It's saturday morning. I write that just in case anyone reading this blog was unaware of that fact. No, let's be honest, I'm writing that because nothing is happening in Swindon right now. Some of you might argue that's always the case. Shame on you! We have a Pride of Swindon celebration coming up over the next few weeks. Even the park around the corner from me has staged a conga dance. Oh what fun they must have had. Rarely has Swindon been so ready to let its hair down and party on dude. Most
How can it get this cold without getting frosty? Yes, it's another sunny morning with blue skies, and very chilly. I've had to put on a jacket for crying out loud. I've also noticed an increase in the number of hats worn by visitors to the library.
Of course you'd expect a number of baseball caps anyway. Even I wear those occaisionally, usually when the weather is raining. There was a time when youngsters wore the things at all sorts of silly angles, no doubt to communicate their rebellion a
My last day at the Programme Centre today. I don't think they succeeded turning me into James Bond, but at least I learned a few things about getting a job. Of course it isn't just me. Most of the job seekers there are struggling to find work - although apparently one was struggling with Minesweeper, one of the games that comes with Microsoft Windows. Ahem.
By chance I got talking to the lady on the PC next to mine. It was quickly apparent she was a little emotional, and inevitably the sorry
The black notice popped up on the screen again. I need to retune my television receiver. Oh all right then, if you insist. Luckily channel Three Oh Something Or Other had a guide running permanently on a loop (Wow, wot an interesting channel!) so I wasn't technically challenged. Who needs nine year old experts anyway?
Despite my extensive experience in consumer electronics, computer programming, musical equipment, and science fiction, I have to acknowledge that I am no longer nine years old
Now that the freezing weather has returned to the normal damp and chilly greyness of a Bitish winter, other things are returning with it. Last night was this years first excursion of the Saturday Singing Club, another bunch of youths determined to display their acne to everyone as loudly as possible. Cars and vans have taken to driving quite fast again too, now that the roads aren't as slippery as they were last week. Even on a quiet Sunday morning I had to dodge a couple of drivers who clearly
After the ribald and violent cacophany of the saturday night, last night was as quiet as the grave. Taking advantage of this unusual stillness I gave in to curiosity and sat down to watch the British Film Awards.
Award ceremonies aren't the sort of thing I usually watch. After the first few winners approach the microphone and say "Uuuh....", you kind of lose interest. Which is interesting in itself. I noticed that my attention varied in proportion to the awardee's ability and confidenc
I have no idea who rang the doorbell this morning but thank you anyway. There I was, snoozing away,, lost in a land of sheep and... Well, dreams... When I heard the frantic attempts to attract someones (anyones) attention out in the street. Ohmigosh! It's daylight outside! I've slept in!
By the time I'd wearily fallen out of bed I remembered this was indeed saturday and I wasn't late for work. I hate to say it, but I'm almost rehabilitated. Heck, I'm turning into a mature responsible adult.
They say the weather is soon to change. The map on television shows a massive arc of light blue jerking across the Atlantic toward that tiny spot on the map where I live. As an indigineous englishman this can only mean one thing. Prepare to be dampened. That said, we brits tend to ignore such baleful warnings. How can it possibly rain? Look out the window - What a glorious day!
Clearly then the english have a memory span of no more than a few days. Anything longer than that is a little hazy
The government have released a map describing the effects of a four centigrade degree rise in average temperature across the world. It's quite a horrific possibility when you grasp the details - but that's exactly why it was released. Carrying straight on where our previous government left off, the climate change propaganda machine marches on.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. We're not necessarily to blame. The Ice Ages officially ended something more than ten thousand years ago
With hundreds of thousands of years experience to fall back on, you would think that human beings would have learned by now. If you live near a river, you risk a flood. The problem of course is that river valleys and flood plains are usually the productive land going, so we take the risk, and in the years we don't get a problem, we soon forget about the risk.
Nonetheless, the recent floods in China and Pakistan must be tough to deal with. I can count myself as lucky in that respect. Floods i
English weather is incredible. It's launched more conversations than the activities of fecund neighbours, and that really is saying something. Right now I'm sat staring out the window as the weather drifts by. One moment it's a sky of blue, then clumps of white cloud, then great cloaks of dark sombre grey, and I can see rainfall over West Swindon, all with the sun shining from the other direction. You know, it's occured to me the great thrill about our weather is the gambling element. Will I get
Sunday lunchtime - my last chance to fire off that last extra job application before I get my nose rubbed in it first thing monday morning at the Job Centre. I've already run into file version snags but with my usual ingenuity and cursing I got around that obstacle. Yours faithfully... Press send.... There it goes, never to be seen again. Welcome to my life.
As it happens today isn't a spectacularly good day. The sky is a featureless dark grey, the rain intermittent if not quite heavy. There
Over the last few days the rain has been intruding on our daily lives here in Darkest Wiltshire. Not a deluge, and no reason to expect flooding, just a series of heavy showers as the days wear on. The weather seems to have afflicted my old keyboard. The antiquated electronics are behaving in a strange manner, making the sound I get out of it something of a lottery.
Then there's the matter of the gas bill. If ever there was a lottery that is it. They seem to set the payments at random these d
Life is never safe, is it? You can add burglar alarms, smoke alarms, five star crash ratings on your car, health and safety procedures, licensing, all manner of safeguards, and you still get mown down by a runaway hay bale.
Soldiers say that sometimes you a bullet has your name on it. I can't help laughing as remember Blackadder's faithful flunky Baldrick carving his name on one of his bullets so he'd never get hit by it. Quite how you'd carve your name on a hay bale to avoid it hitting you
One of college classmates is a farmer by trade. The difficult economic conditions have prompted a change in career (though I understand he now intends to work for his family farm). He's been pretty busy of late. Hundreds of hay bales needed to be collected for shipment and he was working into the small hours of the night getting those things stacked and packed. At first glance it seems the life of a farmer is all hard work, but he tells me that it isn't always so dull.
The police called at h
Our brief dalliance with sunshine is over. Freezing fog obscures the land and makes my toes feel very uncomfortable. I notice the weather people are warning us of more wintery weather to come. Really? Who would have thought it?
His Other Car Is...
Another day on the farm. Huddled in a small office warmed only by a primitive electric heater, I meet up with a band of disparate doleseekers and prepare for another course, another day of learning how to be joyful happy droids earning taxes for t
Making good on yesterdays declaration of finding something to write about, I decided to have a wander through Lawns, one of our 'open spaces'. It is actually a pleasant area. It was once the grounds of a manor house on the edge of Swindos old town, with gardens and a hillside meadow overlooking the views eastward. In the 1880's a new railway company called the Swindon & Andover once tried to get permission to drive their line through the park, placing a local station roughly between where th
Todays entry is not going to be an epic literary adventure of colossal importance. I'm not feeling well. I have a bug. Not one of those creepy crawly things, though I have evicted a few over the last couple of weeks, but a virus type of bug, a malicious little bacterial psychopath that has reduced me to a coughing, spluttering, dull eyed and slack jawed health problem.
It's like being drunk without the fun bits. Also I suspect I won't be waking up with a traffic cone in my bed.
This Week
Yesterday I looked out the back window to view the monochrome vista of wintery Swindon. It was all pretty quiet. The garage mechanics had gone home, the yard was silent, and vehicles weren't moving on the streets about. Oho! There he is... Mr Fox, a fine russet furred specimen emerging from under the tall white fence that guards the old college site, where I imagine the Mr Fox has set up home.
He trotted up the slope without a care in the world, only breaking into a run to cross the road. Cu
What shall I do? I've finished my daily business at the library, had my lunch, and there's nothing worth watching on television for the next couple of hours. Aww what the heck, I'll take a walk around Lawns, a local 'open space', for a bit of fresh air.
For a while I sat on the ornamental steps that mark the end of the formal grounds and overlook the low lying suburbs beyond the grassy meadow that sloped away from me. Maybe it isn't the most stiring view to be had in the area, but on a pleas
This morning I had to report at the programme centre for another course on how to do what I've been doing for two years already, just in case I was getting rusty or I'd forgotten how. Another day spent learning the deeper mysteries of seeking employment. The lady at the help desk in the foyer looked a bit confused when I tiold her who I was.
"Is that your name or your title?" She asked somewhat carefully. That's my title dear. She carried on looking confused. I've come to the conclusion that
It seems the Norwich By-election was grabbing the media attention last night. For those confused by the subtleties and intricacies of British politics, a by-election is the one where you don't get to run the country, so quite why the Tories are making such a big deal of Chloe Smiths victory is beyond me.
Newsnight, our regular evening current affairs program, ran last nights show asking 'How did the Labour Party lose the election?'. I already know the answer to that one, it's called the vote
I sat down yesterday in the Town Gardens to enjoy a good book in the warm sunshine and chilly breeze. All that was missing was that seaside ambience.
Swindon does have a seagull population which is a bit strange since we don't have any sea shore whatsoever, and you'd need to travel some distance to find any expanse of dull grey water. I wonder if they've heard about this global warming thing and reserved nesting space for when the worlds melting icebergs raise the sea level to Swindon Town
Well would you believe it? Stephen Hawking, one of the worlds most foremost scientists, has announced that aliens almost certainly exist and that we shouldn't meet them because they'll be horrible to us and nick all our resources. Joking aside, I agree the risks of cultural shock are very real and as I've written a couple of times in the past, contact with more powerful and sophisticated civilisations isn't such a good thing. I also note that it's taken until now to for Mr Hawking to reach that
Now that I've been put on fortnightly signing again I have to fill in a form declaring what I've done to find work. The first question asks whether I've completed the criteria of my Jobseekers Agreement. This means all those weekly activities that the Department of Work and Pensions insist on even if they won't improve my employment chances one iota.
If I were to check the 'NO' box, I would have to fill in a series of searching and embarrasing questions, not to mention concoct some inventive
