November, 2007:

I’m sat at work at 11:15pm after a particularly gruelling shift, not yet able to lock up and make my weary way back to bed because by the time I get home it will be past midnight and I won’t have blogged today.  Thank god this is the last damn day of NaBloPoMo.
 
So what have we learned this month?
 

• Kristina is a wind chime waving, tie dye wearing new age hippy
• Jeff has a dangerous ostrich obsession
• Bec’s mum’s boss is a muppet. I’m guessing it’s Fozzie
• Nobody ain’t puttin’ no Mr T on his Tomtom fool!
• Contrary spent her teen years helping ugly dogs across the road.
• Childsplayx2 is grateful Americans don’t know what the word bugger means.
• Bradley Egel admires my poise and grace
• Sam, my brother, feels the need to emulate my every purchase due to sheer unadulterated hero worship.
• Emma G is the worlds foremost Cacomistle expert
• Dan Leone and Holmes are gods among men
• Zoe’s Dad has a mouse which is actually a squirrel
• Morticia has a pair of stripy tights like that woman on Tom and Jerry
• Tracy is a geek
• Phil has recently had all his hopes and dreams come true
• Oli isn’t too keen on being an offensive rear end
• Whit would rather skate with the penguins than swim with the dolphins
• Mitch McDad wants me to become his big Daddy
• Rattling the Kettle can spot bullshit at forty paces
• Gary is a pop trivia genius and a podcasting god
• Becky enjoys a good old rant as much as the rest of us.
• People in the Sun writes his checks doggie style
• Dwayne thinks I need to exercise more
• Avitable will be receiving something delightful in the post shortly
• CamiKaos knows a convincing argument when she hears one
• Organic Mama has a mighty fine claim to fame
• The Chick is conducting a sociological study into beards and bloggers
• Case is rightfully indignant about the failings of Mr Potato Head
• Greg actually does know how to post a comment
• Dan isn’t above falsifying a post’s timestamp in order to bring it in on time.

Apologies to anyone that has commented and been left out, but the above sample is anything but scientific and your absence means nothing other than a damning indictment of my inability to do things methodically.

So long NaBloPoMo, and thanks for all the fish.

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It’s day 27 of NaBloPoMo and I’m just about spent. Don’t be surprised if you hear nothing from me for the entire of December.

So today I’m resorting to a meme I’ve stolen off Bec, who in turn stole it from someone else. I don’t know what’s coming to the world these days. There was a time where people waited to be tagged before they did a meme; these days rampant meme theft is sweeping the entire globe. The rapid disintegration of Western civilization can’t be too far behind.

So here we go, the iTunes meme

How many total songs?
2039 songs, 5.2 days worth of listening.

Sort by song title – first and last…
First: A – Barenaked Ladies
Last: 50 ways to leave your lover – Paul Simon

Sort by time – shortest and longest…
Shortest: Here come the ABCs – They Might Be Giants (0.11)
Longest: Twelve Stops and Home – The Feeling (9.56)

Sort by Album – first and last…
First: All Over the World – ELO
Last: 50 Various Songs and Nursery Rhymes – Various

Sort by Artist – first and last…

First: Art Brut

Last: Willie Nelson

Top five played songs…
In Between Days – Ben Folds
Call and Answer – Barenaked Ladies
Songs of Love – Ben Folds
All U Can Eat – Ben Folds
There’s Always someone Cooler – Ben Folds

Find the following words. How many songs show up?

Sex: 3,

Death: 0,

Love: 68,

You: 194,

Home: 57,

Boy: 104,
Girl: 57.

First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle…

My Record Company – K’s Choice
Fair – Ben Fiold’s Five
Dancing in the Dark – Bruce Springsteen
Sister – Sufjan Stevens
A Little Doubt Goes a Long Way – Reel Big Fish

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So I bought myself a walkie-talkie. And because as we all know one walkie-talkie is neither use nor ornament I bought another one too. And then I bought another one, and then another. Yes I have four walkie-talkies. Living the dream man, living the dream.

The justification for this rather extravagant purchase is that they will be invaluable in our upcoming 78 mile sponsored walk. That’s right, I bought them all in the name of charity. Shame on you for assuming that I got them just fulfill some sort of childish fantasies.

Just in case you need any further persuasion of my philanthropic intentions, here are the top five reason why walkie-talkies are essential to our trek:

• We can all assign ourselves cool call signs just like on Smokey and the Bandit or Top Gun; thereby increasing both morale and our attractiveness to the opposite sex (Burt Relolds and Tom Cruse were voted “Worlds Sexiest Man” in 1977 and 1986 respectively. Coincidence? I very much doubt it).
• If for any reason the country is invaded by a hostile foreign force during the walk we could hide out in the hills and become a guerrilla resistance force. We would use the walkie-talkies to co-ordinate our devastating attacks on the enemy.
• When one of us falls down a crevice or abandoned mine shaft we can throw a handset after them and keep them entertained by singing songs from the shows until the air ambulance arrives.
• We can use them to keep saying “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfunster” to each other a-la Die Hard (the ITV pre-watershed edit).
• One of the many technical features of the walkie-talkies is when switched on they emit a high frequency tone which repels mosquitos; thus reducing the risk of our entire party dying of malaria

.

Pretty compelling arguments I think you’ll agree.

There are some drawbacks however. While the majority of the walkers will be more than happy with the rugged black and silver lines of the Binatone Trek 100 Personal Mobile Radios; I am very much aware that Paul may find it a little harsh. He is a sensitive soul with delicate needs. For example take his recent post on the Dales Walk blog on what type of moisturizer, eye cream and exfoliator he should take with him on the hike. The daily dilemmas that this fragile flower has to suffer through is inhumane. Therefor I have had a quiet word with Amy and she has assured me he can use her walkie-talkies for the duration of the trip. You are welcome Paul.

_{This is cross posted at the Dales Walk blog}

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A periodic look at stuff I’ve been consuming recently.

Book: The Last Days of Newgate by Andrew Pepper

It is a common complaint that society is going to the dogs. The newspapers churn out a constant screaming hysteria about paedophiles, asylum seekers and the yobs on our streets. The TV news subtly echo the shrieks given out by their grubby cousins in the print media, the newscasters’ sensationalism all the more potent for its sombre delivery and air of authority. And we consume it all. We worry about bird flu and antisocial behaviour. We worry about Polish people swamping our public services and the mentally ill killing us in our beds. We worry about what they tell us to worry about.

It’s true, the world is a scary and dangerous place. It’s true that there is a lot to worry about out there. But I honestly don’t believe that it’s any more scary or dangerous than it’s always been. There has never been a golden age, no matter what people tell you. People have always done bad things to each other, we are just constantly bombarded with it now, that’s all.

The last days of Newgate by Andrew Pepper is a historical novel set in 1829’s. It follows Pyke, a member of the Bow Street Runners (a prototypical police force) and his efforts to solve a grizzly murder and clear his own name. While I’m well aware it’s a work of fiction and as such can’t be taken as a true representation of reality, it certainly paints a bleak and bloody picture of regency Britain.

This is not the prim and proper England of Jane Austin’s Mr Darcy. This is a filthy, dangerous, poverty stricken slum of an England. A place where there is crime on every street and death round every corner. The fogs are grey and the morals even greyer. It is, in short, not a very nice place to live.

The plot races through the book so fast it almost falls out of your hands. Pyke is commissioned by a loathsome aristocrat to investigate robberies at his brother’s bank. Things quickly escalate out of all control, with murder, politics, and religious tensions all churning together into a complicated and intriguing brew. The majority of the action takes place on the grim back streets of London, but we also get a look at Belfast and a fascinating account of life inside Newgate prison. I can’t attest to the accuracy of the history it presents, but it certainly seems very authentic to me.

Pyke battles his way through the proceedings by exploiting his loved ones and brutally killing every second person he comes across. He is the very definition of anti-hero. Normally I am not attracted to amoral protagonists, preferring my heroes to be a little cleaner cut, but for some reason I really took to Pyke, and will certainly attempt to follow him on any subsequent adventures.

In fact the only negative thing I can find to say about the book is that the author unfortunately felt the need to include the obligatory love interest. Why can’t we ever have a good old rip-roaring story without getting soppy girls involved? To be fair though it doesn’t get in the way too much, and the subject of the subplot is an interesting character in her own right.

You can find The Last Days of Newgate by Andrew Pepper on Amazon for £3.49. Bargain.

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Today I’ve been trying to make some headway into finding us somewhere to stay on our first night. What I really need is a accommodation booklet published by the Dales Way Society which is only available from tourist information centers in the Dales themselves. You can actually get it through mail order too, but the society only accept checks and the last time I actually owned a check book was in 1999. I’m all about the new millennium now baby. We may not have any jet cars or colonies on Mars, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste energy and ink writing on slips of paper in order to pay for stuff. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and I’m drawing it here.

So instead I drove one and a half hours to Grassington Tourist information Center.

And it’s closed.

Bugger.

Read the rest of the post over at the Dales Walk blog

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Yesterday it was announced that HM Revenue and Customs has lost two discs containing the names, addresses, bank details, dates of birth, and national insurance numbers of every family with a child under 16 years old.

That would include us then.

Apparently the discs containing the details of over 25 million people who receive child benefit were posted on the 18th of October to the National Audit Office and never arrived at the other end. They were sent via normal internal mail, without any form or recorded delivery or tracking placed on them.

Of course various people have resigned over the affair, and no doubt the responsible junior admin officer has been told to pack up their belongings and never darken the doors again. To be honest I feel sorry for them, I can quite easily imagine myself doing something equally incompetent. And anyway, if it’s anything like the internal mail at the NHS I imagine the discs will eventually turn up sometime in August of next year.

I’m not particularly upset over the issue. Even if some identity thieves do manage to get hold of the discs and empty our bank account any losses will be reimbursed. But it does highlight a very important point. As Liberal Democrat Vince Cable said:

After this disaster how can the public possibly have confidence in the vast centralised databases needed for the compulsory ID card scheme?

The answer is pretty simple. We can’t.

_{BBC News – UK’s families put on fraud alert}

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