Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Summer Is On Its Way (By Science, Comrades, Science)

It's a nice day today, everyone's smiling, the beer gardens are open, and it seems like summer's here. Well, it's not. It's not here. It's still winter. How do I know this? Well, seeing the popularity of meteorologists - they have their own programmes on the telly and everything - I decided that I'd cash in, and use hard facts to prove that it's not summer.


What I've done is decided that 4 seasons is too precise, so I've reduced it to two (summer, the hot one; and winter, the other one). I've also mapped out the number of days that I wear a summer jacket or my winter coat during each month. Therefore, the precise day when Summer! will begin is the day that summer jacket usage exceeds winter jacket wearing. The dotty line on the the not-at-all-knocked-up-in-ninety-seconds graph tells you predicted jacket-wearing days based on the bell-curve that I assume fits the data. This means that mid-April will be summer! It's not far off now people.

[Warning: All 'facts' may have been made up in a fit of whimsy, and maths and statistics sticklers may be able to prove me a fraud. However, they're all too busy dancing in the town centre fountains with their trousers rolled up to care.]

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Oh Man, Look at Those Cavemen Go (and USB twigs)

Hope you've been watching Life on Mars recently. If you haven't been, then you won't know how skilled John Simms is at acting drugs. Unless you've seen Human Traffic, which I understand also features him acting drugs. He's really good at it though. He does sweaty, confused, hyper and chewy so well.


Can anyone explain why I'd need this here item? A USB flash drive embedded in a twiggy wooden stick? Would you believe it though, it's actually the most practical thing on their website. It'd be enough to make Jesus weep (although it'd probably take a while to explain the concept of a USB flash drive to Jesus, and might not be the best use of Our Lord and Saviour's valuable time. He's got bigger fish to fry. Or turn into wine. I seem to remember this TV Show explored the concept of what would happen if Jesus was a cop and it was quite funny, although I'm sure more could have been made of the concept. Worth a look if you accidentally get locked in at work at the weekend and the only other option is to translate the Health & Safety manuals into French.)

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Me vs Pigeons

The pigeons have struck back in the ongoing battle for supremacy between featherless, hygienic me and the fearful filthwings. I arrived at work. I picked up a parcel addressed to Nicola Kirkham, c/o me. I wandered into my room thinking, not unfairly, "Who the bloody hell is Nicol Kirkham?" What I wasn't thinking was, "Hello pigeons, how have you enjoyed your time flapping round the office, you disgusting evil beasts?" That's what I should have been thinking, because there were two sickeningly fat and barely able to fly pigeons crashing about. I had to get someone with a stick to help me guide them out of the window. I'm not used to helping pigeons without using the Swift Hammer of Merciful Death, so it was a slightly strange experience for me.


In brief Evening Standard headline news, I saw one the other day that looked like it might just be a new indie band advertising their new album (available on CD and download from iTunes from Monday):

Missing Internet Girl: New Pictures

(Come to think of it, she can't actually be all that missing if they have new pictures of her. I'm not going to buy the Standard to find out though; they're not going to get me that way, oh no).

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Evening Standard Headline Board Mocked

Yes, but who did they attack?

(Cheers, Evening Standard headline poster)

Friday, March 02, 2007

New Newness and Promises That Won't Be Kept

Hey there, little reader, you. In lieu of actually writing anything, I've instead been tinkering with the new Blogger templates (hence the shiny newness on which you read these words). In one fell swoop, they've made it both much easier and also impenetrably difficult to edit the template. Fact was, the old one was looking like a dog, and I had to take it out round the back of the internet and cave its head in with a big spade made of code. Also, I just tweaked one of the default templates slightly. Anyway, enough of that.

Actually, one more thing on the topic - you won't be able to see the comments on the main page any more. The Man can't cope with such free speech, man. You'll have to click on the comments bit at the end of each post, or you could subscribe to the comments feed (see side panel for more on this). Stupid new things that aren't as good as the old things.


Watching Man Utd v Reading earlier in the week, I was struck by John Motson's introduction to the game, which has been presented here in the form of a poem:

Outside there's a conference centre,
A luxury hotel,
An indoor training complex.
But I think what most of us appreciate,
(Those old enough to drive, anyway - heh!)
Is the location of the Madejski,
Just a mazy dribble
By Christiano Ronaldo
Over a couple of roundabouts
Would take him onto Junction 11
Of the M4,
As that westbound motorway
Roars out of London
Through the Thames Valley
And onwards to Bristol
And Cardiff,
Where the Millenuim Stadium is still on standby
Just in case the new Wembley
Is not ready to stage
The final
From which
These two
Teams tonight
Are just
Three matches
Away.



I'm in a very excitable musical mood at the moment, and am currently enthusing about:
 
CSS - endearingly gonzo disco-rock from the Brazilians responsible for 'Off the Hook', 'Alala' and 'Lets Make Love and Listen to Death from Above'. The squeaky 40-a-day vocals really help.

Gossip - Oh yes, I can really get into something months after everyone else is fed up of the NME hype. Sounds like a less disorientating Public Image Ltd or a better tunes Radio 4, this is nothing that hasn't been done to death in the recent punk-funk craze of about the past 5 years, but it's done very well, and (agreeing with Noel Gallagher) Beth Ditto has got a great voice.

Regina Spektor - I meant to put 'On The Radio' on the Xmas CD, but forgot, like a durrbrain. Other opinion in my house holds that 'Fidelity' is better, but you don't want to trust the musical opinion of a cat, do you? The whole album is great too, and it gets my Well-Written Lyrics Award for having well-written lyrics that are written well.


My words don't make the music come alive in your brain LIKE YOU ACTUALLY WERE LISTENING TO IT? Well, there's something wrong with your CRITICAL FACULTIES, but I won't hold it against you - low-rate previews of these people follow: CSS, Gossip, Regina Spektor - click click click.