There was a film on release some years ago called Ronin, a tale of skulduggery as mercenaries are hired to retrieve a package. In one memorable scene, Robert De Niro finally loses his patience with Sean Bean whose character had made a big deal of having been an SAS soldier. "What colour is the boat-house at Hereford?" He yells at him. Sean Bean becomes flustered and cannot answer, exposed as an imposter. De Niro later admits to a witness that he doesn't know anything about a 'boat-house at Heref
There's always been a certain amount of sexual cross-over in human societies. Most cultures have stories of woman who take on mens roles. We read of a female samurai, capable and deadly. We read of women hiding amongst the ranks of redcoats pretending to be boys. The native americans, of the plains tribes at least, tended to accept that not all men wanted to be warriors, and if a man wanted to stay in the camp and do womens work that was his choice. And so on.
Today we see all sorts of mani
This morning I happened to drop by the library, expecting some light entertainment. It was sheer murder. Teams of children were engaged in a treasure hunt, following clues read out by their adult overseers, running here and there, chanting loudly in that tuneless way that kids do. In particular, one clue revolved around the number of cubicles where I'm sitting, so there's a continual stream of children counting.
"Whats special about cubicle thirty five, children?" Asked the teacher.
You
Most of cooking is very quicky and easy. Fifteen minutes and I'm done. Sometimes though when I've got a spare bit of cash I like to prove Jamie Oliver knows absolutely nothing about cooking by reinventing the entire genre in the prvacy of my own home. So it was yesterday, when I happened upon some quality products at tjhe supermarket on sale at bargain prices.
I once remember reading a bit of wisdom that said "Love and cooking such be approached with complete abandon". I've always though spo
The street where I live isn't quiet. It's a major route from Old Town on the hill to Swindon town centre. Consequently I hear cars going by. Ordinary cars, cars with loud exhausts, and occaisionally cars bumping into each other. Sometimes a heavy lorry thunders by and the house literally shakes. Motorbikes scream up the hill and make it sound like Silverstone on race day. At night it changes. Women scream up the hill and youths chant football songs. I have to be honest, I've kind of gotten used
What is going on? Usually I get pretty well ignored by passing motorists, heckled by one or two, but today? All day long I've had people beeping their horns and giving me a cheery wave. Haven't a clue who they are. Haven't a clue why they're waving.
Well if you want my autograph I'm not running after you....
Todays Country Hike
Not too far, just down the track that runs round the south side of the local golf course. You never see anyone use it, but typically for Britain, it was a mass o
Last night I watched a news report from Gaza, where masked Hamas paramilitaries are busy training and preparing for the end of the ceasefire there. The Hamas spokesman proudly informed the news team on camera that Israel "Will be suprised". You know, I can't help feeling they've let the cat out of the bag there... In any case, the US can now track their activities by satellite.
The US Space Agency is to launch an orbital machine that can map carbon dioxide around the world. I can just imagin
Survival is so macho. Tell someone you've survived the wilderness and instantly your manliness score doubles. Women become breathless near you. Men become your greatest buddy and hang on your every word. At least I believe they do because the only wilderness I've survived is Swindon, and unfortunately I'm reliably informed that Swindon doesn't do much for your manliness.
The good news is that I survived Christmas. Survival is one of those dark arts you see featured on tv sometimes, with Ray
Hi there. As its the start of the new year, its the time for new year resolutions. Sadly the UN doesn't recognise my little nation state but that won't stop me. Luckily though no-one keeps resolutions for more than a few days which explains why third world dictators get away with flouting them. Most of us are required to pay lip service to these resolutions by our inlaws. Dictators have the unfair advantage that they can shoot theirs at will.
So without further ado, my first lip-service to n
Mondays are the curse of modern civilisation. In times of yore, men of Englands Green and Pleasant Land woke from their slumber and stirred when they felt like it. Then along comes the hated miller and with the Industrial Revolution behind him, invented working hours and the tyranny of the clock began.
Now you might say that as an unemployed person I don't suffer from Monday-itis, but you'd be wrong. Required by the state to earn my paltry handouts by looking for work, I must also observe th
Its the Chinese New Year, and since they haven't been inflicted deeply by the economic downturn, today they've been celebrating. It also happens to be Year of the Ox which is good news for me, because in Chinese astrology that's me - I'm an Ox. There you go, I've admitted it.
Get Away From It All
Australia are advertising for a guy to run Hamilton Island, a tropical paradise, in a deal involving free flights, feeding turtles, collecting mail, scuba swimming, running a Hamilton Island blog,
Back in 1908, Swindon was inundated with 15 inches of snow. Thats more then we got yesterday. The result of all those warnings of blizzards and sub-zero temperatures resulted in this picturesque scattering of snowflakes.
This does in happen Swindon - a couple of decades ago there was a country wide snowfall over Britain. Drifts six feet deep cut off entire communities and made travel all but impossible. In Swindon, not a single snowflake. I would love to know why Swindon so rarely gets
The misery goes on. In very un-swindon-like style, the snow started again last night and as I glance out the window of the library, it's just begun cascading down in thick torrents. Our local council now has only two days of grit reserves left to clear our roads and keep Swindon moving.
I'm biting my nails.
Weather Update of the Week
Oh. Its just reverted to that thin sprinkle of fine drizzly snow. Panic over. Phew.
The sun was getting quite warm as I walked home yesterday afternoon. I wasn't in any particular hurry and made my way through Old Town. Yellow paintwork caught my attention. As an automatic reaction I glanced up like anyone else, and since bright paintwork is a rarity in the sombre decade we live in, it might not suprise you to learn the car was a Lamborghini Gallardo with its roof down.
The driver was looking straight at me behind his shades. Don't know why, he just was. Then of course he n
Bank Holiday Weekends are a British institution that foreigners might find hard to understand. The name is misleading. All it amounts to is an extra day off work. However, like some kind of mass-lunacy, there's two pyschopathic obsessions that afflict the British at these times.
The first is a strange urge that overcomes the weak-willed who gather their unsuspecting families and drive off to a holiday destination. Most don't get there. Braving the rain that inevitably pours cold water on the
If you've seen the film Ghostbusters you'll know it starts with a scary ghost in a New York Library. Well, Swindon isn't exactly spook central, and most of our ghosts inhabit pubs. However, according to our local paper, 'Ghostbusters' have been to Swindon to exorcise a haunting on somebodies premises.
Thats a huge leap in ghostly goings on. Imagine the usual amount of supernatural activity in Swindon is.. say... this Mars Bar. This latest event reveals a Mars Bar with... 20% extra, free.
So far this year I 've been no further up on the Marlborough Downs than Barbury Castle. Once the fog had lifted, I decided it was time. The call of the Downs is peculiar to those who know it. There's a strange sense of timelessness up there. At first glance it's nothing more than rolling hills, weatherbeaten stands of trees, and farmland, but then the isolation of the area gets you. I'm not the only one who finds the solitude of the Downs so engaging. There's a memorial stone to a hillwalker of
Entertainment is so important to the modern world isn't it? One word from a publicist, and thousands gather teary eyed to say goodbye to someone they probably never had a good word for. I shall never forget the scenes I saw on television regarding Princes Di. Remember her? Yes, I thought you'd forgotten.
The thing with entertainers, or any celebrity for that matter, is that they loom ever larger in our conciousness thanks to the media. Love or loathe them, a part of our life dies with them,
I have seen the shape of things to come. At the Geneva Motor Show, the Royal College of Arts have unveiled ambulances that will be rushing to our aid in as little as four years from now - don't take that literally. Now get this. One of them has ejector seats to speed paramedics to your side. What happens if the patient is in a tunnel? Does the paramedic get issued with a helmet?
Another design has a fold out detachable medical center. Isn't that dead cool? Once the paramedics have landed an
America has successfully imported a great many things to British Isles. Cola, bubble gum, nylon tights, burgers, and sex. Of course I was too young for most of those as a child so there was only one american import I was allowed. You state-side people know it as G.I. Joe. We knew it as Action Man.
It was great. There was a huge selection of uniforms and accessories that transformed the plastic contortionist into everything from the basic Korean War recruit to a NASA astronaut. One of my frie
Some time ago on a job website I was asked if I wanted to take part in an online questionaire. The questions were fairly moronic but I hadn't anything better to do. One listed a load of organisations and asked me to describe them in three words. One was MI5, our home defence secret spy unit. I wrote 'Probably boring, but?'.I did kind of wonder if that answer was going to get me held in custody for three months under the Prevention Of Humour Act, but I never got an interview.
Yesterday was my
Right then. Time to to meet my contractual obligations and earn my benefit payments. So its off to the office and another session of the training programme. Seeing as I'm officially famous and a genuine unemployed person, I think today I really must make the effort and dress in typically grungie fashion. Cue Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees and lots of silly dancing in front of mirrors.
Having dressed the part it's down the stairs and out into the big wide world. There's no stopping me today...
The Programme Centre has moved. They were inhabiting a pokey little place in that peculiar brick complex in the corner by the pub. You'd think that was very convenient, except the pub in question is a real 'sawdust on the floor and spit your broken teeth in the bucket please' kind of place.
I was in there a few years back, quietly minding my own business, nursing a pint like several others. In came a bunch of lads, making a lot of noise, bouncinng off the walls. To be honest I didn't pay mu
Yesterday, in a decision that only an englishman could make, I went out in the midday sun and visited Lydiard Park. The local council make a big deal of the work they've done there which was supposed to restore the grounds of Lydiard Manor to it's former magnificence.
I've got many photographs of Lydiard as it was. Secluded bayous, wooded paths, a warm natural patina. There used to be a waterside platform where you could look out across a small lake and view cranes resting on a dead tree in
Nature is such a fascinating subject. You can't help but admire those colourful documentaries, even if they're carefully constructed and selective in what they show. It is supposed to be entertainment after all.
Still, the program about the South Pacific was of interst to me. It seems the 'Bird of paradise' has a habit of making a stage and attracting a mate by going into a song and dance routine. In effect, so do human beings. Birds have mating dances, we have nightclubs. In fact, the only
