To join this particular demographic, you need the following…

1. A PC – desktop or laptop, it doesn’t matter. You could even have a Mac (Hi Stan).

2. A state of mind that mixes inappropriate confidence, a bit of laziness and a refusal to accept the inevitable until it’s far too late.

I will use the phrase “PC” from now on but Mac owners are pretty similar. Their computers are see-thru, more expensive, a tad slower and their mice have less buttons but they can be just as stupid.

So there you are, possibly joined by members of your family, in a large, cavernous shop with a name that ends in “World”,”urrys” or “omet”. You are about to handover a large amount of money to someone young enough still to have fairly impressive acne but old enough to convince you that he knows a lot about PCs. Whilst the first may be true, the second is almost certainly not. He/she usually has a coloured shirt on (purple probably) and he/she is a simpleton. The only person in fart-smelling distance more stupid than them at the moment is you.

I don’t mean stupid for buying a PC. After all, they are wonderful things, I mean stupid because you don’t know enough about what you are buying to be allowed to buy one. I admit this is harsh but in your defence, why should you know enough? 20 years ago, I regularly had the piss taken out of me for spending my weekend free time mucking about with a Sinclair Spectrum. I did that and everyone else didn’t. As I grew into mandhood, I owned increasingly more sophisticated and expensive computers until one day I realised everyone had one.

But I digress…

The cash is handed over because you need a PC in your home. You have reached this decision and justified same in a mysterious, group-conciousness-led decision. All of you want one. The house needs a PC.

What the house, or more precisely “you” need at this point is a slap across the back of the head with a metal tea tray followed by someone shouting in your ear “what the hell do you know about PCs? Do you have any idea how this thing works?”. If this did happen, how many of you would be honest enough to reply “not much really”?

But your head remains unbruised and you leave the shop with a £1000 worth of consumer electronics and every intention of sorting out the family finances with online banking, editing and producing your own holiday dvds, designing your garden, downloading legal movies & music and … well you get the idea.

What you never do is actually understand the first thing about what you have bought. You will treat it the same way you treat a new toaster. You will switch it on and expect it to work.

One day something else happens. You turn it on and either it beeps a few times before switching itself off again or you are treated to what we in the know call BSOD or “The Blue Screen Of Death”. It just sits there. White gibberish on a blue background. No “booting in safe mode” for you matey. It’s dead…

..which is where I come in. Three times in the past few weeks, I have been called into help out in such a situation. I shouldn’t grumble because I recieve a little pocket money in return for my rescue efforts but to be serious for a moment, I don’t really think anyone is stupid. It’s just that somewhere along the line someone should have told you that they don’t work forever and you need to be ready when they don’t. Copy your stuff to a blank DVD every once in a while – photos, documents, music. Everything that you would be cross to lose. It’s not hard to find out how to do it and it will safe you a lot of pain. Two out of the three laptops I sorted out had no backups whatsover and the hard drive data was unrecoverable. They lost literally years of photos and they are never, ever coming back. Gone are the letters, the emails, the school work, the CVs and everything else you spent the last year filling the thing up with. Whilst you are backing up your stuff, take a moment and write down all your passwords & email account details too, its easier and cheaper than spending £s on a useless helpline in Bangalore spelling out your mother’s maiden name to someone 10,000 miles away who only got his “Beginner’s English” certificate that very morning.

Better yet, consider using what we tech-heads are already beginning to call “the cloud”. Don’t have the data on your PC in the first place. Store it online. I long ago solved the problem of losing my Email by using a Google Mail account. All my photos are on Flickr. All my documents are regularly “synced” online too. This takes a while to set up but it can be made almost totally painless and absolutely free.

Of course some of you reading this will be disgusted the idea of sitting down in front of your PC and doing “housekeeping” and this (finally) is my point. It is similar to old adage “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime” or more precisely in this case,

“if you treat it like a toaster, one day your toast will get burnt”

Get to know your PC. Believe it or not, geeks are in the minority. Most websites, online services and software is aimed at people just like you and not like me. Sure, we can get our nerdy fix and spend hours exploring that scary “Advanced Options” button in most programs, but you don’t have to. Not yet anyway.

Don’t think of that hot, black, windy box as something to frighten you. Treat it as a beast to tame and a slave to do your bidding.

Failing that, Email me. My fees are quite reasonable and Christmas is fast approaching.

L8r

Work is good at the moment. I am still busy and the madness that is Christmas is not far away. I am still mostly spreadsheeting but tomorrow I am making an alarming departure and helping present an idea using Powerpoint.

“Get on with it Neil. They don’t care about this stuff.”

“Ok. I just like writing this stuff down. It feels good.”

“Feeling better now?”

“Yes.”

“Well…get on with it.”

“Ahem…”

Long gaps aside, do any other bloggers reading this have a blog spot? I do. It’s just past the second speed bump on Weston Park Road as you approach from the Hyde Park end. At this precise point, usually around 10.10pm each evening I have a thought. More often than not it begins with, “I should blog again soon really” and then continues with a really great idea or three for things to write about. By this time on Sunday night, I have usually forgotten all but one of them and this week I only remembered to tell you about my blogspot.

So, in predictably circular fashion, here we are again. Sunday night. Alan Titchmarsh is on the wireless, a cat is asleep on the bed, a mug of cold Early Grey is at my side and my pudgy, oddly childlike fingers hover poised over my Dell keyboard.

So here we go…

I Made A Word

I have made-up a word. I probably did it ages ago but I have only become overly concious of it in recent weeks. I don’t know if it’s borne out of shyness, embarrassment, britishness or just an overt manifestation of my tendency to mumble. Nevertheless, I made up a word. I realise it would be best if you could actually hear me say it but unless you approach me from the far end of a corridor at work and play a sort of eye-meeting chicken challenge with me, you are unlikely to be lucky in this respect.

So, it kind of goes…”Alrighellok”.

Let’s break it down.

a) Alrigh.. this me starting to say “alright”. I have been down these south western parts so long, I can’t remember if this is a common salutation elsewhere but here it is used all the time. Usually as a question.

b) Hell.. this is when my non-Devon upbringing kicks in and a small but nevertheless still pompous part of me reminds me to talk properly and say “hello” but it never quite makes it out because…

c) By this time, the person walking towards me has already said “Alright?” and I have to squeeze out an “ok”, pinching off the loaf of this excrutiating but all too recently common occurance.

Altogether now…”Alrighellok”.

You will all be saying it by Christmas, maybe even early November.

I am also feeling so damn sad and fidgety and a little sleeeeeeeepy.

I don’t know why am so sleepy. I had almost 4 hours sleep last night.

Doesn’t that sound all rock’n'roll, youthful and annoyingly boastful in that way that makes you want to slap anyone under the age of 25 and pity anyone over 26?

I guess it does but for the full tale I must take you back to about 2.15am this morning.

[At this point, I must own up and admit that this is now Sunday as I practically fell asleep at the keyboard whilst writing the bit above this. So, where was I....]

It was dark, warm and Plymouth Hoe was as quiet as the moon. Three friends were sitting in a burgundy Rover 214SE in the only filled parking space on the seafront. It seemed like a mad and crazy idea – let’s go and eat our chips up on the Hoe said I as we stood crammed in a steamy chip shop 10 minutes earlier. It’s the kind of improvisational and impetuous thing I do about once every three years so no-one should have really been surprised. Indeed they weren’t. Instead they were a bit pissed. Just a bit.

Before the chips…1.28am

“What do you want to do? We can do anything you want to do.” said Neil.

“I want chips.” said Julie.

“Yeah. Let’s have chips.” said Claire.

“Where are we going to get chips at this time of the morning?” said Neil.

“How about we try that chip shop over there?” said Claire.

“I like saying chips. I have been saying stupid things all day haven’t I?” said Julie

“Yes. Quite often” said Neil

“Hangbags” said Julie and then she giggled. A lot.

There I was, sober as a judge having spent the last few hours knocking back Diet Coke with lots of ice, a piece or lime or lemon (for some reason, I couldn’t have both) and a slightly camp straw. Despite this, Julie saying “Hangbags” was still the funniest thing I had heard since about 11am that morning when she first said it.

Claire laughed more out of politeness than anything else. She was also a bit pissed, which helped.

A little before this, about midnight…

Blush was starting to empty and in a moment, Hayley and the other more adventurous folk were off to C103 to jump up and down to loud stuff. I was completely unprepared for her leaving so soon and all of a sudden. All day I had been busy buying her presents, wrapping her presents and writing in her card(s) and getting other people to write in her cards. Now there she was. I hugged her for about 15 seconds and then couldn’t think of anything to say. And then I thought of something to say but my voice had vanished. And then she had gone.

Shit. I want to try that again…

5 minutes earlier…

“I think I might go with Hayley.” said Julie.

“Ok.” said Neil

“You don’t approve”, said Julie.

“Don’t be silly. It’s just that you said to me about 4 hours ago. Don’t let me go clubbing. There won’t be anyone still awake at home to you in and besides, your handbag is in my car boot.”, said Neil.

“Ok. I won’t go we will stay here”, said Julie.

“Sure?”, said Neil

“Yes, I’ll stay here then.”, said Julie.

“Ok”, said Neil.

Much earlier…about 10:30pm

I had never been to Blush before except to drop someone off there after work. Coincidentally and for no other reason, it was the previously, aforementioned Claire. That was for Paul’s leaving do. He was there too. On Friday I mean. Obviously he was at his own leaving do. I have just realised that I told him that I wouldn’t be going to his leaving do because I don’t like going out after work. Still, he appeared pleased to see me on Friday and was obviously too tanked up to be concerned by the finer degrees of irony and transparent deception. Rest assured Paul, I no longer go out after work.

So there I was at Blush. Today, Hayley was leaving the MDEC where I we both work. Where we all work actually. By the time we had finished that work thing we do it was 9.50pm and by the time the ladies had changed into their sparkly tops and impractical footwear it was substantially later. Glittering and smelling nice, they emerged from the ladies loo where the air was now a deadly mix of 10% breathable air and 90% chemically achieved pleasant smelliness. Those who didn’t drink then drove those who intended to.

Fortune smiled at me as I drove into the last free parking space outside Blush and then it pissed in my drink as I realised that (after spending £2.20 on a parking ticket) all the spaces on the other side of the road were free.

Everyone who was everyone was there, including to almost everyone’s surprise, “me”. I have never felt more like someone’s grandad in my life. “Jesus, Neil’s here…” and other such exclamtions filled the air. I really must go out after work more often, if only to shift the attention to others. I just hope I don’t run into Papworth too often or my tissue-thin cover story is completely blown.

Highlight of the evening was me being snapped by Smiles-On-The-Tiles. Well, it was for me anyway. That’s Chris Vogler with me. He is tall but not as tall as it appears. Unless I am shorter than I thought and people have been lying to me.

See more pics of me and my mates at smileonthetiles.com

Almost there…9pm

Have you ever watched a really sad film and tried so hard not to cry that you get a headache and/or a pain in your throat. Try feeling like for 8 hours. The only thing that stopped me from disappearing into a quiet corner and actually crying was my little friend who was trying even harder. Actually, she failed 3 or 4 times but no one laughs at women who do it do they?

The traditional “someone is leaving” time of 9pm arrived and Mr Petrie did a very nice speech that at least one of us took the piss out of. The truth is, I couldn’t have done it and very few others would have got through it.

By now, those of you who don’t know Hayley will be suspecting what a nice person she is, how much everyone loved her and how much everyone is going to miss her. Now, write down how much you think you suspect on a piece of paper. Rip into very small pieces and then rip each very small piece into even smaller pieces and then go and find a very big bit of paper. Get some sellotape and stick it to many, many, many other bigger pieces of paper. Then, if you write really, really small you might be able to fit the amount on. You will probably have to write on the back too.

I took her card around probably 100 people and not one of them had to pause to think of what to write.

Earlier…2.02pm at work…

We arrived at work fashionably (almost) late and laden down with bags. This followed the mother of all pre-work present-buying crusades with Julie and Naomi. I am sorry if the following bit makes my male readers feel the need to sit down in a darkened room but in the space of two and bit hours, I went to a jewellers, a strange hippy-type, new age shop which sold crystal jewellery that kept dragons at bay, Tescos, a teddy bear factory, an off-licence, a balloon shop for whom the idea of someone leaving work appeared to be an unknown and ridiculous concept and most scarily of all for me…Hotel Chocolat…

There being just enough time, I squeezed in a very bad (for me) but very nice tasting bacon buttie and a huge coffee on the Hoe (more of that later or sooner depending on which order you read this and which order your brain processes reverse sequential timeframes).

All I wanted to do, as my car finally got to work was go to sleep.

Friday 29th August 10.30am…

“Everyone remember where we parked, because I never do.” said Neil.

Disbelievingly, Naomi and Julie laughed…Julie not quite so hard as Naomi, who was embarking on her first trip to the shops with Neil.

I hate the Mall. I even hate that it insists on calling itself a Mall. It’s huge and loud and I hate it. I once bought a tie there and was asked if I wanted a clip-on one. You get my point.

Still, there is a Starbucks. But where isn’t there?

So it’s 10.35am, I am parked, I have good company and only a few hours to buy nice things for a female.

Outside Dingles is a little stall where a wild-eyed man is offering anyone a free stress test.

“Excuse me…”

“F**k off. What do you know about stress”…

Not 200 yards later, an idiot in a stained and dirty blue t-shirt wants to talk to us…yes US..about breast cancer. Considering how much we had to do, I think he got off lightly with our stony, silent reply.

“Ooooh look. Handbags…Shoes….”

7.30am…

Shit. Hayley is leaving today.

Usually, a reappearance like this is driven by an amazing happenstance in a normally dull week but to be honest (love that phrase), I just felt like it. I spent the last month or so doing a little naval gazing and pondering. Nothing earth shattering has emerged from the meditation and self-indulgence but I still live in hope. I am not sleeping very well at the moment but I have no idea why. Work is busy but no more so than at any time over the last year or so, so I am pretty sure it ain’t that.

Am I on the verge of a mid-life crisis? Those of you who see a lot of me might wonder if I am already having it and lately, I can see what  you mean. I have no great secret personal life hidden from all of you. What you see me doing is pretty much what there is.

Ardent Slimming World junkies such as myself don’t get Bank Holiday’s off, so today I was there bright and early. Very early as it happens. Not as much traffic on the roads at 9am as usual you see. Had I half a ounce of common sense, I would have realised this and hence avoided the need to run round the house like my trousers were on fire 30 seconds after the alarm went off this morning. It was worth the trip though, I lost 3½ pounds which is very cool. Slightly less cool when you discover that I put 3 on last week. If only I could determine what I did this week that I didn’t do last week and vice-versa. Sadly, if it were that simple, I could make a fortune and I would be already wearing the 34 inch waist jeans hanging like a mocking denim bat in my wardrobe. There are now 5 of us from work at my group which adds to the fun. Laughing at other people might be wrong but its a great way to start the week. Before you go and call me (us) cruel, rest assured that sometimes it goes both ways. This week, I was first in line when we “went round the room to see how everyone got on”. The nice consultant lady tells everyone how well we did (they never say how much we put on) and we have to talk about our week. Normally the words come easily and I have taken to using 3 or 4 stock speeches that seem to keep everyone happy. This week, I was caught off-guard and wittered on like an idiot long past the point of polite embarrassment. The usual round of applause that follows each speech re-defined the term “smattering”.

So it wasn’t my weight…

The diabetes is ok. I have one of my 6 monthly M.O.T. checkups any week now. I feel ok. I always know when things are going a bit wonky because I either feel really tired, need to drink or need to pee. None of these really happens at all at the moment. I have virtually no thirst reflex anymore. Drinking fluids of any sort is either a habit (coffee at work) or something I have to remember to do. I know my inner bits need fluid, so I am not letting myself get into stupid bad habits, it’s just not a situation I ever expected to find myself in. During the time before I was diagnosed, I was drinking about 5 litres of water/squash/coke every day and peeing out about the same amount. How I ever got anything done is anyone’s guess.

So not that then…

My friend Hayley is leaving work this week. This sucks big time but for me not her. It is totally the right thing for her to do but it doesn’t make the fact that she won’t be at work anymore any less sucky. For the last 4 or 5 years ago she has been one of only a very few people I can trust with anything and one of only two who took the time to see how I was every day. We nearly always had lunch together, she mostly laughed at my purile yet sophisticated humour and without her I would have never gone to Slimming World. She was and is also blonde, pretty and in her early 20’s which never does my ego any harm. I may be her friend but I am also male and 40. It would be poetic, poignant and full of pathos to end with the phrase “I wish I had told her all that to her face” but I will have to disappoint you all. I think I tell her about once a month. The last time, she told me to stop being an arse. I will probably tell her again on Friday night whilst drunk and leaning on the bar in C103.

C103 is a night club. The first time in 20 years that I have ever been in one.

There will probably be photos. Photos I will apologise for in advance.

Also, I know I look a complete dork in the photo above but Julie and Hayley come out quite nice.

L8r

To be honest, I am quite often here and this does seem to generate a lot of pressure in my life. As I now enter year 8 of posting stuff online, I find myself at a crossroads of sorts. You see, around the time I began doing this thing that I do, the only way to have anything online was to have a website.

Mine began like this…

Such was my techy pride, I knew I had to get a domain name. neilargue.com was picked, paid for and later squatted on by an Australian company I am not that fond of. Last time I checked, it pointed to some pretty un-work-friendly, un-family-friendly photos of persons of consensual age passing the time in energetic fashion. You go there at your peril these days.

So, I had a domain name pointing at my free web space, but most people would never know. Instead they would be impressed by my flashy domain name. Microsoft had one and now Neil Argue had one. I still had to learn shitloads of new things, mostly by using a search engine in a fairly hit and miss fashion. I had a long way to go before my website looked anything like presentable. It was bloody hard work and I am a little ashamed to admit I did a fair amount of it at work, under the pretense of learning how to design websites for the company I worked for. Actually, on reflection, I am not ashamed. I did design and code the work websites to begin with at least. When made redundant a year or so later, all I had to show for it was a cheque for £5000. I felt little guilt at taking some slyly-gotten skills with me.

After a few false starts, there it all was – HTML code, photos and witty text. All in one place, sitting inside one folder call “public_html” on a server somewhere. I spread my wings eventually and linked to a guestbook and very basic discussion forum but for about 3 years, it was all me.

Then one day it hit me. I was actually in the middle of incorporating a gallery using a damn fine piece of software called Coppermine, when the enormity of what I was doing slapped me in the face. I was adding captions to my photos. Nothing strange in that you may think except that I had almost 2000 or them. If I hadn’t come to my senses then, I would have managed to have captioned about 1500 by now, with plenty more to go.

This road-to-Damascus-like revelation had never occurred before. Earlier on, even when typing 1000s and 1000s of words into the site, I was always motivated by the fact that I was first  and spurred on by the encouragement of the occasional Email from fellow school chums I hadn’t seen in 15 years.

That Saturday afternoon in Coppermine, it finally started to unravel. Of course the website is still here. It is a splash page where you can get here or go to my forum. It links to my Flickr photos and a few other things, several of which may or may not ever be completed – the Dukopedia for instance. I posted in this blog many months ago about a long awaited project regarding something close to my heart and for once, nothing to do with my school. It still sits there in a state of suspended animation, hiding from the Google searchbots, waiting for the day I suddenly fired with enthusiasm.

If I have a point to make in all this, it’s this – I am going to stop worrying about what I don’t finish. It is right and proper that I feel a little pressure to blog at least once a week. My friends are right to expect that I check the forum every day or so. It is pretty likely that I will still stun and amaze you with my online wizardry now and again, after all, I am a complete geek and it’s what I love but I have decided to draw a little line in the sand.

The fact is that anyone can have an online presence these days and indeed almost everyone does. Facebook for one, provides endless functionality and cleverness far in excess of anything I am capable of coding (I even worked out how to blog on there last week). I do maintain a certain smugness that nothing I have seen on there comes close to wisdom, wit and cleverness of my contributors. The Facebook DYRMS Groups are like SMS graffiti and show little for anyone to be proud of. The forums, although open to 1000s, seem to be a shouting board for mostly the annoyed, the disgruntled and the semi-literate. Actually, use of the word prefix “semi” might be a little over-kind.

So, here I will stay. Here I will type and in the forum I will chat. That might be it for a while. I have carrots to grow, weight to lose and blood pressure to lower.

Who’s for Swingball?

So, brunch at 10 usually replaces both breakfast and lunch. All this detail serves no purpose. Sorry. I have probably mentioned it before anyway. It’s just that the weight-loss has slowed and I need to add variety to my eating day and resist the urge not to eat. Yes, it’s true. In the space of a year or so, I have gone from eating anything and all the time to not wanting to eat most of the time. This has the effect of making you even more hungry and less fussy when you do eat.

Anyway, it’s Friday morning. It’s the end of my last week of being “released” at work. This basically means I don’t have to do the usual job of keying and instead have to work on other things. This for me, inevitably means spreadsheets, spreadsheets and the odd spreadsheet. I don’t really mind this but it’s quite a shock to suddenly find yourself involved in something involving a little pressure. I usually a terrible one for procrastination but not this time. Every moment of the past 5 or 6 weeks has been full of typing and numbers. On Friday, it all got out of hand and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Mr Migraine came to call.

But, I am getting ahead of myself.

This Friday started nicely with coffee on the Hoe with some chums. Ok, so I could have had decaffeinated but the Latte would probably have suffered. I could have probably gone without the butterscotch syrup too.

After a pleasant hour, it was off to work. Here’s where it started to go wrong. For some reason, I decided it was a good idea to grab a coffee in the canteen on the way. More caffeine. An hour later and I could actually feel my heart thumping. What an idiot. No worries though, plenty of relaxing Excel work ahead to take the edge off.

Unfortunately, at this point the true scale of the amount of work I had still to do dawned on me. Time to fess up and ask for some help. A few minutes and an understanding manager later, my chum Scott (fellow Excel nerd) was despatched and also released from his duties to help. So pleased with this was I that I made a stupid error and erased the previous 3 days work. Irrecoverably. Well, almost. I had a backup at home.

There was literally no choice other than to drive home and get it.

At 5.30pm. In a city.

At 10pm, the journey home is a care-free, speedy 15 minute drive. At 5.30pm, it is a frustrating 30 minute crawl through traffic hell. At one point, I was going downhill behind a 7-seater people-carrier doing 20mph. When they eventually reached the top of the valley, they actually slowed down to 10mph to crawl past a speed camera and then they forgot to speed up again.

At home, the file-copying took 10mins and I was soon heading back to work…and the migraine from hell decided to accompany me.

At work, I took pills but it didn’t help. My new assistant helped in a big way and in the space of an hour, solved about 5 problems that had been bothering me all week. I rewarded him by being grumpy and cross most of the time.

By 9.30pm, the pills had worked and it was time to go home.

It doesn’t seem like much, now that I write it down.

I remember July 7th 2005 quite clearly.

I was driving down to my dad’s place for a visit and despite hearing a strange news item about a fire or electrical fault on the underground, it wasn’t until I was drinking a cuppa in his kitchen that he told me what happened.

I remember logging on to the forum to find PC Stan had already checked on as many loved ones/chums as possible and everyone seemed ok.

Pretty decent memories to go with a terrible event.

..and as for today. It all went ok and it ended brilliantly. A difficult problem solved.

Then I get in and get a second chance to bid on a Sid James/Tony Hancock autograph from Ebay that I thought was gone forever and I won it.

Oh, and I lost a pound at Slimming World today.

Neil punches the air…..

I suspect that I will have much to report tomorrow. Either that or will have had a nervous breakdown.

x

As a little follow-up to last weeks teary ode, the little man came home yesterday and once more sleeps on the landing. Ok, a little sentimental perhaps but at least I know where he is. I won’t be scattering his dusty remains, mainly due to the fact that the box won’t open and as it doesn’t look too ghoulish and coffin-like, on the landing bookshelf he will stay. At least I will be able to say “Good Morning” and “Good Night” the same way I always did.

I promise I will stop this now.

Bizzy

It’s been a funny old few weeks at work. There I was, adjusting my spreadsheets to work with the new proposed shift plan on July 7th when I offer (foolishly some might say) to help out more closely with the organisation of said shift plan. Now, I am deeply involved and whilst the relief that it is almost done is wonderful, the knowledge that I have seemingly upset more than a few people with my supposed choices is a little unsettling. Truth be told, I haven’t had any say whatsoever in who goes where and even my radical ideas in other areas will have to be approved by authority and committee before they are ever put into action. To be honest, a few weeks ago, I thought it would be very cool for hundreds of people to work according to plans I had forged. Now, I am not so sure. After all, what if it’s a disaster? Gulp.

Still, once more the opportunity has forced me to learn some new very cool Excel stuff.

I am really reaching now aren’t I?

Wrong

I often ponder on the brilliance of my sardonic wit and the endless quest to comment on the absurdity and oddness of the world around me. Wouldn’t it be so much better to be positive and talk about nice things and not point the finger of criticism at the funny, the odd, the absurd, the ugly or the chav? It would be, but I can’t help but think that nobody would be interested in reading it. I feel very lucky to have been blessed with the gift to see the failings and misfortunes of others.

Ok, I will stop this too now.

You have to understand some of my life to see where I am going with this. I don’t go out much you see. Not in a sad, hermit-like way, it’s just that I don’t “go out” drinking, clubbing or partying. When I do venture out of the door, it’s either to work (still loving it) or shopping or visiting or whatever. So. Quite a lot then. What’s my problem? Well, to be honest, when I started this paragraph, I felt the need to clarify but now I wish I hadn’t bothered.

So there I was, buying the hernia-threatening pile of plastic, cardboard, paper and CD’s that once called itself a newspaper. I’ll be honest, it’s not a shop I normally patronise. The owners are quite nice but it usually boasts a crowd of Burberry inside and out that would make most of us steer clear. No well-known, corporate identity hangs over the door and there is the usual smell – almost out-of-date milk, cheap chocolate and disinfectant. Behind the counter is someone and on my side of the counter (sometimes on a stool) is their mate, talking to them.

In the corner is a cash machine that will dispense £10 for a modest fee of £2.85 and all around is the world of convenience, own-brand merchandise, most of which I have sworn never to eat again. As always, it seems rude to interupt the bloke behing the counter and his chatty mate but you have to pay don’t you? Handing over a £10, I smile and look around the counter area, only to notice a  scribbled piece of A4 sellotaped to the side of the glass “shoplifter sweetie barrier”. In large letters across the top are the words “LASANGYER RECEPEE”. Underneath, presumably was a recipe for lasagne but I couldn’t say for sure. As I have done many times before, the author of this gastronomic guideline had underestimated how much room the recipe would take up and as such, had to write progressively smaller and smaller until they reached the bottom of the page. By the time they hit the bottom, they just had room for a tempting instruction “tastes fabb and is reely cheep”.

Where would a nice person do when presented with this? Who cares.

What the f**k kind of world do I live in?

I don’t know where to begin.

Appalling spelling aside, what thinking process puts something like that on display?

Who is it for?

What do you do if it takes your fancy? Take out your PDA and copy it down? What of the queue behind you? If money is your god, why not just buy the 89p frozen one in the fridge behind you?

Was the voice in my head shouting “run..drop the paper, forget the change and run” wrong to do so?

Stop the train, I want to get off. I don’t care if there is no station. I want to get off now.

And then on Thursday, a sad little tale of a happy little life came to an end. It’s amazing to think I was only 24 when little Sam came into my life. We ‘rescued’ him from what at the time we thought to be a perfectly respectable pet shop. In the years since, it became a matter of record that the owner of this establishment cut some corners in his noble quest for a few quid. The mighty “Scrabble” had just left us after a life of sleeping, eating and more sleeping and there was a gap in the Argue menagerie. So, off we trotted to the shop. Within minutes a small black and white animal was in the cat box and well on the way to the life of an Argue. Sam was born on a farm and like many such cats, grew to the size of a small panther in under a year. His feet in particular could have flattened many a small bird with ease had the very idea been anywhere in his soft and friendly head. You see, fortunately for the rodent and bird population of Hooe (and later Badgers Wood), he didn’t have an unpleasant bone in his entire body. He could occasionally be selfish when sharing the bed with his adopted sibling Alice but I am pretty sure any such acts of aggression were just an attempt to goad her into playing. He was still doing this last week at the age of 16. He never stopped being a kitten. He never stopped doing a lot of things. He met me from work every night. Sitting in the road under the street light, he knew the noise of my car and sound of the footsteps down from the car park. Before he became ill, he would spend many an hour sat in the turning bay (he is in fact captured in the aerial photography on Google Earth and Microsoft Live Search) watching the world go by. Sadly, as we live in a cul-de-sac, he didn’t see much. About 6 months ago, he developed a snuffle which we found out a week ago was actually the result of cancer spreading to his chest. It wasn’t until a lump on his foot caused a visit to the vet that it was confirmed.

So he is gone – having one last kip. He was my little friend for 16 years. He sat on my lap watching Dr Who, slept on my bed whilst I typed thousands of words at this PC and he hid under my chair on Bonfire night. His scratchy meow sounded like thousands of different words in my head in that way only people who love their animals will understand and I miss him terribly.

Fin

So. Sunday it is. My last Sunday as a person aged under 40. Personally, I can’t wait for Wednesday. Who can be patient when such an important thing as “your life beginning” is imminent? Well, I can. I think it’s complete tosh. I still feel (and most of the time act) exactly like I was still 14. I still like mostly the same things, I read the same books, like the same music…well the list goes on in just the way I have done on this very subject many times before. I can’t remember exactly at what point I stopped judging myself by looking at those around me. For years I was obsessed with doing what I thought I should be doing or behaving the way I thought I should and then one day it all seemed like nonsense. For a few years now, I have stopped doing things I didn’t want to do and instead of making up an excuse, I say I don’t and say why. I won’t fall back on cliche and end this with “life is short” because I don’t believe it is. I intend mine to be long, obstinate and a generally good laugh. I am only sorry I waited until I was in my late 30s to realise it.

Slimming World

As I told you earlier (and last week), I moved to another Slimming World group last Monday. No longer will Thursday be the day I perch on the scales and wish to some higher being that a few pounds will have fallen off. So, now it is Monday and I sit in another community centre with a room full of women and two friends from work (no longer Hayley & Julie, now Jayne & Allanna). My new consultant seems just as nice as the last one so I appear to be in good hands.

Last week’s first weigh-in was a bit of a disaster. I had put on a few pounds since only the previous Thursday. So shocked was I (and a little indignant) that I bought some new digital scales on the way home. My indignance proved unfounded as the new ones agreed completely with the Slimming World ones. So, a few pounds heavier and £12 pounds poorer. Good start to the day or what? So far this week, I have eaten like Victoria Beckham and written every single damn thing down to wave in the face of the lovely Clare.

We shall see. Well, I will. I will probably chicken out of telling you lot.

L8r

So she won. I seem to be in a minority amongst those around me in loving BBC talent shows. 12 million people watch them but you can’t seem to find one can you? Funny that. Anyway, Jodie won and I voted. 5 times. She was undeniably chuffed and deservedly so. Andrew Lloyd Webber seemed genuinely pleased but Cameron McIntosh appeared to be completely graceless about the final decision.

Don’t leave it up to the public if you don’t want the public to choose.

I do wonder, it has to be said, how many of the sofa-parked butts in TV land belong to people who actually go to the theatre. There seems to be this great idea that it’s “our” West End and “our” theatrical tradition”. In truth, the West End is several hundred miles from me and I estimate a return trip including hotel stay to be in the £300-£400 price range. Not likely then. Plymouth does have it’s own Theatre Royal and many a production has made it’s camp way down here. It’s just that I have never been. I am sure I’d love it if I did but I guess I would rather watch TV. Oooooh the irony…

2 Slim 2 Move

The diet continues slowly. Another pound fell off this week but all is not well in my group. You see, my two best buds who come with me and sit amongst the nice ladies of Plympton have decided not to go anymore. I don’t think sis is going again either which leaves me alone with the plump ladies of the W.I. They really are a great bunch, the consultant in particular but what good is an experience like Slimming World if you don’t have any friends at work to yak about it with? Not much as far as I am concerned, which is why I am going to another group with two more best buds. Let’s see how long this lasts then…

Soon 40

Not long now then. Just over a week.

I want presents and I want them soon.

The problem are two fold…

1) I don’t think I will be able to get the time of work at short notice, particularly as I am going to profit from it.

2) My head might grow inexpicably large and I might die, as happened to some poor people last year. Probably an exaggeration but you never know. I suspect I would be required to sign some sort of ‘waiver’.

More thought required. I have until Thursday to get back to them.

He ponders…

Look out, I’m back again. No longer got nuddin’. I think it’s safe to say that today I have summin’ at least. In a departure from the normal policy of just reading my old blog posts (admit it bloggers, you do it too), I am going to quite literally add to the number of words in the world.

It’s been a busy old time of late. Last weekend, I went to watch the Army V Navy rugby game at Twickenham with all my friends. That sentence hardly does it justice but I thought I’d get the meat out of the way first. The train tickets arrived in the post a few weeks ago with a mysterious set of instructions. On Friday 2nd May, I jumped on a train for the first time in years and headed for Reading. All I knew was that I would be meeting one of the conspirators and that it would definately not be Sean, as I had spoken to him on the phone earlier and he had been given a different set of instructions. I climbed out at Reading after a moment of blind panic concerning an automatically locking door and an almost 40 year old blogger, only to spot Bruce Whitton. Now several hundred of you will have no idea who that is. He is a big cheese in my school Old Boy network and I had not seen him in over a year. Unfortunately, I was only 99% sure it was him and in that terribly british manner, chose not to shout across the station. I now know it was indeed Bruce. Bugger.

Anyway, what to do with myself? Do I wait for the crowds to clear and let my contact find me or do I go hunting until someone recognises me? I tried the former to no avail and headed up the ramp for the exit. At the top of said ramp stood Sean. One of several moments of confusion and mild dishonesty that would greet me over the next few days.

We drove to what turned out to be Farnborough and the home of big and tall Stan. After some very nice (diabetic friendly) food it was off the the pub and a few hours of intense political debate with Mark, Stan’s brother. At about this point, the joy of not drinking was hammered home. Diet Coke sits on you alright until the 2 or 3 pint. After this, you enter a clarity of thought outside your normal frame of experience. Combine this with the lack of energy caused by low blood sugar and you find yourself very, very, very sober. I am beginning to get used to it but as your increasingly slurry, chums slowly slide under the table, its quite difficult (actually pointless) to explain things to them. Diet Coke no.4 is quite literally the last thing on earth y

ou want. What I did want, and quite desperately it has to be said, was some cheese on toast and a cup of tea. Luckily, it was almost evening pill time and time to head back to Stan’s gaff.

You must realise at this point, I was none the wiser as to how the rest of the weekend would play out. I was going to bed without knowing one thing about Saturday.

Saturday came just a few long hours later and time for another wonderful Stan breakfast. Now at this point, I notice that both Sean and Stan are wearing DYRMS OBA rugby shirts. Clue one.

Then to Farnborough railway station and a short hop (well, a train ride actually) to Clapham Junction. Here I was thrust head first into The Slug & Pellet, whereupon I met some more friends, old and new. Helen (Hx) & mummy Hx, Heidi (HHx) & Si and Amy. There was much taking of photos and hugging. Unfortunately, it was too soon after breakfast so they ate while I had a Diet Coke. Out came the Army V Navy tickets and the secret was out of the bag. I had never been to Twickenham before and it was a really kind idea of theirs to take me.

The game was no classic but once you are sat down listening to the crowd, it doesn’t matter. It was cool and now I have done it.

Thanks guys.

Gravelands

Whilst staying at Stan’s place. I heard this. Now I have a copy and it is the weirdest, strangest thing I have head in ages. It is also a work of genius. I have also ordered a copy of the previous album.

Lazily, I nicked the following review from Amazon…

“The King is James Brown, an Irish postman. He was discovered singing Elvis songs at a karaoke bar. A record producer had the idea to record the Nirvana song “Come As You Are” with an Elvis impersonator, and he was struck by how much Brown sounded like Elvis. Yes, he actually does sound a lot like Elvis. Anyway, after they recorded the Nirvana song, they decided to record a whole album of songs by dead rockers. Yes, it’s an album of songs by dead people sung by an Elvis impersonator. Somewhat surprisingly, the songs are played “straight”. The songs aren’t played for laughs at all. They are somewhat interesting for the most part, with “Come As You Are” being the best of the lot. If that sounds like something you would be interested in, here it is.”

PC

As of this precise moment. This PC is all mine. It’s taken 4 years but I now own it all. What surprises me the most is that it still flys along. Ok, I stuffed it full of memory, almost 2 terabytes of hard disk space and a 512mb Graphics card over the last few years but this morning I played Crysis with all the settings set to medium. The PC savvy amongst you will realise the impressiveness of this. Others can rot in luddite hell.

Hole

I was going to blog about this alone but having typed for an hour or so, my gloom has lifted. A weird, indefinable gloom. I hope it wasn’t too apparant over the weekend but I tend to swerve from happy to not happy quite distinctly lately. Yesterday I was a bit glum and today I am not. Who knows why?

Oh and its hot. I hate that.

x

I guarantee I will think of something in the car tomorrow but I will have forgotten it by the time I get home.

Bloody frustrating really.

Still, I am cutting the grass for the first time on Saturday. Something of interest is bound to happen. If it doesn’t, I can always make something up.

x

All of us will always have 1985.

Bye Bye Lisel.

So here’s a first. A post on a Tuesday morning at 11:43am. Of course most of the sensible ones amongst you will be at work but being a plodding shift worker, here I am. I had a bit of an early start today. I always like to get doctor’s appointments out of the way as early as possible, otherwise you find yourself sitting in the waiting room listening to Enya and flicking through the same copy of Bella you flicked through 3 months ago, worrying about Jordan’s ever shrinking frame. So 8.50am arrived this morning and there I was flicking through the same copy of Bella I flicked through last time. The LED display beeped far louder than it was ever meant to and helpfully notified me that the good doctor was running 20 minutes late. Woohoo.

I had my 6 monthly Diabetic checkup last week and here was the compulsory follow-up with my GP, my first since joining Slimming World and my first since I at last lost some weight. For the first time since diagnosed, he smiled and was very happy with my progress. Everything is down and all is well. My blood pressure is a bit of a puzzler though. It’s always all over the place when ever someone medical takes it. After 3 or 4 goes, it finally settles down. Stressing about this is not a good idea, as stress raises your blood pressure. And so on…

Photos.

Should boredom strike and you have nothing better to do, you may find yourself browsing through my old blog entries. On doing this, you may notice that some of the photos are gone. In accordance with my employer’s policy, all photos of work have been removed. They weren’t picking on me individually and to be honest, the people at work had seen them and not been bothered. Photos of chairs, empty rooms and lift doors closing are not likely to pose a security risk but I can see what they mean.

Seat.

Highlight of last weekend would have to be the fitting of a new loo seat. One more thing to tick off on the great list of things Neil can’t do.

x

So there it was. I missed a week. I was playing Half Life 2 or cooking or something. Probably. It was even Easter and I had two extra days off.

Stone.

I have been a bit quiet on the diet news of late. To be honest, it was starting to get me down. I was getting bored of the food and then getting annoyed with myself for cheating and/or not pounding away on the treadmill as much as I should. I think it went something like this as the weeks went on – lost ½ pound, lost ½ pound, stayed the same, put on 1½ pounds and then all of sudden, two weeks ago I stepped on the scales 5 pounds lighter. Somewhere in amongst those weeks is a net loss and I was completely floored by it. Now, in a perfect world that made sense, I would simply photocopy my food/exercise diary for that week and repeat ad nauseum. Within scant few months, I would hit the 12 stone mark and life would be healthy and fabulous. Alas no, because this week I stayed the same. I ate much the same things and did less treadmilling. I think there’s a lesson in there for me.

Still, I mustn’t grumble. That 5 Stone loss takes me down to 15st 10lbs which is my lightest for a loooong time. The old round face is now distinctly oval and the trousers won’t stay up. I should point out that this is because my belts no longer have enough notches rather than it being a desperate cry for help.

Apart from the increasingly obvious, Slimming World has had an another affect on my life. Thursday (weigh-in day) is now that last day of my week and It’s also the day I go to the bank (all this weight loss costs money). Friday has turned into a sort of non-day and Monday has become “jesus-christ-it’s-almost-weigh-in-day-again”.

Jericho.

For the second entry running, I bring news of a US TV nature. Jericho was brill but it is no more. For those of you who remember “The Survivors”, a BBC TV series from the 70’s, it was similar to that. But not really. Post-apocalyptic science fiction is (obviously) not everyone’s cup of tea and it’s a shame that so many people will just see it as that. It managed one full season of 22 episodes and then was cancelled. Fans sent over 40 tonnes of nuts to CBS (”nuts” was a line used by one of the characters at a pivotal moment in the final episode) and the series was given a 7 episode reprieve. Unfortunately, fans’ eagerness for new material was probably the series’ undoing. The first 3 new episodes were “leaked” onto the internet and devoured weeks before the proposed TV premiere. Now, I am particularly suspicious of such “leaking”. The episodes that find their way onto the net in this fashion are usually broadcast quality and you have to wonder whether something else is going on. Subsequent episodes appeared online and the same eager fans (particularly those who live overseas) downloaded them.

The result? Almost everyone who really loved the series saw the new episodes in a manner that barely registered in the ratings and another example of well-written, well-made US TV bit the dust for a second and final time.

As a footnote, if you see the Season One boxset languishing in a bargain basket at Tesco’s for £10-£15 anytime soon, do yourself a favour and see what all my fuss is about. I guarantee you will watch every episode in about 3 days. It was that good. Every single one of the people I recommended it too last year agreed and so did every single person they recommended it to as well.

Just think of the shit that appears on british TV between 7pm and 10pm every night. Jericho was transmitted on the Hallmark channel on SKY and probably got a few hundred thousand viewers if it was lucky. Perhaps I am being too harsh though. After all, if we put trashy US imports like this on BBC1 or ITV, where would we put all those fine hospital/police/forensic/grumpy detective dramas featuring those fine actors making the difficult transition from soaps?

Easter.

Everyone have a good Easter? Cool. I had one Thornton’s Diabetic Egg that I stretched over 3 days. Nice but very much the next best thing. Of course, the wise people tell Diabetes sufferers to stay clear of Diabetic chocolate as it’s overpriced and has laxative side-effects. Have a nice apple instead.

Well they can just f**k off and eat their football sized creme eggs in smug silence for all I care. Then they can shove a nice apple up their own bottoms.

By the way, do all you smokers realise that it is bad for you? You do? I don’t understand. Why do you do it then? Are you stupid? irresponsible? inconsiderate? What do you mean you just f**king want one?

Selly Vee

I got nuddin.

L8r

Thank you/whatever/ewwwww!!… to the alarming number of hits to this blog lately via search engines using the phrase “photos of post-mortems”. Now, lets be positive and conceive for just a moment that these might be persons with a perfectly sound reason for searching for such things online. The only problem with this theory is that if you are studying for a career in that direction, more direct sources of information are probably available to you than my assorted ramblings.

So, to clear things up, there are no photos of post-mortems anywhere on this site. I do however use the phrase “post-mortem” in the literary sense as the heading for one post a while ago. I use the phrase in the “let’s look at how that all went with the benefit of hind-sight” way and not in the “icky pics of dead people” way.

This rant does however have a trade-off though. Either I ignore it or I mention the phrase “post-mortems” a few more times and probably increase my hits.

I guess that ship has sailed.

Tavistock.

It’s a lovely place, Tavistock. About 15 miles from here, just on the edge of Dartmoor. It’s small town architecture and winding streets are a stark contrast to the violent, depressing, chav-infested sprawl that stands not more than a burning tyre’s throw from my gaff. I am a frequent buyer of spices, pulses and other such diabetic friendly/Slimming World friendly commestibles from either the indoor market or a great little shop on the high street.

Unusually, I was there on Monday this week. Normally, the Rover is berthed in the riverside car park by 9am on Saturday, long before the hordes arrive and in plenty of time to park within easy walking distance of the ticket machine. It’s not the walk to the machine I object to, just the walk to AND from the car. Do you lock the car and walk to the machine or do you risk it and keep one eye on the car while you are gone? Why does it seem so stupid and pointless to walk to a machine, very often in the same direction of your ultimate destination, then walk back to the car, then walk….

…but I digress. It’s Monday and its about 2.40pm. Off work and ferrying Mum and her sister (my auntie) to Tavistock Cottage Hospital so that a consultant can have a poke and a prod at a troubling wound on Mum’s thumb. Her most recent visit to the GP had scared the bejesus out of her and me by suggesting it might be something awful, so I dropped them off and parked up, fully intending to wander into the town, buy some cooking stuff, a newspaper, perhaps a cuppa and then go and pick them up when signalled on the mobile to do so.

Having parked up (see paragraph 2), I wandered into the town, bought some vanilla pods, some sugar-free, 90% cocoa solids chocolate and a newspaper. Then I had a cuppa and read the paper. Then I went back to the car and read my paper some more until the 90p, 1 hour ticked ran out. Exiting the car-park, I drove to a place approximately, 100 yards from the hospital and parked. Yes, parked free of charge. I could hardly believe it, in a space by the side of a road. No double-yellow lines, no single-yellow lines, no “resident’s parking only” sign – nothing. By now it was almost 4pm, but as it was a hospital appointment I was quite prepared for the possibility that she might still be waiting to go in. So I read my paper some more and listened to some more Dale Winton on the radio. 4.15pm and my window-steaming slumber was rudely awoken by my amusing, if alarming, ringtone – the phone ring noise from “24″. Reality dawned and having ascertained that she “would start walking down the hill” (why do they do that?), I duly collected the two smiling and strangely similar ladies.

It turns out all is well and the poorly is just a deep infection, easily vanquished by some strong antibiotics.

The mood driving away from the hospital was much improved on when we arrived, The Dixie Chicks are on the Ipod and sugar-free Sherbet Lemons (everyone suffers for my condition) flow like wine. At the bottom of the hill, I click the indicator on “right” only to be asked “What are you doing?”. It turns out that the only thing that had kept them going whilst sitting in the tiny, sterile waiting room was the thought of Omellette and Chips in a cafe and a walk round the shops.

So once more, there I was parked in the riverside car park in the same berth. I walked to the ticket machine, bought another 90p ticket, walked back to the car, walked to the high street, went into some shops….well, you get the idea.

By now, however, it is gone 4.30pm and in that wonderful, customer-focused way, everyone and everywhere is shutting. Only in this fair land could an establishment, whose sole purpose is to feed people, close just prior to the point in the day when people are getting a bit peckish. We are on the verge of giving up when the smell of roasted coffee pulls us into a side street and we sit down, just the three of us alone at a corner table in a very homely, tea-shop-style establishment. The walls are adorned with blackboards featuring every sort of food the tired shopper could imagine, but then the waitress comes over…

“We are just serving drinks and things from the patisserie at the moment”.

I swear to god, there were 4 members of staff wandering about in that place. It was just before 5pm and they weren’t serving any food. Up and down the land, kitchen tables were groaning under the weight of fish fingers, beans and chips but Kenco and a donut was the best we could hope for. For all I know, they started serving hot food just as everyone began taking after-dinner walks to aid digestion, just in time perhaps to catch that all important “full-up”trade.

Only in England folks.

So, the ladies both had a cream tea and a cappacino and I had a small coffee.

Time Of The Month.

It’s a wonderful time of the month at the moment. Traffic-shaping technology has once more temporarily reduced by broadband speed to that of a milk float. Not a new milk float mind you, one long overdue for a service. I just have to put up with this until a random point either a few days or weeks from now when it the download speed shoots skyward and normality is resumed. This is all part of a “fair use policy” that I unintentionally agreed to many years ago when I neglected to read a lengthy Email with a jeweller’s eyepiece.

I noticed the words “fair use policy” on a mobile phone advert the other day. This provider was offering “unlimited texts” all of the time for £30 a month or something similar but the words “fair use policy” briefly appeared at the bottom. Now, I am no lawyer (like Tony Hancock, I never really bothered) but this kind of thing really gets my goat. I am on an “unlimited” tarriff with my broadband but I notice (now that I finally decided to read the terms and conditions) that “in order to guarantee an acceptable level of service to all customers” my broadband speed “will be reduced after periods of excessive traffic”. This is mysteriously murky and non-specific but no doubt perfectly in keeping with the huge wad of cash I chuck in their direction once a month. I also pay line-rental on telephone line I don’t use just so I can have ADSL.

“Get cable” I hear you cry. Well I would, but for at least two reasons…

1. Virgin won’t run a cable to my house as it would have to run through 4 gardens to get to my little corner.

2. Two words – 13 months of an 18 month contract left.

I notice that Virgin are now offering 32Mb speeds. Whoopie-flipping-do. If this post doesn’t go live until Monday afternoon, at least you will now know why.

My Other Passion.

So what else did I get up to on my few days off when I should be blogging? Well, I blogged. Sort of. For a long time, long before the dyrms86 web empire came to be, I first heard a Tony Hancock radio programme. If you don’t know who he is, then you are either too young or not me. He was the biggest star of 1950s radio and 1960s television in Britain and I am slightly fanatical about his work.

The internet is severly lacking in stuff dedicated to him and rather than bang on about it or sulk, I am in the process of redressing the balance. “Sunday Afternoon At Home” as it is called (well done if you get the reference) will go live later this week and I for one, am looking forward to seeing how it is received. I have quite literally no idea if no-one, everyone or a decent quantity somewhere in the middle will visit it and that, my friends is enough to make it worthwhile. My school chums will be relieved to know that there is a DYRMS connection and that it is mentioned in the first paragraph I typed on the front page. It never quite goes away does it?

Work.

It is Monday tomorrow and my Excel project has come to an end. Tomorrow I am back to the day job and at least 5 days of solid data-entry keying awaits. On the positive side, I will finally catch up on all that music and all those audiobooks I have kept on standby since July 8th last year. Further blogs will no doubt reveal more.

Tap, tap, tap, tap…

It’s a lovely sunny afternoon as I type this, so for no other reason, here is a nice photo I found online of a sunny afternoon somewhere else. Some of you reading this will be familiar with the Dover Cliff pylons and are laughing now as they remember the hilarity that ensued when you asked an innocent new Dukie what they were. “Pylon” they replied and so a large group of you did in a sudden, violent but nonetheless entirely heterosexual manner.

The image reminds me of the hell that was CCF Run & March. Pounding pointlessly through the mud and gravel with Karl Beverly firmly, but fairly pushing you on and trying to find that inner strength and stamina you so clearly didn’t have and probably never would. As a 40 year old diabetic with a weight problem, I wonder now if I should have looked harder.

Podcast.

Now don’t get excited. I haven’t gone out and bought a load of expensive audio equipment and decided to start broadcasting my thoughts. Where to begin? Well, this week I dusted off my StumbleUpon account and began to stumble around the web once more. Stumbling threatened to become a total addiction amongst me and my friends last year sometime, until that is, something else happened. It could have been Travian , I am not sure. Anyhow, Stumbling basically involves downloading a new toolbar for Firefox or (spit) Internet Explorer. This toolbar has a ‘Stumble’ button that, when clicked, sends you to a random website. I say random, what I actually mean is a random website that someone else has found and recommended. You see, on the toolbar are also voting buttons – a ‘thumbs up’ and a ‘thumbs down’. The more positive votes it gets, the more likely it is to appear when you click the stumble button. With me so far? cool. The system is more refined by your own preferences. Here you can define what sort of sites you like according to hundreds of categories. You can then either stumble all your chosen categories or just one. Try it and watch the hours disappear. Those of you with families and/or lives will be struggling with the concept a little at this point.

So there I was, stumbling away through the ‘web development’ category when up came a site called “500 Wordpress Plugins You Must Try”. Wordpress is the blog software I use and those of you who read this blog daily (14 or so at the moment) may have noticed little gadgets appear and disappear as the week moved on. Some were fun, some were useless, some didn’t work and some slowed the loading of the page down beyond belief. However, last night, one remained defiant – Odiogo. It takes RSS Feeds and then reads them aloud using the best speech synthesis I have ever heard. Those in the know will know that most blog and forum software automatically produces RSS feeds and mine is no exception.

So not long after each blog entry is posted, the “listen now” button at the top of the page will work. Alternatively, IPod equipped listeners can click on the podcast button in the sidebar to the right and subscribe to it as a podcast.

The speech synthesiser sounds like a cross between the sort of smooth american who read’s Stephen King or Bill Bryson Audiobooks and the old guy who used to narrate the Disney live-action wildlife films. Try it and love or hate it. I intend to continue thinking it is the coolest thing in the world until at least Wednesday. Incidentally, you may notice my grammar improving, in an effort to get it to read my stuff properly. Sometimes the mistakes are it’s own – particularly read (pronounced “reed”) and read (pronounced “red”). As I type this, I must confess to wondering how it will read this particular sentence.

It’s not perfect by any means. There are two main problems at present. Firstly, there is a delay of about 20 minutes between me posting and the audio being available. Secondly, if I post and then spot a mistake, the feed is changed and the audio must be re-processed. As I quite often read and rewrite 3 or 4 times, this may be a problem for those of you who hang on my every word.

Interview Jitters.

If all goes well, I have an interview for an internal vacancy this week. At least 6 months management of a new team of keyers. The job is slightly different -six days a week, five hours per day and a few more hours here and there but it is something I really want to do. The only intimidating thing is the interview. Where I work, interviews are structured oddly and they are the toughest thing in the world to do well. By the time I blog again, I will know either way.

Another Half.

Again…another half pound at Slimming World. Just me and Jo this week and we didn’t stay until the end, opting instead for lunch up the road. She stayed the same this week and seemed quite glad not to be slimmer of the week for a third time. I am now 15 stone 13½ pounds which is the lowest in about 18 months. It’s going slow but I have still lost every week for 8 weeks.

I am now more or less obsessed with cooking. There is no point in denying it. On Sundays, I cook most of the day and fill up the fridge for the rest of the week. One of the more difficult concepts for someone like me to grasp, is the idea that you must eat to lose weight. Three meals with snacks between. Everyone I speak to who loses 4 or 5 pounds in a week has eaten more than they did during the week when they lost none. I eat beans, pasta, eggs, rice and potatoes – all ‘free’ on Green Days and am rarely hungry. I eat more fruit than ever and seem to find time to eat cereal bars and Ryvita when I get bored. I make a healthy chocolate cake at least once a week which beats the biscuit craving. I can really take or leave meat these days.

Here endeth the ramble, except to say that I am going to talk about the new Terminator TV series tomorrow. I bet you can’t wait.

Until tommorrow…

On Monday 10th February, Roy Scheider, the star of the best film in the world ever (don’t bother to argue, it just is), passed away. Despite the fact that Jaws has given me a life-long fear of deep water and oversized man-eating sharks, I still watch it about four times a year. I watched it again on Tuesday and although the rubber shark still looks rubbish, it doesn’t detract from the perfection of the film one bit. I read the book long after I first saw the film but barely managed to make it to the end. I gather from a few people online that the book was a great read until the film came along. Once Scheider, Dreyfus, Shaw and Spielberg brought it to life, the written page was forever spoiled. The film didn’t change the book much really. A few plot points were removed (Brody’s wife and Hooper having a relationship) and the ending was changed – out went a drowning shark and in came an exploding shark (”Smile You Son Of A Bitch…”) and that was that.

Roy Scheider’s role in Jaws is that of the audience. He is the everyman, worried and frustrated by Quint, out-classed by Hooper’s intelligence and experience and completely out of his depth on a small boat. We see everything through him and we see him grow over 2 hours.

One of his last professional engagements was to provide the narration for an epic, fan-made documentary about his most famous role. It’s called http://www.sharkisstillworking.com and I for one can’t wait until you can buy it.

Yoofs

I had the good fortune to encounter a few of those drunken youths the media are so fond of the other night. I stopped at a local convenience shop with a friend because we both had the need to pay four times as much as normal for a few household essentials. Most such places now go once step better by having a cash machine on the premises, allowing you to pay £1.85 to take £10 out of your bank account to pay over the odds for own-brand, low quality imitations of quality consumables. Anyhoo, there we was waiting to pay when the automatic doors slid open when what can only be described as a white hooded tosser stumbled in and shouted a mobile number and the poor, hapless chavette behind the till.

“Oh, f**k off Brad”

Pissed, he took no notice and a dribble of expletives and sub-standard grammar spilled from his lips. What made it worse was that he was no older than 13 or 14. He wasn’t just cider-tipsy, he was full blown drunk as were the six or seven other wastes of space hovering just outside the shop.

We paid and slipped back to the car. They paid us little notice, unlike the poor woman still working in the shop and presumably still listening to his nonsense. It’s a sad reminder of the times we live in and the state of youth society. Did we do stuff like that at that age? No. We had Mr Tidmarsh’s German prep to do and by god we did it.

Dull Work Weeks Ahead & Family Slimming World

It’s all change and a period of dullness ahead for me. Hayley is off to Florida for 3 weeks next week and Julie is having her long awaited knee operation on Wednesday. She will be off work for a few weeks and not very mobile and excited for quite a while after that. So, lonely lunches, drives to work and coffee breaks for a while. Also, it will just be me and sis at Slimming World for a while. Jo is doing amazingly well. After a month, she got her 1 Stone award this week and was Slimmer Of The Week for the second week running.

I just lost another half pound this week. Not very impressive I feel but at least it’s still going in the right direction. After 6 weeks, I still haven’t gained or stayed the same. Even at this rate, I will hit target before Summer, so I mustn’t grumble.

Pax

I could bore the crap out of you all by banging on about work but this is sort of a public place and it wouldn’t be appropriate. Things continue in their “up and down” manner and I don’t know when it will all end. For the first time in quite a while, I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. For my sins, I did a load of work at home today, not because I am particularly conciencious but because I have better graphics tools at home. I make it work in Excel and I make it shiny in Photoshop. Nobody notices how clever it is, just how shiny it is…

Just half a pound fell off last week. There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason for it, 3 pounds one week, half the next. I eat pretty much the same stuff now all the time, so there is not a lot of potential for adjustment when things don’t go as planned. I suppose I could have done without the six pancakes though. It’s five weeks now with a loss every time. God only knows how depressing my blog will be on the week I stay the same.

My sister was slimmer of the week last week , having lost eleven pounds in three weeks. It has taken me five weeks to lose the same amount. One of my friends lost three pounds. She had been ill all week with a tummy bug but as she said when she texted me on Tuesday “I must go to fat club this week, I will have lost loads”. I can’t fault her logic but the idea that you have to eat nothing but a few bits of dry toast and drink tea all week to lose three pounds is not the simple path to dieting bliss I am searching for. My other friend is doing her best but doesn’t get the results she deserves. Perhaps when her leg is better and we can start walking to work again, she will do better.

Sunday has turned into cooking day. I cook loads of stuff and then eat it all week. For years, I used to lunch on curry and rice but the difference these days is that I make it myself and it doesn’t come out of a Tesco packet.

Woohoo.

Other stuff not good on a professional note. I will be ok in about 10 mins.

Ups and downs…