Merry Cutemas

I was clearing up the flat after the Christmas revelries and started reviewing some of the cards I received. Almost all are going in the recycling bin except for this, possibly the best Christmas card I've ever received. I don't know why, but I think it's just the best.

Wasps of Freedom

The Wasps of Freedom as reported by USA Today, "Scientists at a Georgia laboratory have developed what could be a low-tech, low-cost weapon in the war on terrorism: trained wasps. Glen Rains uses the 'Wasp Hound' to monitor the behavior of wasps trained to detect a particular scent or volatile compound. "

Whilst this sounds a very cunning way to subtely monitor baggage behind the scenes, what if they want to use this out in the public? Everyone "loves" and respects the sniffer-dogs, but a sniffer-wasp? I'd just swat it, I mean am I going to get arrested for swatting a wasp? Are they going put up signs says, "no insect destruction"? "I'm sorry sir, you have just murdered one of our trained wasps I'm going to have to take you downtown". What if I suffer from wasp allergy or anaphylaxis then surely I'm going to a) run from a wasp or b) strike it down.

Just a thought.

The Inbetween

Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the Inbetween. Those days between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. A purgatory between the hell of Christmas and the heaven of the new year. A period where for me at least I am too fat and hungover to enjoy the time off and yet too close to more parties to bother to take the time off partying that the 100 trillion cells that make up my body are crying out for. And in to this mix we have work. Oh yes, some of us have to work. For some that's the real hell of the sales for others it's down time that is a serious waste of time.

Take today for instance. When I could be bothered to get ready as the cold and Christmas excesses dictated, I had to drive Ceara and I to our respective places of work following Christmas spent at my parents. Just before leaving Jeff (the boss) rings to check I'm not dead after one of those snow falls that occaisionally render the UK inexplicably disabled. After explaining that yes, I am alive, he tells me that I shouldn't rush in as there is nothing to do. When I do arrive I chat to him for 30 minutes and then he tells me he's going home and that I can work from home if I want to too. Working from home is, to me a euphamism, for doing nothing, at worst being on call. So, for today, tomorrow and Friday I can go in to the office and do nothing or stay at home and do nothing. Basically a complete waste of time.

Some companies shut down completely for Christmas and don't penalise the staff for it by subtracting from their annual leave. Some companies expect staff to take the time off and book three days or whatever from their annual leave. Even this is better than the pointless existence I am currently leading, except I don't have any holiday following my extended trip to New Zealand. So anyway, why don't we just all take all of this period off work as a rule for the majority of people. It'll make many people's life just that little bit easier and allow us all to admit that we're really not doing anything productive anyway. Lets spend that time at home, with family, on the slopes, in bed or however we wish without having to "go to work" during the Inbetween.

I Had a Dream

How annoying? Very. I've just remembered that I had a dream last night and in the dream I came up with an incredibly good idea for a film or short story. It'd be more likely to be a film, because I actually visualised it whilst asleep. Still it's really annoying because when I woke up all I could think of was some really rubbish dream in which I drove to Cardiff, stopped off at a friend of a friend's house, asked if I could pick up his jeans he'd left behind (which I knew weren't there) and when I found out they weren't there drove home. On the way back I stopped off for a beer with my Dad who had appeared in my car and we drank beer in a pub that served ice with every drink and the ice was served in salad bowls with wooden salad tongs.

So, where is that getting me? I can't read anything except strangeness in to it, it's not going to get filmed not going to make me famous and more importantly it's not gong to get me recognised as one of England's foremost lateral and intellectual thinkers. No, it'll just get me locked away. And the film or short story? The reason I'm so hacked off? I have no idea about it. I can remember I had a dream about a fabulous story, but not the story itself. It's like my subconscious is taunting me. It's saying, look how much power I possess, such untapped riches, but you can not access them. Ha!

Anyway, if I remember the story I'll post it here or may be on the creative incubator that is spitbros (link below I think), if not thank you for making it so far through this non-event.

Spit Brothers

Here's a quick update on some stuff my friends have been doing. Still early days, but they're better than me: Spit Brothers

Update (2005-12-29): Whilst the initial flourish seemed to signify a more updated blog than mine it has since slumped in a similar style to, what I presume is the usual lack of content of the majority of blogs like mine.

English Women's Football: A Comment

I read this today on my forum [http://fw1.no-ip.com/the_list ] and I just had to reply and then post it here. Usual stream of consciousness ensued, I wonder if it makes sense to anyone?

Popscene wrote:

So I was watching the women's world cup today and I was thinking that it was a shame England didn't qualify having lost 2-0 to France in a home and away playoff. However, after looking at England's record against the teams that did qualify I'm almost glad they're still at home. England haven't beaten one of the sixteen teams that qualified since 1995 (Nigeria 3-2). In fact since that time our record against those teams is Played 30, Won 1, Drawn 1, Lost 28. Nice.

So why are we so shit?

Why is it that the home of football can't put together a decent team of women players. Are we really that backwards that there is no support for half the population to play our national sport?

My rambling reply:

I blame it on our culture of wannabee popstars and celebrity obsessed girls and boys. Why play football when you can watch David Beckham and drool over him whilst looking forward to watching Pop Idol afterwards? to get people playing you need to play at school, but schools are still selling off playing fields to afford to keep going, teachers no longer want to commit to extra-curricular activities because of the pressure of the education system on them, if they do they face being sued by our litiguous parental blame culture for anything that might happen to little Johnny or Jessica. It upsets me. Rugby is actually in decline, a real big decline. The sport that our country is best at and may win a world cup at has a declining grassroots support. That's as wrong as our women being rubbish and undersupported at football.

So many people tell me that at school (in the old days) they did 2 sessions of games a week at school and had Wednesday afternoons for playing the games as well. Now you have one session a week for it all if you're lucky. No training, no support or nurture for those that are new to a sport. It's always focussing on the kids that are already talented, which is probably because Mum and Dad packed them off to a youth team to play because they new the school would fail them. How come they stopped all these games sessions. Suddenly they have lots of new subjects to study, which must have taken their place. Subjects that are low-brow and pointless. I'm thinking that these new subjects appeared to allow you to take a GCSE and A-Level which leads you all the way to an ex-Polytechnic to study them. In summation the England Women's Football team are rubbish because the government allowed Polytechnics to become Universities. The ex-polytechnics with their new found credibility made-up pointless lightweight degrees that people felt were worth studying and had the same respect as other established degrees. These new degrees needed lower and further education support, which meant that schools had to teach the subjects and therefore replaced sports lessons with the new subjects resulting in the decline of school and grassroots sport in the UK.

Literary Fiction

I saw this as a section in WH Smith on Friday. I wondered if all the books contained stories about imaginary authors. Perhaps one was about that Booker prize winning novel I wrote aged 13. That certainly is literary fiction.

Banzai!

I can't imagine many blogs start well, I mean how many of us actually have any idea what we're doing or how we're going to say it. Anyway, that it, I've done it and next time I write some seriously good stuff. Honest. At least I can say I'm not a virgin.