17 Nov 2008
Posted in People, Travel at 4:30 pm by alby
I believe the words are
“Holidaaay! Celebraaytt!”
Didn’t someone once sing that? Not sure.
Anyways I’m on me hols again. I know great int it?
This time I’ve winded up in the frozen wastes of the far north. Well nearly. I’m in Edinburgh today, got here on Saturday after a lovely long train ride. Ok ignore the lovely bit. Merely a long train ride.
I deliberately picked the train instead of flying as I wanted a nice long train ride. I’ve not had one for a while. Tickets bought ages ago so not expensive and seats reserved.
Changed at Chesterfield to get on a “Cross country” train. My reserved seat was in the middle of a large group of drunk football fans but the train was quite quiet so I wimped out and sat elsewhere. The seat chosen was apparently not reserved but at every stop someone got on and moved someone nearby from their reserved seat. None of these seats had “reserved” signs on either so it meant that at every stop I was worrying that I’d be moved.
Turned out that wasn’t necessary at all.
The other problem with the train was its sheer mankiness. I got on it only to melt at the heat intensity inside. Someone else whinged at the conductor and he said that the heating was off so it should cool down. Hmm. Oh and it smelt of stale alcohol too. Sort of like a thinner, more mobile version of Lugeburf students union. Yeurch.
Arrived in Edinburgh on time only to be confused by the randomness of Waverley station. A bigger, less managable station it’s hard to conceive of. This bit seems to be indoors but there’s a bus stop. Ah now we’re outside again and have left the station but there’s a train waiting to be boarded. Very peculiar indeed.
This made finding Rosie, my lovely host, quite awkward.
But connection made and back to her and Tom’s flat.
That evening consisted of dodging rugby fans and eating a very nice curry. I had “Handi fish dupiaza”, the list of ingredients included “pomegranite”. Magic. Very nice and whopping portions.
Yesterday me and Rosie wandered. The Water of Leith is a pleasant stroll, showing off some of Edinburgh’s nice bits. Oh and we wandered into a couple of art galleries too. The evening finished off with a rather lovely home-made roast with beer.
Today they’ve been working so I wandered around the city taking pics and that. Back now to chill. We’re off to the juggling club this evening and I’m away to Glasgow for a couple of days from tomorrow.
Have fun.
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12 Nov 2008
Posted in People, Work at 11:42 pm by alby
My dad had some problems a while back with his wrist after breaking his forearm. He ended up with what’s called carpal tunnel syndrome.
His consultant said that he should try “resting splints”. He told me this and my response was “Waste of time, you need an operation”.
Consultant’s response on hearing this from my dad. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about”.
Well I’ve just been reading the Cochrane review (top quality medical review) of treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome.
The conclusions of this review?
“Surgical treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome relieves symptoms significantly better than splinting.”
Hah!
How much is this guy getting paid?
Pfft.
Oh and my dad needed surgery in the end after all.
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11 Nov 2008
Posted in People at 11:52 pm by alby
Me, P and C just ended up in a pub and arrived in the middle of a quiz.
There were the usual sports questions but a couple on anatomy.
First was “Where in the body is the trapezoid bone?”
Second was “Where in the body is the hypoid bone, the only bone in the body without an articulation with any other bones?”
“Hypoid”? “Hypoid”!?
What kind of talk is this. Fair near blew a gasket I did.
I think he must have been confused with “typhoid” or summat.
Tsk!
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30 Oct 2008
Posted in News, People, Rants at 9:12 pm by alby
At the risk of boring the pants of you any more I just must witter briefly about the major news story of the week.
It seems that 2 idiots on the radio said some stupid things on their radio show.
And this is the single biggest news item of the week.
First off, they’re idiots.
Second off, there should be no second part.
That should have been it. 2 people complained on the night. The presenters apologised to the “victim” and the guy sweetly has accepted the apology and wants the story to go away.
But no it isn’t going away. And why?
Apparently people are offended. People who would never in their lives listen to one of these radio shows. Ever.
I think the only proper offended people are the recipient of the message and his granddaughter (who incidentally seems to be rather easily offendable for a goth porn model).
So why all the hooha?
Is it real offence on the part of the media? Err no.
Is it grandstanding to try and demonstrate who’s most moral? No.
What it seems like now is yet another bandwagon jumping onto something that takes the mind off the shitter news that seems to be doing the rounds re recession etc… But I’m not even sure that’s what has led the media flurry of ludicrous over-reaction.
What concerns me is that the anti-beeb forces have got a nice new stick to beat the BBC with. There is a sizeable bunch of idiots people who seem to think that the BBC would be better if it had to have adverts, telly shows as crappy as ITVs and radio of the quality of local independent stations. For these people the licence fee is just another tax (technically it is I suppose). The fact of a tax over-rides any thought that there’s one hell of a benefit to having the BBC as it is. Namely that it’s a shed load better than any other broadcaster.
BBC4 is astonishingly good at times. 3 can be flushed away but 1 and 2 remain as good as ever. And radio 4 is untouchable re intelligent programming.
For some people the thought that they have to pay all the time means that they should be able to watch or listen to any programme and a: not be offended by it; and b: enjoy it.
So many things are wrong with that attitude. By that measure I want to see horror fillums and drama that shows the reality of life with kids TV involving swearing, underage sex, drugs and mindless violence. It offends me that we have to sanitise what goes out over the airwaves. Where’s my rebate and stick to whack the DG with?
Do these people seriously think that a non-public BBC will offend less? I think Channel 4 gives the lie to that idea. So what do they do next? Censorship? Yet more restrictions in the guise of “protecting the public”?
For the record I think that’s rubbish. The real point is this:
The tories had a spokesman on the radio yesterday insisting with a straight face that the DG should resign over this.
This concerns me as the tories have always had a faction that wants to get the BBC privatised. You’d think that the fact that every other privatisation has failed spectacularly (apart from maybe BT) doesn’t seem to deter them.
They’ll likely make the next government too. So are the days of a decent BBC on the wane? Let’s hope not.
And just to repeat. Brand and Ross are dicks but this reaction is ridiculous. There is actual news happening in the world. Can we hear about that instead please?
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21 Oct 2008
Posted in Juggling, People at 5:03 pm by alby
Wasn’t sure whether to go to Durham this year. I’m very pleased I did.
I was out on Friday so was up late-ish on Saturday but the drive was pretty good. Not too much delay anyway. Oh and I managed to leave the directions in the house. Specially printed them the day before n’all.
Wandered in to find a bustling lobby and hall at around 2.30.
Squeals and hellos and hugs abound. I like jugglers. P&C were there despite having travelled up in Philip. They had tales of bouncy dog which yet again makes me want one. Sigh.
Me and Clurb got down to some passing as per our usual want.
After a short while I realised I’d not really eaten anything in the day yet so buggered off to the village shop. Bought myself what should have been a lovely sandwich only to find out that the bread was sodden wet and therefore contented myself with stuffing the filling straight into my mouth and ignoring the ruined bread.
More time spent with an variety of folk from the usuals to Graeme and Kate (ex Lugeburf) to the Fletchers and doing crosswords with Lorri and more. An extremely pleasant way of spending a day.
In the aft we all headed off for dinner at the “other” pub. This one rather handily served food at sensible times (last year the other pub started serving at 7.30 - no good for those of us who wanted to see the show). Good food as well. Service was good. Recommended for next year. Whilst sitting there about half of the convention goers turned up as well which did cause Ewan slight stress as he was organising the show and the sheer quantity of food needing prep meant slow service. But despite this, laughs a plenty, lots of passing notes around ala school and I even had pudding which frankly is unheard of.
To the show. They had their £1 a drink bar again which is excellent. More places should try this. This was the start of me drinking rather too much.
Ooh no it wasn’t. I had a pint at the pub with dinner too.
After the show we all headed back into the hall for more juggling. At least that was the plan.
What actually happened was we sat around in a big group chatting, eating and drinking. I’d brought up the sausage Pete had bought a couple of weeks back, the Bulgarian meat and sausage I’d brought back from my trip and, to drink, the 4 remaining bottles of Belgian beer as delivered by my couchsurfing Belgians. P&C had also brought some chocolate that I’d given them from Germany.
We had a nice little group of folk around us. The meat went down well (not quite as nice as the really smoked version), Helen made herself into a special case by refusing to eat it on the flimsy rationale that it was pork and what with her being jewish etc etc. I mean the nerve of the woman! (this incident reminded me of a skit from “Beyond the Fringe” where one of them comments that Jonathan Miller is a Jew. “I’m not a jew. I’m jewish, not the whole hog.”) People ummed and aahed about whether the sausage was lovely and which was the better. Then we get to the chocolate.
PnC’d brought “Feuer” and “Wasser”. Feuer is a chili chocolate. Wasser is milk cream and watermelon. The chili one was a bit dull but it did its job of warming. But Wasser really was a discovery. Loads of people had a bit and reactions varied from “nyer” to “What is it? Is it really? I’ll sniff it first. No actually I’ll nibble a bit. Oh it’s disgusting. No maybe not. Ah really it is. Urgh. Ooh that’s space dust!”
By this time I was well on my way to being the drunkest I’ve been in ages. I totted up my booze intake this morning. 1 pint at the pub with dinner, 3 half litre bottles of Polish beer and 2 odd Belgian beers. And I was having a great time.
Sleep did come easily and the back of this car was pretty comfy with a thermarest, a 3 season sleeping bag and a duvet.
Woke up to a noxious headache and guts but the latter was soon passed. Coke helped ease the former.
More passing and sitting and chatting. And then home via my parents’ place.
I was going to join others for a pub lunch but realised as I set off that I was going to have yet another meal out with my folks when I got there. So rather than a lovely meal with lovely people I set myself to a long dull drive south before another lovely meal with lovely people.
So now that’s 2 Durhams and 2 great times. And 3 conventions in 3 weekends. I think I need a rest.
Have fun.
Pics here.
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14 Oct 2008
Posted in Juggling, People, Reviews, Travel at 9:02 pm by alby
I do like Germany. I’ve just been away to Heidelberg (or its environs) for a few days.
I’d hoped to have an old pal but calls and messages weren’t returned and address changed ages ago from what I know. Very sad.
A swift note on flying again. I’ve recently said that I hate the whole process. But this time I went with a proper airline. Not a cattle train thing but one where they give you a seat number. There was far less hassle, no pushing, a chance to pick your seat, “free” drinks and food. Just a stack load more civilised.
Having said that the airport at Frankfurt is majorly weird. I got off the plane and followed the signs to passport control and baggage reclaim. After an age of walking I went through some doors and seemed to be outside of the secure bit. There were people waiting for travellers, the shops were all around; but I’d still not seen a pass control or baggage place. Eventually I found a passport control desk. Through that to more shops and more people milling around as if they were non-flyers. Very odd indeed.
I was met at Heidelberg Hbf by young Mini and her mum. The train was 6 minutes late, so much for German trains being wonderful. Tsk.
They laughed at me for saying that German trains should be on time. They stared with amazement when I told them that UK trains must be more than 15 mins late to be counted as “late” in the figures. I still think they win.
Their home is rather nice and like all family homes the action all takes place in the kitchen. My bed was in another building in a little outhouse where the girls had a room each and a living room space for both of them. I was in that bit. Comfy and warm.
On Wednesday afternoon Tamali was away and Helena had to study so I was with Mini who I think would be the first to say that she is not the most confident English speaker. She managed marvellously well though. We had a good hour or two chatting about stuff in poor german (on my part) and adequate English (from her).
Later on in the evening we headed out for food in a restaurant called “Fody’s” which involved a minor trip over a river. The food was excellent german stuff but the place was odd. There were 3 bits to it. Outside was too cold so we didn’t sit there. There was a tent which was quiet but allowed smoking so smelt a bit. Inside was warm and comfy but they had awful music on. We chose to sit inside on the basis that bad music isn’t as bad as smoke wafting our way.
Another oddity was that dogs were allowed in the place. There were a few dogs hanging around under tables. I’ve never seen that anywhere else.
But the highlight was that Jules and Lisa joined us for food. Lovely group of folk, lovely food. Rather a good evening.
Oh apart from “the phone call”. As the group were all here we phoned Clurb and Pee. Clurb gave me my “5 things to do”. She did this by telling Jules who gave a running commentary to the table. Unfortunately one of them involved me taking notice of “Mini’s rack”. Jules didn’t know what this was so kept asking me. My discomfort told them that something was naughty. Tsk.
Thursday was a quiet one. The girls had gone to school early so I slept in til late. Loads of reading done. A couple of supermarket trips followed in the afternoon. And that was about it until the evening.
Helena had an English test to do on Friday and she asked me to chat through the work to be tested. After that we had a long chat about politics, the environment, the economy, religion and more. She held her own admirably and if she failed that test then I’m impressed by how advanced their tests are. Very impressed.
I also briefly had a play on the net. Couldn’t get through to clurb.net. Odd but prolly nothing beyond the server having a spasm. And so to bed.
Oh my phone’s ringing. It’s Pee telling me that clurb.net has vanished. Hmm. Swift return to the web to see that the registration of the domain had lapsed and they’d not bothered to send me an email to tell me.
A slightly nervous time trying to fix it but it seemed to work, eventually.
The following day was the start of the Herxheim convention. Tamali was working in the morning and the girls were at school so I didn’t do a lot until 11 when I was handed the car keys and told “do something!”
Car loaded and we were off. Firstly to pick up Jules and then to Herxheim.
On the way we were passed by a juggler’s car. Not only that but it turned out to be Jules’ mum.
We were there a few hours before it started so we could help out setting up. I didn’t get to do a lot at first. I’m not sure whether they wanted to spare me hassle (as I’m a guest) or that they just didn’t want to chat to someone who may not understand. Of course they may just have assumed I’d be useless at anything they wanted. You decide!
When people started to show up Lisa bounded up to tell me that Thomas! had arrived and that Clurb would have been excited to hear this. After a couple of hours of starting I think I recognised about 2 people (including Thomas!)
But then Helena introduces me to quite a lovely bloke with a guitar. He’s called Jurgen and has an interesting story of performing, drugs, alcohol and dropping out. He’s now trying to build a full on eco-life with sustainable everything. I had a great time chatting for a good few hours.
A little later Lisa introduces me to a guy called Gerhard. She’s grinning a bit and then tells us that we know each other. We’re both blank at this but then she calls me MonkeyJuggler and him Palmcron. We both go “Ohhh!” and then start passing. Another grand person to meet. Was fun teaching him 7 club 3 count and 4 count too.
I was up late that night. I spent my time chatting to Tamali, Helena, Lisa and a pair of fellows called Andreas and Kristian. More nice folk.
I went to bed on a borrowed fake thermarest. The most amazing thing about this was that the air squashed away from where the weight was. In practice this meant that I was sleeping with little cushioning between my body and the floor but my feet were on the biggest bulge of air. Very odd indeed.
So a bad night’s sleep and up early.
There wasn’t much going on in the morning so I headed out to see the town. A rather nice place, bizarrely twinned with a place in Rwanda. And also with Ilfracombe!
Once back I did some juggling. Unheard of.
And watched people.
There was an acro workshop that had the bizarrest warm up of running at people then leaping and slapping hands. Then crawling and going through people’s legs. Then they started “swimming” on each other. Very odd behaviour.
Oh yes and part of the warm up included full lumbar flexion and then twisting whilst fully flexed. Note to acro workshop leaders - this is not such a great idea. This movement is the one that is most likely to put someone’s back out. Don’t do it.
Then the show was getting set up. It wasn’t a full on gala-show. Helena called it an “open show” to me and then giggled.
After the show came more passing and then to bed.
Jules showed me to my room (she had the key) and then sat and chatted for hours. Very nice way to end the day.
And I really managed to sleep well. Thankfully I’d set my phone’s alarm, otherwise I’m not sure I’d have made it to the train.
Hugs to everyone and then to the station with Jules.
Met a guy called Jan there and managed a half hour conversation in German. Woot.
And that was it. Home now and really wanting to go back.
Work just isn’t as fun.
Pics here.
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02 Oct 2008
Posted in People, Rants at 5:53 pm by alby
Well here’s a turn up for the books and no mistake.
Some bloke called Pat Condell has a YouTube channel where he vents his spleen about religion. His last video has now been censored (IE removed) by YouTube.
So what has happened?
About 140 copies of it are now currently on YouTube after being uploaded by annoyed fans.
I’ve seen one of these copies (4 different links for basically the same video - just in case one or more of them are taken down) and can’t think quite why it deserves to be banned. Yes it’s ranty, yes it’s angry vs what the guy thinks is the “islamification” of Britain. But isn’t that the point? He’s angry. He’s not vengeful or inciting violence. He’s not even really saying anything beyond “this is a stupid idea which will hurt Islamic women”. Hardly a message to be deemed offensive to anyone except sexually repressed, angry, scared, power fuelled men with a god complex. Frankly the guy should be applauded.
As should YouTube if they’d bloody stuck to the rules of free speech rather than cravenly give in to violent bullies.
Oh and I’ve just heard that Pat has had a warning too, from YouTube, saying that if he says anything nasty again he’ll be banned for a while at least. Mind you at least that sort of warning isn’t as bad as some of the ones he gets on his own site - lovely tolerant people the world has eh?
They really don’t have a clue do they?
If you have a YouTube channel, feel free to upload it again.
Keep free speech as one of the rules of civilisation, or at least try and slow down our descent into banning such montrosities as being able to say what you think.
Have fun.
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27 Sep 2008
Posted in People at 6:28 pm by alby
The load of us went out for curry last night. My guests had never had one before so it looked like it could be fun.
We ended up at The Curry Pot - last visited on my 36th birthday. It wasn’t a good evening then but I had hopes for a good one last night.
They brought us an huge selection of starters, most of which were really nice. And then the mains.
We’d persuaded the guests not to have a korma but to try something a little more spicy and bless them for trying.
Other events included discovering that D has wrecked his tastebuds with too much spicy food over the years. He had the lamb version of the dish that I had with chicken. I was sweating and my mouth was very pleasantly numb and tingly afterwards. D was whinging that his had no heat and he was disappointed. Pfft.
Benny and Marco did seem to enjoy theirs and we were going to troop back to mine to enjoy chocolate and beer but at this point the very people who snigger at me for being old were backing out citing “needing to go to bed” as an excuse. At 10pm on a Friday. Pathetic wasters the lot of them.
Mind you my guests did want to be up and out the house at around 6am this morning so an early night was a good idea for them.
Nyom for the curry.
Have fun.
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25 Sep 2008
Posted in People, Work at 9:39 pm by alby
I like my colleagues. Today we had a staff do after work. Being go-getting types we tend to go for “doing” something rather than simply eating or drinking.
Charlie had us do a basic rock climbing intro session thingy.
Was fun. The old bloke who taught us knew his stuff and was v helpful. The team was supportive at the right moments and sarcastic when it was time.
My left shoulder is a little sore as my lack of arm strength told (again).
And we got some pics. Nowt special in quality but that’s quite hard to do with a complex camera and it being passed round from one to another. But they’re good enough as a record of the silliness.
You can see them here if you wish to.
Have fun.
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24 Sep 2008
Posted in People at 11:18 pm by alby
I have 2 new guests. Benny and Marco from near Antwerp. They’re here to see some motorcross thing on at Donnington over the next few days. Lovely folk brought me the hugest basket of chocolate I’ve seen in years as well as a swish selection of Belgian beers. Top stuff.
Quick question: Who fancies curry with curry novices on Friday night?
I might go with them to the races on Saturday/Sunday too if anyone’s up for it.
Have fun.
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