And This is awesome Academia! I recommend this as an understanding of why things are constantly Fucking Up.
Why indeed it is RIGHT to say BANKERS are WRONG.
Enjoy.
And its Thanks to a twitter contact @puffles2010 this is here.
WOW
CLICK TO SIGN >>> 
Monday, 21 February 2011
My New Kettle
I first used the new kettle at 10.15am yesterday.
ON upacking it to actually use it -Initial thoughts was "where's the electric base?" then swiftly followed by "D'oh, its inside the kettle"
It was to be First coffee to come from the water it boiled. Cleaning Cafetiere Was even necessary .......... The Coffee Helped me start the day.
The coffee, surprisingly, tasted like coffee. Didnt taste any different just cos it was a new kettle. Was secretly hoping it would taste all Super dooper and stuff cos of new kettle. Nope , it was same old, same old.
A Bit later on I had MORE coffee so I could distract dog with "But I still have coffee" before we were to trot out a bit later than usual (cos it DOES fool him) goodtrick. Cos the walk took us nicely to Dinner at a mates place.
The new kettle boils quicker than the old one. Is that significant? More? Or Less? electric used? I hope less.
And this morning I've *completely* forgotten the old kettle. My new kettle has its place now. and indeed it does boil remarkably quicker than the last.
How rapidly things change. Even in small details eh?
ON upacking it to actually use it -Initial thoughts was "where's the electric base?" then swiftly followed by "D'oh, its inside the kettle"
It was to be First coffee to come from the water it boiled. Cleaning Cafetiere Was even necessary .......... The Coffee Helped me start the day.
The coffee, surprisingly, tasted like coffee. Didnt taste any different just cos it was a new kettle. Was secretly hoping it would taste all Super dooper and stuff cos of new kettle. Nope , it was same old, same old.
A Bit later on I had MORE coffee so I could distract dog with "But I still have coffee" before we were to trot out a bit later than usual (cos it DOES fool him) goodtrick. Cos the walk took us nicely to Dinner at a mates place.
The new kettle boils quicker than the old one. Is that significant? More? Or Less? electric used? I hope less.
And this morning I've *completely* forgotten the old kettle. My new kettle has its place now. and indeed it does boil remarkably quicker than the last.
How rapidly things change. Even in small details eh?
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Do you think its fair?
All these guys getting approvals and running companies and not paying taxes and making fortunes are dishonest.
CONTRAST:
I'm honest
And THIS:
2000 minutes (anytime, any network)
plus 5000 texts and
All-you-can eat Data
and 5000 Three-to-Three minutes
free Voicemail and 6 months Free Spotify Premium
contract at £35 a month for 24 months with a Nokia N8 phone,
BUT they WONT give me a credit contract. BUT I CAN AFFORD IT
THAT FUCKING SUCKS.
I should put a pic of a Nokia N8: <<< Here >>> BUT I WONT!
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Three different parts of life, crashing into one blogposting..
Hmmmm Three parts?
Number One
OH yeah. The neighbour on the landing. I have looked after his dog SEVERAL times in past, due to a couple/ few of the stays he's had in hospital. The other day I asked Him if he wouldnt mind walking my dog. He DID mind. I had BAD COLD. And was shattered. And so I walked my dog. I think there IS a thing that really shows what people are like. That was It I think. Also His dog It barks a lot. And he DOESNT acknowledge that either. ((Rant over))
Number two
There was this:
Number One
OH yeah. The neighbour on the landing. I have looked after his dog SEVERAL times in past, due to a couple/ few of the stays he's had in hospital. The other day I asked Him if he wouldnt mind walking my dog. He DID mind. I had BAD COLD. And was shattered. And so I walked my dog. I think there IS a thing that really shows what people are like. That was It I think. Also His dog It barks a lot. And he DOESNT acknowledge that either. ((Rant over))
Number two
There was this:
Your name has been provided as the contact person for your organisation in relation to liaison for future ****** ***** events.
I am sorry the list has taken slightly longer to draw together than anticipated but after the ******* ***** meeting on xx/xx/xx you can expect to be contacted to help plan the next event.
AND yup, you guessed it, No List was attached
Number three
pizza gets cold too quickly
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Disappearance of a Nemesis
This Note contains strong language,
well its strong for some. I only wrote this first bit incase you dont like the word fucking, or bastard. If you dont - please dont read on.
Been looking a lot at various environmental area wide stuff, and yet this, though, is quite close to home.
At 10.40am this morning the final piece of the fucking conker tree I been trying to get gone? Went into the Grinding machine. The Conker Fucker is gone. Repeat gone.
3 fucking years that took me!
1) It was dangerous slip hazards on a poorly lit path with leaves and husks for at least a third of the year, and hid light too when its canopy was fully leafed
2) Bits kept Falling off it
3) Kids and Teenagers/young adults even lobbing stuff at it on a walkway path, PLUS lobbing conkers HARD at old and young alike, encouraging Very Antisocial Behaviour
Theres 2 other trees close by to go, and some "trimming" yet for the lads to do, but I am so pleased that conker bastard has gone.
Was my nemesis was that tree. Now I need a new nemesis!
They did also do a bit of trimming to a Silver Birch too. (Minor in comparison!)
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Secret of The Sands- In The Middle East. Can you Be Gay?
Sara Sheridan is an historical novelist. Her latest book ‘Secret of the Sands’ HarperCollins (£7.99) includes (among a host of others) an openly gay character in 1830s Muscat.
Sara Says: In the last couple of hundred years it’s almost as if there’s been cultural swap when it comes to attitudes towards homosexuality, between the West and the Middle East. As a huge, self-confessed swot I’m always interested in that kind of thing – cultural shifts are the meat and drink of understanding why we’ve ended up wherever we are. When Byron toured Turkey in the early 1800s he famously referred to the local bathing houses as ‘palaces of sherbet and sodomy’. These predilections continued further south into the Arabian Peninsula and in the same period another European traveller to Egypt wrote: ‘The inconceivable inclination which has dishonoured the Greeks and Persians of antiquity constitutes the delight, or, more properly speaking the infamy of the Egyptians... the contagion has seized the poor as well as the rich.; Later that century, Sir Richard Burton described in great detail a 'Sotadic Zone' (between the northern latitudes of 30 and 43 degrees) where same-sex activity was prevalent. I’m sure he thought it had something to do with the heat.
By comparison, homophobia was rife in 19th Century England and sodomy (or buggery as it is termed in the legal documents of the day) was punishable by hanging until 1861 and continued to carry a jail term until over a hundred years later (1967 in England and Wales, 1980 in Scotland, 1982 in N Ireland). These dates, it is often noted, broadly coincide with other liberal advances in human rights in anti-slavery legislation and the feminist movement, for example, and also the more general secularisation of our society.
In the Middle East the opposite movement has occurred and the general acceptance and tolerance noted by European travellers has disappeared. Last year this was highlighted in the UK press when a Saudi Prince murdered one of his servants, apparently in a bid to cover up their homosexual relationship. The homosexuality carried the death penalty and seemed as shocking to the Islamic press as the murder itself. As the coverage progressed it became clear that the fact that the Prince had lived abroad was also key. Homosexuality in the Middle East is viewed almost as a western disease. During the ‘Queen Boat’ case in Egypt in 2001, when 50 gay men were put on trial, the accused were reputed to have imported their ‘perverse’ practices from the west and from Israel. This ties in closely with the fact that many Arab nations have felt exploited by western powers ever since the abolition of slavery in post-Napoleonic Europe and the grappling for power and influence in the region that escalated when a use was discovered for Arabian oil. It’s easy to see that there is a prevalent view that only bad things come from abroad.
When I came to recreating the world of 1830s Muscat I wanted it to feel both louche and luxurious. In a society where the company of women is an entirely private affair (as it remains today in Arab cultures) it was socially acceptable to see men with their arms draped around each other. To this day, as in Europe, Arab men greet each other with kisses on the cheek. However, what has changed is the openness that was possible about the desire for same-sex relationships around 150 years ago. Historically, this still bears some caveats. For example, I’ve found no instances where men are recorded as being exclusively homosexual (though some, obviously, must have been) and most men were clearly expected to marry and produce children as part of their obligation to the family.
My main female character, Zena, is an Abyssinian slave girl and she is bought by a desperate father to tempt his gay son into some semblance of heterosexuality. Zena is put in ‘the master’s room’ like a pretty bird in a cage, and she immediately realises what is expected of her. Quickly she colludes with the master, arranging to sleep in his bed to keep his father happy. Later, he loses her at a game of backgammon (gambling being frowned on far more than buggery at that time in Oman) and she ends up travelling in the desert disguised as a slave boy. Later on that trip, when she is propositioned by a man, he is far more shocked by the fact that up close she is clearly a woman in disguise who is displaying an unheard of independent streak, than at any question of impropriety in coming onto a young boy. ‘Aren’t you married?’ Zena asks him. The man shrugs. This is, in his view, an entirely unrelated matter.
As in the Bible, there is very little in the Koran that condemns homosexuality and I hope that over time attitudes will change, not only with regard to homosexuality but also in terms of repression of women (of which there are and always have been horrifying examples) and slavery, or as it is today ‘indentured labour’ which remains rife in the region. There are a few chinks of light – not least the current unrest in Egypt (the first liberal revolution in the Middle East in my memory). Elsewhere, there is a movement in Arab states towards allowing women to vote (although not all have yet passed even this, very basic right). In Beirut in 2003, a handful openly gay people marched through the streets with a homemade rainbow flag in protest against the war in Iraq. It was the first time anything like that had happened in an Arab country. In another example, Lebanon now has an officially recognised gay and lesbian organisation known as Helem – again, the only one in an Arab country – as well as Barra, the first gay magazine in Arabic. I hope this marks a movement in the direction of tolerance and the possibility that people will be allowed to define their own personal morality rather than having to so cruelly imposed.
I Thank Sara for her insight into these things, and I hope that You will ALL read her Book.
This is stunning timing especially when Egypt is in such a state of rebellion of which many readers of this piece would obviously be fully up to Date with via all sorts of multimedia.
I wish you all well
Sara Says: In the last couple of hundred years it’s almost as if there’s been cultural swap when it comes to attitudes towards homosexuality, between the West and the Middle East. As a huge, self-confessed swot I’m always interested in that kind of thing – cultural shifts are the meat and drink of understanding why we’ve ended up wherever we are. When Byron toured Turkey in the early 1800s he famously referred to the local bathing houses as ‘palaces of sherbet and sodomy’. These predilections continued further south into the Arabian Peninsula and in the same period another European traveller to Egypt wrote: ‘The inconceivable inclination which has dishonoured the Greeks and Persians of antiquity constitutes the delight, or, more properly speaking the infamy of the Egyptians... the contagion has seized the poor as well as the rich.; Later that century, Sir Richard Burton described in great detail a 'Sotadic Zone' (between the northern latitudes of 30 and 43 degrees) where same-sex activity was prevalent. I’m sure he thought it had something to do with the heat.
By comparison, homophobia was rife in 19th Century England and sodomy (or buggery as it is termed in the legal documents of the day) was punishable by hanging until 1861 and continued to carry a jail term until over a hundred years later (1967 in England and Wales, 1980 in Scotland, 1982 in N Ireland). These dates, it is often noted, broadly coincide with other liberal advances in human rights in anti-slavery legislation and the feminist movement, for example, and also the more general secularisation of our society.
In the Middle East the opposite movement has occurred and the general acceptance and tolerance noted by European travellers has disappeared. Last year this was highlighted in the UK press when a Saudi Prince murdered one of his servants, apparently in a bid to cover up their homosexual relationship. The homosexuality carried the death penalty and seemed as shocking to the Islamic press as the murder itself. As the coverage progressed it became clear that the fact that the Prince had lived abroad was also key. Homosexuality in the Middle East is viewed almost as a western disease. During the ‘Queen Boat’ case in Egypt in 2001, when 50 gay men were put on trial, the accused were reputed to have imported their ‘perverse’ practices from the west and from Israel. This ties in closely with the fact that many Arab nations have felt exploited by western powers ever since the abolition of slavery in post-Napoleonic Europe and the grappling for power and influence in the region that escalated when a use was discovered for Arabian oil. It’s easy to see that there is a prevalent view that only bad things come from abroad.
When I came to recreating the world of 1830s Muscat I wanted it to feel both louche and luxurious. In a society where the company of women is an entirely private affair (as it remains today in Arab cultures) it was socially acceptable to see men with their arms draped around each other. To this day, as in Europe, Arab men greet each other with kisses on the cheek. However, what has changed is the openness that was possible about the desire for same-sex relationships around 150 years ago. Historically, this still bears some caveats. For example, I’ve found no instances where men are recorded as being exclusively homosexual (though some, obviously, must have been) and most men were clearly expected to marry and produce children as part of their obligation to the family.
My main female character, Zena, is an Abyssinian slave girl and she is bought by a desperate father to tempt his gay son into some semblance of heterosexuality. Zena is put in ‘the master’s room’ like a pretty bird in a cage, and she immediately realises what is expected of her. Quickly she colludes with the master, arranging to sleep in his bed to keep his father happy. Later, he loses her at a game of backgammon (gambling being frowned on far more than buggery at that time in Oman) and she ends up travelling in the desert disguised as a slave boy. Later on that trip, when she is propositioned by a man, he is far more shocked by the fact that up close she is clearly a woman in disguise who is displaying an unheard of independent streak, than at any question of impropriety in coming onto a young boy. ‘Aren’t you married?’ Zena asks him. The man shrugs. This is, in his view, an entirely unrelated matter.
As in the Bible, there is very little in the Koran that condemns homosexuality and I hope that over time attitudes will change, not only with regard to homosexuality but also in terms of repression of women (of which there are and always have been horrifying examples) and slavery, or as it is today ‘indentured labour’ which remains rife in the region. There are a few chinks of light – not least the current unrest in Egypt (the first liberal revolution in the Middle East in my memory). Elsewhere, there is a movement in Arab states towards allowing women to vote (although not all have yet passed even this, very basic right). In Beirut in 2003, a handful openly gay people marched through the streets with a homemade rainbow flag in protest against the war in Iraq. It was the first time anything like that had happened in an Arab country. In another example, Lebanon now has an officially recognised gay and lesbian organisation known as Helem – again, the only one in an Arab country – as well as Barra, the first gay magazine in Arabic. I hope this marks a movement in the direction of tolerance and the possibility that people will be allowed to define their own personal morality rather than having to so cruelly imposed.
I Thank Sara for her insight into these things, and I hope that You will ALL read her Book.
This is stunning timing especially when Egypt is in such a state of rebellion of which many readers of this piece would obviously be fully up to Date with via all sorts of multimedia.
I wish you all well
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Monday, 24 January 2011
GREAT! Just what I needed.
Apparently Their Computers were Down, but no one phoned me until:
Phone made the sonic screwdriver noise that it is set to, so, I'm out with dog, remove phone and answer.
Them: Hi, its me
Me: Its who?
T: Its ******
M: Oh OK
T: Yeah just ringin find out, where are ya? Yer Taxi's outside now.
M: I'm at least fifteen minute walk away. I'm out with the dog...
T: Oh alright then
M: Err I did email ***** on Friday morning saying i didnt have agenda and minutes, and no transport was arranged. I thought I may've been emailed about this?
T: Err no, we thought you had all the stuff
M: Well obviously I cant be there now,
T: Alright Taxi can go pick next person straight on to them not to worry.
M: Ok
T: Never mind yer dogs getting a good walk it seems
Other stuff in private sorta chat was said.
But Annoying is what that was in a way, because thats one meeting I really needed to be at.
OK. I shall stop ranting now.
Cheers.
Phone made the sonic screwdriver noise that it is set to, so, I'm out with dog, remove phone and answer.
Them: Hi, its me
Me: Its who?
T: Its ******
M: Oh OK
T: Yeah just ringin find out, where are ya? Yer Taxi's outside now.
M: I'm at least fifteen minute walk away. I'm out with the dog...
T: Oh alright then
M: Err I did email ***** on Friday morning saying i didnt have agenda and minutes, and no transport was arranged. I thought I may've been emailed about this?
T: Err no, we thought you had all the stuff
M: Well obviously I cant be there now,
T: Alright Taxi can go pick next person straight on to them not to worry.
M: Ok
T: Never mind yer dogs getting a good walk it seems
Other stuff in private sorta chat was said.
But Annoying is what that was in a way, because thats one meeting I really needed to be at.
OK. I shall stop ranting now.
Cheers.
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