oyebilly

So Much For The Hiatus

2008-03-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

I've moved.

Here.

Please update your links accordingly.

Ta :)

Hiatus

2008-03-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Can't be bothered at the moment.

brb

The Taking Of Heathrow 1-2-3

2008-03-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have a new and slightly different journey into work as of yesterday. The following points need to be made:

It is a lot busier, but there are a lot fewer people with giant suitcases - most of them heading for Paddington.
I don't have to change trains! Yay!
Someone offered me a seat - and I accepted. I'm not even pregnant! (Well what really happened is that they saw I was nearer when the seat was vacated and they were getting off at the next stop so let me have the seat)
On three seperate occassion the train braked suddenly and people nearly fell on top on me.
I can spend longer in bed in the morning as it's quicker.
I still haven't worked out the best places to stand to line myself up for the exits.
I hate the way we always stop at Edgware Road for no reason.

I Drink 'Til I'm Drunk And I Smoke 'Til I'm Senseless

2008-03-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

I was delighted to be reminded of the fact that the Bristolian accent will endure until at least 2263, according to Luc Besson.

Well until the only Bristolian in the film gets blown up.

Yes, I watched The Fifth Element on the telly at the weekend, which features in a bit part, legendary mumbling Knowle West-er Tricky. (if that is his real name, which it isn't)

Someone once espoused the notion to me that Tricky acolyte Martina Topley-Bird invented Lily Allen.

That's a silly notion, as I'm convinced it was really her off of Republica.

Or some stage-school nincompoop trying to sounds common on Grange Hill.

This Was Like My Childhood, Had My Childhood Been A Nightmare

2008-03-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

When you're around fifteen years old, you often become convinced that everyone where you live except for you and your friends is a smelly old person, there is nothing to do in your home town except swig cheap cider in a park and chuck it up some time later on and that the big lights of the nearest big city are infinitely compelling and should be visited at every possible opportunity, for as long as possible.

I was put in mind of this state of mind when watching an documentary last week entitled The Curious World of Frinton-on-Sea, part of the Wonderland series of documentaries on BBC2. The Wonderland series has been uniformly excellent, featuring a man eating roadkill badgers on Exmoor, a bunch of slightly disturbing Christians touring the Middle East in preparation for the imminent apocalypse and so on. But the Frinton one is easily my favourite.

Frinton is the least seaside-like seaside town in the UK. The residents fought against opening a chip shop (first one opened in 1992) and a pub (first pub didn't open until 2000) and there are no yellow lines or traffic lights there.

The town where I grew up has several pubs and chip shops (and a pier, unlike Frinton) but it doesn't have as many tacky seaside attractions as it's neighbour, Weston (substitute Clacton in the case of Frinton)

Frinton is about the quarter of the size of Clevedon and has around half of its residents over retirement age, whereas Clevedon only manages around 19%. But when you're a teenager, everyone over the age of 21 might as well be over retirement age as far as you're concerned.

In short, an excellent television programme, but one that made me feel like a teenager again and realise that it could have been much worse for me.

A Meme Is Stalking The Blogosphere

2008-03-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

For the first time in what feels like bloody ages (and probably is) I am doing a meme. And for the first time in an even longer time I've been tagged, rather than doing it off my own back.

Ill Man has tagged me to do the following:-

Take a book you are currently reading, go to page 123, go five sentences down and then quote the next three sentences.

The book I've decided to use is Yukio Mishima's novel Forbidden Colours, a book the plot of which is described as

Shunsuke's novels are serene, romantic and pure. His life, however, is another matter. Embittered by three broken marriages and unsatisfactory affairs, his abiding passion is revenge. His only pleasure is derived from witnessing the suffering of womankind.

A laugh a minute, I'm sure you'll agree. Anyway, on with the meme

As far as Kyoko knew, romance was a thing that could only happen to her or her acquaintances. Even they, however, were always paired in predictable patterns. In short, the arranged romance was all they believed in.

Good eh?

I'm not going to bother to tag anyone, but if you want to have a go at these meme, please be my guest.

Damn Asda And Their Bovine Gelatinous Marshmallows

2008-03-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of my third favourite female person with a boy's name I took in some rocky road crunch bars into work today - well it was easier than buying some cakes - in commiseration (or celebration) of my leaving my job at the end of this week.

The only problem was that featured marshmallows had bits of dead cows in, which didn't go down brilliantly with some, which I'd forgotten to take into account.

Oh poo.

Thank You Falletin Me Be Mice Elf Again

2008-03-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

There's a blog on the Guardian all about how all musicians can't spell and that.

It's a bit silly, after all odd spellings in pop music is a long established tradition. Drawing from the comments of the article as well as my own knowledge, I present my favourite mispellings in popular music:

Thank You Falletin Me Be Mice Elf Again
Your Gorgeous
Mama Weer All Crazee Now
Cemetry Gates
Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box
Yer Blues

What's your favourite?

This Is Why Earphones Are Usually A Good Idea

2008-03-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

I was in Bristol at the weekend and on my way back on the tube, tired after one of those Sunday evening train journeys that seems to go everywhere, via Westbury, crawling from Slough to Hayes and so on I was shocked to be engaged in conversation.

What day is it? said a rather drunk looking Australian clutching a can of Fosters.

Sunday, I replied.

I don't suppose you know why Sunday is called that do you? he asked, not in the "I know and I'm testing you" voice but in the "I don't know do you?" voice.

Had I had access to Wikipedia at that time, I could have replied: Sunday is named after Sunne, Germanic goddess of the sun, from which the word sun is also derived, although ultimately all English days names are derived from Roman or Greek mythology, in this case dies solis, respectively hêméra Hêliou.

But I didn't. So I admitted as such.

He then started banging on about Augustus and the month of August and April originally being the first month and all that shit.

For a moment I thought he was going to start banging on about Constantine and all that Da Vinci Code-esque bollocks.

Thankfully he didn't and I didn't feel the urge to get off a stop early to escape him.

The World's 50 Most Powerful Blogs According To The Observer

2008-03-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

I was reading the Observer magazine today and found an article about blogging. Yay! So I go to read it...

yadda yadda, Boing Boing

Dooce...

...blah blah Perez Hilton

Cheezburger...

Drudge Report...

One track mind...

Michelle freaking Malkin...

Anglais woman

Yawn...

Could we have fifty blogs I'm not tiresomely familiar with please? I know some of them are good, but they're starting to annoy me