One, two, one two...

Test, test, and so on and so forth. Aye, this will do, this will do nicely.

Blargh

...Why does one get credit for, 'generating jobs and opportunities for other people' while society's creation of the demand and indeed provision of the revenues appears to be ignored? Thing that's annoying me today.

This is a post about how much I hate religion.

"Some of my best friends are religious!..."

In Tartarstan, in the Russian Federation, some lunatic sect has been keeping children locked under-ground for years on end, its leader claiming to be a new Muslim prophet. Other Muslim leaders have said, er, no, Muhammed is the last prophet, and if you say otherwise you're not Muslim, so this shit isn't our responsibility. Cool. And Christians can say, er, no, Muhammed isn't a prophet, we stop at Iesu or whatever he's called. Cool. And Jews can say... and so on and so forth... 

Religion is bad, you barbarians-all, just fucking stop it.

I can't get over how religious leaders/groups in the region can absolve themselves of all responsibility by addressing one point of dogma in their fantasy and declaring that this sect leader deviates from it. Oh, so it's not your problem, then? Cool. I suppose the secular state will just have to deal with it. Well, there's a first time for everything (and a fucking seventy billionth, apparently).

Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Shintoists, Zoroastrians, Neo-Pagans, and all the rest, whatever made-up nonsense, you're all being dicks, just fucking grow up, we're all (people who aren't lying to themselves or others... there must be literally dozens of us in the world!) pig fucking sick of your shit.

We all (including you, don't fucking deny it you arrogant pricks) know that you're lying, it's inarguable, and you are getting a lot of people killed, tortured, raped, and robbed, and you've been doing it for thousands of years. Even in my most bizarre dreams I can't invent anything more evil than religion.

If this shit doesn't stop soon, I'm going to lose it and start building a forest of wicker giants, and then we'll all get our culturally sensitive religion on, and the pope is definitely invited. (I'm probably not going to do that. Just saying that if we really go the whole hog on religious tolerance, I'm going to have to set you all on fire to please Vindos.)

To clarify the point of this post: everyone who lies is a liar, and pointing out that another liar's lies contradict your lies does not legitimise your lies, you liar.

Or, “For fuck's sake, how much evil must humanity endure before you all just stop it?”

Argh! This doesn't look exactly the same as once it did!

I just over-heard an advert on telly describing a 28-page Jamie Oliver guide to good BBQ recipes, and putting aside for a moment the fact that it's absolutely pissing down and has been since the dawn of time, I couldn't help wondering, who actually needs 28 pages to explain how to do a nice bit of corn on the cob?

”...Free, with the Daily Mail”

Oh, okay.

I'm sure they do have a lot to tell us about how eating firelighters causes cancer, but how, fortunately, eating firelighters can prevent cancer and protect us from this clear and present danger to our children.

”...take care not to repeatedly cover and uncover your BBQ, as illegal immigrants may be attracted by smoke signals.”

More importantly, though, somebody's left the gingernuts unwrapped and now they've gone all soft. Friday is ruined.

So, local council elections, tomorrow.

I can vote for the Tories, which would be a lot like going to the Lakes, catching an eel, freezing it solid, smashing myself in the balls with it forty or fifty times, eating half of it raw, then jamming the other half up my arse. Or I can vote for New Labour, who didn't even bother to campaign, have no chance of winning, and are also shit.

Plus, I won some ale at the pub quiz, tonight.

Odds on me bothering to vote? 

Oh, fuck! It's snowing! It's fucking snowing! There's a small quantity of actual crystalline water ice falling from the fucking sky!

So I'm back on a bi-monthly posting cycle, am I? Jolly good.

I had draughted half a grumble about a Panorama episode's twaddle on Britain allegedly drinking itself to death, but then I forgot where I left my blog, and indeed its password, and now I'm not sure whether it's worth complaining about a programme aired months ago.

I might do it anyway, because without it -and this preface- there likely wouldn't be much of an update here at all.

By, “draughted half a grumble” I mean that I'd smeared a few keywords over a Word document, leaving me with the impression that I'd watched Panorama, it'd been about booze, and it'd annoyed me. And by, “Word” I mean... whatever I'm using now that I've gone all Linuxy. Evidently I can't be bothered to look up to the top left of the screen to read, “LibreOffice Writer”.

From the aforementioned half-grumble/keywords I can discern that the programme featured, amongst other things:

*The assertion that people are getting liver disease younger and in larger numbers than was the case thirty years ago

*Well-known reptilian David Cameron going back on everything he said about booze before the election

All, of course, presented in between dramatic scenes of projectile falling and repetitive cursing, before a cheekily slipped in reference to the fact that:

*Alcohol consumption in the UK is actually in decline

Oh.

But we shouldn't let that deflect us from our sensational Crusade, for it gets middle-aged slurry-brains fired-up to see footage of young people in a state, so that they may say, “Ooh, I didn't see scenes like this in my day!”

Yes you fucking did, you just don't remember it because you were pissed!

In more important and up to date news, I've been a bit ill, and now I'm mostly better. Another mucus-coated, sleep-deprived victory.

Meanwhile, there's still little sign of the London Congolese protests in the mainstream (UK) media, so far as I've noticed. Lots about demonstrations and harsh police crack-downs in other people's countries, and the odd bit about their oil and their disputed elections, but rather less about (Sub-Saharan) Africans, even/especially the ones who're here, and their coltan and disputed elections... which is depressing though predictable.

This is the bit where I try to justify the laptop I'm using to post this blog by insisting that an individual dropping out of modern society is unlikely to help anybody else.

The (barely) reported focus of some protesters on coltan, and on shoppers rushing to buy their smart-phones and game stations, seems fair enough, to me, but I don't want to just live as if the 'information age' isn't in full swing around me any more than I want to go vegan or forswear all motorised transport. Instead, while I don't have or want a car, I happily (wait, happily? I don't do things happily, that was misleading, sorry) use public transport, and I eat eggs from chickens in the village, and I have a (decidedly not smart) mobile phone that just happens to be older than many primary school children (I intend to keep it until it no longer works).

My feeling is of course that, once again, it's the market principle and the growth economy ideal -and their advocates- to blame for the perpetuation of the Congo's assorted woes and by extension mass arrests in London. When the latest games console comes out the price of coltan spikes as millions rush to buy it ASAP, and the fighting to control tenuously grasped Central African deposits is fuelled. There's nothing inherently wrong with owning a phone, if you ask me (at least no more than there is contradiction in drinking coffee while expressing frustration at the socialisation of risk on private profiteering, Mensch), but there's plenty wrong with the Gadget Show. There's nothing inherently wrong with the internal combustion engine, but [censored for Top Gear fury]. And there's nothing wrong with scrambled eggs, but the Colonel can definitely improve the rest of the world by fucking off back to Kentucky.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I think you're a wanker, and I'm going to have a mince pie and maybe play a game on a computer that's as old as I am but still works fine and definitely doesn't need replacing every two years just to sustain a fundamentally unsustainable economic model while killing as many innocent brown people as possible and keeping the fuck up with the bastarding Joneses, who, quite frankly, can go and fuck themselves with the latest in fairy lights.

Er, I mean, play in the snow! Jesus Christ, snow!

Bosh.

Tories: human rights are bad, foreigners are bad, protest is bad, shelter for poor people is bad, employment is bad, benefits are bad, women are bad, homosexuality is bad, abortion is bad, sex is bad, peace is bad.

Lib Dems:

That's my review of the coalition so far.

SlowRiot for...

In which I lazily/drunkenly copy-past a few meandering thoughts from conversations had during today, and act as if a cohesive journal update is created...



Amongst the things currently pissing me off is the massively retweeted omgimsofuckingsmartandrighteousijustmightcumism that reads, more or less, "To idiots comparing [Enfield/Tottenham] to Egypt revolution: there were 2 million protesters at Cairo's Tahir square and the weren't stealing DVDs"

I'm not seeing many tweets making the comparison. Lots refuting it/them.

It strikes me that Egypt more than has eighty million people, England about fifty million, and Egypt is the better part of ten times poorer as a whole.

The media seems to be focusing on the idea that an initially peaceful protest was carried out after the police shot an alleged petty criminal and that this was then hijacked by violent thugs.

Passing reference by the Beeb -not so much anyone else so far as I've noticed- that this is one of the poorest wards in the UK (in Tottenham, not Enfield so much).

The peaceful demo may have been about the slightly suspect police shooting. The violence is about the fact that the last time anyone cared about Tottenham (not-spur) was during the last riots quarter of a century ago, and the grievances they had then haven't been addressed, and a whole new generation has grown up in the same neglected backwater.

Granted, a lot of people now are just jumping in to get free shit, and have a good ol' ruck, but that's again because they don't have much else going on...

Otherwise, they'd be at home relaxing after work, tweeting about it.

Regarding the Rapture

For my birthday, I have mostly been drinking tea and watching Shane Warne finally retire, presumably to become a travelling hair salesman or something. I was intending to go for a pub meal with my parents, but reports of all-night vomiting from people who ate there mid-week have demoted that idea to Plan-B status, behind doing nothing until tomorrow, then getting drunk.

In any case, regarding tomorrow's other expected events, I'm banking on being left-behind until October. I imagine that by then the sudden influx of a couple of million irate Arab Christians and/or the inheretence of Ireland's/Greece's/America's debt (depending whether they're Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant up there) will have brought low the Kingdom of Heaven, and we heathens and sinners have to decide whether or arrange a bail-out (or a no-fly-zone, because fuck you, cherubs).

Meanwhile, I've inherited a laptop that's somewhat less shite than my broken-down desktop PC, so now I'm working on a fingertip callus from this damnable touchpad. Exciting times.

Yeah, yeah, your opinions...

"...and when I walk up the road to vote, on Thursday, I'm going to be aware that most of the people I pass coming the other way have just voted No. That they've just gone out of their way to diminish the value of my vote, and to act against British democracy. Yet if I pushed them under a passing tractor, I'd be charged with a crime."

Minus twelve degrees Celsius makes my nose hurt.

Depressing national development of the day: OFCOM to allow product placement in UK television programmes. Bleh.

Oh well, I suppose it's not like I watch ITV when I'm not being held at gunpoint, so fingers crossed for no home invasions by, uhm... well, I wanted to name a prominent ITV-based personality, but I wouldn't know the cast of Coronation Street if they were holding me at gunpoint.

I forget where I was going with that little rant. That's happening all too often of late. I suspect it's lack of sleep. My body's latest trick is waking me after about three hours and declining the invitation to more sleep. Accordingly, now more than ever it would probably be best to ignore me. Big ask, I know.

Is half-five too early for bedtime? Heh...

Next time... tea festival?

This weekend's ale festival in Preston had me quite excited. It ran from Thursday afternoon to Sunday night, and had an ale count in three figures. I was planning to head down on Friday, before the best stuff was gone. Then I decided it might be better to stay at home, shivver, and throw up. So I did that. ...In hindsight, though it may have saved me some cash, I can't say that was really an enjoyable alternative.

Oh well, I thought, I'll go on Saturday! But no, snowed in. Eight inches never stopped me doing anything before, but... you can finish this joke on your own time.

Nigella's just said she's, "going to do violence to that" cake or whatever she's making. Why the hell does that turn me on?

So, Sunday. Many people had been snowbound on Saturday, and there were, reportedly, plenty of ales left for the last day. At about six PM I decided to head into town and spend a couple of hours sampling what remained. Oh, but the next bus that can get me to town -though I live close to the main connecting road between the county capital and an adjacent resort town of ninety-thousand people- will arrive there, weather allowing, around eight PM, and the last bus back leaves at around half-past eight. And so I missed the whole ruddy festival.

Next time, I'm going on Thursday, and drinking the ruddy lot.

Instead, tonight, I have been down the local for a couple of pints taken in the armchair by the fireplace. Bollocks to skating about on ice in the middle of the flag market! Granted, walking two miles through said inches of snow at minus ten degrees celsius may have brought me into some disagreement with my circulatory system, particularly as it relates to peripheral parts such as the fingers with which I am so painfully typing this waste of a blog, but I am now pleasantly tipsy. Well, from my perspective, at least. Maybe less so for everyone else, as I've mostly either been telling them why they should be ashamed of themselves, or staring at their tits, depending on relevant factors, but, ultimately, I have a nice tingly feeling, so I suppose that means it's all good.

Beer before wine...

...and you'll feel fine. Wine before wysgi, whisky, vodka, and more wysgi, and... an egg butty is very much required, along with a protracted period of sitting quietly.

I'm not sure where this post is headed. Probably it'll just be about food. I'm hungry, and I've come here direct from drinking, and chatting shite. I've just realised that I initially posted this without a comma, potentially leading readers to suppose that I'd been drinking shite.

Anyway, in the course of the chatting, I learned that, allegedly, "Bean mince is ace, better than beef."

My first thought, and only direct response, was that, well, "Beef is shite."

I've never quite managed to get entirely on board with vegetarianism, though I don't think it's a bad idea, but the world's obsession with beef is not something I can understand, I've had beef three times in my life, and each time it made me angry for a different reason. And at no point was I a Hindu.

First time, it was a McDonald's burger, given to me by a friend -or someone I'd hitherto thought to be a friend-, and made me angry that he'd tried to palm that crap off on me, and that I couldn't even find a tramp who'd take it off my hands. I'm told that I later trashed that McDonalds, but I've no memory of this alleged incident.

Second time, it was Aberdeen Angus, and I was angry that it cost more than a blow-job from Jebus, and tasted worse than giving him one.

Third time, it was raw, and dipped in some kinda seaweed juice, and I was angry that my girlfriend was Japanese.

To slightly misquote one or other Homer, "Yo, goober, why the beef?"

In passing...

Lately, insomnia has ruled. So, yester... wait... yeah, I think it... what day is this? I think that I spent about twenty hours in bed, so hopefully that's... sorted. Hm. It certainly seems that my brain's plenty rested, eh?

I recently read what I think may be the greatest description ever applied to an object. "Aboriginal emu caller" it indicated. "Used to arouse the curiosity of emus."

Okay.

Better yet, the object in question looked to my uninitiated eye very much like what I might have described as a sawn-off didgeridoo, which leads me to wonder... what the fuck were they trying to arouse when they started making full-size didgeridoos?

Right, now that we're all picturing Big Bird being drawn into an alley off the Street and taken-out with a boomerang...

How about that weather, eh? Windy. 80mph. Fences aren't where they used to be. Police are restraining a dangerous tree. I like the sound of that. More than I like the sound of this £1 ale. It comes with the story of the name, which ends enticingly, "...it was largely beer that had been returned to the brewery as undrinkable by more fastidious customers."

Thirty bajillion days later...

My Dogtanian T-shirt is losing the decal that gives its name, but it's doing it coloured-layer by coloured-layer. Once a happy sort of yellow, now mostly but not entirely grey, it seems as if Dogtanian has pissed on his own shoes, and tried to mop it up with the otherwise needlessly flamboyant feather in his hat. I think this is pretty much the way that I want to present myself to the world.

Lately the fly is back. A depressed feeling that I'd like to dispel with the sort of hand gesture as might shoo off an insect intent on flying repeatedly at my head. I don't know. It's the uncertainty and stagnation that's been building ever since I came back to this side of the world, really. I've no idea what I want to do next, I've forgotten -if I ever knew- how to do it anyway, and I no longer know how to explain what I've been doing in the meantime.

In hopes of at least lifting my mood I decided to finally make an effort at learning -even if only to a limited degree as may suit no particular use what so ever- another language, and doing some regular exercise beyond the current if largely pointless daily walk around the village. Exciting times indeed. Having obtained by entirely lawful means a copy of some popular language learning software, and despite my best intentions, I've actually spent much of the day being cheered-up by repeated listenings to the voiceover-woman's proper Welsh pronunciation of eliffant (I'll leave you to wonder at the possible meaning of that most cryptic word). Alas, I don't think that the Welsh course goes much beyond some basic vocabulary, so I'm trying to decide what to make do with. Spanish seems like it might actually be, y'know, useful, but the CD contains only American Spanish, and I'm still considering the implications. French or German may make a little more sense given that, having studied both in a half-arsed fashion umpteen years ago, I could actually have somewhere in the recesses of my mind a basic understanding of either, waiting to be triggered, and as a bonus the former would mean that maybe I'd finally be able to appreciate Diabologum's lyrics. Decisions, decisions. Likely inconsequential decisions.

As to the exercise, I dunno, maybe I'll just walk faster.

Good news of the day: while the deli still won't bring back butter pies, the bakery across the square has finally got on board with the food that got me through college (sort of).

Moving on, quote of the day comes from the mysterious mind of Líam and reads, quite simply, as follows: "This isn't helping my biscuit-rage!"

There was a whole biscuity debate to provide context for that remark, I must add. It probably had something to do with my lament that invading oreos are inferior, inedible, and in our biscuit tins.

Headline of the day is crickety in nature, which is always good, and reads as such: "Anderson fit for ashes."

All right, he is from Burnley, but come on, that's a bit harsh.

Before I go, a note to myself: In polite company, no matter how dull anecdotes about a recently-heard radio programme may be, if they happen to feature tales about some guy's first job in a lab and his accidental breeding of excess test mice and subsequent shoebox/cottonwool/chloroform -> furnace -> explosion disposal debacle, one's weary reply should not feature the term, "Mousewitch".

After silence, stutters.

Bank holiday Monday. Means more to some than others, but in any event it still feels like a holiday. I am spending its early part drinking tea and listening to False Priest while engaged in this much belated return to rambling into the blogosphere, and plan to spend its later part playing Premier Manager 2, having recovered the Amiga 600 from the attic.

Early 'nineties gaming and not-yet-released music. The way forward, or at least sideways. Tip of the cap to the Doktorb over there for providing the musics, and while I'm at it I suppose to dad for buying the 'puter the better part of eighteen years ago.

What has been going on this month? Some drinks have been drunk. Cricket has been at its best and worst. I became briefly resolved to see through a Pulgasari shadow puppet theatre production after it was suggested to me that Kim Jong-il may be haunted by the fact that he's just no Pol Pot and I began to wonder what might happen if he were. I also remember pondering and discussing the perpetual white-maleness and decreasing age of the Doctor, and while I don't have a problem that he always appears to be sort-of British, I had wondered whether he might manifest a British-Bengali, which I'd be okay with, or even a woman, which I don't think would sit so well, since he'd be all "They're boobs. I have boobs now. Boobs are cool." which would probably get old pretty fast. In short, then, very little has been happening over here.

So little, in fact, that I found myself re-reading archived rantings from a time when I could be bothered to 'blog' on a more frequent basis, and had more than one digit in my regular readership figures. I think that it has given me some insight into why we (well, I, at least) tend to forget dreams within minutes of waking, because -and I know, as I wrote at the time, that everyone loves to hear about other people's dreams- I committed one in particular to text, and, well... turns out, in this dream, I had found a small chimpanze, living in some public toilets with a dead swan, which was once its only friend and was now its only attire. While this Bjork-chimp may have had style it was, surprisingly given its cushy lifestyle, mentally disturbed, and prone to tantrums. The only way to calm it, and I'll be damned if I know how I was supposed to have figured this out, was to have it dance like a robot. Long story short, some years ago I had a dream about a chimp that danced the robot in a urinal while wearing the fetid remains of the swan it had loved. Your move, Salad Fingers.

Well, this has been completely worthwhile for both of us, I'm sure. I'd really rather be spending this, probably one of the year's last days of sunshine, in a beer garden, but without money for beer that's just shite, so Of Montreal and seeing if we can get Southport into the Premiership it is!

Pardon?

"You're just jealous."
"Of what, the Welsh Assembly?"
"No."
"Oh."

So, turns out that starting a new blog dealy was probably a waste of time, eh? I've not done a great job of updating this thing and, to be honest, it took reading that a roided-up ex-bouncer named for a medieval defensive earthwork found the time in the middle of a gun rampage to sit down and knock out forty pages to make me think that, really, I could probably find five minutes between getting a haircut and having another butter pie to put together a few meandering paragraphs. So, here they are.

On the not-very-interesting subject of Mr.Moat, by the way, I predict that this will all come to a head when he tries to shoot another copper but succumbs to writer's cramp and drops his gun.

Meanwhile, in far more important news, Murali's retiring from proper cricket. Can't blame him since he's 38 and playing for five days straight against the best players in the world probably isn't terribly easy, but world sport is just about to get that much less interesting, and I hadn't much enthusiasm for it to begin with. I've not much more to say about it other than that I wouldn't mind going to Galle later this month to watch his last game. Anybody fancy giving me a lift to Sri Lanka? I expect he'll finish just shy of 800 test wickets (in twelve fewer matches than it took Warne to get, what, 708 or so at the expense of two or three more runs a piece?) unless he really rips into the Indians.

Ah well, even without him, and Sanath, and Sachoo, and the lamentable impact of the (increasingly) limited overs formats, cricket will still be more worthwhile than the footy, I should think.

Recently I had one of those thrilling conversations with an ill-informed and strangely irate nationalist deals involving an American chap who was getting into 'soccer' for the first time thanks to the world cup. He was completely carried away by his team's extremely lucky draw with a god-awful England (which, by the by, didn't bother me... I was rather hoping that Slovenia might go through) and, for whatever reason, taking the opportunity to defend America's role in the world. "I dont think we owe the world a damn thing!" he asserted, for reasons best known to himself, "You owe like fourteen trillion dollars, dude." I observed, but naturally he was able to offer a relevant counter, pointing out that, after all, "Without us the world would be speaking German and Japanese.", and though I wouldn't mind being able to speak two foreign languages that would never have had any direct relevance in my home country (since Operation Sealion was abandoned before America even entered the war), I couldn't help noting that, "Without France, Spain, and the Netherlands you'd be spelling color with a u." and then he threw his shoe in a bush and that was that, because well, what else can you say?

Now, if this had been the cricket world cup, I'd not have had to endure that, and nor would you. And that's why it's a better game. And the world cup doesn't even happen in the best cricket format.

Well, that was all pretty dull, hey? There hasn't been much else to tell. I was hit in the face outside that damnable club by random can't-handle-her-drink girl and still have bruises on my arms from being grabbed by her and/or one of her mates, but really this is just another chapter in the debacle-ridden chronicles of nights-out-with-the-Doktorb that we needn't examine in much more detail and are perhaps best to just laugh-off with an, "Oh, Preston..." and the observation that, after all, those 3am chips were pretty good. Oh, and this morning I nearly choked to death over breakfast, and I think mango juice started leaking from my eye. Maybe the Ferret this weekend for't Empire State and a limited number of pints, though last time I was in there I was accused of being a scouser, so we'll just see...

I appear to be listening to Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, so it's clearly time to get out of here.

Breakfast at Timperley's

This is a butter pie from the local caterers. 'tis a little bland without pepper, but amazingly greasy and crumbly and in other ways good.



While eating it I was bothered by dogs and children, but the blue-rosetted ground-pounders stopped wasting their breath on me for a while. Is pie their weakness? I hope so.

The remainder of the day has been passed in an insomniac haze, wandering around bookshops and sitting in tearooms. I belted my head on the roof of the bus, again. I am begining to suspect that the current generation of double deckers may in fact be single deckers with a second level built-in rather than on. The book shop for which I have previously-neglected Christmas vouchers (and would have otherwise shunned in favour of the little place across town) had none of this, and nothing by him, and they didn't have the other thing I wanted, either, so I got about four quid's worth of Dawkins, because, pff, four quid of anything doesn't seem likely to be regretted. Unless its two and a half pints of that ah, so that's why we can get two and a half pints for about four quid ale. But this wasn't.

In still more enthralling news, I can report having recently enjoyed my first barbecue of the year, all be it a spur of the moment affair that has at least taught us that yes, properly interfaced with a chimenea (sans chimney, which in hindsight should have been removed safely before lighting the fire rather than gingerly afterwards), about a dozen matches, and a broken chair leg/poker, a stack of UKIP leaflets will cook a chicken thigh fillet, some hash browns, and a veggie burger, and to a satisfactory crisp at that. So that bodes well for the future, even if nothing else does (I'm looking at you, Tomorrow Night).

Other topics dispensed with due to tiredness and sobriety include the story of how my great uncle was kicked out of a paragliding club after they realised he was thirty years older than he'd claimed, earning him a few column inches in one of the most ragged of national rags; the story of how he allegedly/arguably left the rest of the family destitute for a generation in making-off with great-granddad's earnings amassed in the course of becoming county welterweight (or similar) champion; the story of how I came, in the course of (what should have been) a simple CD burning process, to hate any number of outdated programmes with which my PC and I are lumbered; a little bit about how I may have finally given up on trying to convince myself that T/20 is sort of cricket and not a fucking travesty unto man; and more FFS don't elect the Tories you stupid, stupid bastards stuff.

I've never voted Tory before, but I wonder if Lorraine Fullbrook's placard could reheat a pie...

Avocado on Everything

This afternoon I am mostly watching Matthew Hayden pretend that the semi-final of a major T/20 competition is in fact catching practice for the fielders... and apparently India bloody well needs it. Oh, no, there he goes. Useless heap of Aussie. This would be an awful lot better with added beer garden.

I don't remember off hand whether or not I've previously been dull enough to mention it here, but since I returned from Aus I've been trying to eat less meat, and for me that means less bacon (cutting out chicken would mean my death within weeks, and I didn't eat beef or lamb anyway). Unfortunately, last week I headed down to a local bakery in hopes of finding a replacement source of butter pies since the deli unaccountably stopped selling them, and though it turns out that they do make 'em (fresh and, I've since discovered, pretty bloody well, so that might be a stop on the next here-to-town pub crawl, if Doktorb's reading) I had arrived much too early, and none were ready... but, of course, bacon was being fried right there over the counter, and freshly baked bread was being brought out, so, in the absence of alternatives, I relapsed. And it was good.

Since then I've been back on the bacon, so to speak. Mostly I look on this as an opportunity to eat more avocado, however. Yesterday's attempted BLAT (BLT with avocado, something that pretty much sustained me when I lived within walking distance of the St.Kilda Galleon) fell foul of a lettuce shortage, and so with the substitution of rocket salad became, I suppose, a BRAT, at least until I realised that a tomato shortage was hot on the heels of the lettuce situation, and a finely sliced red pepper brought into being a BRAP. Definitely the best thing I've ever made, for what little that's worth. Moral of the story, Chiv's adventures with food do not make interesting reading.

Lesson learned.

In other thrilling news, the recycling bin is full, and it's not even the weekend, yet. I understand that the Tories have a bajillion pounds to squander on burying people who'll never vote for them -and have told them so directly- in phonecalls and leaflets, but who the fuck is giving UKIP money to burn in similar fashion?

On the impending election... we're told by the 'free' (expensive) press that the process of creating a coalition government would cause the markets to panic, and this would be bad for the economy. Obviously this is an over-simplified nonsense they're trying to feed us. Some people try to argue it down to size. Fair enough. However, I say we respond in kind. If 'they' panic, it's obvious that they did it on purpose in hopes of influencing the democratic process. Thus they are opposed to true British democracy. Thus they are declared enemies of the British people. Thus we tear the skin off their faces and feed it to them. End of motherloving problem. Or just tell the Queen that they're enemies of the people, and that unless she uses some of her powers we're going to finally take them away from her. In any event, wankers lose their heads, everyone else benefits.

I'm watching Empire Records, and it's almost as bad as I remember. But I'm still going to watch the rest of it.

Even when it was the bears I knew it was her.

Ah, for feck's sake. Finding reasons to be glad about returning from Aus to the UK had been difficult enough, and then I read this. Might be time to make up a, "Your sort isn't welcome here!" sign and head for the airport.

Oh... well. On other antipodean matters of little real importance, I recently spent an entertaining evening with family, based on chianti and nostalgia, during which I learned that I'm related to one of New Zealand's greatest ever footballers. Shame the Kiwis aren't terrbily good at football. Still, er, hall of famer with his own Wikipedia article. Lately there seems to have been a lot of talk about how close I came to being born in Aus or NZ (or not at all), which I think is mostly just cruel.

Also, my family hates Malta. Not sure what to do with that information, myself.

Returning to my computer I find that I'd forgotten to set my messenger status to indicate my absence, and after a whole day of that it's a bit depressing to find that nobody's even tried to strike up a conversation with me. On the other hand, as I type this, somebody is trying to educate me about, "The Dali Llama" and all I can think is, man, that's a surreal camelid, and maybe I was happier being left alone.

Back to hot cross buns, tea, and Wolfhounds. After years of refusing to pay attention, I've finally come down with a fairly severe case of YouTube addiction. Of course I'm still refusing to use it to watch/listen-to anything created much this side of 1991.

Doctor, doctor give me a sleeping potion, for I can not close my eyes...