Now then...

Stuff ner that

2010-11-08T23:18:00.003Z

Trying a different blogger client. That last one was pants on sticks.

Stuff ner that

2010-11-08T23:18:00.001Z

Trying a different blogger client. That last one was pants on sticks.

Going all mobile

2010-09-03T21:44:00.001Z

Well this is all jolly civilised. I'm now posting this through my new Android phone. With any luck it might actually work.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.8

Puppy Dog's Tails

2010-07-30T19:29:00.002Z

Another T Shirt Design.

Click to enlarge

More T Shirts. Toddlers this time.

2010-07-29T20:07:00.003Z

Click to enlarge full image

I get really fed up of seeing "Little Sod" or "Baby ASBO" T Shirts . Time for something more positive...

Saturday Shirt

2010-07-29T18:25:00.002Z

T Shirt Design for 5 Colour screen printing.

Sparks - Inkscape again

2010-07-13T21:42:00.003Z

Click for full size

If Glastonbury were Westminster

2010-07-10T18:52:00.004Z

Overlaying Glastonbury on the map of Westminster. Click to enlarge.

I produced this a few weeks ago using rough measurements. Quite pleased to see that now I've been careful to get the scale right, I was within a badger's nad anyway. :)

Sketches - Sparks - Messing around in Inkscape

2010-07-09T22:37:00.003Z

3 trial images for an upcoming graphics job. Sketch pad work.

#love6music - A Celebrate Mediocrity Special

2010-07-06T07:11:00.002Z

Click the image for full size.

Celebrate Mediocrity is an occasional cartoon series which appears in ArkSanctum.

Popular Dipshit

2010-05-05T15:00:00.003Z

This Is Not A Folksong
(To the tune of just about every Westcountry Waltz around)

I'm standing for office in
Sutton and Cheam
It's not the kind of place
You'll have heard of or been

I'm tidy and respectable
I'm strictly Estee Lauder
And my dodgy past's pro-tected
by a tight restraining order

Ch
Say it loud -(Say it loud)- I'm Philappa and Proud
Call me Stroud, just for now it's still allowed
Say it loud -(Say it loud)- I'm Saintly and unbowed
They'll grab me for the rapture I'll be up on my cloud

So if you're cross dressing
Or heaven forbid Gay
Please take my holy blessing
We'll cure you as we pray

And if you're lost and fragile
Consumed with guilt and doubt
Just pop down on your sinful knees
And we'll call those demons out

Ch

I'm living proof the system works
Now the election's bagged
I've got a shiny office
and the BBC are gagged

You'll never hear about my past
Be you doctor, cook or vicar
The internet might be quite fast
But my lawyers were quicker

ch

Silence

2009-08-28T07:43:00.001Z

...

...

Quiet, isn't it?

That's All Folks!

2006-08-21T20:19:00.000Z

I am moving all my online output to my new home. Please re-tune your browsers to http://arksanctum.org, where you will find more of the same, only better.

Note - this link has changed slightly, so if you've not managed to make it work before, please try again now.

First of the apologies.

2006-08-20T11:13:00.000Z

Click to enlarge

In case you missed the ten second long article buried deep in the early morning news so that nobody would notice it, the US government has decided that the tobacco companies must apologise for lying to the public about the harmful effects of smoking, but has fallen short of making them pay for rehabilitation of nicotine addicts or funding any sort of after care for lung patients.

Slow News Day

2006-08-18T21:53:00.000Z

Thanks to the speedy efforts of the Home Office and the Police, we have all been saved again. Hurrah!

We now have police from every single force in the country involved in tracking down the bombing conspirators. And many of these brave individuals are quite experienced in hunting criminals.

The break through came today when an anonymous tip off from Mrs Windershins, of 23 Sudbury Terrace, High Wycombe called the police to tell them she had found a suspicious hide-out in the local woods.

Police encircled the woodland area and arrested every non-white within twenty five miles of the Al Quayeda base, so as to eliminate them from their enquiries. Under Home Office regulations the terrorists will now be held for up to twenty eight days before having their documents lost.

The Local Police chief told our reporter “There are terrorists here somewhere. I can smell them. I can feel it in my bones…” Before reaching in his pocket for a selection of lollipops.

Soon after, the law enforcement agencies held a press conference to announce the scale of their find. “We did indeed find a very significant find.” The spokesman said. “It seems that there is a hole in the woods that might conceivably be used to store detonators in. It is round, smooth sides, and has small currant shaped objects littering the its opening.”

“Further to this, we have also found traces of very small footprints and a slight amount of brown fur hairs on nearby thorny hedges, so there’s no telling just how long this has been a major AL Quayeda stronghold..”

Later in the day, the police also announced that they had found a “significant number” of dried leaves and twigs, all of which were combustible and could easily have been used to burn false passports.

Plane Diverted

In related news, a plane was diverted to Italy when a misunderstanding caused a panic. Mrs Theresa Bombenborde, a citizen of the Netherlands explained the matter to our reporter. “I have great worries about personal hygene, and did not want to think that anyone else might have used my sick bag. I took the precaution of writing my name on the bag, but I’m afraid my pen wasn’t working very well.”

Iraq Objects

Meanwhile, dispirited after the death of their leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, CAMRI, the Campaign for Real Insurgency, has announced that they will be auditioning for another leader to take his place as the organization’s front man. So far both Jeffrey Archer and Robert Kilroy Silk have indicated that they might be interested if the money was right, but it is increasingly likely that CAMRI officials will be seeking to maximise their publicity by enlisting the help of Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne to run an X-factor style leadership contest. “We think there is a lot of energy in this part of the world.” Simon told our reporter, “And it’s just a matter of searching hard enough. If we can find just one homicidal fanatic capable of beheading civilians and soldiers indiscriminately then we can regard our time as well spent.”

Pardon

2006-08-18T15:06:00.000Z

After the success of the Shot At Dawn campaign, posthumous pardons seem to have become rather fashionable. Thanks to inside information from my stolen MOD soft drinks dispenser, I am happy to be able to report the planned pardon of around twenty five thousand people who were wrongly executed for being German civilians on the night of February 15th, 1945.

“It seems that those killed in Dresden may not have been Filthy Nazi Huns after all, but actually a large number of men, women and children, including refugees and wounded combatants.” A Brigadier told our reporter, whilst fiddling in his pocket for small change to buy a can of Idris Ginger Beer.

“Of course, it was a more brutal time back then. But it seems that we might have been just a little hasty in deciding that they should all be incinerated in an attempt to terrorise the nation into surrender. Of course, we had been reluctant to overturn the earlier decision. We used over five hundred Lancaster bombers and dropped almost two thousand tons of bombs on the place. Obviously when you’ve committed that much material outlay into a precision operation you want to jolly well make sure that your viable targets aren’t needlessly declassified as human beings.”

However, further executions may be re-examined in the light of our new found spirit of enlightenment. According to a highly respected Jewish scholar, it is possible that the events of the Passover may need to be re-examined.

“It seems that God might have been a teensy bit hasty in slaughtering the first born son of all Egyptian families. So we’ve asked God to consider granting them a posthumous pardon. There are one or two amongst us who think it might be a tiny bit distasteful to celebrate and glorify what some lefty types are describing as a human tragedy, so we’ve asked God to mediate.

“Effectively, if God agrees that he was maybe just a little bit out of line to slaughter those children for the crime of being Egyptian, he should give us some sort of sign. Nothing drastic. A simple display of power such as the inhalation of every Arab on the planet would suffice.”

Pottery Corner 15

2006-08-15T15:33:00.000Z

Nurse

I watched the nurses blame their bosses
Screaming for their losses and their closures
And maximum exposure’s going
To the tosser in plaster
Who wished he’d been faster.
Rather than traumatised
In ward three, while the MP (allegedly gay)
Lamented the day
Our health was privatised away
No money left. It’s all been used
He accused.
The money’s spent.
The system’s bent
Avoidable drama. It’s causality.
Which confused me.
I thought it was Newsnight

Yours to cut out and keep...

2006-08-14T20:46:00.000Z

DIY Home Office Kit

Click to enlarge both images.

Instructions

Once you've printed the images out on a handy pair of A4 (210x297mm) sheets, cut out the cross shapes and gum the flaps, folding on the square edges to form four dice.

The Action dice (sheet 1 – Yellow) will then dictate your new policy.
The Target dice (sheet 2 – Orange) will then dictate who this policy applies to.

For best results you should roll all four dice to be sure of enough working material before any press conferences.

Sore fingers

2006-08-13T10:08:00.000Z

My fingers are crossed so tightly I can't even feel them. A couple of weeks ago I attended an interview with Keoghs, a company of solicitors who specialise in business law.
The job advertisement was unusual because it asked specifically for "intelligence analysts" with either military or police backgrounds. Talk about square peg for a square hole!
So, after two hours of psychometric testing, an hour of sample casework, and an hour long interview, I left the building thinking that I wanted this job more than I'd ever wanted any other job before.
The results will be out by next Wednesday. I'm almost finding it difficult to sleep. If successful I'll be working to track down gangs involved in staging car accidents to make bogus insurance claims. As well as a big pay rise it will also be a chance at a job that actually involves thinking for a living.
I would have blogged about this sooner, but I almost feel like it's unlucky to announce it. I just keep telling myself that there's no such thing as luck. But it doesn't make me any more willing to uncross my fingers.
I had a dream a couple of nights ago that I hadn’t got it. It was a very bad feeling.
Hold your breath with me…

Breaking News from 1983.

2006-08-12T00:45:00.000Z

click to enlarge and read the news as it would have been 23 years ago. If we'd had the same attitude as our "allies".

Pottery Corner 14

2006-08-08T23:28:00.000Z

I swapped my Grandad for Carrots

I can see in the darkness at night
My eyes are lamps so bright,
I have to keep them screwed up tight
At night or I might blind you
With the light from my little eye,
That lets me spot the things that fly
And scurry or scrape around the dark places,
With tiny white fingers and hair on their faces.
They rustle and ratchet right under my bed,
Or sometimes they’re under the pillow instead.
But as long as I keep both my eyes shut so tight,
The bad things won’t see me and I’ll be alright.
Or at least, I might…

…It worked last night..

Bo! Wood

2006-08-08T22:50:00.000Z

You can tell I'm on holiday, can't you? More photos for the album.
And thanks again to Val and Lucy for a cracking day out!

Schindler's Lunch.

You wouldn't believe how rank that water smells on a hot day.

My worst nightmare: Jessie Squared.

No. they really were that high! Check out the website to see the adventure playground. It's outstanding.

All images taken at Bowood House, which I strongly recommend.

Dead Bishop Sketch

2006-08-07T21:48:00.000Z

“Right! Men, the chase is on! Now we should all kneel!”

Proud winners of this week’s So Completely Barking You Could Put A Collar On It And Call It Fido Award is the Lincolnshire branch of the Christian Police Association, who have decided to pass on the details of unsolved crimes to a prayer group in the hope that enough prayer might persuade the Almighty to turn Columbo and flush out the guilty.

Could anyone who considers this lunacy to be a great idea kindly collect their lobotomy kit on the way out, please? You obviously won’t be needing your brain any more.

To paraphrase Richard (Or Steven - See comments) Dawkins in The Root of All Evil, (see the links to the free video on the sidebar): Is it moral to give someone hope, when that hope is so obviously a false hope?

Let’s just look at this simply for a moment. If God’s too busy to stop the Israelis from flattening their neighbours, if he’s too tied up to prevent a Tsunami’s worth of children dying every week from poverty, do you really think he’s going to tackle the blight of unsolved burglary in the English agriculture belt?

And what sort of God is it anyway, who will quite happily see these crimes go undetected until enough people have gathered together to pray for him to do something about them?

Surely, rather than praying for these crimes to be solved, the good people of Lincolnshire might want to pray that they never happen in the first place, or that the police might actually invest some time and effort into catching criminals rather than wasting time and resources on fairy tales?

Perhaps we could send Thor after them? Or Odin. They’ve not had much to do for the last few thousand years. A few unsolved mysteries might just relieve the boredom for them.

This latest version of Neighbourhood Watch is a step too far. Frankly, it is an unsult to those who work in forensic and psychological sciences in the pursuit of crime detection.

Prayer – To ask God to suspend the laws of physics to suit your own ends, just because you think your request is worth it.

(See Dead Bishop Sketch - Monty Python)

Related links:

Independent Online
Times Online
BBC News
Daily Mail

Serendipity at Cannon Hall

2006-08-07T09:37:00.000Z

I wasn't expecting much from Cannon Hall. Last time I'd been there it was pretty quiet. Imagine how disappointed we were to find medieval archery, sword fighting, Punch and Judy, cornfield maze, falconry demonstration, dog agility show (complete with dogs that ran away - how funny?), marching bands, dancing ladies and more free activities than you could shake a stick at.

Top marks to Barnsley Council, and thanks for a great day out!

waiting

2006-08-05T18:39:00.000Z

Image taken at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park today.
Click to enlarge

Going Down - New and improved video footage!

2006-07-29T18:13:00.000Z

I’m sort of getting the hang of this active lifestyle thing. And when it comes down to a fiver a week for gym membership or taking myself out into the hills, I’m afraid body sculpting loses out every time.

Fortunately I’ve got a bike. It has two tyres and a saddle. It even has brakes that slow me down, eventually. No suspension, or anything like that. None of your fancy stuff here. I don’t even have any lycra. Shame on me! Call myself a cyclist?

I’ve got a huge purple helmet, though. Not many people can say that with a straight face.

Anyway, mountain biking is brill. Official. I’m getting to grips with some quite tricky sections, even though in doing so, I’m learning a very valuable lesson: Falling off your bike is only funny when you’re in company. When you do it on your own it’s just tedious and quite painful.

Just for fun I thought I might show you one of my favourite trails. It runs down from the moors on the edge of Barnsley and down to Holmsyles Reservoir via Hade Edge. It only takes about three minutes to get down, but it’s a joy to ride.

This video was the third attempt. The first time, I attached the camera (using tape) to my mouth, and managed to record the floor whizzing by. The second time I attached the camera to my helmet, and managed to record a great view of the tree-tops. This third attempt was recorded with the camera strapped to my left hand.

I’m disappointed with the result, though. Out on the bike you get a great 180 degree panoramic of the surrounding countryside and the feel of the wind against your face. The video doesn’t do justice to the feeling of freedom and speed.

Having said that, since this was the third trip down the hill I was pretty tired by the time I did this one. I think this final run took a minute longer than the first!

New Video!

I wasn't at all happy with the old video, so I decided to go back and re-shoot it today (Sunday. This time I had the camera strapped to the helmet, and miraculously managed to keep most of the image in the viewfinder.

Good fun nearly killing the hikers on the way down. To be fair, they were expecting me. They'd had a bit of a giggle with me while I was trying to find a way to fit the camera and operate the buttons at the same time.

This one is less jerky, and because it's filmed from a higher vantage point, it's less likely to induce motion sickness. (He says)

Words Fail

2006-07-27T17:50:00.000Z

I was going to write something about Israel and what's left of Lebanon. But What's the point? Anyone with even an ounce of human decency must be absolutely horrified at what is being done over there, and if you support the flattening of civilians by a nation that should have learned some fucking HUMILITY seventy years ago then there's no point in even engaging you in debate. And let's face it, while so much money is tied up in the region, it's obvious that America isn't going to lift a finger to stop the slaughter.
Ironic point - USA is exporting aid parcels to Lebanon. Way to ease your collective consciences, guys.
So I thought I might write a letter to my local Member of Parliament asking her to represent my distress to Yo Blair. I wanted to tell her that I find it unacceptable to have a supposedly socialist government that will not stand up to the massacre of civilians and doggishly aligns itself to the USA regardless of what evil it sponsors in the name of its fictional War on Terror. However, it seems that they all broke up for their summer holidays this week.
Can you imagine that? Britain is standing against the wishes of every country in the United Nations except for Israel and the United States of America, and our government has gone on holiday.
Last one out turn off the lights.

Pottery Corner 13

2006-07-25T11:29:00.000Z

Box Nine

Could you be the one?
Neurotic, insecure, materialistic, spoilt, petulant, depressive, image-obsessed, greedy, arrogant, selfish, unreasonable, self-absorbed, tantrum prone, sulky, loud-mouthed, two-dimensional, vapid, emotionally-bullying, empathy-lacking, unfaithful, money-driven, consumerist, racist, attention-seeking, contrary, bitter, misanthropic, clingy, binge-drinking, label-centric, immoral, insensitive, shallow, duplicitous, judgemental, gossiping, intellectually stunted, twisted, slovenly, abrasive, spiteful, sarcastic, pedantic female, 24.
Seeks Prince Charming for fun and friendship.
Maybe more.

Cyberpunktastic

2006-07-22T08:18:00.000Z

I've posted this one on the discussion forum of Cyberpunk Review. If you'd like to join the debate there I'm sure your comments and input would be warmly received by SFAM and the others. Once there, click on "Virtual Meatspace" to plug in.

We've often heard about scientists "playing God". It's a charge that's levelled at scientists just about every time they come up with new ways of doing things. Rutherford was accused of "playing God" when he split the atom, just as Copernicus was accused of "playing God" when his model of the Solar System removed Terra from its centre.

Did you know that nineteenth century Irish sailors considered it unlucky to learn to swim, because to escape drowning would be to cheat destiny?

Anyway; my point: We're often told that there is a limit to how far scientists will go or how far they should go in making the world a more manageable place. But are objections to science consistent enough to actually keep the brakes on?

For example, In the USA President Bush has made history by vetoing government funding into stem cell research, calling it "murder". Where as the Chinese government is lobbying hard to get its state run stem-cell research company into the NASDAQ listings. (It's backed, of course, by American investors)

Here in the UK we're losing good pharmaceutical scientists involved in research that requires animal testing because homes are being fire-bombed, dead family members are being dug up and kidnapped (I kid you not) and families supplying the animals are living in fear. However, if you'd like to pop across the channel to Europe, scientists are free to experiment with impunity.

In most of Germany and France you'll find an opposition to Genetically Modified crops that will result in just about any trials being sabotaged before they germinate. Even African countries which are on the verge of starvation, such as Zambia and Ghana, have turned down GM maize from the World Health Organization.

Compare and Contrast with the USA, who have routinely been using GM Soya and corn products for so long that there is virtually no unmodified stock left in the production line.

And of course, we can all get hot under the collar about human cloning, unless we're from South Korea.

It seems that every culture has its demons. Whether for religious or ethical reasons there are certain aspects of technology that we instinctively shy away from. But on a truly GLOBAL scale, these local taboos become irrelevant. There will always be somebody who will pick up the torch.

Do we have a duty to establish a globally acceptable ethical code? And who should set the agenda?

Should there be global laws regulating scientific endeavour? And who should have the responsibility of policing them?

Is it fair for any nation to back away from the development of technology that it will eventually benefit from?

Discuss.

Sideways

2006-07-20T19:12:00.000Z

Just for the fun of it I thought it was about time I worked on something other than the second book of i-con for a little while. Since i-con isn't meant to "sell" on the commercial market I'm painfully aware it's only common sense to keep a hand in writing something that a publisher might actually want. I'm not money mad, but a book deal within my life time might actually be quite useful.

So, enter the first plot draft of "Sideways" a children's story similar in style to Marris and Wade. I won't be releasing it online, but if anyone's interested I'll be happy to email chapters to you.

Sideways is the story of Isobel, who decides to explore her boring old ordinary street "Sidings Way" during a gloriously long school holiday. Through the course of that enchanted summer, Isobel discovers that her neighbours are far from ordinary, and the street holds secrets of whispered magic, forbidden places and dangerous delights."

Man and Boy

2006-07-16T10:02:00.000Z

Click to enlarge.

Red Letter Day

2006-07-16T08:29:00.000Z

Yippee! I've lost 10% of my body weight since April and now I can finally fit into the pair of jeans that have been waiting for me to re-claim since leaving the army.

Top tip: Slimming World. Go on... You know you want to...

Twenty two pounds lighter. That's like eleven bags of sugar. Urge to shop for new clothes rising!

Role Model

2006-07-13T20:47:00.000Z

Pottery Corner 12

2006-07-13T15:57:00.000Z

Merlin

We found this baby bird,
Kim and me, one summer.
Looked alien and stupid.
Grey-black eyes and
Old man's skin.
Pale swollen belly
And a head too heavy to lift.

We fed it milk,
Mixed with bread and sugar.
It didn't like it though.
Next day found him dead,
In his little shoe box bed.
I made a cross of wood
And we had a new game.

Thwarted by Pincer Movement.

2006-07-12T20:48:00.000Z

We'd been out all day. One of those Tom Sawyer style weekends where the sun was shining and nothing was boring. Towards the end of the day we ended up by the river, kicked off our shoes, and waded out to hunt for bull-heads under the rocks.

Bullheads are pretty dull things. They lie about at the bottom of the river and wait for a passing nine-year-old to snatch them up. Seen one, seen all.

So after a few minutes we turned our attention to the cray-fish. Much harder to spot and quick off the mark. Armed with Chris' hat and a good dose of enthusiasm, we started tracking them down.

Anyway. We may not have caught one, but at least one caught Jessie. That girl sure can scream when she's not happy. Still, you live and learn. I think we'll stay on the grass next time. Much safer with the cows at this time of year!

Caption Competition

2006-07-08T22:00:00.000Z

Ten minutes of your time

2006-07-04T21:48:00.000Z

Ten things to make you go Hmmmm...

Click this link to view the video

Thanks to Cremation of Care for spotting this one.

Black and white

2006-07-04T19:39:00.000Z

Just got wind of this new movie called Renaisance. from Cyberpunk Review It looks like it's going to be well worth a watch if you're a fan of comics. For my money, any science fiction movie that hasn't been churned out of Hollywood is worth at least a once over.

Having said that, it almost pains me to say this, but I think the remake of War of the Worlds was exellent. The words rather stuck in my throat because I can't stand Tom Cruise. I wish they'd given the part to somebody else but I can't fault him in this.

Click this link to see an English language version of the Renaissance trailer.

sigh 2

2006-07-02T16:18:00.000Z

Is it going to happen in our lifetime, I wonder? After all, the World Cup comes around only every four years. I can't help but wonder if it might finally happen while I'm still able to see it. And DON'T tell me it's all okay because Andy Murray's doing well at Wimbledon because I might just be forced to spit in your eye. Call me a sentimental fool, but I really believed it was going to happen this year. Or rather, I thought that if it was going to be any time it may as well be now. We just seemed to have all our ducks in a row. Until we started losing star talent at a rate that made everything look more like an Agetha Christie novel than a sporting festival, that is.

So what should we do with all the millions of car flags that are out there? Save them for next time round? Already I've noticed several dozen lining the gutters on my way back from town. Well, for what it's worth, I have a simple solution: Take your flag and put it in an envelope. Clearly mark it with the following address:

Portuguese Embassy London
11 Belgrave Square,
London,
SW1X 8PP.

Be sure to mark your envelope "Dive on this, you bastards". No need for a stamp. They can afford it.

A very different world...

2006-06-26T16:28:00.000Z

Remember World War Two?

Well, okay. Neither do I. But you’ve heard about it, right?

Spirit of the Blitz. London Pride. All that?

The government of the day didn’t mind about the bombings that happened every day. They told us it was our patriotic duty to endure it. As we shuffled into the underground stations to let the city burn above us, we took pride in the fact that Fritz wouldn’t get the better of us. We had Stiff Upper Lip. We were made of sterner stuff. We were British.

I can’t help but look back at all that with such a sense of disbelief. When you stop and think about it in its true context. According to the history books, the Germans bombed us first. Think about what was done for a moment. They dropped bombs on civilian population centres.

Now, I know the world was different then, but we’re only talking about a generation ago. We’re only talking about a period of history that doesn’t even add up to a fluttering of an eye in the history of man. They dropped bombs on populated places. Lots of them.

And what did we do? Did we show the world what was being done? Did we go to Italy and Japan and force them to look at what their so called allies were doing? Did we send copies of the pictures to the world’s media?

No. We did it back to them.

It might have been an act of war, but our response justified the original barbarity. In adopting the same tactics, we validated the wholesale slaughter. Rather than saying “Fuck me! Wait on a minute you fucking nutters: there are PEOPLE down here!” We got into our bombers and flattened cities too.

An act which should have FORCED any right minded leader to the negotiating table as fast as his legs could carry him was treated as simply an inconvenience that we could overcome with resolve, bull-dog spirit and fortitude.

Spirit of the Blitz. What an almighty deceit. What a complete and total swindle to unleash on a trusting and gullible public. Hitler may have been a madman, but that didn’t make Churchill any better. He let it happen. Every night, he sent out the message that we would hurt them as much as they hurt us.

Go ahead. We said. Burn down our buildings. We can take it. It’s okay. Carry on. We’ll do it to.

At what point are we going to stop pretending that this was unavoidable? Pop into Germany today and you’ll find monuments to the dead. Just as you will in Britain. People died in their thousands because – and I hate to labour the point – because neither government on EITHER side cared enough about the slaughter of innocents enough to make it stop.

They were all out of their minds. Those fat, bloated idiots, who sat at those tables, and poured men and women into mechanical grinders. Just take a look at them without the spin. It was insane. There’s nothing honourable about dropping explosives onto the homes of foreigners just because your leader can’t be arsed to work out a settlement.

And then we dropped a nuke. Nice.

Again, we’ve made the statements loud and clear:

It’s okay – because we’ve done it.

You can do it to us. It’s fine.

We’ll do it back. But you can do it to us. We would, if we were you.

Gordon Brown has committed us to Trident for the next twenty years.

Good night. And good luck.

sigh

2006-06-24T12:30:00.000Z

Dear Mr Steele

Housing Management Officer

Further to your recent interview for the above post, I am writing to inform you that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.

Should you require feedback on your interview, yada yada yada.

May I take this opportunity of thanking you for your interest shown in Leeds South homes and wish you every success for the future.

Yours sincerely

Yada.

Back to work on Monday, then. Unless my numbers come up at teatime.

Wir lachen an dir

2006-06-21T15:51:00.000Z

Those lovable rogues at Thames Water have been at it again! Not content with introducing a hosepipe ban which has wrecked all the hard work I put into my kids’ garden this year, they’ve just released a profits announcement saying that their takings have shot up by a whole third!

Well done, guys! You can tell that the company is German with such efficiency! But hang on a minute. I notice that Ofwat have criticized them for not making their leakage target again this year. How many is that now? Seven years? Top cheek, Hans!

As long as the share holders keep getting massive profits, that’s okay then, is it? I notice the front page of your website has a link called “Report a leak.” Would it be quicker simply to fax you a diagramme of Southern England?

Remember that place? It’s the island that makes all your MONEY for you, you bloated, useless sausage eating box heads. You just keep enjoying all those profits, okay? Don’t do anything too strenuous like try to put some of that money back into improving the level of SERVICE to the people who are paying for your Mercedes fleet. Don’t let a little detail like that fact that you lose as much water as you deliver put you off your new found hobby of flag waving at the World Cup. After all, I’m sure that the loss of EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETY FOUR MILLION LITRES A DAY is a minor inconvenience when you consider how many stadium tickets you can buy with your THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY SIX MILLION POUNDS of profit this year.

Well done. Really.

Although I notice that you don’t seem to have a catch phrase to go with your logo. Might I suggest “Thames water – We’re laughing at you.” It has a nice ring to it.

Oh. And while we’re on the subject, can you also say Hi to your friends at Powergen and Enpower for me? Both are also German owned utilities companies that are currently under investigation for price fixing. Nice to know that the efficient German way of doing things is pissing on us all so… Efficiently.

Related news on the BBC. Click here.

More Economic Reality

2006-06-20T08:54:00.000Z

Japan has announced that it is pulling its troops out of Iraq, and to the best of my knowledge President Bush hasn’t gone on record as saying that they are now part of the Axis of Evil.

The same happened when the forces from Finland left. Likewise those from Italy.

At some point, the language has changed from “You’re either with us or against us” to “*sigh*. Whatever.”

So why are we still in Iraq? Or, more to the point – why is anyone still occupying that place?

It’s all about the final bill.

You see, funding a massive invasion doesn’t come cheap. At some point, Bush has had to go to congress and get that money. It’s money that has to be repaid. More appropriately, it’s money that has to be secured against something.

So Bush goes to the World Bank, and he borrows fifty gazillion dollars. But to get the money out he secures it against the fact that the new Iraqi government will pay back all the money it has cost to set that government up. Every rifle. Every gallon of kerosene. It all goes onto the great big ledger and is presented to the new Prime Minister of Iraq as a final IOU to be paid in barrels of oil over the next few decades.

While I was in Iraq, I applied for a job with a company that had won the contract to re-establish the water supply to Basrah. As a Terrain Analyst with CAD experience I had pretty much all the qualifications they needed, plus a good few months worth of connections built up with the UN and other organizations out there. I thought I’d be in with a decent chance.

So I rang them up to ask how my application was doing. “Well, Mister Steele. We have had several thousand applicants for the job.”

Several what?

So why would everyone be falling over themselves for a water engineer’s job? Because it paid £90k per year, for two months on, two months off. You can call me old fashioned but I think the only other chance I could have made that amount of money for that amount of work would have been to sign for Chelsea.

How can these companies throw away so much cash? How is it that a truck driver out there can earn about twice as much as the average doctor over here?

Because the new Iraq government is going to pick up the bill. The enormous cash cow out there will have to be slaughtered at some point.

So, when they talk about how important it is that we see the mission through, they’re not joking. It’s absolutely vital that we manage to get a U.S. friendly government in place that can afford to make the payments required to balance the books. If we leave any sooner we’ll be closing the door on (quite literally) a King’s Ransom.

Sad but true, folks. It’s always been about the final bill.

Those countries that are leaving now are waking up to the fact that it simply isn’t going to be worth the wait. One by one the band members are waking up to the fact that they’re not going to get paid at the end of the gig and they’re packing up their instruments and sitting in the van.

We’re just down to the bass player and the lead vocalist now. And the crowd are getting angry.

Waffling with the best of them

2006-06-19T20:34:00.000Z

I had a job interview today, applying to be a Housing Manager at Leeds South Homes. Strange to be getting that jittery feeling all over again. Of course the difference now is that I have a job, which means that I get invited to interviews, rather than simply ignored.

Anyway. It went well, but they're interviewing candidates over two whole days. What are the chances?

I should know by Friday. Of course, they didn't say which Friday. Now I've got a few days of post mortem to wade through, so I can dissect every last word I've uttered and twist the memory of what was probably quite a decent performance until all I've got left is the belief that I've made a complete bollocks of the whole thing.

Human nature. Ain't it great?

Pottery Corner 11

2006-06-15T19:00:00.000Z

Think Pink

Lady in the flirty pink skirt
All summery and pert
Flower print around your legs
Stopped the cars and turned the heads
Passed by like a summer breeze
Turned my sunny thoughts to sleaze
With your flappy wrappy happy dress
Which hugged your curves and more or less
Stole my breath and left me shattered.

She caught my eye that lady
In the flirty pink skirt
With her head aloof and curt
She stopped the traffic passing by
Well, okay – poetic lie
But she made me park my car
When she showed on my radar
To watch and pike and pry
Stealing glances on the sly
If she knew how I had lusted
Do you think she'd be disgusted?
Well at least I'd like to think
That the flirty skirty goddess in the pink
Might actually be flattered.

Shades of the Tree

2006-06-13T20:46:00.000Z

One Tree. Many Views.

'Twas the night of Meg's Wedding

2006-06-13T20:00:00.000Z

This is me toasting the happy couple with best Organic Cider.

Cheers, Mrs Meg and Mr Simon!

Here we go!

2006-06-13T19:50:00.000Z

“The first thing you learn at Wall Street: Never catch a falling knife.” Max Kaiser.

Well, you we can't say we weren't warned. This is exactly what Max and Stacy at Karmabanque have been warning us about all year. Their predictions of a complete economic collapse, runaway inflation, collapsing share prices and soaring interest rates are starting to show up on the mainstream news.

Their warning to buy as much gold as physically possible makes all the other investment tips look like handy hints for the arrangement of table flowers on the Hindenburg. Max has long been telling us that gold is the only currency not based entirely on corruption and lies. Stacy has been patiently pointing out that although house prices may have risen every month, the REAL value of properties (measured against the value of gold) has been falling consistently.

We have a GDP that's supported entirely by loans and credit, and a currency that's backed by nothing and insured only against itself. The whole thing is about to come falling round our ears and nobody is going to be left rich.

This is positively, absolutely, definitely your last chance to buy the ONE commodity that will actually be worth something in a year's time. Sell your house. Sell your car. For God's sake sell your shares. Buy gold. Buy Silver. Hide it under the mattress, then sit back and enjoy the show as America and the evil corporations lose their strangle hold on the world and plunge the polluters into third world obscurity

I know I'll end up with nothing too, but it will be worth it to see the SUV and Pimms crowd sleeping on the streets.

While England Were Winning...

2006-06-10T17:00:00.000Z

...We borrowed Grandad's tent and found a campsite with a pool. Much better than sharing; we had the place to ourselves. (well, for slightly over ninety minutes, at least!)

Unions Resist Reality

2006-06-08T09:20:00.000Z

Trade Union leaders at Amicus, and the Transport and General Worker’s Union have called for a boycott against Peugeot. So, if you buy yourself a shiny new 207, you’re taking bread from the mouths of working class babies. Or something like that.

French owned Peugeot, whose profits have dropped by about a third over the last year, have decided to move production to Slovakia, where the labour available is every bit as skilled and far cheaper to hire. Now I appreciate that this is going to piss a lot of people off in Coventry, but can we all stop ripping our clothes and learn to accept reality please?

We have a global market. It’s a global economy. French companies who built their cars here did so because it suited them, not because they were feeling charitable. If a Slovakian worker will happilly turn up for a quarter as much as an English worker will, what reason could we possibly give Peugot for wanting to stay?

I know job losses are hard. I had a very miserable year looking for work, and it wasn’t easy. I’m still paying off the debt that episode got me into. But at least I didn’t bleat on about the world owing me a job.

Will all the members of the committee please remove their heads from the sand and start putting their energies into coming up with new ways to make business work in a global age, please? Last time I looked you weren’t boycotting Computers because they are made in Japan, and you hadn’t given up buying England flags for our cars just because they were made in China.

People who run companies aren’t stupid. They need to contract out to the lowest bidder because they are trying to be com-pet-it-ive. I realise that’s a new concept for most of you in Trade Union Land but reality doesn't go away just because you don't understand it.

We’ve spent years getting richer and richer at the expense of the rest of the world. Well, now the playing field’s getting levelled off and there’s not a lot you can do to fight it. All the kids in our schools who can’t be bothered to do your homework. All those students who really don’t care whether they drop out or not: WAKE UP!

If you live in an economy where you demand five times as much for your services as everyone else in the world, then you’d better be five times better than the competition.

Oh, and by the way: You’re not.

Boycott economic reality? Fight Globalization? Yeah, right. Too late. We made that choice as soon as we let the Romans fix the plumbing.

The BBC has an interesting Q&A page on the Peugot closure. Click this link to read more.

Poly Whatzername

2006-06-07T16:21:00.000Z

Picture the scene: An investment banker (That’s rhyming slang) who makes his living out of screwing the environment and causing famine and suffering in the third world for pleasure and profit, manages to get together an obscene amount of immorally-earned capital large enough to buy himself a house in the country.

The house used to be a farm, but since price fixing by supermarket giants had eroded his profits there was not enough money to keep it going. The farmer’s children were also unable to find houses locally because all the fat, bloated, orange-in-the-mouth Tory bankers had pushed the price of country dwellings through the roof so that locals could no longer afford them.

So, these city dwellers come out to enjoy living in the countryside and simply LOVE driving their SUVs into town. And their flabby Tory wives take the spare SUV to Tesco to buy bottled water that’s been flown half way across the world (“Because one can’t trust the water these days.”) and then they buy special ECO FRIENDLY bottles of Domestos (“Because one has to do one’s bit for the planet.”) And then they get back in their SUVs to drive home via the nearest heated outdoor swimming pool.

Their obnoxious, arrogant, label obsessed Tory kids kids are educated in a school several dozen miles away (“Well, you don’t get the same quality of schooling in these backwater places.”) while the local school is closed down through lack of support. Along with the local Post Office. The local bank. The local library. The local store.

The village becomes a dormitory. A shadow of its former self with house prices that are almost as inflated as their bloated owners’ portfolios.

And then they decide that the countryside isn’t what it was cracked up to be. There are bad noises and bad smells. The Daily Mail makes headlines of their pathetic whining, and we start to get action groups and committees, while their claims become more and more petty.

First it was Fox Hunting. (I don’t like it, either, but it’s yet another erosion of the working countryside, and an expectation that the “natives” should fall into line with the expectations and sensibilities of townsfolk who’ve never even seen a fox.) Then Noel Edmunds and his gang of idiots tried to ban the so called “giant wind turbines”. (Mainly because they all had so many bonds tied up in Exxon that they didn’t want to see the competition doing well..)

And now? Effing POLY TUNNELS!

They’re bitching about poly tunnels, used for strawberry growing. They are complaining that the tunnels on the fields SPOIL THEIR VIEW!

Am I the only one who thinks this is so entirely fucked up that it’s actually worth taking a shotgun to the nearest patio-heated Pimms party and letting them all have it with both barrels?

Get this – all of you: The countryside is not a theme park. It is a working environment. It has a job to do. And that job is PRODUCING FOOD. It isn’t there to look good, or to conform to a Bill Oddie-esque utopian picture post-card landscape. It’s there to make a living.

Remember that? Those people who used to work the land here?

Well of course you won’t. Your friendly branch of Tescos has pushed down the prices so far that now the few farmers that are left can only afford to employ pickers from POLAND. And THEN you moan because there are so many foreigners working here. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? THEY WORK FOR WHAT YOU WILL PAY OVER THE COUNTER.

If you keep supporting Asda and Tesco while they drop their prices through the floor, don’t be surprised if the only way we can continue to grow and sell food in this country is via slave labour. And foreign workers.

And if you’ve managed to force the price of houses up so far that nobody who works locally can get a look in, DON’T START BLEATING ABOUT IT WHEN YOUR HOME LOSES VALUE ON THE OPEN MARKET BECAUSE THE VIEW ISN’T RIGHT.

Do me a favour. Do the planet a favour.

Drink the eco-friendly Domestos. Drive your SUV into a heated outdoor swimming pool. Drown yourself in Evian if you have to. Just PLEASE, take yourself out of the countryside. Better still; out of the gene pool.

I promise you that the world won’t miss you.

Six Nil. Bugger!

2006-06-04T09:41:00.000Z

I put a bet on for Crouch to score first, and for the final score to be 3-1. Oh well. It was worth the trip just for the singing!

By the way...

2006-05-10T16:00:00.000Z

I've posted a rant here. Thought you might like to know.

Entertainment (?) News.

2006-05-02T21:30:00.000Z

Top American con artist David Blaine has announced that he will be spending the next three weeks up his own arsehole.

“It’s not about publicity.” He told our reporters. “This is a quest to find my inner self. And explore my deepest longings.” He then went on to publicly soil himself and shove a wax crayon up his nose.

Blaine shot to fame after spending several weeks in isolation at the top of a flag pole, buried in ice, and at the Liberal Democrats annual conference. He was jeered and heckled in London, although he expects a warmer reception in New York.

“Most Americans haven’t worked out what a total prick he is.” One of his brain doubles informed us. “But then again they re-elected George Bush, so go figure.”

Round the cock live coverage of David weighing anchor in poo bay continues on Sky One.

Photo Dump

2006-04-30T10:37:00.000Z

While I'm busy with i-con, I thought it might be nice to upload some images, just so you know I'm still alive. A random bag from last month...

CLEVER Monkey Man!

2006-04-19T21:38:00.000Z

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, has announced that he wants changes to be made to the way compensation is reviewed after miscarriages of justice have been announced.

The long and the short of it is that under new plans, the term “Misscarriage of Justice” will be replaced by the more politically acceptable “Not Proven Verdict” So now, when new evidence is uncovered that might prove someone’s innocence, or when a conviction is found to be unsafe due to the defendant having the confession beaten out of them, we can at least take comfort in knowing that rather than a travesty of justice, what’s really happened is just a routine administrative detail.

The legislation is a money spinning venture, designed to stem payments made to people who are wrongly imprisoned. Thanks to the new legislation, payments to compensate for an innocent person losing his job, house and liberty will be drastically reduced, with those being jailed for a year or less receiving no recompense at all.

According to Mr Clarke, this will free up more money to compensate the victims of crime, rather than subsidising the criminals.

Hang about, though. Aren’t we talking about compensation being paid for false imprisonment? You know? As in - being sent to prison for something you haven’t done?

Good news for the victims of crime. Not such good news for the victims of dodgy police work or a corrupt and racist legal system.

Thanks to New Labour’s recent erosion of the law, the government is already at liberty to detain you without trial. And now, it’s also quite within its rights to convict you without evidence. It’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it.

It won’t cost us a penny.

Nice one, Charles!

Four things meme

2006-04-18T21:58:00.000Z

I was tagged by Val. So here is my contribution:

4 Jobs I’ve had in my life
Public Relations for a Construction Company
Crime Analyst in Westminster
Soldier (Map maker in the Royal Engineers)
Personal Saviour

4 Movies I could watch over and over
Erm… Erm…
Nope. Got me there.
Oh: Bladerunner.
Three More? No chance.

4 Websites I visit regularly
Karma Banque
Weebls Stuff
BBC Radio 4
Arksanctum

4 Favourite foods
Sunday Breakfast (With decent coffee)
Granary Bread
White bread Chip Buttie with ketchup and real butter
Seconds

4 Places I would rather be right now
Loch Ness
Cadir Idris (A hill in Wales)
Robin Hood’s Bay
Bed. (Who with is my own business)

4 Books I could read over and over.
Zen and the Art of Writing – Ray Bradbury
Vurt by Jeff Noon (We are not worthy…)
i-con by David Steele (Hey – if I didn’t think it was worth plugging I wouldn’t waste my time on it!)
Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett

4 Songs I could listen to over and over
Mahler’s second symphony
Orbital – in Sides (Whole CD)
Philip Glass – The Hours (Whole CD)
Nick Cave – Into my Arms

4 Reasons why I Blog
I’m not on TV
I have an over-inflated sense of my own importance
To satisfy my craving for attention
Because Karen doesn’t know about it.

I will tag Jacki because it’s been too long…

i-con part one...

2006-04-15T09:43:00.000Z

... is now complete and online.

It can be read as a self-contained story, so I suggest you give it a try now rather than wait a year for part two!

You can find a list of all chapters by clicking this link.

The Theory of Gravity (Supplemental Post)

2006-03-25T12:20:00.000Z

Disclaimer - Before any REAL physicists get hot under the collar can I just apologise now for anything I've got wrong with this? Technical corrections welcome. Thanks.

This is an EXTRA Theory of Gravity essay that has been slipped in to explain the actual physics of gravity. Part four will follow shortly. Whilst I think this part will help to clarify my ideas in coming posts, anyone following the series should feel free to skip this post if they’re not interested in physics.

Gravity is an invisible force. It’s also a relatively weak one. The further you move from an object, the less effect it has on you. It’s over simplifying things a bit, but the basic law of gravity can be summed up like this: Gravity follows an inverse square law, which means that for every unit of distance you move away from an object, its gravitational pull loses twice as much strength. Or something like that! So why do we say that gravity is actually quite a weak force?

Well, for a start, It’s not a patch on magnetism or electricity. Anyone can fight gravity, if only for a moment. Every time you jump into the air, you’re temporarily overcoming its power. Birds manage to stay in the sky with virtually no effort, because the dynamic laws keeping them up there manage to cancel out the effect of gravity with virtually no energy cost. That said, as soon as we stop flapping, as soon as we cease to be able to fight against the force, the result is generally inevitable and terminal.

Imagine we have a rocket that weighs ten kilos. If we want to get it to fly a hundred metres into the air, all we need to do is work out how much energy we need to get it up there. We need a thrust capable of exerting more than ten kilos, and then the rocket will simply be pushed up in response to the extra energy. If our rocket motor provides a thrust of eleven kilos, then only that eleventh kilo will actually make the rocket go up. Oddly enough, exactly the same amount of push will be applied to the earth, so technically the earth will move a little bit too. But I wouldn’t get too carried away by this. In fact, literaly speaking, you won’t get carried away at all.

Now, once our rocket is in motion, it has a certain amount of inertia. The object is moving up, which means that when the force comes out of the back and pushing against the air molecules around it, it is adding to the rocket’s momentum and it moves a little faster. In other words, we have acceleration. This will continue for as long as we manage to push out more energy from the back of the rocket than it weighs. We are beating the effect of gravity and the inertia of our vehicle is making that force less and less effective against us.

But it is still there. Gravity doesn’t give up. It’s being exerted all the time as a constant force. (Let’s not split hairs about the weakening effect of gravity with distance. We’re only talking about a hundred metres up and in astronomical terms that sort of measurement is small enough to make no odds). As soon as we stop pushing out that force, as soon as we cease to exert less energy than the mass of our vehicle, then gravity will win out. Our rocket will decelerate; eventually it will lose inertia, stop, and then start to slide back down to earth, picking up speed as it falls, until it reaches terminal velocity.

And at this stage, it would take an awful lot of energy to slow it down again. Because now the inertia is working with gravity. To halt this descent now would require an energy output equal to the mass of the object multiplied by its falling speed. It would take maybe ten times the force to stop it as it did to start it from a stand still. Suddenly our little engine isn’t nearly powerful enough and it’s time to get friendly with the ground again.

The old maxim of “What goes up, must come down” is no longer true. We’ve broken the barrier and sent objects beyond our own little gravity well. In these days of cheap air travel and ridiculously phallic tower blocks, perhaps our new maxim should be “What goes up, better darn well stay up.”

But anyway. I just thought it was worth mentioning all of this to put gravity in context with the rest of these essays. It will help us to remember these simple factors as we progress through the next few posts:

1 – Gravity is a weak force, but it gets stronger when you’re close to it.

2 – Gravity can be fought against but it requires constant effort.

3 – As soon as gravity has you, it tales a lot of energy to escape it.

4 – Inertia works both ways, but gravity only works one way.

In The Theory of Gravity Part 4, I will discuss how the gravity of popularity and social taboo affects all of us, and look at what happens when a society goes into free fall.

Scenes From an Amazing Weekend

2006-03-21T21:22:00.000Z

Saturday started with a trip to Avebury stone circle and Silbury Hill. It was absolutely FREEZING! We kept warm by playing follow-my-leader up and down the moat.

Jessie decided the stone looked like a nose. I'm not entirely sure why that meant she had to sit in the nostral.

In a bid to get a bit warmer we braved the prices in the National Trust Cafe. Chris decided to take on the awesome responsibility of seeing how many Skittles he could fit in his mouth at once.

It was only a short trip to Devizes from there. Neither of them had seen Caen Hill Locks, so it was well worth the trip. they were having so much fun running across all the bridges that they forgot to get tired.

We counted every lock. Just to be sure.

On the way home we called in on the Windmill near Great Bedwyn...

...So that I could practice using the timer on the camera.

On Sunday we ventured out to Snelsmore Common near Hungerford. In this image we were sneaking up on the enemy's tower to blow it up.

And then we were looking for a crashed helicopter! (Although we didn't find one)

If the Goarse is out, you can bet summer isn't far behind.

The loggers on the common had very kindly left us building materials, so we decided to declare our independance and build a place of our own.

Yes kids. Honest. If you rub the sticks for long enough, you'll get a campfire going...

We finished off by stalking some of the wild ponies, but we didn't catch any. Just as well really. I don't think their mum would have been pleased when we brought it back with us.

The Theory of Gravity - Part Three

2006-03-14T22:36:00.000Z

You’ve probably heard the expression “Quantum Leap” being used before. If you have, then I guarantee that you’ve heard it used wrongly. It refers, not to a large change, or a sudden massive shift in direction. A quantum leap is a tiny, almost immeasurable alteration that leads to a much greater change later on.

The moment when somebody says “yes” to this strange dreamer’s Big Idea is one of those microscopic leaps. At the time, all that’s taken place is a whispered conversation in a coffee shop, or in a traffic jam on the way to a meeting, but the consequences of that exchange will bring about a shift of such proportions that to trace it all backwards would make it all unspeakably absurd. How so much chaos could come from such an insignificant event would baffle all who tried to unravel its path.

But once these things get started, it’s almost easier for them to pick up momentum than lose it. Remember out cloth sheet? Well, as soon as one or two people align themselves with our catalyst, other people will start to spot the centre of mass. It becomes a self-fuelling syllogism: More people are attracted to our man, so more people are attracted to him.

Again, the reason for this isn’t because there’s anything special about our catalyst. His Big Idea will most likely remain the treasured information of a highly select few. It all boils down, yet again to that most simple equation: He looks like he’s going to become the most powerful person around so it makes sense to be as close to him as possible.

Now, somewhere along the way, our man actually becomes powerful. He’s not born this way. It’s a condition that he inherits simply because those around him believe it to be so. Ultimately, all power is a confidence trick. We like to talk about a seizing power, as if the person who has become powerful has snatched it in some way way, but it’s simply not how it works. Those with power gain it only because the people around them believe they have it already. Power is always given. Never taken.

You can see this when ever there’s a party leadership contest. People scramble to pin their colours to which ever mast looks the most likely to win. It’s not about who represents your point of view. Political leaders have long memories, and the last thing you would want to do is find yourself stood shoulder to shoulder with a losing candidate. If there’s even a sniff that your fellow is going to lose, it’s far better to ditch him than to be dragged down with him. In this way, power is bestowed on the winner before the votes are even cast, so the election becomes a mere formality.

In terms of gravity our catalyst has become very heavy indeed. In fact he’s become so heavy that now he’s got more mass than anything else around him. At this point, there is a change in gravity from positive to negative. It is now not simply advantageous to align yourself to our man, but it is now actually dangerous to align yourself against him. The more power he achieves, the bigger the other objects are that get sucked into his gravity well. Those bigger objects that fall into his centre of mass, in turn, end up adding to his political weight.

As soon as this happens, you have what astrophysicists call a black hole. Or, in political terms, you have what we like to call a dictator.

But this isn’t the end of the story. This is just about how we set our catalyst up. What comes next is the really interesting part, because it’s all about you.

The Theory of Gravity - Part Two

2006-03-13T22:45:00.000Z

What do Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, Slobodan Milosevic, Robert Mugabe, Tony Blair, Joseph Stalin and George W Bush have in common?

They were all voted into power.

I know that sounds obvious. I know it sounds like the most stupid thing to say, but just think about it like this for a moment: Haven’t they been exceptionally lucky to have got where they are? Just think. For each of these people, there must have been a time when it might not have happened. There must have been a time when the people around them could have said no. Or, just to spell it out even more plainly; there must have been a time when those around them would have said no.

The Nazi Party didn’t “seize” power in Germany any more than the Communists “Seized” Russia. These were not overnight coups. This was not an unexpected operation with the frightened masses cowering behind their windows as the armies marched beneath their bedrooms. They were cheered into office. The streets were lined with flag wavers. Every dictator, to a man, was heralded as a national hero and saviour of the people. Whoever they were, they were elevated to the status of gods by those around them.

But why? Or, more importantly: how? It wasn’t as if these counties had a dictatorship lottery. It wasn’t as if they just walked into a crowded parliament building and shouted, “Hang about lads. I’ve got a great idea…”

This is the theory of gravity.

First of all, we need a main ingredient. Some call it a “depression” or a “recession”, but I believe the phrase we favour these days is a “necessary downturn”. Either way, you need plenty of people out of work and poor. Preferably you could do with both.

And then you need someone who has a different idea. This is the catalyst. We need his idea to be so radical, so unthinkable that just speaking about this idea in public would land him in trouble. So what we do is we just leave that idea in his head, and we let him stew.

(I should mention that throughout this whole article, I will be referring to our dictator as “He.” Whilst I realise that there are plenty of Margaret Thatchers and Ayn Rands out there who are all quite capable of forming their own cults around themselves, I think it will be much easier if I simply assume my dictator is male.)

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes. Gravity. I’m getting there.

So this idea stews. It’s a good idea, and it simply refuses to go away. It might be a formula for the success of the nation. It might be a deep-seated loathing of a particular power group. It might be a deep-rooted certainty that God has chosen you to do His will. But what ever it is, it will be deep, and it will refuse to be quiet. Our catalyst will do his best to get his thoughts together. Perhaps he’ll write a book about his ideas. Perhaps he’ll take up performance arts, try his hand at painting, start blogging. It doesn’t matter. These are all just outward manifestations of the inner desire. They are expressions of the mental furnace. Creativity to these people becomes little more than a safety valve on a pressure cooker. Deprived of any real power with which to exercise that idea, their output becomes nothing more than a mechanism to avoid getting rabbit stew al over the kitchen ceiling.

Right now, our catalyst is a very lonely man. People won’t like him. He’s single minded and driven, but he won’t tell you what about. This is because he knows you won’t get it. His big idea is too big, and too dangerous to share. So he keeps it to himself, but he still won’t let it go. It drives him. The rest of us are just not relevant. Getting a job, keeping a girlfriend. None of it really matters. He might try to educate himself, but his head only has room for this one big idea. So nothing else really sticks. He’s going to drift like that, just like a seed blown by the wind, until he finds the little patch of fertile ground that we like to call Politics.

Again. He’ll keep quiet. He’ll join a party that most closely suits his background, even if that party bares no resemblance to his Big Idea. (See how it’s capitalized all of a sudden? It’s not just an idea any more. Now it’s a Big Idea.) And he’ll work his bloody socks off. He’ll do the jobs that others won’t. He’ll work double shifts on his birthday if he has to. He’ll sing the party song, he’ll sell all his worldly possessions, he’ll do absolutely anything, even shaft his best friends, if it will result in advancement.

How do we know this? Because, in the cut and thrust world of politics, only those who are prepared to do this can ever get to the top. No politically successful person has ever got to be head of a party without betraying trust, offering hollow promises, lying, toadying or cheating. It’s just not that sort of game.

But somewhere along the way, our catalyst will find one or two people who recognise something in him. They’ll spot the hunger. They’ll see the craving of the truly driven and they’ll know that this man has got the potential to be… Powerful!.

And this is where the gravity starts. One or two men will align themselves to him. Not only that, but they’ll tell him so. They’ll do little things that will prove their loyalty. They’ll help him out, even to their own detriment, since they’ll have worked out that if it’s not going to be them at the top, then at least it might be wise to be close to the one who is.

At this point, while he’s still a very tiny object, only just managing to stand out from those around him by the tiniest of margins, he’ll do it: He’ll whisper his Big Idea…

Now, at this time, this idea goes against what we might think of as acceptable. As far as conventional wisdom goes, this idea is wrong. Just voicing this idea might get him sacked. It might even get him thrown in jail. Which is what makes the timing of this moment so absolutely critical.

At this point, the men will ask themselves a question: “Is he worth it?” It’s as simple as that. Not “is it a good idea?” Or “Can this big idea work?” That’s not important right now. What they’ll ask themselves is “Is it worth the risk? Is this man going to reward me enough, or become important enough to make me glad I stuck with him?” If (and it’s a big if,) the answer is “No.”, then forget the whole thing. He’s lost the game. End of story.

However, if the answer is “Yes.”, then we have a very different situation on our hands. What we have now are the beginnings of real gravity.

Imagine a sheet held flat above the ground by four people. One at every corner. Roll a big marble into the middle and it doesn’t make much of an impact. Now add a couple more and they tend to stick together at the middle. Now add a few more, and the marbles all tend to stick in the same spot, and even drag the sheet down at the middle with their collective weight.

You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you?

Good. Then come back tomorrow and we’ll talk more.

The Theory of Gravity - Part One.

2006-03-12T21:57:00.000Z

More than ten years ago I was sent to Croatia as part of NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force. Everybody was busy kicking nine shades of shit out of the Muslims, and the UN had failed to protect much more than their own interests, standing idly by while innocents played dodge-the-mortar in the village square.

So somebody in power decided to do something more positive. The result was the RRF’s deployment to a distinctly shitty harbour complex called Ploce. (say Plotchy). The gimmick for this deployment was that we had green vehicles, which made us look altogether tougher than the white UN wagons. We meant business.

Or something like that. We never actually got used or anything. We did a lot of sunbathing, until the rainy season started. Then we did a lot of swearing and waking up with turds floating past our sleeping bags. Nice.

I was a map maker, and the nice thing about that was that I had a great excuse to get out and see some of the country. I set off for what was pretty much a glorified sight seeing trip on the premise of making a gazetteer of road junctions.

I wouldn’t recommend war tourism, to be honest. You’ve seen one burnt out village, you’ve seen them all. After a while every drunken border guard who sticks a rusty Kalashnikov barrel through your window looks pretty much like the last. And the seas of sweetie-begging Muslim orphans that swarm around your Land Rover when you stop to measure culverts just get plain tedious.

Bosnia had some interesting building styles. Particularly striking were the charred remains of Mosques in Mostar, or the cindered rubble that had once been whole communities in Gornji Vakuf. Seriously, though. If you’ve never seen real bullet holes in the side of a school, consider yourself uniquely honoured and privileged. Even long after any violence has taken place, the sight of those cone shaped holes has the power to make you feel like you’re swimming with sharks. Every sense you have is suggesting that maybe now would be a good time to be elsewhere.

One morning I called at the burger stand to find a young woman serving, where normally a middle aged man would be. I asked where he was.

“Oh.” The girl replied. “He’s away fighting today. He won’t be back until next week.”

“He’s doing what?”

“He’s fighting. You know? The war?”

I bought my burger, but I didn’t go back again.

Now, what had I expected? And how hypocritical was it for me – a soldier – to be so disgusted at the idea of this man fighting for something he believed to be right?

But it wasn’t the same. The situation in Bosnia had never been a fair, stand-up fight. Right from the moment the first shot was fired it was a massacre. Muslims fell in their thousands (without a suicide bomber in sight), whole towns were raised to dust as neighbour turned on neighbour. Otherwise peaceful, normal men became butchers and rapists, spurred on by the words of a brutal and savage few at the very top and the quiet compliance of everyone around them who did the same thing without question.

I still have a problem with Croatia. Although, to be fair, they took a hell of a pounding from the Serbs, and when they took up arms, it was with good reason. (Their war was initially a fight for independance against greater Serbia). It would just have been a nice thing if they'd stopped there, rather than going all out to incinerate evrey Muslim male they could find. Every time I see their flag being waved, or watch something as innocent as their national football team lining up to sing their Anthem, I feel that quiet loathing at the pit of my stomach, reminding me that I’m every inch as bigoted and racist as the next man, no matter how much I try to pretend I’m too liberal to think such thoughts. I hate not being able to shrug my shoulders and forget all about it like everyone else in Europe seems to have done.

More Photos. Sorry!

2006-03-12T14:48:00.000Z

Work in Progress - "Tidy Your Room"

2006-03-11T16:49:00.000Z

I was really enjoying this, until my Wacom Pen started doing very strange things. It feels like there are blind spots that are not working properly, and the cursor point is dancing all over the screen when I try and draw.

I re-installed the driver, and oddly enough it worked for another ten minutes before doing the same thing again. (sigh) Maybe it's nature's way of telling me to concentrate on writing.

Caption competition

2006-03-06T22:35:00.000Z

Cameron, Davis and Heseltine

2006-03-06T22:08:00.000Z

I heard the news today (oh boy) that Cameron has brought Heseltine back from the dead. Some things are better left well alone. Mark my words...

I started this one a bit late, so I told myself I'd just give it an hour and see what happened.

Given the time I would have re-worked a lot of it. If not all. I hate Cameron's left hand. But it's bed time. Maybe I'll come back to it some other time, by which time it won't be topical any more. So there's not a lot of point, is there?

For what it's worth, the caption would have been "But master, remember what happened last time?"

Blue Stuff

2006-03-05T21:29:00.000Z

Out walking today. As if I've not walked enough this weekend.

Click all images to enlarge them.

Only these three out of about twenty were worth uploading. What do you think?

I'm just going out for a walk. I may be some time.

2006-03-05T10:02:00.000Z

All my own fault. I’d heard the weather warning at lunchtime but I didn’t think it would actually amount to anything. Back then there was still a healthy amount of blue sky. Surely, there couldn’t be enough snow falling in a couple of hours to make me end up walking home, could there?

Well, I was right. There really wasn’t that much snow. Not by Captain Scott’s standards. I’ve certainly seen (and driven) through plenty worse. The problem was that it rained. Not for terribly long, but just long enough to cover the roads with a sheet of ice. Deep joy.

After a few miles I joined a long queue of cars that were struggling to get up the hill to Queensbury. It’s not even as if Queensbury is the sort of place that people would want to queue to get into. It’s famous for being the highest village in Yorkshire. Or something like that. Not the sort of place that people normally wait in line for. After quite a wait it seemed pretty obvious that nobody was actually making it up the hill, so a few of the people at the front decided to turn round. Until then I hadn’t actually noticed that nobody seemed to be coming down the hill, either. It was only when those who had turned around slipped past me sideways that I realised we were in for some fun.

I watched everyone else make a mess of things and then told myself I could do better than that. I have nice fat tyres and plenty of experience. I could turn round on a little bit of a slippery road, couldn't I? It wasn't as if I was likely to lose my grip with all my….. Oh, bugger.

Everything had been going fine until I tried to steer and brake at the same time. I was heading into a lovely green-lit junction, but I needed to turn right even though the car was completely convinced that straight on would be much more fun. Worse still, I needed to wait my turn, but the car had had enough of waiting patiently. In the end we compromised for a forty five degree traverse across the path of oncoming traffic with my hazard warning lights on and everyone having the good sense to keep well out of the way. Somehow I avoided everyone, or at least everyoe avoided me, but it was definitely more by luck than judgement on my part. I think mine was just about the last car to make it through that ice rink.

Plan B was to head into Bradford and make my way home via the city and the busier valley roads. I figured that the sheer volume of traffic would be enough to keep the roads passable. But as I head down the hill into town, I saw brake lights go on ahead, and as soon as I tried to stop, felt the familiar rumble that meant the car wasn’t really in a mood for stopping. There was no reduction in speed at all. I tried again. Twice, three times. Thankfully the car in front couldn’t stop either, and as her little 4 x 4 turned through ninety degrees ahead of me, I looked in the mirror and saw a dark blue Transit doing exactly the same thing. Somehow, again, we all managed to avoid smacking into each other and anyone else, despite ploughing through a Pelican Crossing to the amazement of onlookers.

I think this is what’s called Brown Trousers Time. Anyway, I’d had enough. I found a side street and parked up, deciding on the spot that I’d walk it home even if it took me all night. Anything had to be better than introducing oncoming traffic to my front bumper.

Thankfully I’d already packed my weekend bag (because it was supposed to have been my weekend to visit Itchy and Scratchy) so at least I had extra warm gear to change into. I put my best foot forward, and worked out that if I had to walk the whole way I would probably make it back by about midnight. A few minutes later I watched a police car lose its back end, and walked past a couple of salesmen who were swapping insurance details next to their newly compacted BMWs.

So I made the calls. I apologised to the kids that Daddy would have to come down some other time. I called home and explained what was going on to Karen and she automatically switched to Worried Sick Mode. Bless her. She may not be much use in a crisis, but at least she’s consistent. She said that there was a little bit of snow at home, but it was nothing like bad enough to stop traffic. Odd how the weather varies over such short distances. If I didn’t know better I’d think it was a conspiracy.

I took a short cut along some country lanes, passing the odd stranded motorist in various states of giving up and accepting the inevitable. At one point I met a family in a Sherpa who were trying to reverse up a slope that they’d polished so well you could’ve seen your face in it. I nodded to them as I went by, and they acknowledged me with worried looking smiles, each of them staring into space and quietly willing the wheels to grip, just a little.

After a couple of miles I made it back onto my usual route, heading up the hill towards Queensbury. The traffic going back the other way was nose to nose and at a complete stand-still. There was simply nobody going my way. It was quite spooky really. Every other driver wanted to know what the problem was, and I made a point in warning them all that the Brown Cow Junction was impassable and that the best thing to do would be to give up and turn around. This wasn’t due to any sense of civic duty, you understand. It’s just that I figured I had a better chance of scrounging a lift if I persuaded somebody to actually drive the way I was walking.

But it didn’t do much good. I kept my thumb out until it was blue, and all I got to show for it was a blue thumb. When I finally got to Queensbury (after walking past about three miles of completely stationary traffic) I called in a chip shop. “You’ll have to wait for chips love.” The woman sighed. “We’re snowed under with stranded motorists. Poor lad can’t cope.”

For the record, the chips at that shop must be the greasiest in Britain. But I was cold and hungry and they tasted divine. They picked up my spirits just enough to see me through the next few miles. The stationary cars were still lined up, but nobody was asking me what the problem was any more. They were relatively new to the queue, and hadn’t reached the point where they were desperate enough to ask a chip-eating stranger what was going on.

By that time I’d reached the opposite side of the hill and was heading down into the valley that would lead all the way to Huddersfield, There was still snow on the ground, but it looked relatively safe to drive on. This must have been the extent of the rain that had caused all the ice trouble, which meant that the roads were probably safe for the rest of the way home. It was half past seven and I’d been walking for a good couple of hours. My work shoes were pinching and I was fed up with the whole Littlest Hobo thing. I called Karen.

“Hi. I’ve walked clear of the icy roads, but I’ve still got about twelve more miles to do before I get home. Can you come and get me?”

“I’d love to, sweetheart, but I promised my sister I’d babysit and I don’t want to be late.”

“Sorry? Have I got a bad signal? It’s going to take me about another four hours if I walk.”

“Oh dear. It’s just that you said you’d try to get a lift.”

“Yes. But nobody stopped.”

“Sorry, love. I don’t want to let her down.”

“Right.”

“Okay then?”

“Fine.”

”Sorry love. I feel a bit awkward.”

“No problem.”

“Bye then.”

I had thoughts in my head. I had words, too. None of them were terribly pleasant.

* * *

And that should have been the end. That would have been cool, wouldn’t it?

But it wasn’t. Five minutes later, a White Van Man passed by and stopped for me. He took me to within a mile of home, and jolly grateful I was, too. It just goes to show you that even when things look completely hopeless, you should always keep your thumb out.

On the way home he treated me to his interesting political views, which revolved around the fact that Enoch Powell had been right all along and that immigrants are coming in to the country to steal our jobs and bleed the good old English pensioners dry.

Naturally I corrected him. I told him he was a racist bigot and reminded him that he desperately needed the influx of cheap foreign workers to pay into the dwindling National Insurance pot and keep his pension going. I set him straight.

No I didn’t. His van was warm and dry, and the miles were slipping away with each passing minute. I sat and listened to his fascist monologue and nodded my head in all the right places.

I might have been a hypocrite, but at least I was a warm hypocrite.

Doodles with my new pen.

2006-03-03T22:15:00.001Z

I got home at about nine after getting a lift with a passing White Van Man. Full story tomorrow. I've just thawed out whilst scribbling and listening to The News Quiz. Now I'm off for a very hot bath and a brandy.

Pottery Corner 10

2006-03-02T22:22:00.000Z

More Than a Thousand Days

I never dream of you,
Only that you were once not here.
I cannot remember your face,
Only that once I did not see it.
I do not long for you,
As I never let you go.
I do not await your return,
Only to know that you never left.
This is not silence,
Only the space between your words.

To Daddy

2006-03-01T21:27:00.000Z

But this is Halifax. Not Brighton...

2006-02-28T21:42:00.000Z

The World According to Jessica

2006-02-27T20:36:00.000Z

Saddam's Claim Disrupts Court Again

2006-02-14T16:29:00.000Z

Saddam Hussein entered the court in a relatively sombre mood today, but his restraint did not last long. He began by shouting "Long Live Iraq - Long Live Our Nation!" before taking his seat.

Soon after, Saddam's former Minister for Defence announced that he had not eaten in Two days.

"I haven't eaten in THREE!" Saddam shouted, springing to his feet. "I'm on huger strike!"

Shortly after, Saddam's former Minister for Defence announced that he had just shit his pants.

"I've just had TWO shits!" Saddam shouted, jumping up onto his desk. When he was aked to sit down, the former President pointed at his former Minister and said "He started it!"

The court were kept in at playtime and not allowed to use the sandpit all afternoon.

Me and My Dad Having a Top Laugh

2006-02-13T20:28:00.000Z

It's not every day you get to have a go at rocketry. We built it, loaded the camera, carried it out onto the common (To a rousing chorus of "It'll Never Work") and set up the ignition system.

How exciting! This rocket is launched electronically, shoots five hundred feet up into the air on a gunpowder engine, then blasts apart to deploy a parachute and take pictures with its nose cone camera.

At least that's the theory.

You can't exactly see it on the photo, but the rocket is about twelve feet in front of Chris. The Official Photographer was finding it difficult to get to grips with the technology, but at least Chris managed to count backwards from ten, even if I wasn't able to get the key fitted in time for the launch. Oh well. It wouldn't be a rocket launch without a few last minute hitches, would it?

Anyway. Guess what? It actually worked!

And five hundred feet up is a bloody long way!

I can't recommend these things enough. Next time we launch I'll leave the mechanics to Chris and try to take some decent snaps, and if the aerial photos develop I'll be sure to post them.

Awesome. Snapshot rockets are available from Estes. You KNOW you want one!

(Photography by David Bailey)

What Weekends Were Invented For

2006-02-13T11:19:00.000Z

Danegeld

2006-02-11T22:49:00.000Z

Blair got a decent round of applause yesterday. He stood up before the cameras and announced that our age-old right to the freedom of speech should not be exercised at the risk of our other fundamental right – the right to life. The crowd loved it, but I wonder how many of them actually stopped to think about what he actually said. It boils down to this – “We can’t upset them or they might kill us.” That’s not multicultural tolerance. That’s simply submitting to blackmail.

I have been told that I should respect other people’s beliefs. I have been told that everyone else’s faith is just as valid as my own love of empirical science. I have been told that I should not criticize and speak out against religious beliefs, whether held by the minority or the majority.

I disagree.

I no longer believe the lie that all beliefs are equal. I refuse to respect the beliefs of Creationists who want to hide their lack of scientific understanding with a mystic fairy tale. I refuse to accept the word of anyone who perpetuates the myth that there is a life after death, especially if that myth includes an eternal reward or punishment as an added incentive to make sure I do as they tell me. I cannot bring myself to respect the belief in voodoo (for example) or to respect the faith of ministers who denounce children as witches, or possessed, and send them to Africa to be killed.

So it might surprise you to know that I regard the publishing of the insulting cartoon images of the Islamic Prophet as entirely unacceptable.

As well as the right to free speech, those of us who regard ourselves as civilised we also have a responsibility not to act like a twat. I would not be arrested for laughing at a cripple in a wheel chair, but if I did such a thing I’d deserve a good kicking. I would not be arrested for singing Rugby songs in a Primary School, but again, if I did, I would be totally out of order.

Every society has boundaries. Every civilisation is founded on an agreement to adhere to certain common principles. The reason we can drive down the street in relative safety is because we all consent to stick to the Highway Code. We don’t get to choose which side of the road we want to drive on any more than an individual can make his/her own mind up about what the rest of society should or should not find acceptable.

European society has become very good at showing the proper “Respect”, but still remains completely hopeless when it comes to experiencing empathy. Muslims place their relationship with God at the heart of everything they do. To a Muslim, every minute of the day is a gift from God. Your time, your body and your spirit are there at the will of the Creator. We cannot begin to understand just how offensive it must be to see someone taking the piss out of their Prophet without accepting how important that prophet is to them.

The fact that I don’t believe what they believe shouldn’t stop me from understanding how it would feel to do so. For example, I wouldn’t be impressed if somebody insulted my kids or my parents, however much somebody else might have the legal right to do so.

As an atheist, it is important to me that I live in a society that allows me to express beliefs which I regard as being of the utmost importance. I believe doctrinal religion is harmful at best. I believe that any belief in the supernatural is simply delusional. But while I have no respect at all for these ideas, as a supposedly civilised human being I acknowledge that anyone who suffers from these delusions is likely to take them very seriously and that it’s their right to continue to do so. Put simply, in terms the chickens would understand: “Religion – Bad. Freedom to Believe – Good.”

The threat of violence is NOT sufficient reason not to publish insulting images of the Islamic Prophet. The threat of violence must specifically be treated with the ridicule and contempt it deserves, even if that places us at greater risk. The only reason you should need against publishing those cartoons is that only a complete arsehole would have wanted to.

Pottery Corner 9

2006-02-10T16:51:00.000Z

Ghost

What was yesterday like?
Before these hands turned white?
When I could write
Without my fingers shaking?
When I could sleep
Without the wide eyed waking?
Outside it's getting light.
Is this what yesterday was like?
wasn't I alright?
Before I saw the ghost?

Exclusive!

2006-02-08T21:09:00.000Z

Sir Menzies Campbell has agreed to share his most memorable evenings with us.

They are:

April 17 1977
July 20 1958
January 12 to 14 (inclusive) 1980
October 16 1961

That's quite a list!

Thanks, Menzies.

CK One. Let's Pretend It Will Make You Cool.

2006-02-07T20:46:00.000Z

Mister Unilever, if you're listening - pick up the phone! You NEED me on your advertising staff!

Click this image to enlarge it.

You can read more about CK One here.

Harry Apologises for Suicide Bomber Fancy Dress Blunder

2006-02-06T20:59:00.000Z

Queen said to be "Entirely Pissed Orf."

"We were having a Radicals and Extremists night at Sandhurst." Says Royal.

Further Shocker - Fake Plastic Explosives found to be bags of Cannabis Resin.

Another Half-baked Idea

2006-02-06T20:38:00.000Z

Remember Marris and Wade? I think quite a few of you will have read at least some of it. It was my Great Unfinished Novel, which became my Great Finished Novel thanks to very long hours commuting between Westminster and Newbury. I sent it to about three publishers without success, but then gave up due to work pressures. (Thanks for that, Henri.) After that little jaunt came unemployment when buying things like ink cartridges was not an option!

Well, anyway. A couple of days ago I decided to blow the dust off it and see how it reads. I’m quite pleased to say that even after a long break it doesn’t seem too bad. So I think I might have another go at finding a market for it. Otherwise what was the point in doing it?

But that isn’t the real reason why I’m writing this. I thought it might it might be fun if I recorded the whole thing onto MP3 files so that my kids can enjoy the story. (Or at least so that they can put up with it to humour me.) What do you think about the idea of me making these files available online? I’ve had a few practice sessions and I think it might be almost fun.

The best place I’ve found online so far is Putfile.com, but if anyone knows anywhere else that allows enough file storage for an audiobook (Typically about 300mb) then please let me know.

I considered giving i-con the same treatment, but apart from its adult content being unsuitable for my little angels, I don’t think I could handle the female narrative without serious surgery. Any volunteers?

New Weapon in the War Against Religious Hatred (and Traffic)

2006-02-05T11:15:00.000Z

The Home office launched its controversial new Super Glove this week, during the free and fair demonstrations by righteous Muslims against the blasphemous publication of cartoons by evil Europeans.

A spokesman for the Met Police, Paul Condom, said that the glove's deployment represented a major breakthrough in traffic and crowd control. "Two officers standing side by side can effectively cordon off a whole street." He explained. "At the touch of a button, the glove expands to up to twenty times its normal size, presenting a bullet-proof and flame retardant shield for the officer to hide behind."

But there have been concerns about the deployment of the new apparel, not from liberty groups, but from the police themselves. "These things weigh a ton." WPC Goodlove complained. "And the other day mine went off in the squad car as I was driving. It was a nightmare! I almost smudged my lipstick."

Global Sense of Humour Failure Alert!

2006-02-04T19:35:00.000Z

There have been furious scenes outside British Embassies across the world today as furious Vikings turned out to vent their anger at the publication of a cartoon in this blog which they see as blasphemous. The cartoon, depicting the ancient Norse God Thor with a helmet shaped more or less like a giant penis, has enraged those who cling to the Nordic belief and worship their gods.

Tens of thousands of blond-bearded warriors clogged the streets of London this morning, holding placards and banners such as “Watch your back at Ragnorak” and “No more Global Village – Back to Rape and Pillage”.

A spokesman for the Vikings, Cecil Shagbeard, told our reporters, “These inflammatory reactions do nothing to further our cause. It is understandable that many of us feel murderously enraged by this slander of our ancient deities, but to suggest that we take it out on people by having a mass killing spree is going just a little far. These days we Vikings prefer more peaceful means of protest. No, really. It has been a good six weeks since we last burnt down a monastery. Honest. And everyone knows that the term ‘Viking’ translates literally as ‘Person-who-picks-wild-flowers-and-makes-little-chains-out-of-them.’. Violence is not our way at all.”

More news follows as I make it up.

Orange Revolution in Crisis!

2006-02-02T13:33:00.000Z

The Ukraine is in fresh crisis today as a major sponsor withdraws its support.

A spokesman for Hutchinson Telecom told our reporters “We no longer feel that the events and people of the Ukraine reflect out brand’s positive image. We see Orange as a product which represents style, dynamism and innovation. It’s unfortunate, but the people out there are frankly a bit shabby and they just don’t look good holding our phones. We think it will be better for all parties concerned if Orange and the Ukraine go their separate ways.”

World trade analyst Spirito De Punto declared the changes were inevitable. “There are simply not enough eight-year-olds who are aware of the Ukraine. That’s what they need to make the partnership viable.” He explained. “Mobile telecom companies make their money by convincing children that their services and products are must have accessories. You’re unlikely to get a teenager to get up for a 5AM paper round so that he can buy calling credit if you’re going to rely on a bankrupt nation to do your advertising for you.”

But President Victor Yushchenko remained resolute. “We will continue to hold our revolution with or without a major sponsor.” He announced. “There will be no change in policy. This is a mere set-back. Soon we shall have a new corporate partner, preferably with the right coloured logo, and all will be well again. Even as we speak my, Foreign Secretary is on the phone to the CEO of Fanta."

But whether or not the Ukraine can survive without corporate money is open to debate. Just last week the Russian Gas Company was accused of extortion after temporarily cutting of the entire nation’s gas supply.

However, the Gas Company’s press secretary, Vladmir Smirnof, bitterly denied the accusations of underhanded goings on. “Our agents called on the Ukraine six times in the last month, but every time they all pretended to be out. We’ve left them our helpline number and even offered to install a card meter if they are having financial difficulty, but they still refuse to contact our customer services team.”

More details as they happen.

Switching to Unleaded

2006-02-01T21:44:00.000Z

New Year’s Resolutions. There ought to be a law against them. I suppose it serves me right, though. Top tip: Never announce you’re getting a vasectomy while under the influence of alcohol, as your partner will remind you of this when you’re sober. Next Hogmanay I’m going to join a gym for a couple of weeks like everyone else.

The operation wasn’t quite as bad as I expected. (Sorry to disappoint). But then it’s never all that pleasant lying back while someone fiddles with your genitals is it?

Did I actually say that?

On the way out, the nurse told me she was going to send my old tubes to a lab so they could do tests on them.

“Can’t I keep them to put on my key ring as a memento?”

I don’t think she realised I was joking, because she looked at me with a puzzled expression. “But they’re only tiny.” She said.

“Oh. Thanks a lot..” I huffed. “It’s cold in here, you know.”

The anaesthetic wore off far too quickly for my liking so I spent the rest of the day saying “ouch.”

There must be easier ways of getting time off work.

Oh - And thanks to my Ex for the supportive text message: "Hope it all goes well but if you didn't want any more children I could have cut your balls off for you. You only had to ask."

Holmfirth Election Special

2006-01-29T14:57:00.000Z

There were scenes of chaos and violence on the streets of Holmfirth this weekend as furious supporters of the Conservative Party took to the streets to protest their anger at losing the local By-Election to the Liberal Democrats.

Enraged tories armed with automatic weapons seized the Saturday Craft Market and barricaded themselves inside the pamphlet section of the Tourist Information Office, declaring the photocopier and coffee machine their sovereign property and threatening to kill anyone who attempted to buy a map of Summer Wine locations.

Across the county, politicians have voiced their concern as the situation worsened. It’s a stark contrast to the scenes of optimism on Friday, when so many people in Holmfirth turned out for their first free and fair election in over seventy days. While the ruling Conservative Party officials roamed the streets to the praise and admiration of the electorate, nobody could have guessed the upset that was to come.

The first inklings that the party would be in trouble came soon after midday, when a leaked memo predicting a major upset prompted George W Bush to say that he would not work with a town council whose manifesto didn’t support bombing Arabs into compliance.

However, by the end of the evening it became clear that the Liberal Democrats had taken the town with enough of a majority to form a council of their choosing, and they wasted little time in making it known that they would not be invading any sovereign nations for the foreseeable future.

Speaking from Downing Street, Prime Minister Tony Blair said he would have to look very seriously at whether or not it might be necessary to impose political or economic sanctions on the whole of the Holme Valley until they could get their act together and elect a more America-Friendly regime.

“I know we wanted Holmfirth to embrace democracy.” He told our reporter, “But that was when we thought they were going to vote for the other fellows.”

The clashes in street have continued, with police doing their best to hold back crowds of Tory Wives along Hollowgate who have converged to throw their blue rosettes in the river and burn their framed photographs of John Major. They feel severely let down by their current leadership, and are calling for the resignation of any Conservative MP whose name they can remember.

Taking office, the new Lib Dem Councillor, Doctor Frank Pigliver, appealed for calm, and also appealed to the leaders of the world not to punish Holmfirth for the way they had voted. “In the end, God will provide for us.” He said. “Since God is clearly from Holmfirth, how could it be otherwise?”

I'm an MP get me out of here

2006-01-26T17:02:00.000Z

The Secretary of State for Health The Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, has come under fire from Conservative Ministers and even some of her own party for her decision to appear on "Red Hot Housewives Caught at Home" on the Fantasy Channel this week.

When questioned, the Member of Parliament for Leicester West insisted that the only reason she had appeared was to "Promote a positive health agenda for the young and reach a wider audience than the usual Radio4 crowd."

But much of Patricia's political views were censored from the final cut of the programme, which aired last night on Pay-per-view. A spokesman for the Department of Health conceded that things may not have gone quite the way she expected. "Patricia was not warned in advance that her messages on Chlamydia and promotion of the use of condoms would be edited." He said. "She was asked to perform a number of acts for the camera which she went along with in the spirit of the show. On balance I think she still believes that the fuss will die down in a little while and that it was still worth it, as it's helped to raise awareness of a number of hot topics."

But there has been a less forgiving reaction from many of her Leicester constituents. "Apart from promoting the sale of bananas I can't see what good she could possibly have done." Claimed an angry woman on the street. "I know they say we should get five pieces of fruit a day but surely there must have been other ways she could have taken it."

She received a predictably raucous reception in the House of Commons today, when MPs on both sides of the house waved bananas in the air and imitated her cries of "I can feel it! I can feel it!"

A member of the Liberal Democrats was poled. And is reported to have enjoyed it.

How bored is London?

2006-01-24T16:50:00.000Z

The nation has come together in grief, and the good people of Britain have made it known that landfill is not a dignified or fitting end for the body of a creature as magnificent as the Thames Whale. On behalf of the government, the audience of "Tonight with Trevor Macdonald" were asked to text in their views, and now the body of the Whale is being laid to rest on the small, secluded island in Althorp Park, next to the remains of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Today the public have come out in their thousands. Police estimate that a million mourners, sporting black WhaleAid wristbands are lining the Mall for the State Funeral of Slinky, as she has become known. Tony Blair has announced a day of official mourning, and every available camera lens in the western world is focused on the 15ft long coffin as it makes its way from the laboratories of the Zoological Society of London in Regent's Park. Crowds of onlookers are paying their respects by hurling haddock and sardines at the coffin, and many more are deep in meditation, listening to the latest single by WhaleAid and Elton John, who reprised his hit "Candle in the Wind" as "Orca in the Thames"

As principal spokesman for WhaleAid, Bono addressed the audience from his second home, number ten Downing Street. "It's like, this great big fish of love, you know? Like the Dalai Lama of mammals met the Salvador Dali of sea creatures. It's a great honour to represent her legacy and have the chance to show the planet that, just like Tony Blair, I care about this even more than you think I do."

The public has already dug deep into its wallet, spurred on by Coldplay front man Chris Martin, who last night told crowds at the WhaleAid concert: "A hundred thousand pounds to re-float one whale was just a start. With your help, we can raise enough money to build a whale-proof barrier out of pound coins all the way across the Thames. I mean, fuck poverty, yeah? I think we all know that this is like a seriously big fish that we all lost here."

Round the clock coverage continues on Sky News for the next six weeks.

That was MMV

2005-12-27T13:46:00.000Z

2005 has brought its fair share of natural disasters, political nightmares and boybands, but for me it will represent the first year of full employment since leaving Her Majesty's Arm Twisters.

So I thought I might share a few thoughts with the world by way of a special award ceremony. The nominations are in, the world holds its breath... And the winner for Most Pointless Blog Article goes to...

Highlight of The Year - Dolphin hunting in Scotland. Even though we didn't find any!

Serendipity Award - Richmond Live 2005. Wow! I never thought this would have been anything like as good as it was. If you can get there next year you'll find me at the front!

Damp Squib Award - Coldplay live at Reebok Stadium, Bolton. A polished performance, but not much different to listening to their albums, and nowhere near worth the Neolithic wait to get out of the carpark afterwards. Oh, and a special thank you to the drunken chav who pissed down my leg in the middle of Yellow.

Popcorn and Coke Award - Sin City. No contest. Definitely. One-hundred-per-cent-certain. No, wait. There was Harry Potter too, wasn’t there?

Shiny Round Thing Award - Honeycomb, by Frank Black. By far the best CD of the year. Even though nobody in Sheffield's HMV had ever heard of him.

Square Eyes Award - The West Wing, Season Six. Despite those Arseholes at Channel 4 deciding not to bother showing season five, this has been completely unmissable.

Clicking Excellent Award - Weebl and Bob. I don't know why, either. But if you don't find it hysterical there is something medically wrong with you.

Page Turner Prize - Carter Beats the Devil, by Glenn David Gold. Although this book was released before this year I thought it would be worth a special mention as it's been re-released in paperback. A riveting yarn about one of Houdini's contemporaries

Bugger It Award - Didn't stick with learning the guitar.

Five Gold Stars For Me Award - I Finished i-con Part One.

Things to Make You Go "Aww" Award - Jessica putting "Go somewhere nice with Daddy” on her Christmas list.

And my top tip for 2006 - i-con, part 2. Fun and frolics with a lady in a wheelchair, an anti-globalization suicide cult, and a little girl growing up in a rather unsavoury corner of Eastern Europe.

Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for all your visits and comments. I wish you all the very best of health and success for the year ahead.

What's that big star over there?

2005-12-18T14:22:00.000Z

Richard Fleet seems to be a rather clever chap. He's made a lovely bit of freeware that shows you where all the planets are in the night sky on any given night. Just load it up, click on "now", then click on "horizon view" and you'll be able to tell exactly which planet or star is visible in your area at that moment. It even works during the day, but that's not really the best time to be out with your binoculars, is it?
It really is jolly clever, and it's free. You can download the Graphdark program by clicking the link below.

Go to Richard Fleet's homepage

Thanks, Richard.

Dear Diary

2005-12-11T10:56:00.000Z

I had plans. I’m sure I did. Wasn’t I going to be a famous writer. Or something like that? I took a couple of my pictures to a local gallery yesterday, and he thought they were great. “I’ll hang what ever you want to frame.” He told me. “I like your stuff, it’s unusual.”

So I left feeling a bit better. Some time in the New Year I’ll pay for these two images to be printed at a suitable size and pay for their framing. Then I’ll stick a price tag on them and wait.

"Leaving" by David Steele. Click to enlarge

Real Life. It’s a killer.

I had a warning last month. A tap on my shoulder and a tarnished pocket watch. I was sat on a hospital table with ECG plasters all over me while the nurse made jokes about Frankenstein. “You’re normal.” She told me, smiling. “But I’ll need the doctor to have a look at you.”

Sunday morning and the sun’s out. The hills are calling but I’m still inside. I’m making a cow in 3D because I think I’ve got an idea for a picture that might make some money. Meanwhile Billy and Clara are waiting for their next chapter. I keep promising them I’ll get back to them. i-con feels like a close family member who’ll be upset that I haven’t called in such a long time.

I keep thinking I’m spread too thinly, but it’s not true. I have the same number of hours in the day as Einstein. I have just the same amount of time available to me as Bradbury. There’s no excuse for not producing. Nobody else is going to do it for me.

"Daily Express" by David Steele. Click to Enlarge.

But I’m so bloody tired!

Me and everyone else, right? And there goes my stupid heart again. Time to remember what Bradbury taught me:

“Every day I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me.
After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.
Now it’s your turn. Jump!”

Sometimes it’s hard to keep going because life gets to be such a drudge. But it’s precisely that fact – that life is a drudge, that should be firing me up to do something better.

I think I lost it there. But only for a moment. We may be in the gutter, but we can still see the shops.

Exclusive

2005-12-08T21:41:00.000Z

US Sky Marshal boss, William J T Leonard Jnr has admitted that his plans to continually monitor and improve the service did not go as planned.

"I used to be a management supervisor at the Florida branch of the Wal-mart." He told our reporter. "And mystery shoppers worked just fine there."

Amid calls for his resignation, Miami resident Mr Leonard did his best to appeal for understanding. "Back at the Mall it was the job of the mystery shopper to create a little bit of a stink... be kind of unruly, and then rate the staff on their performance. This was kind of a pilot scheme, but I guess we should have sort of thought about what might happen if we got a lady marshal at, you know, her special time."

Louder than Words

2005-12-07T21:48:00.000Z

It seems the influence of "Post a Secret" has reached the Westminster Village.

Always read the smallprint

2005-12-06T21:57:00.000Z

Dear Mr Steele

Thank you very much for your enquiry. I believe there may have been several misunderstandings when you applied to sponsor a child, and I hope to be able to clarify these matters now.

World Vision is a Christian relief and development organization dedicated to helping children and their communities worldwide reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty. We serve the world's poor— regardless of a person's religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. With this in mind, most people donate to us to allow us to help bring up children in safety with the best possible start in life. The money you pay is intended to cover such expenses as their education, food, the cost of any medical bills, and the need to house and clothe them in a suitably serviceable state.

While we appreciated your donation, we found many of your requests a little too specific. As an organisation that primarily aims to help children, I am afraid that we do not cater for sponsorship of girls between eighteen and twenty two. Nor can we select specific girls based on their hair colour. Whilst we work in many desperately poor places in the world, and although we appreciate that poverty is a global issue, I am afraid your first choice of Sweden and your second of Denmark are not represented either.

All sponsors receive regular progress reports and updates to explain how their children are getting along. Our children are also encouraged to write to their sponsors and tell a little about how they are getting along. However, your request for full colour photographs and videos will have to be declined, as we do not have photographic facilities in every outpost. Neither do all our girls have ample supplies of toys, friends or the watersports facilities that you asked be included. Obviously, since high speed broadband links are hard to come by in much of the third world, your request for live webcam chats are out of the question.

We will hold your donation and ask you to re-submit your request as a matter of some urgency. Please review your choices carefully and get back to us at the soonest opportunity. You will be pleased to know that, since we have several missions in Africa and India, the vast majority of our girls are (as you requested) very hot indeed.

Yours truly,

Helen Back

World Vision

Hype

2005-12-05T22:03:00.000Z

In a shock move, Keanu Reeves has turned down the part of Neo in The Matrix – Rehashed to play a far more challenging role; that of cult icon Mr Spoon in the latest Hollywood blockbuster adaptation of Button Moon.

“It’s an especially challenging role.” Keanu told our reporter yesterday. “The whole thing with the Blanket Sky says so much about our current climate and sociological zeitgeist that I just had to take the role on. I called up James [Cameron] and told him I was in as soon as I’d got the script.”

But the new-look button moon already has its critics. Mike Newell, director of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was dismissive. “The choice of Jaime King to play Mrs Spoon was a total blunder. I’ve also seen the mock-ups for Box House on Treacle Street and they haven’t made it nearly dark and sinister enough. As for Brew the Witch, she’s just not suitable for modern audiences. She’s such a two-dimensional character that I’m not sure that the more sophisticated, modern audience will identify with her."

Film critic Jonathan Ross was far more supportive. “I know this film will have its knockers, especially with Jaime getting so much of the limelight, but it’s just not fair. Many people have said that Keanu will be too wooden for the role, but I think his expressive range and communicative talents will make Mr Spoon his most challenging and revealing role yet. It’s going to be huge.”

This movie adaptation is expected to do well, and due to its amazing special effects, it’s already expected to snatch the coveted “Best film” award at next year’s Can Film Festival.

Caption Sensible

2005-12-04T10:02:00.000Z

I’m staying at my dear Daddy’s house this weekend, which means that I access the world through the eyes of AOL. Hey, nobody’s perfect. I still love him.

Anyway. Here’s a full-centre commercial from the welcome screen that awaits unsuspecting AOL users, under the banner “The Perfect Christmas Present.” Quite frankly, I’m speechless, and more than a little intimidated.

Thanks, AOL. Just when I thought I’d got over those old insecurities. No way I’m visiting Japan in a hurry.

So there you go. It's Caption Competition time! In the words of our local vicar, there will be a special award for the most original entry.

In Your Mouth

2005-12-03T17:05:00.000Z

I’ve been thinking about dogs a lot lately. There are an awful lot of them where I’m working and (with very few exceptions) most of them sit around all day waiting for the long walk that never comes. The lives of these unfortunate animals seem to be a constant and steady precession of nothingness, punctuated only by the occasional “thing passing the window” to bark at, or (better still) the rare treat of a “man who has to visit the house”. This gives each and every lovely four-legged creature the long-awaited chance to stick their nose into his crotch, have a good sniff, and jump all over him while the owner looks on as if it’s probably just what the man at the door had been looking forward to.

But I’ve been thinking. I’ve come up with a sure-fire way to regenerate the inner cities. There are an awful lot of dog-owning chavs who can make some serious money from my proposal. It goes something like this: One thing this country is not short of is dogs, and at some time, these dogs have puppies, right? And these puppies need milk, right? And when the puppies are weaned, their mother stops producing milk, right?

Well, what if we didn’t let that happen? Surely it can’t be that difficult to come up with a simple milking frame for the average Labrador. I’m sure that with proper backing, this idea could take off in a big way. Think about the benefits of taking our milk from dogs. The streets are already full of dogshit (because the owners of these dogs don’t seem to think that it should be their job to clean it up), but at least we could do away with those unsightly dollops all over the countryside and get rid of those rather menacing-looking cows.

Surely, there must be enough dogs already in residence to produce all the milk we’ll ever need. Since just about every dog owner in the country assumes that we must all love their dogs as much as they do (which is why they’re all so happy to let their vile little shit-factories jump all over us when ever we have to visit them), then surely it would make sense that all dog owners would prefer the taste of their favourite pet’s milk over milk taken from a big ugly cow.

We could save millions on the Social Security budget by allowing the chavs of the nation to set up business and export their animals' lactic fluids. All they need is a little financial incentive and soon the streets will be running white and smelling vaguely cheesy.

So far I’ve decided that the Doglolly is a sure winner. But we don’t have to stop there. What about Dogcheese, Dogspread, or Dogbutter?

Anyone wishing to invest in this proposal should contact me as soon as possible to allow me to set up the marketing campaign and design a rudimentary milking stall.

Pottery Corner 8

2005-11-25T14:20:00.000Z

Spike
Tribute to Nick Cave

She'd knocked them back and staggered home
But soon began to flounder
And as the sidewalk slipped away
That's when yours truly found her

I took her in with my concerns
She wailed about her creditors
I helped her up to my place warning
Her of sexual predators

I held her hand and sympathised
In tones so reverential
But all the while my body's craving
Something far more sensual

I palmed the dropper like an ace
The charlatan was keeping
And twenty minutes later Anne Marie
Was soundly sleeping

My kiss was firm the fire it burned
Caresses long and sensual
By the way that whore was moving
Youd've sworn it was consensual

Now some of you will shake your heads
But I would contradict
Cos Brother stand where I'd been stood
No jury would convict

Oh rohypnol my special friend
Prelude to copulation
My silent partner ever near
Deliver my temptation

(End of poem. The next bit doesn't rhyme)

If this story is to be believed, then a third of us think that a woman is at least partly to blame if she is raped after acting flirtatiously, getting drunk or dressing provocatively. I had no idea that the Daily Mail was circulating so widely these days.

Just think about it. On any given jury there are four members who automatically think that she was asking for it.

If you're sat with two other people right now, statistically, you're sharing a space with someone who thinks rape's okay in certain circumstances.

Take a good look, and ask yourself: Which one of them is it?

Now then...

Stuff ner that

Stuff ner that

Going all mobile

Puppy Dog's Tails

More T Shirts. Toddlers this time.

Saturday Shirt

Sparks - Inkscape again

If Glastonbury were Westminster

Sketches - Sparks - Messing around in Inkscape

#love6music - A Celebrate Mediocrity Special

Popular Dipshit

Silence

That's All Folks!

First of the apologies.

Slow News Day

Pardon

Pottery Corner 15

Yours to cut out and keep...

Sore fingers

Breaking News from 1983.

Pottery Corner 14

Bo! Wood

Dead Bishop Sketch

Serendipity at Cannon Hall

waiting

Going Down - New and improved video footage!

Words Fail

Pottery Corner 13

Cyberpunktastic

Sideways

Man and Boy

Red Letter Day

Role Model

Pottery Corner 12

Thwarted by Pincer Movement.

Caption Competition

Ten minutes of your time

Black and white

*sigh* 2

A very different world...

*sigh*

Wir lachen an dir

More Economic Reality

Waffling with the best of them

Pottery Corner 11

Shades of the Tree

'Twas the night of Meg's Wedding

Here we go!

While England Were Winning...

Unions Resist Reality

Poly Whatzername

Six Nil. Bugger!

By the way...

Entertainment (?) News.

Photo Dump

CLEVER Monkey Man!

Four things meme

i-con part one...

The Theory of Gravity (Supplemental Post)

Scenes From an Amazing Weekend

The Theory of Gravity - Part Three

The Theory of Gravity - Part Two

The Theory of Gravity - Part One.

More Photos. Sorry!

Work in Progress - "Tidy Your Room"

Caption competition

Cameron, Davis and Heseltine

Blue Stuff

I'm just going out for a walk. I may be some time.

Doodles with my new pen.

Pottery Corner 10

To Daddy

But this is Halifax. Not Brighton...

The World According to Jessica

Saddam's Claim Disrupts Court Again

Me and My Dad Having a Top Laugh

What Weekends Were Invented For

Danegeld

Pottery Corner 9

sigh 2

sigh