Senor Willy!

Soccer AM Saturday Morning.

This is the Tiswas for the boomer generation. For those of you who don't remember Tiswas was a Saturday morning kids programme that had a cult following. Sensible, well behaved kids watch Multi-Coloured Swap Shop.

Soccer AM (Sky Sports One) has the same spirit as Tiswas and I'm finding myself yet again sitting in my dressing gown eating toast until midday on a Saturday morning. During the football season Saturday doesn't start until until 12.00pm at the earliest.

If you're a footy fan and you haven't seen it give it a try. You'll need to watch for a few weeks to start to absorb the in jokes but, trust me, it's worth it.

Moscow!

Just Like That!

The old ones are the best.

For your pleasure - some of the best gags ever cracked by the master of the one-liner. Tommy Cooper.

Two blondes walk into a building..........you'd think at least one of them would have seen it.

Phone answering machine message - "...If you want to buy marijuana, press the hash key..."

A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Clingfilm for shorts. The shrink says, "Well, I can clearly see you're nuts."

I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.

I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, "No, the steaks are too high."

My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli. A strong currant pulled him in.

A man came round in hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!" The doctor replied, "I know you can't, I've cut your arms off".

I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a muscle.

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly. They lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once and for all that you can't have your kayak and heat it.

Our ice cream man was found lying on the floor of his van covered with hundreds and thousands. Police say that he topped himself.

Man goes to the doctor, with a strawberry growing out of his head. Doc says "I'll give you some cream to put on it."

'Doc I can't stop singing The Green, Green Grass of Home' "That's like Tom Jones syndrome. ' Is it common? ' "It's not unusual."

A man takes his Rottweiller to the vet. "My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?" "Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him" So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes,then checks his teeth. Finally, he says, "I'm going to have to put him down." "What?, Because he's cross-eyed? ""No, because he's really heavy"

Guy goes into the doctor's. "Doc, I've got a cricket ball stuck up my backside." "How's that?" "Don't you start."

Two elephants walk off a cliff...boom, boom!

What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.

So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me "Can you give me a lift?" I said "Sure, you look great, the world's your
oyster,go for it.'

Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. There are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my Dad, or my older Brother Colin, or my younger Brother Ho-Cha-Chu? But I think its Colin.

Two fat blokes in a pub, one says to the other "Your round."The other one says "So are you, you fat bastard!"

Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, and the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off.

"You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen. It said, 'Parking Fine.'

A man walked into the doctors, he said, "I've hurt my arm in several places" The doctor said, "Well don't go there anymore"

Ireland's worst air disaster occurred early this morning when a small two-seater Cessna plane crashed into a cemetery. Irish search and rescue workers have recovered 1826 bodies so far and expect that number to climb as digging continues into the night

Henners!

This is Henry.

Henry has being staying with me for the past month as a favour to a friend while his owners were away in America.

I've never really considered having a dog before (I've always thought I'm far to selfish to be trusted with a pet) but I have to admit that having Henry around has really made me think about getting one. It was kind of nice to come home to someone who was always pleased to see you and who could be entertained just by throwing a toy duck around the room.

Henry is the gentlest, best behaved dog I've ever had the pleasure to meet - and I'm going to miss having him around.

Make Mine Marvel!

I've just watched the trailer for V for Vendetta which is out in the UK in March and I can't wait to see the movie. I remember getting hold of the original Alan Moore graphic novel when it was first published back in 1995 and I was just blown away by it. I hadn't read comic books for years and this was a world away from the old Marvel/ DC comic books I remembered.

It led to a very happy couple of years catching up with what had happened to all my old favourites like Daredevil, Green Arrow, Batman and The Avengers, as well as watching the development of the (for me) second wave of great writers and artist like Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Art Speigleman and Grant Morrison.

I eventually grew out of my second childhood but still have a strong affection for all things comic book so this should be a good year for me with Spider-Man 3, X3, Ghost Rider and V for Vendetta all out at the movies this year.

Until Iron Man starts to Rust..... Make Mine Marvel!

V for Vendetta Graphic Novel

V for Vendetta Movie Site

Bada-boom-bada-bing!

I'm a relatively new convert to the Sopranos. I've read a lot of comments from fans or critics over the past few years raving about the programme and the characters but I didn't get the opportunity to watch any of them until quite recently.

What happened recently was they started showing the series from the 1st episode on the new More4 channel and, because I have a Sky+ box I decided to record the series and watch them whenever I had time. As soon as I watched the first couple of episodes I was hooked. The characterisations and storylines are compelling, the acting is first class, the writing is tight.

it's the closest thing to modern Shakespeare I've seen in a long time. part Macbeth, part Hamlet, part Othello, part Julius Caesar.

Now I learn that More4 are only showing the first three series, and now they have finished I feel like I've lost something.

Bastards! It's things like this that draw people to the Bittorrent community.

Must Read!

I've just finished "The Time Travellers Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger.

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read. The central idea is excellent and it's carried out extremely well. If you can get past the first 60 pages or so (which, I have to admit, can be a little confusing until you get the idea) then you will be rewarded with first class read.

The Time Travellers Wife

Someone's Looking At You

Here's a freaky thing.

A friend of a friend (no really!) has discovered that people are researching him on the WWW, not only that but there is a forum dedicated to finding out more about him. He only discovered this when his daughter Googled his name and found the posts that had been left.

In a his younger days he made musical instruments (squeezeboxes if you must know) for a short period of time, having been taught by (I think) his father-in-law. These squeezeboxes have come in to the hands of collectors and they want to know more about them. What they do know is that they seem to be based on the design and components of those made by his father-in-law, but everything after that is speculation.

It is surreal to read this posts offering information (most of it wrong) about where he lived, what his name may or may not have been, why he made so few, etc.

It looks like he has a dilemma. Should he post to the forum and prick the bubble of speculation or should he remain the enigma and hope that his instruments gain an air or mystery because of it.

What would you do?

Food for Thought

As one of my goals for this year was to start cooking again, I thought I'd have a bit of flick through the BBC food mag "Olive" and I came across an article by Tim Hayward listing some of the top food blogs. A quick a surf around to see what inspiration I they could throw my way and before you I knew it I had to get in the kitchen and do something creative.

A quick whizz through my cupboards and cookbooks and within 20 minutes I was cooking up a really spicy Ariabiatta Sauce and baking some Sun-dried Tomato and Green Olive Bread. Fantastic way to spend a miserable, grey Sunday afternoon.

Want some inspiration?

Check out:

Woolfit

Cooksister

The Passionate Cook

Saute Wednesday

Chez Pim

Fire and Knives

And of course our own excellent Blogjam

Blogjam

Pandora

If you like music why not give Pandora a whirl.

Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project and allows you to type in the name of a song or artist that you like and it will match similar sounding tracks and stream them to your desktop.

You can only forward your way through so many per hour andafter a few plays it will ask you to register. You'll need to enter a US Zip code to do this but its easy enough to find a zip code you can use on the web. Just Google any large US retail chain and use one of theirs.

I've already found some great new artists - check out the Dave Matthews Band for one.

Pandora

Dave Matthews Band

Meme Tune

I'm guessing most internet savvy people have come across the phrase "meme" before and most of us think we understand what it means but I recently discovered that there are people who are really developing this idea as the next big thing in psychology and potentially a huge evolutionary leap forwards.

As I understood it, in the normal web-context of things, a meme is a theme or an idea that is picked up by a large number of intenet commentators/ users/ posters and discussed or debated. It is a current hot topic, if you like.

In scientific terms a meme is to psychology what a gene is to biology. It's described as "the basic building blocks of the mind." In memetic terms we find memes everywhere, they are the things that condition the way we think about the world, so an advert can be a meme, a pop song can be a meme, a conversation with a friend can be a meme, a picture can be a meme and so on. Almost anything that we come in to contact with (maybe everything) is a meme.

The flipside of this is that the the majority of us can (and probably are) infected by "mind viruses" where our world view is not true and is not our own, but has been "infected" by people who want their own world view to prevail. You only have to look at the world of advertising or politics to see how information and images can be manipulated to present a view of the world that favours one particular interest group.

One interesting application that I've heard of is the potential to use the research on memetics to produce better communities, to find a way to promote postive memes so that, on a simplistic level maybe, people have a positive outlook towards the place where they live; which in turn produces an environment where crime, vandalism, truancy, etc become less and less prevelant.

I seem to remember Malcolm Gladwell writing about some of the changes that took place in New York when they started to clean up the street and subway system which would appear to back this up.

From what I can tell Gods Debris by Dilbert Creator, Scott Adams is largely about memetics. The book is available as a free download if you're interested.

Fascinating topic but I need to read more.

Have some links to start you off:

Meme Central

Definition of Memetics

Memetics publications on the web

Gods Debris - Free Download

You What?

Overheard at work today

".....and they wind themselves up like a bottle of kippers!"

Anybody? Anybody?

Anyhoo - drive yourself nuts with this game.

Click the colour

Where there's muck......

I blame Claims Solicitors For Morons Like U Direct and all their Bastard Spawn. It looks like the compensation culture in this country is running out of control.

Picture the scene:

One morning you're walking through your local town centre when all of a sudden you a feel that familiar, uncomfortable bubbling in your stomach. You think back to the night before and the six pints of Old Scrotums Tackleshrinker you drank, the four packets of dry roasted peanuts and the horsemeat kebab you ate and realise, with a sense of creeping dread, that if you don't get yourself to a toilet within the next couple of minutes you will be pebbledashing the high street.

Being a former boy scout you have already noted the location of the public toilets before leaving home so off you sprint (waddle? trot?) confident that you will make it with time to spare. You get to the bus station and discover, to your horror, that the local council have decided to save a couple of quid by closing the toilets.

You weigh up the options. There's a McDonalds six minutes away, a pub four minutes away and a bush three minutes away. But too late - your concentration is broken - a weak fart becomes a warm dribble and then a river of brown, and you stand (very still) regretting the decision to wear your chino shorts.

So what do you do?

You sue of course!

Later that day you injure your arm jumping out of a window to get away from your girlfriend who's about to find you with another woman. Ker-ching!!!

The following day you hurt yourself falling down the stairs whilst running away when you are caught shoplifting a new pair of chino shorts. Ker-ching!!!

It would appear that yet another aspect of American life is making its home over here and we, in return, are becoming greedy and stupid enough to believe that whatever happens to us must be somebody elses fault - and that means payday!

Anyway must go. I've just set fire to my face. "Dear Swan Vesta......"

More tales of the terminally dumb here

The wronged trousers, and other scams

Happy New Year!

So Happy 2006!

New year, new opportunities and maybe a chance to sort out a few things. Looking back 2005 wasn't the best year for me. I've got myself in to some serious financial difficulties, lost the LOML (sort of linked to the financial thing) and pretty much lost direction.

Christmas was tough this year. I've never been a particularly big fan of Christmas as a general rule and this one felt particularly gloomy what with the lack of funds and all that. Friends were fab though. All the people who are important to me wanted to see me and invited me round, I even got to have two Christmas dinners which (as everyone do kno) is the best bit of Christmas anyway. It's strange watching the people around you enjoying this time of year when all you really want to do is pull the covers over your head and wait for it all to go away. One year I'm determined to find the Christmas spirit inside me and have good time with everyone else. Maybe this year eh!

The new year is supposed to give everyone a fresh start so here a few goals for 2006.

Stop smoking (should never have started again)
Lose weight (about a stone should do it)
Start cooking again (possible conflict there!)
Start writing again
Find a new LOML (and try not to lose this one)
Sort out the money thing
Get a new job

All of these are do-able if only I'm willing to get off my backside and put some effort in.