Can anyone be perfect? Some of us believe so, usually the type of person that wears a black polo neck sweater, a gold medallion, and earns millions by telling everyone else how they can be too. I wonder how we see ourselves? The obvious answer is to use a mirror or a photograph, but what I actually mean is our own perception of ourselves. Those lads in the street this last weekend no doubt regard themselves as good-for-a-laugh salt-of-the-earth characters. What? A bunch of drunken louts?
Hea
Another day, another job agency. Part of the ritual of finding work is submitting to the high street slave traders. A very necessary evil. The days when some old woman with horn rim glasses, blue rinse, and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth handed you a card with a vacancy written on it are long gone. Now they're all plush offices with ettiquette and protocol droids ruling the roost with an iron hand.
In fairness the young lady who handled my case was pleasant enough despite her misgiving
Yep, its AM. He's sat two cubicles away from me in the library as I write this and whinging away like nothing else.
Mutter mutter.. groan... can't send my emails... stupid computer.... why won't this work.... oh no.... not again.... mutter mutter....
Funny thing is, some unemployed guy, older than me and obviously unacquainted with personal computing, was getting help making a job application via the internet. AM looked over his shoulder irritably A - because they were disturbing his wh
The frozen slush and hard packed snow has turned to an undulating sheet of ice outside my home. On a downhill pavement, it's fairly lethal. Looks like I'm going to have to break my back and shovel my way to the shops to prevent broken bones. What a choice.
Choices of the Week
Every year you see the same adverts. Lovable pets in help center cages looking mournful. The message is always "A pet is not just for Christmas" and I agree wholeheartedly. Not everyonme does it seems, and in the paper
Another thursday with a sort of un-thursday feel to it. That about sums the day up. Truth of the matter is I'm struggling to think of something to report, other than this morning was bright and sunny. Oh yes - I walked around the park earlier. Like you do.
Nice Place To Nest
In the middle of the lake is one of those infernal fountains that sprouted in every public park some years ago. Recently a bird had built a nest right next to the sput. Like living next to a waterfall in reverse. Now th
Here's to a chap in America, reunited with his stolen '67 Mustang after 38 years. I can only imagine how the guy felt. Something along the lines of another old gent invited to a reunion with his former 'office'. A genuine 1940 Battle of Britain Hawker Hurricane, found derelict in India and lovingly restored to flying condition last year. What a terrible shame he was unable to fly it again himself. There was a tv program not so long ago when another ex-RAF pilot of that era was given a chance to
There's no avoiding it. The interview was booked. On the one hand the company offices were only thirty minutes walk away. On the other, there was no footpath all the way there. Luckily the weather had brightened since the morning, when it threatened once or twice to rain, and I made my way in pleasant if blustery conditions along the towpaths and grass verges to the isolated business park.
Once in the area, it seemed as if the whole park was deserted. No-one else was around. Nothing stirre
Way back when I was very young I had a fascination for dinosaurs. Time and again I would leaf through books showing artists impressions of lost worlds, painted images, rather than the photoreal imaging that is increasingly common in childrens books today. Back then dinosaurs were an object of curiosity but unfashionable. Kids generally preferred football. Not me. In my imagination I walked among the swamps andf orests of the Jurassic world.
These dinosaurs are immensely popular. And to under
Among the many housekeeping duties at the museum is getting rid of the rubbish. I never cease to be amazed at the pile that collects every week and before assumptions are made, it's the staff who are the worst offenders by far.
Yesterday it was my turn to get rid of the rubbish. I had no choice. A delivery driver strode in bearing documents and asked for assistance in getting his delivery off the truck and into the premises, which given our location wasn't unreasonable. I left the desk in th
I knew it was going to be slippery this morning and I wasn't disappointed. There was a glass surface on the pavement outside my home. As it happens I was able to avoid a life and death struggle with gravity walking down the hill this morning because someone had thoughtfully cleared the pavement on the other side of the road. Normally that would be a hassle, but with traffic diverted I need only stroll across and around the roadworks. Job done.
Unfortunately not all the ice is cleared in the
Recently I made a scathing attack on Gordon Brown, our somewhat self-inflated prime minister. A man whose brilliance at dropping his problems into his successors 'to-do' list is. I predict, what he will eventually be remembered for. But all is not lost. Oh no. I have found the solution.
Yesterday I strolled down to the Job Centre to sign on the dole for another fortnight. The heavy clouds and damp drizzle made me wonder if I would have to sprint down to the Job Centre, but thankfully the r
Our local paper ran an interesting story yesterday. A Swindon company has been given the contract to supply China with translated bibles whilst the olympic games are being held there. As a succesful commercial bid its praiseworthy, but I'm astonished that China is permitting their import. China is after all a communist regime which inherently regards religion as a rival for peoples loyalty.
The olympics can be a thorny issue. The labour government went to some effort to get it held in London
For a couple of days now the weather has been very warm and sunny, albeit a tad windy. The rainfall that has drenched France has threatened to claw its way north and finally today, it's here. Not heavy, just that dull drizzle that makes everything damp. It always brings that dull greyness that I associate with Swindon. It also brings a subdued mood too I notice.
It also brings out the dull people. It really does. Now the sun has gone away and the bright cheerful crowd with it there's a crowd
The nights are very short at this time of year and very ealy this morning the daylight announced its presence through the curtains. Had I not stayed up late last night investigating the possibilities of electronic music, I might have noticed. Still, I did wake earlier than usual, and somewhat bleary eyed wandered down to the supermarket for a few odds and ends. Luckily I was just concious enough to put some clothes on.
So lets see... A loaf of bread (so I won't starve), a bottle of bleech (s
There's a very cold wind blowing through the trees of Rushey Platt. Cold air from Russia has blown in and already the weather reports are warning of severe conditions. The AA have advised motorists to take warm clothing with them as gale force winds and drifts of heavy snow are expected. The reverse is going on in Australia right now, where winds from the continents interior are blowing hot air over the coastal regions where everybody lives.
There's going to be comment about Global Warming o
It turns out that I'm among the first recruits for the Work Programme. If anyone wants to know what being a guinea pig is like, I might be able to tell you. Already I've set a record by being the first claimant to have done his initial assessment twice, though I have to confess, that's because the first one was mislaid.
"Things always go wrong when you're around." Observed one other claimant, a chap I remember seeing here and there over the last couple of years. He was one of my fellow fork
Its Friday night in Newcastle. Having spent the day travelling there by train and then searching the city center for historical relics, we were in the mood to relax. Drinks all round then. The barman in the hotel suggested we might want to try a certain game played with dice in a box, and that kept us entertained for a few hours. Inevitably we were getting tired, so it was good night and off to my hotel room.
It was hot. Even with the window open I was gasping for breath. Are the radiators o
June is becoming an all-or-nothing month for british weather in our new globally warmed climate. Last week it rained incessantly. I got soaked in the downpour. This week the sun is out with a veangeance and I got soaked with sweat. You just can't beat the british weather can you? You get soaked no matter what happens..
Puppies For Sale
Ther's a fashion for 'handbag dogs' going on, and perhaps not too suprisingly, unscrupulous east european traders are selling puppies reared in very dubious
There's a strange phenomenon that takes place when Swindon gets bad press. You suddenly find hordes of people who say "We like it."
Swindon has tried ceaselessly to reinvent itself ever since the railworks closed. Out with the old, in with the new, oops we made mistake, look at our brand new plan. In fairness, the pace of beautification is increasing. The victorian pidgeon nets are vanishing, plans to reintroduce the canals throughn the town center are in place, and architects impressions of
All weekend the library computers weren't working properly. What a disaster. it seems the whole community is utterly dependent on the facility and hordes of disappointed library-goers left the building despondently for two days, including me, aklthough in fairness I was a bit angrier than most.
When the problem emerged on the saturday morning, it was my least favourite librarian on duty. He makes a big show of trying to be helpful, but when you actually ask him for help, the answer is always
How long has it been since I last wandered around Lawns? Come to think of it, it's been a while, so a couple of days ago I did indeed wander around. Nice days do things like that to me.
Regular readers will know the name 'Lawns' because I've complained often enough about our parks department, who seem determined to remove anything green in them. I've never seen trees looking so scared.
Eventually I passed what used to be the grounds of the local manor house. The Goddard family packed th
I know the foreigners reading this will find it hard to believe, but by midday yesterday the rain stopped. No, really, it did. Taking advantage of the sudden spell of damp conditions, I decided to wander down to Mouldon Hill and see if the cew from the Swindon & Cricklade Railway had laid tracks as far as the park yet.
You might have realised by now that I don't get out much at nights. Fear not, I'm just setting the scene. There will be no further mention of matters relating to trains, r
There are two ailments that are so beloved of the British working class. The first is flu, or rather a bad cold, which has to be responsible for more days off than anything else. The second is backache.
I know a lot of people pull 'sickies' with this excuse, but honestly putting your back out for real is astonishingly easy to do and excrutiatingly painful when it happens. What makes it worse is that no boss in the whole united kingdom will believe you if you report your suffering.
The fi
There's been a lot of UFO stories lately. The british army has been reporting all over the place. A story in this mornings paper is about one guy who dialled the emergency number, describing a strange light. The police patiently asked where the light was and came came to the conclusion it was the moon.
Funny thing is, we all see strange strange objects in the sky sometimes. Thousands of anti-aircraft rounds were fired at Venus in World War 2 for instance. The girlfriend of our band manager o
It was one of those uncomfortably hot nights. We're due to get more of them soon, and worse, as the midday temperatures are predicted to reach thirty degrees centigrade, which is the offically the point at which the British melt. Sleeping on nights like those is defined as the moments of weariness between rolling around in your own sweat. Instead, I sat bleary eyed and watched television, idlely flicking through channels in the vain hope of finding a programme that was even remotely interesting.
