Smoking Ban

The UK smoking ban kicks in on Sunday :(
You won't be allowed to smoke in enclosed public places
(Pubs, Restaurants etc) or work places (including work vans).

Not sure if the work van one only applies if it's during work
hours only, my eldest uses his works van for business and pleasure!!
Funniest one I've heard is that Steam train drivers aren't allowed to
smoke while driving, would anyone find out if they did?

Anyway, the official blurb is -
"From 1st of July 2007 virtually all enclosed public places and workplaces in England will become smokefree. A smokefree England will ensure a healthier environment, so everyone can socialise, relax, travel, shop and work free from secondhand smoke"

I would have thought to have "a healthier environment" smoking would not
scratch the surface?
Banning motor vehicles, air travel, fossil fueled power stations, chemicals,
rain forest destruction, drugs, alcohol and all weapons would help a hell of a lot more.

I know I'm bitter and twisted, but I can't get my head around why a pastime I enjoy
is so socially unacceptable, when going to a pub and getting blind drunk, abusing
everyone, vandalising property and beating to death some poor bloke who happens
to be in my way is still so common and seemingly acceptable.
Or I could jump in my car while drunk and plough into a bus stop full of people, and
probably just have my licence taken away and if very unlucky get a short sentence.
But no-one says ban alcohol?

114,000 deaths last year from smoking (probably 99% of them people who have chosen
to smoke, and know the risks)

Approx 40,000 alcohol related deaths last year (only half of these are the actual people
who drink, the rest are people killed by drunk drivers, or attacked by drunks).

I enjoy a drink like many others but don't remember causing anyone else problems,
and don't remember giving anyone problems after too many cigarettes.

Low Strength Lager

Half strength lager. What is the point????

Does anyone actually drink lager because they enjoy it?
The only reason for drinking lager is to get pissed isn't it.

Recycling (Part 1)

One thing that puts me off recycling in Southend is the rules
for what you can and can't recycle.

OK - Clean plastic bottles, Clean and empty food cans,
Clean drink cans and pet food cans.

Not allowed - Junk mail, coloured paper, wrapping, books, plastic
not in bottle form, carrier bags, foil trays, cardboard larger
than a cereal box, and a multitude of other items.

Surely all the latter are recyclable, and I wouldn't expect
people to start washing up their old dog food tins.
Probably the cans will be banned when the first person sues
the council after cutting their hands while trying it?

Food Waste

The local council are starting up a food waste collection scheme,
which involves us putting certain foods out for collection in
biodegradable sacks, which will be disposed of differently from
normal household waste.
This is to avoid sending it to the local landfill site, to avoid substantial
fines from government for the amount of methane gas generated
by biodegradable waste.

Fair enough you might say, until I read the rest of the information
pamphlet sent to us -
"The food waste will continue to be sent to the landfill site, as the
expected 1.5 tonnes collected per week would have to be sent by
dustcart to the transfer station in Braintree, then to the composting
facility in Cambridge. This would create double the CO² emissions
of sending it to the local landfill, which would have a negative impact
on the environment"
Which sort of defeats the object doesn't it?
Just by having seperate collections for this and the recycled items
they have turned one dustcart into 3, tripling their CO².

Another point would be that Southend don't provide wheelie bins
or dustbins, now we are going to get kitchen caddy's, a green edge
of property bin, and a 20lt Brown edge of property bin for storing
the biodegradable sacks. More plastic produced in the name of recycling?

Food For Thought

Listening to the news last night as they reported another teenage death in London,
4 deaths this weekend alone due to knife and gun crime.
Then they mentioned that New York had 4 deaths last week.
Always looked on London as a dangerous place, but nowhere near as dangerous
as America and New York in particular.
Times are changing for the worse.

Drunks

There are 1.2 million incidents of alcohol-related violence per year.
40% of A&E admissions are alcohol-related.
Rising to 70% between the hours of midnight and 5AM.
This costs the NHS £1.7 billion per year.

http://www.pop-campaign.co.uk/

Two of my kids work part time in Nightclubs, so support this campaign for me.

Clever Lip Sync

Scary Videos Part 3

Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Y Control
Aphex Twin meets Silent Hill
Strange but good.

Gervais

I'm ashamed to say, I used to think he was funny?
I first heard him on the Gary Crowley show on XFM in the mid nineties
when he used to pop into the studio and do some banter with Gary.
Then the Gervais / Steven Merchant show which was mostly funny.

Eventually he found fame with the office, which some people seemed to
like, personally I thought it was awful (but I've never seen the point of
office staff, so I'm biased).
But like Hugh Grant, Gervais is now playing the same character over and
over again, and it's just embarassing.

Goths On Holiday

Love this advert :)

Check out the other classic Irn Bru adverts on YouTube
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y_f7WJUVVoY
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HW7pn6e0NDs

There's loads more, all excellent.

Packed Lunch

What is the fascination with all these DIY meals?
Mix it yourself yoghurt, those lunchables with some crackers and a bit of cheese all packaged Separately? and a multitude of others.
A few items and pile of packaging costing about 10 times the price of the items that make them up.

My missus is guilty of buying them, with the excuse that the kids like them (my kids have left school), my mum made me sandwiches (2 bits of bread, some filling, usually cheese or ham, all wrapped in tin foil) which was more than adequate.
Filled me up, and no awkward packaging to get into, and then throw away (I used to get in trouble if I threw the tin foil away!! as it was re-used).

Viruses Trojans etc

I have Anti Virus, Firewall, Anti Spyware, Anti Malaware, pop-up stopper and everything else and still get caught out now and again.
I scan everything I download, but keep getting caught by the trojans that download when you visit web pages, and I'm not talking about porno sites or dodgy russian password/crack sites,

usually innocent looking links to news and celebs etc.

Not a problem usually as the AV deletes them straight away, but have had more recently that the AV quarantines but cannot delete. I had to go through the process again this morning of running Adaware, Spybot, full system scan, turning off restore point, re-booting, re-scanning, and booting to safe mode to delete the quarantined files, then re-enabling restore.

This morning's problem was after visiting Fileden where my music player files are hosted, had just uploaded a file when an advertising page appeared and my AV kicked into life and started deleting or quarantining a long list of exploit trojans and other nasties.
Is nowhere safe anymore?

Inadequate People

Don't get me started on what people owning Range Rovers or similar 4WD says to me ....
(insert abusive rant not fit for public consumption).
It's an off road vehicle, so keep it off the fucking road.

The Bomb

Hard to explain my fascination with atomic bombs.
I think it's an age thing? the era I grew up in was the height of the cold war
and the posturing of America and Russia, so nuclear extermination was expected at some time during that period.
I always use this excuse for why I took up smoking and refused to forward plan a pension, no point in worrying about old age as I expected death before I was 30.
So the peace mongers have put me in an awkward position in that I'm now going to be a penniless pensioner with lung cancer :(

Anyway for anyone that doesn't really understand what we went through, have a read of Raymond Briggs's novel "When the wind blows" or get a copy of the excellent animated film version, in it's quaint little way it shows how everyone just accepted the coming horror.
The public information films "Protect and Survive" voiced by Patrick Allen, were enough to scare the crap out of you, with the matter of fact way they would tell you to wrap and label any dead bodies.
I never really figured out how I would get home during the four minute warning, and remove my doors to make a shelter.

Used to just hope I was near enough to London for a quick death from the blast, rather than a slow lingering radiation death, morbid I know but that's how I used to think.

Career Change

Olympic Logo Designer

Hours - 10 Minutes every 4 Years
Wages - £400,000 (£100,000 Per Annum)



. Alternative?

Blown Away By Religion

Love watching natural phenomenon shows, volcanoes, earthquakes
etc showcasing the power of nature.
Watched one the other night called "killer twisters" about tornadoes
reeking havoc across the Southern states of America.
Tragic due to the loss of life of human and animals.
But one thing I can never get my head around?
They interviewed a woman whose town had just been devastated with
the church probably taking the worst hit, and children from her
family having been lost, and what does she say?
"I thank Jesus that he was with me and saved my life"!!
Other than the selfish nature of her reply in that she was thanking
Jesus for saving HER life, while taking others, surely the thought
should have crossed her mind that if there was a god, why on Earth
would he have allowed the church to be destroyed, and taken family
members from this obviously god fearing family.

I have never understood or believed in religion, surely just an easy
answer for weak minded people who cannot grasp the enormity of our
universe or understand the reasons for our existence on this planet.

The Bible has always seemed to me to be just another book belonging
in the fiction section, and not a very good one at that.

If JK Rowling had been born several thousand years ago, would these
people now be worhipping the Lord Harry Potter?

Harry Potter (Robot Chicken)

Lord Of The Muppets

Frankie Goes To

Just seen this cover for the cassette version

of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Power of Love,

and it's set me thinking?

I'm sure the first line says "I'll protect you from

the Hooded claw" but the cover says "I'll protect

you from the holocaust".

Sure I'm not mishearing it am I?

Still love listening to all the early Frankie stuff,

was a bright spot in the mid eighties.

Smoke Free

July 1st "Britain goes smoke free "
According to the advert on telly at the moment.

WELL THANK FUCK FOR THAT!!

Next door's barbecue keeps stinking out my house everytime there's a nice day,
and that guy over the back seems to have a bonfire everytime we put some washing
on the line.
Sure they'll be impressed when the anti smoke nazis arrive and throw them into prison.

I've understood this right haven't I ?

Boot Sales

Used to do boot sales years back, when I was really short of dosh,
and got really good at turning crap into cash.
But once there was enough money in the bank to pay for the next
weeks food and bills, the thought of getting up on a cold Sunday morning
at 5am sort of lost it's appeal.

Also the old fashioned boot sale ethic of people clearing out their junk
for quick cash has gone, now it's all dealers and criminals, the last one I
went to was full of foreign types selling mobile phones and accessories,
and people selling the sort of stuff you buy in discount warehouses
(tools that fall apart if you use them), and people who watch
"boot sale challenge" and want to charge you £50 for a bit of old
crockery that you used to be able to pick up for (and was only worth) 20p.

Career Choices

Been trying to think of alternative ways of making a living,
really fed up with having to work.
Worked nearly every day for the last 20 years, and missed my
kids growing up (I'm sure they resent me for that), and still
never seemed to have any spare money to go on holiday with?

I like spending time at home, like using computers, like sport and music.
The gambling experiment seems to be a non starter, seemed like a
great way to combine my skills, but I'm no good at it.

Can think of a multitude of illegal ways to make money,
but I'm too honest.

Future Blogging

Just wondering weather to update this blog with a daily rant?
I know nobody else reads this, so probably just for my benefit.
If anyone else does stumble here by mistake, post a comment,
just so I know you're there :)

I set up a (porno) yahoo group a few years ago, and got 9,000
members in a year, but obviously I was posting stuff that the people
(or pervs) wanted :)
Guessing no one wants to read the crap I'm posting at the moment.
Will hold off on the porn for a while, also better hold off on music links,
as that's a sure way to get closed down.
Might start another blog for those :)

Public Enemy No. 1 ?

I'm a smoker - Public enemy number one it seems?

A trip to the doctor's last week to get something to ease the pain in my

shoulder, which still hurts like hell after my drunken fall a few weeks back.
Spent half the appointment talking about smoking?

Doc "What's wrong"
Me "my shoulder hurts like hell"
Doc "do you smoke?"
Me "Yes"
Doc "Give it up"
Me "Ok, does this have anything to do with a muscle injury"
Doc "You must give up smoking"
Me "Can you give me something for my shoulder"
Doc "how many do you smoke a day"
Me ".... a lot more when I'm in pain"
Doc "No need to be like that"
etc etc Grrrrr....

Wife's a non smoker, but when she visited the hospital today
for an assessment for an upcoming operation, the first questions
were "are you a smoker", "did you ever smoke",
"when did you give it up", "how long did you smoke".
The operation has nothing whatsoever to do with with smoking.

Wondering if terrorists get asked "do you smoke" as a first
question after being arrested with a bomb in their backpacks?
.... probably.

If you feel the need to be hated by society, don't kill someone

or blow up a building or aeroplane just start smoking,

here's a guide on how to do it -

http://www.wikihow.com/Smoke-a-Cigarette

Give the anti smoking Nazi's something to complain about.

The Police

Never been a fan of the police, for a lot of reasons some of which I can't go into here.
Have always taken the view, that the only people who became coppers
were those nasty little sneaky kids at school, who would run off and tell
the teacher if you did anything wrong.
Although our village bobby when I was a kid was a nice guy, the police
from the bigger towns around always seemed to be smarmy smartarse gits
who were on a power trip.
A stereotype further fueled at a place I worked a few years back, when I found out
the two most obnoxious sense of humour free people I'd ever met were both
police specials in their spare time.

But credit to this guy http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/ who has given me
a different view, and some sympathy for the regular coppers who try to keep law
and order in the ever more dangerous Britain.
Well worth spending some time reading his blog, about what it's like to be a copper
in these politically correct, quota filled times.

Like every other industry in Britain these days, cost cutting and performance targets
are the key words, and public service is put to the back of the queue.

Currently Listening To ...

12 Albums currently being played by me,

a collection of old and new stuff.

White Stripes - Icky thump 6/10

Pigeon Detectives - Wait for me 8/10

Chemical Brothers - We are the night 9/10

Archive - Londinium 8/10

Half Man Half Biscuit - 4 Lads 5/10

TRB - Power in the darkness 7/10

Linkin Park - Minutes to midnight 7/10

Bjork - Volta 5/10

Postal Service - Give Up 6/10

Calvin Harris - I created Disco 1/10

Regina Spektor - Begin to hope 6/10

Agnostic Front - Dead Yuppies 6/10

Marked out of 10 for now, Reviews to follow, if I can be bothered :)

Gravelands

Just seen this for sale on Amazon.It's a guy called Jimmy "The King" Brown
and his album called "Gravelands".
I bought this years ago after it was recommended by Bob Geldof on his
XFM show.
Jimmy is Irish but does an excellent Elvis voice.
The concept is he sings songs by dead people in his best Elvis Presley style, and it works.
Nirvana's "come as your are" is brilliant.

Track Listing

1. Come As You Are
2. Love Will Tear Us Apart
3. Song To The Siren
4. Whiskey In The Jar
5. I Heard It Through The Grapevine
6. Blockbuster
7. Sweet Home Alabama
8. Working Class Hero
9. Something Else
10. All Over Nothing At All
11. Twentieth Century Boy
12. Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay
13. Piece Of My Heart
14. No Woman No Cry
15. Voodoo Chile
16. Whole Lotta Rosie
17. New York New York
18. That's Alright Mama

Southend

Just found a couple of pictures I took donkey's years ago of Southend sea front.
The one above is from Pier hill looking down at what is now Adventure Island,

just a go-kart track back in 1978.

The one below is from the Pier head featuring the bowling alley (burnt down in 95)

and the old "Golden hind" which has now been replaced.

New Hammers Kit

Just received the advert for "The new Dicky Dirt" from West Ham this morning.
A bit undecided about it, the shirts nice but not sure about the "XL" on the front.
Suppose it's because I'll need a XXL :)

Gambling Update

Nearly coming to the end of this experiment :(
Only £2.20 left with a couple of bets outstanding.
Was looking good the other day, but have hit a serious losing streak.
The formula that brought success on my first attempt at greyhounds the other day has backfired big time.
After starting with 7 winners from 8 dogs, I blew some bigger stakes and managed to pick over 20 losers in a row.
Not gonna put any more money in, just hoping for a miraculous recovery.

Joseph

Well done to Lee Mead for winning the right to play "Joseph" in the West end production of Lloyd-Webber's "Joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat".

He was by far the best of those who made the finals.

Surely the gayest programme ever, but still enjoyable.

Worries me to see a collection of the youth of today bursting into tears at the drop of a hat, maybe there's something in the water (estrogen probably?) causing our young men to be so in touch with their feminine side :)

Anyway this Lee from Southend says well done to that Lee from Southend.

Another Gambling thread

Still playing my original £100 stake, and currently £45 up.
OK but not great when you consider I've actually won £2,558 in a month, but have spent £2,513 doing it!!
Have tried most sports with varying success, football is still my best, and horses the worst.
Tried the dogs for a change last night, picked 8 and not being that confident just did 10p each way doubles and trebles (total cost £8.40), amazingly 7 won :)
Worked out my winnings at £125 (a bit more confidence and it could have been thousands).

Now my grievance is with Billy Hill again, when I lose or win small amounts my account is updated instantly, but 7 hours later and they still haven't updated the last race so my bet is still open? This happened the other day as well after a good win on the tennis, I had to wait over 12 hours to get my winnings.
I have visions of them all sitting around checking me out, to see if I'm some sort of hustler because I dared to win some money of them.
We're talking £125, not millions......... get your act together and pay me you b'stards.

Farmers

Get the impression some farmers have too much time on their hands.
Although it makes a nice change from crop circles.

Scary Videos Part 2

Another one from Aphex Twin, this time Donkey Rhubarb.
Found this one disturbing as well for some reason?
Great tune though.
Either love or hate his stuff, the good ones are classics,
but some tracks are complete crap.

Scary Video

Saw this year's back, and still rate it the scariest music video I've seen.
Great stuff.
Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy