The Bleurg Archive - October 2002 |
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Thursday 31st October: So,
the last day of October closes the birthday collection for another year.
It's my little sister's (Ell) birthday today. But she's up North
in Wales where they don't have t'internet. The fact that her birthday
was on Halloween is probably the root cause of me so hating fancy dress
parties, I mean every year people were dressing up for her birthday
(and casting spells on me to boot)... you can see how that might give
guy a complex can't you?
Wednesday 30th October: Before we begin, let me just say that the joke itself isn't the point, OK? But
here goes.... Joke
re-consideration part 1. Joke
re-consideration part 2.
Monday 28th October: Are
you getting bored with this "October Birthday Collection"
thing?
But
also tough, coz we're going to finish it whatever.
Saturday 26th October: Now
I suppose you might think it's all downhill for the birthday collection
after my own.
Friday 25th October: So
here it is. So far only two people have remarked on the significance of this 42nd birthday without prompting, DeeDee (not the Romonzy one) and my leetle brother who shall here be known as JayDee. I say leetle as he is smaller than me (though younger too). Obviously when we were younger he was smaller as he was younger, but that height difference has remained. This never seemed strange to me, after all I've always been a couple of inches taller, why would it? But as young Dee and Kay grow it's becoming obvious that Kay is, at some point in the next couple of years, going to catch her elder sister up and then shoot past her, probably completely reversing the height difference that was there until a couple of years ago. So how will Dee cope with her "leetle" sister overtaking her? I have no idea but I can't imagine JayDee overtaking me in height and, I imagine if he had tried he'd have found himself being pummeled. Oh yes!
Gift number two is for any fellow bloggers who haven't yet seen Doonesbury's take on our "art" this week. Start here and admit that it's at least partly true for all of us really. And finally, happy birthday dear me-hee, Happy Birthday dear me.
Thursday 24th October: It's Indie-pop catch up day today (no birthdays you see). Those with no interest in such matters should skip today's entry and come back tomorrow for a very, very, important birthday. Oh yes! Firstly
we have the Polyphonic
Spree, the Dallas 20-something strong (the exact number seems to
vary from review to review) choir come orchestra-rock band. First
mentioned
here back in August they've since been wowing crowds all over London
and the hype continues to grow. However, apart from the Roy Woodesque
first single "Soldier Girl" there wasn't much to hear without
buying the album. The excellent blog at
Hydragenic suggested it was "interesting rather enjoying".
And I've got enough albums like that already. But then today,
(with yet another recruitee in the shape of a three year old offspring
of one of the band) they played a rather good live set (including the
new single) on Zoe
Ball's excellent drivetime show on Xfm (don't miss the Monday's
show on Monday- a live set from Electric
Six is scheduled). Oh, and Harry Potter fans (or haters) should stay tuned also. Tee hee. Meanwhile Zee has asked what time I'm going to bed as she and her Ma want to watch Gosford Park again and she didn't think I'd want to. Strange, I wonder where she got that idea from.
Wednesday 23rd October:
Now,
the birthdays are getting important. Meanwhile
an update from the results of our shopping at
Ikea t'other day. Past experience with Ikea is that even if
you buy nothing of any substance you still spend about £100.
Monday 21st October: Part 2 |
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MIB2
was not bad at all, and we nearly had the cinema for ourselves... just ten
people in a 220 seat room. I always enjoy product placement in films, and here it was a Mk1 iMac amongst a heap of other junk. Was it supposed to be ironic, clever, sorry I couldn't work it out? I suppose there's no such thing as "bad" when it comes to product placement but it would have been nice to think that Microsoft paid for that particular one. Tommy Lee Jones seemed to be just going through the motions a bit but my only real gripe with the film was the lack of Linda Fiorentino (...she wanted to go back to the morgue indeed...). Then lunch . A very bijou little place on the North Circular, looking across a Wickes/Courts car park. It's part of a chain apparently, Burger King. Very quick anyway. |
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The Grauni, meanwhile, has seen fit to return to a previous subject close to the heart of the planarchy world, that of the so-called bio-diesel industry. Highlights from today's piece was the fact that the bio-diesel guys call the conventional industry "dino-diesel". Also interesting to learn that Rudolph Diesel, the inventor of the mysteriously named Diesel engine was originally planning for it to use vegetable oils in some wonderful humanist nirvana. So maybe his vision will yet come to pass..
Monday 21st October: Part 1
It's half term so we're sleeping late, And
that's enough awful rhyming for today. But strange it is to hear
the rest of the street going to work hours after I've normally left
the house.
Sunday 20th October: Today's
birthday is Cee's, I think. Now it's apologies time. Seem's I mixed up Mike's mum's birthday, it should have been the 17th not the 14th. It was an honest mistake but I confess I needed a birthday for the 14th so possibly allowed myself fall into the trap. Sorry Mike. And sorry also to your mum. I trust this total lack of efficiency on my part will not deter anyone else from offering a birthday for the collection. Leaving
the birthdays behind, though in a way not, last night we watched"Grease"
with the girls. They greatly enjoyed it, as did I (much to my
surprise). Of more to concern was the re-surfacing memory that
I used to have a thing for Olivia Newton John. And I'm talking
about Livvy before they sewed her into that black skin tight outfit
at the end.
Saturday 19th October: |
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Alain Robert, as spidey is otherwise known, has, as you might hope, some excellent pictures of some of his tower climbing exploits.
Friday 18th October: OK, excellent to see you're getting the hang of this birthday's collection thing. Mike has kindly donated his mother's birthday, so I've now got one for the 14th. Now, some, after a closer interrogation of Mike and me might decide that I can't have his mother's birthday as I don't really know Mike. But, I would counter, I know Mike's Blog and he obviously knows of mine. As far as I'm concerned that puts his mum totally legitimately in my collection. If anyone else wants to help out, there are currently holes in the collection (or maybe just my memory) at the 19th, 21st, 22nd, 24th, and possibly the 30th. Today's
birthday is young Are, my only remaining DevLab colleague. So listening to the weather forecast a good idea next time maybe.
Thursday 17th October: Apologies are now being accepted from all Gooners for last night's dismal defending display. AGAIN!!! Geezer, you can start the ball rolling, as it were. Today's
October birfday is a particularly special one, no less than young Dee
herself. There was no horse, hound or hamster despite their prominent
positions on "the list". Neither, I should add, was there
a "laptop like Dad's". There was, however, Atomic
Kitten, Pink, the Grease DVD, a
rather nifty little digicam, jodhpurs for riding someone else's horse,
a really cool neo-60's coat and other variosities.
Apologies for today's content, I've got a stinking cold and the drugs may be having strange side effects (a Borg?). The illness, by the way, was caused by the fact that I've booked the day off as holiday. It never fails.
Wednesday 16th October: So, A level re-marking has benefited 168 pupils. I have to say that I'm surprised that mine were not amongst them. The only thing that keeps me sane is that apparently no-one from 1979's A level group has been re-assessed. Yet.
This
evening I witnessed an amazing happening. ....and yes, we have no birthdays. We have no birthdays, today.
I
didn't think there was going to be a birthday today, but at lunch my Boss
casually mentioned that it was his wife's. From
yesterday's birthday there was a present of the video of "Gosford
Park". Have you seen it? If not, I strongly suggest
you don't bother. I'm not saying that it's badly acted, filmed or
even written. It's just that I can't understand why they made it. Exactly.
Monday 14th October: October
birthdays.
Friday 11th October: If it's Friday, it's Top of the Pops, right? Well
yes, I confess I do watch again nowadays, thanks to the girls, and this
week particularly for
Otway. The man,
whose single is not being stocked by Woolworth's despite its #9 chart
position, was enjoying both himself (as ever) and the absurdity of
the situation. Whilst
on the subject of the family, last night we (well Zee ) were running a
meeting of the local adoption support group. There were some people
there who were right at the beginning of the process. It was scary
to think that that was us seven years ago. I think we worried them
a bit with our talk of the various delays (three years waiting for the
girls, eighteen months from placement to adoption, the total lack of any
support from anyone in the education service, etcetera, etcetera).
Nevertheless, I hope the overall feeling we gave was that none of that
really mattered now. It's as though they've been with us for ever
and every week they amaze us more.
So, are you running your car on Mazola yet? According to today's Grauni, it's all the rage in Llanelli. It works out 40p a litre cheaper than standard diesel (mainly because of the lack of duty, which means it's also highly illegal). As a microbiologist, I get to wear a white coat. So obviously everyone at work saw me as the person to ask for the correct Methanol:Mazola ratio. Sadly I couldn't tell them. However, a quick Google search tells us that, on the minus side, you also need to add potassium hydroxide but, on the plus side, used oil (which large volume catering establishments would normally have to pay to have taken away) is just as good as new stuff. Those worried about damage to the car should be relieved that this "bio" or "e diesel" actually seems to perform better than standard diesels. According to VegOil.com, with the Rapeseed crop already grown in the UK we could replace 5 percent of our current diesel. So, if we actually grew more (instead of the current absurdity of paying farmers not to grow anything) we could drastically reduce dirty old diesel use age. Obviously this would then be taxed which is not quite the angle our Welsh friends were coming from. But why isn't there more discussion of the issue? Do the oil lords hold too much power with our governments? Sorry, am I stating the obvious? Elsewhere, Otways's video is available for viewing or download. You know you want it really.
Monday 7th October: Far
too little live music in my life recently. And buy the single, the B sides are excellent!
Sunday 6th October: An absolute delight is all I can say about yesterday evening's Spike tribute "I told you I was ill..." The cast list alone probably told you it was going to be good... Eddie Izzard, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Paul Merton, Kathy Burke, Eric Sykes and John Sergeant. I know Harry Enfield was there as well, but he behaved himself for once. If you missed it you missed a real treat and reminder of what an absolute anarchic comic genius he was. Thanks guys.
Thursday 2nd October: Excusive! Elsewhere, what's with all the rampaging rhinos. Does Broadband really bring about such Jumanji like occurrences? Or is it just blatantly dishonest advertising? And what's with Jarvis Cocker hanging from a lamp-post? Did Whacko script the ads? What
a complete and utter load of tripe.
Wednesday 2nd October: Hurrah!
My referrals service shows that someone's found this site via a
Google search. Even Google says "Do you mean "panarchy"? Meanwhile
at DKNZ towers.... tonight was "Planet of the Apes" night for
Dee, Kay, Eff and me. Eff, for those unsure, is Zee's half sister,
little sister in age (14) but not height (6ft). Dee and Kay look
up to her obviously, a 14 year old aunt from the real downunder (EnZee)
is not something everyone has.
Tuesday 1st October: Kay
has moved on from having to write a sentence for each of her spelling
words. She now has to write a story which uses all of the words.
I thought Dee had plummed the depths of tenuous tales when she reached
this stage two years ago. The spelling words are in red... I
have a bike and it's like a cat and one day
a bit came off. I think we've all paid money for prize-winning literature that makes less sense.
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