Rabbit Confused with Raisins

On Hobbys

2009-11-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

WARNING: THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS UNSUBSTANTIATED GENERALISATIONS

I was driving back from a business trip in London a couple of days ago with a work colleague of mine. We are both grumpy Yorkshiremen so we like to have a good moan and a whine when we get together. We usually put the world to rights through a strange process of mutual agreement and re-enforcement of each others views. A communal re-enforcement of views which is experienced by many men when left together with no supervision. Thats pretty much how wars start.

I think in that trip we solved all of the UK's problems relating to energy security, social housing and planning law in the space of only 3 hours which was good work. Next week we plan on tackling world peace and creating a Windows operating system that works.

Our discussions turned as they usually do, to generally complaining about women and specifically that our women folk have the cheek to be different from us and to hold opinions which are not directly in line with our own.

We agreed that generally, the source of all of the issues which our women have (or we generally have) is rooted in their lack of a hobby. You see, men can't really get their head around how many women can get by without having any particular interest in anything.

And more than that, men can't understand how, if women do have a hobby - they often aren't particularly bothered about being any good at it. They just don't care. If men have a hobby, they have to be the best at it, whether that is getting as many blog comments as you possibly can, or having a faster car than all of your mates, or going to the gym more than anyone else you know. We all feel we have to have a niche skill in something. Its in our nature.

By way of example, my colleague is obsessive about music and spends his weekends perusing record shops, attending hi-fi conferences or inspecting the home-made insulation on his specially converted garage sound-room. Whereas I spend my weekends in the gym, climbing or galavanting around hills somewhere (also obsessively).

We thought about this for a while and something struck us. What do our other halves do as soon as they get home from work? What do they spend their weekends looking at and what do their evenings revolve around.

The answer .... crap TV.

Both of our partners are completely obsessed with crap TV. Whether it be crap reality TV, crap talent shows, crap cooking competitions, or Kirsty and Phil helping Gerrard from Staines find the crappy 1 bedroom flat of his dreams - crap TV rules both of our homes. Lucy even likes to watch 'wedding TV' and more surprisingly 'wedding TV asia' which even my colleague thought was weird.

I have to say though, one programme in particular is the bane of my life. It serves absolutely no educational purpose (as some of the above may be argued is some bizarre roundabout way, to do), it is dragged out to lengths I cant even contemplate (one episode spanning an entire week), and I can't even bear to be in the room when it is on. Sound familiar?

Yes its 'Come Dine with Me'.

Basically if you haven't seen it, it involves a group of complete misfits who are never in a million years going to get on together, cooking for each other and generally falling out and providing mild entertainment of the worst variety. Actually that sounds a bit like Big Brother doesn't it?

Its on ALL the time.

However.

I can't criticise 'Come Dine with Me' too much, for one reason. A bunch of friends and me (The Lawyer and The Nurse) have decided, with out girlfriends, to recreate the show in our houses using a video camera and everything.

We were first this week. I have to say it was a little stressful as I am not too keen on people judging my Chicken Udon soup. With actual pieces of paper with scores on and everything.

I am sure I will post the video up when it is all edited together.

5 Years

2009-10-31T10:48:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, it will be five years to the day since I first met Lucy. We celebrated by going away to the Spa town of Buxton for the day and aimlessly wandering around. Lucy then forced me to rediscover my artistic talent by making me do pottery painting. Which to be honest - wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!

On our third anniversary I was somewhere in Indonesia, and took some time out to write the story of how Lucy and I first got together (you can see part 1 and 2 here and here).

This year I thought that I would put pen to paper and describe our first date, lest too many years pass and I forget what happened...

It was 2004 and I was living in a house in Chapel Allerton in Leeds with my friends Stu, Mark and Robb. I had taken a few days off work and Mark and I had spent some time pretending we were students again.

Lucy and I had met a few days before at a tacky night club and I had done the uncool thing ant text her straight away the next day. Despite not following the correct delayed contact procedures, Lucy had agreed to meet up with me in a bar called the Arc close to Headingley.

Initially I was to go to her house and pick her up in a gentlemanly fashion, however her housemates (who at this point thought I was 40 years old - their memories being a little hazy from the club), advised Lucy that I shouldn't come to the house being as I was probably some kind of serial killer and plans were changed.

However, the main reasons I wanted to meet her at her house was that, embarrassingly I wasn't sure if I would be able to spot her straight away in a crowded bar. I changed tactic and decided that the best way around this would be to get there extremely early and stand by the bar, not catching anyones eye and staring straight ahead so that she would have to identify me. I sent her a text stating 'I am upstair at the bar' to put my plan in place.

Lucy apparently read the text whilst standing outside getting moral support from one of her friends from home. She finally plucked up the courage and came inside. I think I gave up my wall staring and turned around and looked just as she was walking up the bar. She looked amazing.

If I remember correctly she was wearing a kind of low cut green top that she had borrowed from one of her housemates, with a suitable short skirt to match. She was full of smiles, life and laughter. I recognised her instantly and my first feeling was pride. I was proud that I had managed to bag such a good looking girl the previous week, despite being barely able to stand up!

We exchanged pleasantries and I bought her a drink. I remember going to sit down in one of the booths near the corner. I think we were both nervous, but nerves affected us in different ways. Lucy tends to talk a lot and I tend to go quiet.

Lucy exploded into a tirade of questions 'sowhereareyoufrom?' 'whatdoyoudoinyoujob?' 'doyouhaveanybrothersandsisters?' 'whatkindofmusicareyouinto?' barely leaving me time to answer each one before moving on to the next.

We had a few drinks and both quickly calmed down and began to enjoy each others company. This is where Lucy spinned the largest lie she has told me during 5 years of our relationship. We were discussing music, and Lucy told me she was into all of these great bands and it turned out I was into the same bands too and we had so much in common!

Later I would discover that actually she likes 'Kelly Clarkson' and 'N-Dubz'.

We drank quickly and decided to move to this fancy new (at the time) basement bar next door called Trio. We began to really enjoy ourselves and I began, even at this early stage to realise I loved Lucy's company. She ordered shots as if to ease the nerves just that little bit more. I forget what they were, they could have been B52s or something similar. Probably cost us about £20 (in those days I didn't have a lot of cash). But I had decided we were going to make this a night to remember as soon as I had realised how much I liked being out with her.

We then decided to go to another of the new bars in Headingley by the name of 'The Box'. Similar in style, this place was generally full of Rugby players (and not proper rugby either) swilling lager and singling songs and I usually avoided it.

It was a couple of hundred yards away and we walked side by side along an empty back road to get there. I remember extremely clearly my heart jumping up into my throat as I decided grab Lucy's hand and hold it as we strolled along. She made no objection and she squeezed my fingers making my heart race again.

I can't remember what we were drinking in the Box, but I think we were in there for a while. She sat on a stool while I stood, listening to her talk. Watching her lips move and watching her smile. All I could think about was that I wanted to kiss those lips, but that I was such a gutless wimp that it was unlikely to happen.

I decided to go to the toilet (I am not even sure if I needed it) to gather my thoughts and pluck up my courage a little. I walked straight back out and straight up to her and reached for her face and kissed her. I was nervous about what her reaction would be, but it was good. In fact it was really good. I still think about it now.

I held her by the hand and exclaimed that we were getting a taxi into town. We went to some more bars, my favourite club in Leeds, 'The Hi Fi' (though we decided it was too loud and left) and a place near the corn Exchange, which I think was called Jakes Bar. I think it was the most fun I have ever had with a person on a night out.

We stayed out until past 3am (something which doesn't happen so often anymore!) and I bundled her into a taxi and said goodbye, having one of those 'singing in the rain' type moments, walking away, practically clicking my heels.

Happy in the moment.

I am not sure I believe in love at first sight, but I definitely knew that day that Lucy and I were a perfect match and would be together for some time. And I knew that I could definitely love her.

Which I do. Very much.

Financial Security at Last!

2009-10-17T05:30:00.000-07:00

This week Lucy got a new job as an Assistant Clinical Child Psychologist or some such thing. This has made me immensely happy, not just because she can now pay her half of the rent, but also because its pay back for a massive amount of hard work.

3 or 4 years ago, she had left university with a fairly average degree. Actually it was a sociology degree ... sociology apparently having something to do with studying the inside of a pub. It probably wouldn't be too much of dis-justice to say that she was a little unfamiliar with hard work.

She was going from temp job to temp job and was devoid of direction, she had ideas of working in jobs in accountancy and HR and was encouraged towards them, but deep down she knew she wasn't suited to them. Like all graduates - at this stage she thought she would just walk straight into an amazing graduate job straight off the back of her 2.1 in sociology. She once said to me, 'I would rather get some graduate training than do a masters degree', I replied 'I did the masters degree to get on the bloody graduate training!'

Then one day she had an epiphany.

All her life she had wanted to be an educational psychologist, but didn't think she was good enough and thought the road would be too long and hard. But then she decided she was going to do it.

She enrolled on a masters course in Educational Psychology in Manchester and had a hard year working while I was out galavanting in Australia. Then she made it her goal to get on the PhD to become a psychologist. She learnt sign language, undertook volunteering, worked in a primary school where she pro-actively trained staff on psychology, set up interventions and obtained funding for one of Sheffields pioneering 'Nurture Groups'.

She had trouble with interviews and failed at the last hurdle on previous on previous job applications and in getting on the PhD course (a lot of psychology jobs an the PhD have up to 200 applicants). But she took on interview training, practised and practised and even did hypnotherapy for interview confidence. And eventually it all paid off! She is not on the PhD yet, but now she has her dream job, there is no hurry.

Everyone around her, friends and teachers in her school are telling her how jealous they are and how they want her job. I dont think they realise how much work it took. My advice to them is that they need to get of their backsides and do something about it like she did if that is what they want to do.

I am very proud.

This Can Only End Badly

2009-10-11T04:26:00.000-07:00

After a really good day at my sisters wedding, about which I will post at some point in the near future - I got up super early to speed on up to the lake district for some climbing.

I appear to have got in with a bad crowd at work, and have been tempted by some of the more hard-core outdoors enthusiasts amongst them to delve further and further into outdoor sports. Over the winter I will be undertaking a 5 day mountaineering course up in Scotland (and may potentially have to pay for the expensive equipment I will need by selling a kidney!), and I am getting more and more into my climbing.

In the lakes we did some multiple pitch climbing. I will attempt to explain what that means (though I am not completely sure myself). One person leads up on the rope, putting in safety gear along the way and being belayed from the bottom. The bottom person then follows being belayed from the top. Both people are now half way up the cliff face and repeat the process until all the way to the top.

We had three people, which made everything a little more complicated and made each climb pretty lengthy. To the point at which we had to abandon out second climb on the third pitch (and abseil down) to avoid having to walk home in the dark.

We all hauled our cameras up with us and tried to angle the lense such that is appeared we were doing much harder climbs than we were. This is my favourite of Graham (though if I had proper photo editing software, I am sure I could make it better):

Top 10 Movie Characters

2009-09-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

Lucy is currently doing her hypnosis CD which is supposed to alter her mind so that she is no longer hungry and stops eating when she is full. If I have calculated this correctly, this should give me just enough time to respond to a meme in which my brother tagged me sometime in July. It was top 10 movie characters of all time (in all honesty, this will probably be the top ten movie characters I can think of right now):

So here goes (in no particular order):

Randle Patrick McMurphy - One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

"They was giving me ten thousand watts a day, you know, and I'm hot to trot! The next woman that takes me on is gonna light up light a pinball machine!"

Possibly a very obvious one, but I have to say one of my favourite hero's of all time, stretching back to when we had to read the book in GCSE English.

Steve Zissou - A Life Aquatic

"Ned, next time you have a brilliant idea, whisper it to me first. Otherwise I look like a sort of day-dream Johnny, you know?"

To be honest this could have been Lost in Translation or Broken Flowers. I absolutely loved Broken Flowers, but appeared to be the only person that did! I can't get enough of the deadpan style.

Marv - Sin City

"Ahh Jerks, they should have shot me in the head. And enough times to make sure too. Its so stupid. Everyone knows what's coming."

Another film in which I love the style for different reasons. And you can't bead Marv, indestructible, stupid but with a heart. I had trouble finding any decent clips though.

'The Bride' - Kill Bill

"Its mercy, compassion and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality."

Not much to say about this one. Another character I love for style, Tarantino-esque lines and a bit of ass-kicking

Seth - Superbad

"I'm over here in my unit, isolated and alone, eating my terrible tasting food, and I have to look over at that. That looks like the most fun I've ever seen in my entire life, and it's B.S. - excuse my language. I'm just saying that I wash and dry; I'm like a single mother. Look, we all know home-ec is a joke - no offense - it's just that everyone takes this class to get an A, and it's bullshit - and I'm sorry. I'm not putting down your profession, but it's just the way I feel. I don't want to sit here, all by myself, cooking this shitty food - no offense - and I just think that I don't need to cook tiramisu. Am I going to be a chef? No. There's three weeks left of school, give me a fuckin' break! I'm sorry for cursing."

I have had a few problems with my Ipod, which means that I only have a few films which will copy onto it for my train journeys etc. Superbad is one of them and I have watched it a lot of times! I love Seth, but a Michael Cera character (e.g. in Juno, Arrested Development etc) could have been in there too.

Bigwig - Watership Down

"I can run. And I can fight!"

One from my childhood here. I loved Bigwig, my favourite by far. I always tend to favour the heavyweight second characters in films.

Watership down was genius (although a little heavy for a kids film) And Bigwig was the toughest.

Couldn't find any good clips for this, just some wierf Bigwig tribute video.

Richard Sharpe - Various Sharpe Episodes

Just wanted to add this one in quickly (though it is not technically a film character, it rates right up there for me!

Turns out I didnt have enough time for ten, and having used up all of my free time credits for the week yesterday. Lucy is demanding that I go and watch some crappy TV with her, so I guess I will have to end the post here.

What do you reckon?

Random Review: District 9

2009-09-27T02:46:00.000-07:00

Lacking money or imagination, we went to see District 9 at the cinema last night. I have to say that it was brilliant. I was very surprised, being a Lord of the Rings geek, I had a preconception that Peter Jacksons films were bursting with effects but lacking in story.

The only way I can sum up District 9 is:

The scare factor of 'Alien'

The goriness of 'Starship Troopers'

The humour of 'Serenity'

The style of 'Cloverfield'

The political slant of 'Hotel Rwanda' or an anti apartheid film.

All of which are fantastic movies in their own right. I highly recommend it (even Lucy likes it and she only likes Jennifer Aniston flicks).

Adirondacks

2009-09-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my previous post, I managed to sneak away for the weekend to Lake Placid in the Adirondack Mountains following a trip to a factory I am working at, close to Montreal.

The trip basically consisted of me, delayed by an hire car employee who had lost his keys, and by US customs, arriving at the mountains at around midday, and then trying to rush round what was a pretty arduous route as fast as I could in order to make it back before sunset (as I had pretty much no equipment/compass/torch etc).

When I arrived I tackled the Algonquin peak, which at 1,500m above sea level is actually higher than anything we have in the UK (though it didn't feel like it as I think I may have started a little higher than you would do with, say Ben Nevis). Due to the time constraints it was pretty thigh busting on the way up (as I had accidentally chosen the steep side for the ascent), and ankle-breaking on the way down.

After staying in superb(ly cheap) hostel type accommodation in a local lodge with a random party of 50 year old birthday revellers, I managed a quick ascent of mount Jo the next day before a little shopping in Lake Placid and a the long journey back to the UK.

The amazing thing for a European in New York State in the Autumn, is most definitely the colours. Although I was probably two weeks early to get the full brunt of the autumn reds, There were still some amazing opportunities for photography. Though I felt I never managed to nail that killer shot (considering the scenery around me), largely due to the fact that much of the walking was in heavy bush, I was still fairly proud of these ones:

The View from Algonquin Peak

Outside the Lodge at Heart Lake in the Morning

The View from Mount Jo (if someone could have just cut that damn tree down...)

Heart Lake ... Again

A Chipmunk Near Charleston Lake in Ontario

I am not a great lover of photoshopped photos (bar a little colour enhancement), probably due to the fact I don't own a copy or photoshop (or know how to use it). But I did a little tinkering with a couple of photos I wasn't quite happy with in iPhoto:

Depending on the Kindness of Strangers

2009-09-15T09:18:00.001-07:00

I always thought that Yorkshiremen were a fairly kindly breed, pretty generous in terms of acts if not with their money. Definitely more kindly than those sour faced Londoners. However, today I was faced with a level of blind generousity I have never seen before.

This week I am back in Ontario Canada for work, stuck in the same old hotel I have seen many time before. The difference between this trip and previous ones is that this time I am determined to make a little more of this opportunity to travel.

I decided to take the weekend out here to go down to Lake Placid (of oversized alligator fame) and do some hiking in what I have been promised is spectacular autumn scenery.

This is all on the back of recommendations made by the guys I am working with over here. You cant beat a good loca recommendation.

Everywhere I have been in the world - when I have spoken to locals about the places to go, eat, and things to see - the experiences have been ten times better. Which is a bit of a problem for me, as I cant usually be bothered to speak with people.

Except this time, I was offered not only advice on where to go, but the lend of a car and a big stack of camping equipment. The guy who I hardly knew was going to lend me his car to take across a national border! I would lend my best mates my car (I barely let Lucy drive it).

Unfortunately I am British and therefore unable to accept hospitality of this nature and have consented only to allow him to book me some rental camping equipment upon arrival.

All I want is a decent nights sleep!

2009-09-06T03:10:00.000-07:00

Following our little cat related mishap a few months ago, we decided that our current cat (who has always been around other cats) needed a new playmate as to be honest she seemed to spend more time around the neighbours house with their cat than she did at ours.

So we went back to the cat rescue place that we had been to previously. After some embarrassing questions about what happened to poor Beau, I asked about whether they had any discount card programme as because we seemed to be visiting so frequently, I thought we should be entitled so some kind of reward card. You know - like get 3 cats for the price of two or something.

Apparently this is not the way it works, and actually you are supposed to keep your cat for 16 years or some such period of time.

I jest of course, but we did feel that we could house another rescue cat and provide some company to Ripley. They had a couple of cute cats, nay kittens there and we fell for a four month old tabby called 'Dude'. 'Dude' had been dumped at the shelter by 'some Chinese guy' possibly (as we later found out when 'Dude' came home) because of 'Dudes' psychopathically violent behavior!

So Dude came home with us and quickly became renamed as 'Lenny', though I was all for 'Hicks' as I thought 'Ripley and Hicks' would have been quite a cool combination.

Unlike when we brought the cats home previously, Lenny was in no way nervous. In fact he settled straight into a routine of systematically attacking any exposed human body part at any given moment, with no regard to etiquette or accepted rules of engagement.

So much so that when Lucy lets the cats into the bedroom at night (aww they get lonely out in the corridor) Lenny will spend the entire night sitting on the pillow, attacking my face and arms, and god forbid, should you stick a foot out from under the covers, it will quickly end up with a cat-shaped attachment!

The only night I have managed to sleep this week was when I went on a business trip to Scotland. The only one who is not too bothered is Ripley, who will deal Lenny a simple head blow should he get too boisterous.

Anyway I am in danger of being one of those annoying people who talks about their cat all the time, so shall end this post.

Lenny launches a surprise attack from the TV cabinet

The devil cat plot its next move...

Insight into the Mind of an Eight Year Old

2009-08-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

When I got hold of those old photo's from my mum, which I scanned into my mac, with which I attempted to embarrass my brother and subsequently managed to lose all of due to a hard drive failure, I also found a few of my old text books.

One of them was from 'Class Four' which I think means I was about 8 years old. I was perusing the pages and found this gem of a short story (potentially eligible for some kind of literary prize) which I thought I should read out:

Sam said "coming for a walk by the river?"

Robert said "yep".

When they go there Robert said "I bet you I can swim across the river".

So he jumped in and went down down down and died.

Funny thing is, I am still friends with Robert (often referred to a 'The Artist' of this story and this story), he still is a competitive git, and I still hold him in just about as much contempt.

(p.s. what I want to know is why te teacher didn't submit me for psychological testing after that one)

Notes from a Small Island

2009-08-16T03:10:00.000-07:00

We got back from our Cyprus adventure last night (or early this morning). I am not a massive fan of Cyprus I have to say.

Due to its colonial past there is a very large British ex-pat population mixed in with the Greek and Turkish residents and large swathes of the coast are covered in concrete apartment blocks, partially completed luxury villas and strips of cheap restaurants and bars.

Though I don't doubt that there are other aspects of Cyprus we were unable to see, those parts which we did manage to get to within a few hours drive which were not covered in concrete monstrosities were also very touristy though with a little more authenticity and intrigue.

All this, however didn't stop us having a great time as we were also bombarded by the exceptional generosity of Lucy's parents who were out there with us, and paid for a pretty huge villa for the week, and we managed to get up into the mountains which was pretty cool.

I struggled a little with photography, partly because the sun was always so high in the sky and set very quickly, meaning that interesting light was hard to come by, and partially because it was so hot that I couldn't be bothered to exert myself for good angles for photos.

However I did manage to take a few nice ones of Lucy during a sunset at the villa:

This one was taken at the 'Tombs of the Kings' in Paphos, which was pretty spectcular:

Other photos should be available on Flickr shortly (when I get around to uploading them).

Hours of Fun

2009-08-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

I am soon to be off the blogging circuit for a week or two as I am heading off on holiday, first to Cyprus and then to Wales for a week of sun followed by a week of rain to cool my sun-burn.

The Hadrians Walk event seems to be in full promotional rage at present, so one of the first things I need to do when I get back, is to whip team Bandicoot into shape. We are at present at around 18 interested parties I think, and I may just stop the recruitment activity at that (in order to preserve my own sanity whilst doing the organising).

So whilst I am away, I will leave you with a great game which was brought to my attention in Riga. It goes as follows:

Loosen your cheeks and shake your head from side to side as quick as you can
Take a photograph of yourself
Hold amusing props such as fists / cricket bats / beer bottles close to your face
Repeat for approximately 5 hours until you get a good photo

Our best result after hours of practice is below:

Losing My Right Arm

2009-08-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

I havent actually lost my right arm. What I have lost however is my Mac hard drive, all of my photos, all of my music, and all of my videos at the end of a pretty unsuccessful fortnight in the household (in which i had my sat-nav nicked, lost out on a job at work as well as the whole cat-thing). It did feel like my right arm.

It is for this reason that there has been no communication from me on the Hadrians Walk, little blogging and very little commenting. Wordpress, blogger and flickr have been blocked at work, and I have been confined to Lucy's virus infected tortoise like PC.

However, I have been to the Genius Bar at the Apple shop which I have to say is fantastic, you can say what you want about Apple trying to take over the world, but they do have a unique approach to customer service. On their recommendation, I have bought a 500 gig (non-apple) internal hard drive.

Screw you failed hard drive - now I have a hard drive five times your size! Ha!

Now I find out how much of my stuff I actually backed up properly.

Meet the Neighbours

2009-07-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but the week before last we attended the Eden Project Big Lunch. Essentially the idea is that on Sunday the 19th of July, as many local communities as possible, would gather together and have a kind of 'getting to know each other' picnic.

I was sceptical at first, telling Lucy that 'I already know loads of people I dont have time to keep in touch with - why do I need to know some more?'. I protested. She made me go.

Actually it was pretty good fun. We live in a new build house in the grounds of an old mansion which has been converted to flats. The mansion appears to come complete with quite a few curtain twitchers, which I was concerned would lecture me about parking my car accross the big 'keep clear - no parking' sign as is my want. Contrary to that, we were informed that anyone can park there and that as the only renters we hadn't found out because our landlord had neglected to tell us.

I ended up meeting the old dean of a major university as well as a high court judge (who informed us that our favourite restaurant is actually a front for a Thai marajuana dealing operation). We made friends with some of the people that live in the terraces next to us. A friendship that we put to good use when they had to store our dead cat in their garage for a day last week.

the main concern really is that we were the youngest people there by a good five years. Ok Lucy was the youngest person there by a good five years (I was borderline fitting in). They all had kids or were pregnant, or had grandkids so far as I can tell!

Anyway. I have discovered that it is good to know your neighbours.

What Made Me Laugh Yesterday

2009-07-25T01:27:00.000-07:00

Lucy and I were making our way to Blockbusters last night, knowing we had a fine to pay and arguing about whose fault it was as we couldn't remember. After deciding on our rentals (which is a lengthy process involving much negotiation), I asked the guy at the counter:

"Do we not have some kind of fine to pay?"

The guy replied "yes, you have £4 outstanding for some crappy chick flick"

"I knew it!!!"

A Cat Called Beau

2009-07-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

Every day when Lucy or I come home from work, we come in the door and Beau is there to greet us. She rolls on her back straight away and demands her belly rubbing (she does this a lot). Lucy picks her up and carries her around the house, I tend to swear at her and tell her to get out of my way.

And every morning, I wake up at a bout 4am to Beau purring like a demented tractor, staring into my eyes from about 1 inch away. She follows us around when we get dressed, she keeps me company when I work from home, and she follows us down the drive when we go out. When we eat you have to throw her off the table / sofa at least 10 times per meal. Lucy is totally in love with her, and I have to admit, despite the early mornings and the inability to hit the cat litter tray, I was too. I have known a lot of cats and have never met a cheekier, friendlier bolshier one.

The only one she follows around more than Lucy is our other cat - Ripley. They are quite the gang, roaming the neighbourhood together. Beau cant be more than 5 metres from Ripley. They sleep in the same basket or at the bottom of the bed together.

Except that our neighbour horrifically backed his car over Beau (as unfortunately witnessed by Ripley) this morning and we are totally gutted.

The heartbreaking thing is watching our other cat roam around the house looking in every corner and walking round in circles looking for Beau and miaowing (and they say cats aren't sentimental). Apparently she was doing this outside all day.

Totally gutted.

The Rock Star's Tribute to Michael Jackson (Latvia Style)

2009-07-18T04:09:00.000-07:00

Complete with random drunken girl.

This was actually a brilliant bar we went to on a couple of nights.

On Latvia

2009-07-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

I have just got back from a 5 day trip to Latvia and am now in recovery mode. At the moment this involves trying to de-tox by drinking water and eating celery, though this is not working so well...

Riga is a brilliant city however - full of contradictions. On the bad side, the influx of stag-do's into the country as assisted by Ryanair's cheap flights (I may prepare an entire blog post about my feelings for Ryanair) has meant that the city is full of sleazy joints where attractive women feign interest in you to trick you into buying £500 bottles of champagne. The hostel I stayed at has a whole list of clubs and bars that 'you cannot go into or you WILL be robbed'.

This has led to a bit of bad blood between the Latvians and the English and we struggled a little bit to get to see the real city. We weren't helped by the fact that there were seven of us, and we were drinking, and we were loud!

I have kind of decided that I will try to veto foreign stag do's arranged by my mates, as I really think it can affect a place.

On the good side we did managed to do some cool things, like get ourselves into a Latvian nightclub on the 6th floor of some old soviet bloc concrete building, we had some great food and managed to get out of the city to some of the beach resorts which were absolutely fantastic. And unlike when we went to Prague 5 or so years ago, we managed to completely avoid the stags (except in the airport), and by Monday the stags had all disappeared. So it can be done!

Riga is beautiful and boasts some of most beautiful people you will ever see anywhere (and I've been on a fair few different continents). Just don't go where the stag do's do.

Goodbye John.

2009-07-07T13:54:00.001-07:00

When I was traveling to Canada a lot for work back in 2006-07, I worked with quite a character called John.

John was an electrician of some 35 years service to a large steel works that I worked on a long term energy reduction project with. He had been there so long that in fact his employee number was '3'.

John spent most of his years as an electrical maintenance supervisor, trouble-shooting problems and responding to breakdowns on the many large motors and electricity supply systems at the site. Towards the end of his career (actually I think it was technically after he retired), John became actively involved in our energy teams, being the implementer for many of the good ideas that were generated. It was a great project and since has become a case study for the work we do over there.

He got so involved that he saw a gap in the market when trying to solve one of the energy efficiency issues on site relating to industrial lighting control - he began building his own automatic control systems that could withstand the incredibly dusty, dirty, tough conditions in a steel melt-shop. He set up his own company delivering these simple robust systems to anyone who would have them.

John and I spend many an hour walking the myriad of switch rooms, investigating pumps and fans and motors and drives across the factory. He would tell me funny stories about how the guy who first build the site, built the huge electric arc furnace on the assumption that he could just plug it into the local grid and faced a 1 year delay in production start up due to having to get a larger supply to the entire township to feed his factory. He would tell me of his ice fishing escapades on the local river, and we would discuss the merits of American trucks and European diesels.

The funniest story I remember, though I cant tell it properly, was about how one of the factory cats (semi feral creatures which are often found in steelworks and fed by the operators - to keep the rats down), got into one of the electrical rooms and electricuted itself across two live circuits and took town the entire factory causing $100,000 of lost production. Feeding cats was banned after that, though I did see a couple of soot covered creatures which I mistook for huge rats myself.

I remember John fondly because he was, despite his age, extremely kind, very courteous, enthusiastic, friendly and warm. And because he had a real belief in what we were doing. A real deep seeded belief that the work we were doing was important - not just for money saving reasons, but for moral reasons too.

I am writing this post because today I found out that John died of cancer a few months ago.

Goodbye John.

I Have Found a New Hero

2009-07-05T11:49:00.001-07:00

I am not the kind of person that usually looks up to anyone. I hate our celebrity culture and if someone asked me who my hero was, I would rally struggle for an answer, possibly citing Tim Flannery of some ageing rock god.

I have found a new hero. He is a little short, overweight, as silly hair and is a complete geek. Not general hero material. But I agree with absolutely everything he says.

David Mitchell is one half of the comedy duo that wrote Peep Show. In my opinion the funniest comedy show EVER written. I am struggling to find a video that I can embed, but I have linked a you-tube clip here.

Recently I have discovered that David Mitchell is extremely funny, but also that he shares almost all of my opinions too. Surprisingly left wing and Tory hating for a Cambridge graduate, he now blogs regularly on 'Comment is Free' on the Guardian / Observer website and his articles are just about the only thing I laugh out loud at in this age of over-stimulation. Witty and clever - the only problem being that some of the commenters cant quite keep up with his point.

Here are some favourites on wheelie bins and Alan Sugar.

What got me laughing today:

"They say a sneeze is like a mini-orgasm. Well, if my cock went off six times in a row every couple of minutes for hours on end I'd cut the blasted thing off"

There' Something Weird About this Recession

2009-07-04T02:37:00.000-07:00

A recession is a time of hard graft, where everybody just gets on with it and tries to get out the other side without losing their job / house / business beer allowance. Its a time when everybody is grim faced and resolute. The sky is grey, its always raining, and old episodes of 'Cheers' are on repeat play on the TV.

Thats how I imagine the early 90's.

But the funny thing about this recession is its not really like that at all.

I work in an office where approximately 70% of the staff are being forced down to a 4 day week (and there have been several redundancies in the last six months). Where we are battered by constant edicts from up above, telling us off for spending too much money on mobile phone calls, informing us of the new biro rationing scheme and battering us about how bad we are performing financially (but at the same time completely missing the point and failing to understand the simple steps which would actually make us more profitable - steps which everyone around me seems to understand).

It seems to have become a little bit of a joke almost. For some its almost at that if-I-dont-laugh-i-will-cry point. I can only laugh at spending days writing a proposal for a client, only to find that that client has gone bust a few days later. Luckily I am still busy at the moment, but others joke about having sat in the office not having done any work for the last three days.

Added to this, the industry I work in has basically seen blanket recruitment freezes. There is usually a relatively high turnover of staff, but as nobody is recruiting - nobody is leaving. In my team of twenty, the personnel has not changed in twelve months. Nobody is getting pay rises, nobody is getting promotion, therefore levels of office politics are low.

This, along with worries about impending doom has actual led, in my opinion to wierdly high levels of humour an camaraderie in a group where nobody usually has any time to talk to one another.

Its very strange.

I Don't Wanna Move! (throws toys out of pram)

2009-06-27T01:17:00.000-07:00

Our landlord called us up this week. To be precise the tight bugger texted Lucy asking her to call him up. He is thinking of moving back to Sheffield and may want his house back. I don't want to move!

This is probably the second longest I have ever stayed in a house (almost one whole year!) and I actually quite like it and want to stay. I now own things like 'furniture' and extras like 'cutlery' and cats which will make the resumption of my nomadic lifestyle a little more difficult. I've been nesting!

I am thinking of invoking squatters rights...

A Discovery on Team Names

2009-06-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

Whilst undertaking the mammoth Three Peaks Challenge yesterday (after which, I am thoroughly exhausted and have contracted sun-burn so ridiculous that when I take my shirt off, it looks like I am wearing a white T-shirt), my newly recruited team-mates and I got to discussing our team names (Bandicoot and Oscelot).

I was previously under the impression that an Oscelot was some kind of deer, probably found in Africa or some such foreign part and that a Bandicoot was something similar to a fox, cunning and sly. After a little argument, neither of us were any the wiser. So I looked it up on t'interweb today.

It turns out an Oscelot is some kind of cool large cat, otherwise known as the 'Painted Leopard' or 'Jaguarette'.

A bandicoot is basically a large hamster. Awe inspiring!

Some Training for Bandicoots

2009-06-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here with a not insignificant headache, trying to keep my eyes open after driving back from the Lake District. Two potential members of Team Bandicoot took Lucy and I scrambling up 'Jacks Rake', a short route very close to a part of the Cumbria Way a few weeks ago.

I have been informed that my compact camera is un-repairable after coming into a fair amount of contact with a rainwater / dissolved boiler sweets concoction. Therefore not wanting to risk my DSLR in the rain, I must resort to stealing images from the internet:

Tomorrow however, I have agreed to go with some other potential members (or at least they will be by the end of the day), to North Yorkshire to complete the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge!

Its a 23 mile circular route over three of the highest peaks in the Yorkshire Dales (Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough) and is supposed to be completed within 12 hours. Wikipedia calls it 'gruelling'. 'Gentle' or 'easy peasy' or 'like a large cuddle from a giant marshmallow' were the descriptive sentences I was hoping to read.

To make things worse (as well as the forecast for drizzle all day) is that one of the guys I am going with is a little bit hardcore and far, far fitter than me, like really fit. Like 'I've done a tour of Afghanistan' fit.

This would be OK in itself ... except that he told me that he wants to complete the circuit as fast as he can.

I should have told him, 'thats fine but when you get to the end can you get a round in?', but I think he expects me to do the same (and I am slightly scared of him).

I have this ominous feeling in my stomach tonight.

I am off to get myself a power curry!

Team Bandicoot Update

2009-06-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

Its kind of a little pointless writing this as the majority of my limited readers (limited in number, not in their reading ability) are also readers of my brother's site over at All That Comes With It so will probably be aware of what I am about to write.

Dan has blown cover and announced that in July of next year we will be taking on a six day hike across the Hadrians Wall in the north of England. The walk, for the Joseph Salmon Trust will commence in Bowness on the West coast and will wind its way along Hadrians Wall taking some quite dramatic scenery and some historical sites along the way.

For the walk we have decided to et up two teams. Mainly because we want to be able to raise as much money as we can for the charity, which means having a large group of participants hassling a lot of non participants. However in terms of group size we are limited by the range of accommodation available along the way. So Dan will go with one group (randomly named Oscelot) from East to West, whilst I try to organise another from West to East to ease the burden on hostels etc. The groups will meet in the middle on the third day for a healthy game of rounders or perhaps a bacon butty or two.

I was actually planning not to tell my group about some of the bunk-houses and inform them that they were going to have to camp, but that has kind of fallen through now, so I am going to have to relent and allow a few walk comforts.

The team name 'Bandicoot' has been inherited for the West to East rabble for reasons unknown to me, though I think I am happy to stick with it as it took us nearly two weeks to come up with a pub quiz name (and the Nurse ended up getting that from the internet) so having a name ready decided will relive a little stress.

So, what now. Oh - we need some walkers! Dan (envying my initial recruitment joy) has already made moves to try to push for 'Oscelot' membership via his extensive readership, and by the looks of his recent comment list is doing pretty ok with it too!

I do have one trump card however. I work in an an environmental consultancy full to the brim with twenty somethings who thought it would be a good idea to do an environmental science degree thinking that this would lead to lots of exciting work outdoors. Then they joined a consultancy and had their hopes buried at their desk in a large pile of Environmental Permit Supporting Documentation and Environmental Management System Procedural Guidance. Hence, frustrated walking / climbing types are in abundance!

I plan that to be my recruiting ground.

For any who haven't seen it, the walk website has been set up by Dan here, and here is a parting picture of Hadrians Wall (as stolen from the internet):