Nick's Blog
Bouncing Baby Blog
31/10/2007 @ 13:36
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Woo hoo! I'm going to be a father! Yes, last week Wifey went in for a scan and there he/she/it was; in her belly, a little humanoid shaped blob swimming around in there. It was a happy little thing as well as it was bopping along and wiggling its miniscule arms and legs. Considering that both mum and dad are afflicted with idleness, I'm not sure who it's taken after.
We had a slight scare on Monday, just a slight one, and Wifey has spent 3 days at home, lying motionless on the couch and watching an endless diet of crime shows...so no change there. Actually, the doctor said for her to do that...I mean lying still as can be and getting total rest: Not necessarily watching endless hours of "Wycliffe" and "Midsomer Murders" (Wifey knows how to keep me away at times).
So, here it goes, a new phase of life which may see me losing all my friends, moving to a drab New Town in the commuter belt, talking about people carriers non-stop and being only vaguely aware of a concept called sleep. I will try to not fall into the trap so many others have by continuing to blog, write and cause mayhem...so long as I'm back to sterilise bottles and clean up that mystery brown stain on the kitchen table.
Blog Will Eat Itself
23/10/2007 @ 10:59
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This morning on the Today Programme there was news coverage of the fires in Southern California, the desperate plight of crack cocaine users, the tragedy of the deaths of some holiday makers in the Algarve and the warnings of Britain becoming overpopulated but none of this, nothing out there in the world today can get John Humphrys blood boiling like the subject of product packaging.
Humphrys, normally the cynical, hard nosed veteran journalist and champion of truth, was today reduced to uttering quasi-violent rantings against supermarkets and their insistence on packaging their goods in ever more awkward and environmentally unfriendly plastic wrapping. He started off calmly enough but soon he really lost it as his stream of consciousness thought processes led him to ponder the innate unfairness and evilness of the big supermarket chains.
"Why...WHY do supermarkets put their products in downright nasty and difficult packaging?" he said, clearly getting into his stride "I mean, it takes me half an hour...HALF AN HOUR...to open a pack of..." and for a moment he stumbled whilst trying to figure out what he was on about "...erm, for example, modern...erm...BATTERIES! Yes, a package of batteries! Takes me half an hour!"
He may have said batteries but deep down I knew that his hurt lay in something deeper: It could have been yoghurt, apples in shrink wrapped styrofoam trays or even little Babybell cheeses which, like a Russian doll, exist in a wax ball, contained in red lethal-to-dolphins fishnet bags which in turn is held together by a metal stud and an impossible to tear plastic leaflet telling you that your next purchase of cheese will cost you 15% less if you fill out the plastic label in some indelible ink. But Humphrys picked on batteries and once uncorked, the beast was unleashed.
"Why do the supermarkets do this? Don't they realise the public hate it? HATE IT, I tell you! No good packaging, frustrating the customer, destroying the planet, it's not right! GNARRRR! NOT RIGHT! MONGO KILL! MONGO DESTROY! AAARRRRGGGHHH!" I was really hoping at this point that Humphrys would start tearing apart the studio, frightening the rest of the Today Programme team and having Edward Stourton reaching for the rifle with tranquiliser darts. It would have been even better if the BBC had a red warning sign and announcement that said "WARNING, WARNING, HUMPHRYS IS LOOSE...REPEAT, HUMPHRYS IS LOOSE!"
In the end, he calmed down...probably because the person he was ranting at wasn't a supermarket PR man but another BBC reporter who could only respond with "I know, you're right, it is terrible, isn't it?"
It's good to know that BBC reporters have a sense of perspective and proportion. Forget Iran's nuclear plans, the real angst of our times must surely be overcomplicated parking ticket validations in shop car parks! All those people who get their tickets validated for the discount rates WHEN THEY DIDN'T EVEN PURCHASE ANYTHING FROM THE SHOP! ARRRGGHHH! MONGO KILL!
Everybody Needs Good Bloggers
15/10/2007 @ 15:31
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It produces a sickly, bilious stench in the nostrils, followed by a churning in the stomach as if you had just swallowed a live ferret whilst sitting in a operating cement mixer situated on a fishing trawler in the North Sea during an autumnal squall. The feelings of nausea, pain, disbelief, bowel rumblings and agony can only be attributed to one thing...
Characters in "Neighbours" who write their own wedding vows.
In the real world, couples choose from one of 3 standard sets of wedding vows, all nicely written, respectful, fully of duty and love and all the kinds of things that should be said at a wedding...and above all THEY ARE NOT EMBARRASSING TO SAY OUT LOUD.
In the world of "Neighbours", nobody ever says "To have and to hold, from this day forward" or "with this ring, I thee wed"...Oh no, that wouldn't reek of 3 week old Brie that has been sitting on a radiator enough. The writers have got to go further.
So we get gems like "Raylene, I don't know what I would have done without you...without your smile, your face, your nose that twitches when you hear one of my lame-o jokes...the way you have made my life complete, like a circle that has had a gap in its circumfrence for far too long, you have filled that gap and created a whole new circle of just us to inhabit in...Our love will reign true, like the day you came in to my life to light it like a beacon that will burn long after other beacons have been snuffed out...I pledge my entire being, my body, my everything I've ever known and experienced up to this point and then beyond that to some unknown beach that hasn't even been discovered yet...you are my soul, my id and my entire molecular structure...'till death do us part" (which it will, and usually within 3 weeks of the wedding). At that point, the minister's only line will come with "you may kiss the bride".
What is this turgid crap they do for EVERY Neighbours wedding? Why must we go through the worst and most pretentious naval gazing gush? And don't get me started when they start writing poems for their weddings!
I tell you, they deserved to lose the World Cup!
It Takes All Blogs
11/10/2007 @ 11:38
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Just a random thought; I was on a bus yesterday, stuck in traffic, and I noticed two women standing by a bus stop. One had the thickest ankles I have ever seen: The calves didn't taper into ankles, they just went straight down into the foot and bypassing the ankle joint altogether.
The woman next to her had the thinnest ankles I have ever seen. Her calves were like twiglets and I was amazed that she could stand without fear of her legs snapping in two whenever a microgramme of weight were placed on them.
So, in one go, I saw someone with the biggest ankles in the world and someone with the tiniest.
...and together, they fight crime....
Mid Life Blog
08/10/2007 @ 13:36
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I turned 40 this week. People asked me how I felt about that...to be frank, I don't feel any different than any other year over the last 20. Pop music suddenly didn't become too loud and annoying, I didn't rant about the lack of respect the young people have these days and I didn't suddenly find myself tutting and harumphing whilst reading a newspaper.
Mind you, I did get two awesome birthday presents: England beating Australia and France beating New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup.
Now I don't want to piss off any Australian and New Zealander readers by gloating too much but I have to say that seeing these two nations (and you can add South Africa as well) getting beaten has an extra delight to it. Like a fine brandy or a meal of saddle of pork, cooked in Jus Africane, with dauphinoise potatoes and a comfit of creamed parsnip all cooked by a 3 star Michelin chef and served with the finest Crozes Hermitage known to man...beating the Southern Hemisphere colonies in Rugby is to be savoured and remembered. Already I can hear some Antipodean wag saying "that's because you Poms don't win against us very often"...oh how witty.
Why? Why particularly savour a victory over them and not to France, who are Britain's traditional rivals or Wales, who bang on and on about the glory days of Gareth Edwards and JPR?
I think it comes down to an issue of respect. Since the first Rugby world cup, in 1987, England have played Australia and have beaten them 3 times to Australia's 1 victory over us in the 1991 WC final...and even then we came close to winning that one. But do we get the respect for that track record? No. Antipodeans still trot out that England are rubbish and losers. We've won the World Cup once, the same amount of times New Zealand and South Africa have won it. We were ranked the #1 Rugby nation for about 6 years as well. But to listen to the way Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans talk about us, you wouldn't know it.
I think what English Rugby fans want is acknowledgement that we are a front rank Rugby team, the equal of the 3 Southern Hemisphere nations and the respect that goes along with it. We don't want the trash talking before a match and the convienient amnesia of our achievements after we've beaten one of the sides.
So until that respect comes along, Englishmen will always break out the fine Napoleon Brandy whenever we beat the Antipodeans and order our hamburgers with extra relish.
If You Believe, They Put A Blog On The Moon
03/10/2007 @ 16:26
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Excuse me...I just got back from the gym and I can only use my chin muscles to type.
Some time ago, I pointed out some flaws in the "moon landings were faked" theory, as espoused by quite a few people. Recently, I used those early thoughts of mine with some Moon Hoax believers on You Tube but I was amazed at their responses. I can understand if people might think the landings were faked because they've seen the photos or film footage and spotted something that doesn't look right; but with that people are guilty of being ignorant about science at a very basic level.
A quick summary of some common held misconceptions about the Moon landing footage:
1. "The flag can be seen waving which couldn't happen in a vacuum"....Actually, the flag was on an aluminium pole and what you're seeing is the flag wobbling through the vibration of having to bang the thing into the ground.
2. "You can't see the stars in the sky"...Well, if you were to take a photo on Earth at night of the night sky you wouldn't see any stars either, especially if the foreground subject is well lit.
3. "Wouldn't they have died through radiation from solar flares and the Van Allen radiation belt?"...No. When the spacecraft went through the Van Allen belt, they received the dosage equivalent to a chest X-Ray.
OK, there are some questions and the scientific answers. The Apollo missions are incredibly well documented and I've read transcripts of the missions. Every last detail of spacecraft operation and procedure, every event, all that minute engineering detail...it's all there for Joe Public to see. So, if someone clings on to the belief that the landings were hoaxes, then you have to re-order your belief system in order to go against the overwhelming scientific data and the amount of detail of those missions.
Based on some questions about the photographs, born out of ignorance of photography and science, the Hoax believers have had to alter their entire world view just so things can fit together the way they like it.
For example, all that mission data is fake. All those procedures for flying the Command and Lunar Modules is fake. Volumes of data is fake...NASA created volume after volume of spaceflight procedure and got the Astronauts to learn it by heart and convinced most of the world and yet screwed up with banging in the flag and getting the lighting wrong on the set. Let me reiterate that...NASA was so clever in inventing the fake technology and the operating procedures for them to fake the trip to the Moon perfectly but proved to be a bunch of dumb asses when they screwed up over a flag and photos. The Hoax Believers see no contradiction in that.
When it was pointed out that the footage of the Astronauts must have been taken in a vacuum, because when one of them walks past the flag it doesn't move because there's no change in air pressure...or that when Dave Scott on Apollo 15 dropped a feather and a hammer to prove Galileo's theory that objects all fall at the same speed, then they claim the movie set was in a sealed building and all the air removed to simulate that. However, that same set had air in it at some point when they filmed the shots of the astronauts putting the flag up. Again, the Hoax Believers see no contradiction in a movie set that had air in it sometimes and was a vacuum at others...because NASA apparently couldn't be consistent with the set. The same NASA who had done a brilliant job in convincing the world the Lunar Module could work.
And as for the charge that the KGB would have found out if the landings were faked and if they did, then they would have told the world...well the Hoaxers say that America threatened a nuclear war if they blabbed....the same, despicably evil America that would stoop to faking a Moon landing. They would have wiped out most of the world to preserve the lie...apparently.
I've found that you can't argue with true stupidity or delusion. Pointing out a flaw doesn't get the Hoax Believer to change their mind...it just gets them to add more unsupported fantasy to their belief. Over time, this questioning of photos has mushroomed into a conspiracy where the Evil American Empire run by the Illuminati has faked the Moon landings just so they can keep JFK's promise and beat the Russians and when the Russians find out, they are threatened with a nuclear war and a grain embargo that never actually existed. And the reason no leading scientist anywhere in the world hasn't backed up the Hoax Believers is that they've all been got at by the US government and those who seemed like they were going to tell the world were killed...like Carl Sagan and Wehrner Von Braun. This is a big insult to the families of those men and those others who have died since the Apollo missions. But that doesn't matter, the delusion must be maintained and added to until it becomes an entire belief system.
I maintain that anyone who truly believes the Moon landings were faked has a mental health problem. Fortunately, we have all these freaks under control on the Internet or else watching Discovery Plus.
