This is my back garden at 06:00 this morning.

I think I'll go by train today, it looks a bit cold for the bike.

Let's celebrate !
Because according to my "Dads Desktop Calendar" that I got for Christmas, today is Waitangi Day.
If you live outside of New Zealand or are not a Kiwi, or are not familiar with New Zealand history then this fact will probably have escaped you (as it did me until I tore off yesterday's page from the calendar).

Anyway a quick browse to Wikipedia turned up this;

Waitangi Day is the national day of New Zealand. It is a public holiday held each year on February 6 to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document, on that date in 1840.

There is a vague possiblity of more informative nuggets of information forthcoming from my "Dads Desktop Calendar". So beware.

Oh YES!

Santa is running a bit late but he should be delivering this beauty to chez Mick on monday.

Big Brother and Media Control

Earlier this week on "celebrity" big brother, Jack something or other (he is "famous" for being Jade Goody's boyfriend, Jade is "famous" for being on big Brother) was thought to have called Bollywood superstar Shilpa Shetty "a fucking P@ki" in a whispered conversation to Jade. 200 people phoned channel 4 and complained after the show was broadcast. The next day it was reported in the media, the following day 10,000 people complained. Now either these extra 9,800 people were so shocked that they couldn't pick up the phone or they were jumping on the bandwagon of what they correctly sensed would turn into a major issue that has been blown out of all proportion by the media's constant reporting of it.
Channel 4 stated that they have carefully listened to the tapes and what he actually called her was "fucking c*nt". Phew! that's all right then.
The arguments and tension in the Big Brother house have increased and Jade and her gang have been bullying Shilpa relentlessly. The media has been highlighting the racist elements of the bullying, labelling all involved as out and out racists. Now I have watched most of BB (sad, I know) but, excuse the pun, racism is not a black and white issue it comes in many forms and can blatant or very subtle and frequently innocous comments are falsely labelled as racist.
What is going on in BB is out and out bullying carried out by one person and supported by two others who have latched on to Jade Goody. Undeniably there have racial elements to some of their comments but they have not been bullying Shilpa because she is Indian, they have been doing it because she is classier, prettier, more successful, and all round better than they are and pure and simply they feel threatened and are jealous.
After an outbust by Jade directed at Shilpa in which she called Shilpa " a fucking loser" Shilpa said to the other housemates "I'm representing my country here, is that what the UK is like now?" Yes Shilpa, sadly it is.

In the meantime here is a picture of Jade, enjoy

What's new pussycat?

Things (as always) have been pretty hectic at Chez Mick lately.
Big'un is very busy with activities, he has french on Mondays, Kung Fu (sometimes) on Tuesdays, cubs on Thursdays, football on Fridays and swimming and Kung Fu on Saturday morning and he is now in year three at school and will make his first communion so he has "communion classes" every few Sundays. Phew!. Little'un has started Kung fu now at age 4 and 3/4 and he is very enthusiastic at classes but not always about doing Kung Fu. He likes to punctuate his vigorous training with bouts of just spinning around, sitting down or running up to Sifu (the instructor) and punching him on the bum! The baby just rounds around laughing when you tell him off and saying "whatever" all the time.
Puss Puss the cat has made himself well and truly at home and now wakes us up by scratching at the bed when he want his breakfast. He spends most of the time sleeping and has a few "mad half hours" where he charges about like a little furry ginger missile. He has taken to sleeping in Big'uns room, either on the floor, under the bed or on the bed. Big'un hates this and gets a bit scared when he hears the cat making noises during the night and calls me to "make Puss Puss go away"
Any way, work to do so, in a blatant attempt to increase readership here are a couple of cat pictures.

...and so this is christmas....
Merry Christmas and a Happy new year, I might try and post a bit more frequently after the break. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Woggles away!

Big'un has been a Cub scout for a couple of months, he goes with the beast next door and this weekend they have gone to cup camp for two nights. My Big boy is staying away from home for the first time at somewhere other than his nana's.
He has been alright about it, Wifey has been alright about it, I have been shitting myself. He'll be well looked after and I'm sure it will be a fantastic adventure but I'm still worried for him.

Stay on course

I'm off on a course next week for three days at our very nice training place near Reading for possibly the last time as it appears "the company" is pulling out of there and relocating the training dept to somewhere else (ie less expensive) in the middle of next year. Which is right shame.

Pussy Galore

The cat has now not only got his paws under the table, he has been and got his pipe and slippers.

Tech-Fu.

After reading a post on Alan's blog about Technorati rankings I discovered a blog called Shaolin Tiger which has Kung Fu and geekery so it's right up my street and therefore has been added to the list.

Mrs Slocombe.

Wifey is not known for her love of animals, in fact she is pretty much terrified of anything with fur. Lately she has become a tad braver, so much so in fact that we have almost kind of unofficially adopted a stray cat.
Over the summer there has been a ginger moggy hanging about our garden. Cats normally prompt a loud "gertcha" from me as I don't like the little parcels they leave behind and I'm not really a cat person. This cat however has been pretty persistent and whenever Wifey went to hang out the washing she would have to make sure the coast was clear as the cat would come and try to befriend her and she was having none of it.
Wifey started to feel a bit sorry for it and, convinced that it was a starving stray, she started to leave tinned tuna and a bowl of milk out for it.
We eventually discovered that the beast next doors mum had been feeding it and taking it in and so had the woman next to her, Rosie Raspberry. This cat is going to end up looking like Garfield.
Rosie Raspberry thinks that the cat belonged to a house nearer the end of the street where the owner died leaving the cat homeless.
The cat, known as Puss Puss by us and as Tilly by the beast next door (I don't believe he reads gemmaks blog so it must just be a coincidence) has melted Wifey's stoney heart.
She now buys cat food regularly, strokes it, opens the back door and invites it in the house although she is still scared of the thought that it might jump on her lap.
Whenever I see Wifey stroking the cat I do the born free music and makes comments about her constantly touching her ginger pussy. This is probably wearing a bit thin now in Wifey's eyes.

On Sunday Wifey had taken little'un to a party and I was out the back scraping a "present" off the sole of my boots, Puss Puss was lounging in the hallway by the front room. Big'un calls out for me to remove the cat as he doesn't want it near the room in which he is playing (presumbly he didn't want the cat to mess up his toys, he gets very uptight when his little brothers do this)
"I'm busy scraping sh-, er, cleaning my boots" I replied
A few minutes later Big'un comes and shuts the back door and when I went back in, noticing Puss Puss was no where in sight, I concluded that he had gone out and Big'un shut the door to stop him coming back.
Later that night Wifey says "is the cat out?" " yes, I'm pretty sure he is" says I. Before we went to bed I toured the house clicking my fingers, calling out "puss puss" and making kissy noises to attract the cat just to make sure he wasn't hiding. You can see where this is going can't you.
At around 02:30 I am awoken by Wifey leaping out of her skin "the friggin cat's in our bedroom!". I let the cat out for a comfort break and he didn't return.
Not only is Wifey regularly buying cat food she has also now bought a litter tray in case he has anymore sleepovers!

Let the train be a pain

well it's MOT time again for the bike and after the debacle last year I decided to let my man service it and pre-mot it rather than trying to save money and do it all myself which last year resulted in the bike being off the road for nearly two months and cost far more in train fares than I ever would have saved by not paying someone else to do the work.
Because I am terminally disorganised I didn't arrange for the man to do my bike until after the MOT expired so I have been on the train for a week which hasn't been that bad. There have been no confirmed sightings of the hairy busker from last year, in fact I haven't seen any buskers which has been a pleasant relief for my ears.
The bike has now been done and hopefully will be MOT'd on friday morning just in time for the mild weather to be replaced by sleet and ice!

Life, the Universe and Everything

Today I have reached the mystical age of 42.

Well, it took longer than I thought..

...for Wifey to be called over to see Little'uns teacher. After only three weeks at school, on Friday Wifey was told by Miss Teacher that Little'un had been asked to draw a picture of himself but instead he scribbled all over the cover of his exercise book and then was not allowed out at play time. At his preschool Little'un was the king of the "time outs". Big'un would be absolutely mortified if he got told off and the teacher told his mum.
Last week the baby started saying "whatever" to Wifey. Where did I go wrong?, we are becoming like a family from a TV documentary, "Britain worst chav-asbo-scummer families". We spent the weekend trying to "re-educate" Little'un by telling him that Father Christmas is watching and making out his lists.

I was pretty good at school, I only ever had one detention which was for setting light to another pupils tie in the smokers corner.I thought this was a bit harsh. I mean it wasn't like he was wearing it.

Global Village

Well it's a small world, last week I got an e-mail with the subject "greetings from Singapore" it was from a friend of mine, Mark who I used to train in Lau Gar Kung Fu with. I haven't seen or heard from him for years and I'm so glad he contacted me.
In the mid 80's, in my early 20's, after a brief dabble with a couple of different styles of Karate I started practising Kung Fu . I soon became friendly with a few people and a few of us began going for a beer or three after training. We tried a few different pubs around Romford but eventually settled on the Dolphin leisure centre bar as our regular watering hole, mainly because there was an aerobics class right outside the bar.
A few different people came along here and there for a drink but mainly it was myself, Mark and a guy named Bryon. As I said I was in my early 20's, Bryon was around late thirties and Mark was 15!, Bryon and I were always proud of the fact that we were partly responsible for Mark's moral corruption!
As the years went on we became good friends and the going for a beer after training often became more important than the Kung Fu i.e I wouldn't go training but I'd just turn up for a beer.
Bryon was married and had a daughter and he was a bit off a lad to say the least, we always had a good laugh and the three of us would often go along to other martial arts clubs to see see other styles and mainly take the piss a lot.
I remember visiting an Aikido class, Mark and I watched and Bryon joined in. Although Aikido was impressive all the students seemed to have this ability to throw themselves very dramatically across the room when the instructor demonstrated something, Bryon volunteered for a demo and didn't play ball at all in fact he went out of his way to frustrate the instructor by acting like a sack of potatoes.
Over the years various things happened, Bryon split from his wife and found himself living with a postwomen in southend, Mark went to Hong Kong to train in kung fu and maybe get a part in a film. While in Hong Kong Mark met a chinese girl and fell in love, he returned to the UK for a while, learned cantonese and then went back to Hong kong.
We are now in the mid 90's, Mark is still in Hong Kong, married ( they had a traditional chinese wedding in HK and came here for a church blessing/ wedding at which Bryon was best man) and I think by this time either expecting or just a had a little boy. I met Wifey and fell in love.
In 1997, the chinese were to retake control of Hong Kong from the british and it was a very uncertain time in Hong Kong, Mark returned to the UK with his family to wait and see what would happen.
I got married, Mark returned to HK (as nothing much happened there when the chinese took over), Bryon and the postwomen were trying to have a baby and not succeeding.
I lost contact with Mark and no longer saw much of Bryon and gave up the Kung Fu, around 2001 I got an email from Bryon saying that the postwomen had left him to go and get pregnant by any means possible.
Early 2002 (april I think) I got a phone call from the postwomen saying that Bryon was very ill in hospital, she also said she was married and heavily preggers. I went to Southend hospital to see Bryon and I was shocked, the fit healthy bloke I knew had been replaced by a shambling man who looked years older than I remembered. On seeing him it was obvious what was happening but no one had actually told him, officially what was wrong with him. The postwomen +bump was sitting there with him and when I entered his face brightened and he said "hello mate" and got up to to meet me. I struggled to hide my shock as the shadow of the man shambled across.
Bryon was the type of man who'd find humour in anything, during his time in hosipital a lady came and sat on his bed, which would always perk him up, and started chatting she said she was a MacMillan nurse to which Bryon replied
"Ok?"
she said "you do know what a MacMillan nurse is, don't you?"
"er, no"
"oh" she says "a Mac Millan nurse is someone who comes and gives support to people who have been diagnosed with cancer"
"righto" says Bryon "I'll bear that in mind"
"what do you mean you'll bear it mind?" asks the nurse rather confused
"well, no one has told me I've got cancer" Bryon replied.
A panicked look overtook the nurse's face and she rushed off muttering something about getting a doctor!
I wasn't able to go and see Bryon the next weekend The following week Wifey gave birth to Little'un and two days later Bryon died. One in, one out.
And that's about it, there are various other people and stories I could have included but it's taken me a week to write this post and I'd never finish it.
I've had contact from Bryon's wife and daughter who both found this blog whilst thinking of Bryon and searching the web for Lau Gar Kung Fu and this was how Mark found me aswell.
Hopefully Mark will be over in February and we can get together, there may be some beer involved.

Tempus Fugit (still)

well it doesn't seem that long ago that I posted about Wifey being pregnant, and then about the baby being born and now, all of a sudden, he's two.
The Baby is two today so I suppose he's not a baby anymore (even though we usually call him bubba) so really I should think of a better nom de voyage for him. It was easy with just 2 kids, Big'un and Little'un but I really don't want to start referring to Little'un as middle'un.
This September is a special one as not only was Big'un 8 on the 4th and the Baby 2 today (13th) but Little'un starts school next week and boy are they going to be in for a surprise if they think he is going to be anything like his elder brother.

Artists impression of little'uns first day of school.

Were all DOOMED! (unless you ride a pushbike)


I'm sure you've seen them, the one where the bike gets hit by the invisible cars, the one where the bloke gets to think about the legs he'll never use again after some cage driving twat opens his car door in front of the bike and the musical "you go way too fa-a-ast, don't slow you're gonna cra-a-ash" SPLAT. The Transport for London sponsered ads allegedly aimed at making motorcycling safer. These ads enrage me beyond belief. I have lost count of how many times I have seen these ads whilst watching telly with my extremely anti-bike wife, every time I cringe and she gives me the "I-hate-your-bike-and-everything-about-it-I-wish-you-would-give-it-up-before-you-make-me-a-widow-and-your-kids-fatherless" look. There is another bike ad where a bloke on a Ducati goes for a pleasure ride and all along the route things pop up to warn him about potential hazards like a diesel spill and a tractor and he gets home safely after enjoying his ride. I've seen that ad once.
TfL also do equally disturbing and gory ads about drink driving, speeding and teenagers crossing the road which all feature someone dying grusomely.
New to our screens now is the cyclist ad, TfL loves cyclists almost as much as they love people who buy Oyster cards. What does the new ad feature? a cyclist mangled under a bus? , no, a cyclist navigating along a cycle lane that is wedged in between a bus lane and a busy four carriageway road with buses and lorries hurtling by?, no, a cyclist getting beeped at and bullied by motorists who are being held up by a second or two at traffic lights?, no, none of these.
What it features are loads of people saying how much they love riding their pushbike and footage of people cycling on empty roads in warm weather having a lovely time. Great, good for them, if only this was true but it's not is it? anyone who has ridden a pushbike in a busy town during rushhour will know that this is extremely unrealistic, in fact it just as unrealistic as the view that all motorcyclists are doomed to a gruesome death which is "promoted" by the biker ads.

Isn't it funny how TfL promote cycling and public transport (no mention of fires, crashes, delays and bombs in the Oyster ads) and lead you to believe that death is tailing you if you should dare to do something they don't want, like riding a motorbike or driving a car. Instead of showing gory deaths, how about promoting safer riding and driving, how about showing people ways to avoid the situations that could result in a gruesome death, how about showing ads teaching driving / riding skills. Did you know that there is a Police force sponsored nationwide initiative called Bikesafe ? I bet you didn't. Showing riders dying isn't going to save lives, teaching safer riding is.
So any bikers reading this should go and read this before their next ride, it might save your life.

On a final note here's a song for TfL and Ken Livingstone and the government;
"you've gone way too fa-a-ar, don't stop now you're gonna get battered by loads of irate voting bi -i-kers"

Ride safe, drive safe, walk safe. You know it makes sense.

I am fed up.
I have been doing my IT course for 5 yrs, 5-bloody-years. I have been ambling along, going to college making notes and doing chuff all else. 5- long-bloody-years.
Today I have failed the microsoft network infrastructure exam for the second time and I am pissed off.

My fantastic tent that I bought at the outdoor show at Excel last year is too bloody big for most of the campsites in England.

Yesterday my nextdoor neighbour tried to repair his side of our shared porch and nearly pulled the whole thing down. It is now hanging away from the house awaiting emergency repair.

There is some good news though eng swap has happened Buzz Lighweight is out and Bazza is in Hurrah!

Pause.
First of all, those crazy Finns eh! a heavy metal band from Finland, dressed in monster costumes singing a completly forgettable song won the eurovision vote-for-your-friends contest. Fantastic!
Secondly, I really want to get my I.T studies back on track and actually get some exams done. Microsoft is currently offering free retests until the end of July so in an effort to actually get my windows Network Infrastructure exam done I'm going to go for it. So this means I will not be blogging probably until the end of July so I can study instead of blog reading.
I may make occasional updates but I wouldn't count on it.
I also have a sister blog called never mind the network which I set up to help me make notes for my course I will be posting here with some geeky-techy-networky stuff.
Other news, by the time I start posting again Buzz Lightweight should have gone to another site in a case of Engineer swap.
This coming bank holiday weekend we are going camping for the first time in our new tent for 2 nights with the family we went to Florida with. 4 adults, 6 kids, 2 nights in Canterbury in the pissing rain.

The freakfest that is Big Brother has started again and in a Davina and the freak factory style there are a load of golden tickets hidden in kit Kat bars which will give a chance of getting into the house, so here is something to ponder...

If you found a golden ticket and got into the BB house what would you do to avoid eviction and entertain the TV viewers? ....

See you later....

No shit sherlock...

Two government enquiries into the London bombings last year have concluded that it was "likely" the bombers had "some form of operational training" and "had some contact with al-Qaeda figures".
Well done lads, pat yourselves on the back for that stunning insight.
For crying out loud anyone with half a brain could have said it was "likely" without having to prepare one report let alone two.
In another stunning revelation the reports state the fact the bombings weren't prevented due to lack of intelligence was "a blunder", break out the champers chaps you've excelled yourselves this time.

What do you buy......

the women who has everything. Wifey's birthday is tomorrow. Must. Buy. something.

AAAArrrrggghh the pressure.

Happy Birthday!...

...to little'un who is 4 today. he is a bit confused about this and thinks he is already 4 because he had a little party on monday so he thinks that must have been his birthday.
I swapped shifts today so I could get home early but it might be a short day anyway as Wifey wasn't very well this morning. It is unusual for her to be ill so when Buzz Lightweight gets in at 08:30 I will probably be going home to pamper her which will probably result in her saying "piss off, you're getting on my nerves"
Things are afoot at the moment at work and there may be some moves and changes which will be for the better but it's all a bit up in the air at the moment so more on this later.