The man who can't be moved

Or whatever...

A couple of years and a bit ago, there was a song in the charts by the Irish group The Script called The man who can't be moved.  The singer told the sorry tale of breaking up with his girlfriend and, hoping that one day she'd change her mind and want to find him, he'd be there on the corner where they used to meet.

Awwww, what a sentiment.

Shortly after, they followed this sorry tale up with Break even; a song about a bloke being dumped by his girlfriend "I'm still alive, but I'm barely breathing.... I got time while she's got freedom... when a heart breaks, it don't break even". 

Well, he was still hurting, obviously.  As I was at the time - things were still terribly painful for me after my own horrible break up and no, when a heart breaks, it don't break even.  Not when your ex other half is a complete twat who dumps you for somebody else then rubs your face in it while you're still sharing a house. 

But two years on, during which time I eventually got myself back on track and met somebody wonderful and found myself happier than I've ever been, Mr The Script is STILL going on about breaking up with his girlfriend... for fuck's sake.

Talk you down (2009) - yep, she's breaking up with him still

Before the worst (2009) - still trying to persuade her not to break up with him

For the first time (2010) - now they're drunk, and wondering whether they can make it work

Nothing (2010) - his mates take him for a drink because he's broken up with his girlfriend, he gets pissed and starts shouting around the streets, trying to persuade her to take him back

Now, Mr Script, can I suggest something to you?  She doesn't want you.  I could've told you this in 2008 because, after a few weeks of begging somebody to change their mind, you actually know in your heart of hearts that you lost them as soon as they took somebody else's phone number.  Just move on.  Get some counselling.  Have a rebound shag.  But move on, she doesn't want you.

I think Mr The Script should listen to some B52s, turn his hand to writing songs about out of control parties, shopping malls, sea creatures and the like.

Misery
I wouldn't say that I'm feeling miserable as such, just a little fed up.  There's nothing to make you feel quite so alone as when you're left to wonder why there's a tree in your dining room; we got the Christmas tree at the weekend and Ali decorated it beautifully.  I recalled crushing one of the LED Christmas lights last year after noticing that a few of the diodes remained unlit.  But with just me being here, with me being on my own here for the next few weeks, I can't help think it's a bit odd to have a tree where Deirdre the sideboard should be.

Winter isn't treating me well this year.  The darkness that descended in September has had an usually adverse effect on my mood; I am constantly tired and achy.  And it's fucking freezing. But at least I have an electric blanket.  And the love of a wonderful woman and a smelly little dog.

At least I don't make a wanky Christmas card out of these shots

Fuck, my dining room has turned into Narnia!

I might be a bit miserable because of weekly separation from the person I want to be with, but at least I have her.  I count myself very lucky every day.

Now, I wonder if I can attack the little dog's dew claw while he's sleeping....

The return of Consumer Champion Sniffy - again!

I bought a washing mashine in the middle of October 2009.  It wasn't the one I wanted, the one I wanted couldn't be sourced for weeks, so I was offered a Whirlpool one for the same price - brilliant! It's quite fancy, it has a big drum, lots of cycles, it's sleek, it's black, it's sexy .... it's broken.  Twelve months and three weeks after buying it (ok, thirteen months), the digital display died on me, so without being able to see what settings I'm using, doing my laundry has become a game of Russian Roulette (some might say they'd assumed this had been the case all my adult life).

Did I take out the extended warranty at £xx per year?  For a £500 washing machine?  Surely with an expected lifetime for a washing machine of 7 years, you'd expect it to last more than four years before anything went wrong on it?  So no, I didn't, the robbing fuckers.  Are they domestic appliance manufacturers or insurance agents?  Or just twats?

I e-mailed them last week:

Message: I purchased this washing machine in mid October 2009. I ran a load earlier, and when the cycle had finished, the digital display was showing in green, but the numbers were not showing properly. On further investigation, there is no temperature display at all, the time display is very distorted and the spin speed indicator is barely legible. While I realise that this machine is possibly a whopping 2 or so weeks out of warranty, after just a year of low to moderate use (I live on my own), I wouldn't expect a well-maintained, £450 appliance to start showing signs of malfunction after this period of time and nor would anybody else. This is clearly a fault with the machine and I would like it to be repaired, can this be arranged please? Many thanks. Sniffy.

Their response today: 

Dear Dr Sniffy,

Thank you for your email.

Whirlpool is the number one white goods manufacturer in Europe and our appliances are made to the highest standards. They enjoy a world-wide reputation for reliability and durability but of course any appliance that has functional parts or electronic components can fail at any given point resulting in repairs being required.

As a safeguard against unexpected and sometimes expensive repairs after the initial warranty period has expired Whirlpool offer both extended service and parts cover at prices that are competitive with other major manufacturers. These contracts are considered a wise investment by many of our customers.

Whilst I can sympathise with your disappointment that this repair is required unfortunately in the absence of any warranty this would be fully chargeable. I understand this may not be the response for which you had hoped but I apologise nevertheless for any inconvenience caused.

Kind regards

Whirlpool UK, C.U.N.T.Y.

And my response to them: 

Dear Whirlpool Cuntstomer Service,

Thanks for your response.  Disappointngly, it was as expected, which is quite frankly disgraceful and an admission that Whirlpool doesn't expect its products to last for any decent length of time or care when they don't (in this case, three weeks out of its warranty period - THREE weeks).  Consequently, it effectively blackmails its consumers with overpriced insurance policies to cover for its products' shortcomings.

I can confirm that I will not be buying any Whirlpool products in the future and I will make strong recommendations to anybody I have contact with that they avoid Whirlpool like the plague. I will be starting with the shop I bought the machine from so they can inform their customers about the fault with these machines and Whirlpool's attitude when alerted to them.  In fact, the only reason I ended up with a Whirlpool was because there was a pan-European delay on the Hotpoint (how I wish I'd have waited). 

With all due respect,

Sniffy

So to all you people thinking of buying an appliance - don't bother with Whirlpool

And this is just the start.  I shall soon be waving the Sale of Goods Act at them, with reference to the section on durability.

Why can't these idiots realise how word of mouth from satisfied customers is their most effective way of advertising?

Contrast my sister, Bomb's experience with Bosch when her lawnmower blew up, way out of warranty.  They were so embarrassed that they were really apologetic and gave her a replacement free of charge.  That's the Germans for you.

And do you know that Bosch tumbledryers have a light inside the drum?  They do.  Fabulous.

Ooops

I should remember to keep things simple.  The only bits I know about technology are through trial and error and through having somebody on hand to repair the damage when I mess things up.  In the absence of my sorely-missed 24hr tech support guru, I should know not to mess.

I messed.

I fucked up the old blog (you can try the link, but I assure you, it's fucked).

Ah well.

But fuck.  FUCK!  BIG, MASSIVE FUCK!

Why do I have to mess?  What can't I be one of these people who lives within the limits of their intellectual capabilities, one who knows to leave well alone?

Because I'm a dick.

Anyway (;@) what's done is done.  Move on.

Twitter
I've been trying twitter this week.  I don't get it. Admittedly, I've been contributing to this blog for years now, but I didn't start out with any expectation that anybody would read it.  People did, and it was flattering when folk left comments, and fun when people from Stornoway started arguments with me in their funny little illiterate Bebo-esque way, but I always write things here as a bit of fun; it gives me the opportunity to digest my thoughts and reflect on my experiences instead of reacting and going on the rampage.

But Twitter?  It's for people who expect an audience - like a text message to the world in the expectation that all who care to know the most mundane things about our existence, like where we are on the Bristol Stool Form Guide on any particular day.

It's not that different to this I suppose, only for the illiterate.  And I just don't get it.


Christmas
Christmas approaches, it has been doing for the past six weeks I suppose, but the TV adverts are telling us to panic buy in readiness for the supermarkets being closed for two days RIGHT NOW!  This year, I'm going to be enjoying the true spirit of the season - time with loved ones and family being highest on my priority list.  This is mainly because I'm skint and I can't afford to buy any presents, but I don't expect to receive any either.

The thorny issue of where I'm spending Christmas has already been resolved, and I'm happy that the solution doesn't involve me eating two Christmas dinners, but I do get to wake up on Christmas morning with my beautiful girlfriend.

Compromise is something you only need between the ages of 15 and 80 - outside these limits and you're justified in telling everyone else to go fuck 'emselves.

Just like post-communist Russia

I don't understand supermarkets.  Well I do, obviously:

1. Park up as close as possible to the entrance
2. Pick up a trolley - one of the midi ones because bending down to put stuff in the big ones is a touch too much for your ageing back
3. Wander around the store, picking up items from your shopping list, tutting occasionally at shoppers who abandon their trolleys in the middle of the aisle with not quite enough of a gap to squeeze yours through without touching theirs*.

• Grapefruit - check
• Milk - check
• Mozzarella - check
• Warburton's thickest loaf - che... Ooh, look, it's on offer.  I'll get two and freeze one.
• Mustard seeds - check
• Turmeric - check
  
• Ground cumin - che...  Hang on, no cumin?  At all? 

So you go to the "ethnic" aisle and prepare to buy a 4kg bag of the stuff - none there either.  What the fuck?  So you are then compelled to return to the normal spice aisle and do this:

Honestly, what were they thinking when they designed this packaging?  But it's nice to know that shoppers can have this fun in Tesco, Sainsbury and Waitrose.  They don't do herbs and spices in Asda because they only sell bottled "He-he, this'll make you shit" and "Fucking poof coconut girlie shite" curry sauces that are ready made for the exquisite tastes of their own particular brand of shopper.

The great thing about the world foods section is that you can get what you want for a lot cheaper than from the standard produce aisles.  For example, red kidney beans in salted water for 30p a can instead of shitty red kidney beans in salt-free water for 50p a can.  I got three cans of really nice coconut milk for 50p a can tonight when the normal crappy stuff is about £1 a can from the next aisle.

I'm sure this amounts to discrimination against white, British people who are a bit wary of venturing into those sections of the store where the packaging comes in foreign languages.  


*What is it about other shoppers' trolleys that makes them off bounds in terms of moving them out of the way, or ramming them into the backs of their legs when they dump them right in front of the shelf you want to get to?  There's an unwritten law that says you simply cannot touch another person's trolley with any part of your anatomy, you have to gently squeeze past it or give it a gently nudge with your own trolley.  Just think about it next time you're in Tesco.  You'll find yourself doing it.

Anyway (:@), you finally fill your trolley with stuff that you didn't need and none of the things you did want and take it to the till where you don't have to interact with the checkout assistant any more.  They just fling things at you after scanning them and you face the task of bagging things up before your entire load of shopping piles up around your ears.  The transaction is completed by the shopper too, sometimes prompted by a nod and a "put your card into the reader", you take your own receipt and trundle out of the store... slowly.... as you're always caught behind somebody in their 60s taking their 90 year old mum for her weekly shop.

Of course we have self checkouts these days. If you don't have the privilege of having your shopping scanned and thrown at you by somebody else, surely you should get a discount?

The "unexpected item in bagging area" is usually a bag.

There will be an uprising.  Not of layabout, so-called "students", or agitator union-types (I will attend to these imbeciles in due course).  No, the normal, every day MOP (member of public) will decide one day that they've had enough and they will demand service.  Come on Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Waitrose, the lot of you.  Get some real people on the tills and make the experience of your customers not quite so soul-destroying.

Every little helps.

Anyway.... ;@)

So it came to pass that I became a homeowner on the 29th October.  It's all a bit weird since, apart from a letter from my solicitor telling me that the business was completed on 29th October (and a big hole in my current account), there's nothing here to say that it's ours (mine, but ours).

Nothing apart from a new toilet seat* and a pile of aspirational magazines that display wonderful homes that one can only ever, well, aspire to. But the homes in these magazines aren't real, not for people who can't even afford an average-priced house; they're beyond aspirational and drift into other-worldly.  After having discussions about wallpaper emblazoned with bold patterns, it was interesting to note that the homes featured in Homos in their Gardens, Period House, Cunty Living and the like, they don't have wallpaper, they're just plain with pictures and soft furnishings to add colour to a living space ("living space", for fuck's sake).  Nice houses don't have bold wallpaper and feature walls, oh no, this is the reserve of the Horror Houses that you see on Rightmove in the £95,000-£120,000 bracket. I have seen them ALL.

In addition to starting a new line in designer toilet seats, I'm going to start a monthly periodical (how can anybody not laugh at that?) that features real homes, decorated by normal people with decent taste, on a moderate budget.  The sorts of folk who get their kitchens and decorating materials from B&Q and their furniture and soft furnishings from M&S (or even the never knowingly undersold shop).  I'd also produce a monthly magazine digest of the worst homes currently showing on Rightmove.... like THIS horror in Glossop, or this bugger not far from here.

There is no problem with falling house prices, people are just trying to sell rubbish homes.

*One thing struck me on the day that I moved in to this place last year: the flimsiness of the toilet seat.  I know I don't have the most delicate of derrières, but even so, the original B&Q toilet seat on the B&Q cheapo toilet was beyond a joke and was the first thing to be replaced once we had hold of the keys (metaphorically speaking).  Needless to say, we shunned the opportunity of going for the £60 soft-close variety and went for a bog-standard, yet solid little number that will hopefully provide many hours and years of comfortable toilet visits.  I'm sure there's a market out there for designer toilet seat embellished with images from the Bristol Stool Form Scale.  I could make millions from it!


A special day
Friends and loved ones will gather on Wednesday to say their farewells and celebrate John McCusker.  A man who left himself somewhere else and became known and very much loved as cute wee John Pigster, or Piggy.  There will be tears, but there will be colour and hopefully lots of smiles once the tension and sadness of his funeral has passed.

His death was tragic, his life cut short so unexpectedly, he will be missed terribly, but he will live on eternally in the fond memories of those who came to love him.

The cunt.

The final countdown

Exciting times lie ahead for me.  The house purchase will complete this Friday and I can look forward to being in phenomenal amounts of debt for 25 years, rather than just moderate amounts of debt for the rest of my life.  But you have to see the positive side of things - it's a long term investment that will keep me in incontinence pads and Bepanthen in my old age.  And the mortgage will cost a less than the rent.

And, what you can do when a place is your own is DECORATE.  I could've decorated this place as a tenant, but why waste money on Farrow and Ball for future tenants who would probably only appreciate huge floral patterns... in black?  The spectrum of colour options is limited to "neutral" and, as far as I'm concerned, nobody ever went on the rampage after painting their home natural hessian. 

Actually, some of these look a wee bit pink for my liking, but my niece will love them.  She cried her eyes out when I told her she could help paint the house, but that we weren't having pink.

There's a word for that - spoilt.

Anyway (:@), I'm looking forward to all sorts of fabulous trips out to stores where I want to kill people - Ikea being the main one.  That awful procession, following arrows, being run into by people displaying no control over their prams (or children).  And there are always so many Scousers.

Wherever you go, there are Scousers; be it Manchester City Centre or the Trafford Centre, concerts at the MEN Arena, theme parks, Ikea in Warrington, Ikea in Ashton.  And yet they all profess to love Liverpool so much... why the fuck don't they stay there then?

But yes, the house is a kind of blank canvass of beige, which is great, but making it a home will require some thought, design sense and money; none of which I have.  I guess we're lucky in that my landlord is happy to come and do bits of joinery for us at cost price... but now I kick myself for not getting him to do it for free while I was a tenant.

Ali wants an airing cupboard and I've told her - you don't need an airing cupboard when you've got Jesus, but she's having none of it.

Rocky wants carpet instead of laminate flooring.

I'm just happy to have a home that will be a foundation for many happy years of mutual debt for me and my other half.


Exploding sinuses
I woke up to throbbing swollen glands in my neck and pain in my face, ear and teeth. Sinus infections are hideous, but they're also rather fabulous in what they can offer once your immune system has done its thing: that wonderful gloopy, bloody snot that can only be expelled by what feels like blowing out from the behind your eyeballs.

My last great sinus infection resulted in probably the best snot clearance I've ever had.  I actually think it was an undiagnosed siamese twin - it was about an inch and half in length, with its own blood supply, nervous system and pulse.  I disposed of it carefully, but it escaped and became leader of the Labour party.  Apparently it outshone all the other candidates, especially in the eyes of the unions who recognised its ability to empathise with public sector employees and generally get up everyone's noses.

Wind

There's something about wind farms - they're utterly captivating, dominating landscapes, seascapes, discussions, debates...

I sometimes find them beautiful, sometimes scary. Sometimes, my imagination gets the better of me and I visualise them uprooting from their concrete anchors and invading the suburbs. I'm less than convinced of their eco-friendly credentials: all that concrete; are they beautiful or a blot on the landscape? are they just folly?

Why is Wagner still in the X Factor?

Anyway (;@) here are some photos of wind farms.









Wedgied
I went on my third skiing lesson yesterday and found the whole experience terribly frustrating, to the point that I almost slid out half way through. I tried to do turning yesterday and just could not get it... at all... whatsoever. How difficult an it be? But it's totally unnatural; apparently you put your weight on the ski on the outside of the turn and lift off on the ski that's on the inside of the turn.

It's called a simple wedge turn. I've even looked at how it's supposed to be done on the internet. I'm going to digest everything that I've been told, everything that I've seen and take it all with me when I go to remedial spaz ski school.

I've never, EVER been comfortable with doing anything where I had to use my body - I'm so awkward; never been good at games, can't dance, can't stand on one leg, can barely ride a bike, can't climb trees, can't walk on ice. And I expect to be able to ski after three lessons.

I might get to the stage where I can ski, but whether I'll ever get to enjoy it will be very debatable.

Oh Ruthie, you fucking fruitcake
I told her she was despicable, disgusting, waste of space, piece of shit the other week. I wasn't wrong.

After not working for 15 years (because of "stress"), she's trying to get back into gainful employment - good on her - by volunteering, starting off with Childline (those poor kids, as if it's not bad enough that they have to phone Childline!). She's been sacked by Childline and is now trying her luck with the Samaritans. God help those poor, desperate bastards in Liverpool, that's all I can say.

Stay in lane

Knowing the general levels of intelligence in the UK population, it always amazes me how there aren't more fatalities on our roads.  The number of utter fuckwits who are allowed behind the wheel of a car is frightening.  The biggest, buzziest, most irritating bee in my bonnet is poor lane discipline, or total lack of it, judging by so many drivers on the roads around Greater Manchester.  Even when guided by lane markings, whole blocks of colour to indicate where they should point their cars and, needless to say, big, fuck-off "STAY IN LANE" signs painted all over the carriageway, the idiots still manage to wander out of their lane and into my path.

I want a rocket launcher.


How many sleeps?
It took me until 3pm to realise that today is Tuesday and not Wednesday, as I'd been telling myself all day.  How cruel our minds are at times.

I tend to spend Monday to Thursday watching the clock and counting down the minutes until Friday arrives.  I like my job, although getting out of bed in the dark mornings gets more difficult with every year, but I just can't wait for the weekends when I'm reunited with my other half.  Long distance relationships aren't brilliant, however, this particular one is pretty special and so worth the wait for us to find the opportunity to be together properly.  I just end up feeling a bit lost and out of sorts during the week when I'm alone, eating too much junk and effectively staring into space during the evenings until bedtime comes round.

Hence the blogging again I suppose. 

Yay, it's nearly bedtime.  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... that's three more sleeps.

Phantasmagorical

Fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtapositions.

Any word with juxtaposition as part of its definition is top notch in my book.

Of course, another sort of meaning of phantasmagorical is surreal, and I suppose you'd describe Salford City Council's raison d'etre as being to make all those who encounter them shake their heads in wonder while muttering, "phantastmagorical!", or "that's totally fucked up".

This not-so-great metropolis's latest totally and utterly unbelievable fucked up plan is to take the A6, a major three-lane road that runs into and out of Manchester City Centre, reduce the capacity to one lane plus a bus lane and, along with this, reduce the speed limit from 40mph to 20mph.  That's nice of them, vastly increasing journey times, pollution and tempers.

Why do they have to do this?  What good could possibly come of this?  Why can't they just do something to make peoples' lives a little bit easier instead of totally fucking miserable?

Because they're a bunch of left winged, money-wasting morons is what I'm guessing.

Useless, waste of space cunts.


The power of Google
Anyway (:@,), hopefully they'll Google themselves when they're not too busy sat around on their fat arses, thinking of other phantasmagorical schemes for making people who visit the city, or even worse live there, think they were on mind-bending drugs.

And back to Google - they've decided at last that the Taz and Pig hosted version of Sniffytastic wasn't a danger to peoples' PCs afterall.  Idiots.  Anyway, I've farted around enough now, so I'm sticking with Blogger.


Will I am
I need to write a will sometime quite soon.  How exciting is that?  Essentially, my other half would get the house (she'll be thrilled at being saddled with £95,000 debt) and everything in it (she'll be even more thrilled at getting my collection of "I'm sure this is useful for something" things and, of course, the little dog).

I'm tempted to insist on something wonderful in my will, since I'm paying for it and all, but I can't think of what.  Strange funeral requests are no good because the whole concept goes against my beliefs, although it would be grand if everybody arrived on a penny farthing at my behest.


Fanta-smagorical
My sister, Bomb, took part in the filming of a TV quiz show in September.  I had to go with her and I will also appear on the telly when the episode is screened.  How did I get dragged into an overnight stay in the grottiest hotel in Glasgow, losing my identity to become known as "Bomb's sister" and being filmed for national TV without any chance of a share in a potential cash prize of £100,000?  What's more, I didn't even get to meet Dale Winton!


Waxy

So here it goes

It's been such a while since I did the whole blog thing; I'm not sure I have it in me any more.  But I still experience things, I still have opinions (so many opinions) and, before I started trying to type this, I thought I could still write.

Life sometime throws things at you from left field that take you completely unawares.  When I was going through counselling a couple of years back, I was once presented with this scenario: "You're on a boat and the waters have been calm for days, since you started your trip.  You bob along and all is well, then a storm hits and the boat gets tossed around on the sea.  What do you do?"  Well, you have to change, you're no longer in your comfort zone and you have to adjust and do things you've never had to do before.  I'm still appallingly bad at this, but I have recently been witness to one of my friends encountering one utterly hideous thing after another: unimaginable heartbreak, confusion, loss, despair - his world collapsed in the space of a fortnight.  He could have fallen apart, he could have given in, but he didn't, and I have never felt so much pride and respect for one person as I do for him.  Martin, you are amazing.


Skiing?  You?
Yes, I'm learning to ski.  With a holiday booked in a bespoke ski chalet in France in January, I'm GOING to fucking ski!

It's hard to describe the whole process.  Anybody who has learned to drive will understand: the whole thing is totally alien to you; your ankles are locked into position in rigid boots, feet are strapped to 5 foot bits of fibreglass, and you're expected to shuffle about on snow - to enjoy sliding on it, when all your life you have navigated to the stuff with super-grip souls, terrified of slipping. 

So you learn how to side step up a snowy slope, to hold a position there - knees leaning up the slope, skis slightly on their edges.  Knees are NOT suppose to bend this way, the joints don't allow it, but you persevere so as not to start some hideous domino slide with your classmates. 

And then comes the standing at the top of a slope, trying to hold position without sliding down.  What the fuck?  No.  Again, this is just wrong - knees are not supposed to do this.  But you smile at the instructor and then try to "roll the knees out" to start moving, which you don't.  What do you mean, "just roll the knees out"?  I'm doing that, nothing's  ha........!!!!

And so the snowplough comes in really handy.

I'm at the stage where I can get up a slope, stand at the top, and get to the bottom without much incident.  I can't turn though.  No matter how hard I try, something stops the "feet, point in that direction!" signal transmitting through to the tips of the skis.

Like driving, I can see this being a long and arduous process.  But I'll get there in the end.


House
We're buying my house.  It's fantastic.  I'm so excited.  This time, it's going to be fantastic.


So, despite life throwing me that wicked curveball on the high seas a few years back, despite me thinking that the sun would never shine, that I'd never be happy again, all those people, but especially my dear Piggy, proved me so very wrong.

On the move... again

Recent circumstances mean that Sniffytastic will very possibly no longer be able to have its home here, so it’s on the move again, most probably to www.sniffytastic.wordpress.com, but maybe sniffytastic.blogspot.com, depending on the features available to me.

I may even update things more regularly, or may just leave things as they are as a kind of tribute to a dearly departed, very special and much loved friend.

My online exploits won’t  have the same bite knowing that he’s no longer there to issue a witty and derogatory response; I have lost my muse.  Another friend, his partner, has lost so much more and I wish I could do something to ease his heartache.  Maybe carrying on may help to ease his pain just a little bit.

John and Martin, I love you as my brothers and, without you, there’d be no me.

WTF?

For some reason, Firefox is blocking Sniffytastic. Cunts.

No explanation

I have absolutely no explanation for the two images below, other than I was high on the enthusiasm of youth, and I was a total nerdy geek.

Back in April 1989, I was coming towards the end of my first year at University, but I still enjoyed regular correspondence with an old friend from sixth form college where we'd spend much time laughing at a couple of my teachers (very good teachers, incidentally).  Anyway, for some reason Dr Gibb and Miss Exley drew our attention and this cartoon, written on the back of a letter nearly a year after being taught by them, was produced at a time when I should've been learning the Krebs cycle for the umpteenth time.  I have no idea what the content refers to, other than Dr Gibb's partner's car and my friend Peter's car.  Nice to see an early hatred of the Guardian building in me though.

Dicta Apr 1989 by cakesniffer

Tina Apr 1989 by cakesniffer

This little gem of a self portrait is quite good fun, it has my hair as it has been much of its poor life: mullet.  My hair has three main states:

1. Mullet


2. Out of control mop


3. Accident

It's currently a Number 2, having not encounter cutting implements since September 2009.  The little dog has had four haircuts since then.  He always gets better looked after than me.

Holiday!

We went on holiday the other week, to Northumberland.  It was lovely!  The little dog came and he had a fabulous time, enjoying the freedom of running around huge stretches of near-deserted beaches, biting waves because he didn't know what they were.  He's so crap at water, just doesn't do the things normal dogs do.  I had to coax him into a shallow stretch of water so we could go for a paddle at the shoreline, but he froze in fear when the water touched his tummy and had to be rescued.  Pathetic.  But quite sweet.  Once through that trauma, his bravado returned immediately and he was off hurtling around, harassing anything that he could get to without having to go through water more than 3 inches deep.

We did self catering, which is great because it gives you the freedom to do what you like and there are plenty of places that allow little bastards to stay too.  So, you don't have the worry of getting up for breakfast, people hearing you have sex (in the middle of nowhere... unless you're REALLY noisy), the little dog disturbing people in other hotel rooms, etcetterah, etcetterah.  And you can eat what you like too: cook for yourself a few nights, go out and sample the local restaurants a few others.  Only this is where we came across a major problem because there's nowhere to eat out in the whole county, nowhere open at least.  Such an unbelievably poor choice of restaurants in a county where you should be spoilt for choice.  We weren't.

"Would you like milk in your espresso?"

Anyway, I VOW that the next time, some numpty waiter/ress brings me an espresso in a mug and asks if I want milk in it, I will throw the offending, watery brownness over said numpty and drag them by whatever is easiest to get hold of over to the coffee machine and make them watch while I show them how to make an espresso, not an Americano, an esfuckingpresso!  And then I will set them on fire, which I am now an expert on.

Because being on holiday, and the paucity of restaurant choice, meant that I did BBQ!  Yes, I was allowed a box of matches and a couple of disposable barbecues and I set fire to things.  "I make fire.  Woman bath child!", which loosely interpreted means "Ali, I'll try to get this barbecue going, are you OK giving Rocky a shower?"

Of course, you had to burn food up there too because shopping in the supermarkets, nice and shiny as they are, was like trying to get supplies in post-communist Russia.  The nice big, shiny, new Sainsbury's in Alnwick (yes, where the castle is that they do the Hogwarts in, that doesn't allow dogs in, so we didn't visit) is shit.  It doesn't stock ANYTHING.  No fresh meat counter, no fish counter, only one aisle for fruit and veg, absolutely terrible shop.  And the checkout people are ignorant too.  Wendy (who I got) was really pleasant to the older couple in front of me, taking time to talk to them about their holiday there, and when she came to me, she threw my stuff at me (struggling to identify a lemon in the process) and barely made eye contact with me throughout the transaction.  Witch.

But don't let any of this, or gun-wielding maniacs on the run from the Police (we were in Rothbury the week before, don't you know), put you off Northumberland.  It's a beautiful part of the world and I'd highly recommend it.

And I'm sure there are some wonderful places to eat there too.  Just not the Olive Tree in Bamburgh.  Got that?  The Olive Tree in Bamburgh has the worst service I've EVER ENCOUNTERED in my entire life.  Shame really, since the food was pretty nice.  But bloody hell, here are a few tips:

1. Don't ignore people when they arrive - about four people walked past us when we arrived without even acknowledging our presence, and it wasn't busy


2. When asked "Do all these spotlights flicker, or is it just this area of the incredibly brightly-lit restaurant where diners are given a free migraine?", don't just shrug your shoulders


3. When asked to "please bring the olives with our drinks", do NOT bring drinks, starters, THEN olives.


4. Try putting some bottles of water in the chiller and if you don't have a chilled one, BRING SOME FUCKING ICE! Don't serve it at 24°C, for fuck's sake.


5. If a waitress asks "would you like coffee after your dessert?" and this is confirmed with a very affirmative "yes, AFTER dessert please", don't bring it BEFORE the dessert, then bring exactly the same cups of the worst excuse for espresso I've ever seen once the diner has had chance to finish their pudding.


6. Never, ever, EVER ask somebody if they want milk in an espresso, that would make it an Americano.  If you don't know your coffees, you shouldn't be anywhere near a coffee machine.


7. FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

But anyway, for a Fawlty Towers dining experience - go to the Olive Tree at the Lord Crewe Hotel, Bamburgh.

Love and the common people

I am a confirmed and happy atheist; I make no secret of this. For all my thirty-ahem-nine and a bit years, I have never felt the presence of a deity within or without me. Logic tells me that the existence of any sort of higher being is simply not possible - my take on life tells me that such a supernatural caretaker is unnecessary.

While I accept that personal faith is often beneficial for believers, I have a strong dislike of organised religion and how it is used for subjugation, how it used to find excuses to turn people against one another, to be downright fucking nasty. Conversely, many people with faith take great comfort from their beliefs, they use their scriptures for guidance on how to behave in a way that makes them living examples of their gospel.

Good behaviour, citizenship, morals, ethics, philanthropy are not the exclusive realm of the religious though and humanists take the world view that all are treated equally and with respect, irrespective of belief. They believe in the good stewardship of the planet, based on rational thought and reason, and that.

So, if you take a humanist like me (I guess, if you're really bothered with labels) and a Christian like my girlfriend, you might expect there to be potential for conflict. I guess I'm lucky, I've got one of the good ones who has a pragmatic relationship with the scriptures, one who has the intellectual ability to see past her preacher's sometime literal interpretations of the bible. She lives her life according to Christian deeds, rather than words. And hallelujah for that. We don't talk about the things we know to be contentious (evolution is out of the question, well, creationism is) and we get along with it. I have absolute respect for her and her faith, she has respect for my lack of any and would never try to pressure me into believing.

We were having a discussion the other week and asked her if she'd prefer it if I was a Christian and she answered, "I only wish you could feel what I feel when I worship."

"But how do you know I don't feel that anyway? There are times when I'm out and about, or I read something, or see something, or hear some music, and it fills me with wonder and I get a great deal of energy from it. Honking geese, for example!"

"Yes, I know that, but this is something that completely fills you, something tremendous."

"What, like the first time I heard you tell me you loved me?"

"No, like the first time you thought you heard me to tell you I love you."

Power to the people
We have a new government with a Mega Prime Minister, it's exciting. The country is in a mess and the next few years are going to be rubbish no matter who is in charge, but a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats might be just what we need. I'd describe myself as a liberal Conservative, so I'm actually quite delighted with what's happened. If the Conservatives manage to get rid of a load of right winged fruitcake bigots, then this could be the best thing that's happened for generations.

I'm definitely one for doing everything possible to help the vulnerable, to providing opportunities for those less well-off, for building real aspirations to allow folk to move out of poverty, but when it comes to certain things, certain people, I have no patience. Lazy slobs who for generations have lived on welfare need a good kick up the arse, no excuses: you're offered a job, take it or lose your benefits. I don't think I'm alone in this either. Out for a meal with my other half and a couple of her friends, the topic came up for discussion, along with a number of things relating to what the new government might do. We were also talking about environmental issues, how many people cycling it takes to power an average home in the UK, that sort of thing. In combination with a cocktail and a few glasses of red wine, my beautiful, benevolent, caring, Christian girlfriend made this statement: "They should be made to get off their lazy, fat arses and take what ever job's offered to them. I'd make a load of new power stations with lots of bikes in and get the bastards to cycle to produce energy - this carries so many benefits. And if they refuse to do this, we should fuckin' burn them!".

No matter where you go
...Asda is horrible. Up there with Asda Hume in terms of taking the prize for supermarket scum is Asda Bolton, which I discovered today. In fact, I've discovered that every supermarket in Bolton is patronised by the most hideous people, even the Sainsbury's there leaves me feeling dirty.

I'm off to write to our new Energy Secretary with my idea to build a Super reactor in the heart of Bolton.

Students are wankers

I'm not sure I need to add anything further to qualify the statement made in the title. I encounter many students from universities in Manchester. These encounters often occur as I try to battle my way the length of Oxford Road to get from the big hospital where I work to the crank veggie healthfood shop a mile or so away. By the time I have repeated the round trip, I am often on the verge of trying to kill somebody by ramming a spinach and chickpea calzone and Greek loaf down their stupid, ignorant throats.

The reason for this? Students. They walk in their groups, dressed way too fashionably, pumps on their shuffling feet that they can't be bothered to pick up off the floor. They walk into me, they block my way, they're too engrossed in their texting, eyes down, to notice that they're about to collide with me. Such self-absorption cannot be healthy, such a lack of awareness must bring with it all sorts of dangers - mainly from people like me who, one day, will snap and go on the rampage with a responsibly-sourced canvas bag filled to the brim with heavy vegetarian delights, Moleskine notebooks and mechanical pencils.

That'll learn 'em!

Only sadly, it won't. But it might get me a few months' rest in a psychiatric hospital while they "do tests".

Veganism
The reason I visit the crank cafe is because it was suggested to me by mental vegan Ruthie when she was trying to assimilate me into the Borg of radical feminist lesbian, rentamob, anarchist vegans. I thought I'd give it a go, as it's something that's intrigued me, however I knew that I'd never seriously consider this is a lifestyle choice. Vegetarianism, a definite possible, but veganism, absolutely not. It's not just a case of making a choice of what you eat or don't eat, or wear, or feed your dog, or clean yourself or your house with..... there also seems an extremist core that turns what people eat into a political argument. And you can kind of see why this is; vegans don't want animals to be abused, in any way. And many feel so strongly that they see that they're not being true to themselves unless they actively try to do something to change humans' view of their relationship with animals that we share the planet with. In fact, the term "speciesism" is used in relation to this and, with my "I hate people, what gives us the right to ride roughshod over the planet, I wish we'd all just die off and give the rest of the world a chance" head on, I can see what they mean. But then things start getting a bit warped; people who use animal products have been likened to child rapists; we're accused of a global holocaust; we basically deserve to rot in hell.

So the dogmatic world view of vegans put me right off them. And the fact that the one I was sort of seeing (well, not seeing: texting mainly, the odd bit of instant messaging, but not seeing) was absolutely fucking mental was a slight turn off too. As was vegan food if truth be known. It's all too processed. You buy meaty sausages from a good butcher, you know you're getting pork from happy pigs with nothing else but seasoning, some herbs and a bit of fat for flavour. Vegan sausages? Processed shite. It's all processed shite and I don't like processed food.

Besides, I like sausages, I like ice cream, I love sardines, butter, the odd bit of cheese. And what's more, if we suddenly stopped eating meat and using animal products, such as dairy (which I acknowledge is cruel), what would happen to all the animals? All these animals that have been domesticated over thousands of years, what would we do with them? And how the hell would they learn to live in the wild?

But anyway my foray into the strange, dark World of the Translucent People, introduced me to a fabulous cafe and veggie health food shop, and to the delights of spinach and chick pea calzone. I won't name them, because if they searched for themselves and found their name associated with "cranks", "extremists", "fucking nutcases", etc, I think they might be offended. While it's OK to use such terms in a very tongue in cheek way (with the exception of when I refer to nutjob Ruthie and her merry band of weirdo extremists), even I concede that it's not fair to risk having a decent business being linked to them.

I wonder how easy it is to start a political movement based on food that you won't eat? I could certainly think of some foods that should be outlawed. Cottage cheese fans everywhere should be quaking in their boots.

If only...

I have this thing about mechanical pencils. Actually, I have this thing about stationery in general. As a child, I'd look forward to Saturday afternoon when I could catch the bus into the city, or walk to the local shopping precinct and peruse the shelves of the stationers. I was particularly fond of the local stationers because it was also a tobacconist which sold pipes made of the most beautifully turned wood. It was a fascinating place for me and I'd spend a good amount of time in there while I decided what to spend my pocket money on for that week.

I remember particular felt tip pens and mechanical pencils where the thick lead was gripped in a vice-like mechanism, rather than the more sophisticated designs of those you can buy today. Then there were the notebooks, pads of drawing paper, drawing pencils. Heaven.

My fascination with office supplies grew through my childhood and has stayed with me since. Being a university student opened up a whole new world of possibilities - I discovered the Oxford Magna Pad, which came in both narrow (blue) and broad-ruled (green) varieties. My small, intricate handwriting was always lost within those broad spaces, so I'd naturally opt for the blue Oxford note pad.

In my second year, I shared a house with fellow students who I'd met as a fresher. Kathman! (from Sunderland) had decided that it was OK for her boyfriend Keithman! (self-styled bo-ho artist layaboy, also from Sunderland) to come and live with us all - she'd asked one of our friends and her approval was seen as being universal. Kath and Keith had been to Ireland, man, during the summer vacation and they'd discovered all things Celtic and Van Morrison, Van Man. Unfortunately, Kath and Keith had the bedroom above mine and they enjoyed regular noisy sex. "Oh, Keith MAN! MAN KEEEEITH!!!", the cries drifted through the floor into my bedroom a few nights a week. It was OK though, they were enjoying themselves, it was amusing rather than intrusive and I had other things to think about... like studying, surprisingly enough. Oh and drinking. But anyway I still enjoyed nipping into the University Union shop on occasion and replenishing my supplies of paper, pens, pencils, whatevers. I returned home from lectures one evening to find Kathman, Keeeeeeeithman and a couple of other friends already in the kitchen (they were arty types and only did about 12 hours of lectures each week - apart from Keeith, who pretended to be sensitive and artsy). I proudly showed them my latest stationery purchase, a hard-backed lab book, square ruled, beautiful.

"Tina-man," Kath exclaimed, "I swear you love stationery so much that you get an orgasm every time you go into that shop.... man!"

"Well, Kath," I retorted, eyes shifting between her and Keith "at least I don't get an orgasm every time I go to bed!"

I still can't think whether that was a witty or ridiculous thing to say - a bit of both, most probably.

It's Moleskine notebooks these days. I buy them, but rarely write in them. And mechanical pencils too. I love them.

Some might accuse me of having an unhealthy obsession with stationery items, that my love of them might be indicative of being somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Well, you know what? If I was on the autistic spectrum, I'd be able to remember where I left my favourite new mechanical pencil that cost me a fiver that I put somewhere and can't bloody find!

Sudoku and other life puzzles

I was recently introduced to the art of Sudoku. It's an art rather than an activity because there is nothing remotely active about being sat still and staring in utter confusion and frustration at a little grid that's part-filled with the numbers 1-9. I had resisted joining the massed throngs of the confused for many years - in fact, this is what I had to say on the subject in 2005:

Soduko
These number puzzles have got the Guardian and Sunday Times-reading masses rushing for their pens. There are even whole puzzle books devoted to them – a bit like Take a Break only without the top tips and prize money. Apparently, it’s all about counting from 1 to 9?

These things are even worse than cryptic crosswords. Completely bloody pointless.
If people are that bored, why don’t they just go and have half an hour sorting themselves out?

...until my girlfriend told me that she thought I'd enjoy doing them.

"But no, you don't understand!", I pleaded with her, "I have an extremely addictive personality and things like this affect my fine neurochemical balance really badly. I should really avoid them."

"Nonsense, T. You'll enjoy them. I can't believe somebody like you, with your intellect and borderline personality disorder isn't already addicted to doing them. Stop making excuses and give it a go."

So I did, a couple of months ago. I started with the easy one in the Times, and moved up to mild and difficult fairly quickly. I complained that fiendish were too hard for me. "Oh, I can't do fiendish," she responded. I questioned this and said that if something had a solution, you can solve it - it just takes time.

Three hours later, we were still staring at the little grid of numbers that had been partly filled in in pencil. I was on the verge of taking my mechanical pencil and stabbing myself in the eye with it when the solution started coming to me. And there it was, my first completed Fiendish Sudoku!

I can do the Super Fiendish now, they're great. So what do you move on to next; just a blank grid that you fill the numbers in yourself? I'm going for the easier option of a lifetime addiction to crack cocaine or crystal meth.

Of course, I get quite competitive with sudoku these days; never allowing anybody to look at the puzzle I'm working on. My sister tried this on the other day as I was working on the puzzle in my dad's paper. She'd been telling me that I had the wrong method, that I should try to solve one grid at a time (??? - think about this one for a moment). Anyway, I completed it once she'd departed and took pleasure in showing her how it was done:



I love mechanical pencils.

Anyway, puzzles and riddles irritate me. I'd never be able to be a heroine in a magic kingdom where you can't even go to the toilet without solving a riddle that has been set by some hag or goblin or some such. Could you imagine? Imagine living with hogs, goblins, trolls and the like. It'd be like living in... well, where I grew up in Salford I suppose.


Facebook stalker
But no, riddles aren't for me, I like a simple life. But here's one: why would somebody who certainly shouldn't know my full name (other than through extreme naughtiness) and who claims to have never heard of me block me in Facebook? How can you block somebody if you've never heard of them?

While having two Facebook profiles can be confusing at times, it sometimes has its advantages. People ought to remember this, and consider who they might be dealing with, before they think about causing mischief.

Illness
Another puzzle that's been plaguing me of late is my general lack of wellness: I'm on my second nasty cold in four months; I've been suffering from migraines; I can't walk for more than two miles without my toes feeling like they're falling off; my back constantly aches; my knees click; I often experience Bristol Stool Score Number 1s (with extreme urgency) in the evenings.

I think it's something to do with almagam fillings, or being sat without natural light under an air conditioning vent in a workplace full of sick people (as you'd expect in a hospital, I suppose), and I'm absolutely certain that Gordon Brown is at the heart of the blame. I'd go to the GP, but I don't like them and they always come out with some crap about me being nearly forty, obese, with the most terrible diet known to man. Personally, I don't think there's much wrong with a diet of pickled vegetables and Bendick's bittermints, but there's some evidence about balanced diets... blah, blah, blah.

My current illness started on Sunday afternoon. It's nothing remarkable - just a cold that's resulted in a few nights' sleep being lost to aching, sweats, shivers and coughs - but it produced the BEST sinus goo I've ever seen or experienced. I swear it was an undiagnosed siamese twin. It was about 3x1cm, and it had its own skeleton, teeth, nervous system and anus. I've entered it as an independent anti-Labour parliamentary candidate for the upcoming election. With a better grip on real life in 21st Century Britain, more personality, and less slime than Peter Mandelson, it's guaranteed to romp home to victory on 6th May.

Och Nock Nook!

I've been to Scotchland! Up to the West Highlands on the Ardnamurchan Peninsular where I visited Mr Garfer. It's always odd meeting somebody who you've known for a while, and meeting Mr Cake Face was no different I suppose.

Anyway, it's a stunningly beautiful part of the world where you can go and lose yourself, something that everybody should do on occasion to bring them back down to earth. It's not that easy to get lost unless you're on foot, doing a Tinker's Rucksack, but since there are only about 4 roads on the peninsula, it'd be pretty hard to get lost while driving.

The people speak with that beautiful sing-songy voice and accent and are most accommodating, even to the English.

The only shame was that my visit was way too brief to get anything like a full flavour of the places to visit and things to do there. Hopefully one day, I'll find myself back there, overlooking Loch Sunart as the sun sets out towards the Atlantic.

Yay! On our way! by cakesniffer

Beach goat by cakesniffer

Garfer by cakesniffer

Eig and Muck from Ardnamurchan by cakesniffer

2010_03_386 by cakesniffer

2010_03_305 by cakesniffer

2010_03_304 by cakesniffer

2010_03_294 by cakesniffer

Loch Sunart at night by cakesniffer

2010_03_163 by cakesniffer

Ardnamurchan lighthouse by cakesniffer

Ardnamurchan point by cakesniffer

2010_03_107 by cakesniffer

2010_03_084 by cakesniffer

Loch Sunart by cakesniffer

Loch Sunart by cakesniffer

The future's... shouty

For a few weeks, I've been ignoring telephone calls to my mobile phone that are from numbers that I don't recognise.  In fact, I always ignore calls in this way. That's the rule, surely everybody knows this: don't answer if you don't know the number; don't answer if the number is blocked.  They'll leave a message if it's important and I can get back to them.

Unknown numbers can mean a few things:

• Contacts who never made to your new phone's address book when you changed, simply because you NEVER call or text them;


• People who have, quite rightly, been removed from your contacts because they are totally fucking insane and you don't want to accidentally contact them, even if they're the last person available and a an axe murderer is coming after you (let's face it, they're likely to be the axe murderer)


• People trying to sell you things


• People trying to make you take "just a few minutes" to do a survey that takes 40 minutes


• Wrong numbers still trying to get hold of "Sexpot" because they're in Bulford again next week and would still love to catch up


• People from Warwick Alumni fund wanting to know if you want to donate £50 a month?????? Planet? On? Which one?

Anyway, my reasons for never answering calls where I don't recognise the number have just been vindicated - for the millionth time.  It was a nice young man from Ulster tonight, speaking "veryquicklyaboutOrangebecauseI'mavaluedcustimerwho'sbeenwiththemyears", so it was.

"Do you have broadband?"

"Yes. I have cable broadband with Virgin."

"Oh," this was the WRONG thing to say to a person trying to sell mobile broadband, apparently. "Do you still have a BT telephone line?"

"No, I refuse to have anything to do with BT."

"I take it you have a laptop?"

"Oh yes, of course."

"Wouldn't it be great to have internet access wherever you went with your laptop?"

"I already do, from my wireless broadband at home.  I don't take my laptop with me anywhere other than places that have wi-fi."

"What about when you're out and about though, wouldn't mobile broadband through a dongle be great?  We've got a great offer for a 1GB dongle for a tenner a month; 3GB for £15."

"No, not really.  My laptop is too heavy to carry around with me and I have an iPhone, which gives me 3G broadband when I'm out and about and free access to BT Openzone wi-fi."

"Well, let's just check out the coverage for your location. What's your postcode there?"

He must've forgotten that I have 10 meg broadband with Virgin.  Why is he doing this?

"Actually, my 3G phone coverage is actually really patchy here," I interjected.

"Great, looking at this, the 3G coverage is really good where you are."

"It isn't, I can assure you."

"So, that'd be a 10GB dongle for just £25 a month then, we can do everything for you now, it'll only take a few minutes."

"But I don't need it, I have my [insert smart phone name here] iPhone when I'm out and about and I don't carry my laptop around with me.  It's not something that I'm looking for right now.  Thank you."

Why don't these people listen?  Why can't they see that you have no need for the services they're peddling and move onto their next call, that might be more productive?  Perhaps they just like talking to me.  That must be it.

But the good thing about being trapped in phone conversation is that it always gets your bowels moving and I had a lovely poo straight after the call.

Toady holes
I've become an expert at batter-based cooking since I started going out with Ali. Or have I? I can do pancakes and I can do toad in the hole, I am far from being an expert in light tempura, or even a banana fritter. But anyway, I have discovered that toad in the hole is a really easy dish to make. And Hallelujah for that! With excellent sausages in regular supply, it's so easy to whip up a batter get everything cooking away in the oven.

I had toad in the hole for tea tonight. It was very filling. I feel slightly sick.

Valderee
I'm going to get into walking more. Proper walking, with maps and GPS systems and arguments. We went on a walk up in Lancashire at the weekend. We dressed inappropriately for the weather, thinking it would be much warmer than the 3°C high that met us up in witch country. Still, it was really enjoyable and I learned a few things:

• The little dog can't do step stiles


• The little dog can't do cattle grids


• The little dog can't cope with sheep


• The little dog can't cope with bogs


• The little dog likes eating sheep poo


• "Access land" does NOT mean "footpath" - merely that you won't get shot for walking on  it.


• A 4.5 mile walk takes MUCH longer than an hour when you have to negotiate bogs, hills, stiles, and all these in combination with the little dog.


• Take a torch, knife, extra clothing, distress flare... just in case.

Anyway, it was lovely and I look forward to doing more.  Here are some photos:


River Hodder at Dunsop Bridge


Rocky down a rabbit hole



I think they call this a "clough"


The lack of greenness indicates that the area's been covered with snow for some time until recently









Ali with Rocky

Chillax

There have been a series of radio commercials advertising some sort of bath product - Radox, I think - that tell people to take a "selfish hour" and relax with Radox products in a nice bath or shower.  The adverts are targeted at women, but that goes without saying because we all know that men spend the entire day sat around doing bugger all and they don't deserve some "me time".  Accompanying the ads were a few testimonials from some women who described what they'd do with their Radox "selfish hour".  Using my qualitative research skills, the main themes drawn from this sample of three or four, I'm guessing, white English women are:

• A hot bath with lots of bubbles


• Fizzy wine of some sort


• Mobile phone off


• Telling lies about true location


• Candles


• Gossip magazines


• Detachment from reality


• Abrogation of responsibility

So basically, given the choice of spending a nice hour doing whatever they like, women would want to get pissed in the bath and not be able to call anybody for help when the candles set fire to the shower curtain because their phone's turned off and everybody thinks they're at work or the dentist or some such.  And women fought so hard for the right to vote.

I have many selfish hours each day, I think... or perhaps I don't.  I don't have the responsibility of being a parent, except to my dog.  I have some responsibility towards my parents and other family members.  I don't have to look after my partner's needs during the week, although I like to make sure I'm available to talk to her for about an hour each evening.  I don't have the responsibility of being a home owner, although I am a householder.  I do have responsibility for myself and for the little dog.  So after I get home from work and spend a bit of time with the bouncy puppy, doing a bit of tidying up, emptying the dishwasher, preparing my meal, preparing the dog's meal, talking to my girlfriend on the phone, checking in on my folks, eating my tea, tidying up, putting washing in, taking the dog for a walk... all that's left is an hour's selfish time before going to bed.  I do not want to waste that hour getting wrinkly and bored in a bath.  Anybody who does should be made to do voluntary work for one evening a week, preferably emptying my dishwasher.

I HEART my dishwasher

After a bed, somewhere to sit, something to cook with, the first thing I'd absolutely ensure having in my home is an automatic washing machine: the singular most time-saving device of the last 50 years or so.  Second to this is the dishwasher.  I've always liked them, always liked the fact they get dishes so clean and use less energy and water than I do when washing up.  I appreciate them even more since my girlfriend persuaded me that she needed to buy me one by using every single implement, chopping board and pan while cooking something that I can usually do in one pan with one knife, a spatula and a chopping board.

Having a dishwasher means that you have to acquire new skills; 3D tesselation being the most important.  I also had to acquire new pans - shiny stainless steel ones to replace the wonderful hard anodised ones that had served me so well.

Stuff

I LOVE acquiring new things and I've been going into overdrive recently.  It's all due to my latent need for gadgets.  What happens is this:  I decide that I need a new something expensive (this time it's a Canon Powershot G11... I think), but that I can't afford it; my need for new stuff must still be sated, so I buy loads of less expensive items; within a week or two, I have spent the equivalent of a Canon Powershot G11 on stuff that I didn't really want as much as the original object of my desire (I went through this with a coffee machine a few years ago).  So, recent purchases  include:

• Two pairs of Adidas Superstars


• Two Victorinox Swiss Army knives (one for me and one for my dad after he played with mine when it arrived)


• A TENS machine (although this is useful for my bad back)


• A 120GB iPod (because I like to use my iPhone to play on the internet while I listen to music)


• Replacement pads for my TENS machine (because I will need them)


• Windows 7 (because the release candidate was going to die on me)

The list goes on and still the Canon Powershot G11 looks at me from the eBay pages.

I might go and do some whittling to take my mind off material things.

Working from work

Well, not actually working, obviously.

It's going to be one of those days where there seems to be little to do and then all my insides will, metaphorically, fall out of my arse when the realisation dawns that I've forgotten to do something really important.  That sensation of  instant tension in some muscles and instant loss of control of others is one that I like to avoid at all costs.  Some people thrive on it.  Such people are the types who earn ridiculous amounts of money and/or die young.  They work in arenas of high tension and high stakes, I don't.  I just leave things too long sometimes and then get into a mad panic when I realise that something I thought had done has been relegated to row ten of the back burners.... mainly because I can't be bothered with the trivialities of certain aspects of my job and put such things to one side in favour of more exciting things, like spreadsheets and arranging Skype meetings.

Fuck.

I graduated top of my class, you know, with a first and everything.  I was a rising star of science in 1991.  And then I did a PhD in a lab surrounded by Christians who tried to make me love Jesus every day.  It wasn't conducive to good science or good mood.

It's all about the confidence

Still, being successful requires having oodles of confidence and mine rapidly dissipated between the age of 22 and 24.  So with this in mind, and the need to change jobs fast approaching, I figured it'd be useful to get some tips to help change my attitude towards myself: I attended a "Build your confidence" course.  Actually, I've only been to part 1 of 3 so far and I'm already a total wreck after seven hours spent with the super-self-assured course facilitator.

She was a little brusque for my liking and I spent a lot of the first session looking at her thinking, If that's confidence, you can keep it.

When does being confident tip over into being a complete twat?  I think a good indicator is when you hear yourself saying "I" or "me" or "my" more than twenty times per hour.  Surely truly confident people don't need to talk about themselves so much; it just shows?

But anyway, I was supposed to be spending the two weeks between parts 1 and 2 of the course engaging in a few daily exercises in visualisation and affirmation.  I don't really have anything that I want to visualise - other than going on the rampage in John Lewis - and the best time to do it (bed time) is always taken up having  a night time chat to my girlfriend and then falling asleep while still on the phone.

As far as affirmations go, I really can't see even saying any of the following once, let alone announcing them out loud 20 times a day:

• I deserve to be happy and successful


• I have the power to change myself


• I can forgive and understand others and their motives


• I can make my own choices and decisions


• I am free to choose to live as I wish and to give priority to my desires


• I can choose happiness whenever I wish no matter what my circumstances


• I am flexible and open to change in every aspect of my life


• I act with confidence having a general plan and accept plans are open to alteration


• It is enough to have done my best


• I deserve to be loved

Honestly, would you?

The only affirmations that I say many times each day are:

• I am in my happy place


• And then you saw me dead

And those will do for me.

Working from home

I'm actually supposed to be doing a bit of work this evening, but I'm waiting for Office to install before I can get started.  Installing software takes forever and it's hard to draw an analogy to the painstaking task of, firstly, identifying what programmes you used to have that allowed smooth computer usage, then sourcing the installation files so you can get them back on your PC.

This bloody dog of mine drives me to distraction.

Anyway, after flattening my machine last night and reinstalling Windows, I'm now faced with reinstalling everything that got wiped.  It's the little things that you don't realise you're really going to need again that make a lot of difference.  Display driver?  What do I need one of those for?? Canon RAW codec?  Surely that's for losers!  Perhaps this sort of ordeal is similar to what it must be like when you come out of a coma and try to recover from a brain injury: some bits are missing, but you don't quite know which ones until you find yourself running down the high street with your nightie over your head.

Or is that Susan Boyle?

So yes, working from home!  I feel energised and enthusiastic... and scared in case I fuck this up.  With a major deadline approaching, this "draft" will have to be a "final", but hey, it's only worth £200k... and my job for the next six months.

Microsoft Office 2007 has been successfully installed

Great.

That means that I have to get cracking... and now my energy levels are plummeting with every keystroke.  Of course, this sort of thing is ideally suited to my personality type (ISTJ, if you must know).  A few years ago, I blogged about doing a Myers-Briggs survey to determine whether I had Asperger's syndrome, or whether I was one of the unfortunate ones to be normal, but to have a personality type that makes them appear to have a personality disorder.  For some reason, I was surprised to find that I still have the same personality type today as I did five years ago.  You can read up all the shite about the sixteen Myers-Briggs types, but this is me in a nutshell:

• I deal in facts, figures and reality - don't ask me to imagine things, or believe in anything unless there is evidence for it


• I am a doer (yeah, right), but more of a finisher than a starter


• Don't expect me to write any strategies for anything, but I can implement whatever somebody else comes up with


• I can't do anything without a plan and real objectives


• DO NOT BE FUCKING LATE OR I WILL KILL YOU!

So that's about it.  The little dog has curled up in his bed, so I'll take this brief mither-free window to start what I was supposed to be doing.

And then you saw me... get distracted with something else.

Sundays are rubbish

Sundays are rubbish for so many reasons, but mainly because they mean that:

Tomorrow

= Monday

= Oh dear Lord please how much more of this torture?

= if you feel like that, you need a new job

= but there are fewer and fewer jobs in your field

= but you hate your field anyway

= you'll have to re-train

= you'll have to take a MASSIVE pay cut for a number of years

= you'll have to see if somebody wonderful doesn't mind supporting you for a while

= you have somebody wonderful, but she's had to go home and you won't see her until Friday because today

= Sunday
Still, at least I no longer have to endure Songs of Praise and the Antiques Roadshow on a Sunday evening.  Not like when I was a child and there was only one TV in the house and we HAD to watch BBC1 and this meant torture from crap like Last of the Summer Wine, Howard's Way, Bergerac, Mastermind and, not forgetting, That's life! (!).  Oh how the sombre tones of the Mastermind theme were perfectly in tuned with my mood as I sat in front of the fire, trying to get my hair dry without suffering third degree burns.

Back in the 1970s, nothing was open on a Sunday, there was nothing to do in terms of today's options of going to the shops, the choice of cinemas, places to eat.  The only things that opened were bookies and churches and the odd corner shop (as in strange, rather than infrequent).  This meant that, in the afternoon, we were dragged out to visit old people, or they came to us and we had to be quiet unless spoken to.  You might think that a child would find this torture, but it was OK; old people are nice and funny and there was usually cake and biscuits.  I can't remember what they used to talk about, but it was far more interesting than anything I could ever interject with, so it was worth listening.  We'd get taken for walks in the local woods and hear stories of the old mine workings down there as well as learn a little about the natural environment.  These days, such activities are the luxury of kids from middle class backgrounds, but for us, this was free and there was bugger all else to do.

Back then, Sundays were always bright and sunny or pissing it down with rain.

So back to now and Sunday evenings still fill me with utter dread.  The feeling starts at waking when I realise that the weekend is over, that there's not much point making plans for the day because my girlfriend has to leave at teatime.  And then she goes, and the depression closes in.  Today's departure was worse than usual for some reason.

Five more sleeps.

The thing about Facebook

While unable to contribute to my blog for a while, and particularly since this coincided with a period in my life when I didn't really fancy writing a great deal, I sought refuge in the simpler and less creative world of Facebook.  This allowed regular updates and discourse with friends, many of whom are far afield, but often in a more censored "real life" sense than my blog permits.

But the thing about Facebook is, well, there are many things about Facebook, particularly in terms of privacy - users have to be careful to set their options carefully, or all their information could become available to everyone else (but why put all that information on the internet in the first place if you don't want others to see it?) - but the best thing about Facbook is the disposability of users' so-called friends.

• Add me as a friend


• I don't like you - click "ignore"


• I don't like you - click "delete as friend"

And that's it - somebody could be gone from your life in an instant and you wouldn't care.  Brilliant.  It's like the woolly monkey scenario*... and then you saw them... well, you just don't see them anymore.

During a turbulent two months in the summer I encountered the strangest of women, who declared me her soulmate within 36 hours of her becoming aware of my existence, weeks before we met.  She used Facebook to torture me.

• Day 1: "You're my soulmate, add me as a friend"


• Day 1 (a bit later on): "You are not emotionally mature enough for me, goodbye x"


• Day 1 (even later): "?"

• Day 2: "I love you baby"


• Day 2 (later): "You are friends with bullies, goodbye x"


• Day 2 (even later): "?"

Repeat days 1 & 2 for about six to eight weeks.

Anyway, over the course of six weeks or so, during which time we'd met on three occasions and spoken even less on the phone (her demands, not mine), she decided that I was her soulmate and her life partner, that I was a murderer because I wasn't a vegan, that all my friends were abusive bullies, that I had crippling low self-esteem, that I was Satan's representative on earth.  Try as I might, it's difficult to describe the insanity of that crazy, fucked up time, but what better way to illustrate than by telling it from the horse's mouth... a short (honestly) excerpt from a heated exchange that occurred while I was on holiday in Las Vegas....

Baby,

I hope you arrived at your holiday destination safely and that this email finds you safe and well.

I am neither safe nor well and due to you being thousands of miles away and having left without making any arrangement with me about how I can contact you while you are away if the need arises I am consequently left to deal with the shit your friends are causing me without any support from you whatseover.I'm guessing that your hotel has internet access so you could have at least arranged that we would email each other once a day and check each others emails once a day just incase anything cropped up where we required each other's support but you didn't so here I am without your support and having to deal with this...

...

Piggy: Are you there yet? Are you? Are you?
Has April rubbed her muff all over your chops yet?

Ruth: Piggy your blatant attempt to bait me is pathetically transparent and contemptably unsupportive of Sniffy.Grow up man! *yawns*

Then:

And their abuse of me and more importantly their abuse of our relationship itself just goes from bad to worse, the following quote from Tazzy being just one of many examples of that...

Tazzy commented on your wall post:

"You've only ever met Sniffy ONCE!
Was it YOU that said you were 'in a relationship' with Sniffy? I'm sorry but you don't start a relationship with ANYONE after meeting them ONCE!
I ONCE met Elton John... I don't go around saying I'm 'in a relationship' with him!
Glenn Close springs to mind!"

Bearing in mind that this was already kicking off while I was in transit and hadn't even made to Vegas... much more was to come...

Ruth sent you a message.

Subject: Judas

"Oi!Judas!Do you have you ANY idea how it feels for me to watch you engaging in banter with people who have, by their own admission, abused me?!DO YOU???!!!"

Nice! But still, I was 40,000 in the air, 8 hours behind, with no internet connection, so it was obvious that there was not a lot I could do about it.

And more, much, much more...

"I gave you a whole calendar month of my life and you gave me a whole calendar month of hurt and stress but no more.I am walking away from your arms and I am walking straight back into the arms of sweet sanity..."

"I would bet my life on it that those bullying bastards are feeling as smug as fuck that they were able to abuse and bully me AND still get to keep you as a friend.
Loyalty my fucking arse!"

"I would bet my life on it that those bullying bastards are feeling as smug as fuck that they were able to abuse and bully me AND still get to keep you as a friend.
Loyalty my fucking arse!"

"Oi!Judas!Do you have you ANY idea how it feels for me to watch you engaging in banter with people who have, by their own admission, abused me?!DO YOU???!!!"

"Or better still and oh SO apt, "There's A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends" by Morrissey!"

"Sniffy's current personal karaoke fav at the moment would have to be, "The Scientist" by Coldplay but hey baby you  neglected to take enough care to ensure that I was wearing my seat belt  because...you were too busy taking care of your other passengers so there's really no going back to the start which was actually one calendar month ago today, que sera sera!

"Sniffy's current personal karaoke fav at the moment would have to be, "The Scientist" by Coldplay but hey baby you neglected to take enough care to ensure that I was wearing my seat belt because...you were too busy taking care of your other passengers so there's really no going back to the start which was actually one calendar month ago today, que sera sera!

"Or better still and oh SO apt, "There's A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends" by Morrissey!"

"Sniffy's current personal karaoke fav at the moment would have to be, "The Scientist" by Coldplay but hey baby you neglected to take enough care to ensure that I was wearing my seat belt because...you were too busy taking care of your other passengers so there's really no going back to the start which was actually one calendar month ago today, que sera sera!

"I would bet my life on it that those bullying bastards are feeling as smug as fuck that they were able to abuse and bully me AND still get to keep you as a friend.
Loyalty my fucking arse!"

"One of my closest friends who I regarded as a beloved brother killed himself recently by hanging himself and nobody who knew and loved him, including me, had any clue that such a horrific thing was about to happen.He was 29 years young.I attended his funeral and watched his coffin being lowered into the ground only a week ago which was deeply disturbing for me because a few weeks before that he had visited me at my home and had been his usual vivacious self.I lost both of my parents to suicide so the way my friend died is even more painful because of that.
Add to all that the additional stress being caused by Piggy's cheap joke about another person performing oral sex with my life partner and Piggy and Tazzy's bullying attacks on me after I made it clear to John that I didn't appreciate aforementioned cheap joke, do the maths and you might be able to imagine where I am currently at..."

"I truely love Sniffy.What I feel for Sniffy is not infatuation or lust alone but authentic love but love alone, no matter how sincere and how deep, is not enough to sustain a relationship which needs other things beside love such as respect and loyalty to survive.

All of us always has room for personal growth and personal improvement is an on going, life long project for us all and therefore I do not excpect perfection in a partner.What I do expect from them however is that they not be detrimental to my emotional health and sadly Sniffy is currently in a headspace where the mistakes she makes are big enough to be detrimental to me, thus the reason I have withdrawn from her so many, many times during the past month.Each time I withdraw from her Sniffy has asked me to give her another chance, which I do, but the result of that has always led us back to square one where I feel the need to withdraw again to protect my emotional health from the negative impact her mistakes have on it..."

"LISA - One of my closest friends who I regarded as a beloved brother killed himself recently by hanging himself and nobody who knew and loved him, including me, had any clue that such a horrific thing was about to happen.He was 29 years young.I attended his funeral and watched his coffin being lowered into the ground only a week ago which was deeply disturbing for me because a few weeks before that he had visited me at my home and had been his usual vivacious self.I lost both of my parents to suicide so the way my friend died is even more painful because of that.

Add to all that the additional stress being caused by Piggy's cheap joke about another person performing oral sex with my life partner and Piggy and Tazzy's bullying attacks on me after I made it clear to John that I didn't appreciate aforementioned cheap joke, do the maths and you might be able to imagine where I am currently at..."

"This said, I hope you can better understand me and why Sniffy and I break up with bewildering frequencey.

Our current break up has occured due to Sniffy continuing to regard Piggy and Tazzy as her friends which to me, in view of their bullying of me, stinks of disloyalty.How do you suppose you might feel if you found yourself on the recieving end of Piggy and Tazzy's brutal bullying but your own life partner, if you had one, insisted that they continued to love the people who had abused you?I will leave you with that thought.

I wish you well.

Ruthie."

No, the repeated statements aren't down to me being over enthusiastic with my ctrl+v, they're down to Ruthie being mental and pasting the same thing over and over and over again.... on my Facebook page, that colleagues from work have access too, while I'm 8 hours behind and forced to pay $10 per day for wi-fi access to delete them.

Ruthie has an internet  footprint of insanity all over the internet, and probably in many, many places in real life too.  Just do a search for Vegan Heart, Donaldsdevotee, Moonbeamzzz, and the name and her rants against well-meaning people, come up time and time again.  She's been banned from more forums than it might be possible to be banned from, and here's one where she changed her ID, just so she could go back and cause more trouble:

http://www.veganfitness.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6437&start=0

Of course, I can look back at that crazy, crazy episode now and laugh, laugh a LOT, but the whole thing has left me very wary of who I give my Facebook access to.  And from now on, I will always Google somebody by each of their strange names whenever I encounter them.

One other thing about Facebook is that many people don't update their privacy settings and so it enables others to see what they're up to.  You'll be glad to know that Ruth recently had an interview for a job as a social worker.  Fuck-a-doodle-do!