Automatic Evil

To me, the sign of a civilised workplace is the provision of a kettle, milk, sugar, coffee and teabags. In a day and age when the morning and afternoon break, certainly in office culture, is routinely ignored, going to make a cuppa is as close as you get to punctuating a long and tedious day.

Alas, this is no longer the case where I work. The kettle, teabags and coffee have been confiscated and a hulking great big machine has been installed. Yes, one of those rotten shit heaps that dispenses watery tea, retch inducing hot chocolate and a dozen varieties of coffee, all of which taste roughly the same and all of which scour the lining from yr stomach. The only thing remotely drinkable was the chicken soup, which they proceeded to remove and replace with 'hot water'. Aye! Great fucking idea! It's my belief that the people who run the company probably think we all got down on our knees and prayed to the machine like it was a God when it was fitted.

"Oh great mechanical dispenser of rancid hot beverages, hear our prayers and piss out gallon after gallon of toxic smelling effluent for us, so that we may spend a little less time in the kitchen making tea and coffee, and a little more time fucking about on the internet while the boss isn't looking."

Buncha useless bangers!

"Oh!, but it's still free!" they'll exclaim. I should ruddy hope so! Can you imagine if they actually tried to charge you for the pleasure of feeling slightly ill after half a cup of what they amusingly refer to as 'Choco-milk'? If theres chocolate or milk in it, I sure as hell didn't taste it...........

In the next six months this machine will:

1)Make someone violently ill with one of it's brews

2)Malfunction catastrophically

3) Gather dust in the corner of the kitchen like an unwanted wedding gift.

I'm bringing in a thermos until they see sense and bring back the fucking kettle.

Scum

Ever been threatened with extreme violence by a sixteen year old weilding what looks like a steel baton, less than thirty seconds from your home? Didn't think so.................So glad I was going to a Thrash metal gig tonight, the music sort of expressed what I was feeling.

My sincerest hope is that the little fuck who threatened me chokes on his own vomit or falls into the canal. One thing you can be sure of, I will not go out now after dark without a stick to beat these fuckers with. Not going to run away from these little fucks again.

I do not regard maiming sub human shit to be a crime

Mighty Boosh. Enjoy!

Is It Really? I Had No Idea..........

Alternative Solutions: 'I Know Where You Hide Your Porn', 'Heterosexuality Ruins Marriage' or 'I Like Poor People!, They Make My Trainers' **

Oh God! How long do you think it took them to come up with that particular observation? I mean, they have that great big ruddy wall to work with and that's the best they can come up with? Bad World For Poor People? It's a bad world for a hell of a lot of people if you give them the time of day to tell you. I'm sure the author meant it to provoke thought or maybe get a message over to the many thousands who pass through Charing Cross each day. Instead people see it and think "Yeah, it is a bad world for poor people. That's why I'm not poor. What can you do? Not my fault..... Now, what's on Talk Radio......"

The wall gets painted red about twice a year by the council to cover the graffiti that seems to accumulate on it, and obviously someone has chosen their moment to impart something 'meaningful' to us all. It's the dribbling simpleton element of the left in full flow. People who think the above message is anything other than a statement of the blindingly obvious, and more to the point, don't recognise it as a colossal waste of fucking paint and wallspace. I preferred the old graffiti tags that were on there before, they had a certain rough charm if nothing else.

Anyway, here dear reader(s) is your challenge. Taking into consideration the size of the wall, it's elevation and visibility (certainly in winter), I want you to come up with an alternative message for the people of Glasgow. It can be as crude, surreal, clever or banal as you want. In fact, if you can come up with something that is even more ridiculous than "Bad World For Poor People" you will win an extra special (non) prize!

Anyway, I think I have a bout of what may well be Sciatica coming on. I've lost count of the amount of times I've refilled my hot water bottle tonight. Spent most of today at work walking about like a stop-motion Max Wall. Not fucking funny! The yelps of agony when I sneezed or shifted the wrong way in my seat were to be heard in the street I believe...........

Tomorrow: When they steal the kettle and condemn you to drinking hot piss from an electronic box.

**I realise that in this day and age, the last suggestion could and probably would be taken at face value by many people.

Grilled Pizza

Possibly the least accurate statement ever made.

Yes, tonight I grilled a pizza. It tasted like shit, as you might imagine. It was not intentional, but nonetheless it must rank as a first for me, considering my widely respected aptitude for heating up food.

Next week I shall be deep frying a Ceaser Salad, par-boiling some macaroni cheese and oven baking Tomato Soup.

I Like Birds

Strange day. As one who seems to suffer three day hangovers these days, I fully expected to wake up this morning and feel that familiar fuzziness hanging about from Thursday night. It wasn't, but I still spent the day contemplating my navel for some reason or other. It's not like the weather was bad or anything, but I really need to shake off the whole winter hibernation mode I'm in and get my lardy arse out the door. Even if it is just to go to Lidl for a pint of milk.......

Anyway, best things about today........ Watching a couple of small birds (blue tits I think) poking about in the tree in the front garden of my parents house. It looked like they were sizing it up for nesting purposes, but it's a little small just now. Maybe give it a couple of years.

Also saw the worlds scabbiest magpie. It looked like it had been in the wars, it's tail feathers all tattered, it's white plummage looking rather grey and dirty. If theres one thing you can say about magpies, it's that they're always very well turned out. Not sure what the story was with this one, but it was looking distinctly second hand and off it's game.

Then it was off up to Stobhill to see Grandpa. Bumped into my cousin while I was there and we sat with old Jim while he regaled us with the story of how the humble tomato prevented him from being called up to fight Hitler and how we're all going to die in a huge mushroom cloud soon. He's probably right too. Put me in a right cheery mood, I can tell you................

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band version of an old Jaques Brel ditty called 'au Suivant'. Or 'Next' for short.

So Fucking Close...........

The Thistle support get ready for the 2nd half. Guy on the phone: Ye did what with my coupon!!??

Tonight was my first trip in many a year to Ibrox (otherwise known as Castle Greyskull, Snake Mountain or The Death Star), home of Glasgow Rangers. Partick Thistle had drawn them in the Scottish Cup Quarter Finals and three and a half thousand Jags fans took Rangers up on the kind offer of fifteen pound tickets. What a night! Rangers were fucking woeful, it has to be said. Nacho Novo, known by many Thistle fans with long memories for being a dirty wee shit, ended up on his arse for most of the first half as Thistle just went about their job frustrating the Huns. Midway through the 2nd half we scored and the whole Thistle end went into meltdown. We were still celebrating, as were the players I think, when Rangers took advantage of the only time in the whole game where we failed to clear our lines properly. Kris Boyd doing what he does best, bundling the ball over the line like he was humping a sack of coal onto a lorry. The fucking big wank!

Not that we saw that goal go in. The seats we got were about six rows from the front and behind the goal. You had no idea how far up the pitch either team was. What looked to be an attack on the edge of the penalty box often turned out to be merely a series of passes somewhere in the middle of the park when viewed on the video screen situated in the corner of the stadium. We got a great view of our goal, but what was happening at the other end of the park was anyones guess.

So, a replay, more cash for Thistle and a definite advantage to Rangers, as our pitch is like ploughed field with the Rugby that's being played on it. On tonights evidence, Rangers are much Like Glasgow Warriors in that they aren't overly keen on keeping the ball on the ground either. Rangers will whinge about fixture congestion and in a surreal twist, the game will be played on the weekend of the following round of the Scottish Cup (are you following me at the back?), but fuck it! These guys get paid monstrous amounts of money and are supposed to be professional athletes, they can go and fuck themselves if they want to play the "I'm a tired little bunny now" card. Try being a speedway rider and doing three meetings a week in three different countries and see how far you'll get with that pish.

Anyway, my throat is fucked and I'm on my third can as I type this. Damn work in the morning, though it'll be nice to patronise the Rangers fans for a change.............

"Aye, well, ye never know, we could have an off day in the replay and ye might sneak a goal........."

George Carlin Said What?

Now, I have to confess to being more of a Bill Hicks fan, but George Carlin has been spitting in the face of the establishment for long enough to gain some degree of respect from me. Imagine my surprise when I was sent Two chain emails containing this screed, attributed to Mr Carlin.

George Carlin's Solution to Save Gasoline


Bush wants us to cut the amount of gas we use..... The best way to stop using so much gas is to deport 11 million illegal immigrants!
That would be 11 million less people using our gas. The price of gas would come down.....
Bring our troops home from Iraq to guard the Border...
When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the border, hand him a canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq ...
Tell him if he wants to come to America then he must serve a tour in the military.....
Give him a soldier's pay while he's there and tax him on it....
After his tour, he will be allowed to become a citizen since he defended this country......
He will also be registered to be taxed and be a legal patriot......
This option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a solution for the troops in Iraq and the aliens trying to make a better life for themselves......
If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway, without the canteen, rifle or ammo.....
Problem solved.....
I gotta agree with George!

Carlin of course denies authorship, regarding such tracts as being too embarrassingly unfunny to even think about laying claim to them, but theres something odd and sneaky about this. Is this about attempting to associate Carlin, a well known 'pinko' with the American right? Not sure, it seems to happen to a variety of people. John Cleese for instance, Denis Leary too. Whilst one supposes it's flattering to be recognised and to know that someone out there has decided to attribute their comedy stylings to you (rather than the other way about), surely there comes a point where Carlin is thinking "there are millions of people out there who know my name not for my political satire and wit, but for a handful of dreary, laboured, clod-hoppingly obvious chain e-mails that have been sent to every single workerbee in the hive under my name..................Bummer!"

The best/worst part of getting such fatuous nonsense at work is that the subject always comes up for discussion, at which point the sport is to figure out which one of your colleagues is most ignorant about immigration and which ones really just don't like Pakistani's. Idiot Bingo I call it. Great fun for all the family...............House!

Anyway, heres some Carlin in the late seventies. Lot's of creative swearing......

That's Me Set For The Summer!

The speedway season is back and I'm happy as a pig in shit......... Great fun today, watching everyone bumping and bouncing round the track, trying to find their footing and not get thrown off by the boggy bit at the inside of the track and the dirty great big ruts that always remain after a winter of disuse. The Tigers came good in the end and just edgedout Berwick Bandits with a 5-1 in the final heat.

Put Down The Camera And Move Away Slowly.........

Well, the old digital compact that started me out on my photographic adventures has finally been superseded. It's not broken as such, but the battery cover won't close properly anymore and needs to be held in place by sellotape. Not ideal, especially the way it chews batteries. It shall get it's final outing at Ibrox Park on Wednesday night, in the vain hope that Thistle can put one over the Jolly Old Hun. This leaves me with a slight quandry. My new camera is 300 quids worth and a little bulky for random use. It also makes me look like a terrorist on a recce run. Or at least what The Sun reckons a terrorist on a recce run looks like.

There I was, standing in Adeel on Friday night, waiting for my curry and absently perusing the pages of said daily tabloid. Theres a big article in it about a group of men, of mid-eastern origin, filming and photographing on the platform of a small railway station in the south side of Glasgow. The station attendant approached them and they scarpered. Fair enough, cause for some concern and all very suspicious but what annoyed me most was the ramping up of the fear factor, not just via the city-wide map of possible terror targets, but also via two different columns. One by a Sun hack recounting the time he got off the subway and saw someone with a digital camera standing on the steps leading out of the platform, the other by John Smeaton exhorting all to be vigilant and report anyone who looks a bit suspicious with their photography equipment. This is all fine and well, but lets be brutally fucking honest here, how many people are going to start reporting just anyone whose actions happen not to fit their particular frame of reference for what is normal behaviour? Surely a dangerous trend to start, considering the fact that the general tone was of the 'What sort of weirdo takes photos in the Underground/railway station/street anyway?' variety.

How do you explain that you wanted to take a shot of the train leaving the station and it's tail lights as they fade into the darkness of the tunnel?

I guess you don't..............

This is where I get twitchy. Very few people take cameras out when they see something interesting in the street. It is slightly eccentric behaviour I suppose, but no more eccentric than shouting at random passers by that they're "a pair of poofs" and that they"suck each others cocks". Just the latest in a very long list of deranged and retarded behaviour I witness every day in the street. After a while one yearns to stumble across a someone taking photographs of buildings and stuff.

I'm of the belief that more people should carry a camera. It's made me more observant, it's given me a new set of eyes almost. I'd even go as far as to say it's allowed me to express myself more concisely as a writer of mediocre short fiction............

Alas, I think I shall have to be more wary of what I do with a camera now, limit my use of it to the speedway, the football and the park where people have a frame of reference for what you're doing. What I hope doesn't happen is that hundreds of people decide to retrospectively report their sightings of people taking photos in 'odd places'. That would just be fucking chaos.

"Yes officer, it was about eight years ago when me and the wife were on holiday in Largs. There was a guy taking photos of the ferry and the slipway one day. It was very strange. Do you think he was in Al Queda?"

I think most of the sightings reported will be of me to be honest. Can't wait to see what my Photo-fit looks like........

Kicking Bishop Brennan Up The Arse

Choosing a greatest Father Ted episode is like asking someone to choose their favourite Dylan album, yr never going to get a consesnsus. This is mine............

A Fine Yarn

Two sources of joy today.

1.

Stumbled over this article today at lunchtime. Thank God I did, or I might just have 'Gone Postal' in the afternoon. As it was, I had a right good laugh and approached the afternoons turgid grind with a smile on my face. In the article, Aussie speedway rider Dave Gifford tells the story of his travels with a mad compatriot of Lithuanian descent called Rim Malskaitis. Speedway back then, as it is now for Kiwi's and Aussies was about learning the ropes at home, then venturing over to Britain or Europe where the team contracts and prize money were. Particularly galling in that the sport was probably invented by Aussies. Nonetheless, Dave & Rim set off on the ocean waves to find fame and fortune. It never quite happened for them, but what Gifford conveys so beautifully is the sense of adventure and mischief in his travels with Rim. Anyway, enjoy the article, you don't need to know the first thing about speedway to appreciate it..............

2.

It's not often I read a blog post that has me silently mouthing all the way through "Yes!, Yes!, Yes!" This is one of them. Clairwil at her toppermost form.

Cheers!

Glen Campbell - Guess I'm Dumb

Not a huge Glen Campbell fan, but he certainly knew how to pick his songwriters. Probably best known for his Jimmy Webb collaborations, but this Brian Wilson song was passed his way sometime in 1965 as a 'Thankyou' for filling in on the road for the reclusive Beach Boys genius. It's widely known that Lennon & McCartney offloaded their spare songs in the early sixties on 2nd division Brit-Beat talent, and whilst Brian Wilson could be equally generous with his material, the best was usually kept for his own use. 'Guess I'm Dumb' however was a great song, well arranged and performed wonderfully by Campbell. It should have been bigger than it was. In many ways, this was Wilson starting off on his Pet Sounds trip and it was maybe an early indication that he wasn't going to be able to take everyone on the journey with him like he had when he took the trip to the beach some years before. .

(Sorry, all links are Wikipedia. It's late, I'm tired and it's all pervasive. Sue Me Jack!)

No Time

Quicky tonight.

Chris Bell's 'You & Your Sister' given some spooky harmony treatment by Kim & Kelly Deal under the auspices of This Mortal Coil

Taken from a 4AD comp album I dug out at the weekend. Also, new Breeders album out soon

Not Given Lightly

Cocktails & Records has tagged me with a meme. Essentially, it involves taking a book you are currently reading, going to page 123, going five sentences down and then quoting the next three sentences. At this moment in time I'm in the middle of about four books. Two of them are about Bill Hicks and I've just about read them both, but I continue to dip in and out of their pages. I'm trying to finish off Mark Twain's 'Mysterious Stranger' Manuscripts, but the un-published version of the story started to bore me a bit, so it lies un-finished. Finally, I decided upon Hunter S Thompson's 'Kingdom Of Fear' which I vow one day to finish reading. Oddly enough, page 123 is about where I'm up to. Except there is no page 123. It consists of something called 'Aspen Wall Poster No4'. It's a big marksman target with a picture of a brain at it's centre and along the bottom the legend "The American Dream". So, I headed over to page 124 and found this gem. It's not Thompson himself, rather it's an article by Loren Jenkins called 'Dr Hunter S Thompson And The Last Battle Of Aspen' which has been included in the book to illustrate the battles Thompson and the locals of Woody Creek, Aspen, Colorado had with a multi-millionaire interloper called Floyd Watkins The ponds he had stocked with trophy sized trout over the past three years were shimmering with the bellies of dead fish. More than six hundred trout, some weighing up to twenty pounds, were dead. The waters had been poisoned in the night and Watkins immediately blamed the slaughter on his neighbours, charging them with employing "Terrorist Tactics" against him because they didn't like his taste and style. Ah yes, a tale of two deeply belligerent men in Colorado. One with guns and peacocks, another with money and absolutely no taste. Turns out the pond wasn't poisoned by the neighbours, but by Watkins' own son. Oops! Ok, two more extracts from the Flying Nun CD. 'Not Given Lightly' by Chris Knox, as requested by Cocktails........ ...and 'Outer Space' by '3D's' Finally realised that the 3D's song reminds me a bit of Superchunk. Never a bad thing. More selections from the less travelled parts of my collection tomorrow. I now hereby tag Tampon Teabag, Oye Billy , Last Years Girl and Szelsofa A friendly Chinese Burn for anyone who fails to comply.......... =]

The Music Never Stops!

The song below comes from a compilation of New Zealand bands I bought about fifteen years ago. It's one of those single label throwaway promo things and since finding it again when i moved house, I've started to play it quite a bit. Some of the stuff on it has dated quite badly, but most of the songs sound pretty fresh. I'll chuck a few more up at a later date if anyone wants to hear them. The compilation is '12 Hours Fast' on Flying Nun. This one is 'Breathe' by JPS Experience. Not sure what the 'JPS' stands for. Could be Jean Paul Sartre, could be John Player Special............

Swans At The Basin

Apologies if these are a little grainy, the light was starting to wane when I took them.

Career Opportunities

Does anyone need a cheap photographer?

Tonights offering is the Jasmin Minks. Enjoy.

Egg Chasers

Scenic view of the 'Firhill Arena', Home of the Glasgow Warriors RFC. Partick Thistle FC also play here when the pitch is up to it.

I admit it, it's a game that defeats me. A game that goes beyond my meagre grasp of logic. A game in which a player can slide into a challenge knees up and catch an opponent on the temple, yet the actual foul relates to a technical infringement that happened a few seconds later............I bemoan the 'nancy boy' nature of a lot of footballers, sure, but F**k Me, these guys play for keeps, eh?

Anyway, that's not my beef really, I accept that this is how the game operates and I'm too big a puss to ever get to grips with it. No, my big hassle is trying to watch the footage on TV. Now, back in the old days, it was simple. Uncle Bill McLaren was the commentator and frankly, he knew his shit and had no need for any outside interference. Scottish he may have been, but he was as neutral and professional as it was possible to be. You got the game described to you as it happened, each move or decision related, with maybe the odd wry aside if the ref got something a bit wrong according to the replays.

Alas, Bill has long since has hung up his microphone and we are now free to be subjected to the whimsical notions of TV producers who don't give a flying fuck about sport but instead want to subject us all to what they regard as 'entertaining tv'. Yeah, that'll be the moronic and exhausting pantomime of a Scottish commentator and an English co-commentator spewing their partisan views at us and then getting in a huff with each other during a Calcutta Cup match. Yeah, great for people who rub themselves to messy orgasms over Wifeswap and Big Brother, but fuck me if it's not a massive turn off when watching a sport I need to concentrate hard on to make head nor tale of in the first place. Is it that hard to find someone who will commentate on these things with a degree of professionalism? Isn't it better to do the same as football and simply have specially selected and utterly biased commentary teams for each network or game?

The impression I got of the Scotland V England game yesterday was through the eyes of two fans with microphones. One a professional journalist/commentator who kept letting his guard slide and who should maybe take a closer look at himself and the other a perpetually whining ex- England player who whilst he could argue that this was his role as a co-commentator in the circumstances, really ought to be surplus to requirements. Give me total bias for the target markets or someone man enough to cover the match with something approaching a detached viewpoint.

Right! How about this..... Someone tell me how the fucking game works and I'll do it! I swear, I'm Association Rules through and through, I couldn't care less which bunch of farm hands or public schoolboys wins, I'm articulate, can string a few sentences together.............

Anyone?

I mean, they let Archie McPherson commentate on football AND Beach Volleyball, so surely nothing's sacred.......

Saturday Morning 3.49am

Ok, I promise to stop with the MP3's...... This is Come To The Sunshine by Harpers Bizarre, taken from the Warners compilation 'A Whole Lot Of Rainbows'. The song was written by Van Dyke Parks, who collaborated with Brian Wilson on his ill-starred Smile album.

Test Post

Visa Röster Plays Rob Hubbard.

Adapted from the intro music of an ancient computer game called 'Thrust'. I like it a lot, in spite of it's 'Enya-ish' overtones........

just playing about with the new toy.............

You Would Think They'd Learn........

First of all, I'd like to draw your attention to the link in my sidebar regarding the plans Glasgow City Council have to install a 'Go Ape' treetop adventure playground in Pollok Park. Against the wishes of a great many local residents, the National Trust For Scotland and the Maxwell family whose ancestral home lies in the estates grounds, Glasgow City Council have decided that such a development would be a spiffing idea. It seems the clowns in GCC haven't been out in Pollok park in quite some time. As well as being a visitor magnet with the Burrell Collection and Pollok House, it's also something of a cracking little wilderness, a great place to get lost in and enjoy the peace and quiet. The proposals seem to take up a fairly small area of the park, but their impact could be immense. If the venture is a success, there really is nothing to stop the council deciding that more land should be freed up to accommodate extra rides. Yes, I'm saying I don't trust the City's elected representatives. Nobody should, certainly not after a painstakingly secretive consultation process which would no doubt have elicited a wry grin from Douglas Adams. It seems the true extent of the consultation wasn't nearly as widespread and up-front as the council would like you to believe. Apparently a large part of it consisted of asking schoolkids what they thought of the idea. Things have come to something of a head recently, with the GCC planning committee deciding to see for themselves what impact the proposals will have on the area. I don't hold out much hope, but it would be nice to see a bit of common sense prevail on this issue. So, what does a Go Ape park consist of? Suspended walkways, Zip slides, Tarzan swings, all that bollocks. Great fun for the kids and wannabe commandos everywhere. Theres one in Aberfoyle, as well as various others throughout the UK, all situated in Forests oddly enough. The North Wood in Pollok Park is just that, a wood, a glade...........It's the biggest expanse of greenery in the City, sure, but wouldn't something like this be better off being set in an area that does it some justice? Is it just me, or does the proposal for the North Wood look a bit, well, shite? At £25 quid a pop, I'd be looking for something a bit more expansive.............. Go to the one at Aberfoyle, it's got a zipslide that's almost half a kilometer long. Anything longer than a hundred meters at Pollok Park will probably land you in the lobby of the Burrell.

Yeah, Filler....

A Sea Of Shrunken Yellow Men Crawling Out Their Cots And Calling For Mother

My Grandpa's in hospital. Nothing too bad, just a chest infection, anemia, polyps in the fundament.......

he's survived worse...........

Hospitals put the fear of God in me folks, I don't mind admitting that. It doesn't matter if it's some Victorian rabbit warren or some ritzy new death hole, I always leave feeling vaguely unwell and with the desire never to return.

I think it's the smell, the sick, 40 watt lighting, the bedlam like atmosphere......

I have no problem with going to see old Jimmy. He's deaf as a post and lives in a world of his own. My type of guy basically. I also think it's why his surroundings don't bother him too much.

It's a bummer going on family visits though. My mum sits at his bedside and clucks around him a bit while the rest of us talk amongst ourselves. He's used to it I think, between his late wife, his daughter in law and my mum, it's generally all he's known and he seems comfy with it. Still, I'd actually prefer to go on my own, then we can just sit and talk about football and all the stuff that's been going round in both our heads that day................(consults bus timetable for Springburn)

The geriatric ward at Stobhill is like the seventh circle of hell, two long lines of beds full of the confused and the dying. In the case of the manic old lad with the unlit fag in his mouth it's probably both. The fag was still in his gob when we left an hour later, still up in his bed gumming away, no words, just noises, the ability to articulate long gone. Another shouts a name repeatedly, maybe he's still swimming in the fog of the morphine. He could be calling anyone, but the name is female................You join the dots as you wish.

Grandpa's bed is at the bottom end of the ward. He lies across from a couple of sprightly looking lads with newspapers and a TV set. They're the short-termers, the tourists. They'll be out again in a week. Maybe it's true what they say about being nearer the door.............

As we walk out, an old gent smiles at me from one of the office like side rooms. I don't react quickly enough to wave at him or smile back, just a kind of impromptu grimace of acknowledgement before he melts back into the ward behind me. I silently wish him better health as I leave.

They provide handwash before you enter the ward. I leave wondering if theres anything attached to the wall that might aid the process of alleviating the feelings of grimness that cling to me as I leave.

It's The Taking Part That..........................yeah, I know.........

The results are in over at the Clarity Of Night short fiction competition, but my little effort didn't get a sniff of the prizes. Aw! It was ok for a short order effort I suppose, but I'll need to do a lot more with my next entry. I did get some good feedback on it, and the story will be posted up at mine and Clairwil's short story blog 'Fiction Depot'. There were some very good entries, some of which got a mention in the final listings, some of which didn't. One of my favourites came fifth and the other won the readers poll, so that's always something. Well done Sarah Hina!

Bleh!

Well, that was a weekend to forget. I got smashed out of my tiny little mind on Friday night and have been feeling like an old man ever since.

Speedway season starts this coming weekend, though I'm not 100% sure what the weather will bring us. As an atheist, I don't really think theres any point in praying, but feel free to offer one up to the weather Gods if you want. Theres a 'Press & Practice' day on the 5th, so I've taken Wednesday off to go to that, then the rest of the week off to get myself back out in the fresh air after what seems like an eternity hiding from the horizontal rain and sleet.

What I have been doing, walled up as I am in my dark little garret, is downloading.................

..........old computer games from the internet. I discovered a couple of C64 and Spectrum emulators and it's been one long orgy of dewy eyed nostalgia ever since. Home video games sort of left me behind when they started getting all flashy and looking like the games you got in the arcades, not to mention costing an arm and a leg. Sit me down in front of Thrust, Galaga or Tetris and I'm a happy lad.

I always wondered what happened to my old, grimy, sticky-keyed Commodore 64. It seems someone put in on yon internets.........

Your Leader Has Spoken

Who's the sunny despot who throws all the babies in a tizzy..............?

Mustafio!

Barry Sheene

A man who knew the fans were part of his success. The Jackie Stewart of Motorcycle Racing. Oh, and he was my first hero.