The Family That Plays Together...

Trivial Pursuit used to feature categories like science, art and literature, and history. It used to be a fine, well-respected boardgame, with fancy little pictures on the squares with frequently unclear meanings.

The DVD edition of Trivial Pursuit features as its categories film, TV, music, sports and games, trends and gossip. It was sold to us without counters, without pieces of pie (or scoring wedges, or whatever the hell you know them as), and without a die. And apparently, the people who put together the DVD did not notice that they had put the flag of the USA in it backwards.

I really didn't know how to dress this post up to make it more ridiculous or more entertaining, so I didn't try. I really don't know what's happened to Trivial Pursuit. They don't even have brown as the colour of one of the categories anymore. Brown is no longer cool enough for Trivial Pursuit. Damn it, you do not have to make Trivial Pursuit cool. Trivial Pursuit will never, never be cool. We love it just the same.

Er, not that I take it too seriously.

Merry Christmas, Everybody

That's really all.

I Sacrifice Goats To Mr Monopoly

A quick count after our game of Scrabble found eleven words classified as "naughty" (such as burn, cruel and whore) and eleven words classified as nice (such as gift, gran and, er, nice).

I declare this a victory for natural balance. Any more boardgame incidents of such natural grace and I may have to start believing in Karma.

The World Is Lovely

It's all change here. Inspired by Just Letters, the name has changed. This is in celebration of two things: firstly, my great triumph in finally spelling out "The World Is Lovely" in spite of the people who kept stealing my letters (see left), and secondly, the loveliness of the world.

We Have Scented Candles

They are scented like wax.

The Coffee Irregularity

When it's five to one and you need to be somewhere at half-past, a cup of coffee can easily take a comortable half an hour to drink.

When it's quarter to five and you're waiting to meet someone at five, a cup of coffee can be sunk in about seven minutes.

Coffee, I can only assume, does this on purpose. The question is: how?

A Caring Umbrella Of Tolerance

Thinking about it, I do, in actual fact, like a smart arse. I can say, quite safely, that there is at least one smart arse who I like on an individual basis and also that, generally speaking, I quite like it when people behave in a smart-arsed fashion. So remember, next time you say that nobody likes a smart arse, that you are, in fact, wrong.

But don't tell the person you're talking to, because you'll just look stupid.

NaNoWriMo: It's Only Words

Fifty thousand, two hundred and sixty of them, to be precise. I am a winner. This means I have won.

And I am knackered.

NaNoWriMo: Beating The Pain Barrier

I was getting worried. Not very worried, you understand, just a little. I seemed to be slowing down, my time was filling up, I was feeling crap, I just didn't have anything to suggest I could reach fifty thousand words other than my raw determination.

Today, I squeezed over three and a half thousand words out of that determination.

That leaves me with only 7616 words to go. That's only about 1270 per day. Even discounting Saturday, when I'll be at Bradley all day, that's only 1523 per day. That's over one full day ahead of schedule. And there's really no reason I can't do this again tomorrow (though I probably won't, that said). It's looking good. Better than good. My determination has something to feed off now.

Hear me roar.

The Best Part Is Always The Certificate

I'll be honest, eager though I was to take part in the Young Leaders' training course (it's a Scouting thing, for those of you out of that particular loop), and as much faith as I had in the people who were running it (even if Trev does support Sunderland), I didn't really expect to enjoy it all that much. I was really in it for, well, the training. But thanks to the structure and content, and to the afforementioned people running it, and most certainly to the rest of the damn silly lot on the course, I had a thoroughly good time. I won't go into it because for me to do so would probably bore various items of clothing off you and that could be embarrassing, particularly if you're reading this at a public terminal somewhere, but I feel that if I will insist on having a pretty much totally self-based corner of the Internet to blabber into it the least I can do is to acknowledge the aceness of people and things that make my world a more enjoyable, and a much more envelopey place.

NaNoWriMo: Whoa-oh, Living On A Prayer

This time I really am halfway.

Woo!

NaNoWriMo: Whoa-oh, We're Halfway There

Today, I passed the halfway mark of fifteen thousand words.

Now, I appreciate that, mathematically speaking, fifteen thousand is not half of fifty thousand. That much cannot be easily denied. But I have found that there is great comfort to be taken in referring to fifteen thousand as halfway, and there is nothing that can be done to prevent me from continuing to do so.

So there.

NaNoWriMo: My Own Worst Enemy

Today's writing was rather hindered by a migraine that put me out of action for most of the afternoon. Still, after throwing up several times and spending a silly amount of time in bed, I was back on my feet and back on my keyboard and have kept my average daily wordcount over two thousand, well on track to finish. Mark one, migraines nil.

Well, the NaNoWriMo front page tells me that, provided everyone has bothered to update their wordcount and, more to the point, telling the truth, twenty-four million, eight-hundred and thirty-eight thousand, three-hundred and forty-two words have so far been written as part of National Novel Writing Month, solely for their own sake.

That's totally bloody crazy.

NaNoWriMo: Day One

Well, one day and two thousand one hundred and seventy-three words into Moules Frites, I have to say it's going rather better than I expected. Hacking out my quota for the day hasn't eaten up as much of my time as I expected, and I've solved my initial problem of getting stuck and bored with what I was writing by sticking two fingers up to both chronological ordering and writing sections in the order they'll appear. Now I just write the bit I want to write and put it where I think it goes best, and my wordcount is much healthier for it - I took about two and a half hours to reach one thousand and about one extra to reach where I am now.

It's been fun so far...

How To Lose Your Mind In Thirty Days

National Novel Writing Month, like eating raw garlic, jumping in really cold swimming pools and fitting as many people as possible in a Mini, is one of those ideas so monumentally silly that it really has to be done for its own sake, and I thank the good people at Blogger for clueing me in to its existence. The theory is simple: in November, anyone bloody crazy enough to think it's a good idea tries to write a novel of at least fifty thousand words. If they succeed, or if they are pathetic enough to cheat (which certainly isn't an achievement in itself - it's pretty much honour-based), they are declared winners and are promptly shipped a generous supply of bragging rights.

Now, "just for the sake of it" may not seem like the best reason to churn out a novel in thirty days, but when weighed against the reasons not to (a list running to approximately zero entries) the sensible course of action is pretty clear. I'm going for it. You should too. The worst that can happen is nothing.

If you want to follow my progress in this undertaking, there's a handy meter on the sidebar that, provided I actually write something and remember to update the bloody thing, will slide slowly towards 100% during November. Whether it will get there remains to be seen.

Objects In The Rear-View Mirror May Appear Better Designed Than They Are

The concept behind the Monitor Rear-View Mirror is a very simple one. It is a small, convex mirror on a hemisphere with a chunk taken out of it so the corner of your monitor can fit in, and comes with two adhesive-backed Velcro pads so that it can be attached and detached from your monitor with all the ease of doing up a three year old's trainers. Now, it's not the most singularly useful product, but when it's sitting up there, it gets the job done. You get a pleasantly wide view of whatever room you happen to be in, and all is right with the world. But there's one small design flaw, and it's one that seems so contrived as to make me think it might just be intentional. Velcro, let's face it, is often pretty poor at holding stuff together under any kind of force. But this product's velcro is of a really quite astoundingly high quality. It's certainly far stronger than it needs to be to hold the slight weight of the mirror to your screen. In fact, it's far stronger than the adhesive on the back of the pads as well, which really makes the whole velcro system seem a little pointless. I can only assume that Team Velcro and Team Glue were engaged in a fierce rivalry and lost sight of the overall goal of the product in their selfish drive to outdo the opposition's feeble attempts at attaching junk to other junk. And that's a sad thing indeed.

Order Now And Choose A Second Venereal Disease Absolutely FREE!

I can about see how spammers might be able to hack out a modest living with e-mails advertising "penis growth", but I really can't follow what sort of custom they hope to attract by offering "a penis growth". Answers on a postcard.

In fact, no. No answers on postcards. Or on anything else. I'll live in ignorance on this one.

July's Countdown Conundrum

Not so long ago, I stumbled across a mysterious little website that featured nothing but a second-by-second countdown to some mysterious future. Now, I'm pretty sure that the countdown shouldn't have reacheed zero yet, but the site has changed. It now sports the title "password", some quite nice jewellery, and plenty of French.

And there I was thinking it would become less perplexing.

You Know What They Say About Men With Big Feet

Clowns are not scary. You should not be afraid of them. They are people in silly outfits with silly painted faces who do silly things, just like characters in period dramas, or pop stars. If you're afraid of clowns, it's an irrational fear. If you're not afraid of clowns but say you are (and as stupid as that looks written down, I'm pretty confident there are people who do this) then you are, quite simply, a bit of a wanker. Now will everybody please lay off this whole "clowns are scary" business?

He's Got His Father's Gaping, Bloody Head Wound

Yesterday, during a heated three-hour Cambridge Wow marathon, nature called. Luckily, that's a level of challenge I'm about up to coping with, and I pulled off the whole operation with militiary precision. However, when it came to actually leaving the room, I hit a small snag. You see, it seems that to go through a door you first have to open it, and while this is usually a reasonably simple task it's always best to check that the lump of wood you just pulled on actually moved before you step forwards. Otherwise, you get a door in the face.

I got a door in the face, and a small cut above my eyebrow to prove it. But the scary part came today, when I got home and mentioned the incident to my dad. It seems that he sustained a remarkably similar injury in remarkably similar circumstances, very possibly with a remarkably similar door. If there's one thing I never expected to discover about myself, it's that I have a genetic predisposition to walking into doors.

Procrastination Never Felt So Worthwhile

Eighty minutes ago, I sat down to do a quick, half-hour English Language assignment which I may yet complete. I can't remember exactly what minor pondering it was that I decided was worth a quick browse of Wikipedia to solve, but I ended up reading about 4'33'', Finnegans Wake and Pig Latin. I'm so glad you can't have hyperlinks is ordinary reference books. I'd never get anything done.

Today's Countdown Conundrum (Really, This Time)

Lambswool?

Lambswool?

That's just ridiculous.

Why Everyone Should Buy A Question Of Scruples

"On a train, you are saving the seat next to you in the hope that the attractive person you see queueing will ask for it. An old lady asks for it first. Do you tell her the seat is taken?"

"It depends... Is she wearing kinky boots?"

Just For The Sake Of An Update, Really

Since last updating this blog, I have:

- Been to Kent
- Learned two new card games
- Attended the funeral of an entirely fictional person
- Worn a dress
- Been thrown out of a bar for singing too many campfire songs
- Shat myself after a friend collapsed with chest pains
- Inadvertently covered a brand new necker in human faeces
- Hit my (broken) mobile phone with an inflatable mallet into a Dutchman
- Eaten three cloves of raw garlic
- Rubbed one clove of raw garlic into my feet
- Rubbed one clove of raw garlic into someone else's foot
- Concocted three brand new pasta dishes (with the help of the other member of Team Pasta)
- Learned the words to several Meatloaf songs
- Set my (broken) mobile phone in concrete under an upturned jam jar
- Burned my leg on a Defender handbrake
- Got my GCSE results
- Got a new mobile phone

And that's off the top of my head. My excuse is that I've been too busy doing things in places without internet connections to update, but now that things have settled back into the weekly grind I suppose that's not much of an excuse anymore. So here it is. The unawaited and largely trivial Comeback Of Sorts. Do try to enjoy it.

My Jet-Setting Lifestyle

Well, there won't be any updates here for a couple of weeks. There's work to be done on campsites, you see. So, upon my return, perhaps I'll throw up some more about France, but perhaps I won't. Perhaps I'll take a similar format for the events of the next fortnight, but perhaps I won't.

The tension is killing you. I can tell.

Yesterday's France Story: Proposed Slogans For The French Tourist Board

"France: C'est France!"
"France: Pour Tous Vos Besoins De France."
"France: C'est Plus Grande Que Vous!"
"France: Tenez Dessus Sur Vos Perruques Et Clefs!"
"France: Ce N'est Pas La Fromage Et Le Vin Seulement!"
"France: C'est En France!"
"France: C'est La Plus Grande France Au Monde!"
"France: Ce N'est Pas L'Espagne."
"France: Parce Que Nous Sommes Francais!"

Yesterday's France Story: Guttered

The bowling alley in Cherbourg doesn't open until the afternoons. That's fine. We just went and looked round La Cité De La Mer, which was remarkably interesting and features, among other things, 33cm thick Plexiglass fishtanks, a nuclear submarine, and seahorses. Still, we managed to pull ourselves away and headed off to throw heavy things at less heavy things, a pastime as noble as any on Earth.

Once a lane freed up and we'd been handed our shoes, one of the very few downsides to sandals hit me. Bowling shoes aren't very comfortable without socks (or, indeed, with them, but I'm sure you get the point). This is Thing I Blame My Terrible Game On #1. After a brief period of confusion when my dad tried to bowl with a ball one of the people in the next lane had brought with him, we got down to it.

After I'd lost my first three balls down the same gutter, it occurred to me that I was far worse than I remembered. That said, it had been a good few years since I had last bowled, and this is Thing I Blame My Terrible Game On #2. The next ball caught a few pins, and things continued in this vein for a little while.

A few frames later, Mum went for drinks, as is the place of the person not taking part. While she was up, I went from terrible to mediocre, scoring a respectable spare. It became clear to me at this point that she is some kind of bowling jinx, and so she became Thing I Blame My Terrible Game On #3. This was confirmed when she came back and my balls rekindled their brief romance with the right gutter.

This was shaping up to be my worst bowling game ever by quite a distance, so I started glancing about the screens to find someone, anyone, who I wasn't doing worse than and who didn't appear to be half my age and height. There was only one, one faint beacon of hope, and for me, the rest of the game was about beating Anelise, whoever she was.

I failed. A spare in the last frame and I could have done it, but that just wouldn't have been in the style of the game. Overall, I lost eleven balls down the right-hand gutter. Eleven. That's a one followed by another one. That's more than half the balls I bowled. That's absolutely ridiculous.

Today's France Story: Better Than All The Rest

I got back from France last Saturday. Unless something really interesting happens to me, I plan on updating this every day I'm home with something that happened while I was there, because that way I can create the illusion of frequent updates without having to find something interesting to write about.

Now, in France, shortly before the TV packed in, we caught a sublime French game show called Interville. Now, Interville was sort of like It's A Knockout, or Jeux Sans Frontier, only crazier (insofar as that's possible). The British version, Simply The Best, started the day I came home, in fact, so if you live over here you can catch that. But it won't be as good.

Now, whenever the logo came up in Interville, there was an animated bull running around. We weren't sure why. But then the last round came, and the contestants walked into a bullring. "Ah," I said, "That's why the logo's a bull. They're in a bullring!"

Close, but no cigar.

The real reason wasn't that the contestants were in a bullring. The real reason was that the contestants were in a bullring with a live bull, playing a game as silly ever before. And that is why Simply The Best simply isn't: it doesn't have a bull. We never get bulls over here. It's simply not fair.

Timing Is Everything

I rather suspect that I may have left school too early. You see, there are often Tango or Robinsons vans parked up in our bus bay, there to stock up the vending machines and school-dinner drinks cabinets. Today, however, when I showed my face briefly to hand in some textbooks, there was something a little different. Placed with the minimum possible subtlety in the middle of the bus bay, just next to the "Woodkirk High School" sign, was a Carlsberg lorry (along with a small crowd of people wondering whose damn stupid idea it was to park a Carlsberg lorry in front of a school).

And to think the most we ever got at the end of term was a fun-size packet of Starburst.

Shelf, Bracket, Word, Letter, Alphabet

I always thought that it was impossible to actually enjoy the word association game. Indeed, I'm pretty sure I've voiced this opinion to various people, and would now like to apologise to them unreservedly. I have, for the first time in my life, enjoyed playing the word association game, and it was like my own personal Lipton Ice Tea advert.

Speaking of which, why are the new ones so much worse than the old ones?

It's Getting Wetter All The Time

There was a part of me that actually believed I would get through my exams without it once pissing it down on the way home. With only two exams left, it was looking good. But this, when all is said and done, is England, and it wasn't to be. And all that after the exam itself was nicely lacking in frustration.

Just What He's Always Wanted, Part Two

It turns out that the Perfect Gifts for Father's Day are expensive. So instead, we went for five films, on DVD, about dangerous marine life. And I like to think that Piranha, Piranhas and the Shark Attack Trilogy will become the foundation of my dad's classic cinema collection. Particularly as Piranhas is apparently a remake of Piranha and, after thorough examination of the blurb, Shark Attack 2 doesn't appear to have any plot at all.

So far, we've only watched Piranha, and I must say I never knew that they made such a similar noise to pigeons. I thoroughly recommend it, though its startling accuracy did make it seem rather more like docuumentary than entertainment at times.

Something Beginning With "F"

Yesterday I was kicked square in the eye. It hurt.

Sympathy, please.

My Graphics GCSE Paper (In Haiku Form)

1. Complete this bar chart,
Put it all in the right place,
Then make it pretty.

2. Write down the substance
That's used in vacuum forming,
And draw how it's done.

3. Draw a box design
And a corporate logo,
Then evaluate.

4. Complete your design,
Then explain about barcodes
And two ways to draw.

5. Redesign the box
So it closes correctly,
The first one was crap.

6. Englarge this image,
Use lots of British standards,
Do NOT use colour.

7. Complete the flow chart,
Say why CAD/CAM's fantastic,
Then say why it's not.

8. Explain these four tools,
Plus forehead thermometers
And materials.

9. Consider the world
And how to keep it going
With good packaging.

Biscuit Bigotry

If I told you that Peter Kay has a lot to answer for, you might be forgiven for thinking I was referring to the hordes of people who think that having a good enough memory to quote him makes them witty and amusing, but I just see that as a little variety amongst the people who think the same about Monty Python, or the Simpsons, or any one of a thousand others. No, I am talking about his rampant anti-Rich Tea propaganda. I put it to you that Rich Tea biscuits can be successfully dipped with consummate ease by all but the truly incompetent. So before you randomly take the word of comedians as Gospel, just have a go, and remember: if you can't dunk a Rich Tea, you're doing it wrong.

Just What He's Always Wanted

So far, the Perfect Gifts For Fathers' Day are the compilation CDs Power Ballads II and Cruise Control. I'm really not confident that there are that many fathers who would consider anything featuring Will Young to be the perfect gift.

I suppose we'll find out on the twentieth.

Today's Shopping List

Cold Meats (Not People)
Oats (To Sustain The People)
A Potato
General Recce For Food
Mince (Not People)
Beer
Veg (Preferably Amusingly Shaped)
Apples (Braeburn) (Plenty)
Biscuits (Digestive, Rich Tea)
Mussels (Alive, Alive-O)
Bacon (From A Pig)
Tamotoes
Ingredients
White, White Wine
Stewing Meat (Not People)
People

And to think Mum thought we'd lose all organisation without a female influence in the house.

When The Boat Comes In

In my freezer, in front of the out-of-date ASDA own-brand curries and the breaded prawns (which are probably also out of date, but nobody ever considers eating them so they never get checked), there lies four mealsworth of fish and chips.

Just down my road there is a fish and chip shop. In fact, it's an entire fish and chip restaurant.

I rather suspect that there will be some more out-of-date food in that freezer come May 2005.

Mark Allocations Are Shown In Brackets

There are few things that make you feel stupider that spending twenty minutes writing a fantastic answer to an eight-mark question only to discover that it's actually a four-mark question that you somehow misread the allocation for, but one of them is doing it on the English paper's reading section.

I like to think I kicked proverbial anyway.

Have You Done Your Special K Ten Thousand Steps?

Earlier today, I went on a long and pointless walk, because it was a nice day and I was bored. I passed many a Public Footpath sign, and mostly they led off down those familiar beaten tracks. But one of them appeared to point at a wall, which puzzled me somewhat. As I got nearer, I found that there was a gap in the stone just wide enough to slip through — but it was disguised by the fact that, on the other side of the wall, there was a second, much higher one, made entirely out of bracken and nettles. I like to imagine it was cultivated intentionally by someone who wanted to keep people off his land despite the public right of way.

So this is a call to arms. Footpath oppression must be stopped, and our tracks must be kept clear and beaten, just for the look of the thing. Band together to form elite mercenary rambling groups and wander about the place making footpaths look like they've been used at least once this millenium. Packed lunches and machetes are a must. We can't have the great British public looking idle.

The Future Is In Their Hands

My father, having filled in his postal ballot forms amid much grumbling, has just turned to me and said "I can't remember who I just voted for."

Which he then followed up with "Actually, I'm not sure I voted in the European one."

And to think people are worried about poor turnout.

From The TV Times Reader Offers Page

Ballerina Slippers: Buy One, Get One FREE!

Electronics Repair For Dummies

About five weeks ago, my mobile phone handset stopped working entirely. The good people at Siemens, hearing of my plight (through the Siemens Sales and Repairs Information Line) sent me a pre-paid Jiffy bag so I could send it off to be repaired, and I did so, noting that the information on the outside of the envelope described the job as "Skill Level 0".

Today, my phone came back. Or rather, it didn't. Because apparently, a skill level 0 job involves doing nothing for a month and then sending the customer a new phone. I'm not complaining, you understand — this way I don't have all the little scratches, or the O2 logo — it just seems to be that a fault which the Internet assures me can be solved by having your phone "unlocked" for a couple of quid on the market shouldn't be beyond the grasp on people who fix the things for a living.

That Won't Get The Pigs In

This was nearly a dull and rambling post, but then I noticed the whole Gmail beta-account thing and got a little caught up. It's a pleasure to use, that thing.

Anyway, as I would have been saying, I just caught the last half-hour of Jimmy's Farm, a TV programme about a bloke (Jimmy) who borrowed something like fifty-five thousand pounds of Jamie Oliver's money in order to set up and run a pig farm. Pigs in woods. It's how the Europeans do it.

Now, I didn't think this programme would be up to much. I expected another standard person-setting-up-own-business deal with the odd cash flow problem and neglect of family. Alas, it seems that I will never know for sure, because I suspect that the BBC pulled Jimmy's Farm at the last minute in order to show footage of a car crash.

They found themselves in need of £15 000 to get running water. They paid three times as much as they budgetted for caravans which then got stuck in the road. They set fire to two fields and closed the motorway. They broke a big fence-post whacker on wheels. And then, like the shock death at the end of an episode of 24, came Blaze, the Least Horny Pig In The World.

The pigs Jimmy bought are a very rare breed, so it was rather important for them to reproduce successfully. Quite a burden, you would think, on the boar's shoulders. But Blaze didn't seem to mind. He was really rather content in his little sty, even when the errant Jimmy was prodding him with increasinly larger implements in the hope that he would at least twitch.

This, I understand, was not an entertaining post. But that's not the point. The point was to whet your appetite. I can only hope that I have succeeded in that, and that next Wednesday those of you who can will tune in to the further adventures of Jimmy and Blaze, the Least Horny Pig in the World.

Those Who Can't

How is it possible for a professional repair centre to spend a fortnight on a job they themselves designated as "Skill Level 0"? How is it possible for an established company to manufacture a video recorder that, nine times out of ten, cannot record and, when told to rewind, actually fast-forwards for a few monents and then turn itself off? What gross degree of uselessness could cause Sky to install a sattelite dish in such a way that it allows rainwater to run down the cable and into the back of the decoder box, and then replace it later with a second dish that cuts out when the first cloud appears? How can a group of thirteen-year-old Scouts take an hour to take down a tent and twice as long to cook a simple fried breakfast? How can an experienced physics teacher manage to lose a piece of coursework and not notice until the day before it has to be sent for moderation? And how, in God's name, can I somehow contrive to soak myself thoroughly every single time I attempt to rinse out my toothbrush?

More Content Than Here

The Humpday Times is a "brand new, free, independent e-newspaper" published every week as a round-up of the most important, interesting and/or amusing (are there any words for funny beginning with I?) stories of the previous seven days, not to mention a healthy collection of links ranging from the useful to the diverting to the thoroughly, sublimely bizarre. So, get a subscription or just check back every week or so and you'll never have to appear distressingly ignorant in front of your friends again. And remember, you very probably heard it here first (unless you quite obviously didn't).

Happy Birthday To Me

Only one day after the Queen's. And Nicholas Lyndhurst's.

All the best birthdays are in April.

Let's Get Vaguely Serious

Why is it that, every single time there's a major, publicised tragedy, people seem to decide that it is their moral duty to start a "commemorative" chain e-mail/instant message, or put an X in front of a screen-name? The latter is, I suppose, not so bad, but doesn't it seem more than a little pointless? Does it not suggest that the "wearer" of the X is trying mainly to demonstrate that they're a caring, wonderful person without ever having to do anything for another human being? Perhaps I'm just missing something screamingly obvious, but I can't think what on Earth it would be.

The chain messages, however, really do grate. Sending a pre-written sentence to everyone you know does not, in my mind, constitute a good way to mark s tragic event. Particularly as they often contain a statement to the effect of "If you don't pass this on, you obviously don't care." How anyone can receive a message like that and not immediately want to punch the sender in the face I really cannot understand. It's like someone shaking you vigourously without warning and demanding that you do the same to everyone you know, and then branding you a heartless, hate-filled fiend when you refuse.

Now, I realise that this sort of thing's significance pales in comparison to the tragedies that they respond to, but this is something that the average person can do something about. Beyond not planting bombs and not murdering people, there's not a lot you, personally, can do in your everyday life to sort the world out, and you don't need to compensate for that with little crosses or irritating messages or by vigourously shaking people in the street. So please, spare people a lot of pointless annoyance and stop. And just in case I should ever die in some pointless and tragic way, and become the focus of media attention for it, I implore each and every one of you to do all you can to ensure that nobody starts anything like this for me. However I leave this world, I don't want to be remembered as a bloody chain letter, and I very much doubt that anyone else does.

You Want To Go Where People Know That Sitcoms Are All The Same

I'd become pleasantly used to watching an old episode of Frasier on the Paramount Comedy channel at six on an afternoon. It was a nice routine. But then, suddenly, they changed the schedule, and now I'm pretty sure they show one of their worthless, dire programmes instead. So, for a little while, my routine was totally thrown out. But then I discovered that Paramount Comedy 2 (which is deserving of praise solely for the promotional trailers they ran for it) shows Cheers in the same slot, not to mention the slot directly before it. I welcomed this change with open arms, because I haven't seen nearly as many episodes of Cheers, and also because it seemed like a natural progression, or at least a natural regression.

Anyway, a couple of episodes ago was the one with Sam's "surprise" bachelor party, and as I watched it occurred to me that I have never, ever seen a surprise party on a television programme that the recipient didn't find out about in advance or inadvertantly trigger by assuming someone's secretive behaviour was because they were organizing one. This seemed a little odd to me, but then I realised that that may well be how it works in real life. I have only ever been to one thing that remotely resembled a surprise party, and I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to know if the surpise was real or not. So if anyone can remember a surprise party that came as a surprise, please let me know. It would set my mind at rest.

And if you can think of one from a TV programme, that's even better.

One-Sentence Wonder

There's something about the sight of two 11-year-olds sharing a cigarette and a long, lingering kiss that's quite disturbing during the walk home from a hard day's schooling.

And Don't Criticise What You Can't Understand...

Under normal circumstances, if I mentioned someone or something here that had a website, I would link to it at the same time. Today, however, I won't, because I'm going to mention CommentThis!, whose commenting service seemed very nice right up until it stopped working and took the whole accursed blog down with it. I am, therefore, hoping that HaloScan performs a little better. It certainly seems, er, nicer.

Oh, and I was in something of a green mood. See, I do have a tiny scraping of individuality peeking over the laziness.

Going Up In The World

Spam is a strange beast (the junk e-mail, that is — I'm not trying to suggest they actually put meat in Spam). Not for any deep or clever reason that I intend to use to show of my wit and intelligence. Just because it can be, well, odd. Particularly when people start sending spam like this out:

"I am creating a web directory, The-Insight.com, and would like to include your website Grudge-match.com under the "health/massage therapy and bodywork" category."

Now, anyone who has visited Grudge Match should know that it doesn't fit particularly comfortably into the "health/massage therapy and bodywork" category. It should also be reasonably clear that I am in no way responsible for it. In all honesty, I don't know whether to hope that a person could be so strangely stupid as to make both mistakes or that a program that terrible could get made, tested and implemented without somebody noticing that it served no useful function.

The worst part, of course, is that both are probably true.

See, This Is Why It's Channel Four

It worries me a little, Andrew, that while you pointed out that I didn't bother to use proper dashes a fortnight ago, you failed to notice the impossibility of a programme being on "noon on Sundays at five. " The fact that you very often aren't conscious at noon on Sundays is no justification.

I, of course, am excused, because I was justifiably knackered at the time. The lesson here is that there is no mistake for which none of the blame can be offloaded.

Mark Spent A Few Minutes Of The Afternoon Typing An Entry Into His Weblog

Today's episode of Revelations: The Initial Journey (or, as the opening titles would have it, "Revelations (The Initial Journey...)") was, compared to last week's, a trifle disappointing. Jess — yes, that's the time-travelling one who can do no wrong — was shipwrecked. Indeed, he was the only surviving member of his crew. As he mentioned this is one of his voiceovers, we can only assume that he saw them all perish before he was washed away, but this traumatic experience seemed to have little effect on him.

Once Jess had washed up on some beach and been taken in by a friendly tribe, things slowed down for a while. For a year, in fact, to give his close friends on the island time to learn basic English, and for him to learn a little of their language — which strangely, we never see or hear spoken other than the odd single word directed at Jess in an attempt to teach him. In fact, in a scene where Jess is interpreting for the missionaries and the chief, the camera even cuts away to the missionaries as the chief whispers to Jess. Interestingly, he spent quite a lot of this year staring longingly towards home, despite the fact that he travels through time and so doesn't seem to have much of one. I'm sure all will become clear after further viewing of the series. Anyway, with the stage thus set, some missionaries arrived, although the ship that brought them sailed off too quickly for Jess to climb aboard. After having thrown words like "heathen" and "savage" around at the locals, they seemed very surprised to learn that there were no five-star hotels with clean linen and professionally-made mattresses. Now, I appreciate that the makers of the programme were trying to make a point, but these people were put across as reasonably intelligent. One would have thought that they would be prepared for less than stellar sleeping arrangements when they went to stay with a tribe of "savages".

Before long, a war broke out between the various tribes, due to their king having died and pretty much everyone wanting to take over. Just to add a little zest, some of them blamed the missionaries and their god for the whole affair, and set about slaughtering them and stealing their clothes. Only Big Chief Arrogant Evangelist got away, and he dropped his Bible. Forced to live in hiding with Jess and his friends, he become only more insufferable, promising revenge on whoever could be made to take it for the death of his mute missionary kin.

I'm sure you can guess where this is going.

Yes, that's right. About the time that the tribes settled their differences, and found the ones who had been doing the missionary killing, the one remaining missionary realised that he was being an utter arsehole, and that the tribespeople were actually rather nice. So, in a staggering display of kindness, he didn't have them all killed once a ship came to collect him. In fact, he stayed behind in an attempt to become yet nicer. Jess, meanwhile, happily set off "home", promising never to forget the tribespeople, who no doubt he will not mention in any future episode.

Alas, there were no classic lines in this episode, but there was thrilling commentary from Jess. As the deeply troubled missionary walked along the beach alone all morning, he handily informed us that "John Buchanan spent all morning walking alone on the beach, deeply troubled." I personally, would have been lost in the complex twist of subplots if he hadn't told us that he and his new friends still had much to teach each other just after they spent three minutes trying to discuss the concept of fishing. Once they had reached a conclusion and Jess had stuck a spear into the seabed for a while, he let us know that "any idea that Vaani had that I might be a fisherman seemed to disappear when she saw my terrible attempts at trying to catch a fish." You see, with her laughter and him stabbing randomly, we might never have worked that out. I know it would have gone straight over my head.

Overall, this was not a particularly memorable episode. I must, therefore, apologise for how poorly they above may read, as I had to watch it again for the sake of completeness and accuracy — nothing stuck in my mind quite well enough on the first viewing. I can only hope that next week will show a startling return to form.

The Wiinner Takes It All

What is it about connection to the internet that makes so many people, even the reasonable, intelligent ones who can generally spell quite well, put an extra O in the word "lose"? Is there some kind of internet-wide O deficit that I haven't heard about, and people are banding together to solve the problem in an organised fashion? Because it seems to me that a single page full of O's would solve the problem nicely.

We Don't Need No Education

In a few months, I have GCSE examinations. If I fail them, life becomes very awkward. That's fine. I don't expect to fail them; quite the opposite. And I can live with the coursework. It seems like a lot, but if I really knuckled down I could probably finish most if it off in a weekend. Nonetheless, it's a pretty high-pressure situation: a pretty huge chunk of my future hangs in the balance. And so, one might think it reasonable to expect my school, when it's looking at my year, to basically focus its attention on this whole niggling business of qualification.

A few days ago, I received a questionnaire to fill out about the general state of the school, the bulk of which was a huge bank of statements that were to be labelled as true or false. Now, to be perfectly fair, there were a few about the actual teaching, but there were significantly more that, well, weren't. Also, the whole thing was written so that there were a multitude of possible reasons for each answer but one obvious interpretation they were going to make. For example, the form asked if I would expect to be caught and punished if I truanted, and I said that I wouldn't. The school does check up on truants pretty well, but I reckon that I could get away with it if I put my mind to it. Later, it wanted to know whether the school teaches me the difference between right and wrong, which it doesn't. But that is not a criticism, as I expect it will be seen. The school should not be teaching me the difference between right and wrong because that is what parents are for. That is what society is for. That is a large part of what the first eleven years of my life were for.

That said, they may just grasp the correct end of that particular stick, because they have proven themselves to be very good at confusing that matter. If your hair is too short, you are immediately pulled out of your lessons and made to work elsewhere, as once it reaches a certain point short hair can immediately trigger violent and anarchic tendencies in the most calm and courteous of pupils. Short hair is Bad. But of course, we would never be told such a thing in our PSRE (that's "personal, social and religious education", for the thankfully uninitiated) lessons. For once you are within the realm of PSRE, nothing can possibly be wrong. Drugs are fine. Have all the irresponsible, unprotected sex you like, with whomever you like. Euthanasia for all that want it, even when you don't know who those people are.

I'm not going to discuss any of those points. I just want to question the value of the lessons. I mean, I'm all for discussion of important issues, and it's only an hour out of the week even if it is an hour that could be spent earning a future, but the fact is that there is no discussion. In my last PSRE lesson, the assignment was to write a poem about euthanasia, expressing the feelings of someone on some side of the argument in some way. Now, this didn't benefit any of us in any way, nor was it likely to be checked up on, but I did it anyway, partially because I quite enjoy writing the odd bit of poetry, but mainly to block out the idiots around me. And just so you don't think I'm being condescending, the person to my left spent five minutes putting a bar across the relevant U's in the pre-written euthanasia poem "Ordinary Guy" that it might read "Ordinary Gay", and then a further ten laughing madly. It was an hour that could have been spent doing some maths coursework, or perhaps reading to an old person or some other charitable work, but instead it was spent producing three brief stanzas while someone to my right levered the word "bong" into as many lines of "My Last And Final Wish" as he could, and several that he couldn't. I include the poem for completeness, and because I've really lost the direction of this little rant and want to avoid concluding it in any meaningful way.

So They Say

Life, they say, is a journey,
From one start to one destination,
Though feet may blister,
And boots may split,
And the path may grow steep and cold,
The journey's end remains.

Life, they say, is preparation,
Just training for a new world to come,
A world without sorrow,
A world without pain,
A world without proof of existence,
Still, the life before remains.

My life, they say, is unworthy,
No purpose to it but to suffer,
Though my eyes may see,
And my ears may hear,
And my mind may live for itself,
Still, their chosen end remains.

I've Got Something To Show You... About Eggs

Today, after watching a man drive up and down his own driveway for forty-five minutes while I held a ladder for someone as they suspended a giant peanut in a tree, a few of us assembled around the telly and watched Five, because in a bizarre role-reversal it was the only channel with good reception. Suddenly, after what seemed to be a technical fault, a programme started called "Revelations: The Initial Journey".

Life will never be quite the same again.

The show, set in America during a time of general Godliness, farming, and ugly clothing, began (after a brief monologue) with a girl in a blue dress — Dorcas — kissing a dog. In walked her friend, Sarah, in a red dress (the colours are important — it's the only way to tell them apart) who pointed out that Dorcas would probably prefer to kiss a boy. They chatted briefly about their unfulfilled love lives, and then Sarah uttered an immortal line, one which I'm sure will go down in history next to "To be or not to be" and "Here's looking at you, kid."

"I've got something to show you. About eggs."

About eggs. How could you not be excited? Anyway, as it transpired the eggy delight involved the seperation of the albumen from the yolk. The albumen was placed in a bowl of water, and I don't think the fate of the yolk was explained, though I could be wrong. The idea was that, by staring into the white/water mix, the girls could see the face of their future husbands.

Dorcas was not best pleased with her prospective spouse, as he was a skull. In fact, she spent quite a while screaming "Skull!" and "Death!" loudly enough to bring her mother, Mistress Something, running. The Mistress asked what was wrong, and Dorcas helpfully replied "Death!". The two girls were scalded for their dabblings in witchcraft, and were warned that the penalty for it was hanging.

Needless to say, Sarah was not a happy bunny as she walked home. Indeed, she saw a face in the sky during a sudden, momentary thunderstorm, and it startled her so much that she fell over unconvincingly a few seconds after it had settled down. Luckily, a man named Jess — the voice of the opening monologue — appeared (literally: Sarah thought she'd conjoured him up) to lend a hand, as because he was quite attractive she faked injury to get his assistance.

A few weeks passed, during which Jess was sent to work on Dorcas and the Mistress's farm, and it was firmly established that both Dorcas and Sarah fancied the arse off him. They also thought that the Mistress did, presumably because she didn't threated to hang him. And so, when Dorcas saw the Mistress hug Jess briefly, she ran of crying and complained to Sarah that her dead father had been horribly betrayed. Thinking on her feet, Sarah went home, acted like she'd been possessed by evil for a bit, then got up in the night claiming to have been confronted by a ghost, which we later learned was actually a spectre, or perhaps a visitation. She then — pay attention, this is an incredible twist — accused the Mistress of bewitching here.

I hope you like the word bewitching. You may well be hearing a lot of it.

Now, as is only natural, the village descended on the farm to take the Mistress away, and Dorcas sold her down the river for the sake of her dead dad. They called upon the Witchfinder, the most feared man in the land by Jess's account, to take the matter to trial. And in case you were wondering, there is a reason why Jess does all the narrationy bits. You'll just have to be patient.

The trial began, perfectly fairly and without a hint of bias, with the Witchfinder yelling "Bring in the witch!". What follows is an approximate transcript of the trial.

Witchfinder: Witch?
Sarah: Witch. Bewitched me.
Dorcas: Bewitched her.
Sarah's Dad: Bewitched.
Mistress: Not witch. Didn't bewitch.
Villager: Witch. Bewitched. Killed husband.
Dorcas: Father? Bewitched by witch? Bitch.
Mistress: Not witch. Nor bitch.
Enter Jess
Jess: Not witch.
Dorcas: Witch.
Jess: Not witch.
Dorcas: Witch. Bewitched.
Witchfinder: Hey! Dog! Familiar!
Villager: Yes. Familiar. Spirit. Witch.
Dorcas: No. Nice dog. Not familiar. Not witch. Wrong.
Jess: Dog not familiar. Maybe Mistress not which?
Dorcas: Nope. Witch. You shagged.
Mistress: What?
Jess: No. Comfort. Dead husband. Crying.
Dorcas: Oh. Not witch.
Witchfinder: Not witch.
Sarah: Not witch.
Villager: Not witch.

After which, Jess treated us to another gripping monologue, the credits rolled, and I went for a pie. But what I didn't know was that the premise of the series was far more that just this little snapshot of American life. The reason that Jess did all the narration was really very simple. He is the only recurring character, and he travels through time. A different era every episode.

Sometimes, it feels like life has blown you a thousand kisses. Or in this case, 23, because that's how many episodes of this superb programme are left in the series. So, noon on Sundays on Five. Don't miss it, unless you can travel in time.

Nothing For Money

Yesterday, I had what may have been my least successful shopping trip ever. I am, I will readily accept, not terribly good at shopping: I cannot shop like a bargain hunter because it would involve too much patience, nor like a Bargain Hunter because it would involve an interest in antiques, nor like the stereotypical lover of shopping because it would involve a sex change and emigration to New York (and also because, even if I did both these things, I would not be allowed in the category by virtue of having spent well over a year believing that the phrase "a pair of Jimmy Choos" was rhyming slang.)

The trip began quite well. I quickly found the book I was looking for and paid up, although I did only spend nine pounds of my ten-pound book token, leaving me with a largely useless one-pound book token. Still, it was surely better than no book token, so I moved on with a spring in my step.

There was little trouble when I attempted to buy stationery. I had been putting up with a three-year-old pencil case whose zip had been cut through using my own bloody scissors during one particularly interesting physics lesson (no sarcasm there: the fact that my pencil case was attacked ensured that it really was particularly interesting.) I also felt that a pencil sharpener might complement my blunt pencils rather well, as a file would my loose papers. The pencil sharpener was acquired rather speedily, perhaps because I am drawn to niftiness -- this particular one employs hinges and leverage to produce a sharpening experience like no other. The file and pencil case took twenty minutes to find in all, but that was largely due to my own fussiness. I paid up and got out, intending to use my swathes of change but failing because there was simply too much there to be handled efficiently and a queue was forming.

After this, I went to Clinton Cards, hoping to procure a card or two for my dad's birthday, and perhaps a small gift for a friend whose birthday is also coming up. I managed to get him a card (and a damn good one), and I should perhaps have got one for my friend too, but I thought I had a generic card kicking about and was expecting to buy her a present somewhere. I didn't bother fiddling about to pay with my change collection, because I wanted to get out of the shop as quickly as possible. It's music, layout and size were beginning to get to me. It had it's own café, for God's sake. A café in a card shop in a shopping centre near a pub that is also a restaurant!

It was now that the trip went downhill, perhaps because of Clinton's effect on my mind. I ran into my dad, who had given me a lift. He had already been to Savacentre to buy the relevant groceries, and so I would have to get the toothbrush I never told you that I needed as part of my own shopping, something which I utterly forgot to do. I then spent approximately forty minutes failing entirely to find gifts for my father or my friend, even though I had very good ideas for gifts for both of them. And so, defeated, and with only change to give as gifts and to brush my teeth with, I departed, walking straight past the Halifax I had intended to deposit about fifty quid in.

I've spent some time thinking about how I can acquire a gift with my limited time, but as I can't pay for anything over the internet and can hardly ask Dad to buy his gift on his credit card, there's not a lot I can do. But there's always a way. So, Katie, in case you read this before I give you some naff, bizarre and clearly handmade gift accompanied by a one-pound book token, I really am sorry.

Perhaps If You're Flash Gordon

I was watching Cube 2 a couple of days ago and, although it was by no means the worst part of the film, there was one particular bit of dialogue that irritated me. One character said, "I'm assuming..." and another interjected with "Well, you know what they say about that," or something to that effect. Now, I don't like the phrase being referred to at the best of times, but in this case the implication is that it "makes an ass out of U and ming", which isn't the most meaningful phrase I have ever heard.

Charity Continues At The Cinema

The free T-shirt count has now reached the dizzy heights of two, and the only way is up, providing that I don't somehow contrive to lose or destroy one. This particular shirt was given to me by my brother, but it was specially printed for a one-off event, and therefore counts. The event in question was a showing of Return of the King, and the printing was of the slogan "Frodo Dies". It's actually quite a nice shirt, and looks good with an open black coat.

I mentioned the shirt to some friends today, and they all got angry at me for ruining the film. I wasn't sure whether to enlighten them, but if they're going to assume that I'm an absolute bastard then I might as well act like one once in a while.