to "quickly finish something", with added assurances that it wouldn't take long and he's be back by lunchtime. He arrives home at about 7pm saying he'll have to go into work the next day too. I head up to new flat to wait for a delivery of furniture - or rather for the replacements to the furniture that was delivered damaged, replaced with equally damaged goods, etc, etc. The replacements were fine. A friend calls around in the evening to help packing, but is very ill, so, though willing, is unable to help. Agreed that hubby will go with her to the doctor the following morning, going into work afterward.

Tuesday, 13th Dec (6 days to go)

Hubby goes to meet friend to go to doctor. I spent the day doing laundry and packing suitcases with fabrics (towels, bedding, clothes, etc) that were not going to be needed till we were in the new place. I get a call mid morning to say that GP has sent friend to hospital. Hubby has called into work to say he won't be there but that he'll be in on Wednesday to finish off. Despite all this managed to get huge swathe of stuff in the bedroom packed. Phew!

Wednesday, 14th Dec (5 days to go)

Hubby goes into work. This was the morning we knew about, but he still had to finish something or another. Can't remember which bit I did whilst he was a work. He arrived home mid afternoon, so after a very late lunch we rearranged the way the boxes were stored and went quite a way towards packing everything in the bedroom.

Thursday, 15th Dec (4 days to go)

A whole day together packing. However, we had an early start going to the new place and assembling flat pack furniture. On the way there, stopped in town to buy a towel rail, toilet roll holder and set of shelves for the en-suite bathroom. Lots of self assembly ensured. Went back to old flat and finished packing bedroom stuff. Emptied hall cupboard so that we could start storing some of landlord's stuff in there.

Friday, 16th Dec (3 days to go)

Had a late start. Cleared space in living room, mainly by moving packed boxes into bedroom. At this point I'm getting frantic that there is no way we are going to be ready for the removal firm. Realised that there wouldn't be time to stock the new place up for the hols, so spend the evening going through Tesco on-line and organising the delivery for the afternoon of the move. Didn't really achieve much but felt better.

Saturday, 17th Dec (2 days to go)

Hubby had a driving lesson, so I went to town and bought new sheets, pillow slips and pillows and took them to the new flat. Made up the bed so that all it needed was a duvet. Met up with hubby, had lunch, then back to packing. Shut down the rest of the computers, and boxed up cables, monitors, etc. Cleared desk and the workspace hubby was using. Packed most of stuff from kitchen. Realised that there was no need for Friday's fit of panic, so bought a film on pay per view and had a relaxed night.

Sunday, 18th Dec (1 day to go)

Started to pack last bits in living room and had a brainwave. Stripped bed, and threw duvet cover into washer/dryer. Went back to packing living room, disconnecting, tv, video, dvd, etc. Suddenly hit the point where we were moving bits backwards and forwards with no real point. Realised that we were done. Put newly laundered cover on duvet and made bed at old place for last time.

Monday, 19th Dec (Day of move)

Got up at some unspeakable hour as we couldn't remember when the removal men were due. Guessed at 8am but found out that it should have been 9am. No worries though as it meant we had time to get ourselves ready and then pack the things we'd been using to the last minute. Grabbed the duvet and stuffed it into a black bin liner and put lots of packing tape around it to (a) fasten it and (b) make it identifiable. Removal firm (Scotmove) arrived, gave stuff a once over and got right down to work. Because we'd been in a furnished flat we pretty much stayed out of their way whilst they were moving things out of the old place, just keeping an eye on what they were grabbing to put in the van. A few times I had to stop them from trying to pack landlord's stuff and every so often they'd check through with us what was left to go and what was staying. Loading the van seemed to take forever, but eventually everything was loaded. We headed up to the new flat and waited for our stuff.

Unloading the van was a different story. It seemed to happen really quickly. I think the removal guys were a bit bemused when I said to just dump everything into the living room, but as I explained, if we stacked boxes into the cupboard and spare room, we'd never get around to unpacking things, whereas if it was in the living room we have to unpack to get the place tidy. Logical when you think about it. At this point Hubby helped carry boxes into the flat, I started to organise their storage, grabbing things that had obvious locations, eg blackbin liner with lots of packing tape = duvet, so grab, unwrap, shake out and put on bed. By about 2pm we were all done and alone in our new home. We went off to get lunch (there's a starbucks nearby) and then I went to the old flat to wait for Telewest to pick up the decoder box and cable modem, and hubby went back to the new flat to wait for grocery delivery and the sky installation engineer (who didn't turn up).

By the end of the day we had the bookcases up and stacked with books, most of the crockery stacked on the kitchen worktops, and hubby had managed to get our old free-to-air digibox working, so we slobbed in front of the tv, and started planning our xmas.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


As is traditional at the start of the new year I have made a number of resolutions. Of course, tradition also dictates that these resolutions should be broken by the middle of January. I'm hoping that I will do better than that and keep up with these, hopefully to build on them next year. So here goes.

1. I will lose weight.


2. I will learn to programme.


3. I will recycle more.


4. I will give more to charity.


5. I will lobby my MP, MSP and MEP on important issues.


6. I will spend less time gaming on the computer.


7. I will read more.


8. I will not buy anymore books until the "to read" pile has been reduced to less than a single bookcase.


9. I will complete at least one piece of needlework before starting another.


10. I will blog more often.

I suppose I should keep a blog of how well I'm doing on all these resolutions and then I can be judged on my success (or failure), which would help me to keep number 10. But if that's the one I fail, how would anyone know how well I'm doing on the others?

Encouragement may be needed.

I have an account on Care2.com where I found this item on a friend's page. I make no apologies for lifting this text in full. Besides, I asked first (thanks Michael), as the issue of the US religious right flaunting rules to suit their own political agenda - or in this case having a political agenda when they shouldn't, is getting to the point that it looks corrupt.


A Call for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to Investigate Activities by James Dobson and Focus on the Family

On November 28, 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against James Dobson's Focus on the Family. Naomi Seligman, CREW's Deputy Director, was delighted when Soulforce offered to launch a national drive to support this complaint. By signing the petition addressed to the IRS, you will join thousands of Americans who are concerned about James Dobson's growing political influence in Washington, D.C. and across the nation.

Focus on the Family is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization whose stated purpose is "to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a practical outreach to homes." In past years, Dr. Dobson has become increasingly shrill about his political beliefs (especially against GLBT people) on his daily radio program and through his fundraising letters.

For example, on December 1, 2005, Focus on the Family announced that it would end its long time banking relationship with Wells Fargo because of the bank's "ongoing efforts to advance the radical homosexual agenda."

Earlier this year Dobson promised to dedicate his life to amending the U.S. Constitution with a Federal Marriage Amendment that would make second-class citizens of Lesbian and Gay Americans in committed relationships and deny them their basic civil rights and protections.

Although his non-profit status bars him from electioneering, Dr. Dobson continues to use his considerable political muscle to support anti-gay initiatives and to endorse candidates for political office. In early April, 2004, Dr. Dobson endorsed Republican Representative Patrick J. Toomey in his race for Senate in Pennsylvania. In addition, it was reported that Dr. Dobson actively campaigned during a rally for Rep. Toomey.

Other candidates that Dr. Dobson reportedly endorsed in 2004 include North Carolina Republican candidate Pat Ballentine for Governor and Oklahoma Republican candidate Tom Coburn for Senate.

You can read more details, including the full text of the complaint sent to the IRS, on the CREW website.

Please sign the petition below to add your name to thousands of Americans who want the IRS to investigate the political actions of James Dobson and his organization.

Remove IRS Tax Excempt Status Of Focus On The Family Petition:
http://www.soulforce.org/petition/1

"I ____________ support calling upon the IRS to thoroughly investigate Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family for continued violations of their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status; specifically that although they are barred from electioneering, Dr. Dobson has endorsed candidates for political office several times. Such abuse of their status as a tax-exempt, faith-based, nonprofit organization can no longer be tolerated."

We've done it!

Way back in June I gave the marathon post about looking for a new place. Well we've found a new flat and moved in yesterday. I didn't want to post anything before (I know all about counting chickens). Anyway the new flat is huge, or rather it seems huge. We did a quick measure up of both places and the whole of the old flat would fit into the living room and kitchen of the new place with room to spare. We bought a king size bed from Ikea and it looks lost in the vast space of the bedroom.

We decided that the delivery men should put everything into the living room. That might seem a bit silly when we have huge space in the bedroom as well as a second bedroom and walk in storage, but it's not really. If we had put everything into the spare bedroom or the box room we would never have got to a point were we were going to sort through the boxes. if there are stuck in the living room we have an incentive to get things unpacked and stored in their right places. So it's not as daft as it might seem as first glance. We already have four bookcases of books, as well as the DVD and video players, half our stash of DVDs and most of the stuff for the kitchen unpacked and put away, which is great when you consider that we only started unpacking at 5pm and we were both at work today.

Tonight I'm going to take some pictures of the chaos so that when then flat is organised there is a comparison.

WooHoo

Subject to major disasters it looks as thought the boy wonder and I will be moving house sometime during the beginning of December. As a result we are having a massive clear out of stuff that we don't want to take with us to the new place. A bunch of this stuff, however, isn't ours and we don't want to schlep it to the new place if we don't have to.

A lot of this stuff was given as "long term loans" when I first moved up to Edinburgh and was part of helping me set up the flat here and includes things like:

• A cd player and amplifier


• A filter coffee machine


• Yamaha DX27 keyboard


• Computer monitor


• various other computer bits


• model airplanes

There are also things that are ours that we no longer need and that might be useful to others
eg our old microwave, a 17" monitor, that will go to the Bethany stores if nobody else wants them.

This list isn't complete and by the end of November we'll have a much better idea, but in the interim if we have anything of yours please get in touch to make arrangements for collection asap or we will assume that you don't any it anymore and make arrangements for disposal accordingly. Also because some of the items have value we can only give them back to the owners (if they want to give them to someone else afterward that's their business), so please don't send other people to us to collect your stuff for you.

Tao - Beat of the World

In the end it was only half of Tao (the other half were back in Japan performing at the Tokyo International Forum) but that didn't really matter. A stunning performance of traditional Taiko drumming with some very modern visual touches. To be honest I am totally at a loss has to how best to describe the show, other than perhaps the best performance of drumming I have ever seen.

I would certainly recommend seeing this show if you get a chance and I believe that there are still some tickets available.

I like Orange.

Now that Paul is up here we are learning the benefits of being Orange users - 2 for 1 tickets to the cimema on a Wednesday. Just been to see "King Arthur". Without giving too much away it is part of the mongol hoard doing Braveheart on Hadrian's Wall against an invading Saxon army (heading southwards?). Okay so it isn't Excalibur but it doesn't suck that much either plus it has Clive Owen looking moody, Keira Knightly looking elegantly manic in a costume that doesn't cover much, and Ioan Gruffudd smoldering as Lancelot. Oh and Ray Winston is in it too.

Put your brain into neutral and go see it.

Frazer's Golden Bough

I just happen to have a copy of the full 12 volume version of Sir James Frazer's "Golden Bough" in pdf format. As far as I know this version is not available on the web (yet) and I'm currently trying to get Volume 1 converted to text for publishing. Anyone want to help?

To make it easier a certain Italian friend created a script that will automatically process all the pdfs into png format, and then set the OCR software onto the png to create a txt file. There are a few places where it doesn't work properly but these are usually due to the scanning process (I didn't always get the book square to the automatic process is confused). All that is needed is proof reading the txt file against the pdf.

Before anyone asks it appears that the 12 volume version is out of copyright, though in the worst case variation it is in copyright for another 3 years. However, I think that 12 volumes would probably take in the order of 3 years for me to complete. As not only is there proof reading the main text but there is cross referencing the not inconsiderable index making the links to the various pages in the text. Then I have to decide how to deal with the enourmous number of footnotes. As you can imagine it is going to be a mammoth task.

I get the feeling that I am going to be busy.

Times change

Scanning through the BBC news pages I find this little snippet:

Pink was a boy's colour while blue was thought better for girls - a "generally accepted rule" according to The Ladies Home Journal in 1918, which described pink as "more decided and stronger" while blue was "more delicate and dainty".

followed later on the same page by:

The colour pink gets its name from the jagged-edged dianthus flower, commonly known as a pink, which in turn got its nickname from pinking shears, those serrated scissors used by seamstresses.

Having just gone through months of telling people that white is not actually a "traditional" wedding colour and that Victorian brides would have just worn their Sunday best dress, usually in a serviceable colour, so no there is nothing wrong in having a black wedding dress, it was nice to see a reference to an accepted colour association being changed just to prove that it wasn't me making things up.

I've been touched by His Noodly Appendage

I have been hoovering the cat at work for the past half an hour or so. I've just completed my end of year accounts returns so I feel I have earned the right to loaf for a bit. Anyway I used the time to look up an interesting concept that was mentioned in the New Scientist magazine recently.

In line with christian fundamentalists insisting that their faith be taught as science a young chap in Oregon has written to the Kansas School Board to have his ideology taught on equal terms with intelligent design and evolutionary science. However, his ideology is that the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster and also includes such 'beliefs' as global warming has a direct inverse relationship to the number of pirates in the world. I have to say that I really like this and I hope that the chaps campaign is successful.

Check the website http://www.venganza.org to get the full story

Just back from WorldCon

I had a great time at Interaction, well for most of it anyway. Went to lots of panels, spent lots of cash in the dealer room, adopted a beeble-bear (picture here), got some great ideas for making cross stitch designs in the art show. I also met lots of great people who I hope that I can keep in touch with, as well as meeting up with people that we had lost touch with a number of years ago. There were a few problems in that so many of the panels were very popular and so you had to get to the room early to be sure to get in, but then the rooms would be overfilled and get very hot. There was also a lot of concurrent panels on similar topics so frequently you had to make a choice as to which you preferred, and then, of course, hope you could get in. I made it into most of the panels I was interested in. There was only one that I left through boredom. The evenings on the other hand were a non stop round of parties.

We didn't go to the first night parties, opting to be sensible and go to bed. This resulted in not being able to get any ribbons, but we made up for it on the the subsequent nights (first rule of fandom don't miss the scandinavian parties). The Hilton Hotel were initially charging over the odds for the specially imported real ale, but very quickly dropped the price when they realised just how much alcohol they were selling.

The main gripe we had was with our hotel, the Corus on Argyll Street. The double room was tiny, didn't have a proper wardrobe just a pole with four coat hangers that was awkward to access, and we were supplied with only one hand and one bath towel even though the room was booked for two people. I've stayed in hotels that were much better and cost half as much. Fortunately, it was just a place to rest our heads so it wasn't that bad, but under any other circumstances I would have made a complaint.

We're Not Afraid

I rare that I've been involved with something big right at the start, but it seems I've managed it this time. In the wake of the London bombings some moblog friends and I have started a website We're Not Afraid. The discussion thread where this site originated is here and alfie's image that has been in all the press is here. At the moment the team are working our butts off processing the images. We have lots of really great images and they are coming in faster than we can add them the to the site. Unfortunately there are many that are not the inspiring images that we wanted but are too gung ho or inflamatory. It's amazing that by a little after 3 pm I'd indirectly made the suggestion, by 3:45 someone else had come up with a name, and by 5 pm alfie had registered the domain, organised the hosting and was getting volunteers on line to help with the organising. The press coverage has been fantastic and we have issued statements to media in several countries.

Now to get some sleep after the hard work.

London

It's taken me a while to get this done as I've been following the news of the London bombings on moblog.co.uk. One of the guys took a photo whilst he was trapped in the tube and SMSed it as soon as he got to the surface. The photo has now been picked up by a number of the news sites. I've done sod all work today just spending the time watching the news and following the news and blog sites. I just can't believe this is happening, it reminds me of the height of the IRA stuff when you never knew who was going to be next.

War of the Worlds

Just been to see War of the Worlds. It was absolutely brilliant. Okay, so Spielberg has played with H.G.Wells plot slightly, but it doesn't matter. What is important is that he has kept the main elements of the story, which after all is about a hundred years old. So what if he has taken english, middle-class victorians (from Woking, which apart from the McLaren Factory, would be vastly improved by an alien attack) and turned them into working class americans. The most important thing is that for just short of 2 hours it kept me in my seat, with my eyes glued to the screen - and it scared the crap out of me.

See it. On the big screen. If you don't you will regret it later.

Look what we missed.

I completely missed the annual borefest that is the Eurovision Song Contest and from what I did hear about it I'm rather glad I did. However, it seems that one counties entry was disqualified. The competitor from Molvania was arrested on arrival "at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport and immediately deported".

Okay, okay. I know that Molvania doesn't exist and that the travel guide is merely a spoof. However, this joke is taking on a life of it's own, now taking the micky of trashy Europop. What's more the parody is superb. It has all the elements that we expect of a Eurovision entry - bad english, innuendo, cheesy outfits, etc. Check out the molvania eurovision site http://www.molvania.com/eurovision.html and if you are feeling brave look at the video. Just don't blame me if you hurt yourself falling off the chair.

Saturday

The boy wonder and the italian lunatic are in the tenement stair fixing a bicycle. I keep going and supervising once in a while but generally just laughing. If this had been someone fixing a car I would have known better than to laugh at the silly little things that happen, but cyclists do have a better perspective on things and do think that making something squirt/splash in your face accidentally is funny. Meanwhile, I've gone back to murder and mayhem by reloading Red Alert 2. I'd forgotten how tactical you have to be with this game so I'm relearning how to defend the battle lab in the Ural Mountains without losing my ore miner to some damn sneek attack. This may take some time.

My office is being redecorated.

Yes indeedy. The powers that be have decided that I can get my office redecorated. I have to say that it's about time. There is paper peeling off the ceiling and the walls look filthy in places from years of people leaning against them. As I'm getting my office done, and the boy wonder and I are looking to move house. It seems that now is the time for upgrading, refurbishing and generally making things better. My web presence is no exception, so over the next few months I'm going to be looking at redesigning my web pages, trying to get everything, this blog, the livejournal, the moblog and various other things tied together in a unified fashion. I've asked the chap who worked with me on the Deadhead Comics project to help me out as he is a superb graphic artist and we do tend to bounce ideas off each other really well.

Progress reports will be forthcoming.

Moblog launched!

Moblog is up and running at http://moblog.co.uk/blog/rathgild. It isn't going to replace this blog but will be a suppliment until blogger decides to sent a code to my phone. First photos are just ones that were sitting on my phone that I've used to test things were working. I'm actually surprised that they have turned out as good as they have because I'm notoriously bad at taking photos. Anyway at the moment there is a photo of Edinburgh Castle and a couple of pictures of a friend's cats.

At least with this will give me something to do during the day whilst at the office. Now that the exams have finished and the students have gone home everything at work has slowed down to a crawl. I spent today going over the accounts for the main departmental budget so that I know how much we still have to spend over the next month or so. Tomorrow I will start doing the same with the research accounts. It doesn't fill my day though. I could have spent some of the time doing the reading for my course but the problem is the balance of doing what you have to do against doing what you want to do, which is also partly the reason that I've not done any of the web page updates that I promised. I will do it honest. In fact I've spoken with the friend who worked with me on the Deadhead Comics project at Net Resources and he's going to help me with the design. So there will be some improvements in the future. Just don't hold you breath.

I know I'm not exactly built like Kate Moss, and I know I've got a fat arse so I dress accordingly. So here is the warning girls. If you are of a larger build do not under any circumstances wear hipster jeans. Especially do not wear hipster jeans with cropped tops. The sight of a wobbly, fat belly pouring over the top of the waistband is not pretty, in fact it looks disgusting. So stop it. NOW!

House hunting

When I moved to Edinburgh I got a furnished flat to live in. That basically means I've been living in a place where I worry about every spill on the rug and marks on the sofa. It's like being in a hotel room with no maid service. The main reason was that the boy wonder and I had a flat full of our own furniture in Manchester, the flat I was in was going to be temporary and as soon as I had a good job (TM) he would move north and we'd get a nice unfurnished place. That didn't go to plan. Firstly, Prudential Property Management, who had purchased the Manchester Arndale Centre from P&O Properties announced their plans for the redevelopment of the shopping centre about two weeks after I moved. Their plan involved knocking down one side of the Mall and rebuilding it in such a way that they could create a "high profile" store in that area. The plan also involved demolishing 60 apartments one of which I had a considerable stake in. It took three years to get a deal out of Prudential that didn't involve being screwed and believe me for a company who spend millions advertising themselves as a company who value communities they sure as hell tried to screw us and our neighbours.

< Biased opinion>Front page news - Prudential are just another bunch of lying, tight-arsed, money grabbing bastards. don't trust them to tell you the truth and don't trust them with with your hard earned cash< /Biased opinion>.

All the time this battle was going on the boy wonder was getting on well with his job so there was no immediate rush for him to move. He was looking for work here but not being in the area didn't help him.

Then we had all the upset of finding that my mother had lung cancer and the aggravation of my aunt hogging center stage as though she were the most important person in my mother's life and all the time trying to write me out of family history. Well given that her kids (my cousins) are a screwed up lazy jerk who spend more time with his mates than his wife and kid and a psychotic bitch who is only one step from the lunatic asylum, she's bound to have it in for anyone who is normal. She enlisted help from Ian the youngest of my uncles and they tried to take all sorts of moral high ground which I thought was prize especially as it was Ian's wife having an affair with my step-father that broke up my mother marriage.

After being taken completely out of the loop of the funeral arrangements, being told I couldn't speak with my step-father MKII and being physically threatened by Ian and getting verbal abuse from the psychotic bitch cousin, and seeing how boy wonder was standing by me I actually asked him to marry me. (It was more like "do you think we should get married?" I mean, hell, we'd been living together for 10 years at that point and separating would have been as painful as a divorce anyway).

Stay with me, this story does go somewhere. Eventually.

So moving on a year we got married. First day back at work after the honeymoon, he is taken to an office and told that he will resign, or else... The or else was a bit vague, in that it was we will put you through the disciplinary procedure and you don't have a chance, but no mention of what they would discipline him for and he couldn't think what in the hell he could possibly have done that would result in instant dismissal. On reflection we don't think there was anything that he had done but that the employers would have found something if he'd called their bluff. We decided not to do that as they were going to pay him his month's salary in lieu of notice (garden leave) and a nice hand out of three months salary tax free. So with no more ties to Manchester boy wonder moved up to Edinburgh. Into my furnished flat. With all our furniture from the place in Manchester!
To say that we are currently cramped is the understatement of the year. There is so much stuff in the flat that we have very little floor space to walk on and we have to negotiate passing places to move around the flat. It's like that game where you have to shift blocks around to make space to move other blocks. I'm not kidding.

So now that we are both working in nice well paid posts, we're looking for something else. Somewhere we don't have to worry if we get two visitors at the same time because we have space for the chairs. Somewhere we can actually have a dining table and not have to eat dinner from folding tv tables so that they can be stashed in a cupboard once we've finished using them.

We viewed a lovely flat on Friday and by the time I rang this morning to say we would take it we had beaten to the draw. Damn. There is another flat that we are interested in, but we aren't holding our breath, and we are going to look at some new build (yuck but needs must and all that) tomorrow.

Wish us luck

A Very Late Update

The year has been a mad rush.

I got married (Yay)

Had honeymoon in Venice (Yay) (photos forthcoming... maybe... hopefully... one day)

I started a new job (Yay)

Hubby lost his job (Boo)

But he was then able to move from Manchester to Edinburgh (Yay)

I started evening classes ... (hmmm)

... and got a 71.75% pass on my first module (Yay)

Earning lots so just got new mobiles ... (Yay) (moblogging here I come... maybe)

... and a nice shiny Samsung Syncmaster 910N 19 inch TFT screen (Double yay with a back flip)

Plus I was made moderator on a big mailing list for a game (Yay)

which may lead to a place on the game's High Council (fingers crossed)

So as you can see I've been very very busy. Honest. :-)

No comment

Make up your own mind about this one.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/14/utah_grounds_santa/

Good News

I've managed to get myself a job at the University. Woohoo! Go Me!

I've been temping in the Department since May (and within the University for even longer). I was so surprised to be offered the post because I really thought I'd done appallingly at interview.

I don't officially start until I come back from honeymoon, so it's all worked out really nicely.

Just need to get the other half a job now.

Wedding Plans

Are all going well if somewhat late....

I've just got the invitations back from the printer so they will finally be going out this week, and I have to go and see the Registrars to finalise the legal notices.

The dress is coming along nicely, and I even have a very basic wedding site at http://www.netresources.co.uk/~jan30/wedding.

All in all I'm very pleased with how things are going. Not stopping me panicing though.

New game

For those of you that play the Vampire The Dark Alleyways, there is a new variation called Gothador. This is a little bit more dungeons and dragons based and is undergoing serious development as people are joining the game and letting the developer know what features they'd like to see.

Enjoy

UPDATE

Well that was good for a while. The game developer has now implemented lots of features that the first round of players asked for and promptly started charging for them. Not amused. On top of that everytime anyone says anything even slightly bad about the game on any of the lists (which the game developers are making a point of owning) they are pounced on with abuse by one of the list moderators and then find that the posts "vanish".

My view of this lot has completely changed from a bunch working to get a game going for the hell of it (which is what it appeared at the start) to a bunch of money grabbing control freaks asking for "a small $5 USD / month donation (approximately £3 GBP)" to "gain access to all current advanced features and also new features that non-supporters will never get access to".

Make your own choice, but I've quit the game and asked the owner to remove my details from the database (which they still haven't done).

Arghhhh!

Trying to make a combination of the wedding dress and clothes for the honeymoon and the sewing machine has decided to seize up on me.

I now have to find a place that will do house calls to old Singer treadle machines.

Poo

A nice relaxing weekend... not

The boy wonder came up for the long weekend so we used the opportunity to get various bits and pieces done. Of course, making the wedding dress was completely put on hold as I had to hide everything to do with it away, but that was a minor sacrifice. Firstly, on Friday night we went to the pictures to see Shaun of the Dead. It's brill. Go see it NOW!

Saturday started well with a leisurely lay in, but the need for food soon had us running out to get bacon rolls and coffee, then on into town where we ordered the wedding rings. I also took my mothers rings with me to get them resized and also to have the eternity ring restored. The jeweler commented that it was an old ring with a lot of wear so I think that Val got in a muddle and gave me one of my gran's rings by mistake. Not that I'm complaining because if that is the case then in her attempt to grab the valuable stuff for herself she has inadvertently given me one of the more valuable rings. I'll wait to see what the final report on that one is. Shambled around town a bit which was nice and ended up in HMV, where were picked up some of the DVDs we've been looking for in the sale, then home, food, and on to the pub for a good night out with friends.

Sunday, we made a tailors form in my shape, using cling film, and lots of duck tape, which was fun to start but got very uncomfortable after a while due to being sweaty and sticky. Then watched one of the DVDs we'd bought before finishing all the invitation designs and working on the wedding website (it still has problems and I can't seem to fix them - damn cross browser incompatibilities) so that will be going on-line in a day or two.

Monday he went home, and I didn't even get to do the tearful goodbyes at the train station as I was working. *BooHooHoo*

So now the dress will be brought out of it's hiding hole and that is going to be the big priority until he comes back in a few weeks when we have to make time to go to the Registrar's Office to submit the legal Notice of Intent to Marry and after that it's just finalising various bits and pieces.

It never seems to end though.

Ha!

Last night I went to the pub. She who is trying to make out that she is being maligned behaved as though my being there had spoilt her whole night. Went to the pub tonight she stood on her own at the bar having done a u-turn upon seeing me. Do I look like someone who cares? Yeah your right.

It's getting to the point where she is looking like a complete prat, and people are actually noticing this and commenting that she is behaving like a five year old. And I just sit there and smile and ignore her. You see I have learned that I can hold my own with people, I don't need to make other people look small to make myself look big. I grant that I have a nasty temper that wise people do not get on the wrong side of. More importantly, I've decided that I am going to have a social life and if some psychotic attention seeker wants to fantasize about my being a threat to them then okay. If they want to lie about me - fine. I know the truth, the people that know me know the truth, and it isn't actually hurting me. The person who is behaving like a brain dead twat is on the other hand starting to get bad press as people notice the stupidity. Lets face it, if you insist on being the center of attention when you're actually a complete bore, people tend to be glad to see the back of you.

Beware - rant in progress

Today I arrived home to find an email from a friend. He and his partner had been up all night with their blind, ailing, geriatric puss, who had sadly died this morning. Didn't help that it was my friend's birthday. After I had been around for a visit to commiserate for their loss it was decided that we would go to the pub for a "wee dram" or three. So there we were a rather forlorn group of four people sitting in the pub, but the ale soon lifted our spirits, and one of the group, who had recently returned from Nigeria was telling us about life in North West Africa. During the course of our evening a couple turned up and suddenly things turned very sour.

Basically, the female of the pair was a friend of mine for many years, but about a year ago decided to spread some lies about another friend in, of all places, her Livejournal. The other friend, lets call her Mrs A, was very upset about this and asked for a retraction of the lies and received abuse in return. Mrs A's husband then tried to get a retraction and he too had abuse hurled at him. He, however, was defending his wife's reputation so didn't back down at this point, hence their argument spilled over into my livejournal comment space. I told them both to stop it and grow up, where upon I got an apology from Mr A but abuse from the other woman. Now I have put up with this woman's tantrums for a number of years and to be honest they were growing thin. She seems to think that behaving like a petulant 5 year old is a virtue in a thirtysomething year old woman, which to be frank, it isn't. By this point she was slandering Mr A in on line forums by making people believe that he had had some sort of breakdown and had become a dangerous lunatic who was putting her health and safety in great danger.

Having had this argument thrust into my face and deciding to draw a line in the sand, which she very quickly crossed, I told her to grow up and act her age, to which her partner then started telling me that she was "unsocialised" and "didn't know that her behaviour was unacceptable" and that "I was responsible for her bad behaviour by not telling her it was wrong". When I pointed out that when you tell her her behaviour is unacceptable you get a torrent of abuse I was told I was "being unreasonable".

I was supposed to be the matron of honour at this woman's wedding but I told her that I wouldn't bestow such an honour on someone who though being abusive to friends was a good idea and I broke of contact with her. At this point her partner started telling anyone that would listen that I was "spreading obnoxious lies" about her. Of course, as the only things I had said about her were backed up by emails and other independant witnesses people soon got tired of hearing this. And so for nearly a near this couple have been trying to make the world believe that I am a dangerous lunatic.

Tonight was the last straw. They have made unsubstantiated accusations against people that I know just on the basis that they are talking to me. They are saying that they cannot even be in the same pub as me as I pose a physical threat to their safety (which bearing in mind that I was in the same pub for two hours and didn't even look at them) is patently fabricated, and this on top of telling people over the past year that I am a psychotic receiving psychiatric care (I'd like to see them prove that one in a court of law). I am so angry at the moment but I know that there is very little that I can do. Or at least there is very little that I can do that doesn't take me down to the same sewer that they live in.

Maybe I should just get my solicitor to issue a summons of slander against them. There are enough witnesses to prove my case....

Panic Stations!

Wedding day is getting every closer and whilst we have most things in order there are a few little details that need doing.

The darling boy needs to hurry up with the design for the official invitations otherwise we are not going to be able to send them out in time.

I need to get on an do the information web page, because I don't have time to go looking up stuff for everybody as they request it. So things like, map to the venue, link to tourist board B&B index, wedding list, alleged order of day, etc, will be there for people to check up on at their own convenience.

Trouble is I want a nice picture of a victorian style wedding dress that has a long train, and is a nice size to put on a web page and I can't find one. They are all either photos taken at the wrong angle to be useful, too small, or too fuzzy. The graphic artist that I was working with is busy too so he doesn't have time to create an image for me.

On the other hand I have the model of the dress almost done so I'll probably be wearing that all day next weekend so I can see where the pattern will need to be adjusted. This weekend I'm looking for a suitable veil, saw a nice simple two-layer one but I can't get it in black. That's another thing that is brewing - my future mother-in-law is convinced that I am joking when I say that the wedding dress is going to be black and keeps making suggestions of "suitable" colours. I keep telling her that I'm going for authentic but... Maybe I should see if my friends (the film producers) can put me in touch with one of the costume designers so I can get evidence to prove my point, not that it's likely to work though.

It's Official

Blueyonder are complete F***wits.

They have introduced some antivirus thing or another, which is clearly configured incorrectly, because so far all it has bounced has been innocent mail from a MODERATED mailing list that I have been on for about six years and that doesn't allow attachments. Now forgive me if I am being naive, but how in the name of the devil's illegitimate spawn can plain text email with no attachments be spreading viruses? More importantly when will the "tech" support tards at Bluechunder get a clue as to how to run a system? FFS

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!

This morning I finally got to sit the CIW Foundations Exam. Time allowed 90 mins but I did it in about 30 and I passed.

So I am now a Certified Internet Webmaster Associate.

The thing that had me most worried was the section on Internet Fundamentals, as I have been struggling to get my head around the OSI Reference Model and where protocols and network devices fit into it, yet I managed to get 92% on that section.

If you see a half crazed woman bouncing about Edinburgh celebrating like a loon then that will be me.

Linux Games Petition

Like a number of others I'm getting fed up of having to run a second computer in windows just so I can play commercial games. One of the guys in a chat room I'm on has started a petition to show the games manufacturers that Linux is an untapped market, and that it is in their economic interest to provide the linux community with ports of the top selling games.

The test of the petition is:


To: EA Games

We, the Linux gaming community are feeling alienated by companies that, in face of huge demand for our choice of operating system, still refuse to provide proper client-side ports for major games.
Although this petition is focused primarily towards EA Games, (who became a powerful force in gaming due to their commitment to providing native ports to a variety of operating environments) the writer of this petition also believes that such companies as Blizzard (who deliberately SHUT DOWN an open source native port project for some of their games, which did not infringe on their intellectual property, called freecraft) deserves special mention.
This petition aims to make the following points:
1. Emulation is not a native port, and native ports are what is required by the linux-driven consumer.
2. Our numbers and buying power are great enough to warrant such projects as a transition from directx to opengl, for instance.
3. We believe we are the future, and this is an offer to make peace with this community, before we are further alienated, and you really need us to stay in business.
4. Native server ports without client side ports are offensive, and unacceptable.
5. We are no longer willing to run a Windows machine, or buy a gaming console just to be able to play games. (Thanks to the insight of such companies as Atari, among others, we don't have to)
Thank you for reviewing this petition.

Sincerely,


You can view the petition and sign it here:



http://www.petitiononline.com/linux260/petition.html

Crazy people

I spotted an interesting article on the BBC's web page today.

An American Airlines pilot asked Christians on his flight to raise their hands to identify themselves, prior to calling all non-Christians crazy. He also suggested that the non-Christians should speak to the Christians about their faith. Needless to say reports are that passengers were terrified.

The full story is here on the BBC's news site.

This, of course, does raise the question as to who actually is the crazy person here.

Woohoo

Somebody likes me. I just got an invite to orkut.

Ice Cold in Omsk

It's nice to know where the Russian army have their priorities, and if this story is anything to go by it's more in having a good time that in fighting wars.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3414593.stm

"Six divers, 10 men with electric saws and a tank pulled the beer kegs - but not the truck - to safety."

That's dedication to a cause.

Tis the season to be... erm... tortured?

Trawling the web as you do when you are supposed to be getting on with lots of work. I found this little story. Well okay I didn't find it but one of the guys in the chat room I hang out in found it.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8060210^13762,00.html


Enjoy

I'm currently working my behind off on the end of course project, on top of that I'm running around like a maniac doing things for the wedding, and I'm studying for the CIW Foundations exam. Not to mention the Gutenburg project that I'm heading up. I really need to have each day in the order of 40 hours long to be able to get everything done.

Any donations of spare time, extra strength caffeine, etc would be gratefully accepted. :-)

How do you deal with a person who will not listen to anyone's opinions and seems to get their self esteem from belittling, patronising and ignoring other people, or by riding roughshod over any ideas that aren't their's? Especially when you are supposed to be working in a team with said person?

BTW, punching them in the face is not an option.

Update
This person and I have had a blazing row due in part to the wasting of time by redoing work that I had already done. Of course, they were doing this in front of someone who does have the chance to write references and reviews. I just asked why the work as being redone, and the answer was correct in as much as it is information that the team needs. So I pointed out that I had done it and emailed the team with the results and some questions that we need to ask our client. The response... "Oh I haven't read your emails".

Needless to say everything got worse over the day so the first thing the following morning I went into the management team and said that I cannot work with this person. I told them everything that had bugged me over the entire project cycle so far. The telling me time and time again that I am not able to do this, that or the other without this person's help, the constant undermining of the work that I am doing and so on.

Not sure what happened after that, if someone had words or what, but things seem to have settled down, so I am able to get on with the things I should be doing without hindrance. The question is for how long?

Happy News

I'm getting married. The boy wonder and I are tying the knot on 24th July 2004 at the Carlton Hotel in Edinburgh.

The frightening thing is that despite having eight months or so to go, we have almost everything arranged or at the very least in hand.

All we need to think about doing is getting the rings, the gifts for bestman and bridesmaids, and the bridal favours. We can't move ahead with the catering until we get the prices for the different altered menus back from the hotel. This, of course, holds up paying the deposit to the hotel, which in turn holds up getting the form for booking the Registrar, but everyone is aware of the sequence and the time scale and so there are no worries.

Well some of you will have already been told this news and I excpect many others will have heard it on the grapevine. After what must be the longest engagement in living memory (11 years in February) the darling boy and I are getting married. Plans are already being put into place so the details are as follows:

Date: 24th July 2004
Wedding Ceremony: Carlton Highland Hotel (Sutherland Suite) all welcome.
Wedding Breakfast: Carlton Highland Hotel (Highland Suite) Family and close friends only.
Evening Reception: Carlton Highland Hotel (Highland Suite) Everyone else we know that we remember to invite.

What is really frightening is how organised we are. All that needs to be done now is sort out the dress and we have to choose/buy wedding rings and the gifts for best man and bridesmaids. I need to ask one friend if she will be a bridesmaid and we need to speak to someone about the evening entertainment but that is in hand. I even have the wedding cake and favours sorted out.

I'm just having a moment of panic wondering what I have missed and what will go wrong.

Well blogging has been somewhat slow. The main reason is that I am currently on a web development course, which is rather intense.

It's even less likely that I will be doing updates before Christmas because not only am I studying for the CIW Foundations exam we are in the project phase of the course.

The project itself is really interesting. I am working with a guy whose back ground is graphic design (the team designer) and a woman who has experience of running a web company (the team's project manager) to redesign from scratch the web pages for Deadhead Comics in Edinburgh. The ideas are really flying around and we already have some good ideas that we can put to our client. This is a really exciting project with lots of potential for fun so we are all working our collective butts off.

Maybe I should try to keep updating this to let you all know how we are getting on.

Is that the time?

I can't believe that it has been two weeks since I last did an update. Time has been flying to the point that I don't have enough hours in the day. I don't know what I will do when I get a job, but I have been in this situation before and I know that it will all work out in the end. Actually most of the workload is from a Training for Work scheme so if I do get a job that will end, and that will remove a large chunk of the stuff that is keeping me busy. Web design project work on very tight deadlines in not conducive to having a social life, and I passed the assessment test to get onto the CIW Foundations course, so that has put another load of study work onto my shoulders. Do I hear the words stressed being muttered somewhere?

As if all the stress from that isn't enough I'm having to start running around and fix dates and venues. Most people will have heard already but my other half and I had decided that 11 years is long enough to be engaged and we will be getting married next year.

Final details are to be confirmed but at the moment it is looking as though it will be at the end of July at the Carlton Highland Hotel. I just need to get the date confirmed with the Registrars Office.

All I need now is the groom to follow tradition and let me get on with deciding what I want.

Colour madness.

I have a few little pleasures in life. One of them is the regular mailing from Hermes. I bought a scarf at their store in Manchester not long after it opened and as a result ended up on their preferred customer list, so I get invites to special showing of new collections, exhibitions and stuff like that. Not to mention the quarterly magazine, full of wonderful images (I'm sure Sandy would appreciate the photos). Anyway I've just received the latest bundle including a catalogue of this season's ties, which are separated by colour associations. So there's a section that describes orange as "...surreptitiously, with the slyness of genetic mutation and the power of an incoming tide, yellow swerves towards red." Pale pink is "... reserved for babies, more often than not those of the female sex. Can one conceive of it ornamenting beard and muscle?" As for purple, apparently "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who wears only mauve is to be mistrusted."

Perhaps it is a French foible that colour should be described in such living, breathing terminology, as though the colours themselves we independent, sentient beings. Or is it perhaps that exclusive fashion houses describe things with such artistic ways? Whichever it is, I like it.

Guns and Roses

Not much of an update I'm afraid. I'm just too busy at the moment doing studying and other such stuff. However, I came across this web site. It's an old project but I thought it was pretty neat.

The Cult of Father Darwin

It would seem that a local teenager decided that he should Darwinate himself.

Edinburgh Evening News Story here

Whilst it is sad that that the young idiot lost his life at least we can all sleep safely in the knowledge that yet another strain of the stupidity gene has been exterminated prior to reproducing itself.

Life is beginning to settle down again so hopefully I will be blogging a bit more regularly.

Keep looking, you never know when I might get inspiration.

Long time no blog

Well there has been a huge amount going on in my life including my mother dying so if you don't like it that I haven't updated since February - tough!

Couple of news points. I have a Live Journal account here. I have also started a web design course
so have web space here though as yet there is nothing to see. Keep checking though as things will change. There were problems with my ISP mangling all my html into frontpage-ese so the webpage in the links section is currently dead. At some point I will fix the links section, but like I said I'm busy so it might take a while to get a round tuit.

Also, Edinburgh has been a nightmare this year during the festival, so if you are a festival tourist, here is a frustrated local's message to you.

FUCK OFF HOME!

It's not that I have anything against the tourists and the revenue that they bring to the city, I just wish they wouldn't block entire pavements so that those of us with only one hour for lunch can't get anywhere. Just remember that although YOU are on holiday here, there are some people that aren't and they are trying to live their lives as normally as possible.

Hello....

      ...(goodbye)

Well not really. For the people that have emailed asking where I am, I am still around but I'm feeling intermittently depressed and/or anti-social. If you've mailed and I've not answered, I haven't fallen out with you and I'm not ignoring you because you've upset me. It's just I can't be bothered and besides I don't feel like talking/mailing anyone. If you've missed me at the pub (or wherever) I was too depressed/upset/antisocial (delete as applicable) to be arsed. Nothing personal, it's not you, it's just something I'm going through. It will pass. Time will heal. Etc.....

Anyway, as I finally motivated myself to update this I thought I would pass on the two little snippets that I have found recently.

Firstly, if you are into having trendy Chinese or Japanese words tattooed across your body make sure you have a trustworthy Chinese/Japanese speaking friend with you. Otherwise the results may not be what you expect. Story here

Also, in light of the current SCO mess any Linux geeks watching might be interested in here.

Normal service will be resumed... Eventually... Sometime... Maybe... Well probably. Though what is normal and does anybody ever achieve normality anyway?

Bad day at the track

Some people will know that I used to be a motor racing marshal until an unfortunate incident in a gravel trap left me with a badly injured knee, making track side work impossible. I still like motor racing and watch races whenever I get the opportunity and I keep as up to date as possible with the rule changes, etc.

So today I was watching Formula One on TV. It was the British Grand Prix, which I have only done spectator marshalling at (directing traffic to car parks and stopping people from lighting barbecues next to wooden grandstands). Silverstone is a lovely circuit, which was greatly improved about 10 years ago went the track layout was altered to facilitate the building of new run off areas for the race cars and grandstands for the spectators. It's still a power circuit with a sequence of fast corners leading to the main straight which terminates into the "new" complex of slower corners that were designed to increase over taking. Cars exiting the fast complex will be doing about 130 mph, accelerating up the straight to 200+ mph before breaking hard. It's the fastest part of the circuit and compares with the Parabolica at Monza or the old Tamburello at Imola - where Ayrton Senna was killed in a high speed accident in 1994. So imagine, the shock it was to see what could only described as a lunatic with a death wish (click on the image to get an enlargement) calmly jogging along this straight down toward the fast complex of corners at Becketts. The yellow Jordon that can be seen exiting the corner is doing about 140 mph and about two seconds after the picture had passed the nutter. Added to which the guy was trying to wave protest placards in front of the cars, on only one occasion did he try to get out of the way, in most cases actually moving toward the racing line of the cars. It was only the skill of the drivers in avoiding him that prevented his death, though had one of the cars hit him it would likely have killed the driver too. By the nature of that part of the circuit no marshals were sent to retrieve him until the safety car had been deployed and being in the early stages of the race with the cars were still fairly bunched up a safe gap was quickly forthcoming for the marshals to deal with him, and knowing the mentality of the marshals they wouldn't have been gentle with him, I know if I was dealing with him I would managed at least one surreptitious kick with my steel toe-capped boots. The worst thing is, this guy is only going to be charged with aggravated trespass, which his lawyers may be able to argue around by virtue of him having a ticket, but why not add on attempted murder. After all there is already evidence that a formula one car hitting a person at speed will cause the death of the driver, as Tom Pryce was killed in 1977 when he struck a marshal who was crossing the track, and F1 cars are much faster now that they were 26 years ago, plus this whole issue was discussed in 2000 after a disgruntled Frenchman breached security to make a track side protest again Mercedes-Benz.

The timing of this couldn't have been worse. The whole future of the British Grand Prix is in question, and an incident like this could be all it takes to have one of the great sporting institutions of the summer erased permanently from the calender.

Bargins galore

I had an interesting afternoon in HMV (West End today). Went up into the Classical section where I had a nice chat with the chap who works there. Despite not seeing him for over 12 months he not only remembered me also the sort of classical stuff I like, and the CD's he'd recommended to me. (wow! HMV give this guy a pay rise now.) Anyway to cut a long story sort he pointed me to some stuff that they have in from the Marco Polo label which are all being sold at £2.99, so I came away with the following;

Witold Lutoslawski - Symphonies Nos 3 and 4

Frederic Devreese - Soundtrack (Dances, Divertimenti and Preludes)

Tage Nielsen, Erik Norby, Vagn Holmboe & Herman D Koppel - Songs

Rued Langgaard - String Quartets (Double CD)

Laszlo Lajtha - Symphonies Nos 8 and 9

And as if that wasn't good enough on the bargain front I got two Permin cross stitch kits at about half the price I've seen them being sold for elsewhere. They are about 8"x 20", stitched on 20 hole to the inch count fabric and are gorgeous. All other stitching projects are on hold till these are done.

INTERCAL Game

A suggestion has just been put to me for a new variation to that old favourite Scrabble.

What if the pieces are INTERCAL keywords and you have to produce valid statements instead of valid words. Your score would depend on which keywords you use. There is no bonus for elegance.

For a final twist on scrabble you can use a dictionary to check a word while in this game you would have to explain what it does before scoring.

Maybe it should be a computer game so you can compile your statements to verify validity.

Hmm!

It's sort of weird but flattering when people you don't know add you to their LJ friends list. But it's even weirder when they remove you. What is it about your journal that makes them want to add you in the first place? What changes to make them no longer want to read you entries? Have you changed in the interim?

I know that with a few exception most of my stuff has been self indulgent "why me?" whinging, but since January that's more or less the process that my mind has been going through. Finding out that my mother had cancer in some ways made me more critical of friends and I have cut a lot of people out of my life. Lets face it when you trying to come to terms with the fact that a parental unit is dying a horrible death, having a self obsessed troll dismissing your feelings as unimportant, whilst making out that their desicion of whether to go to an Indian or Thai restaurant is of life or death importance, makes you realise that said troll isn't worth knowing. When they then say that it was "an attempt to cheer you up" is insulting to the intelligence. One acquaintenship that broke down was regrettable because it could possibly have been avoided if I hadn't made the choice to say enough is enough. However, given the instability of the other person, that would have only put off the inevitable, so perhaps everything worked out for the best anyway.

LJ is interesting in that you can voice all your worries, concerns, woes, etc knowing that you do have an audience, who may be supportive, though conversely they may just be saying "Oh gawd not again" and skimming over your entry. But the audience is there and by virtue of the friends page, is also available to a wider selection of people any of whom could decide that they want a front seat in our rants and wibbles. That a stranger added me to his list for some arbitrary reason and then just as suddenly decided that I wasn't interesting enough raises questions in my mind, like did this person just want to watch the increasingly depressed muttering of someone who is going through their own private hell and re-adjusting their relationships on the basis of new values? Are the postings not full of juicy enough details of debautched sex and familial arguments? But isn't this what we all want to see? Given the popularity of soap operas with convoluted relationships (Dynasty/The Colbys), improbable disasters/scenarios (Emmerdale, Dallas) and on to the later craze of "reality tv", isn't this what we all want - a chance to look into someone elses life and make judgement? But in turn with LJ (and weblogs in general) are we not holding ourselves up for judgement in the same way as the occupants of the Big Brother House? So does it really matter that someone who I have never (to my knowledge) met added and subtracted me from their friends list? Truthfully, the answer is that it doesn't matter at all, however it does generate a feeling of disappointment, i.e. if I cannot hold a strangers interest then what chance do I have of making new friends? though this isn't something that has been a problem in the past, so why should it be a problem in the future? And can the actions of one stranger be used as a weather vane as to how people in general view me?
Furthermore, does questioning the motives of a stranger, and analysing my response to their actions make me nuts? Or am I just noticing a trend of behaviour in people that is always there just so entrenched that we take it for granted?

No comment

Earth Worshippers Cause Death in Space

Thanks Simon.

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

I am so utterly fed up with life at the moment. Most people are telling me it is just a reaction to my mother having recently died but it goes beyond that. I'm just utterly sick of my life, of the same boring routine day in day out. Of having so called friends who spend all their time stabbing you in the back and then having a family that do the same.

The latest is that my mother's sister is telling me that I have absolutely no right to anything of my mothers. I wanted mums wedding ring, but I was told quite catagorically no. When I pushed I was called selfish and ungrateful. In the end she gave me a cheap thing that I would swear she bought at the market earlier that day, it certainly isn't my mothers wedding ring though I am being told that it is. I'm finding that I am being written out of the family history, mum's gravestone is allegedly stating that she is a muched loved sister and aunt but no mention of mother. To cap it all I am now being told that despite my mother naming me as the beneficiary of her pension, and the pension company saying I have a lump sum of money due to me, my aunt is telling me that I'm not entitled to it and if I accept if it the same as stealing. WTF???

Not content with lying to me about how ill my mother actually was, and trying her best to keep me away from Leeds, she is now trying to eradicate my existance. She is too busy dividing up the soils for herself and her kids. To be honest it is beginning to get to me. I'm at the point where I don't know who to trust, or indeed whether there is anyone that I can trust, and if the answer to the last bit is no one then why do I actually bother. I don't know why I don't just lock myself away and forget the whole world because because I'm sick to death of being used by ignorant selfish egotistical bastards who only seem to want me around so that they have someone who will admire them. Well I'm sorry I'm not playing anymore. In fact I don't honestly know why I have to go one living any more as it clear that I serve no purpose.

Maybe I'll feel better in a day or so but I doubt it.

Arghh!!

I missed the main drinking session of the geekfest, due to continued illness. However, a couple of the "delegates" were at my Manchester place on Thursday night after kindly meeting me at the train station with offerings of beer and breezers. Pity I wasn't in a fit enough state to be a charming hostess, however, my boyfriend was also there and he made up for the manners I missed.

Friday was spent mainly in bed feeling like I was dying and Saturday was only fractionally better. The coughing spasms have left me with a pain in my chest and across my shoulder and I'm now having difficulty getting into a position where I'm comfortable, and to make matters worse I've taken all the paracetamol based pain killers I dare and they haven't worked.

I just have to keep reminding myself that things can only get better.

Blargh!!!

Well I missed the Holyrood tonight, which has upset me mightily. But seeing as I am laid low and in bed with a horrible flu bug I didn't think I would be popular if I spread it around. It's a nasty little bug too - gone straight for the chest, and as I have asthma it's a double whammy. I'm actually at the point where my ribs hurt from coughing and I am struggling to breathe.

I just hope I am okay for the weekend as it's the nixhelp geekfest, and I don't want to miss out on a full weekend of drinking, geeking, drinking and taking the piss with the bunch of psychos that I spend most of my free time communicating with via IRC.

An update will no doubt follow once I've sobered up after the event, assuming I can remember anything about it.

Charles Laughton Directs.....

    The Night of the Hunter

Sunday night I went to the Filmhouse in Edinburgh with and to a special screening of The Night of the Hunter.

I have always though that this was one of the best films I've ever seen and so finding that almost all of the original film rushes and out-takes still survived intrigued me. Added to this the fact that the director, Charles Laughton, kept the camera running between takes giving the opportunity to see how he interacted with his actors meant that I was eager to see the film, the rushes and hear the talk that was given.

In the past when I have been to other special screenings of this type, it has usually been someone giving a talk about the film whilst showing various clips to illustrate the points being made, followed by a showing of the film in question. In this case the showing was, in the words of Robert Gitt (the presenter) "the film with narration". Gitt commenced his talk by briefly going over the career of Charles Laughton, who was well know as an actor in films such as "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935 - opposite Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian); "The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and, perhaps my favorite, David Lean's wonderfully executed "Hobsons Choice" (1953). Our lecturer for the evening then told of the history of the cuttings collection, and described what we were going to see, this being the film made up from the best bits of the rushes and out-takes. At this point he started the film.

From here on in, we had the film almost in its entirety, starting from the original idea to make a film of Davis Grubb's novel of the same name, through to the appalling marketing of the film studio. As each new person was added to the project a short biography was given which also explained how they gained their part in the film project. Laughton, who in his best roles tended to play overbearing tyrants, was surprising by the way be elicited performances from his actors in particular the two children, 12 year-old Billy Chapin as John and Sally Jane Bruce who, at 5½ years, was an absolute star as Pearl. Laughtons technique of keeping the camera running between takes allowed us to see the way he explained what he wanted and then gently coaxed the performance out of them. Sally, even for a young child was so professional, to the point that in some scenes she was rebuking Robert Mitchum (already a Hollywood star) for forgetting his lines.

There was only one scene where Laughton appeared to be a tyrant as a director and this was with Shelly Winters, though the question was raised did he shout at her because he was really angry, or was it an act on his part to make her feel as humiliated as the character she was portraying? Based on the other interactions with his actors I would say it was the latter.

Altogether I found it a most entertaining and enlightening evening, and I would certainly recommend that if you ever get the chance to see this film by the UCLA Film Archive take it as you will not be disappointed. Though as the very least you should see the film as released.

Patricia Winmill - 14/03/1945 - 01/06/2003

As those who read my journal will know I have been agonising over what I should be doing during my mother's illness from cancer. Her suffering is now over. She died peacefully at St Gemma's Hospice in Leeds at 23:25 on Sunday evening. She fought the "nasty little bugger" to the end, but in her final moments she must have realised that this was one battle she couldn't win and gave up the fight. I was with her round the clock from the very early hours of Saturday. Although she couldn't speak much - the drugs were making her sleepy - she was aware of her surroundings and if she felt that we were talking over her she let it be known with frowns and other gestures.

There are a few members of the live-journal community that knew her and they will know what a huge personality she had. Her passing will leave a huge gap in many people's lives and the one thing I am finding from talking to her friends is that those who knew her loved her.

I'm sorry that I couldn't be with her more during the final months of her life and that I wasn't there will be a burden I shall carry for many years, but in the end we were able to communicate and I was able to say my goodbyes. She died knowing how much both I and my partner, Paul, loved her, and that we will always miss her.

Funeral arrangements are being put into place for the morning of Tuesday, 10/06/2003. The family in general and myself in particular would ask that friends who wish to pay tribute do so by making a donation to St Gemma's Hospice in Leeds, whose care and compassion for both patients and relatives was wonderful.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child...

        ...a long ways from home.

Well in the end the decision was taken out of my hands. My aunt called the doctor and by the time he called around to the house to check on my mum he'd already got the surgery staff to make arrangements for my mother to be admitted to a hospice. My aunt called me this afternoon to let me know what has been arranged. I told her that I knew that I was being lied to about how ill mum was and that in reality I didn't think mum would live to see next Christmas. My aunt just said "don't leave it till Christmas to visit, in fact, make it sooner than later". I think this is it. I'm at the point now where I'm going to dread answering the phone, or reading email or anything because it's not going to be long before I get the call to give me "the news".

Knowing this is really weird. On the one hand I am swinging from wailing in complete despair, to screaming with rage. And on the other there is a kind of resigned calm. There is nothing I can do, so I'm just waiting for the end in the same way I suppose you would wait on a runaway train heading for the precipice. Things happen and suddenly you realise that you are only a puppet with some demonic god(dess) of fate pulling on the strings, laughing as you try to make sense of things.

Either that or the matrix is real and Agent Smith has it in for all of us.

Oh God!

Today has been an up and down day!

Firstly I just discovered that it is more expensive to go to Leicester than it is to go to London from Edinburgh. The train fair is dearer that the air fare but because I don't have a current passport flying is out.

Got home just in time to have a visit from a random computer genius, so set up the downloads he wanted and went to the corner for pizza. Arrived back to receive phone call from my aunt. My mother is very ill. She is apparently getting confused to the point that she can't look after herself properly, and isn't taking her meds properly. My aunt said that they are not sure if it's the meds that are confusing her or whether it's an effect of the cancer (i.e. is there a secondary tumour on her brain?) It doesn't help that my step-father has Alzheimer's and so cannot look after her - in reality he can't even look after himself properly any more. Unfortunately it seems that my mum is no longer in a position to be able to look after herself either, let alone look after my step-father.

There is going to be a big family conference to decide what needs to be done and it appears that my aunt is favouring a nursing home, because as she said they both do need nursing care, not just family members keeping an eye on them. I really don't want to do this though. I feel as though I should be the one looking after them but as my aunt says I am not a qualified nurse, I can't make decisions about their meds, or provide the level of care they need no matter how willing, so I feel like I'm just ending up as one of those absent kids who put their parents in a home because it's just too much of a hassle to look after them. I really don't know what to do because it feels as though what ever happens I will be wrong.

So maybe I should just put on a brave face and take all the criticism and judgment from the know-alls.

Time for hard truths

I have been (wrongly I might add) accused of adding "nasty comments" to She Who Shall Remain Nameless' web blog. When I ran into her partner at the pub I was accused of getting my friends to send the messages on my behalf (and before he tries to deny that, it was commented upon by several of the people who were listening to the exchange).

I am getting sick to death of the lies that are emanating from that place.

And of course, now despite all the insults, lies and slanders that SWSRN has thrown at me (as well as at several other people) I apparently owe her an apology. Presumably that is because I am (a) still breathing and (b) not bowing down and worshiping the ground that she walks on. I could probably think of several other things that the self indulgant wannabe princess will say I need to apologise to her over, but as you may have gathered I am not in the business of rolling over and pandering to peoples hyper-inflated egos unless they pay me a healthy salary to do so, and even then I'm likely to take the piss.

This latest campaign seems to be SWSRN attempting to divert attension away from the fact that through her own rudeness she has upset a lot of people, and rather than do the honorable thing and apologise is trying to turn the very people who she has insulted into the people who are preying on her.

Well hello honey, welcome to the real world. Be rude to people and they get upset with you, try and turn it around so that you're the injured party and people think you are a nutter. Especially, when you go around accusing everyone who has ever upset you of being a dangerous looney, and at last count there were about half a dozen people she was calling dangerous looneys - that may have increased by now, though I wouldn't know because I'm not talking to her, and if I didn't have to keep fending off the latest accusation I don't think I would even acknowledge her existance. I don't take these accusations of hers that people are loony seriously, I mean in the normal course of daily life there are only so many dangerous maniacs that you are going to run into, unless that is, you work in a Psychiatic Unit, but she doesn't so, to be quite frank, she's over her quota.

So what to do?

Pooh!

Well I have just looked at the bills that have come in the post and I am seriously wondering how I am going to survive in Edinburgh without a job. At the moment I am being a drain on my partner's funds, in that whilst I'm not working I don't have enough coming in to pay the bills and he is subsidising me. It isn't cheap running two properties, two sets of electricity bills, phone bills, etc, so that by moving back to Manchester we would be saving nearly a thousand pounds a month.

Not withstanding the fact that my partner and I have been living apart for almost three years, which now getting to the point where it is a strain to be together because we have forgotten what it is like to be a couple.

And then of course I would be close to my mother who has lung cancer and is more ill than she lets on.

However, there is an equally compelling downside to moving back south. Firstly Manchester is a dump, it has odd highlights, but on the whole it could only be improved by the judicious use of a small thermonuclear device. Then I have a social life here with lots of great people that I meet at the Holyrood etc, which I wouldn't like to lose.

Finally there is the matter of timing. If I move back south now it gives a certain person an excuse to say that she has driven me away, and that she was right all along, and that I am an evil nasty bitch that no one in their right mind should speak to. but coming from a woman who is behaving like a five year old and who thinks that she owns the lives of all those that come into contact with her. Maybe if she got a job and stopped freeloading off others she'd get a sense of proportion

Oh I say!

State Troopers and Texas Rangers have been put on alert to find and detain 59 Texan Democrats, who staged a walkout from the state legislature on Monday. It was a move that came too late as the missing lawmakers were already over the border staying at a hotel in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where they plan to stay until the deadline for first passage of bills had passed.

And it's all over redistricting.

Apparently the Republicans won a majority in the Texas legislature and now want to redistrict in such a way that they will gain 5 extra seats. This despite the Texan redistricting should have happened two years ago but as a result of political shenanigans was put into the hands of the Courts. The newly elected Republican's, at the behest of their leaders in Washington, feel that the even handed approach of the Courts is not to be trusted and so their version (giving them the extra seats) is much more favourable and fair. Can you spell gerrimandered?

The down side of this is that several other important bills will also be scuppered by the walkout.

However, I can see the point of the Democrats actions. Within the package there are a number of bills that are aimed at giving extra benefits to the haves whilst reducing the benfits to the have-nots. (The Republicans want to push through a budget that will slash public spending but not raise taxes, and also another bill to put limits on lawsuits). The Republicans have acquired a huge majority, much like the one the Tories under Thatcher had, and are using that to force through legislation, much like the Tories did under... well you get the picture. The only way the Democrates have of stopping unpleasant legislation is to stop the House being quorate and this they are doing very effectively. That the leader of he House has ordered the law enforcment agencies to find and arrest these objectors raises serious concerns over the future of democracy in Texas.

Read more about this here and here and here and on many other sites listed at Google

The Email Saga Continues

Apparently it isn't my configuration that is wrong (well it is, but that isn't what is causing the problem). It appears that Blueyonder are at it again. Some spammer is sending a "dictionary attack" and has overloaded the mail servers. It would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that this happened to Blueyonder last year and they don't seem to have learned any lessons from it. Meanwhile all the email I thought had been eaten is slowly filtering into my inbox including the test emails one of my fellow IRC-ers send on Saturday night.

Technology, don't you just love it.

Bl***y Computers

If any one is thinking of emailing me - don't. Something in my configuration has gone splat and fetchmail is pulling in my emails but they are not getting to my inbox. I haven't a clue as to where they are going but looking at the archives on the mailing lists I subscribe to I reckon that I'm missing over 500 emails from the last two days alone. Personally I blame the friend who originally set my mail configuration, and as it's done in a such a weird and wooly manner there is no one on any of the help forums that can tell me how to fix the problem.

It looks as though I am going to have to wait until the next time there is an ObT around and see if he will set my mail system up into something usable.

Oh-Oh

Well that's been an interesting day, and it isn't over yet. Apparently She Who Shall Remain Nameless is upset that another candidate for the current Scottish election appointed me as a Polling Agent. I like being a Polling Agent, it means I get to go to any Polling place in the district and harass the Election staff on the excuse that I am observing that the election is being administed fairly and in accordance with the Representation of the People Act. It also means I get to go to the Count.

Now I let slip to She Who Shall Remain Nameless's other half, at which point he decided that the other candidate was a "fuckwit" because this will upset SWSRN. Furthermore, today either SWSRN or her other half (not sure which - I'll need to clarify that) rang the Candidate who I an Polling Agent for and lambasted him for allowing me to attend the Count. Apparently I'm a lunatic who is going out of my way to go to places so that SWSRN cannot go.

Now as I read that, it means that I am not allowed to speak with anyone, or go to any public house, or any cinema, theatre or book event, or set foot outside of my flat because she might just want to go to the same thing and if I'm there SWSRN cannot possibly attend, and I have to live my life in such a way that I cannot cause any offence of upset to her. Yeah right!

This is the woman who thinks that insulting people is funny, and when you tell her it isn't gives you a mouthful of abuse. This is the woman who has never had a proper job in her life and so can't comprehend why those who do would really like to keep them. This is the woman who allegedly cannot lie but is regularly caught out in some enormous whoppers.

So do I become a nun and avoid all social content to keep her happy, or do I give her a big up yours?

Phew!

I think my stalker might have seen that he isn't having any effect on me. Somebody who I don't even know said that he actually sounded like an obsessed nutter and following that he has removed all the offensive material that was posted on Live Journal. On the advise of the abuse team I did however, save the journal, so that I still have evidence for any impending legal actions. I still, of course, have all the email logs, that prove beyond doubt that my unknown hero is in fact right, and I have to thank all the people who emailed, phoned or called around to offer support. The stalker tried to put himself in the position of being the vicitm, yet he was the one who was going out of his way to harass me. I have had to have my phone calls on both my land line and mobile screened, my email account set to reject mail from this person, I had to ban him from commenting on my live journal, and set anonymous comments to screened, and with each block I put in place he tried to find away around it. Does that actually make him sound like the victim? No I didn't think so. Unfortunately I find that I am not the only person who has suffered at his hands. There are a couple of people who are so traumatised by my stalker that they are genuinely afraid at the mere mention of his name. For them I am pleased that I made a stand. This guy's name is now lodged with the Police, and investigations are continuing. Even if he only gets a slap on the wrist this time, it means that the next person he tries this on will have more protection and so on down the line. I have suffered the emotional trauma of a paranoid obsessive trying to turn me into some sort of a monster, but I have refused to lie down and let him demonise me.

And finally, I would once again like to thank my unknown hero, who I don't think knows quite how much he has helped me, and all those who did support me.

OOPS!!!!

I should have done this update last night but I was going through final arrangements for next week with a friend.

Going to see Metropolis tonight at the Filmhouse with Andrew and Lorna. Meeting at the Starbucks opposite the old ABC on Lothian Road at 5:15 pm. Any of the usual K Jackson's crowd and anyone else who knows us are all welcome to come and join in.

Happiness is...

Sitting on your own, listening to calming music, with a large tub of Haagen Dazs Toffee Creme. Okay I might only have a few spoonfuls but there is no one here to demand their share.

Bliss...

I had a really good relaxing night tonight. Went around to Claudio's to have the latest lesson in cooking Italian food. Today's lesson: pizza and antipasto. Aubergine slices roasted in olive oil and served with a spicy dip, a simple pizza margherita and an aubergine and mushroom pizza (well it was a big aubergine). I had always thought that pizza dough was really hard to make but it is so simple, easier than ordinary bread. And homemade is always scrummier than shop bought.

Yummy!

Favorite restaurant is open again after major refurbishment works. It's absolutely fab. The area that used to be smoking is now non-smoking, they've added an extension at the back that is now the smoking area and there is a huge new "Party Room". There's a new menu too, with lots of yummy additions, (polenta, spagetti served with mixed veg). I need to check my bank balance because I can't wait to be testing all the new things.

UPDATE: Wednesday 16 April 2003

Oh it has been so busy around here what with one thing and another, that I have only just had time to sit down to thing about the things that happened on the Wednesday bash. Got to the Tav late because I was rebuilding part of the network, cables everywhere. I really need to get some truncking and run the cat 5 under the floorboards. As ordered by I wore the lycra top of impossible cleavage (that was one of my best buys in Gap, it's only lycra but it gives the same support as a loose fitting ribbon corset). There was the point when we tried the Mexican boob jiggle, though being the Tav no one batted an eyelid. Sarah introduced me to a friend of hers (sorry can't remember your name) who is looking to get her first corset and didn't know what she wanted, so that set up a discussion that seemed to take in half the women in the place as well as a couple of the men.

Some of the writers were in the pub so as things started quieten down just before closing, I sank into the sofa but as they were discussing the planning for a forthcoming event I ended up talking with and a couple of people he was with about value of culture, of life and the media perception of it's value. Said cheerio to them at closing time and went with the writers on to Favorit. Nice cafe bar open till 3am with great food. Finally got kicked out of there at 3:30 (we think the staff wanted to lock up) and headed home, sun was already up before I finally got to bed and so I'm now completely out of sync wanting to sleep during the day and party at night. Ho hum!

Oh-Oh

It would appear that my stalker is now enlisting the help of others to attack me. A poor wee innocent thing by all accounts. Well I don't doubt that. I wonder if she is aware that her "hero" wanted me to try to get in with her so that I could report back. Yes. He was pushing me to be her best buddy so I could let him have all the juicy gossip about her, including who was her boyfriend because at the time she wasn't telling, and is she was sleeping with anyone else. She also better beware, because it was only 12 months ago he was declaring how I was his "Chosen One", so when she gets fed up of his demands on her time she will have to suffer the same barrage I'm getting now.

Stalker Alert

It's official, I have a stalker. There is now a police incident about this person. Whilst I didn't want to put anything that would identify him in my journal and I have been very careful not to name him I find that I am now forced to do so. I have used all avenues to try to stop him from contacting me. I have made a call to the abuseteam of my phone company who are going to work with the police. I have blocked his login from commenting on my journal, I have all anonymous messages screened, though I was going to have all comments blocked, but this might be counter productive. I have logged an abuse call with the LJ abuse team and basically I am doing everything I can to get it across to this person that he (a) isn't frightening me (whilst really he is) and (b) I don't give a rat's arse about the lies and crap that he is spouting. I have email logs which I will make freely available to any of my friends who ask that actually prove beyond any doubt that this guy is talking out of his arse. Whilst I do not want anyone to take sides in this, I think that the various abuse teams, police and myself can handle this adequately, I feel that it is only fair to warn everyone who has me listed as a friend that this person may start to use your comment space to gain access to me. If this happens I would ask that if you have email logging on that you forward a copy of the email on to me at rathgild (@) blueyonder dot co dot uk so that I can add it to the pile of other stuff that I have retrieved from my backups, in relation to this guy. If you don't want to pass them to me there is an incident report at Lothian and Borders Police I expect that you will be able to pass it directly to them quoting incident number 545 17/4/2003.

And now for the bit that I find really hard the naming of the culprit. The journal that he created purely to harass me is [deleted]. He had gone out of his way to pay for an account here and his only postings are as I said a pile of delusional witterings, and I repeat anyone who wishes to compare what he is saying in that account with real events can upon request to have a copy of the email back up.

Tip of the Day!

For all you out there in blogland who wear contact lenses please heed the following advise.

First put your lenses in, then brush your teeth.

Even washing your hands after brushing teeth still leaves faint traces of toothpaste on your fingers which gives your eyes that zingy, minty, wide awake sensation, which is kind of weird.

That was a public service announcement.

Oh that was so funny!

Stalker has removed the postings. However he seems to have forgotten that some people save webpages to their hard drive, so that they can be posted as attachments to abuse reports. Duh!

Like I said before though it is all lies that are easily refuted, so anyone who knows me, (that's the Tav crowd, the KJ lot, the swimmers, the corsetiers, and sundry other reprobates) are more than welcome to come around and read the emails from said stalker direct from the mail server. Hey that's it! Why don't we have a party, and we can sit around getting drunk and pissing ourselves laughing at the emails where he is saying all the things he is trying to claim I said. I nearly fell off my chair when he said I was only making accusations based on collusion with an ex-friend of mine who is also an enemy of his. No I got no info from that source, but there are, of course, the hundreds of other people that he has pulled the same crap on who are all only too pleased to dish a bit of dirt back.

Some saddo out there in internet land thinks that he can frighten me by using lies and threats to intimidate me. Fortunately for me I have email logs that prove that what he is saying is complete b****x so I couldn't give a rats arse about his opinion. However, his ISP seem to be interested and so do the police.

Oh Boy

It seems that a certain person of my acquaintance has thrown another wobbly. God knows what is going on in his mind, but apparently I am threatening him (whereas the opposite is the case). Last time this happened my ISP were reporting him to the police as a potential stalker who would pose a physical threat to me (and having gone back through the email logs I can see why). This time it's because I made a comment that it would have been nice to see him up but I realised that I wasn't friend enough to warrant his travelling half way across the country, to which he responded with a barrage of abuse. I think this guy is sick. For example: he threatens me then accuses me of threatening him. He can not or will not take responsibility for his own actions and always projects his unacceptable behaviour onto someone else and plays at being the innocent victim/bystander. It's very tiring dealing with him because just to say hello you have to consider how many ways that can be taken as an insult, attack, accusation or threat. I find it hard to outright condemn him because over the time I have known this person it is clear that there is something weird going on that drives him and I really wish he would get help, because he has the potential to be a great guy.

But it is my own fault, half the world and his dog warned me away from him, all saying that he is a womaniser, bully, fantasist, etc and I didn't listen, not even to the people who said that he was a downright psycho and I should watch my back because "you never know what harm he could do me". I'm just glad that I have plenty of friends who know of him and know what he is like who will watch my back.

Meanwhile I worry about anyone else who has got mixed up with him that doesn't have this support network, because who knows what might happen.

Ho Hum!

It would appear that she who shall not be named (because I'm one of the mad people attacking her) has finally got herself into a position were lots of people are likely to stop talking to her. It would apear that the rude and thoughtless comment she made under the pretence that it was a joke is likely to lose someone their job. If this does happen she will suddenly find herself unwelcome in a lot of places.

I've had enough!

I am retreating into the examination room to wash my hair and get ready for my leaving do tonight. having been somewhat crafty I have tied this in with my normal Thursday night drinking session, so if anyone who knows me is remotely interested I'll be in K Jacksons from about 8pm onwards.