John Peel R.I.P.

The Radio 1 DJ John Peel passed away today while on holiday in Peru. A sad loss to music world - he championed countless up-and-coming artists. He was one of the original group of broadcasters on Radio 1, and had remained with the station ever since, long after all the others had departed. He was also one of the few presenters on the station who preferred the music to the sound of their own voice.

Me, I remember his occasional appearances on Top Of The Pops, back in the days when it was still presented by Radio 1 DJs. He always looked like a man about to collapse from terminal boredom brought on by the banality surrounding him - which was probably not far from the truth.

Good Day At The Office

Today I surprised myself by managing to work flat-out for the whole of my working day (i.e. the afternoon). Even better, I have results to prove it. There's nothing like a looming deadline for boosting motivation.

That's not to say I didn't avoid distraction completely. While I was busily (frantically, even) working away on one PC, the other was downloading a selection of (mostly) fine music using Deepnet's P2P feature. Today's playlist included, in no particular order, Franz Ferdinand, Bowling for Soup, Travis, Goldie Lookin' Chain and the magnificent David Brent performing the all-time classic Free Love Freeway - a guaranteed Christmas number one, if only they'd release it as a single. A good reason to buy The Office Christmas Special DVD, if not.

Big Al Is Easily Distracted

Today was supposed to be a catch-up day; I've fallen a tad behind on the piece of work due to be finished tomorrow. But, due to a combination of circumstances (namely visitors, new software and sheer laziness) it didn't quite pan out this way. Still, there's always tomorrow morning for a few extra hours.

Working from home isn't quite as easy as I thought it would be. I don't think any of my school report cards ever contained the phrase 'Easily distracted', but it certainly seems applicable now. In the office, everyone knows that web access is monitored, personal phone calls are discouraged, and it would be fairly obvious if anyone decided that watching Lord of the Rings DVDs was preferable to actually doing some work. No such problem at home, though.

I got a present of Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything today. It's probably not a book I would normally have picked for myself - only because I don't often go for non-fiction - but it looks like an interesting read. It's gone straight to the top of the 'to-read' pile (which is now quite tall).

Best music video: Eminem: Just Lose It

Deepnet (Geek Alert)

I downloaded the Deepnet web browser this afternoon, after reading a recommendation in one of the Sunday papers. So far it looks good; it has a lot of the same features I like in Firefox - tabbed browsing, RSS feeds, popup blocking - but where it wins over Firefox is its P2P file-sharing feature. I've already used this to download a few songs today (Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon, if you're wondering).

It also displays my employer's website correctly, which is more than Firefox does - although this is probably more of a reflection on the website than on the browser.

On the down side, I've become used to pressing the F6 key to get to the Address bar quickly. This works in both IE and Firefox, but not in Deepnet. On balance, though, I think I can live without it.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You wanna be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name

You wanna go where people know
People are all the same
You wanna go where everybody knows
Your name

Guess where I was tonight?

Best music video: Goldie Lookin' Chain: Your Mother's Got A Penis

Piss Off, Postie

I want Saturday postal deliveries abolished. I'm sick of getting bad-news mail at the weekend (generally bad-news mail comes in brown or windowed envelopes; if you find a brown, windowed envelope you know you're really screwed) and being unable to do anything about it until the following Monday. I'm talking about the kind of mail that makes you want to pick up the phone and scream at someone: "What the fuck are you doing to me, you bastards?!'. But, because it's the weekend, you can't. All you can do is stew over it for two days, and allow it to wreck your weekend.

I'm sure they do it on purpose. Can't you just picture the evil sods behind their desk on a Friday afternoon? "Put this in the mail tonight for me, would you? It'll really fuck up their weekend for them!".

Bastards, the lot of them.

2+2=5

Text message received today at 12:49pm:

Thanks for playing along with the The Great British Spelling Test last night. Your final score was 44. Look out for the next Great British Test coming soon!

Ah. Looks like my spelling is better than my ability to keep score.

A Bad Spell

Tonight, in one of my geekier moments, I decided to play along with the Great British Spelling Test on TV. I registered by texting my gender and age to the number given at the start of the show, and sent my answers for each round in the same way.

By my count, I got 43 correct answers out of 50 - way above the national average. Hurrah.

I don't have a great deal of faith in the texting system, though. At the end of the show, just before 10:30pm, viewers who texted their answers in were told they would shortly be receiving a message notifying them of their official score. Approximately an hour after that announcement, I received a text message... informing me that I had successfully registered, and reminding me to be sure to watch the show. Ah.

86% isn't bad though. (See, I can do arithmetic too).

And yes, I know I need to get out more.

Today's music: R.E.M.: In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003

Car Alarm Chaos Theory

Occasionally someone will point out how lucky I am to live around here, because it's so quiet. Not just quiet, in the sense that not much happens (although that's true as well), but there is so little noise. My cousin - who lives in the south of England - visited a couple of years ago, and while we were walking home after a night out, he stopped in the street and said, "Listen to that...". I gave him what I imagine was a puzzled look, saying "I can't hear anything". This was, of course, his point. It was just after closing time on a Friday night, we were not far out of the town centre, and it was almost completely silent. No cars, no sirens, no drunken shouting, nothing. If I'd had a pin with me, I would probably have dropped it, just to check.

I was thinking about this last night whilst on the verge of drifting off to sleep, and noticing once more how quiet it was. It was at this moment that my mobile phone decided to alert me to the fact that its battery would soon need recharging, by playing an irritating little tune. Not content with doing this once, it will proceed to repeat this performance at regular intervals until action is taken to remedy the situation.

Here's a thought: Wouldn't the battery last a little longer if the phone didn't bother with this type of warning?

And another thing. Car alarms. Why are these still in use, when it's an accepted fact that they don't work? Your car alarm could be ringing for days on end, and no-one would pay a second's notice, because everyone knows the Car Alarm Chaos Theory; if a butterfly in Brazil flaps its wings, your car alarm will go off.

It has been said that if all the people in China were to simultaneously jump in the air, the tidal wave caused by their landing would go around the globe twice. And just think how many car alarms would go off.

Today's music: Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind

Doctor WhU2

Phew. That bit about the Raindancer tune being used as the new Doctor Who theme was merely a wind-up, designed to stop people complaining about the new logo (which, I think, is OK - not great, but it'll do). I've seen some speculation that U2 might record the DW theme - fuelled, I think, by their appearance last week on Top Of The Pops outside Television Centre, with a Tardis near the stage. If there's any truth in this, then... cool!! But I doubt it, really.

Had a very short physio session this morning, barely 30 minutes, and was back for around 9:30am. I feel more tired than usual though, but more because of working in the afternoon. But I'll get used to that quite soon, hopefully.

Doctor Who

I've just downloaded a tune called Calling Dr Who by Raindancer (nope, me neither) after reading that this is to be the theme tune to the new Doctor Who series. I desperately hope that this information (which I read on a Doctor Who newsgroup) is false, as it is a dismal, arse-wipingly awful pile of old cock.

Fortunately, the new logo for the series is marginally better. Not too cheesy. I considered downloading the logo as desktop wallpaper, but decided this would be a terminally sad and pathetic thing to do. Anyway, I have a nice picture of my doggy on there.

Work, Part 2

As promised, my boss brought along my work PC to the house today. Even better, he also brought a basket loaded with goodies - a present from the company for those people who couldn't make it to the summer party - wine, Pringles, cookies (the kind you eat) and a bunch of other stuff. Did I say wine?

I made a start on the first piece of work. True to form, I've done the easiest bit first to ease myself back into it. So far so good.

Work

I think I'm ready to start work again tomorrow. The last day I worked was March 15th, seven months ago. My boss is coming over here tomorrow with my PC from the office and my first assignment - a data download (in other words, taking a client's data from some other system into ours). It's a two-day job, but I've been given three days to complete it, which is probably wise. I took a three-week break over Christmas last year, and was mildly alarmed how much I'd forgotten by the time I went back. So after this long, I dread to think. I reckon it'll be OK, though - might just take me a bit of time to find my feet again.

Smoke Gets On Your Tits

I'd forgotten about the smoke in pubs - the clothes I was wearing last night were reeking of cigarette smoke, even though the pub was pretty quiet. I only saw two or three smokers, and none of them were particularly close to me. It must be a thousand times worse for the people who work there - as if spending your evenings listening to drunk people talking crap wasn't bad enough, you get to stink of other people's smoke into the bargain.

And another thing. On a completely unrelated subject, when did the Booker Prize become the Man Booker Prize? When did they sneak that in? And why? (see also Jif/Cif, Oil of Ulay/Olay).

OK, I know why they changed Jif to Cif - it's because the name Jif doesn't work in Spanish, due to the way the 'J' is pronounced in that language. Does this mean we'll someday have to change the name of Loch Ness to Lock Ness to allow for our southern neighbours who seem unable, or unwilling, to use the correct pronunciation? The same goes for Auld Lang Syne, which they seem to have renamed Old Lang Zyne. Where the heck did they get Zyne from? A hint: pretend you're singing about a sign, and it'll sound right.

New Look

Ever had one of those days where do you absolutely nothing, but somehow manage to stretch it out for the whole day? I just have.

The only thing I've done today is to change the template for this blog, as I thought the previous colour scheme was a wee bit hard on the eye. Not that I'm even sure if anyone other than me is reading this - only one person has left a comment so far, and he was a cretin anyway.

I think the new layout is better; fairly simple, clear and readable. Now all I need is something worth writing about and we'll be rockin-and-a-rollin.

Hello Hello It's Good To Be Back

So I finally made it to the pub tonight (or last night if we're being pedantic), after a seven-month absence. And nothing, absolutely nothing, give or take a member of bar staff or two, has changed. It was almost as if I'd never been away, other than getting a few free drinks and having a few people not recognise me. It's amazing what a bit of weight loss can do.

Had a slightly shorter physio session yesterday, but felt pretty good at the end of it. With my usual therapist off on holiday, I now had the choice of exercising at home by myself next week, or going in and seeing a different physiotherapist. I decided do take the second option, sometimes I need a bit of a push.

Music: The White Stripes: Elephant
Reading: Stephen Fry: The Hippopotamus

Lazy

I just realised that the bag containing all my stuff that I brought back from hospital is still sitting on a chair outside my bedroom. Still not unpacked. After over two months. That's pretty lazy, even by my standards. I had a quick rummage around inside, and found a whole stack of books which people gave me while I was laid up - so at least I won't be stuck for something to read for a while.

Another physio appointment tomorrow morning (9am, why does it have to be so feckin' early?), after which my regular physiotherapist is on holiday for a week. I'm not sure this is a good thing, given my current bone-idleness.

Today's music: Zwan: Mary Star of the Sea

Fitba

Looks like Scotland are almost certainly out of the 2006 World Cup, after scraping a 1-1 draw against the mighty Moldova. I didn't pay close attention to the match (I can't bring myself to watch Scotland games properly anymore) but the TV was on the background, so I had a rough idea of what was going on.

Berti Vogts' job as coach is said to be safe until it is arithmetically impossible for us to qualify. OK, at the moment, qualifying is still technically possible, but it's highly unlikely. And if we can't even beat Moldova, we don't really deserve to get there anyway.

Like Renton said, it's shite being Scottish.

Family Fuckwits

OK, I admit it. I've been watching reruns of Family Fortunes on Challenge TV. I'm sure the contestants must have been taking some sort of mind-altering substances, judging by a few of the answers they gave. Over the last two days alone, the following answers have been given (I've heard these before, and always doubted their authenticity - but I promise you, they're for real).

Q: Name a famous Scotsman
A: Jock

Q: Name a famous Scotsman
A: Vinnie Jones

Q: Name a bird with a long neck
A: Naomi Campbell

Here's another that I haven't seen personally, but I'm assured it's true...

Q: Name a song with the word 'moon' in the title
A: Blue Suede Moon

Today's music: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy

Nude Bush

From the Yahoo News site:

Nude Bush taken off display

A painting of President Bush in the nude has been taken down from the wall at the City Museum in Washington, having been branded "unsuitable".

The painting, a caricature of the President, shows him reclining naked on a chaise longue, his head propped up by a pillow.

Myra Peabody Gossens, public relations consultant for the museum, said the exhibit was not what had been expected.

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Just out of curiosity I ran a Google Image Search on 'nude bush' to see if it would turn up a photo of this painting. Although it returned a high number of matches, I didn't quite find what I was looking for. On the plus side, I now have a new favourite website.