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Friday 29th November

07:00

Baby's got a new thrill

Yes, I really did update my site at 6.30am yesterday morning. Mainly because I woke up thinking it was 6.20 and it was actually only 5.20 and by the time I realised, I was already awake and moving so I decided to do something useful with my time, rather than watching breakfast television or going to work. Up early again today (three days in a row - there must be something wrong with me) so it's another early morning update leaving my evening free for drinking beer and watching Robot Wars...

Tempted by the thought of £10 off I bought a l'espion digital camera. Well at only £29.99, it was rude not to. It's tiny - about the size of a matchbox. I had a bit of a play with it last night and it seemed OK for the price - not brilliant, but reasonable. I think that with a bit of practice I'll be able to produce pictures good enough for use on the website, and that is why I bought it after all. And I can use it as a webcam should I feel so inclined although, again, the picture quality is a bit grainy. Mind you, with most digital cameras starting at about £100 and going upwards, I think £30 for something that'll let me get some images on the web is a reasonable price. Of course, someone will now tell me I should have spent an extra £20 or so and bought it's big brother instead. Anyway, I'll see how I get on this weekend and give you the full SP on Sunday (or possibly Monday).

Thursday 28th November

06:30

An unorthodox approach to managing the headcount

I try to avoid talking about work on here, mainly because my job is not very exciting and if I don't find it interesting, why should anyone else? However, I have to share this with you, which was circulated at work recently:

"To ensure an end to the misuse of Company credit cards, effective immediately, any employee who uses Company credit cards for personal use will be disciplined or terminated."

Well, I like a bit of discipline as much as the next man ("Beat me momma, eight to the bar") but termination? That seems a little extreme. And how do they terminate you? Does Arnie show up or the T-1000? Or do they have their own in-house hitman? I suppose they must have, as there's a freeze on hiring contractors at the moment. (Ho! Ho!) Anyway, I guess that's one way of reducing the headcount without having to pay redundancies, especially as it only affects senior management, who could claim enormous redundancy pay-offs. Of course, for junior staff, I expect they'll just randomly cull us if the next set of quarterly figures aren't up to scratch.

Tuesday 26th November

22:10

And £6.66 shall be the grocery bill of the Beast

I called into the Spar on my way home to pick up a few things and 2 pints of milk, two bags of Walkers Max crisps, a tin of Heinz Beans and Sausages, a packet of Bernard Matthews' Turkey Ham, a box of 12 Weetabix, a can of Red Bear energy drink, an apple and oat slice and a Twix came to the Satanic total of £6.66p. Mwahahahahahahaha!!!! You see, there is a reason why the website is in these colours....

Unfortunately, David McRae died of rabies (or more accurately European Bat Lyssavirus) late on Sunday evening, which rather finished off a morbid weekend for me. My good wishes didn't do him any good obviously. Kind of reminds me of the time my Gran died, on the morning I was due to visit her in hospital. So, clearly, if you get a "Get Well Soon" message from me, it's time to make sure your affairs are in order and your will is up to date.

Sunday 24th November

15:00

Probably still subject to The Official Secrets Acts

Sadly, it has been confirmed that David McRae has contracted rabies, albeit a rare strain. Obviously, my deepest sympathies go to Mr McRae, and I hope he is able to make a full recovery. But this has reminded me of what I was going to write about a couple of days ago - my life with the Thrill Kill Kult, er, no, my brief time as a civil servant with the Ministry of Agriculture.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), as they were known, gave me my first proper job for about nine years. I was working for the Animal Health section, in the "Disease Control" branch, which was basically responsible for issuing quarantine licences for anyone importing certain animals into the country, liaising with quarantine establishments, and dealing with Minister's correspondence on the thorny subject of quarantine and rabies. Occasionally we'd have some excitement - like someone being caught smuggling their pet into the UK, or a zoo wanting to bring in some leopards, or an anti-quarantine protest outside the front gate - but by and large it was a case of taking information and processing it to produce the quarantine licences (which are issued free of charge, by the way - the only people making money from this are the quarantine establishments). Anyway, there is a point to this and I'm coming to it. The whole purpose of our department was to issue licences under the terms of the Rabies (Importation of Cats and Dogs) Act 1974 to try to ensure that no rabid animals were imported into the country. So, anything that might be considered a vector of the disease had to have a licence and be quarantined for six months. (This restriction has since been relaxed under certain conditions.) Unfortunately, you can't quarantine wild bats or stop them entering the country. Therefore, you have to take additional precautions. These include ensuring that people who come into contact with bats regularly are vaccinated against rabies, and where people are bitten or scratched ensuring that they get effective treatment immediately. This combination of measures has helped ensure that there has not been a proven case of infection originating in the UK since 1902. And for all the rights and wrongs of the law, that's something that I'm proud of having played a small part in.

Now for something I'm not so proud of - I killed a toad yesterday. Partly by accident and partly by design. Let me explain. I was doing some work in the garden and the unfortunate creature was hiding under a piece of board. I trod on the board without even considering the possibility there might be something under it and crushed the toad. Burst it, I think would be a more accurate description, actually. When I lifted the board some minutes later and found the poor thing, it was actually still alive although obviously dying. I'm afraid I hastened it's death by whacking it on the head with a spade. I feel so guilty, especially as I try to avoid killing spiders and insects as much as possible. I buried it in a shallow grave, but I suspect some neighbourhood cat will be digging it up again soon and taking it home. Which'll be a treat for the cat's owner....

Finally, is it just me, or should Celebrity Big Brother be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act? Come on now - Les Dennis, Melinda Messenger, Goldie, Mark Owen formerly of Take That, Sue from Mel & Sue, and Anne Diamond. Where are the celebrities in that list? Mark Owen's done nowt since Take That split, Sue's currently advertising bread, Melinda's latest job is as lingerie model for BHS, and Goldie hasn't been the same since leaving Blue Peter. What? That's former drum-and-bass star Goldie, not Simon Groom's labrador? Whatta mistake-a to make-a! Still, I know which one I'd rather see having a crap on the lawn....

Friday 22nd November

23:15

Mork calling Orson

So much for the return to regular updates, although I offer the following pitiful explanations in mitigation. On Wednesday night I ended up out at the pub for a couple of hours post-work last night, saying farewell to Alison, who's deserted the company's leafy glades for greener pastures elsewhere. So, by the time I got home I wasn't up to updating the site, being more concerned with getting a bite to eat and retiring to bed.

Last night, as forecast, I called into bleepfest on my way home. I was unable to persuade Chris or Jack to join me, unsurprisingly, so had to face the "music" alone. First up, I have to apologise to Matt Rogalsky - not only did my phone go off during his performance, but right at the end of it my text alert sounded. I did try to make it out of the venue before the ringtone went (it was on vibrate + tone), and I'm not sure how many people noticed the text alert, but I still felt a bit awkward about the whole thing. Anyway, I unfortunately missed The Arbury Hum but there was no evidence to support Jack's theory that it was a man with a bucket of sewage and a large fan, recreating the smell of the sewage farm which drifts across that side of town. Then Matt Rogalsky was up with his soundscape/field recording piece. I missed the name of the next artist (I think it was Gamut) but he was quite interesting and at least did have some form of music towards the end of his piece with some distorted saxophone samples. Nemeton finished off the first half of the evening with another ambient soundscape. Think of the sound effects from Quatermass and you're probably just about there. The second half kicked off with Cos (again, see below) and Smash with Cos attacking his guitar again, only this time with a piano accompaniment. Give him his due, Smash can play the piano alright, and I found this more interesting. They were followed by Robyn the Kiwi poet. This was a complete contrast to every other act of the night. My only quibble would be that she could probably slow her delivery down a little and give the poems a chance to stand on their own two feet. There's no need for the slow deliberate declamation in a John Hegley-stylee, but if you've got something you've got to be confident enough to let it grab the audience. PDA was up next. She was using a handheld device to manipulate the sound sources. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at this from one of the palmtop orchestra. Last up were Darkroom who were second most musical act of the night. More ambient noise and some interesting use of the guitar, in a more traditional way. Overall, the night was interesting, intriguing and, in many ways, inspiring, but I can't say that it was thrill-packed, which is the kind of buzz I look for these days. Perhaps I'm just taking the wrong drugs...

I did promise to write a bit about my time with the Ministry of Agriculture and I still intend too, but you're just going to have to wait a bit longer for that. Hey, you've got a review of bleepfest, what more do you want? Blood?

Tuesday 19th November

23:00

Release the bats

First up, congratulations to me old mucker, Kev, and his wife Kath whose second child, a boy, named Sam, was born at midnight on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Mother and child both doing well and I was surprised to find when I rang on Sunday that they are both back at home already. I am chuffed for the pair of them, although I could have done without Kev's text message at 3 a.m. I guess I should have remembered to switch my phone off when I went to bed.

I was interested to hear that a man in Dundee is being treated for a suspected case of rabies. The man is known to work with bats and is thought to have been bitten by one. Should he prove to have rabies this will be the first instance of human infection from an animal in the UK for a hundred years. Which is quite remarkable. There have been 20 recorded cases of humans infected with rabies in the UK since 1946, but all have been shown to have originated from outside the country. Having worked, albeit briefly (and I'm sure some of my ex-colleagues don't think I actually did any work), in the Quarantine section of the Animal Health branch of DEFRA (or MAFF as it was then) I still take an interest in this sort of thing. I remember that whilst I was there, there was a couple of panics about suspected cases of rabies and there was certainly a lot of pressure on to maintain Britain's "rabies-free" status, if possible. Not only did being rabies-free help enforce the quarantine laws, but won valuable concessions from other countries for the export of animals from the UK. (Actually, the quarantine regulations from the Ministry's point of view is quite an interesting subject and I'll try to expand on this tomorrow). Anyway, the good news for everyone is that actually catching rabies is quite rare, there have been no recorded cases of human-to-human infection (except in corneal transplants, strangely), and with prompt medical attention it can be treated. Although, as treatment consists of a series of painful injections in the stomach, it's probably best not to catch it at all. Don't have nightmares.

Sunday 17th November

18:00

Manchester, so much to answer for

Can't help feeling that there's a certain irony in the fact that Myra Hindley, who challenged the right of the authorities to keep her in jail for life, has died in prison, whereas her partner-in-crime, Ian Brady, is being force-fed in order to prevent him from dying. It's also been interesting to see the deep fascination that the Moors Murders exert on the public and media almost 40 years on. Apart from the usual outpourings from the tabloids there has also been some detailed analysis from the heavyweight papers. What was most surprising though was to hear on Radio Five Live that The Manchester Evening News plan a 28-page pullout for tomorrow's edition. I'd have thought that was a bit insensitive myself. Anyway, for what it's worth, there's a lot of material about the Moors Murders out there, and I daresay there'll be a few rushing out updated material to cash in, but the best book I've read about the murders is Beyond Belief by Emlyn Williams. (Williams also wrote numerous plays, including Night Must Fall and The Corn Is Green). I'm not the only one who appreciates this book, as Morrissey lifted a lot of things from it for 'Suffer Little Children' on The Smiths' first album. Not that you might necessarily regard that as a recommendation, of course....

On a less gory subject - following Wednesday night's electronica-based excursion, I was pleased to find that I had actually kept one or two of the flyers that I picked up whilst there, including the one for bleepfest on Thursday night. Well, it's on my way home and it's "free", so I think I'll probably be popping in. Might even try to drag Chris and Jack along with me. A word of warning to you though, if you choose to follow the links on that site, as I did this morning, once you get onto the the LEAPS site, you get stuck in their frameset, even when moving to external sites. I have e-mailed them to suggest that they use target=_"top" with their links to avoid annoying other visitors in the same way, but I don't suppose they'll have implemented that yet. Well, who has time to spend all day updating their site? Apart from me.

Saturday 16th November

20:40

Back from the intergalactic trip

Right, that's enough of neglecting this site for now. I'm determined to get back into the routine of regular updates, rather than the sporadic efforts of the last couple of weeks. True I haven't had that much to say recently, and I was out of the country for five days, which made updating the site impossible, but I really ought to be taking more care of this.

So what news do I bring? Well, on Wednesday night, rather than the early night I was hoping to have, being still somewhat tired from the Ireland jaunt, Chris persuaded me to take in an evening of experimental electronica with him at The Portland Arms. Very interesting it was too. The first act up (or at least the first that we saw) was Cos (who has another career in The Rude Mechanicals) and a friend and they were the best. They were a duo, dressed in hospital masks. They had a guitar on an autopsy table, that Cos proceeded to "play" with various bits of electonic equipment, including an E-Bow and what appeared to be a vibrator. And the other guy had a laptop and a Theremin. The noise would best be described as "electronic soundscapes" and there's probably a future for them doing soundtracks for low-budget British sci-fi movies. The second guy up, Cursor Minor, just had his laptop and a slideshow and we didn't even realise he was one of the acts - we just thought he was filling in between bands. Anyway, by this time, Chris and I and had had a few too many and ended up cheering every time the slides changed. Which got us a few dark looks from the rest of the audience who were just sat around stroking their chins in a pseudo-intellectual stylee. The evening was rounded off by Um who was just one bloke with backing tracks. He started off sounding like early Cabaret Voltaire/The The/Fad Gadget but didn't manage to sustain that promise. In fact he seemed to turn into the electro-pop version of the Barron Knights... Chris and I made our escape to the bar before he finished, probably much to the relief of the rest of the audience.

Thursday I took the afternoon off as I was feeling a bit knackered by the exertions of the previous evening. A bit? That was an understatement - I spent most of the afternoon dozing on the sofa in front of the telly. I tried to catch up with all the stuff that I'd video-ed whilst I was away, but apart from falling asleep halfway through each programme, I also found that some comedy-style interference had rendered everything I video-ed on Monday in a lovely black-and-white snow effect. Which made watching them a bit of an ordeal.

Thoroughly refreshed by my dozy day I found that I was surprisingly productive at work on Friday. Well, it could just have been the fact that I slept well, or it could have been the extra caffeine that I had. I don't usually drink tea or coffee at work, but with the aid of three cups of coffee I found that I didn't suffer so much from mid-afternoon tiredness. I think I might have to make this part of my regular routine...

Today I was hugely cheered to hear that Crewe had won away at Port Vale for the third time this season. Having beaten them in the Worthington Cup and then in the league, I feared that it might be third time lucky for the clayheads but a Dean Ashton goal five minutes from time ensured that it was the mighty Railwaymen who went through to the next round of the FA Cup. Hopefully, they can do as well this season as they did last, although I'd trade a good cup run for promotion at the end of the season. Come on you Alex!!!

Tuesday 12th November

22:30

All is revealed....

The reason there hasn't been an update since last Wednesday (see the Archive section if you missed it) is because I've been over the sea to Ireland to see my mate John marry his girlfriend Sue. And here is my tedious blog-cum-diary of the events, which is exceedingly long and the reason why there's nothing else on this page....

Thursday I set off very early in the morning to catch an early flight from Stansted to Derry. I was only half-awake, so the absurdity of having to fill out a form for the police before boarding the flight kind of passed me by. Because, of course, that'll really stop the determined terrorist - "Well I was going to blow up the plane, boss, but they made me fill a form in before I got on...." Arriving in Derry I was greeted by some atrocious weather - showers interspersed with heavy showers. This wasn't good news as I didn't have a waterproof coat and I later found out that my one pair of shoes weren't waterproof either. Arse. Anyway, rather than hang around in Derry waiting two hours for a bus I managed to negotiate the price of a taxi to Donegal down from £50 to €40, which was a bit of a result. I took advantage of checking in at the hotel early to get a couple of hours kip and then having a wander round Donegal (and a spot of lunch) before the other guests arrived. Once everyone had arrived and some of the essential business of the day had been concluded we all settled down in the bar for a few beers. There was me, John, Jon (the best man) and Jon P (an usher and fellow Crewe fan) all settled round a table. John ordered us some food and then decided he wanted some tomato ketchup to go with it. So I got up and asked the barman for "some sauces". What we got was some saucers. Cue general hilarity. It could only happen to me. A few more beers and eventually it was time for bed. I was sharing a room with Jon P, and unfortunately John hadn't warned him that I snore incredibly loudly. He didn't sleep too well. And had another two nights of it to look forward to. Sorry Jon.

Friday started with a "traditional Irish breakfast", which as far as I could see was the same as an English breakfast, but with white pudding replacing the baked beans. With a liberal supply of toast, it was enough to set me up for the day to come. Post-breakfast, I had a wander round the town, again, in the pouring rain with my sister, Crow, and her family. Back to the hotel and the afternoon was spent in the bar, enjoying civilised conversation and the antic's of Jon's two-year old son, Lewis, who's main activity was throwing beer mats in the air and shouting "Bounced Away!" Well, it was more entertaining than it sounds, believe me. I had dinner with Crow and family that evening and it was very pleasant, and served to confirm the fact that the Irish are very generous in their portion sizes. I was stuffed by the time I finished. I barely had room to cram a few more pints in afterwards....

Saturday was the day of the wedding. Jon (the best man, remember) had asked me to help out his wife Magda, who not only had Lewis to cope with but is also seven-and-a-half months pregnant. So I had something to distract me from the coming nuptials. In the end I didn't have to do much really, but I was glad to be of assistance. The actual ceremony was held in Castlederg which is Sue's home town, so we had a bit of a convoy travelling up there. The ceremony was nicely traditional, the bride looked stunning and I was enormously proud of my niece, Lilith, who was bridesmaid and looked very pretty. There was some distraction from the talkative kids behind us (despite the vicar asking specifically for noisy kids to be taken outside...) but it didn't spoil the occasion. And it stopped raining for a while. After the ceremony it was off to Harvey's Point on the shore of Lough Eske for the wedding breakfast and reception. Fantastic - more food and booze than you could shake a stick at. I don't know if it's different seeing a friend get married rather than a relative, but John made the first wedding spech that's ever made me feel emotional. Perhaps it was because it all came from his heart. Anyway, it was marvellous, and a few of us were "wiping the sweat from our eyes" (men don't cry). I also had some very good company on my table. Now I'm not usually very good at socialising, but we all got on really well, helped, I think, by finding that Ian and I were both Internet-ordained ministers. Later, when the dancing started, however, it was easy to spot the difference between John's friends and Sue's friends - Sue's friends were all on the dancefloor and John's friends (including me) were all stood around clutching pints and chatting. Anyway, it was great craic, as they say, and it was kind of sad when it ended.

Sunday was a bit of a let-down. Most of the other guests had transferred to Harvey's Point the previous day, and after dropping in to Sue's parent's were on their ways home. I said goodbye to the few people who were still at my hotel. Being without transport, I was a bit stuck. However, the weather was dry and sunny so I went along the Bank Walk along the coast from Donegal and spent a couple of hours just sitting watching the tide, the birds and the beautiful scenery. Another quick wander round the town centre and a bite to eat and then I retired to my hotel room for the afternoon with the Sunday papers. In the evening I had a couple beers and something to eat in the bar. And then retired intending to watch Sleepy Hollow. However the reception on the telly was pretty poor so I ended up watch The Bone Collector on local TV instead, which was rather tedious, to be honest.

Monday morning I had another large breakfast to set me up for the tedium of the travel back home. I had to check out by 12pm, which I managed, just. But then I had 7.5 hours to kill before I had to be anywhere near Derry Airport. I picked up some souvenirs in Donegal and then boarded the coach up to Derry. I got to Derry, got myself something to eat and parked myself in a pub for a couple of hours. I got a cab to the airport and arrived at just after 5pm. I still had another 2.5 hours to kill till check-in time, so I got a couple of beers and settled down to finish off Little Boy Blue by Edward Bunker. I managed this quite comfortably and started on Dog Eat Dog by the same author. The flight back to London was consideraby fuller than the flight out which was annoying as I had a couple sat next to me and couldn't stretch out. With the help of a tailwind we arrived back at Stansted early, only to be held up by air traffic control. And then there was a a wait as we had to file through the police check (more form-filling). I got back just late enough to miss the last train home, but fortunately there was still a coach to Cambridge and I hopped on that. At six quid, it was actually cheaper than the train, although not quite as fast. I finally made it back to my house at about 12.50 a.m., almost exactly 12 hours after I left Donegal.

Today I have mostly been doing my washing, catching up on my sleep and getting ready to go back to work tomorrow. And playing my guitar, which is probably the thing I missed the most. Apart from my vast collection of CracK Whore porn, obviously.

Wednesday 6th November

23:30

A time of sporadic updates

Having had a few nights out and a bit of time off, I seem to have gotten out of the habit of updating this site regularly. And I won't be updating again till next Tuesday, for one reason or another. Ah well I'm sure y'all can cope.

I went out last night to see the firework display on Midsummer Common, along with hundreds of other people. It was all very pretty and Lisa and Chris took loads of photos, but it was also surprisingly brief. The whole display lasted less than half an hour. Perhaps the council have trimmed the budget a bit this year. It seemed a bit much to me to have people standing out with buckets collecting money for the display. I certainly wasn't inclined to part with my cash for that.

Post-fireworks we all went to The Hotpot and there were no surprises as Micky went for the crispy duck to start and Lisa had the hot and sour soup. I surprised everyone by going for the shredded chilli beef rather than the usual sweet and sour chicken, but everyone scored when they guessed that I'd be on the beer and not the wine. It was the usual mayhem when there's a crowd of us in one place, with crazy conversations veering off at tangents and plenty of innuendo, and of course the volume steadily increasing. Until the bill arrived, when it went strangely quiet. At least Chris didn't tell anyone to feck off this time. A very pleasant night out indeed.

Right, I've got to go and do a million things for tomorrow. Next update Tuesday. Hope you can wait that long...

Sunday 3rd November

22:45

Quelle Surprise

BBC2 are currently showing True Spies, a three-part documentary on how the UK Secret Services have been spying on their own citizens, in particular during the 1970's and 1980's. Hold the front page - "MI5 in Monitoring Political Activists Shocker!" Anyone who played any part in politics during those times can't fail to have been aware that their activities were under close scrutiny from the authorities. Even in sleepy Cheshire we had the CND'ers breaking into the Government bunker at Hack Green (now, I kid you not, a tourist attraction, complete with signs directing you to the "Secret Bunker" - I must take my camera next time I go back there) and the Hunt Saboteurs, both of whom "enjoyed" the close attentions of the police and other agencies. Anyway, what surprised me about the programme was not the fact that this stuff was going on, but the fact that I already knew it. I haven't seen anything in the two programmes thus far that I wasn't already aware of. True we'd not heard the agents' own stories before but they weren't really adding anything new. Is there anyone who didn't know any of this, or did I miss my chance to make a TV series because I assumed everyone else knew as much as I did?

17:15

Here comes the science bit

Well, I bet you're all agog to find out what I've been up to since Tuesday, aren't you? Wonder no longer as I recount the thrills of my life. I stayed in on Wednesday, but couldn't be bothered to update my site - I didn't really have anything to say. Thursday, it was off round to Sharron's for a Halloween party with a few workmates. It was good fun, the food was nice and there was plenty of drink and cake to be had. Friday, two of my colleagues left the department, so we had to have a couple of drinks (and loads of cake) to celebrate. Sarah's gone to a job closer to her home in the wilds of Rutland and Caroline's gone back to Canada. Was it something that I said? Good luck to the pair of you, anyway.

Yesterday was my birthday and to celebrate I went out with a few friends for a couple of beers and a pizza before heading off to see 28 Days Later (more of which in a minute). Chris bought me a fantastic Rough Trade compilation double CD which has some great "whinging guitar bands" on it. Jack and Heather bought me a Spiderman figure, which makes me want to go and see the Spiderman movie again (currently my favourite film). Cheers guys, much appreciated.

And now - the Barry Norman bit. 28 Days Later is a good film. In fact it's a very good film. However, it's not the scariest film you'll ever see, which was the sort of thrill I was expecting. It has it's moments but I didn't get a feeling of sustained terror. Perhaps I'm just getting hard to please in my old age. There is some genuine gore and these plague-ridden "zombies" don't amble along like the classic zombies do, but show a turn of speed. Which is quite worrying. The other wryly amusing touch was the use of "Cambridge Primate Research Centre" in the opening scene. It certainly caused some amusement amongst the audience. Anyway, of the three "monkey-borne killer virus" films that I've seen I'd rank this as better than Outbreak but not as good as Braindead.