Good news!  I've solved the pensions crisis!  And the world economic slowdown!  And the oil crisis!   That as well!  Aren't I good ( Read more... )

Perhaps it's all the surfing ninja's fault.  Myabe he's the reason that the fun, the play, the sheer joie-de-vivre seems to have disappeared from video gaming these days.  Maybe he's the reason that leaps and bounds in technology have served only to make the escapist universe of the games console more and more like the mundane real world.  Maybe he ( Read more... )

You may well have been asleep when it happened, but it probably won't have escaped your attention that we recently had ourselves a little earthquake in this country.  I was lucky enough to still be up when it hit and jolly exciting it was too as the power of the Earth rattled my light fittings in a touchingly non-threatening way- a bit like having ( Read more... )

Just under three weeks from now, give or take an hour, there's a good chance I'll be outdoors, naked and unconscious.  I'll be in Tunisia on holiday and, since the daytime temperature will have nudged above 20 degrees and the sun will have spent it's day lazily traversing the sky and burning down on my Viking skin, I'll most probably have sunburn ( Read more... )

The single daftest concept ever thought of by man, outside of daytime TV quiz shows, is the idea of a 'decline in standards'.  Anyone who's ever glanced at a copy of the Daily Express (is it me, or are they always there to read- albeit 2 days out of date- in chinese chippies?) will know that we are currently in the middle of one of these periodic ( Read more... )

I hate underdogs, don't you?  I know it's meant to be the British way to back them against the big boys but there's something about plucky, rosy-cheeked optimism in the face of overwhelming odds that really winds me up.  Even when they do succeed, like the Vietcong or Barnsley at Anfield, I can't help but wait for some divine karmic retribution to ( Read more... )

So, that was 2007.  Did you enjoy it?  Good.  I had quite a good year, thanks for asking- here's a highly derivitive rundown of the good and the bobbins from while the Earth's been hurtling round it's most recent lap of the Sun.

Living the Dream:

Robert FitzRoy- The chances are you've never heard of Robert FitzRoy but his is a story that never fails ( Read more... )

I'm dead inside.  Seriously.  Crack open my chest and you won't find a heart in there- just a cold, dark stone with the density of a quasar that would suck you into it's core in a heartbeat.  If I had a heart to beat.  Which I don't.  Emotional intensity is an alien concept to me at the best of times- if I was to become a father on the same day I ( Read more... )

I've seen the future and it's terrifying.  A newspaper recently featured an article on the "Trolley of the Future" (presumably no-one was busy blowing each other up and stabbing pensioners that day so there was a bit of spare room to fill) that, amongst other things, warns you off buying unhealthy food.  Apparently, anything you put in your trolley ( Read more... )

Two interesting things have happened to me in the last couple of days. Number one, I have been 'tagged' in the blog of a friend and number two, I've done some research and found out what it means when you have been 'tagged' in the blog of a friend. Apparently, it's the 21st Century's equivalent of the throwing down of a gauntlet- a challenge to a ( Read more... )