17/07/2009 by Lee.

One of my favourites, and the guitar work is simply awsome

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24/04/2009 by Lee.

Dear God, it’s been over a year since I did this! So what to put? <drums keyboard in thought>

Maybe I’m all blogged out? Maybe the demise of Jade Goody really has taken it out of me? Jade Goody… now there’s a topic to ease me back in!

What a waste of space that girl was. Now some people at this point will doubtless accuse me of speaking ill of the dead, however that was my opinion of her when she was alive and well, so it would be frankly wrong of me to change it now she’s dead. For some people she was a heroine, whereas for me she was more of a normal but below average intelligence, under privileged, failure to society and victim of being dumb person. Too harsh? Then the old favourite of “She’s so brave fighting this disease” would pop up and say hello. Brave? Really? A couple of points of order here:

1. How do you actually “fight” a disease from a purely internal decision making point of view?
2. How is that “brave”?

You see, brave is when you have a choice to do something or not. Firemen are brave as they choose to go in to burning buildings to rescue people. Being diagnosed with a hideous disease and living out your final days in the media is not brave. But hey, at least living out those final days in the media paid well.

“She’s doing it to support her kids!” cry the apologists. Again, a point of order. I grew up in to a fairly well balanced, intelligent and hard working (all in my opinion of course) individual and it didn’t take a million or two from my parents to bring that about. Thank God the step dad is such a fine upstanding individual.

Now the story has moved on with talk of “Jade: The musical” and “Jade: The Movie” heading to a theatre near you soon. There has already been a film about a talking pig so I’m not really too sure that I see the need for another one. Of course there is also a delightful irony in this too. The auditions for the musical may well be held on a televised reality show, thereby plucking another nobody from obscurity and making them famous, except this time they will be able to sing so may actually have a talent unlike the dumb character they’ll be playing. Maybe they’ll also audition for her mothers part although finding one armed lesbian crack addicts that can also sing a bit could be a stretch too far even for this ludicrous story.

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04/04/2008 by Lee.

That’s the sticker I’m seeing on a lot of cars at the moment; SPEED KILLS. Seeing it last night for the umpteenth time got me thinking and I feel that it’s quite wrong. You see, it’s not actually possible for speed in itself to kill anyone. This morning I drove at 70 and didn’t die, I’ve been on planes doing 500 mph and lived to tell the tale, astronauts have reached speeds in the tens of thousands of miles per hour and still seem to be with us. So I think we can safely say that speed does not actually kill anyone.

“Ah-ha”, say the campaigners, “it’s crashing/hitting people at speed that kills.” Again, not technically true. Hit me on the head with a feather travelling at 50 mph and I think I’ll live, use a large hammer and I may not. So it would be more accurate to say that it’s force that is the real killer here and not the speed itself. For example, if I lower a large wrecking ball onto you the speed is frankly irrelevant, you are going to die. Sure, lower it really quickly and death may be swift and more messy yet the end result is the same.  A more real world example is that of the cliff divers of Acapulco. These people dive from cliffs into the Pacific Ocean to entertain tourists. They all live, yet if they were to repeat this stunt off say a multi-storey car park and on to a concrete road they would die. Their speed is the same at point of impact, the difference is the force acting on their bodies at point of impact. The water offers less resistance than the concrete and allows them to walk (or indeed swim) away unharmed. So you see, the velocity is irrelevant. The same is true in your car. Hit a hedge at 70 and you walk away, hit a wall at 70 and you won’t.

So, if you have one of these “Speed Kills” messages on your car or, if you know of anyone that does you must encourage them to remove it immediately as it’s plainly wrong, it’s the force.

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21/03/2008 by Lee.

…for it has been many months since my last post.

The thing is, when I went through a spell of putting myself under pressure to do this on a regular basis, all the pleasure went from doing it. The cathartic nature of writing had been lost. The joy of finding the trivial and irrelevant amusing and sharing that with the world had gone. As the readership grew (and it was in the hundreds) the pressure became more to find new things to write about every day, to always write in a certain style, to try and cater to an audience that I didn’t know! That for me, was a great shame. You see, I can’t draw and nor can I sing. Anybody that has seen me try to dance will not need reminding of the controlled falling that is my dancing. Something I feel that I do OK at is to observe and on the odd occasion make people laugh. Not an especially great talent I’ll admit, nobody has ever been famed in history for being a great observer and neither will I be on stage as the new Billy Connolly anytime soon, but that’s what I’ve been given.

I was in Miami recently on a works trip (no work, just through work) and for the first time in years I was in a situation of spending all of my time with people I didn’t know. I knew two of my fellow travellers in passing but that was it. On this trip I got friendly with a few people and we had a really good time, in fact, I haven’t laughed so much in ages. Had I been given a talent for painting or singing I may have had a completely different weekend. It was the unique nature that makes up me that made me have the weekend I did. I’m not being big headed with that, we are all unique, and each of us would have had a different experience; I just enjoyed the one I had.

My point is, you shouldn’t let something you enjoy stop being fun otherwise it takes away a part of you. They say (actually I’ve never met anyone called “They”) that those that can turn their hobbies into their jobs are lucky. I couldn’t disagree more. I like my hobby to be an escape from work, otherwise where do you escape to?

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24/09/2007 by Lee.

I was watching TV last night and a person in a documentary was talking about having God in their life and what a difference it made to them. There was lots of, “If God hadn’t been with me I don’t know how I would have got through it” and several instances of, “I know the Lord is with me.” all thrown in for good measure. When asked if she would like to go to university she said that yes she would, “God willing”.

Bollocks

If you want to go to university, study! Do well in your exams, work hard in school don’t leave it to the whim of some notional deity. I couldn’t live my life with the thought that someone else (God) was in control and no matter what I did it was someone else’s choice whether it succeeded or not. When I drive my car, I drive it, nobody else, me. If we were to take this attitude and apply it to all of life we simply wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. If God wants me to get up he’ll lift me from my bed.

This is simply an abdication of responsibility. By blaming life’s ups and downs on a deity you are absolving yourself of any culpability for your actions. If a gunman was to go wild in a shopping centre somewhere killing or wounding innocent people and then claim that God told him to do it, we’d think him mad. Yet if somebody commits a more rational act and claims that God told them to do it that seems acceptable. Why is there this double standard? Is it because God wouldn’t tell someone to go on a killing spree? The self same God that the bible tells us is vengeful, not above wiping out a town or two, sending plague and pestilence upon the Earth and condemning those that don’t agree with Him to a hellish fiery inferno for the rest of eternity?

Challenge any believer on this and the usual reply is something about a test of faith, you can’t prove that it isn’t the will of God. Again, bollocks. I could claim a stone told me to do things, after-all you can’t prove otherwise, it’s simply a test of my faith in the stone.

If you need to believe that someone else is running your life then you have a bigger weakness than any deity can help you with. If you feel that everything that happens to you is of someone else’s choosing then you need to take a long hard look at yourself. Did you agree with the invasion of Iraq? George Dubya claims that God told him to do it, you think he’d have told you it was OK too, after-all if it is all God’s will, you think He’d aim for a more consistent message.

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20/09/2007 by Lee.

Much has been made lately about immigrant workers coming to England and the need for them to pass an English test first. English can be a daunting language, so I thought I’d give prospective immigrants a hand with spelling and pronunciation.

I take it you already know
of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead-it’s said like bed, not bead.
For goodness sake, don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat.
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for pear and bear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose
Just look them up - and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward.
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come I’ve hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Man alive,
I’d mastered it when I was five!

There! Should be no problem now

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04/09/2007 by Lee.

First off, sorry it’s been a while.

I recently received my water bill at home, and I have to say it’s left me feeling rather vexed. I’m am charged for three separate things by my water company, namely the supply and subsequent drainage of domestic water and a charge for surface water drainage. First item of vexation is why the hell should my bill go up simply because it has rained more and some of it happened to fall into my drain? If it didn’t go into my drain it would still work it’s way into the water system via nature. Secondly, why am I charged almost twice as much to remove water than I am for the supply of it? Is it twice as expensive to take it away? And then they really get you.

The water that I have paid to be removed both from my domestic usage and surface water drainage is then cleaned and processed before they sell it back to me again! Thus starting the whole chain over again. Does any other industry do this? Does any one else offer the marvellous facility of taking stuff away - at a cost - and then selling me the exact same stuff back again?

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17/08/2007 by Lee.

Police in Hampshire are taking twice weekly skateboarding lessons in an attempt to “bond” with the local youth. Do they not realise that any attempt by an adult to do something perceived as cool by kids is doomed to failure? It becomes instantly naff.  How embarrassing is it to see an older relative trying to dance at a wedding?

Once they have their new found skateboarding skills what will they do with them? Will each police car have a skateboard in the back ready for those footpath pursuits? Instead of wasting their time with skateboarding, how about learning a useful  skill such as free running or “parkour” as it is also known. This would give police the ability to leap fences, scale (and indeed descend) buildings and use all today’s street furniture to their advantage in pursuing criminals on the run. I was going to put a nice link in here so you could see it in action, but thanks to a slight technical hitch I can’t. Go to you tube and search for “Parkour” and you’ll see what I mean. Any-hoo, I digress.

The cost of these training sessions is being funded by you and me via our taxes, and I for one am not happy about it. The police do a (generally) good and difficult job, yet things like this tend to make them a bit of a laughing stock.  

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14/08/2007 by Lee.

What would we do without it? You wouldn’t be reading this for a start and life would generally be much more dull. Even the most pointless of questions can be answered in seconds. Did you know that Mr Greedy of the Mr Men has such short arms that he couldn’t possibly eat? Is his weight problem glandular rather than diet based? But there is barely a day goes by that I am not stunned by the use that people put this revolutionary technology to.

Want to know what sound a contented guinea pig makes? Click here and you can find out. Heard of cow tipping? The redkneck pursuit of getting drunk and then pushing over a cow? Why not try it online here. Not all of these are useful of course. Now shoes is another issue. We all need shoes, but we can’t all afford new ones. Help is at hand though with the growing used shoe market. Once you’ve got your new shoes you may want to consider growing a beard. You may have thought this to be a simple process of not shaving but there is much more to it than that. By a stroke of luck, you can now get beard growing advice on-line!

So you’ve grown your beard, bought some used shoes and are probably by this point barred from the house for getting a little weird. The last refuge of the opressed male is of course the garden shed. Being a competitive sex we of course feel the need to rate our shed and compare it with others. GOOD NEWS!! You can thanks to the internet! But what to do in your new shed? Plants and radio ham may seem the obvious choices but the really keen shed user goes a little further. To progress to really advanced shed use you will of course need to get some power to your shed. Whilst most of us would simpy hook it up to the mains, one American schoolboy decided to build a nuclear reactor in his shed. If I was wearing one I would take my hat off to him! Whilst cheap nuclear power may not be possible in your shed, there are other things you can do. How about building your own hovercraft for example? Surely every mans dream! Floating to the fridge on a bed of air to open a nice cold beer.

Yes, the internet can (and indeed does) provide Facebook, email and countless practical applications it’s the lunacy that I salute. A library can provide words, but it’s the comic book shop that fuels imagination.

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13/08/2007 by Lee.

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10/08/2007 by Lee.

Well, it’s been a while so indulge me.

I have a pretty major failing. It appears that my mind reading and predicting the future skills are somewhat lacking. I have come into the office today (rather than work from home) simply to attend one meeting this morning. That meeting has now been cancelled as the host  has decided to work from home! Well thanks a chuffing bunch. Presumably this was not a spur of the moment call and if the cancellation had been sent through last night I wouldn’t have got up at 5:20 this morning to come in.

Also, a new project is launching in just over 2 weeks and the first I heard of it was today. So what? you may ask. Well, it’s my job to launch these things so some advance notice would have been nice. Other people knew of it, and were obviously waiting for my amazing psychic abilities to detect its approach. Bad news on this front, I don’t have any! I have a pretty full schedule between now and then and am as likely to be able to fit this in as Bin Laden is to convert to Buddhism.

Having spent 30 minutes reducing my inbox to a size deemed acceptable by the “I.T. email & work prevention police” it has now been clogged again with presentations of ridiculous size in PowerPoint, as we all know that it’s the little graphics and animations that make the difference. Not if they take it up to 6MB they don’t! Stop it, just stop it! The inbox issue is of course made worse by the 26 zombie bites, 18 werewolf attacks, 4 sheep gifts and 3 random questions that Facebook feels needs my urgent attention.

You see to some people, Friday is about clearing the decks ready for a fresh start on Monday. For the unimaginitive that simply means forwarding on the entire contents of their inbox to other people, before pronouncing, “Oh look, I’ve got a clear inbox.” Well whoop de fucking doo for you.

Next time you go to press forward, consider the impact that will have on the recipient. Do they need it? Do they care? If not, then keep hold of it and go and discuss it with them first! 

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07/08/2007 by Lee.

Most of us have been on a plane at some point in our lives and when flying the altitude of the aircraft is generally given as x feet above sea level. The reasons for this are quite obvious when you consider that land can form high plateaus or low valleys and using the simple measure of height over the land could lead to disastorous consequences when flying from Schipol (below sea level) to Bolivia.

Tidal patterns lead to differing sea levels around the world at different times. For example around Alaska and parts of Canada the tide can lead to a change in sea level of over 50 feet. Whilst this may not sound like much, imagine trying to land a plane in bad weather and poor visibility and suddenly finding the runway 50 feet away just as you cut the power. A change in air pressure can give rise (or indeed fall) to a change in sea level of another 5 feet or so adding to the height confusion.

It’s not just aircraft that suffer from rising and falling sea levels. Mountains are also measured in height above sea level, so depending on the tide in a given part of the world could one summit attempt on Everest be said to have been higher than another? Since the last ice age, sea levels have risen by around 400 feet thereby shrinking many of our mountain ranges. Now, whilst we can safely say that they haven’t actually shrunk (other than by normal erosion and tectonic methods) the standard measure that we use indicates that they have.

So what is the standard or “mean” sea level? In short, there isn’t one. In the U.K. sea level is determined by a guage just outside Newlyn in Cornwall, yet this is over a foot different to sea level on the east coast of the island. GPS systems use a complex ellipsoid model of the Earth to work out a mean sea level, but neither of these methods can give us 100% accuracy.

So throughout the course of today, your altitude will vary depending on which method you use, and if you’re flying anywhere shortly don’t do the Amsterdam to La Paz route.

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02/08/2007 by Lee.

Those of you who know me (or have followed my spouting on this site) will probably know that I have little time for the average American. When asked why, I sometimes struggle to come up with more than the obvious reasons. They’re too loud, they’re stupid, they can’t go to war (and why go in the first place?) without inflicting casulaties on their allies. But in a rare epiphany, I have finally figured it out. The root causes of my downer on the nation. There are 2, although they are related.

1) Why do you keep telling us and yourselves that you are the best country in the world? 80% of Americans do not own a passport, so what are they basing this claim on having never left their shores?

and, more importantly

2) If someone at work comes in everyday and says, “I am the best. I am better than all of you at everything. I’m richer than you, I run my life in a manner that you aspire to, I am just the mutts nuts!” How BLOODY ANNOYING would that be? This is what the American nation does to the rest of the world. What would be the odds of the person saying this at work surviving the week without a good smack in the face? Pretty damn low I should think.

And this my loyal reader, is the the crux of my dislike.

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31/07/2007 by Lee.

There has been outrage in some quarters recently about the posting of videos showing children fighting each other on sites such as You Tube. Police are saying that the web sites should monitor and remove such films, whilst the sites themselves say they rely on users to flag content to them. In amongst this fine piece of buck passing the point is somewhat lost. Regardless of whether these films are on the web or not, the fact remains that they are still being made. Surely the police would be better off trying to stop the kids fighting rather than simply trying to stop them posting videos of the fight. If Hitler hadn’t been captured on film it wouldn’t have prevented his attrocities from happening.

A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers said of the web sites, “They are responsible for what is on their products - they are making a profit from this.” What a ridiculous statement! Would we hold the History Channel responsible for Bubonic Plague as they screened it? Did the BBC cause famine in Ethiopia simply by carrying coverage of it? 

For as long as the police try to pass the blame to the web sites the problem will persist. I am not anti police, I think they do a good job that I certainly wouldn’t do however, in this instance they need to address the cause rather than the outlet.  

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23/07/2007 by Lee.

In a publicity stunt for the new Simpsons movie, a giant Homer Simpson was painted on the hillside at Cerne Abbas, Dorset, next to the somewhat older chalk outline of what some think to be an ancient fertility symbol. Local pagans were somewhat shocked by this, and promised to do some, “rain magic” to wash the paint based version away. ENOUGH WITH THE MAGIC!!!!

The question is, having proclaimed that they were going to perform this magic in the national press and the the deluge that then followed, can we hold these people accountable? They said they were going to make it rain, and it did. Could those that have been devasted by the floods launch legal action against them? It would certainly raise an interesting debate. The pagan rainmakers would either have to admit that they brought this rain, ergo caused the flooding and the responsibilities that go with that or, admit that it’s all bollocks and they didn’t do anything other than stand in a circle, chanting with sheets on their heads. Either route is a poor option for them. Admit that they have no power and it’s all mumbo-jumbo or that they are really powerful uber pagans and due to a bit of a cock up they’ve placed most of England under water, oops, our bad.

This is not unlike the dilemma faced by the church in the Billy Connolly film, ”The man who sued God“. If you get a chance to see this you really should. Connolly plays Steve Myers, a lawyer turned fisherman in Australia. During a storm, Myers’ boat is destroyed and the insuarance company fails to pay out, citing an Act of God. Myers goes on to sue the church as Gods representative on Earth for destroying his boat. The quandry of course that if it was an act of God, then the church is liable and the only way to avoid liablity is to admit that God does not exist. I won’t go on to spoil the rest of the film for you, but it is well worth watching.

I wonder if the DVD is doing the rounds in the pagan community at the moment?

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19/07/2007 by Lee.

I read with interest a debate recently about the complex nature of spelling within the English language. There is an argument in some quarters to change the way we spell words to make them simpler for people to learn. The argument goes that changing and simplyfying our spelling will improve literacy rates amongst children. As a user of the language I am the first to admit that a lot of our words are sound different to how they look. Take my recent article on knights for example, just what rational is there behind the “k” in knight? Advocates of the scheme believe that phonetic spelling is the way forward, spelling words just the way they sound. Wimmin not women, lern for learn, slo for slow and so on. The argument however is full of holes, not the least of which is the spelling of “phonetic” in the first place.

Being a good northern boy that I am, I pronounce some words differently to people from other parts of the country. Take the old favourites grass, bath, laugh and graph for example. My southern wife inserts an “r” into the pronunciation of these words, phonetically making them grars, barth, larf and grarf whereas my phonetic spelling would be gras, bath, laff and graf. So already we have one country (actually one household) that would need two different spellings for one word. The crux of the phonetisists (if that’s a word) argument is that spelling is purely to allow the annunciation of the written language: essentially the purpose of writing is to be read out loud (or lowd).

We can read words two or three times faster than we can speak them, and the reasons for this is in part the rules of our language and spelling that tell us how to treat individual words. We treat some words as a “whole” rather than breaking down the consituent letters. Words like “and”, “if” and “the” are treated as one symbol much like “%” and the letters themselve are not so important. Other words like “guest” and “gesture” rely on the silent letters giving us the correct meaning. There has even been research that suggests we do not need to see the whole of the letters in a word in order to interpret its meaning. How many times do you miss a simple spelling error in a document that you have written, even when you’ve re-read it (and how would phonics treat “red” and “read”?) How many times have you struggled to read a text (or txt) message sent in text speak?

What this boils down to is that we are dumbing down our education system to suit the lazy. If we give kids in school the message that if you can’t do something we’ll just change the rules and make it easier for you then we are heading for a meltdown. Instead of working out how we can change our spelling, we should be concentrating on how to improve the skills of those that are both teaching and learning.  

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17/07/2007 by Lee.

Let me start by saying that after typing that heading, what a bizzare looking word “knight” is. All the letters are wrong to make the sound that it does. Any-hoo, on with the post.

I’m a traditionalist deep down. I like our history and quirky ceremonies. I feel it helps define England as a nation. The main point of tradition is that it by and large remains unchanged down the years. Yet knighthood has changed beyond all recognition. Knighthood itself dates from around the 10th century and by the 12th century the image we have in our heads of a knight started to form: the armoured leader of men on horseback. The principal duty of a knight was to fight with and lead heavy cavalry into battle. Knights were not “appointed” as such, but trained from the age of 6 or 7 to be a “page” in a noble persons household. Schooled mainly by the women of the household in manners and courtesy the prospective knight also learns falconry and basic hunting, along with horse and weapon care.

At 14 or 15 years old, our would be knight becomes a squire and sergeant for an already existing knight, a personal aide if you will. Following his master into battle and tending to him when injured the squire would learn the mainstays of knighthood. Much of the training still focused on chivalry, politeness, compassion and loyalty. Upon judging the squires training to be complete, the squire would be knighted by his Lord and master and free to use the title “Sir”. Having been trained in battle from childhood, learned skills in hunting and chivalry the knights would be called upon by the King to lead men into battle to defend the nation, or Christendom.

How much of this do you feel Sir Elton John has been through? Could he be called up to Iraq or Afghanistan to lead troops on horseback? Sir Alex Ferguson could no doubt organise a quick kick about for Lancelot and Guain, but could he hunt with a falcon? Speaking of falcons, Sir David Attenborough could be useful with the birds and Sir Steve Redgrave could row our men into battle. Before you say, “Ah yes, but these people are honourary knights.” let me assure you they are not. Bob Geldof is an honourary knight, as is Bono and frankly if I was going into battle I’d rather follow Sir Bob than Sir Cliff Richard.

Knighthood was designed to show that you had reached a level of skill in battle, you were a leader of men, loyal to your cause and able to pass on those skills to the next generation all with the manners and grace to say “Sorry” as your broadsword hacked your opponents arm off. It was not meant to celebrate your latest album. Monty Python sang, “We’re knights of the round table. We dance whenever we’re able. We do routines and chorus scenes with footwork impec-a-ble.” and sadly that is now the level of ability for many of our knights. They could do a chorus scene, their footwork would be great, but that doesn’t make them a knight.

Give honurs to recognise charity work or commitment to a cause. I’m all for it, isn’t that what CBE’s, OBE’s and MBE’s are for? But don’t confuse it with an order that was trained from the age of 6 to fight for King and country.   

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13/07/2007 by Lee.

First off, my apologies for the lateness today. My bad.

So Harry Potter has hit our cinema screens again and the final book is due out next week. Hats off to JK Rowlings people for scheduling the 2 events so close together, it’s guaranteed to drive up sales for both. Potter madness is also starting to gain momentum. Currently, if you were to remove the i-phone, Harry Potter and porn from the web, all you would be left with is my blog and www.bringbacktheporn.com (which may or may not already exist, I’m certainly not going to check from my work machine). Rumours abound about Harrys final fate with book shops under strict rules about selling arrangements. Bloomsbury (Rowlings publisher) have been a little short sighted with this though. They implemented what we in the corporate world call a tactical rather than strategic solution.

For past Potter releases, book sellers have been told that if they sell the book early they will not be supplied with the next edition. All well and good except we have now reached the final edition. The threat doesn’t sound so strong anymore does it? Rowling is so keen for the ending not to be revealed early that she has been on several fan sites and begged them not to post any rumours. Seeing as this isn’t a fan site, I feel I am free to add my thoughts to the debate.

1. Harry and Voldermort form a civil partnership. Being wizzards they “create” a child, Vol der Potter. Vol der Potter is raised in the Netherlands and becomes a big player in the international coconut trade.
2. Ron discovers that upon leaving school his gingerness prohibits him from getting anywhere in life and dies destitute on the streets of Torquay where he had been operating the candy floss machine on the beach. 
3. Harry wakes up and discovers it was all a dream and he isn’t really a wizzard
4. Ron wakes up and discovers it was all a dream. He is still ginger though and has no friends

Whilst none of these may be true, I am tempted to join the queue next weekend, purchase my book, flick to the back and scream, “Oh no, Harry dies” before retreating to a safe distance. Photocopies of the last page could be dispatched to schools up and down the country, stuck up in bus stops and playgrounds. Maybe even call into a popular talk show under false pretences and just blurt it out, “Harry was gay and died in a homophobic incident at Kings Cross.”

If you feel this is too much for todays youth, just join your local queue for the book, flick to the back and just shout, “Hooray!” at the top of your voice or “What a cop out”, maybe even, “Well bugger me!”. You see it doesn’t really matter what you shout, as long as you shout something.

If only I had the voice of Brian Blessed. “Potters alive!?”

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12/07/2007 by Lee.

Nope, mind has gone blank. I’ll try again later.

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11/07/2007 by Lee.

Why are pidgeons more stupid than other birds?

On my drive to work I pass numerous road kills, most of which are being scavenged by birds. Crows and magpies all fly off when they hear the car approaching, generally in a safe direction. A magpie even seems to be able to deduce which side of the road I’m on and remain in place if it is in no danger. Not pidgeons, oh no, not them. Firstly, it takes them some time to detect my approach. You would think a ton of steel moving at 70 mph would make some noise, but obviously not on the correct frequency for this dumb bird. When it eventually does realise that there may be trouble on four wheels bearing down upon it, the rat of the sky goes into panic mode. Whilst evidently capable of flight, a pidgeons “fight or flight” reflex seems to have become, “fight or strut around in circles like a loon” reflex.

As I get closer, the circular srutting becomes ever more frantic, before the memory of flight trips a switch in its head. Sadly, this switch always seems to get turned on just as I get level with the soon to be “ex” pidgeon.

Luckily for me, I only caught the bird a glancing blow. No doubt enough to leave the bird playing a harp on a cloud somewhere, but without leaving the normal residual detritus all over my car. I don’t recall ever striking any bird other than a pidgeon, yet they are only one breed of this prolific species. There must be a gene or part of their DNA make up that makes them dim and susceptible to an early death.

If only we could isolate that gene and lace all Burberry clothing with it, we could solve many of societies current ills. 

Posted in Driving, Random stuff | 1 Comment »

10/07/2007 by Lee.

I normally have a bit of difficulty coming up with something to put here Monday to Friday, but now that problem has doubled. I am having to provide my Facebook friends with status updates on a daily, if not twice daily basis. Not being a pretentious soul (unlike Steven Hawking, a man from Kent that speaks with an American accent) I have problems describing myself in the third person. “Lee is…” is a really poor way to start a sentence describing yourself. Should I really be putting, “Lee is going to work now” or “Lee is at work”? Will this make a difference to your life?

Yet strangely, Facebook is a compelling and vaguely addictive system. Just this week I’ve told the world what I’m reading, exchanged nonsense with an ex-colleague in Jamaica all whilst trying to arrange a reunion between people I haven’t seen for years and are now scattered all over the globe. The old argument goes that technology is destroying human interaction by removing face to face contact with the populous at large, but surely now the argument has turned by 180 degrees. I am in contact with people that I had previously lost touch with, I can quickly dash off a message to a group that are scattered from Calgary to Crawley. The effort required to do this in the past would have prevented me from doing so, but not any longer. I am especially bad at remembering birthdays, but Facebook can tell me when my friends birthdays are, allowing me to send them an email or another message. Suddenly the world is a better connected place.

If you can sort the wheat from the chaff, deny the ridiculous applications, be selective who you accept as a friend and manage your notifications, Facebook can be a great tool. Let it get on top of you and you may have to run for the hils though.

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09/07/2007 by Lee.

This weekend I finally cut the grass in my back garden. It’s been a while, and due to poor soil, drainage and laziness it has always been a struggle to get a decent patch of grass. Earlier in the Spring I bought some Canadian grass seed, which is supposed to grow in just about any conditions. Knock me down with a feather, it bloody well has too! I know have a lawn which by no means Wembley standards actually looks OK. Contrast this with the story of a Utah pensioner that has been arrested, handcuffed and bloodied for not having a decent lawn.

The United States is rife with gun crime, drugs and poverty, yet the good people of Orem feel that maintaining a decent thatch is the secret to a good society. According to the latest available statistics (2005), murders have increased by over 21% in Utah, yet the arrest rate for these crimes is declining. The citizens of Utah are quite literally getting away with murder. Car theft is up 7.4%, and whilst larceny/theft is down, it is still above the U.S. national average.

I’m not suggesting that Utah is a worse place to live than anywhere else in the U.S. but maybe in this instance they have got their priorites in the wrong order as the 56 murders and nearly 1000 rapes that took place in the state in 2005 would seem to testify. So is the charge of “not maintaining a garden” unusually weird for Utah? Sadly not. Let’s take a quick look at the statute books for Utah.

• It is illegal to fish from horseback
• It is illegal to detonate any nuclear weapon
• It is illegal not to drink milk
• It is a felony to persistently tread on the cracks between paving stones on the sidewalk of a state highway
• It is an offense to hunt whales (this in a state with no coast)
• it is illegal to cause a catastrophe

Quite clearly, these are serious crimes. It is also worth bearing in mind that for something to be outlawed there is usually a genuine need for it. So are we to assume that all these “crimes” have been commited at some point in Utah? Did somebody once hunt whales in this land locked state? Were they using nuclear weapons at the time, perhaps whilst on horseback? If so, was it a catastrophe?

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06/07/2007 by Lee.

A bit lacking in subject matter today, so here’s some questions for you that have always puzzled me. Answers on a postard or the back of a stuck down envelope please.

1) Who discovered you could milk a cow and what were they trying to do at the time?

2) Who pulled a potato out of the ground, covered in dirt and thought, “I’ll eat that”?

3) At what point did rolling up tobacco leaves, putting them in your mouth and setting fire to them seem like a good idea?

4) Back to cows for this one. Who looked at one and thought, “I bet if I killed it, skinned it and then dried its skin, it would make a cracking pair of shoes”?

5) Why are there 10 commandments? Is that not a rather fortunate number to receive from on high for a race using the decimal system? Why not 7 or 12? Or even better, 3. I’m God, only me and nobody else, don’t be a criminal, respect other people.

6) Still with commandments. Why do they all start, “You shall not…” It’s hardly a positive message is it. Why not, “You will be good” and so on.

7) Jade Goody. Just why? What is the point of her?

Why have people got different accents? What started that?

9) Why are people from the Netherlands called Dutch?

10) In a library, is the Bible stored under fiction or non-fiction?

11) Who thought “Rock-a-bye baby” would make a good lullaby? The baby falls out of a tree and dies

12) Why is there an Easter Bunny? When was the last time you saw a rabbit with eggs?

13) What do atheists swear on in court?

14) If you only have one eye, do you blink or wink?

15) Why do we only breath out of one nostril at a time and why does it swap over every 20 minutes or so?

16) If I stand exactly on the North Pole, what time is it?

17) Why isn’t “Phonetic” spelled the same way that it sounds?

18) How important do you have to be before being murdered becomes being assasinated?

19) Why isn’t Donkey Kong a donkey?

20) Why can’t I have my cake and eat it? What’s the point of having a cake if you’re not allowed to eat it? 

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05/07/2007 by Lee.

Socialite (polite speak for lazy slacker) Paris Hilton still seems to be in the news. To me, Paris Hilton is the embodiment of America, in fact, she IS America. Looks good from a distance, wealthy, brash, stupid, no regard for the rules, inability to cope with the consequences of breaking those rules, no discernible talent and no clue what is happening in the rest of the world. She has acheived her status on the back of the success of others and expects the whole world to pay her some attention and listen to what she has to say. Is this not modern day America? The America that did report on the recent incident at Glasgow airport but followed it up with the question, “So what does this mean for America?”. NOTHING, YOU FUCKWITS! It happened in Scotland, not Sacremento, although it has probably been called Scotlandshire or 2000 miles east of Washington DC by now.

Yesterday was the 4th of July, a day of celebration for Americans, BBQ’s were lit, parades marched, bands played and fireworks went bang. The fireworks even went bang in California, depsite the fact that there has been so little rain there lately that the bush fire risk is at a high level, yet everyone thought it would be a good idea to fire explosives on a stick. In Britain we do not pay much heed to the 4th of July, yet I feel that this should change. Instead of independence day we could call it, “Thank God for that, that was a close shave day” and celebrate the fact that we are no longer responsible for our wayward child. The official celebration party could even be held at the Hilton hotel, just for an extra touch of irony, before gathering at an oval race track to drive round and round for several hours only turning left whilst the crowd joyfully shouts, “woo-hoo!” and “yeah!” in a mindless act of noise making just for the sake of it. The following morning, the 5th of July will be the real celebration though. The realisation that, despite the fact people got drunk and made complete tits of themselves the night before, there will be no clamour for “therapy” or “group”, none of us will need “closure” after a drunken romatic folly. We will deal with our “issues” like adults and some of us will even renew our passports, because at least we have them unlike an estimated 80% of Americans.

So next time you bump into an American and they say, “Happy 4th of July” you should reply, “Yes it is. Thank you.”.

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04/07/2007 by Lee.

Despite what the weather is telling us, summer is upon us. For the film industry summer is a time for big releases and the big blockbusters, a time to show the public how America single handedly won the second world war, led the crusades and invented air. Normally, the summer blockbuster movie is at least a new film, even if it uses a tried and tested formula, but this summer that has all changed. In years gone by, we all poked fun at Rocky for constantly re-running essentially the same film, just changing the number at the end, yet this year Hollywood has surpassed itself. Let’s take a quick look at what is currently faring well at the box office in the U.K.

Shrek the third (3rd Shrek film)

Fantastic Four: Rise of the silver surfer (second time around)

Oceans Thirteen (3rd in the series)

Pirates of the Caribbean: At worlds end (3rd again)

Hostel Part II (at least this is only the second)

It doesn’t end there. Coming soon is Die Hard 4.0, a 4th rehash of the same film, Indiana Jones is in production yet again along with more to come from the Shrek team and Pirates of the Caribbean.

At least Harry Potter is an evolving story, even if it is a little far fetched, do you know any ginger kids with 2 mates? I accept that to appeal to a mass market there is a limited number of formulae availble to Hollywod but please give us new film titles. Without this, I may stop watching films altogether.

Anyway, there’s a re-run of Top Gear on tonight along with I’m a celebrity builder on holdiay from hell get me out of here that I’m especially looking forward to.

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03/07/2007 by Lee.

There is a theory that any one of us is only 6 people away from knowing anyone on the planet. The thinking goes that if I have a friend (which I do) that friend will know more people. Each of them will know more people and so on and so forth. So theoretically I have a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend that is the Queen. Testing this theory has always been problematic, but now we have social networking sites on the internet.

With the growing popularity of Facebook, I began to wonder if the theory could be proven, albeit in a limited way. I was looking through Facebook yesterday for people who are relatively famous and who are likely to be connected to other people of note. The great difficulty (as the BBC commented on) is knowing which members simply happen to share a name with a famous person, which use a PA to update and manage their profiles and which are the genuine article. Thanks to the BBC I now know that Stephen Fry is a genuine Facebook user, and has set up a group to manage friend requests by proxy as he was being inundated with requests for friendship. Whislt this is indeed a novel approach it does not help me on my quest. I had no choice, I had to send Mr Fry a message directly.

I’ve explained what it is I’m trying to do and sought his help. The question remains as to whether he is able or indeed even willing to help as no doubt he is a busy man. Every journey starts with a single step, and by attempting to contact Mr Fry I have taken that step. Should I not receive a response, then I’ll try someone else. I’ll keep you all updated with how far (if anywhere) I get.

This time next year I might even be your friend.

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02/07/2007 by Lee.

I paid a cheque into my local bank over the weekend, yet it will still take several days to clear and actually reach my account. This is even more staggering when the cheque was issued by the same bank that I was paying it in to. No doubt, in the ensuing days my bank will add these funds to all the other cheques they’ve had recently and make a fair few quid by investing the money before they finally have to let me have it. THIS IS MY MONEY!!! I can pay someone in Australia instantly over the web using my debit card, the money leaves my account right away and they get the money just as quickly. Yet if I actually make the efffort to go into my bank, and hand them a cheque drawn against one of their own accounts it will take a week. If you think about it, a cheque should be little different to cash. They are both promisory notes, neither of them has any intrinsic value in itself, merely the promise to pay.

I have questioned for some time now the need for cheques at all in the modern world. I can’t recall the last time I wrote a cheque for someone. They only operate in one currency, take days to hit your account and are a pain to validate for the recipient. Prone to going missing in the post and easy to steal and fraudulently use they really have no place in modern banking and transactions. Isn’t it about time that the retailers of the world united and killed the cheque. Just stop taking them.

No witty line to close, as this was a struggle as it was.

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29/06/2007 by Lee.

I was listening to a radio debate recently on the topic of non-competitive sports for children. The theory goes that nobody feels excluded as nobody wins and nobody comes last. Every child gets a medal and a pat on the back. Hurrah! We’re all winners!

This is utter bollocks. Life is competitive. I got my job because I was better than another applicant, I beat them. I’ve been promoted in the past, because I strove to be better than my peers. But this is all recent stuff. We are made to be competitive, it’s survival of the fittest for all of the animal kingdom. There is evidence that neanderthals and early humans roamed the earth at the same time. A change in climate and conditions along with the neanderthals inability to adapt led to them dying out and we survived. This was a competition, we were able to eat and they weren’t, we won. In the wild, there is generally a finite amount of food available, those that win live and those that don’t die.

Children are leaving school and coming smack bang up against the harsh realities of the world. Suddenly they’re having to compete for university places and jobs. The shock to the system must be immense. The reasons the schools trot out for this all inclusive attitude is that not all kids are good at sport and those that aren’t don’t feel included and are made to look like like under performers. In extreme cases, kids who are too good are not allowed to play. So does everyone get 100% on their tests? No. Does the best kid at maths get told he can’t do maths any longer, he’s too good? Again, no.

Whilst we should enjoy doing something simply for the sake of it we need to teach kids how to win and just as importantly how to handle losing.

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28/06/2007 by Lee.

Yesterday, Tony Blair formally resigned as Prime Minister to the Queen. Now I’ve known for some time now that this was coming, it has been all over the papers for a couple of months. So did this come as a shock to the Queen? Did she sit there and think to herself, “Why am I always the last to know these things?” This also means that he seemed to serve no notice period. I have to give my employer 3 months notice whilst Tony just pitched up at the palace and told Queenie that he was off. He also had to hand back the “seals of office”, I didn’t even know they had a pool in which to keep seals.

Within minutes Gordon Brown (always starts a Stranglers song going in my head when I hear his name) was summoned and invited to form a new government. So why him? I don’t know the man, he may be very nice, but why him? As I understand it, constitutionally the Queen could invite anyone to form the next government, so why not David Attenborough? Surely if any man is qualified to work with the “seals of office” it’s a naturalist. Maybe Jeremy Clarkson could have been asked along, it would be a popular move amongst motorists. David Beckham seems to be able to do no wrong, nor Lewis Hamilton at the moment.

These suggestions may sound a little off the wall, but there is a valid point. Mr Brown has always sought office, has always craved the power and position of Prime Minister. Surely, this and this alone makes him unsuitable for the role. People who crave power are those least suited to it. Look at the revered leaders of people around the world from today and the past. They have been brought to power by their people, they have not looked to attain high office, and have found themselves in high position based on their acheivements in the real world. Mr Brown and Mr Blair before him are part of a new generation of politicians that are “professional” politicians. They have never performed any other job or role in the real world. Without this experience, how can they hope to shape the world that the people they serve live in?

I’d still like to know who is going to feed the seals though.

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27/06/2007 by Lee.

Following on from my recent post about road speeds some of you may have been under the impression that I am a fan of speeding. This is not actually true. We’ve all seen the pimply kid with his cap on revving the nuts off his corsa or other shitty car thinking he’s the dogs bollocks. As soon as the lights go amber he’s off leaving a trail of throbbing bass behind him. Soon, he will gather at the local garage or drive through with the rest of his bass happy friends to robotically listen to shite music whilst admiring each others small blue LEDs on the bonnet.

Thes kids are plain fools. You know it, I know it, in fact the only people that don’t know is them. But all this could be about to change thanks to the good people of Australia and a cracking new ad campaign that they’ve started in New South Wales. In typical Australian style, the campaign sets out to tell these kids just what the rest of the world thinks of them as they wheel spin away from the lights. To see the ad for yourself, click here. Once you’ve seen it, I feel it is your duty as a good citizen to do likewise.

Let’s see those fingers

Posted in Driving | 1 Comment »