Before Going Into Politics, He Had Been A Pro Wrestler

Last night, I had a dream in which Gordon Brown body-slammed a macaroon.

Needless to say, my support for the Labour party has dropped enormously since I awoke.

At Least This Time It Wasn't My Fault

There are lots of things you don't want when you're halfway through an essay. The discovery that all your library books are overdue, for example, or the crushing realisation that the one key assumption on which all your arguments rest is fundamentally flawed. I think I would happily have taken any of the essay-woes I've been treated to in the past, though, over the point yesterday - round about the seven hundred word mark - where Windows decided that actually, on the whole, I probably didn't want any of the data on my hard disk and it would save everyone a lot of hassle if it just wiped the whole lot. After all, a little modification to the casing and I could easily turn my freshly-bricked laptop into a fully-functional garlic press, and that would save an awful lot of fiddly chopping when making stir-fry.

It's possible that it just thought it would be appropriate, while I was writing about Ovid, to transform my laptop into an attractive doorstop. Thoughtful though that was, I do already have a very nice doorstop with a little wooden duck named Trinculo perched on top of it, and as I currently only have one door that's really all I need.

On the plus side, I managed to get a lot of reading done while Linux was installing.

Chavs Do Not Think Things Through

When my hair is quite long, they shout "Get a haircut!". But we both know that if I did, they'd just shout "Ginner!" instead.

It pains me to see breath wasted like that.

If You Want Something Done Properly, You've Got To Do It Yourself

Really, Mark, if you don't want me to clandestinely muck about with your blogger account, you shouldn't let me know your password and then not update for four months. Despite both these things I still feel rather guilty (I'm sorry, I am bored, largely because I have lost one of my procrastination tools due to the fact that YOU NEVER BLOG ANY MORE)... so feel free to delete this post once you've read it. Really, the main thing that's compelled me to post despite feeling rather guilty is the curiosity to know how long it will take you to actually notice this exists...

I've sat here for a little while pondering whether to make a vague effort to be anonymous and mysterious. I've decided that I will, futile as it may be, mainly because I can't think of a way to sign off after this little paragraph without looking silly.

For Your Delectation, Three Games We Invented Last Night

1. "Rough Guide to Copenhagen" or "How To Survive A Robot Uprising"?, in which players must identify from which of those two fine books a (very) short extract is taken. Not as easy as it sounds.
2. Read The Headlines Backwards, in which you do exactly what it says on the hypothetical tin. Every bit as dull as it sounds almost all of the time.
3. Greek or Roman?, in which Paul is presented with a classical figure and asked to identify whether they are Greek or Roman.

Warning: This Post Contains Vowels

Warning from the trailer for An Inconvenient Truth:

"Contains images of ecological disaster."

Look out, parents!

Soul

My brother just won my other brother's soul in a game of poker.

I just thought that was worthy of recording.

Blowing Off The Cobwebs

Well, looks like since I last updated I've been to Peru (photo-based shenanigans doubtless coming soon), got my A-level results and stewarded the Secret Garden Party music festival, among other things I can't think of just now, so I should probably start doing some posting and things sometime.

So, you know, maybe I'll do that.

I Honestly Thought Of It Long Before The Weetabix Week

I owe congratulations to Kellogg's. I never really appreciated how solidly honey-tasting Honey Nut Loops were until I tried Weetabix drizzled with honey.

If You Don't Want To Know The Results Of Last Night's Insomnia Cure Challenge, Look Away Now

Boots Sleepeaze Herbal 0 - 1 A mug of cocoa and a Winnie-the-Pooh story

I think we could probably have predicted the winner, really.

110001001011001000000001000000000 Kinds Of People

When I went up to the school library today to use one of the computers (from which you can probably get hold of far more books than you can from the shelves), the person using the machine next to me was using an Excel spreadsheet. There were only two columns to this spreadsheet. In the one on the left were good old-fashioned decimal integers, beloved of so many counting people. And to its right were the same numbers, only in binary. This is the column he was filling in, one by one, and at quite a rate. I don't know how high the numbers went, but by the time I got there, he was rapidly aproaching 500, and from the look of things he was nowhere near finished.

It seems to me that there's very likely an entirely sensible reason for this, but I cannot for the life of me think what it might be. It just goes to show how very odd our activities can seem out of context.

Or that he's a rather odd bloke.

The Card Game Of The Century

It is not often that a new card game rises from utter obscurity to a place in the card-game canon. And, indeed, this is not yet one of those times. But if there is any justice in this world, one is not far away.

I give you What's In Mr Johnson's Wheelie Bin?.

Choose Your Allegiance

There are some battles that are worth fighting.

And there are some battles that cannot but be fought.

The Uncontested Highlight Of Our Trip To Stratford

For more of the important stuff from our holiday, see Chrissy's blog.

Let The Memory Live Again

I am sorry to tell you that my mobile disk died this morning. It had a good innings - my dad had it for a good few years before he passed it onto me (as attested to by its general massiveness), and it survived being put through the washing machine at least once in that time. But all good things, and most rubbish things, must come to an end, and today the plastic casing finally came apart completely and the circuitry within slid clean out, leaving the rather useless little shell you see to the left.

Now, as I looked at my inadvertently-dismantled disk, a few options presented themselves. I could wrap the whole thing up in a cocoon of tape, and, in fact, I nearly did. If we had any proper bodge-job looking duct tape, this post would have ended here. But thankfully, we only had parcel tape, Sellotape and insulation tape, none of which would really have given it the right aesthetic.

While searching for some decent tape, however, I did find an unused box of plasters and some bandages. That had to look good, surely? A broken mobile disk, held together with medical supplies like a real boy? But it seemed a bit silly and wasteful, and besides, plasters are rubbish and don't stick to anything.

Andrew, helpful as ever, suggested wrapping it up in Sellotape and leaving it at that. It would have looked interesting, certainly, but considering that it has all my important work on it I thought I could use something more substantial. So we decided to do the sensible thing and install it in another object.

But what?

A matchbox? Too easy. A thimble? Too small. A miniature box of Celebrations? Too bloody stupid.

And then I saw the light. Because, nestled away in the summerhouse, we had a big cardboard box of old videogame paraphenalia, and among it was a long-knackered NES controller. It was small. It was mostly hollow. It had a little hole to run a USB cable out of.

It was perfect.

And so, I assembled an Elite Crack Super Team.


Sort of.

Now, as I'm sure you're aware, the first thing to do when you embark on a project like this is to take everything apart into as many pieces of possible and generally make a great big mess.

Here, you'll observe the dismantled controller, the dismantled mobile disk, the screwdriver we took the pad, the USB extension cable (kindly donated/sold by Paul), the little knife we used to cut off some bits of plastic that got in the way, and some little bits of plastic that got in the way. You'll also observe, though they are rather less important, a placemat, a table, a chair, another chair, part of yesterday's paper, the set that we took the screwdriver from, and a refill pad (which we did actually use, as a source of card to brace the buttons, having taken out the printed circuit board that used to hold them in place).

With a bit of fiddling about, we came up with a basic arrangement that we thought ought to work.

It's really rather cunningly organised. I think Paul came up with it, with a little tweaking from the rest of the Elite Crack Super Team. Note how the disk also braces the D-pad so that it can be pressed convincingly.

Now, all that remained was to put it all together so that the back would actually go on. Which was an absolute bastard, because the mobile disk was unnecessarily huge, the end of the USB cable was unnecessarily huge, and the screw-posts had been positioned (in a remarkably forward-thinking move) so that they would obstruct anyone who attempted to convert the pad into a mobile disk. But we battled, and we battled, and we went and fetched a pair of garden secateurs to trim some bits we couldn't get to with the knife, and finally, triumphantly, we screwed the thing back together.



Truly, a thing of beauty.

It Is Soluble In Water

Overheard while going out into the rain from my school's rather excellent show last night:

"It'd better not rain on my head."

At Least Her Team Would Have Won The Spin Off Show, "Pissing Alan Sugar's Money Up The Wall"

What follows is an exchange between one of the people on The Apprentice and a customer at their pizza marquee.

--------------------

CONTESTANT: That's nine pounds change.
CUSTOMER: Er... eleven pounds.
CONTESTANT: What?
CUSTOMER: It should be eleven pounds.
CONTESTANT: Oh, right.

CONTESTANT fiddles in the till for a while.

CONTESTANT: Right, so I gave you six...
CUSTOMER: No, you gave me nine.
CONTESTANT: Oh, right, sorry.

A moment's pause.

CONTESTANT: So that's three pounds change, then.

--------------------

The contestant in question also chose to sell pizza that had cost over four pounds to produce for three pounds.

She also has a degree in economics.

From Cambridge.

It's cute how The Apprentice thinks people watch it for Serious Business Reasons when really we watch it for the same reasons that we watch The Weakest Link.

The Device Extracts Your Dental Soul

The appointments I've had to sort out my knackered tooth have all been just a little strange, principally because the dentist I've been going to (selected on the very sensible basis that he was the only one who would fix my tooth at the time) likes to have the radio on while he works and discuss whatever's on, at length, with his assistant. As a result, I spend my appointments being drilled not only in the teeth, but also in the belief that BBC radio ought to be able to avoid playing rubbish pop music because it's publicly funded so it doesn't need the listeners to keep afloat.

Apparently Lou Reed is touring.

Anyway, as I say, they've all been a little strange. But today's was the oddest yet. Now, I would just like to make perfectly clear that he's an excellent dentist, me tooth is fully fixed up, and there was no pain any time in my treatment. But my God, it wasn't what I was expecting.

First they numbed me up a little, though apparently I didn't really need it because they'd already drilled the nerve out. Now, what I didn't realise is that the stuff they inject into you has adrenaline in it, and sometimes it hits you with, well, an adrenaline rush. I have never, ever had a mysterious adrenaline rush before while lying comfortably in a pleasant chair listening to the radio, and to be honest I can live without it happening again.

After that, everything was sensible for a while. They drilled me with drills, they X-rayed me with X-rays, and they poked me with those little metal things I have to assume are called pokes.

And then something giant got screwed into my tooth.

I don't know for a moment what it was, but I do know that it felt like it wasn't coming out without taking the whole of my lower jaw with it. Quite what it was for I have no idea - it just seemed to sit there throughout the whole affair and then unscrewed and removed.

Anyway, I could cope with the giant tooth-screw. It was weird, certainly, but nothing to concern me. And then I saw a cigarette lighter spark up in my peripheral vision, and within a few seconds there was smoke rising from my mouth. I had hoped to get through my days without anything causing my teeth to smoke, but it seems that it was not to be.

Once my teeth were (I assume) thoroughly branded with the practice's name, they got out The Device. The Device was shaped like a tiny orange hairdryer with a long, thin, angled nozzle, and was pointed at length at my tooth. Sometimes it nudged into it, and made a little buzzing noise. What was it for? I haven't the slightest idea. But it was very impressive.

When all was done, they took one last X-ray. As I tried to remove the little slug of film from next to my teeth, it slipped out of my fingers and I nearly choked myself to death on it.

Lent? What Lent?

I just tried a pancake drizzled in honey.

Life may never be the same again.

If You Can Hear It Over The Hoover

Just advertised on UKTV Gold: Housework Songs, a two-disc compilation of music "to make housework fun!"

I don't think I even need to make a sarcastic comment about this one.