Books

I'm in a small book group. There are five of us. We've been doing it for longer than I care to remember and certainly since before it suddenly became fashionable, and then, a year or two later, unfashionable. I got involved because I thought I should try and read some fiction. Up until the book group started I'd never really bothered with fiction as I've always believed fact is far more interesting. The truth is often so unbelievable that most writers couldn't even make it up for fear of ridicule. But I was prepared to accept I might have been missing something so I really should try.

I've always read the book on offer. We run a strict rotation policy regarding who chooses the book. We meet on a Sunday evening every six to eight weeks so it's not a burden or particularly time consuming and shouldn't interfere with whatever else one might like to read. I tend to buy the book as soon as possible after it's nominated, start reading it, and if I like it, will read it at my normal pace. If I don't like it, I'll put the book to one side, read something more interesting and then a week before the meeting I just cram the book.

I'm not going to go into detail but there have been books I've liked and books I've disliked. There have been books I've raced through, and there have been books that I can honestly say all the words in the book passed under my eyes but I failed to absorb anything from the experience.

This month though, is a first. The chosen book is War Music by Christopher Logue. It's his account of the first three volumes of Homer's Iliad. Apparently it's taken him years. I 'phoned my friend David this evening to say that although it's my turn to next host the book group I have no intention of doing so as I am unable to continue reading this book. Not only that, but I feel so strongly against it I don't even want to talk about it. I don't want to waste any more time on it, nor do I wish to enter into conversation with other people who might have liked it who will try and convince me I'm wrong. I simply don't want to hear a justification ever for its bloody existence.

This is one of those books I find utterly pointless. I guess the intention is to bring Homer's Iliad to a contemporary audience. It's unreadable. It's dreadful. Full of clunking contemporary imagery, wilfully irritating punctuation, invented words. It would be easier to learn Ancient Greek or whatever language Homer wrote in than try and drag myself through this turgid, clunking nonsense. No book has irritated me so much that I feel there is absolutely no point in me attending the meeting because I can think of absolutely nothing I can say in its favour. Absolutely nothing. I would just get angrier and angrier (and I'm not really an angry person) to the point where little flecks of foam are appearing at the side of my mouth, and I'd still know I'm only getting warmed up about why I hate this book so much. People would see a side of me that they would not believe existed, and in fact I didn't know existed either. I'm angry now and have to stop. It has upset me that I hate it so much and I consider hate to be an overused word these days which should be used as sparingly as possible.

"Cuntstruck Agamemnon", "Please do not fart. You are a powerful man." "Down the eye-hole of his own knob." Oh just fuck off up your own bloody knob you silly man.

Holidays

Ten giveaway signs that you've been on an activity holiday....

• A big pile of dirty washing
• Legs like pit props, buns of steel*
• Seriously chapped lips from six days in the sun and the wind
• A letter from the car hire company saying you've been caught in a speed trap
• No guilt about sitting at home all day on Sunday reading newspapers and watching crap telly
• Beer? No thanks
• Sleep deprivation
• You've almost forgotten what you do for a living
• People call you "redneck"
• No money in the bank

Anything I've forgotten?

* Re. #2 - I lied - my buns of steel days are probably behind me (like my buns).

Graham Hill

There was an excellent documentary on BBC4 last night about Graham Hill. He's a vaguely distant but still evocative memory from my childhood and, as with most programmes like this, it was an opportunity to fill in the gaps about what I knew about him already, as well as to wallow in a bit of nostalgia.

He was, on evidence, a natural raconteur and wit, able to be self deprecating and extremely funny whilst also being very perceptive. There was one piece that particularly struck me. He was standing in front of an audience, about to deliver an after dinner speech, and simply opened with the following statement (sorry not an exact quote, but close enough). Imagine it being spoken in the accent of a raffish Englishman with a slightly upper-class accent to gain the full effect...
"Well, the idea is that I stand up here and bang on for a few minutes and then you can ask me a few questions. Don't worry if you can't think of any questions because I've got some pretty interesting ones I could ask myself, most of which I don't know the answer to."

The above quote particularly struck with me as a wonderful expression of self-awareness, put incredibly succinctly as well as humourously. He articulated so simply what we should all do now and again. An ability perhaps to get yourself into perspective, all the more interesting from a man who lived in the rarified atmosphere of super-celebrity in which F1 racing drivers existed.

A lot of the documentary tried to understand what motivated him, where he found his apparently innate driving skill, why he continued to race after he and his car were no longer competitive and why he continued to race after an horrific injury in which he almost lost both his legs. He was it seems something of an everyman, a doting father but probably philandering husband (very much implied anyway), an extremely difficult man to work for, yet admired immensely by those who worked for him, and a determined competitor, always going for the win.

The programme also touched on the camaraderie of racing drivers in his day (the 1960s) and how they were all, in general, respecting of each others skills. They were an elite club who enjoyed each others company and competed on the track but were also friends off it. They also died with alarmingly regularity which I think accounts for the bond that existed between them. In Hill's time, the approximate chance of an F1 driver who raced for five years being killed in a crash were two out of three. Perhaps a shared gallows humour was what united them, but discussion of death was probably not something they talked about much, if at all.

I rather get the feeling, although he may have had the self awareness to realise he had some inherent driving forces, he couldn't bring himself to analyse or confront them. An understanding that, although for the time being they helped him to achieve success, statistically speaking, they were more than likely to kill him. He survived through good fortune, the programme showed the good drivers died, as well as the less talented ones.

He survived his incredibly dangerous racing career and retired from the sport perhaps a few years later than he should have, and - for some reason I want to use the word "ironically" here, although I know it's wrong - died in a light aircraft crash a few years later.

How to Remove and Charge the Battery on a Honda ST1300A (Pan European)

You know, there are not enough blog posts out there explaining how to do simple practical stuff so here is my attempt to redress the balance.

I am currently troubled by the battery on my bike going flat. I park the bike up and, until recently, if I left it more than a week the battery would be flat. Lately it's been lasting even less time before going flat. This problem started over a year ago and the battery was replaced and it seemed to get better briefly - the battery that was in there before really was knackered - but now the problems have returned. I can't believe this battery is shot after little over a year. Steve the Bike, who does my servicing, says he can't detect a drain while the battery is on the bike. This is the 2002 model which had an uprated alternator fitted in later models (thanks Freddy) so I suspect the charging circuit on this model was questionable but it certainly shouldn't be this bad. The investigation continues.

Anyway, here we go with an illustrated guide to removing the battery on a 2002 Honda St1300A, and putting it on charge.

You will need....a Honda ST1300A....like this one, it's mine you know. Park it on the side or centre stand giving yourself a little bit of room to work on the offside (that's the right side if you're sitting on the bike). The nearside is the left hand side; as an aide-memoire, I always remember the nearside is the side nearest the kerb.
















You will also need some tools. However expensive your vehicle is, all manufacturers will always economise in one place and that is the toolkit. The most expensive vehicle you can buy will only ever have the most rudimentary and shoddy toolkit - only good in an absolute crisis. Buy your own if you plan to do even the smallest amount of home maintenance. I have this handy little set of JCB tools which include a socket set and allen keys (also known as hexagon keys). I got them in Robert Dyas a few years ago. God bless Robert Dyas - one of those shops you can always kill thirty minutes in looking at loads of useful things like tools, gadgets, novel electrical appliances, bottles of strange chemicals and all sorts of stuff. It has that wonderful, heady aroma of Men Enjoying Themselves.
















Now to the process itself. First, using the ignition key, unlock the seat/pannier locks on either side of the rear seat section.
















Next, push down on the little brass coloured seat release lever under the offside seat/pannier lock and, keeping it pushed down lift off the rear seat section.



After removing the rear seat section, lift away the forward seat section. This may need a firm tug as it is clipped into position.



Remove the near side rear pannier by grasping the handle and lifting it up and outwards.



Next, using a 5mm allen key, remove the side panel by unscrewing the 3 bolts holding it in place.



The battery terminals are now visible. Using a 10mm socket, undo the right hand battery terminal - that's the negative one. There's a small retaining nut under each bolt, make sure it doesn't fall out (this can happen very easily without you noticing) or you can't reconnect the battery later.



Lift off the relay unit which is snapped into place on top of the battery cover.



Remove the battery cover which is snapped into position at the top rear of the battery.



Using the 10mm socket again, unscrew the battery clamp which is held with a single bolt above the centre of the battery.



Lift off the battery clamp.



Using the 10mm socket again (this is turning out to be a wise purchase), unscrew the positive battery terminal.



Now you can just lift out the battery. It's a sealed battery so can happily be tipped over at an angle of 45 degrees without risk of spilling nasty battery acid over yourself.



Your bike now looks kind of naked but you do feel rather clever because you've done all this dismantling in the space of only three or four minutes. Carefully put to one side all the bits you've removed (I put them in the back of the garage) putting the six bolts in a sensible place where you can find them again. Put the bike back in the garage and take the battery to its designated place of charging - that's my living room. I guess it's a good thing I'm single (woe, woe and thrice woe) as women tend to consider motorcycle parts in the living room a Bad Thing.



Connect your battery to the charger. I have an Optimate III charger which I bought a few years ago. The battery will take between one and 12 hours to charge depending on how flat it is.

Nick likes to...

Here's a silly little meme picked up from Rob at Eine Kleine Nichtmusik.

The basic idea is, you type into Google "[insert your name here] likes to" and see what the first ten hits reckon you like.


1. Nick likes to do puzzles, play with balloons, work on the computer, and ride his bike...innocent enough, I can live with that.

2. Nick Likes To Be Backdoored...I like to think all my doors are open, except possibly that one.

3. Nick likes to eat microwave Buritos...surely that would make them rather soggy, and aren't there two "r's" in burrito?

4. Nick likes to mix it up in the community with his live shots around the seven county metro area during his weathercasts..."mix it up", "live shots"? I think this particular Nick is the butt of some particularly cruel jokes in the office that he doesn't understand and sadly thinks everybody loves him.

5. Nick likes to play with his own fingers...I hate my hands, they look enormous in photographs and I prefer to keep them out of shot.

6. Nick likes to let off steam on his motorbike...now we're talking. See previous / future posts.

7. Nick likes to be Lashed by trannies 40 times...see answer #2.

8. Nick likes to study hard...sometimes, but if I have, it's never helped me in any subsequent exams.

9. Nick likes to find all my ex-girlfriends on the internet and then pretend he's me...a gentleman who behaves like this deserves to be thrashed on the steps of his club.

10. Nick likes to ensure that all the people involved are on the same page...I've chaired meetings and tried this methodology briefly but never found it achieves much.

I'll Try Again.....Next Year *weeps*

Madonna - "innovative", "orignal" blah blah blah.....

Didn't she "shock the world" with her conical brassiere in about 1990 yet The RAH Band were doing it back in 1985?



Please, just don't ask me how I came to be watching this particular video but surely....a missed classic....well isn't it?

You've Got It Wrong Again Gordon

So, bloody-nosed from their drubbing in the local council and London Mayoral elections last week, we've witnessed a steady procession of cabinet ministers promising they will, from now on, take opinion on board and will "listen and learn" before making future pronouncements and decisions.

Quelle surprise that today, after receiving a report from an advisory body they probably created, New Labour decided to completely ignore the recommendation to leave cannabis as a Category C drug and switched it back to a Category B. Nice to know they've now started to listen - well, just not quite yet though.

I don't really care what category cannabis is in. I'd just like it to be in the right category, presuming that's where it actually belongs. I would assume if there is an expensive advisory body set up to review this category then the government would actually listen to what they say but apparently not. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary said other opinions from people such as the police and education services had to be taken into account and the advisory body was speaking only from a medical point of view. But on Radio 4 this evening, a former member of the body said that other opinions (such as police and education) were, as a matter of course, taken into account and that their report reflected these varying views.

So, there we have it. The government hasn't bothered to "listen and learn" less than a week after promising they would. They had already decided what they were going to do before the advisers even opened up the custard creams and sat down to pontificate. The government even said they were more concerned about sending out "a message" and they believed a re-categorisation was the way to do this, rather than just reading the report they so assiduously commissioned. Another bit of gesture policy-making they imagine is made on what they hope is public opinion (something they have been shown in the last week to be hopelessly out of touch with) and what really happened, as with the abolition of the ten pence tax rate, is because Gordon says so....and that's all the debate that is apparently really needed. End of "discussion".

Noroc and Salaam Alekum

I've spent two out of the last three weeks out of the country. Fortunately, I get occasional bursts of travel as part of my work so three weeks ago I had 5 days in Romania and I spent last week in Egypt.

Romania, or more specifically in my case, Bucharest, is a great place to visit. My colleagues in the Bucharest office are without doubt the most hospitable and fun people in the whole organisation. There were also four colleagues visiting from the Paris office. They are also exceptional fun so we had a great week. I counted the stamps in my passport and this was my seventh trip to Bucharest and I hope there are lots more.

Whenever you mention you have visited Romania you get one of two reactions. People start (trying to) make clumsy jokes about Dracula or they mention gipsys. I've even seen colleagues on their first visit there try these sorts of comments as some sort of icebreaker with the Romanians. They are usually answered politely with a courteous smile or occasionally a suggestion that perhaps these are not the sole characteristics that define their country and its people. I love going there and would recommend it to anyone. Can't wait to go again. Fantastic climate, fantastic people.

Egypt is a tougher nut to crack. Egyptians seem rather more cautious on first meeting and one gets the impression they expect a Western visitor has arrived with a lot of preconceptions about them, mostly negative for some reason. In my experience, after three visits, that's not the case. I encourage colleagues to go there because Cairo is so different to any city we're normally accustomed to. It's a frantic, sprawling and often bewildering place but utterly safe, certainly no more dangerous than some parts of London at the wrong time of day or night. Revisit cars you only dimly recall from your childhood by hopping into a local taxi - agree the price first though, none have a working meter. In the tourist spots you will be hassled to buy stuff, especially in areas like Khan El Khallili (the massive market) or around the Pyramids, but respond in a friendly manner and you soon realise they have a fantastic sense of humour. Yes, they want you to buy something but they're smart enough to realise they are probably the fiftieth person in the last hour that's asked you the same question and they have to survive on their wit and charm to keep your interest. The people in the office open up pretty quickly as well and any suggestion of initial mutual distrust is soon gone. Try to speak a few words of Arabic - it's a real icebreaker as you try to pronounce a simple phrase which to a Westerner simply sounds like you're trying to cough up your breakfast.

The Final Kitchen Blogpost

OK, it's finally over. Electrician #3 returned today to fix the light he broke on the last visit. He'd drilled through a cable that wasn't supposed to be there. This has left me with two rather ugly holes in the living room ceiling and a hole gouged in the wall which is tactically obscured by a Mark Rothko print - No. 10, 1950 - if you're interested.

I've managed to play with all my new appliances. The AEG washing machine appears to wash clothes quietly and efficiently. The mini Bosch dishwasher is a hoot. The Neff oven, hob and grill all appear to work exactly to requirements - but getting used to
those will take a little time.

My concerns over choice of tiles (I have no design or colour co-ordination skills) have been vindicated by various compliments from the neighbours and the granite still looks utterly, utterly beautiful.

So below are a few before, during, and after pictures.

Mortality

Within the last few hours I've heard my next door neighbour has died and a very good friend for the last 25 years has had a heart attack.

Phillip, my neighbour, was a compact jolly man. He was getting old but I regularly saw him on the stairs as he jogged up and down the three flights to take the rubbish out. I always joked he could get up the stairs faster than me. He always wore immaculate white trainers and had a witty comment about something in the news or some recent local event. His health started to deteriorate very quickly a few years ago and one night I had a knock on the door from his distraught wife as Phillip had fallen and couldn't get up. I went in to their flat and manhandled him, as only an amateur can, back up onto the bed. A few days later he went into long term care and that was the last I saw of him although I often asked his wife Betty how he was as she went every day to visit him and spend the day with him. He died earlier this week and was buried on Thursday.

I've known my friend Colin, for over 25 years. We were flatmates in a terrible houseshare in Forest Hill. Everyone in the house got on fine, comrades in adversity really, as the landlord was a tedious little prat. The kind that leaves notes about the place while you're out.
We've all been friends ever since. He was running for a train on Thursday evening and suddenly collapsed. Next he knew he was in St. Thomas' Hospital being told he'd just had a heart attack. He called me from there a few hours ago. The prognosis sounds good. He had two blocked arteries which have been probed and have been deemed repairable without any invasive surgery needed. He has to take it easy for a while. We celebrated his 50th birthday only a few weeks ago. He's always been active, is definitely not overweight and is only a moderate drinker and never a smoker.

It's only times like this you start to think about how many people you know have actually died and the numbers get pretty frightening. My mum is one of three sisters. They all married. Of those three couples, one sister and all the husbands have died. Of the four who died, my father was the only one who got past 60.

My mother fortunately is still in robust health and shows no sign of fading at 70. That's probably got a lot to do with her lifestyle. Once she got rid of me and my brother she decided to keep horses instead of kids and has had, at any one time, between two and five horses on the go, so to speak. She's always done all the mucking out, grooming and all that stuff herself, as well as towing them around in horse boxes to go eventing. She can still chuck a 25kg sack of pony nuts further than I would care to try or bundle half a ton of recalcitrant horse flesh through the stables and out into the field for the day. Perhaps I should find myself a hobby like that or take up munro bagging or something as apart form the gym a couple of times a week my lifestyle is pretty sedentary.

In Which I Gain a Double Oven and Lose Some Lighting

So, this refurbishment is, as I have probably said before, is a series of battles. Some you win, some you lose, and some you get a bloody nose but come back fighting the next day to be victorious.

The last two days have been a mix of all the above. Yesterday the granite was fitted - it's gorgeous and the single most beautiful thing in the kitchen so far. Electrician #3 arrived today to fit a new cooker circuit, consumer unit (that's a fuse box to us normal people) and fit the lovely double oven.

The new cooker circuit went in OK and the double oven was fitted, eventually, after we hacked up most of the back of the unit. Unfortunately, at some stage one of the cables to a living room light has been hacked through. So I have a partially darkened living room in which I cannot read. The RCD (circuit breaker) is also over-sensitive and may be prone to switching off the entire flat at a moment's notice. Electrician #3 has spent 14 hours here today and will have to return next week to try and solve the above problems.

Electrician #3 has also pointed out the poor quality of workmanship of electrician #1 whose work I had suspected for some time was rather makeshift. I don't want #1 to do any more work, but he will have to come back as it is not permissible to locate sockets and switches directly above a hob which is what he's done.

Tomorrow, more kitchen units are assembled. I still have to choose tiles though. All appliances are purchased.

Maybe I will have running water in the kitchen by the weekend....but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Easter Snow

I'm just back from a weekend up North - the North of England that is - Yorkshire to be precise. That's where I'm from originally. Well, actually, as a small child it was Yorkshire, then they moved the county boundaries and it became Cleveland, but the area is also often referred to as Teesside, so that confuses everyone and people who don't know the area assume you're from Newcastle anyway so it's always a bit of a drag to explain it. So I'll stop now.

Anyway, my Mum still lives there, a few miles from the coast and the aptly named North Sea. Weather comes from all sides and, despite being a few miles inland you can taste the salt in the air when it gets particularly wild and the wind is in the right direction. When snow arrives, you'll generally get a decent amount, and it tends to stick around for a few days and doesn't turn into a sodden slush by mid-morning like you get in London. Lots of the North is like this, but since the media is London-centric in the UK, snowfall in the UK is always reported in the news with the same degree of shock as nuclear attacks or the suggestion of a Labour tax cut.

So, before I get too political, here are a few pictures of the village of East Cowton last Sunday. Granted it's not a big snowfall, but come on, it's Easter dammit, and I think it looks especially pretty and picture-postcardy.

It's also nice to get away from the flat for a few days as I still have no running water in the kitchen and the dust levels are getting really unpleasant. The granite is being fitted today.

Progress

The electrical gloom of last week has hopefully been resolved. The problem was that there was no locatable cooker circuit in my flat. You need a 30 amp plus circuit on which to run most modern double electric ovens. You can probably get away with a lower rating but you run the risk of the fuse blowing midway through cooking your Christmas dinner or something. These circuits should exist but as I had a gas cooker before, it was not required and had long since, probably before I even moved in, been entombed in a wall and lost. To find I now needed to install a new circuit just after the kitchen was decorated and half the units fitted was a bit of a shock as it would probably mean fitting a complete new circuit requiring much burrowing into my newly decorated walls.

A panic to find a trustworthy electrician before more construction was done was undertaken. And I think I've found one. He's the third electrician I've needed. One to wire up the new boiler, one to install lighting and sockets, and now a third to install a cooker circuit. The good new is that all the cable can be surface mounted and hidden discreetly in coving or at ceiling level and hidden by units. The work hasn't been done yet, but the spark #3 arrives next week to install it.

Also next week the granite worktops will be fitted. In order to fit granite, you must first template it. This involves part constructing the kitchen to the point where the future locations for the worktops can be accurately measured. You can't just trim a slab of granite on a whim if it doesn't quite fit- it's got to be measured once, cut, and you have to get right first time. All the units, sink and supplies must be in place but disconnected. I have had no running water in my kitchen for over a week. The templaters did their work today and return next Tuesday to fit the granite worktops. After that, the cooker circuit can be added, the oven and hob installed, the sink and tap can be plumbed in, the tiling can be completed and the rest of the units can be fitted and finished.

I feel I've crested the majority of problems. There's the potential for many things to go wrong, but I feel none of them will be insurmountable.

Highs and Lows

As my kitchen and plumbing refurbishment continues and the cash and the will to live ebb slowly away, there is the occasional high spot. They are few and far between and one must treasure them like a pearl in an oyster before you choke on the little bastard.

This week's high, which has been counter-attacked by deep, gloomy depression over electrical issues, is the arrival of my kitchen tap. It comes in its own soft, fuzzy-felt, monogrammed, drawstring bag. Gaze upon its cruciform splendour. It's the only good thing to happen to me this week. One day I may see it in situ.

I am Good.....apparently....

How evil are you?

A Great Book Related Meme

What a great idea for a meme. It goes as follows.....

• Take the book you are currently reading
• Turn to page 123
• Skip five sentences
• Post the next three sentences in your blog

So, here goes with my three sentences...

I believe it has never been used since Johnson's death in 1784.

There is an interesting picture, attributed to Reynolds, of Jonhson's (sic) black servant, Frank Barber. He was a Jamaican slave who received his freedom in 1752, became Johnson's man-servant, and apart for (sic again) a short period, served him faithfully until his master died thirty-two years later.

Who was responsible for proof-reading this manuscript? I hadn't noticed any mistakes reading the book until now and then I find two in three sentences. Anyway, it's an interesting book - In Search of London by H.V. (Henry Vollam to his pals) Morton. A Pevsner style book on London written fifty years ago, very evocative and, if you've spent any time in London, addictive to imagine how places you thought you knew might have actually looked half a century ago.

Tattoos and Tiling

Crouch End has now got its own tattoo parlour. I'm not sure how their market research concluded Crouch End has the right population demographic for tatts but I look forward to Amy Winehouse visiting the area soon to reccy the place out.

In other news, the flat refurbishment continues. It's slow, but not that slow, and as long as things continue to progress I'm reasonably happy. I'd worry if things stopped, but that hasn't happened yet and there's no sign of that happening. Walls have been replastered, the floor has started, and electricians arrive next week to put in lighting, extra sockets and to wire up the plumbing properly. The bathroom will have to be done next as, despite their best intentions, the plumbers had to wreck a lot of it to lay in new pipework for the heating. Latest photos herein....

My kitchen has now almost completely moved to the living area. I am perfecting the art of living off coffee and sandwiches and still go through the motions of trying to keep the place clean but I just find that trying to clear up the dust and rubble only really agitates it and it just resettles over everything fifteen minutes later.

Boilers ands Ladybirds

Look! I have a new boiler and the cast-iron drainpie which I once though might become a feature of la cucina is now steadily returning to the darkness which it has occupied these past 40 years or so. That was the last time any work was done in this kitchen.











If that was not enough, these last few weeks I have been under attack from swarms of ladybirds that seem to know how to get into my flat. I would supply photos but they are so numerous that I have finally just resorted to just hoovering them up every evening. Seriously, I don't make a habit of killing bugs but this is out of control. They buzz round the lights, I pick them out of my bedding, the bath, my toothbrush, they converge on windows. I'm sick of the blighters and they keep on attacking in waves every morning. A little internet research suggests this is not an unusual problem.

Time Passes Very Slowly

Time passes very, very slowly when you're sitting at home, waiting for a plumber.

Kitchen Refurb. - Day 2

John the Kitchen is definitely a grafter. He's been back today and has industriously plastered neatly where the holes and roughly filled plasterwork were before. He's left it clean and tidy, as he's now away for a few days until the plumbing and heating guys do their stuff. He even 'phoned just now to ask if it was OK that he had left the plastic sheeting he'd laid over the carpet to protect it while he hauled rubble and my demolished kitchen through my flat and down two flights of stairs.

The Grand Kitchen Refurbishment Begins

This is how my kitchen currently looks. Nice innit. Work has finally begun. New boiler, pipework, kitchen units, cooker, granite worktops, slate floor, trendy lighting.....but when you see it like this you wonder how long it's going to take and how something this horrible will even ever metamorphose into the chic picture I saw in the brochure.

Optimistically, it's going to take three weeks - and these things never go to plan - because I'm having several things done at the same time and the pictures here are just the opening salvo. Today, John the Kitchen has been ripping out units, demolishing an old larder/cupboard, taking up the horrible lino floor and filling in the cracks in the walls. Everything in my flat has a fine coating of red brick dust. I know there's no point in trying to keep anything clean for the next three weeks. I have a dry taste in my mouth as a thick dust lingers in the air.....this had better be worth it. Hang the expense, it's just got to be right at the end of it all.

More to follow......

Make Your Mind Up!

So how are we supposed to pronounce this guy's name? Even the various employees of the mighty BBC seem unsure. In one day of listening to radio and TV I variously heard:-

B'rack O'Barmer

B'rack Obermarr

Barrack O'Barmer

Barrack Obermarr

Barrackobarmer

The different versions were not from people with regional accents or from people being voxpopped in the streets. These were all from native Brits. - BBC reporters whose normal accent was pretty much standard English.

This is what they should be teaching in schools...

I defy you not to find this funny.

Ken Livingstone

I've just watched Dispatches on Channel 4 about Ken Livingstone - the Mayor of London. I've never seen such a bunch of bitter, small-minded, under-achieving and jealous interviewees as they managed to dredge up. They were either political opponents or disillusioned ex-employees so they're hardly likely to be impartial.

Ken's not popular with a lot of people, and I can see why. He winds me up at times but some of the criticism levelled at him was just piss poor. They accused him of employing advisers with whom he had worked with in the past. So? He is perfectly within his right to do that. They do appear to be of a pretty extreme political stripe but Ken didn't write his job description, and it is his right to employ whomever he chooses (within reason).

They had a bleat about congestion charging. The only mistake Ken made with the Congestion Charge was that he didn't make it enough - it should be £50 per day, every day, including weekends. I drive a car, live 4 miles from Central London and have never paid the charge because apart from a couple of weekends I've never had the need to drive through the Congestion Charge zone.

They moaned about buses. Apparently there are too many. For fuck's sake, what sort of a complaint is that? More people apparently are using the buses so they go slower. Well just think what things would be like without the extra buses and the congestion charge is the only reasonable response to those fatuous arguments. I remember the day the Congestion Charge was introduced. The media had reporters posted all over London, braced to report on the inevitable turmoil they had predicted would unfold. What happened? Nothing. All they noticed was, surprisingly, rather fewer cars on the road.

The role of Mayor of London was invented, specified and budgeted by New Labour who were confident they'd just shove Frank Dobson (remember him?) into the job and they'd have the whole thing stitched up nicely whilst proudly announcing how democratic the process was. They didn't anticipate Ken winning and New Labour have been smarting ever since. New Labour would love to see the back of Ken but the reality is, despite all New Labour's quiet skulduggery in the background, he's still popular. I think with Boris Johnson, there's a reasonably strong candidate up against him, even though I actually don't think Boris' heart is really into this. He's far more politically ambitious.

Ken provokes strong feelings with lots of people. He's a little too keen to grandstand with controversial political figures than I'd like, and I don't really see what he's trying to achieve, within the definition of his job, with that sort of activity.

Channel 4 - if you're in the business of doing hatchet jobs, you should be able to do a better job than this. You should be able to find plenty of people who have genuine reasons for wanting Ken out other than simple jealousy but that was the only reason I could detect from the bunch that was paraded on this show.

Happy Birthday, War has Begun

There was a TV programme on Channel 4 tonight - 1983: The Brink of Apocalypse (sorry, no link) - it was all about the most critical point of The Cold War between the USSR and the USA. A combination of activities by various western powers contrived to make the USSR believe that a nuclear attack was imminent. There was a major NATO exercise going on - called Able Archer - which simulated nuclear armageddon, there was a lot of electronic traffic between the US and the UK and Reagan was making some very provocative speeches about the "evil empire" in the USSR.

It seems, the only thing that kept the USA and USSR from launching every goddamn missile they had at each other was the Soviet spies, despite enormous pressure from their bosses in The Kremlin, could find no compelling evidence that the West had actually launched anything, there was only the indication that a lot of things appeared to be in place and that Able Archer might be a smokescreen for the real thing.





This all came to a head on November 8th 1983. By an interesting quirk of fate (I've always wanted to use that phrase) I know exactly where I was on November 8th 1983. I was in a bar/pub called The Old Rangoon on Castelnau, Barnes where everybody bought me drinks for the whole evening. It was a hoot. These are the photos. The rather luscious frizzie blonde sitting next to me was called Ginny. She was a lovely, deliciously curvy gal, great fun, and to a young rather naive chap like me was just a whole mess of excitement. She was working as a nanny next door to the large houseshare I was living in at the time in Roehampton in south west London. This is still the shared accomodation of which I have the fondest memories. A great bunch of people, we had a ball, Andy, Rosie, Tony, Chris, Phil, Karen, Murray, Jeannine, Terry, Yvonne and many others - what a crowd, I love you all and think of you often.

And only now, have I found, thanks to this C4 documentary, that the closest we ever came to a full on, flat out, kill us all, nuclear armageddon, was on my 21st birthday.

Take the Next Left

My mum, who was 70 last year, got a TomTom SatNav for Christmas. She spent a good few hours chuntering, as is her nature, about how little she needed a device like this. Several of us tried to explain the benefits and I think we finally at least convinced her that she should at least try it out. She has repeatedly complained over the last six months that since my brother moved recently, she always get lost in the mish-mash of urban motorways, ring roads and confusing dual carriageways that surround Manchester so there was a good reason for giving it to her.

It did however, in my usual lightweight way, get me thinking. This is technology that has I think, finally come of age. Apart from a few stories in the press about giant trucks being led up farm tracks, sat. nav. devices do now appear to work. They may not take you the route you know, or intuitively feel is the right way, but they will get you there. When you suddenly decide you want to go somewhere unexpectedly or just feel the urge to speculatively follow an interesting looking signpost, it'll get you home from there afterwards. Maybe not by the most direct route but you probably wouldn't know anyway.

I used one on a holiday last year. I was in an unfamiliar part of Scotland and I had to find a new golf course every day. It navigated me perfectly through some substantially sized towns, on to the correct road on the other side of the town, and then on to the golf course.

I'm pretty sure they will be a standard fitting in all cars within the next decade. Shortly after that, I'm pretty sure they will be, de facto, essential. Governments will no longer consider good signage on roads is required and it therefore will become increasingly poor. When the older generation - who still navigate on paper and love to argue about the merits of the B449 over the new bypass - complain, the government will have formulated some patronising answer about embracing new technology. The compulsory SatNav in your car is going to be monitoring where yoou're going in oder to calculate your road charges (another inevitability) anyway so you're going to have to have one.

The next generation will be one that does not spend their geography lessons learning how to read a map and another useful skill that was once considered essential, will fall by the wayside.

This might prompt another post regard skills we used to need but are no longer required.....

Ouch!

Thanks to The Devil's Kitchen for pointing out this particularly terrifying device.

* exits room clutching groin in imagined pain *

Never gona 4get...

The father of the 13 month old child killed by a family rottweiler has left a tribute to his dead son on their Bebo site.

“Never gona 4get ya lil man, RIP 4eva n always, miss ya so much, ur mummy sez i can ave ur iggle piggle, so gna keep him in car wi me xxxxx.”

The grandparents have said a 16 year old should not have been left in charge of the 13 month old child. The mother was soon to celebrate her 18th birthday, so must have been 16 when she gave birth, which I guess, means 16 is an acceptable age to bear children, but not necessarily an acceptable age at which to care for them.

What Happens When the Police Go on Strike?

Would the same thing happen here? The following extract is taken from Steven Pinker's book The Blank Slate and describes his experience of a police strike.

As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon most downtown stores had closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundered shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters...

Songs in an Off-Key

I've pilfered this meme from The Girl with The Golden Mind

Roolz:
1. Put your music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT (this is in capital letters, so it is very serious).


1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY? Out of Focus - Mick Jagger

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? God on my Side - World Party

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GAL? If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go - Curtis Mayfield

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Take it Back - Pink Floyd

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE? So Many Things - Francoise Hardy

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Let Me Light Your Fire - Jimi Hendrix

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Rhumba de Burros - Ignatius Jones

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? Let Me Go Lover - Dean Martin

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Harder Better Faster Stronger - Daft Punk

10. WHAT IS 2+2? Did You Hear What They Said - Gil Scott-Heron

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Irish Blood, English Heart - Morrissey

12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Music to Watch Space Girls Go By - Leonard Nimoy

13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Don't You Feel My Leg - Maria Muldaur

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Lullaby - Jake Thackray

15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Wings of a Dove - Madness

16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? Praise You - Fatboy Slim

17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Tu Mira - Lole/Manuel

18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Trouser Freak - The Bonzo Dog Band

19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? In My Own Words - Craig Armstrong

20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? This is Pop - XTC

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? The Dope - The Dandy Warhols

22. WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS? It Ain't No Fun - Shirley Brown

Muffin Man, I Hate You

On days when I work in The City I take the bus from Crouch End to Finsbury Park and then the train from Finsbury Park to Moorgate. I usually travel at about 7.30 - it's busy but bearable and it's only a short journey - 15 minutes or so.

This morning I was a little later than normal so I knew it would be crowded. It was. Very. At Drayton Park, a bloke had to muscle his way on the carriage forcing us all to pack ourselves even tighter into the standing section. It was rammed. This bloke then decided he needed something out of his bag which was on the floor. To the great inconvenience of others around him he started squatting down to shuffle around in his bag and then stood up with a chocolate muffin in his hand. He then proceeded to try to eat the chocolate muffin. This train was packed. Most people were wedged in so tight they could barely lift their arms which were clamped firmly by their sides and held in place by other surrounding bodies and there was this bloke holding a chocolate chip muffin about an inch from his face and only able to eat it by crooking his head forward and nibbling off bits off it. As the train jostled and he struggled to eat his bloody chocolate chip muffin crumbs and chocolate chips fell, landing in the folds of the clothing of people around him. As the train stopped at each station there was the usual exchange of bodies and people jostling or squeezing past each other to get in and out of the carriage. More muffin detritus was distributed and spread over people's clothing. As the journey continued I could see the flecks of soggy brown dough and half melted chocolate discolouring and staining people's lightly coloured clothing.

Just how fucking hungry do you have to be to be so fucking inconsiderate that you cannot wait less than 15 fucking minutes to get to your destination, walk to your desk and eat your fucking chocolate chip muffin there, perhaps even with a nice cup of tea?

I dearly hope this gimp was a diabetic or something and therefore absolutely had to get his sugar jolt at that precise moment. I suspect he wasn't and he was simply an inconsiderate, weasily looking, good for nothing, little scrote.

Of course nobody said anything.

Armed and Extremely Dangerous

This is the feelgood song of the day. Yet again, Danny Baker surprises his listeners with another crackin' tune.....

Teh Early Years

This is in response to Slaminsky's suggestion to post embarrassing, childhood photos. I think these two shockers fit the criteria.

Crime and Punishment

I've been somewhat vexed by the whole teddy bear naming Gillian Gibbons story that's been all over the media for the last week and will, I expect, continue to be so for the rest of the week I guess. There have also been some really quite vitriolic comments made about pretty much everyone involved in the whole thing. So, I'm going to have a go at my take on the whole event so far.

To me, this appears to have been a primarily political act by the Sudanese government. Discrediting Westerners seems to be a fairly solid plank of government policy. They know it will run well with the people and shows the government to be asserting itself against the old colonial powers. This is a government that tells its people that Westerners are kidnapping Sudanese children and using them as organ donors for rich Westerners. Wrapping this anti western sentiment up as an act of blasphemy only serves to ramp up the severity of the crime perpitrated.

A lot of people have commented that the logical response of Western governments should be to remove the financial aid that Sudan is currently enjoying from the West. That'll teach 'em, say the commenters. As I understand it, the aid is not being given with the suggestion that it supports the Sudanese government or the oppressive regime that it operates. The aid is given purely for humanitarian reasons. The people being helped by what little aid that gets through are refugees of political acts by their own government. If it were not for those acts the people would not be displaced. fleeing, or starving. Sudan, if it chose to, would be capable of supporting its own people. It just chooses not to for political expediency. So, removal of aid would not hurt the government but certainly would hurt people who are already victims of their country's own oppression.

Our own Foreign Secretary has suggested this is a delicate situation that must be handled carefully to avoid offending the Sudanese religious sensibilities. Well, I guess that would wash if this was simply about an offence against Islam but it palpably is not. Treading carefully may be expedient in gaining the release but it looks horribly like appeasement to me. We should be criticising not only the politics of the act but also the fundamentalist Islam back story that is propping the whole thing up. The UK government has got the support of British muslims who have said this is a grotesque misinterpretation of their religion and the government, by failing to overtly criticise this misrepresentation only reinforces many people's view that Islam is a religion that is out of control.

Some other have commented that in the UK, we have recently introduced laws that could lead to similar prosecutions in the UK. That is so wide of the mark it beggars belief. Whilst many people, me included, are very uncomfortable about having any law that specifically suggests a crime against religion is wrong, it could never be used against someone who chose a religiously inappropriate name for a teddy bear or suggested idolatry. We should have a law, I believe, primarily against inciting violence or hatred. I don't really think any law should specifically mark out religion as being a special case. A crime is a crime. Inciting any sort of violence against another is a repellent act and there should be a law against it. Proving it might be difficult but religion does not need to be a special case and the religious lobby is powerful and sufficiently vociferous and well supported to fight its own battles, even in our own supposed secular state.

As a side issue, the UK government must be absolutely loving it as this "touching human interest story" is managing to keep some very uncomfortable stuff about our own government out of the headlines and shows our politicians favourably as they exert their diplomatic skills. Skills that have been sadly lacking of late in many other areas of the world. Lets face it, the release was always going to happen, the Sudanese government just wanted to see Westerners coming to them, cap in hand and begging for clemency.

So, Gillian Gibbons will return. I dearly hope she maintains her stance so far, that she was happy to be in Sudan doing something she wanted to do. Any reaction should be directed against the government of Sudan and not against its sadly misinformed population or desperately blighted refugees. If a proper reaction to the government of Sudan, under the auspices of the UN (please, no more military interventions) was not to happen, now that would be a real crime.

A Man of Paper

Give 'em Enough Rope......

Protesters appear to have stopped Nick Griffin (BNP Leader) and David Irvine (holocaust denier) from taking part in a debate at The Oxford Union this evening. Whilst stopping people whose views you find offensive from speaking publicly may seem a just cause, there is a flipside. Both Mr. Griffin and Mr. Irvine are so off the scale in the offensiveness or sheer ridiculousness of their opinions that I'm inclined to believe you should let them speak. Only this way are people able to see their views questioned and ultimately denounced. Muscling them out of the public eye just means that they can justifiably claim that their right to free speech is being denied. Let them speak and let their views be confronted and I'm sure, as the title of this piece suggests, they will hang themselves. That is, ultimately, the point of free speech; a principle many of the protesters outside The Oxford Union are busily practising. I can't imagine The Oxford Union would have given them an easy ride as nobody would really expect this to be the natural habitat of their typical supporter.

It's a tough one isn't it. You worry that their views, if given a platform, will become popular or accepted but that does a disservice to the intelligence of the people they are speaking to. Sure these guys do have support, but it is small, poorly organised and generally speaking, extremely bad at expressing its views without frothing at the mouth.

Let them have a go at getting their views across. They won't succeed and next time fewer people will be so vexed by their presence until ultimately, they disappear up their own you know what.

Binocular Football

More X-Factor "Drama"

Oh for fuck's sake, look at this bollocks.

This manipulative piece of crap television continues to do its utmost to give the pretence of being a platform to develop new talent, whilst actually being just a vehicle designed primarily to fleece a gullible public and to further the careers and bank balances of the judges and presenters.

Consider the evidence.

It's already admitted it's heavily staged with supposed spontaneous events being edited or re-enacted for more dramatic effect. Another example here.

They're heavily mired in the phone-in scandal where highly lucrative income from phone lines continues to be collected after the winner has been chosen or voting deadlines have been passed.

Some, if not all, the judges have a financial interest in the winner's future recorded output and career.

There is absolutely nothing new or original about the performers or their material. Most of them are deluded, wannabes without a scrap of talent. They perform cover versions of material that would have made their parent's generation cringe, even in its original form. Most of the audition stage of the programme seems primarily designed to humiliate the contestants. At worst it will do some of the contestants permanent psychological damage. At best it may produce a small number of third rate cruise-liner singers.

On numerous occasions the judges appear to have apparently irreconcilable disagreements which usually result in tears or one of them walking out and refusing to have anything more to do with the show. They're always back the following week after some melodramatic reconciliation where they vow to go on for the sake of the contestants or some other bollocks excuse.

And finally, the most damning piece of evidence of all. It's TOTAL SHITE.

All the above I have gathered without actually ever watching the programme.

A Few Things Football Can Learn From Rugby

The Rugby World Cup Final illustrated everything that can be good in sport, and shows football (again) how players, coaching staff and supporters should approach their game. Here are a few examples.

Be maganimous in defeat. Not a word appears to have been said by the England players or coaching staff about any injustice they might have been subject to, even when asked directly. Likewise of the South Africans. Only courteous and gentlemanly acknowledgement of their respective adversaries good performance. When the England coach was asked after the match if he thought the best team had won, he gave the perfect answer - "The best team always wins."

Accept the decision of the officials without question and move on.

Don't feign injury. After a South African player was deliberately pushed by an England player into an advertising hoarding which then meant he collided heavily with a substantial camera unit the South African saw in the body language of the English player that it was an impulsive, heat of moment incident and accepted his apology. The referee saw it the same way. No punishment, no histrionics, they all just got on with the game. If the same had happened in a game of football, the player, whether injured or not, would have stayed down and acted as dramatically as possible, probably being stretchered off the pitch for more dramatic effect.

When interviewed the supporters on both sides were, before and after the game, grateful to the hosts and courteous about the opposition. No segregation of opposing supporters in the crowd was needed - nor is it at any game of rugby.

Congratulations to South Africa. The best team won.

Pies and Prejudice

Living in London, as soon as you mention in conversation you're a Northerner you'll usually get the "Eeeh ba gum it's all flat caps and whippets oop there intit...ho ho ho" so Stuart Maconie's latest book, Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North, is a welcome response to the flat cap and whippets mob. A funny, passionate hymn to the North. Loaded with references as to why the North has so much to offer it'll probably only appeal to expat Northerner like myself because anyone who's not from the North who reads it simply won't believe it's true.

I don't have a problem with living in London, I choose to do it and I like it but ill-informed, cliched criticism grates after a while and trying to defend your position to someone who's never been there invariably ends up making you just sound like you've got a chip on your shoulder or something.

Written as part travelogue, part humourous and good-natured polemic, it made me want to go and visit the places he went to that I don't know. And being of Yorkshire /Lancashire extraction I've visited quite a few - but not all - of the places he talked about.

Good on you Stuart. I think it's a vain hope that you think that non Northerners will buy/read it unless they actually know something about the North of England but it's helped remind me of why my heart skips a beat when I hear a brass band, why at least half dozen people I went to school with over 20 years ago I still count as good friends, and why I know, that one day I will return.

This (h)as upset me today.....

I have a colleague at work. I shall call him Dave (for that is his name). He's a nice bloke, we look at each over a partition all day, every day, and if you spend that much time with someone you soon work out whether you like them or not.

Our work involves being presented with technical problems via an online system, to which we are required to write technically precise responses, which will allow the person at the other end to hopefully progress with their task, happily enlightened with the wisdom that we have imparted. All good stuff you will agree.

But as always, there's a fly in the ointment (isn't there always). Dave is from the West Midlands. This means in normal speech he has tendency to speak in a rather monotone manner and drop his aitches. I don't mind this. I love that in the UK we have so many accents and that despite the increasing amortisation of society, our accents continue to survive, evolve and invent new colloquialisms to entertain us. Some accents I like more than others but I will also accept that's just personal preference.

However, and here's the rub, Dave has unilaterally decided that the letter "h", when used at the start of words is no longer required in written speech. This means he regularly will write sentences such as "You ave to update the table as it as an index." or "Your colleague needs to apply the patch to correct is problem" or something similar. Granted, that sentence is an accurate representation of how he would speak but it is not how it should be written. Dave, to my eternal frustration, also agrees what he has written is incorrect, and even more frustratingly, he also agrees that in certain contexts, it will render what he has to say completely meaningless but he continues to do it. He just doesn't think it's that important.

I lost my rag with him today. I'm still shaking. Am I being unreasonable?

In the News Today....

This is going to sound like a rant from Barry Beelzebub (just not as good) but so what. As far as I can tell, the news today has been dominated by two stories. The morning news - top item on BBC Breakfast - was Jose Mourinho no longer being manager at Chelsea. It's news I s'pose. It would certainly merit top billing as a sport related item but I'm not sure it should be top of the heap in the main news broadcast. Chelsea, a club with a chequered history at best, is in most people's immediate memory, best known for the psychopathic and aggressive nature of a proportion of its supporters. They have recently been better known for buying limited league and cup success through priapic but wholly unhealthy injections of dubiously gained Russian cash. Mourinho also managed to scare the bejeesus out of Alex Ferguson for a while for which he should be congratulated but recent form suggested he'd somewhat lost the plot. But it ain't real news.

The afternoon news seems to dominated by the crooked goings-on of a children' television programme and the fact that despite holding a poll of their viewers they decided to name their new on-screen cat Socks instead of Cookie. Of course we're told it's the principle of the matter, a breach of trust blah blah blah but come on, get real here. Is this really significant news? Apparently so. Doubtless some poor production assistant will get the sack as the BBC flops around trying to shut up some spittle-spouting, faux-indignant tabloid columnist.

What's in a Blog?

This blog will never amount to much. The competition is just too good. I have neither the time nor the imagination to produce something of a similar standards to the blogs I read day in and day out. I'm sure there are lots of published lists about how to blog well, but rather than look them up I thought I'd have a go at writing my own top ten list of what constitutes a good blog.

1. Write about something you know. That may simply be yourself but the ill-informed blogger will soon run out of steam trying to talk about something they are not passionate about.

2. Post regularly. At least daily seems to be the norm. This is where I fail the test. People get hooked on the minutiae of what you have to say and hang on your every post. It's a voyeuristic thing.

3. Answer all comments personally. This is a tough one - but the best bloggers always answer each and every comment. I wish I was smart enough to have an answer for everyone.

4. If you get an abusive comment, be polite or be funny in your response. Online abuse between two people can be funny for a while but it gets boring. The best bloggers defuse the abusive commenter with humour. They seems to realise answering abuse with abuse just doesn't work but a witty put-down will almost always subdue your protaganist.

5. Have an understanding of grammar, punctuation and spelling. Blogs are usually read by other bloggers or people who have an interest in reading - slovenly writing will lose you your smarter readers. The occasional mistake is acceptable, but persistent poor work will not be tolerated.

6. If you're going to write about yourself, include a good degree of self-deprecation. Nobody likes reading about what a smartarse you are.

7. Be honest. The best blogs are clearly written with complete honesty. Maybe it's a cathartic experience for the blogger. I try but I always bottle it at the last minute.

8. Link to other blogs you like and comment regularly on other people's blogs. They will appreciate it and come and visit you in return.

9. Sorry, single issue blogs about your triumph over a terminal illness just don't do it for me. You may think you have a story to tell but it will have to be exceptionally good to sustain a regular readership of people who have not had a similar experience. Writing about your illness may help you through your experience but don't expect everyone else to be interested. For the passing reader, these blogs are just too self-analytical and bleak.

10. Read and/or comment on my blog and I promise to comment on yours and link to you. All abusive comments will be answered by me personally in a civil and humourous manner.

Round Like a Shot

Click the image and enjoy....