Incidently, today is my birthday. I am now 41.

Serial killer at large on the underground.
this morning another brutal murder was committed at Canary Wharf jubilee line station. The victim, believed to be the Who's Substitute, was battered to death with a guitar. The killer is thought to be the same hirsute busker responsible for the recent attrocity carried out on Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street.

While I'm on the subject of the underground, I'm getting a bit fed up with being offered free things,
"would you like a copy of the Metro?"
"no thank you"
"would you like a copy of City AM?"
"NO"
"would you like a flyer for some shit you're not interested in?"
"AAAARRRRGGGHH"

This is a belated post that I've had as a draft for 2 weeks, but I thought what the heck if I post this it'll save me thinking of anything new!

On Sunday 9th I took Big'un and group of his school friends bowling as a belated birthday party. So I had seven 6 and 7 yr old boys, one 5 yr old girl (someone's sister) and one 3 yr old boy (little'un). I had back up from Wifey and two other mums, they were in charge of talking whilst I coached the bowling. Actually it wasn't much like bowling, more like watching a rerun of the Dambusters the way the balls were bouncing down the lanes.
When it came to the end I briefly mentioned who won and glossed over the fact that Big'un came last.

what's the damage guv? ...

Rear brake pads worn excessively,
Front brake caliper binding,
Brake lever switch not working,
"In my opinion the bike is unsafe to ride due to the Chain being excessively worn ".

"Bugger "

...was my response . I'm now faced with a least another week on the train while I try to get it Sorted. The plan is to do all the work myself and carry out the long overdue service at the Same time.
This may not be as easy as it sounds even though I'm on earlies when I get in at about 4. 30 the kids demand my attention and Wifey usually has something planned for me.

Whoaaa!!!
In an effort to further upset Gemmak by posting for the 3rd time in 3 days! Check this out for a close shave. It's nothing rude or gory and it looks real to me.

Murder on the Underground.....
... committed by the busker at Canary Wharf station. He was mullering one of my all time favourite songs, Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street.
There was a different busker on the way also playing another favourite of mine Pink Floyd's wish you were here. Although much better than the other guy I don't think Dave Gilmore will feel threatened.

Breaking news update flash.
Buzz came back to work last monday and on the tuesday he went sick again. This week he is supposed to be on a course (the one I volunteered him for that nobody wanted) and as far as I know he has gone. He's due back here on thursday. We shall see.

I finally got Big'uns fish tank set up (sans fish), he got this for his birthday at the start of Sept and the pressure is on to get the fish in on saturday as he is having some school chums round as a belated birthday party ( they're going bowling first). Hopefully some of the fish will survive long enough for his friends to see.

I've had to slum it on the train today. I went to renew my bike tax yesterday and found out that my MOT had expired last week. DOH! at least the pesky scooters won't be able to annoy me for a few days.

This weekend I......

• failed to do any work on the house.
• failed to do any of the drastically overdue maintenance on my bike.
• failed to watch the MotoGP.
• saw a strange lady's naked arse.

On sunday I took Big'un and Little'un swimming. At this particular pool they have what they term a "changing village" what this means is that instead of having a changing rooms, all the cubicles are out in the open at the poolside. Anyway as I was getting our stuff from the locker to go and get dried a very attractive young black women appeared from around the lockers holding a towel in front of her with one hand. As I looked at her I thought "she looks like she's naked", then she turned round. She was naked. I SAW HER ARSE!. Presumably so did a lot of other people.

When I got home I mentioned to Wifey that she should take heed as strange ladies are resorting to blatant arse flashing in an attempt to steal her man. She said "bothered"

The following completely unfair and harsh rant has been cancelled.
I was going to rant about being held up on the way in this morning by approximately 1million London Taxis on their annual sick kids charity run, but since getting to work and being plied with tea I have calmed down a bit and the rant I was going write now seems a bit harsh. I still hate Taxi drivers though. Black cabs are the motorcyclists nemesis, they are Moriarty to my Holmes, they are Sauron to my Gandalf, they are Vader to my Obi Wan, they are Swiper the fox to my Dora the explorer. They are the sworn enemy of all honest dependable law abiding two wheeled citizens.

"guess who I had in the back off my cab the other day?"
" I don't care, piss off"

The Taxis carrying the sick kids are currently surrounding Canary Wharf and outside my building they now have a band playing

*imagines walking over to the window, opening it and shouting out "Oi turn that fucking racket down, I'm trying to blog up here!" *

What I will rant about though is scooters, but that will have to wait as I have a mountain of work piling up.

Breadwinner
After a break of over seven years Wifey starts a new job today!
Wifey is a child care professional a.k.a nusery nurse and has got a job working part time in an private nursery ina local hospital.
This may seem like a busmans holiday. Instead of being at home looking after your own kids going out and looking after someone else's kids, but the change of scenery, getting some adult conversation (she doesn't get much from me!) and just getting out of the house for something other than shopping will do her the power of good.
Hopefully this will help to halt the progress of the recognised medical condition D.W.S or Demented Wife Syndrome that she is slowly succumbing to.
The out-laws will be on duty at the beck and call of the baby and little'un.

Sick Puppy IV: The Phantom Buzz.
Buzz Lightweight has gone sick again!, but I do have a bit of sympathy for him this time because;

1. He didn't get his wife to phone in for him, he did it himself this time
2. He is off sick because he fell off his bike!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but Buzz is a biker too. He has only been riding a year and only past his full test about 3 months ago.

Apparently on the way in on friday the traffic in front of him braked "suddenly" and he braked hard and fell off. He managed to avoid hitting anything else, which was good and he wasn't really hurt, which was also good. He has injured his ankle though and will be off for at least a week.

Other News:

I managed to avoid taking the Beast next door to see Herbie: Fully loaded. I took him to see "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D" instead, as expected he was a right pain and I honestly don't think Big'un actually likes him that much.

The film was ok, Sharkboy (moody looks and kung fu moves) and Lavagirl (cheesy grin, permanently windswept hair and squirty lava) was an action packed film about hanging on to your dreams and living them out with a typically american cheesy ending.

I've finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

TTFN

I swore I would never do this again....
but in a fit of Irish/Catholic guilt Wifey has volunteered me to take the Beast from next door to the pictures tomorrow to see Herbie: Fully Loaded because he won't be going to Big'uns birthday bowling party (schoolfriends only) and Big'un went to the Beasts party.

Silly tankers.
Ok I'll admit it, I got caught up in the fever induced by yesterdays reports of panic buying, queues all over the land and the powers to be sitting in their ivory towers shouting "let them eat cake".
Yes, I panicked I rushed out to my local Tesco petrol and filled up with some bread and sausages. Well how was I to know it was only petrol? I was in a panic for chrissakes.

Tempus Fugit

"the baby" is one today !
Gone is the little new born who just gurgled and looked cute and in his place is a high speed crawling menace with a passion for tipping the bin over and putting his hands down the toilet.

One of his favorite tricks is to hang on to the bottom stair gate, thus preventing anyone coming down the stairs from being able to open the gate which means you have call out

" Help the baby is holding me hostage again ! "

Ketchup
Holiday week 1:
The plan was to do some work around the house whilst relieving wifey of some of the pressures of looking after 3 children. Due to the Beast next door's house having an extension built my plan of painting the outside of our house had to be scrapped as the building work was creating a lot of dust. So week 1 was spent basically doing nothing. (there is a large rant brewing about the building work and the Beast)

Holiday week 2: Center Parcs, Elvedon forest.

Fantastic week had by all, this was the second Center Parc's holiday that we have been on. we spent the week (5 days actually) swimming and playing games and having fun. Due to big'uns birthday being shortly after we were due back we decided to give him his main pressie, a bike, before we went. This is because the main method of transport in Center Parcs is cycling, he had two attempts at riding the new bike, both ended in tears and he hasn'r ridden it since. Little'un inherited the old bike with stabilisers but showed no interest whatsoever in wanting to ride it.
On the last day, friday, one of Big'uns best friends from school arrived for the weekend at Elvedon and we spent the day with them.

Sunday September 4th: big'uns 7th birthday.

We drove to the Isle of Dogs, walked through the foot tunnel under the Thames to Greenwich, got a cruise boat to Westminster and took a "flight" on the London Eye. The weather was hot and the sky was clear and blue, we could not have asked for a better day to do the Eye.

Big'un had a good day and enjoyed the eye, Little'un was ok but is definitely turning into a moody teenager, 3 going on 13. (a job for supernanny methinks ..... mmnnn supernanny....mmnnn)

Anyway, work to do, more later.

Out Of Office Autoreply:
I am awayfrom the office on holiday and will return to work (and blogging) on Mon 5th September.
If you require a blog to read please choose one of the excellent blogs listed a bit further down on the left.

Friday Fact #4.
I smoked up until I was 21.
When I was 18 my Dad had a heart attack, he was a 60 a day smoker, it nearly killed him. My Dad's brother had angina and between them they had a few other illness's such as lung infections and other heart problems. At age 21 I was smoking a minimum of 30 fags a day, everyday. I was heading down a road that didn't have much of a future.
"giving up smoking is easy, I've done it loads of times, Ha Ha Ha" this old line applied to me, I had tried before but never really wanted to give up.
So, why was I successful this time? what was different? well I had a real incentive, I didn't want a heart attack in my mid 30's and also I had been reading about positive mental attitude in an article in a martial arts magazine.
I officially gave up on my 21st birthday, as a present to myself, this was a Friday. On the following Sunday I had one smoke and then another on wednesday. On Thursday something happened that was really the key to my giving up.
I was driving to my Kung Fu class with a bloke called Vince who I gave a lift to,
"want a smoke Mick?" he asked
"er, erm, yeah OK" I replied "I'm actually giving up, but I'll have one anyway"
"giving up?"
"yeah" I said
" in that case you can't have one" he said coldly.
"WHAT!, come on don't fuck me about, give us a fag"
"no, if your giving up then I'm not giving you a fag"
there followed a moment of silence then Vince laughed and said "I'm just messing, here have one"
I thought about it, either I'm giving up or I'm not. Decision time.
"no" I said firmly "you can poke your fags up your arse"
I never smoked again.

"You gotta have faith"
I'm currently reading the Da Vinci code by Dan Brown, which is not a bad novel. It is an easy read that moves along at a good pace and is not too demanding and (depending on your beliefs) is based around an interesting theory.
The film of the book is currently filming in Lincoln and a nun has set up a vigil to protest against the book/film being filmed at Lincoln cathedral saying, "it is against the very essence of what we believe".
" The Da Vinci code is a load of old tosh" said the Dean of Lincoln cathedral, after accepting a donation of £100,000 to allow filming in the church. He obviously belongs to a different church to the nun, the church of filthy lucre.

Of course you could say that the Bible is a load of old tosh aswell and all of this plays nicely into the hands of the conspiracy theorists who claim the Church tried to cover it all up and discredit the theories, not to mention a nice slice of publicity.

I just updated my blog roll to include some of the excellent blogs I discovered whilst following Big Blogger 2005.
Some of the Blog mates I had read before but there were a lot that were new to me.
I'm off to read them now.

Like Kryptonite to Superman
is what diesel on the road is to Bikers.
There is a serious diesel spill on the route from the A13 down through royal docks road and royal albert way past UeL and city airport.
I was lucky. When I turned off the A13 at the A406 roundabout and went down royal docks road road as I leaned quite hard round the corner and went across the edge of the spill.
The bloke driving the porsche boxter wasn't so lucky further on. As I was waiting at the traffic lights half way round Gallions roundabout, Mr Boxster caned it out of woolwich manor way and off up royal albert way, I thought I heard a bit of a funny noise. The lights changed and I went off carefully avoiding the diesel and was greated by the sight of the boxter on the other carriage way in a cloud of dust and dirt where he had lost it and spun across the central reservation and hit the oppsite kerb. The driver was ok as he was out of the car and inspecting it.
I have reported this to Transport for london.
We all know that diesel spills are deadly so make sure you report any to TFL by calling the Street Faults Contact Centre on 0845 305 1234. or visit the website http://streetfaults.tfl.gov.uk/

Carry on Camping*.
What a fantastic idea! I said enthusiastically when my mate G suggested taking the kids on a camping weekend.
But as the weekend approached I started getting a bit nervous, the prospect of spending a night under canvas (it was nylon actually, but saying "spending a night under nylon" makes it sound like I went to a fetish party) was starting to get a bit scary. Alone, in the wild, just me, big'un and little'un with no support team (Wifey), it would be like a coming of age, rite of passage type thing. The kids might get something out of it aswell.
So, on Saturday myself (aged 40), Big'un (6), Little'un (3) accompanied by G (36) his two eldest boys (8 and 4) and another bloke called Fergie (43, I think) and his son (9) set off to deepest, darkest, Hertford (just off the M25 and up the A10 a bit).

The plan was simple,

• arrive.
• put tents up.
• have a BBQ.
• play games etc to wear kids out.
• throw sleeping chidren into sleeping bags.
• drink beer.
• go to bed.
• wake up.
• have brekkie.
• pack up tents.
• go home.

It all started to go awry when G's GPS led us to the wrong place (it was a typo apparently). When we arrived at the campsite I took the kids off for a toilet break while G and Fergie started to unpack the tents. As I supervised Little'un sitting on the toilet (he's just starting to get the hang off this toilet lark) I noticed that He'd managed to somehow wee on top of the seat, I realised that the angle of the dangle had been all wrong and Little'un had overshot the seat and wee'd straight into his pants. Disaster! I thought, we've only been here 5 minutes and already I'm involved in a toilet incident, all my worst fears were coming true. We returned safely to the pitch, with Little'un going commando.

Surely nothing else could go wrong? but bad things always come in 3's and the worst possible thing you could imagine happened. Yes that's right, one of the throwaway BBQ's didn't light! (we had to throw it away) and the fish fingers got burned. ( in case you're wondering why we would cook fish fingers on a barbie, it's because G's kids are veggie). By 9.00 saturday night it looked like the kid's would be putting the adults to bed as they were still going strong and we were shattered.

The rest of the trip went just fine and the kids had a great time. We went swimming at the Lea Valley Leisure Pool on the way home and later on sunday G and I took 3 of the kids to see the Fantastic Four. (3 film reviews coming soon).

This week I'm off on a training course for 2 day's so Wifey will be home alone, with 3 children for 2 nights, while I'm getting pissed, whoops I meant to say studying and stuff.

* much to our dissapointment a young Barbara windsor looky likey and a coachload of young ladies completely failed to arrive and start exercising in their bikini's. I feel cheated.

This has just been mailed to me at work from someone in the bikers mail group,

http://www.unityride.co.uk/

If you get a chance you should also visit

http://www.werenotafraid.com/

a tough call to make.
2 weeks after the event described below it has been established that the man shot was not a suspected terrorist. He was a Brazilian man who had no terrorist connections.
Although details are still cloudy it appears that he came out of some flats being watched by the police, wearing a rucksack and walked into stockwell tube station. When he was approached by the police he ran into the station and down to the platform and onto a train at which point he was shot. It remains unclear as to why he ran when challenged by the police.
What worries me about the quote in the post below is that it sounds like an execution, and some people are likely to call the for police involved to be charged.
There are many victims from this event and apart from the obvious ones, don't forget about the people on the train, who saw a man shot 7 times in the head right in front of them. They will never forget this.
The policeman and his family will be deeply affected by this and should also be remembered.
Now let's look at the event and the policeman's choices,

1. a man, of foreign appearance, leaves a building thought to house terrorists
2. he enters a tube station on the London underground where there have been recent bombings.
3. when challenged by the police he runs towards the train.
4. The police give chase and when the suspect trips as he enters a train the policeman has to make the call. All the questions below have one thing in common, the policeman with the gun doesn't know the answer to any of them.

• why did he run?
• is this man carrying a bomb which he is about to detonate? If so I have to shoot him dead.
• if he doesn't have a bomb and I shoot him it will be a terrible mistake.
• if he does have a bomb and I don't shoot him, lots of people, including myself could die.

The risk that he was a bomber with the will to blow himself and many others was to great. The policeman made the right decision.

I have deliberately avoided the term "an innocent man" as he must have had a very good reason for running.

The Brazilian man's family are obviously deeply upset at the tragic loss of their son but I can't help viewing their apparent intentions to sue the police cynically.

There is going to be a full investigation and if the police followed their procedures correctly and the correct warnings were shouted then it was a tragic mistake, if the police procedures were not followed then they need to make damn sure this doesn't happen again, it doesn't mean the decision to shoot was wrong.

From BBC news,

"I heard a load of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down'!

"I saw an Asian guy run onto the train hotly pursued by three plain-clothes police officers."

"One of them was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him."

"I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy - he's dead."

This has just happened.

True Essex boy.
last night playing in the garden Big'un asked me
"can we play Basildon?, you know with shuttlecocks"

I said "yes of course we can play Basildon", so we went out nicked some cars and smoked crack.

The sweet smell of ...
Just before midday today I was waiting for the lift on the first floor, when it came in a bloke got out who had just been out for a run. He was dripping in sweat and looked just about dead on his feet. I got into the lift, I was now the only person in there, and it absolutely stunk of sweat and musky odours.
The lift went straight to the 7th floor, one level before mine and in got a group of about 8 attractive young ladies who I assume were fresh summer interns being shown around. Yes, in they got, 8 attractive young ladies, into a lift with just me in it, a lift that stunk of sweat and muskiness.

Friday Fact #3
My dad's father was german and my "real" family name should be Krietzer. He apparently changed his surname around the late 1930's, I wonder why.
I never knew my grandad on my dad's side, and in keeping with dad's reluctance to talk about things like this (see Friday Fact #1) I don't know any more family history than this!


*note to self, next visit to dad's make sure to bring a spotlight, a baseball bat, a chair and some rope.

Pissed off
After 3 weeks of being connected to bulldog broadband and telephone I am today looking into the options of returning to BT with my tail firmly between my legs and a large slice of humble pie in my gob.
We have had no phone all day and I have made 3 calls to Bulldog only to be told it could take 48hrs!
When this is resolved I will post the full details.

I'm old enough to know better
So on the way home last night, at gone 7 o'oclock, going down royal albert way along side city airport I caught up with 3 sports bikes who were out for a ride and having a bit of a race. We all stopped at some lights and as the lights went green I gave the SV a big handful and creamed all 3 of the power rangers away from the lights. I did the same again at the next set this time raising the front wheel slightly. We are now sitting at the lights at the roundabout that is the junction of the A13 and the start of the A406 (north circular road)I come this way most days and know that cars are prone to jumping these lights. The lights go green the power rangers all fly off but I don't 'cos I was watching the pillock in the merc who went straight through the red light. The sports bikers all made it across safely but as I was on the right at the lights had I caned across on the green light the merc pillock probably would have flattened me.
Anyway, the red ranger and his gang hooned off up the A406 and I went down onto the A13 only to find a humongous jam caused by the fact the Police had the underpass at Barking closed off. I filtered through to the front of the slip road and stopped at more bloody lights. To go straight on here you have to cross the carriage way running across, right in the middle is a bump which I have wheelied over once or twice. The lights changed almost immediately and as I pulled away I spotted the bump, so still feeling a bit frisky from the tear up with the sports bikes I thought I'd pop a little wheelie and thus gave it a big handful. Unfortunately I was still first gear and as I went over the bump the front shot up, the tank hit me in the chest and I shit myself (not literally), I backed off the throttle which caused the front of the bike to slam down on the road and my knackers to slam into the petrol tank!
I rode off up the A13 nervously laughing out loud to myself.

Terror will not destroy our society
.. nor our way of life
.. nor our freedom
.. nor our country
2 days ago 4 bombs went of in central London, 3 on the underground and 1 on a bus. So far it has been confirmed that 49 people lost their lives but there are still unrecovered bodies in the tube tunnels, I suspect the toll will rise to nearer 100.

I had taken 2 days off to do some cabling etc for the father in law who has recently retired from working at the British where he commuted to kings Cross every day. Kings Cross was one of the bomb sites.
Canary Wharf, where I work was largely unaffected apart from being closed to traffic and the obvious transport disruptions.
My firm has engineers working all across London and I have just read an e-mail from the Boss saying that there were a few near misses but nothing worse.
I am sitting here, at work, and it is very quite and I feel for the victims, their families and the survivors who will be haunted by the terrible things they have seen.
Terrorism can never win.

Just over 11 years ago my mate RBS rang me to ask a favour.
"Give us a hand knocking my front wall down and I'll buy you a beer.". Two whacks of a sledgehammer later and we were in the Barking Dog, in Barking. It was 1 o'clock.
At roughly 9 o'clock RBS (who was, and still is, married) had his arms around two girls and he was telling one of them what lovely breasts she had and I was hanging on to a pillar looking extremely worse for wear.
The two girls were joined by another two who had been at the bar. One of them, a rather saucy looking red head, said to me "you look like you're about to be sick"
Three years later, on july 5th 1997 we got married. That makes today my eighth wedding anniversary!

On autopilot
I found myself staring blankly at the buttons in the lift, what floor was I going to?. Then it dawned on me I wasn't going to any floor, I wasn't even supposed to be in the lift. I was actually going to get a cup of tea which doesn't involve going near the lifts at all.
What was I doing in the lift? how did I get there? what happened in the time in between leaving the safety of the printroom and finding myself in the claustrophobic prison cell that is the lift?.
I had no memory of anything since I left my desk.
well it was ten past seven in the morning.

Friday Fact #2
Since leaving school at age 16 I have only had 2 proper jobs, but I've done them both twice!

It's always meme(me)
In the last month or so I've been batonned, tagged, bagged, bludgeoned and buggered with these meme things so I thought it was about time I actually posted one.
I think this is the one that Grocerjack sent me. I can't find the one from Gemmak so I'll have to have a look for it.

The total volume of music on my computer: I don't have any music on my PC, but I've got Odelay by Beck, Page and Plant unledded and a couple of old AD/DC tracks on my PDA.

The last CD I bought was:
Keane, Hopes and Fears - I bought this for Wifey on valentines day (I didn't get a shag though).

Five songs I listen to a lot or mean a lot to me:
Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty: the sax blows my socks off every time I hear it.

Suspicious minds, fine young cannibals version: This is a great song the way it builds to a climax is fantastic.

Planet Clare, The B52's: When I was a lad me and my former best friend, W, owned a speed boat and used to go waterskiing every weekend and this was our skiing song. It brings back memories of lazy carefree summer days, enjoying the freedom, ogling anyone in a bikini and hurtling up and down the River Crouch pissing off all the yachties.

Comfortably numb, Pink Floyd: The song I want played at my funeral.

sweetest feeling, jacky wilson: had this played at my wedding it reminds of how much I love wifey and the fact that her smile brightens my day

extra songs worth a mention:
added this myself as there are so many songs I'd list as favourites

reward, teardrop explodes

shine on you crazy diamond. pink floyd

celebrity hitlist, terrorvision

sympathy for the devil, rolling stones

californication, red hot chilli peppers

under the bridge, red hot chilli peppers

jump around, house of pain

mysterious ways, U2



The last 5 films I watched:
most recent first,

Sin City - fantastic, brutal, gory, like pulp fiction and kill bill in one (but not as good as kill bill)

Star wars epIII- great ending to the worlds most famous space opera.

star wars ep II- pysching up for epIII

Hitch hikers guide- sadly disappointing, BBC TV series was better (through my rose tinted memory glasses)

Star wars epI- the build up to epIII begins.


5 TV programmes I never miss:
actually I'm going to change the name of this one to 5 TV programmes I'd like to watch but usually miss,
Dr Who - can't wait for the next series. I hope that new bloke is as good as Eccleston. That's about it actually I don't really watch much telly, I really would have liked to have seen the last 2 seasons of X-files as I stuck with it for so long it would have nice to find out what the fuck was actually going on. Also 24,that looked good but I've never seen a single episode.

Who am I passing this onto?
no one actually, I think it's a bit like spamming or chain letters or pyramid schemes and also all the other blogs I regularly have been batonned / tagged already.

The superhero / comic related one I got from smidsy is much more up my street and will be posted soon.

p.s I haven't actually been buggered lately or at any time.

Hello Hello
Twickenham sat 18th june was the 4th time I've seen U2, for Wifey it was the 17th time. Wifey likes U2.
Not a bad gig, the set wasn't my favourite out of the times I've seen them but it was technically spectacular (but if you want to see a real light show you need to see Pink Floyd, if they ever tour again.)
There was only one real problem and that was the sound. It was terrible. I don't believe it was the sound system at fault but a peculiarity of where we were seated at rear right corner on the middle level. The sound reflections bouncing around caused an almost unbearable "white noise" effect to be heard over the music.
The best songs for me were,
vertigo
elevation
still haven't found what I'm looking for
Pride (Wifey's all time fave song)
Bullet the blue sky (my fave live song, wifey doesn't like it. Hah what does she know?)
City of blinding lights.


"swaying to the music,
swaying to the music,
whoa wa whoa wa whoa"

No comment
my comments have been buggered for the last week or so but they are apparently working again now.
I've used Enetation for the comments on this site since I started it (2003 and have never had any probs until now, my comments have gone down twice in the last month.
Both times I have politely asked enetation's support to have a look for me and they have and fixed them. What surprises me though is how rude other people on the support forum can be, demanding results and being abusive and obviously forgetting that it's a free service run by a couple of people with lots of users. Have a bit of patience please.
Anyone who wanted to leave comments recently may now do so, if they still want to.

Darwin Awards
#1
Yesterday afternoon I was working away on a printroom production colour machine next to where one of the printroom messengers sits. I had this huge printer in bits, my arms up its innards James Heriot style, whilst wearing my "stylish" uniform with the company logo splashed across it. I suddenly noticed the messenger was staring at me, he said
"so, like, do you fix printers and that for a living?"
what I actually replied was
"yes"
what I really wanted to reply was,
"no, actually I just do this for fun on my days off from my other jobs as a brain surgeon and part time rocket scientist".
#2
After a hard day dealing with people like the above I was in the process of unlocking my bike when a *spits* scooter comes along, drives up the ramp to the parking area and stops right in the middle of the entrance and starts to walk off
"Oi oi oi" I shouted, politely, "you're blocking the entrance there mate"
"?" scooter boy looks blankly at me (actually he wasn't a scooter boy he was a young man typical of the overpaid, under-common-sensed ex student workers round here)
"look, you've parked right in the middle of the entrance completely blocking it"
"what" responds the bloke
"there's the ramp you've just riden up" I say whilst gesturing wildly at the ramp "and here's the entrance and you've stopped right in the middle of it blocking anyone else's exit"
At which point he flies off the handle "Im in a really bad mood, I've been driving around for ages looking for somewhere to park, I can undestand the concept of what you're saying I've never parked here before and I didn't know the ettiquette".
Two things struck me about this outburst, one, he said "driving" not "riding" an air of smug superiority descended upon me. Two, he said "ettiquette" which made me think two things posh and ponce. Posh ponce.
Whilst still ranting about completely blocking the entrance being a massive exaggeration he started to move his scooter away from me, I said "hang on fella, you've only got to move it over a bit".

Friday Facts #1
Rather than do one of those "100 things about me" type things and inspired by the Friday's feast thing that Gemmak does I thought I would combine the two ideas so here is Friday Facts #1.

My mum died when I was 7, but for years I thought I was 5.
She died of cancer, apparently triggered by a car accident that she and my dad were in.
My dad for whatever reason brought up my brother and I without ever discussing mum and for years we didn't even know where she was buried.
It was only after my Nan died that Dad decided we should know.
Wifey, being a bit morbid (Irish catholic families are apparently all a bit morbid) kept asking why I had never wanted to know or visit her grave and to be truthful I don’t know why I never asked. Dad never really talked about her and neither did my brother or I.
After much nagging from Wifey I visited her grave and was shocked to find out that I was 7 when she died and not 5 as I had always thought (approx 25yrs).
To this day I still don't know any real details and I have very few memories of her.
I've only visited her grave a couple of times and wifey thinks this is strange as in Ireland they are completely obsessed with dying and even announce any local deaths on the radio (saturday afternoons on Galway fm, if I remember correctly).
I always said that I was not bothered about talking about my mum, but finding out I was 2 years older than I thought when she died obviously shocked me a bit and now I wonder if the fact I have no real memory of mum is due to the fact that dad didn't keep her memory alive by talking about her. I also wonder if that is why I don't feel close to dad.
This post was only supposed to be the first paragraph.

watch out!!
the mums are on the lash.
Wifey is going out with "the mums" tonight. So after I've done all my chores and put the kids to bed I shall settle down to watch the missing 2 part Dr Who story which I've borrowed.
Although in reality I'll probably see about 10 mins before the baby wakes and then when I eventually get him back to sleep I'll fall asleep until Wifey comes in, takes one look at dr who on the telly and say's
"I'm not watching this shit"

Sick Puppy: Episode III Revenge of the Sick.
After me commenting previously how healthy Cap'n Bob is, wouldn't you know it he went sick today. Not normally too much of a prob but Buzz Lightweight* is on holiday.
I went to get Fishboy to come in to assist me and fortunately it wasn't to busy.
I don't know exactly what is up with Cap'n Bob, I can only imagine that he was out on his boat at the weekend and slipped up and spliced his mainbrace or ruptured his spinaker or some nautical injury.

*Last week we all went out for a team meal (curry and beer, we're sooo sophisticated) anyway I was talking with someone from the office and I might have mentioned the Big blogger thing, which means if they go there and read comments etc they could possibly find their way here. As a result of this I have edited the previous sick puppy posts and my cast list as Buzz Lightweight's original nick name on this blog made him to easily identifiable.

Yip e Kye Ay Motherfrogger
Someone e-mailed a picture of that pesky frog with a noose around it's neck. That's outrageous I thought, that frog deserves to suffer way more than that.
So having a basic knowledge of Photoshop I enhanced it a bit...


How do like them apples Froggy, eh who's crazy now
MWHUHAHAHAHAHAHAH...

you decide!
Watski has started big blogger 1.
I can't believed such a good idea hasn't been thought of before.
He asked for bloggers to be nominated for participation so I nominated the girl with a one track mind to add a bit sauciness to big blogger. Actually I must add girl to my links, although I must say I find it difficult to read her blog at work as I usaully find I can't leave my desk for 5 minutes afterwards for fear of ,er, "embarrassment".

Please stop giving me work to do
Haven't had much time to Blog lately, Chezzer's been on a Course and is now on holiday for 3 weeks and we have been very busy, especially with a dept moving into a new building over the bank holiday w/e.
So I've been doing overtime to make up the shifts and as usual Cap'n Bob has not.
Big'un has passed his first wing Chun grading with an A pass and Sifu gave him the class trophy this week.
My bike is in dire need of some maintenance, it needs a good clean, the chain needs doing and the engine is "pinking" Like a good'un.

Hurrah! my comments are back.
Thanks to enetation for sorting out the problem within hours of me requesting it, I just wished I'd requested it a week ago.

What on earth was George Lucas thinking?
George Lucas: episode III IS FINISHED, and were all set to release it in May.
studio Execs: Ah! Of Course what a splendid idea.
George Lucas: May 19th to be exact
studio Execs: what! The 19th, not the 4th then ?
George Lucas: no. Why?
studio Execs: May the fourth!
George Lucas: what? I don't get it .
studio Execs and everyone else in the World: MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!
George Lucas: no, seriously, what?
George Lucas: (three months Later)Doh!

Film advice
don't go to see Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, spend the money on the DVD of the BBC series instead.

Return of the Addams family
Last week was my beautiful wife's birthday, next week is my (not so beautiful) step-mother's birthday. These two events were celebrated on Sat in the customary manner, going to Dad's house for a Chinese takeaway. This is the traditional method of birthday celebration as everyone gets a takeaway for their birthday (and fuck all else, I should mention) Wifey pointed out that she always has to share this "special" treat with my step-mum and therefore we only have one meal instead of two, I pointed out that this is a plus.
Yet again my parents excelled themselves in their crapness. After being presented with a present by Wifey, my step-monster said "Oh, we haven't got you anything" like it was a big surprise. Yet again they failed to provide any food for the kid's, we are obviously wise to this now and, following Jamie Olivers advice carefully, supplied our own food. I'm not writing any more as it pisses me off thinking about their lack of interest in anything other than them (her)selves.

Blog thoughts
I've stated previously that in an effort to blog more frequently I would be jotting down my "blog thoughts" On my PDA.
So today's blog thoughts are ;
why the fuck has my PDA Reset itself and lost all my data?
why didn't the back up restore properly?
why did I lose half my calender info when I sync'd with my PC?

Happy Birthday...
to Little'un, who is 3 today (although when asked he states quite clearly that he is 6). Our house is now full of the world's supply of Power Rangers, as Big'un (who has redeveloped an interest in Power Rangers since taking up Kung Fu) has convinced Little'un that he should be into PR aswell.
I have to say that I like the PR toys and would have been thrilled with these when I was a nipper, but due to my deprived child hood all I had to play with was a stick and a bit of paper.

One night in Birmingham (actually it was 2 nights)
This weekend we went away for 2 nights to stay in a Hilton Hotel just outside Birmingham with another family from Big'uns school.
A jolly nice nice time was had by all, we visited Warwick Castle which was a very good day out but quite expensive.
The only thing I was disapointed about was that Paris Hilton's "home video" wasn't available on the rooms PPV telly. Oh well, a quick search on Limewire and I'm sure it'll turn up.

Terror on two wheels
As a motorcyclist I enjoy certain priviliges on the road that car drivers don't. I can filter though traffic, I can usually find a route through when the road is blocked, I have the ability to always get to the front at traffic lights and then get away in front of any one else (unless they have a faster bike). All of these things I do on a daily basis. What I don't do is go through red lights, ride on the pavement or wear Lycra. Cyclists do all of these things on a daily basis. The Nobhead who nearly ran me over this morning did all of these things at once.
While I was waiting at a pelican crossing Nobhead was approaching quite quickly, the lights changed and the green man appeared to tempt me out into the danger zone known as "the road". Nobhead didn't slow down, he just carried on coming towards me, relentless, like Arnold in The Terminator. I looked again at the green man to make sure, he appeared to beckon me saying "just step off the pavement, it's quite safe, the red light is on". In hindsight the green man was correct, as this lycra clad lunatic then did something quite unexpected. It was clear to me that Nobhead wasn't going to respect the highway code and was not going to stop at the red light, so there was no way I was going step out in front of him, Nobhead clearly thought I was stupid enough to do this and decided to go up the ramp onto the pavement right where I was standing.
As I jumped forward out of his way I had a horrible vision of him crashing into me and me becoming entangled in his lycra shorts and being taken to the london hospital to be surgically removed;
Doctor: "Nurse what's the situation with this patient?"
Nurse: "pedestrian trapped inside a cyclists lycra shorts"
Doctor: "What?, that's the third one this week!"
As he rode away I thought I would point put the error of his ways so I called his name "NOBHEAD" I shouted, but he didn't respond. He probably couldn't speak as he was being "strangled" by his own shorts.
Lycra, just say no.

sick Puppy: Episode II Return of the Sick.
When I got in on wednesday the new bloke was already here, so I gave a big cheer as I entered the printroom, he responded with a series of coughs and said "don't cheer too loudly (cough) I don't know how long (cough) I'll be here.
Oh fucking great.
He made it through to 3 o'clock before flaking out and pissing off. LaLa, the apprentice, was still here although he spent most of the day comparing mobiles with the fax engineer who is also based in the printroom.
Thursday, LaLa had gone back from whenst he came and the sickmeister was back to full strength but he still only made it to 3:30 so he has now been christened Buzz Lightweight as he bears an uncanny likeness to the space ranger from star command and saviour of the galaxy.

Sick Puppy
I have not had any time off sick for about 3yrs, Cap'n Bob hasn't had more than about 2 days sick in 6yrs, the BCH hadn't been sick for at least 3yrs. Eight months ago the BCH moves on and in comes the new bloke, he is currently on his 3rd bout of sickness, he has been off for a week now. I AM NOT HAPPY.
I am trying to escape this hectic life of copier repair, to get off the tools and into I.T. I would like to still work for the same company but as a network support analyst, to help me do this I've been arranging to spend time working with the analysts. I was suppose to be doing this last week but I had to cancel BECAUSE HE IS OFF SICK..
Last week, I was feeling a bit rough and we had another round of the Lurgy at home, I still came in. The new bloke said to me "when I was in the colour team, if you go sick there's another 20 odd engineers to carry on. But here onsite there's only the 3 of us so 2 people have to make up the work" and, because we are onsite 7 to 7, we have to cover that persons hours aswell. BUT HE STILL WENT SICK..
This week Cap'n Bob is on holiday, I have to work 12hrs and the only extra support I can get is an apprentice who isn't trained on most of the kit and who can't get around the building, BECAUSE HE IS OFF SICK..
But the worst thing about this is that the new bloke, (he's off sick, did I mention it?)a grown man in his late 30's, married with 2 children, has to get his wife to phone in for him. Ah bless.

Who's the Daddy?
I am according to the baby, who has just started saying Dadaaa and bubaaaa. Hoorah!
(insert american style whooping noises here)

Hong Kong Phooey
my 6yr old son, Big'un, started kung fu lessons on tuesday. He did really well and is keen to keep going, so much so that he is going again tonight and I've had to cancel my return to college to resume my I.T course (more on this later, maybe)
I chose Wing Chun Kung Fu for him to learn as this was the last style that I studied. Wing Chun consists of powerful short range techniques, mainly straight punches and no high flashy kicks. From a self defence perspective if your in a crowded pub / club and a bit of a fracas occurs, then wing Chun is what you want to know.
I decided to ask big'un if he wanted to go after a very good advert in the local paper from this school. The instructor is very good and the Kids classes are based as much on personal developement, social skills and leadership skills as they are on Kung Fu.
Big'un is now convinced he is on the way to becoming a power ranger.
More details on Kung fu and the styles I have studied are on my webpage here.

Homing Frogs
The mice are no more, and the holes from where they were infiltrating my house have been sealed with expanding foam filler (the bodgers friend). But now I'm being invaded by by killer ninja homing frogs.
When we moved into this house almost 3 yrs ago there was a large pond in the garden, which having 2 young children at the time, had to go. All the frogs that I found were relocated to the lake in the nearby park. But they keep coming back, it's like Stephen king's Pet Sematary.
Whilst putting the bike in the garage recently I noticed a large squidgy lump in the access road out the back, I assumed it was the normal dog egg but as I got closer I realised it was a squashed frog. I then saw two more unsquashed frogs, one of which was blocking access to my garage and I had to wait for it to hop off before putiing the bike in.
Two days later I found one in the garden and another squashed one out the back.
I re-relocated it to the park, and took a different route back with lots of doubling back so it couldn't follow my scent.
I wonder if Robert Dyas sell frog traps?

Gone Phishing
Which web browser do you use? Gone over to Firefox have you, to be safer? Think again.
The Register has an article about the rise in trojan horse programs. highlights include;

Of the 13 vulns affecting IE in 2004, nine were classified as "high severity". Of the 21 vulnerabilities affecting the Mozilla browsers, Symantec classified 11 as "high severity". Firefox users enjoyed an easier ride with just seven affecting "high severity" vulns over the report period.

Symantec says there have been few attacks in the wild against Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or Safari, but the jury is still out on whether these browsers represent a more secure alternative to IE.

The article also comments on the rise in Phishing scams, this is where you get an email asking you to confirm your account details for internet banking etc, I get a lot of these pretending to be from ebay. The email will ask you to click a link, which takes you to a fake version of the website you think you are visiting, and then log in to reset your account, at which point they grab your password etc and steal all your money.
I would imagine that a lot of even fairly web savvy people get caught like this and it is obviously lucrative judging by this statement;

Symantec also noted a marked rise in email scams over second half of 2004. The firm's BrightMail anti-spam filters blocked an average of 33 million phishing emails a week in December 2004 compared to nine million a week in July 2004.

So get yerself a firewall and antivirus software, if you use broadband get a router/firewall, visit www.grc.com and use their "shields up" utility to find out how secure your pc is, and remember no proper company will ask you for passwords etc.
Be careful out there on the interweb because here be dragons, and thieving bastards.

The winds of change
Thought I'd mess about with the colour scheme a bit as this blog template has been the same ever since I started it.
Also I want to add some pictures and a random picture generator that I 've been playing around with in Dreamweaver. When I get time.

This weekend was the firm's "christmas do". A bit later than normal this year and a bit poorly attended but wifey and I still enjoyed it.
My in laws had the kids (this was the first night we have spent without the baby, who was 6 months old yesterday incidentally) so it was nice to get a bit of peace and quiet and a break from Big'uns constant pokemon obsession.
The format was the usual, night in a hotel, posh meal (remembering eat before meal or send out for pizza afterwards), disco and breakfast. The only difference was this year we had a live band as well which would have been a good idea if it wasn't for the fact that they were shite. This band would not have made it to the second round of X-pop-factor-idol-academy-stars.
Highlights of the do were watching certain people dance (it appeared that they were listening to a different song to everyone else, probably had an i-pod) and when another engineer came over to me and said "this band are crap, I could do better than that singer" and about a minute later the singer asks for volunteers to sing backing on "Mustang Sally" so up jumps the engineer and sings the whole song for them! (he wasn't any worse).
They also have a raffle with prizes that range from small items like a hair dryer or a handheld TV , medium items like X-box / PS2 right up to the daddy prize which was a 26" LCD widescreen telly. Wifey and I have never won. anything. nada. not a sausage. They also have a small table prize so that someone on each table is guaranteed to get a prize. The raffle is done completely fairly but it seems that certain people win something every year and you always find that both people in a couple will win a separate prize, this happened twice this year. I'm not bitter and twisted, no, not at all. not bothered, look at my face Am I bothered?.
Anyway this year I won the table prize Yay! Hurrah! Woot Woot!, I felt like jumping up and running round the room, arms raised, singing the Rocky theme. It was a cheapo MP3 player but it was still a prize that I won. So there.

Death toll so far is 5 mice.
None for 4 days now.
No mice were harmed during the typing of this post.

Her mind made up
she walks down the road
hands in her pockets
coat buttoned against the cold
She finally finds Mickey
down at the italian cafe
When he's drunk it's hard to understand
what Mickey says
But then he mumbles in his coffee
and he suddenly roars
IT'S A MOUSE TRAP WIFEY
AND TWO'VE BEEN CAUGHT!

Weapons of mouse destruction
it appears I have been outwitted by the furry fiend. Sunday evening I investigated where the mouse might have been entering, I removed the plinth board from under the cupboards where Wifey saw the little bugger and lo and behold I found some evidence. There were droppings. So I moved the traps and rebaited them (using chocolate stolen from my children). I put the traps under the cupboard against the wall and back to back, replaced the plinth and laughed evily to myself.
Yesterday after work I removed the plinth and both traps had been moved and were closed, ohmygod! ohmygod! my pulse was racing as I carefully lifted out the first trap. I had my plan in place, out the front door, across the road, into the access road that goes behind the houses opposite, spin trap round 3 times (to disorientate mouse) open the trap and run.
The trap felt light and kind of empty, quickly holding door of the trap closed I was off, gazelle like, out the house into the street.
The trap was empty, infact both traps were empty. Completely. The little fecker (or feckers) had gone into the trap, taken the bait, and got out again leaving only a few tiny mouse poos just to rub my nose in it.
So it's off to Robert Dyas for something a little more lethal.
Stop Press; as I'm typing I just had a phone call from Wifey saying that she can hear "stuff" from where the traps are and that I'd better get my arse down to the shop to get something to kill it .

Thomaaaaaaaass!
I got a call from Wifey yesterday at 07:45, she was feeling faint, nervous, afraid and didn't want to be in the house. Yes she had seen a mouse. Apparently it was watching her from behind a box under the worktop in the kitchen, obviously with some malevelolent intention.
I did the decent thing and instead of sounding concerned and offering to come home from work immediately I took the piss.
So how to get rid of our guest? I had thought of getting Otis Ferry and his chums round. Now that Foxes are out of bounds they might appreciate somthing else to hunt. I'd imagine the request would go something like this;
ring ring
"hello, Otis Ferry celebrity hunt master and popstar's offspring How may I help you?"

"Otis, Mick here, we've got a mouse and I thought might like to come round and hunt it. It's in the kitchen"

"thanks for your kind offer Mick but since hunting has been banned we country folk now spend all our time inter-breeding and giving our servants extra flagellation"

"ok whatever, see ya later potata!"

So it was off to Robert Dyas in the Wharf for some traps. I bought some non-lethal mouse friendly traps. These involve luring the little fella into a box with some bait, the box then tilts up and the door closes and locks. You then release the mouse into the wild where it is free to get killed and eaten by a cat.

Information super highway.
I 've done it. I've taken the plunge. I've signed up for broadband.
I actually signed up for it a few weeks ago with Tiscali as the provider but I realised afterwards that I wasn't getting the deal that I thought I was and I read a lot of bad press about Tiscali so I decided to cancel my order. I have now signed up with with Bulldog who have got a very good deal on at the moment for an unlimited 4meg connection. I should be up and running in about a week.

Bring out yer dead
I feel like I'm living in a plague house. We don't seem to have been clear of the lurgy since about mid-december and the sick bowl has been on permanent standby. To cap it all off Little'un got chicken pox two weeks ago and now it looks like the baby has got it.

There's a fine line between bravery and stupity ...
and riding a motorbike in the snow crosses it.
So I am at the mercy of London Underground at least for the next week.

9 days and done!
Well what do you know his ears must have been burning. Dad turned up the next day, dropped off the cheque, muttered something about having to get back and promptly pissed off. A bungee Grandad.

8 Days and counting.....
On Sunday 16th Jan we had the baby christened. We had a small gathering of family and friends in the church and then back to our place for tea and medals.
My Dad and Stepmum came. Yes them again, the most disinterested grandparents you could ever meet.
Just a quick recap: Dad;- 73, pisshead. Real mum died when I was 7 hence, Stepmum;- 52, fat, grumpy, wheelchair bound due to crippling MS.
So back at our house the great wheeled one regails anyone in earshot with stories of her daughters children, especially about how my Dad "had a grandaughter on each knee" oh what jolly times were had by all (actually I'm not sure how that works as She has 3 girls and I've never noticed Dad having an extra knee). She pauses occasionally to ask someone passing to stick some food in her gob, which she can't do herself, she then eats like a seal eating fish (insert honking noises here).
Anyway shortly before they leave Dad mutters something to me along the lines of "sorry I didn't time to get out and get anything or a card". Yes that's right my parents came to their grandson's christening, came back to our house, enjoyed our hospitality, ate the food and drink provided and then pissed off without even buying a fucking card that alone getting a present for their newest Grandchild. I typed that last bit really hard as it makes my blood boil just thinking about it.
As they leave Dad say's he'll write a cheque that we can stick in the baby's account and "pop round with it tomorrow", did he come?...
8 days and counting.

world wide weirdo's
After reading an excellent post at watski's world about things that people searched for and found his site, for example 'bonjela applied to eye by mistake' I have signed up for a statcounter which should be able to tell me such interesting info.

On boxing day there was an earthquake offshore in Indonesia which caused a tsunami. This tidal wave caused much destruction and loss of life across Asia and is a terrible tragedy. This has been (and will be be for sometime) covered extensively by the media and I will not be dwelling on it other than to say that it's amazing how many people have trouble pronouncing tsunami.

Blinded by the light or blind stupidity
The last part of my route home on the SV involves going up a small hill and then turning right. Not too difficult you might think, and normally you'd be right but last night proved a bit tricky due to some car driving twat.
Let me explain, so I'm riding up the hill and the approaching cars are partially blinding me with their lights. I indicate right and conveniently there is a gap in the oncoming traffic caused by a bus pulling out from the bus stop. I look into my turning and see a car almost at the end of the road, I adjust my turn so as not to cut the corner, look up at the approaching bus and turn into the road. So far so good. As I make the turn I have the lights from the bus and the car dazzling me together and suddenly I realise that the car isn't coming out of the turning but he is parked on the wrong side of the road and I have overshot the turning and am heading straight for the curb!. I am now in no-mans land with a bus bearing down on me, fortunately because this pillock wasn't quite at the end of the road I managed to get round with some difficulty but without falling off or getting twatted by the bus.
The twatting great pillock realised his extreme stupidity as I went across in front of him and turned his lights down. I acknowledged this by shouting " you fucker " as loudly as I could at the inside of my crash helmet.

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day"....
....Unfortunately I don't seem to have any dull days now, only very busy ones at work and at home.
The thing is I don't get time to Blog at home and I don't like Blogging at work when other people are about. In an effort to help me blog more consistently I have been trying to note my thoughts down on my PDA but now I find I don't even have time to do this. And what's more we are currently negotiating a new service level agreement with the client in which they want us to do lots of additional paperwork documenting all the calls that we do, the faults and resolutions, which means I will have even less time. And further still our sales people are trying to get some machines replaced but the client is driving the cost down hard and sales have said the only way we can get the cost down further is by taking out an engineer!.
So the print volumes are up, therefore we have more calls, the client want's more from us and we might lose a person. Great. Just fucking great.

and then one day you find ten.... days have flashed past. just like that. blinked missed it. fuck.

Breaking News Update Flash
Ok so I haven't posted for a while, we've had a baby for christ's sake !
so time for a quick update of all things,

1) "The baby"
... is doing fine, he is really well put together and seems quite strong and sturdy, it looks like Wifey has cooked up another good'un. He sleeps quite well and hasn't been much trouble, Little'un on the other hand has.
It seems seems Little'un is a bit put out by his baby brother and has been very tearful and his behaviour has got worse (it was pretty bad before!). We have been giving him lots of attention and cuddles and keeping him involved but it seems that two and a half is not a good age to be presented with a baby!.
Big'un, at age six, has taken the whole thing in his stride and is more concerned with Pokemon than his new baby.
2) Uniformity (see post "yes, we are all individuals")
well I had two weeks paternity leave and came back to find the uniforms in place and everybody wearing them, except the printroom droids who have weaseled out of it but are under strict instructions not to take the piss or they will all have to wear it. One of the supervisors, known as The Grudge, must be finding this particulary difficult.
The BCH has gone. He got to a point where it was time to put up or shut up so he put up and left the site!. I arranged a collection for him in which he did very well (a leatherman tool, an angle grinder and some beer vouchers).
The BCH was not only Big Chief Head engineer in this site but he was also the team leader for the Docklands.
Anyway time's getting on, I've got work outstanding and the new bloke is due in any minute so time to fold away this blog I'll continue this later, or more probably tomorrow.

A child is born
at 06:30 on monday 13th the baby made an appearance.
A boy weighing in at 6lbs 14 and a half oz's. It was a fairly quick labour (7.5 hrs) and relatively painless (for me anyway) as wifey was whacked up on gas & air. Mother and baby are doing fine and "the baby" has no problems making his presence felt in the customary manner, screaming.
We got lots of congrats etc from family and friends except for, yes you guessed it, my parents.
Lots going on at the moment at work aswell as home and I'll be at home for the next 2 weeks on paternity leave.
Busy busy busy got to go.

D-Day + 3
no movement yet.
Wifey want's to get it over and done now. There are various things that you can do to start off labour so we did one of these things yesterday morning. Funnily enough it was the same thing that we did to get pregnant in the first place!

D-day plus 1 and counting
The baby was due yesterday, so far wifey has had nothing more than a few twinges in her lower back although she did say a couple of day's ago that her bump felt "lower". Currently I'm at defcon 4 and I shit myself everytime the phone rings.
Wifey is pretty fed up at the moment and feeling a bit low, she had had a massive rage at me on bank holiday monday which lasted 3 days, kicked off by the fact that I put on the dishwasher instead of the washing m/c (DOH! whatever was I thinking?). She is bored at home and having both boys all day for the school holiday while being heavily preggers was a strain.
Big'un has gone back to school now and is in year 1 which is th estart of "proper" school as reception year was more of a relaxed introduction.

D-day
our 3rd child is due today.
No movement yet.

Happy Birthday!
Big'un was 6 today!.
We took him, little'un and the beast-next-door to Gray's Beach which is a big sand filled play area with slides, climbing frames and a "splash" area. Gray's beach is a pretty good place, and it's free (a small charge is made for the splash area) all 3 boys had a great time.
Later on my bruv came over and we all went bowling (beast not included).
As per normal my parents let me down, dad brought my brother over, gave Big'un a card and mumbled something about not having time to get and buy a present. He doesn't work.
I haven't got the time or the inclination to rant about them at the moment but there is a prolonged rant brewing.

Let's get ready to rumble!
On wednesday I went to see a bloke I know in the cabling dept to "borrow" a cable, while I was there he said he was selling his wife's biker's outfit including a pretty good helmet all nearly new and hardly worn. I was interested in the lid but he said someone else had first refusal so that was that.
So yesterday the phone rings, I answer and hear raised voices, the cable guy comes on and says "Mick is that you?, when was it I showed you that crash helmet?" (more raised voices in background)
"wednesday" I reply.
The cable guy says " it was in perfect nick wasn't it, no marks or scratches?"
before I could answer I hear lots of shouting and swearing he asks the question again and I say "not that I saw" (more shouting etc)
"Mick can you come down and tell this cunt that........" Before I can answer the level of shouting and swearing goes up, the phone his end gets dropped and I can hear all shorts of swearing and scuffling and shouting. What should I do? should I go down and assist?, should I phone security? in the end I chose the only sensible option, I put him on speaker phone.

Yes we are all individual's.
In the bank where I am one of the resident engineers, the client has decreed that from next week we will have to wear uniforms.
This has been in the pipeline for a few weeks now and has caused a right old tear up. The printroom droids have now been told they don't have to wear it but the 3 of us, the messengers, the Ricoh engineer and the fax engineers do.
The idea is apparently so that people know who we are when we are strolling about the place in pursuit of excellence in the field of copier repair, hence the printroom droids don't have to wear it as the clients come to them.
Cap'n bob, as usual, doesn't have much of an opinion and just shrugs his shoulders a lot, I don't want to wear the uniform but at the end of the day the client wants it so wear it or leave the site!. The BCH on the other hand has started a one man crusade to get out of wearing it. E-mails have been flying fast and furious, there has been much cutting and pasting from the websites of people such as citizens advice and the HSE, his list of demands include lockers, changing and washing facilities.
So far he has managed to piss off just about everybody, he has undoubtedly made matters worse and has also managed to get us banned from changing out of our bike gear (BCH is a biker aswell) in the room we have used for the last 6 yrs!
Any way the "stylish" uniforms consist of a shirt with "corprate services in association with (company name)" and our company logo written on them, dark blue chinos and a fleece with the same writing.
I enjoy quite a good position here, I am well thought of by the client and get loads of overtime, so the uniform is not that big a deal for me. I don't want to wear it but they say I have to so that's that. The BCH has painted himself into a corner and is fully prepared to leave the site and go back to pounding the beat in the city again, which is looking quite likely at the moment.
This raises a another question, if the BCH goes who will replace him?

Let's get ready to rumble!
On wednesday I went to see a bloke I know in the cabling dept to "borrow" a cable, while I was there he said he was selling some bikers kit including a pretty good helmet all nearly new and hardly worn. I was interested in the lid but he said someone else had first refusal so that was that.
So yesterday the phone rings, I answer and hear raised voices, the cable guy comes on and says
"Mick is that you?, when was it I showed you that crash helmet?" (more raised voices in background)
"wednesday" I reply.
The cable guy says "it was in perfect nick wasn't it, no marks or scratches?"
before I could answer I hear lots of shouting and swearing, he asks the question again and I say
"not that I saw" (more shouting etc)
"Mick can you come down and tell this cunt that.........?"
Before I can answer the level of shouting and swearing goes up, the phone his end getsdropped and I can hear all shorts of swearing and scuffling and shouting. What should I do? should I go down and assist?, should I phone security? in the end I chose the only sensible option, I put him on speaker phone.

Home and away
The 1st week of the course went smoothly, there are 3 others on it all of whom are OK. The format of the course is standard fare for technical training; -
instructor gives over view of machine, students become drowsy,
instructor tells student to complete workbook or CBT, students sleep,
instructor tells students to carry out practical tasks as per workbook, students wake up and ignore the set task and proceed to strip the machine to component level and put it back together (with less screws).
In the evening we managed to eat and drink and hog the pool table for 1 1/2 hrs at a time, we also managed to get out and see Spiderman 2 which was excellent.
On my way home last friday (30/07) I was on the M4 just starting to overtake a lorry, when Mr Lorry driver (from this point on to be referred to as "the tosser") suddenly indicates and starts to move over at the same time. I had to brake hard ,the hired Fiat Punto I was in fortunately had reasonable brakes (which is about the only good thing I can say about it) the tosser saw me and moved back into his lane. As he was still indicating I waited just behind him for a minute, he didn't move again so I overtook him. As I went past, the fucking tosser had the nerve to stick his hand out and give me the all powerful wanker sign, which was a bit rich as his other hand was clamping his mobile to his ear!. Isn't funny how people like him are never in the wrong.
Anyhoo, saturday 31st, wifey and the boys went off to sunny clacton with her parents to stay in a caravan and I was home alone WooHoo!
Week 2 of the course was considerably slower and consisted mainly of loading software on the machines and the colour servers. We went bowling on tuesday and saw a preview screening of I, Robot on thursday. I, Robot was not bad, quite enjoyable but lacked the thrills and excitement of Spiderman 2.
So, back reality wifey and the boys are due back any time and I'm looking forward to seeing them, and back to real work on monday ho hum!

It's a hard life
As of Monday I'm off on a technical training course for 2 weeks. Which involves being given a hire car to drive there and back(there incidently is a mansion house in a little one horse village between Reading and Basingstoke), staying in the mansion from sunday night to friday morning, being plied with free food (mmmnn big brekkies every day ) use of the "executive center's" pool, jacuzzi, sauna etc and there may be some drinking involved.
Unfortunately the course also involves being bored rigid with technical details etc of a new colour copier / printer for 10 days

Film Review (this review may contain spoilers)
The w/e before last I managed to see HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban and after looking forward to this film for ages I have to say I was a little disappointed. That's not to say it was a bad film, it's not, it's very good I just thought it wasn't as good an adaptation as the other two films. Gary Oldman is, without doubt, one of my favorite actors. it's a shame that until the fifth book, his role is quite small.
I much preferred the darker look, this is in keeping with the more serious nature of the story. The new look of Hogwarts and surroundings is ok, the location of Hagrids hut is more convincing, the special effects are much better and the acting is good.
The main criticisms I have are that some key plot points were left out (they may address this inThe Goblet of Fire), the opening scene, at the Dursley's, felt very rushed, Harry's disappointment at not being able to go to Hogsmeade wasn't really conveyed nor was the suspiciousness of Crookshanks the cat and there was no explanation of who Messrs Moony, wormtail, padfoot and Prongs were or the fact that they became animagus, deliberately, in support of their friend Moony/Lupin. Also the book has a very uplifting ending which was not in the film at all.
Having just finished reading the book again it is very easy for me to make comparisons that I may have been able to make otherwise.
Overall,  I liked Prisoner of Azkaban and I would recommend it to any who has seen the the two previous films although I would say if you have never read Harry Potter you should make this a priority. It's not just for kid's you know!

PartIII
On Saturday my Dad left a message on the answer phone;
"hello, just me, just phoning to give you an update on what's happening with us. Give us a ring when you get a mo'"
2 things struck me about this 1, I didn't know anything was happening with them and 2, the complete lack of "phoning to see how you are , how the boys are, how wifey's pregnancy is going".
I phoned on Sunday to be told that my step mother (the wheeled Behemoth)has been up the hospital with a grotesquely swollen foot which, I found out after an epic story, is a DVT. They spent 5 hours in Oldchurch A&E ,after being sent there by the community nurse for a scan, alternately being told that she didn't / did need a scan. When the staff decided she should have a scan they were told it was too late and they should come back tomorrow (last Thursday). After the scan they were told it definitely is a DVT and my stepmum would have to be on wharferin for the rest of her life.
During the visit for the scan they were told by the nurse that the 2 previous clots she had (1996 and 2003, due to being in a wheelchair) were classed as "life threatening" and "near fatal" as the 2nd one had started to move. Neither my dad or stepmum had been told this before.
Now given that they were sent to hospital by a nurse who knows the history and who also phoned the hospital to say they were coming and the hospital had the notes detailing the previous clots, I think it is disgraceful that the scan clinic turned them away first and told them to go to A&E and then the Triage nurse assessed her as "low risk" hence the 5 hours in A&E with a potentially fatal DVT!
Now that the wheeled one is on Wharferin she is a lot less likely to have another clot.
I'm ashamed to say that when dad said "near fatal" the first thought in my head was that dad's life would be so much easier without her. I don't mean that I wish her dead because I don't, I'm not that kind of person. I just feel sorry for the way my dad's life has gone, my mother died when I was 7 (although for many years I thought I was 5 when she died) then when I was 12 dad married the wheeled one (although she fully functional at the time) Big Bruv and I have never really liked her, it's not a "you can't replace our mother" kind of thing it's just because she's not very likeable.
Anyway I never really feel comfortable talking about my real mum ( I might post more on this another time)so I'm out of here.

PartII
As it's been a few weeks since I made the post below the impetus for continuing a summary of my family has gone. All I will say now is that they are the least caring grandparents I have ever known, they show very little interest in our kids, they don't always buy them things for birthdayts etc (when they do, we have to tell them something specific and where they can buy it and the price!) but if you listen to them talking you'd think they are the best!. The immense generosity of my in-laws just serves to highlight the failings of my own family.
You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family.

"they're creepy and they're kooky". part I.
Due to it being Fathers day yesterday I had to go and visit my dysfunctional family (they took the fun out of dysfunctional) I took the boys with me but Wifey stayed at home to finish painting the kitchen ceiling (yes, even being 6 mths pregnant, she would rather get tired, painty and bored than visit my folks!)
My family;
Dad, in his 70's, had to give up smoking 60 a day in his 50's when he had a heart attack, took up drinking instead, he still "practises" drinking. Now spends his every waking moment looking after;-
Stepmother, in her 50's, fat, demanding, miserable, selfish. After Dad had his heart attack she "supported" him by going out all the time, critising, and generally letting him get on with wallowing in self pity and drink. Well what goes around comes around as they say and now the boot is well and truly on the other foot. She was struck down with multiple Sclerosis and now is wheelchair bound and unable to do anything for herself.

I'm not saying she shouldn't be miserable, if I was in her position I doubt if I'd be laughing and joking all the time, it's just that she makes my dad's life unnessacarily hard by critising him and telling him he's doing this and that wrong. He's been lifting her in and out of a wheelchair for about 13 yrs now, he knows what to do but he is not physically capable any more he is ,after all, an old man.
If this sounds a bit harsh, just try to remember, being disabled doesn't automatically make you a nice person.
Anyway, it's time to go home so I'll finish in partII soon.

Families deny Euro fans' violence
Here are some classic quotes from the BBC's website from the family's of some of the people arrested in Portugal.

"The mother of a 19-year-old archaeology and ancient history student arrested in Albufeira said he had tried to run away when trouble erupted outside a bar."

"They were sitting outside a pub, having a drink, and some trouble started a couple of tables away,"

"The mother of another Briton detained on Monday night said he was a "lovely lad".

"He must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "I can't believe he would be a hooligan."

"A neighbour described him as a "most inoffensive young man" who did not have "an aggressive bone in his body".

and my favourite,
"really lovely lads" who had never given their parents, Michael and Mary, any trouble".

This is the funniest thing I've seen written by the BBC for years!!

I'm the King of the world
I typed "bloggocks" into google and this blog comes out on top. Fantastic!

slow news week
After reporting pretty much nothing but the weather all week, today's papers are concentrating on the serious mens health issue of testicular cancer. All the quality papers (actually the sun and the Star) have on the cover pictures of David Beckham in his pants, er, "checking himself". While I appreciate the seriousness of this issue I think this kind of "celebrity 'nad fondling" is unessacary.
I much preffered the pictures inside of Britney Spears in full riding tackle.
While on the subject of the papers, the Star excelled themselves this week. last w/e what happened? not much of importance,no, just a few trivial things like the D-Day anniversary, 3 women shot at a BBQ, Ronald Reagan dying and on monday the Star's front page was a big pic of Jennifer Ellison in her skimpies and the lead story "I romped with big brother tranny Nadia"

A grand day out
Wifey, the boys and I went to Legoland (or Legoland-Windsor as Big'un calls it so as not to get confused with any other Legolands there might be)on wednesday and we had really good time. We've been a few times before and the only thing that made this visit different was that I bumped into an old friend, Andy Trufflefuffle.
I knew trufflefuffle from when I used to go Diving and we used to go out drinking in a group, the 3 amigos and the other one (trufflefuffle was the other one). The 3 amigos consisted of myself,the W and Adam. We met Trufflefuffle through diving as I said and I knew Adam because he was the W's brother in law. I had been best friends with the W all through school, and this post is really about him.
All through our friendship I had played second fiddle to the W, he was full of chat, good with ladies (for an ugly ginger git, he had some gorgeous girlfriends), and popular. I was always just his mate. Throughout school and our late teens / early 20's we just had a laugh constantly, had some serious binges and did some pretty stupid things.
He settled done with a lovely girl (Adam's wife's sister), moved out to Grays and got engaged, but when I met someone things started to change. The W didn't like my girl and she didn't like him. She didn't like the way he treated me and he didn't like being told that.
Over the years he had done some pretty horrible things to me but I just turned a blind eye or shrugged it off, examples :- he seemed to make it his goal to shag anyone I was interested in and he did this at least 3 times, he bought a motorcrosser and insisted I get my own as we would have much more fun with one each as soon as I bought mine he sold his and 'cos the bikes were kept in his yard I had to sell it and, one of his favourites would be to offer around smokes to people in the pub who he was talking to but when he got to me he would say "you can smoke your own".
I split up with the girl and was struggling to cope with a mortagage on my own all he did to help was critise me for not going out as much. When I did go out I used to ride on a 125 to Grays from Barking (15 miles approx)to meet him in his local pub were he had a new group of friends, only to have him take the piss and put me down in front of them. Needless to say I soon got pretty tired off this and stopped going. If went out with any different friends the W would always make sarcastic comments about it almost as if he was jealous.
After a couple of wilderness years I was back on my feet and I met Wifey, she didn't like the W either and he didn't like her.
The W was dumped by his fiancee as she found out he had been having affairs. Typically of him he blamed anyone and everyone for this as it couldn't be his fault despite the fact that everyone in their local new it was going on and she literally was the last to know.
He then set up with his bit on the side, who was as dim as a 20 watt bulb and had all the get up and go of a tree stump but she was blond with big tits.
I got married, he was my best man. I saw less and less of him.
One night we went out for a drink (me driving to him, of course) afterwards I had a big go at him for being such a wanker, he claimed he was sorry and he would try to be a better friend etc etc. When I got home I told wifey and I said " you know what, he is jealous, jealous of me, jealous of you, our life, everything" and I realised that underneath this facade of personality and all his boasting about money and brashness he was just a sad attention seeker.
When Big' un was born he and the dimbo turned up at the hospital, he looked at the baby, sniffed and then went and sat in the corner and read a mag. Wifey hasn't seen him since ( nearly 6 yrs) and I only saw him a couple of more times.
Last year he phoned me up out of the blue, he'd found out I'd moved and got my new number from somemwhere. He was very friendly and chatty but still all he was really interested in was telling me what cars he'd had, how he'd bought and sold a house and made X amount of money and blah blah blah me me me.
The very next night he phoned me again and said the dimbo's gone out did I fancy going for a beer?, what this said to me was, that he was desperate for friends. I made some excuse about washing my hair or poking my eyes out with hot needles and said that I'd stop off at his yard on my way home from work the following week.
Wifey asked " are you going to see him? " I thought about it, about how long we were mates, about how many good times we had, about how much I had put into the friendship compared with how much I had got out of it and said "no, he's a cunt"

Here I am just getting ready for the off, when I suddenly realise that I was supposed to "decommission" (read - unplug) 2 copiers after 6. While I'm doing it I can hear someone outside the little copier room moaning and saying fuck this and fuck that. About 1/2 the floor is being relocated over the w/e and he is 1 of about 6 people left milling about. He comes flying into the copier room in time to see me folding the cables up on top of the 2nd machine "christ can't I even make a fucking copy?" "no" I reply helpfully, he waves his paper about, "there are more copiers round the otherside" I add he waves his arms about some more and walks out I make my excuses and leave (read - sneak out while he's still flapping). As I leave the floor he's still pacing up and down,waving his paper and failing to grasp the fact that there is another copier less than 10 yards away.Twat.
Now one of the printroom droids has just walked through and said "Mick, two of the colour printers have gone down" "oh really" I respond as sincerely as I could while thinking " just fuck off I'm going home"
Now I find myself still here after 7, not because I just had a quick look at the printers (I fobbed him off by saying I'll look at them tommorrow - the overtime fairy is good to me) but because I want to finish this fucking post!

Been doing so much lately at work and at home. So a summary of the last month or so:

April 12th- started the chimney removal, lots of work, the F-I-L did most of it (well it was his idea, and it was he who was pushing to get it done, and he's not even 70 yet!) Much to my surprise the house hasn't fallen down (yet) the F-I-L was getting a bit pissed off with me asking anyone and everyone about how to do and not just accepting the fact that he had removed 3 chimney breasts before. Anyway the job spiraled out of all proportion and we ended up pulling a ceiling down and replacing it and having over £900 of plastering done.Had to take another week off work, lucky I could.

work, work, work

May 3rd- Little 'uns 2nd birthday, went to the London Aquarium. Overall a good day out but the Aquarium is crap and really expensive, £30 for the 4 of us. I really enjoy aquariums and the like but having been to quite a few, IMO this one sucks. The sealife centres you get at places like Brighton and Southend etc are much much better than this. Don't go there.

May 7th - 22 week scan, got a good look at the baby, all the tests, weights and measures etc came out OK so that's a relief.

May 11th - Wifey's birthday, didn't fuck up as usual.

work, work, work

May 16th - Didn't go to Snetterton race track with the BCH to watch some of the people from the bikers mail group doing a track day. Instead took Wifey and the Boys to Godstone farm. Phew! had a luck escape there managing to get out of boring chore of going to watch loads of like-minded people racing and throwing their own bikes up the track!

Becks ex's sex text
What a load of bollocks. This is going to be one of those self perpetuating stories that the press will keep going even thought there isn't any new information.
The girl involved, I shall call her "Rebecca Loos", apparently kept all these sex texts and also according to today's Daily star she may have video'd themselves doing the wild thing. The Daily star quotes such believable sources as "an ex-boyfriend" and, my favourite, "an insider". An insider? inside what? or who?, if you believe the papers Rebecca has had just about everyone insider.

"lets 'ave yers on the floor for the fightin' "
It kicked off a bit at work on Thursday. The BCH had a bit of a to do with one of the printroom droids which resulted in the BCH throwing a bottle of cleaning fluid at him and calling him "a Portuguese git" (which is factually correct on both counts).
Within 10 mins the guvnor was on the phone and the BCH was summoned over the office for a whipping.
I have to say it served him right and it was about time the BCH had some critisism as he does tend to use bullying tactics to get his way, especially if were having a "discussion"

My gloom has lifted somewhat and the feelings of giving up the bike have passed. I tend to think about his crash (I don't know any details) when I'm riding. I always ride defensively, even if I'm having a bit of a tear-up, which makes me slower than a lot of other riders through traffic but I don't consider my self to be invincible or car drivers to be telepathic so I ride accordingly.

I'm, like, free as a bird, man
I just heard on the radio that "english" tennis player Greg Drugheadski has been cleared of taking performance drugs. That's good, now he'll be able to concentrate on not winning wimbledon.

His funeral is on friday. I have been thinking a lot. I discussed it with stewsie in the printroom who rides the same route, he told me the the kidbrooke interchange, where the crash happened is "a chaotic nightmare". I dont fancy finding out for myself.
Last night on the telly I saw that graphic ad with the invisible cars where the biker doesn't know what hits him.While I appreciate that it is aimed at telling riders to ride defensively I think it is too much to show the actor on the floor with blood running down his face. Whenever this ad comes on wifey gives me a look and says "I'm saying nothing"

Joy and pain
I haven't blogged for over a month due to the fact I've been very busy at work and home and my life is dull.
But things change and it is with a mixture of great joy and deep sadness that I post today.
After many months of trying I am pleased to say that my beautiful wife is pregnant with our 3rd, she is 12 weeks, we had the scan on monday and everything checked out fine. "the baby" is due on 9th sept and I can't wait.
Now the difficult bit, at work in the site where I'm based I'm in a bikers mail group which has almost 50 members, only a few of which I actually know personally. One of these few had an accident on the way to work on tuesday and died. He was the only person in the group (apart from the BCH) that I knew very well and I feel quite upset by the news, he was a great bloke who was a real biking enthusiast, he worked in IT and was a great help to me when I was trying to decide which course to take.
At the moment I can't seem to shake the feeling that I should give up biking, I lost a very close friend a few years back in a bike crash but it didn't affect me in the same way. I cried my heart out at his funeral but not once did I consider giving up riding. Giving up the bike would make wifey very happy.
I am not going to make a kneejerk reaction on this, time to think is required.