Category: General

So,

for the past few weeks I’ve been logging on, generally, to 200 or so ‘spam’ comments. If I had need of generic viagra, online gambling or a handy range of other particularly convenient to access normal, or on occasion kiddie porn, then I might have had need of the comments. But I don’t.

So I would, each day, delete all the comments assuming (hopefully correctly) that there weren’t any real comments hidden in the mass of spam, and mutter darkly. Well, unfortunately, because mine’s a ‘tweaked’ version of WordPress I couldnae just put in one of the standard spam stopping image generation things. But with a teensy weensy bit of work, I’ve managed to get one installed.

So take that spamming scum. Take that and fuck off back under your nasty little rock.

In other news, I think I need to take today off. Although I’m a hell of a lot less unwell than I was yesterday, I still feel like shite. Now, though I’m quite definately well enough to work, I’m attuned to my body well enough that I know that if I went to work I’d promptly become unwell, proper unwell, tomorrow and be off for days. Which’d be bad, m’kay.

Whinge, whinge, whinge, that’s all I do. Particularly when I’m both sick and tired.

I couldn’t sleep for a long time last night, it was so hot. Then it was cold. Well, no it was hot, but my body was unnerved by lying completely naked sprawled on the sheet, so I grabbed the corner of the Duvet and just had that across my back. Having had that for a while my body informed me that it was now too hot, so we played that game the whole night.

It wasn’t aided by the fact I went to bed with a hideous sore throat, and I’ve woken up with what is quite definately a cold. It’s left me feeling exhausted and sickly, and to round it off nicely, trying to work has left me feeling distressed by my brain’s current inability to work. I feel bleuch. My brain’s just like trying to deal with treacle and I feel all lightheaded and woozy. It’s not good. Not good at all.

As I walked out to the garage this morning I thought “that’s odd, I don’t remember Lauren putting washing on”.

Then I thought “Ah, maybe Trey did”…

…and then I got in there and heard the low rumble of our washing machine…

Whhhiine….whhhhiiine…. wwhhhhhiine….

And I knew it was defunked. Inside, flumping lazily over and over were my clothes, the machine still on the second phase of filling, continuously stuck there.

….and so I fished out my un-washed very wet uniform and I rinsed it through in the shower, I only hope it’s dry before tomorrow.

No, not as in chilly. It’s fucking hot. But I appear to have, impressively, caught a cold. I have a sore throat and I feel rough-as-fuck. Go me.

See now,

It’s not true.

But my girlfriend says it is. I think her proof for this rests in:

– Love my car
– Drive nearly everywhere
– Whinge if I can’t park near supermarket
– Love junkfood
– Love take-aways
– My bizarroid, speech therapy induced speaking, which makes me sound slightly off kilter for any accent that you might care to mention
– I like Dr P.
– I pick up slang easily, and so I’ve started to sometimes say ‘trash’ and ‘couch’ (although it’s morphed into ‘cofa’).

But it’s not true.

I’m not an American! I’m not.

Proof:

– Anti-capitalistish tendancies
– Love the UK and living here
– Don’t like V8 engines (although the air-cooled Tatra V8 is an exception, for sheer insanity)
– Like living where we don’t get earthquakes
– Don’t watch much TV
– Am British, damn it!
– So there. :-P

:-)

So, Sunday.

Sunday’s come around, and almost gone. First day off in an age. Or so it feels, not actually the case, but I’m so tired that it feels that way.

I declared outloud to my bike yesterday that regardless of other plans, today I would spend some time checking it over; which I duly did this morning. Expecting to have to adjust the chain tension, the brakes, and top up the gearbox oil.

In the end having checked it over, I greased the chain (didn’t desparately need doing, but what they hey, new grease is always good), adjusted the back brake a bit, but everything else was fine. Which shocked me a bit, considering that it’s done nearly 2k miles without being touched (apart from previous exhaust related traumas). Hopefully she’ll be good to the end of my placement now, at which point she’s due to be stripped and have the welding done on the frame, the engine re-re-rebuilt (third time’s the charm), and hopefully, if I can afford to sort it, the new instruments and fairing fitted.

At any rate, having done almost the bare minimum (oh, I smeared the exhaust with the old grease too, in an attempt to make that downpipe last a smidge longer than it might – for some reasons, MZ exhaust downpipes fade away very quickly), I then came back in, lazed on the bed while Trey motivated me into actually not entirely wasting my Sunday afternoon. (more…)

But I just spent several long minutes laughing at this quote:

When the news reporter said “Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea” I just smiled. It’s like yes. That’s Britain for you. Tea solves everything.
You’re a bit cold?
Tea.
Your boyfriend has just left you?
Tea.
You’ve just been told you’ve got cancer?
Tea.
Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt?
TEA DAMMIT!
And if it’s really serious, they may bring out the coffee. The Americans have their alert raised to red, we break out the coffee. That’s for situations more serious than this of course. Like another England penalty shoot-out [in soccer].

Taken from: here.

It’s pretty rare that I’m outright proud to be British. I love Britain and think it’s a fantastic place to live, but I don’t go all nationalistic (not unless someone’s dissing Britain) – but our response to the bombing of London makes me proud.

My day went like this:
0500 – get up.
0600 – Leave for work.
0700 – Start shift in A&E.
1000 – Quick Break.
13:45 – Lunch & Teaching.
15:00 – Leave work and ride home.

I had a fantastic ride home, and quite possibly deeply upset someone on a much bigger bike by repeatedly being next to them at each set of traffic lights. He only made it through one set by a process of ignoring the road markings and burning through the lights at the very end of the orange phase. But he was pleasant if somewhat suprised by my repeated presence next to him.

15:45 – Get home. Shower, shave legs ready to go swimming…

…get phone call from my mum. My dad’s operation is tomorrow. Scratch swimming. Sit down for 10 minutes, find map of Oxford, put bike gear back on, around 16:30 I headed off.

As I rode down the motorway, the reflected glare from the road burning into my already tired eyes I felt myself sruggling. After only an hour I was starting to wander, and having to concentrate very hard on my riding; in a remarkable fit of sense I pulled over, and had a relaxing burger king (don’t ask me why, I just have a thing for whoppers) at Melksham services – looking out of the window, watching the rabbits or hares, possibly, bouncing around in the distance and contemplating stealing a Cafe Crapola mug (I didn’t, okay!).

Revitalised, I set off again this time covering the stretch to Oxford without incident; although I fucked up my navigation of Oxford and it took probably a further 20-30 minutes for me to disentangle myself and find the correct place.

Whereup on babbled incoherantly at my mum and my sleeping father for a full hour and a half. Scarily, possibly the last hour and half I’ll spend with him. That thought terrifies me. I should have spent that time talking about something worthwhile, meaningful, telling him how much I remember of my childhood, what a fantastic father he was…

…but I don’t think it’s his time yet. I don’t think he’s ready; so I hope it’s not. He should chose when he wants to go.

After an hour and a half I decided I needed to head back. So at 2030 I clambered back on my tired ETZ and headed back down the A34 (a road which appears to consist entirely of patches and ditches) and the M4 – staggeringly the bike maintained a steady 70 the whole way back, and managed nearly 200 miles on a tank of petrol (17 litres – giving a staggering 53mpg flat-out; now tell me small two strokes are inefficent). Eventually only getting home when my bum had reached a stage of numbness previously only attained in time-share conferences.

At any rate, I’m home, I’m tired and my bike definately needs some maintainance tomorrow. Like oil in the gearbox, probably, and chain tension adjustment, and maybe some grease on that chain.

It’s funny, living in the UK. When I grew up back in the 80s, it seems to have been (at least, in my memory) a constant barrage (bad choice of word) of things being blown up. Bits of Northern Ireland, bits of London… death and destruction loomed large.

I remember my visits to London with my parents being periodically punctuated by the BBC’s news OB unit and police courdons. The sudden discovery that such-and-such a tube line was shut because of a bomb scare…

…and so I guess it’s no suprise that since the majority of us have experience of this, that todays attack is already fading. The shock-and-horror is becoming a sort of not again. Goddess knows, this isn’t to belittle the terrible suffering of those who’ve died and the families, friends and colleagues of those killed today.

But there’s a sort of, acceptance is the wrong word. A sort of understanding that talking about it won’t change it. That it’s happened and that running over to whoever and bombing the shit out of them will simply create more violence and more terrorists.

Don’t think for a second we don’t want the perpetrators punished, because it’s not that, it’s simply a knowledge that killing them won’t get rid of the greater them, it won’t fix the problem. The creation of more violence simply means they’ve won.

The TV channels have largely returned to their scheduled programming; the public transport system is struggling back to it’s unsteady feet, and me? Well, I’ve edited more video, done a bit of Laundry (forgotten to wash my uniform which I’ll have to do now [pause] [unpause now uniform’s in the wash]), finished off the hoovering, cleaned the bathroom. Pondered clearing my desk…

…and listened to the slightly surreal Radio 1.

I stop and ponder the deaths of 37 innocent people, possibly many more, and think why? Why did they do it? I know that the injustice they deem to have been perpetrated on their country must make them feel that it’s a valid form of defence, but how does the taking of an innocent’s life ever become something that’s acceptable?

I heard about the bombs in London this morning at about 11 o’clock. I was sat faffing, as I often do when I’ve got a day off and should be doing something useful. Actually, as I heard, I was editing video – or at least faffing with video conversion utilities and cursing the fact that although Premier 6.5 enables me to import video from my camera directly, any attempt to play or use it promptly results in a crash – and Nikki had to coax me into going to look at the news on TV.

When I finally plodded downstairs, the whole bigness of the situation didn’t really hit me. They were still only talking about two confirmed explosions, and the question of it being a coincidence and an electrical fault was still being mooted.

I cut the grass.

Lauren appeared. I told her.

I cleaned the kitchen.

I hoovered the lounge.

It, like other potentially huge loss of life has an enormity which is difficult to grasp. They aren’t speculating on the death toll, and wisely so, for panic is impossible to manage and at the moment from the outside at least, London appears to be coping with this situation remarkably. I’m sure those there could paint an entirely different picture.

It’s too early to really see how Britain will respond; but I’m nervous. I hope that we, as a country, respond in a which makes me proud to be British. I hope that we don’t introduce draconian laws to ‘protect’ freedom when in fact the very laws remove it.

But right now, my heart goes out to all those affected; and those who’ve lost loved ones.