Pharm boy

Eh?

2009-04-18T18:12:00.002+01:00

Okay - perhaps Dee shouldn't go away without me in future. Without her calm, reassuring presence I've decided to get fit. What better way than to enter myself into a triathlon?

I currently get out of breath climbing the stairs, have knackered knees and am one of the laziest people I've ever met.

So all I've got to do is race 599 health freaks over 16 lengths of the pool, run outside, get changed and then cycle 20km up and down very steep hills then get changed again to run the final 5km back.

Aiming for survival, and finishing the race.

Will be happy with 600th!

Updates from time to time - if it goes VERY quiet then I'll be in a hospital/morgue.

The Hand of God?

2009-04-07T09:57:00.002+01:00

Maybe, maybe not but a cool picture nevertheless .

Coming home?

2009-04-03T08:30:00.002+01:00

Strange, but that's how I think of going out to Australia. Yesterday, after much faffing and almost a whole afternoon spent trying to buy flights that had already sold out (thanks Emirates!) I finally bought my ticket!

Only 258 days to go.......I can smell the Eucalyptus trees already

And then it won't be too long until it's a one-way ticket - and I can get out of this bankrupt country.

Not to forget the leg on the new Airbus. I worked on the Airbus project when I was an aerospace chemist (feels like a lifetime ago) so should you ever decide to take a key to an A380 you'll uncover an exceptionally well designed primer. Took me nearly a week to get the drying characteristics right - the only downside to the job was literally watching paint dry.

The upside was (a) being able to tell girls (quite rightly) that I was a rocket scientist
(b) designing the colour schemes for Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Thomas
Cook, Thompson, Aeroflot (less proud of that one) and the Eurofighter
(c) the projects I'm still not allowed to talk about under the Official Secrets Act!
(d) NASA projects

So whenever you see one of those planes, you can think of me!

Where have all the Cobblers gone?

2009-02-04T14:33:00.002Z

How very odd. Having bought a pair of shoes a mere 6 months ago and already having knackered the heels and soles (hard miles repping you see) I decided to have them re-heeled and soled rather than wasting another £60 on a pair of shoes. Thrifty eh?

The shoes themselves are rather nice (Jasper Conran darling - got them in a sale!) and were in perfectly good nick. I googled, went through the phone book and asked around and there are only 3 cobblers in the whole of Hull!

It could be complete bollocks of course, but i remember there being a cobblers/key cutting place on every little parade of shops when i were a lad....and now there's 3 in a whole city?!?

Found a dingy shed called the Heel'n'Key Bar where I got new heels and soles which look better than the originals for the princely sum of £14.

Bargain.

I don't need there to be any more cobblers now, I've found the best one ever....but I reckon there should be more.

When i'm president...

Supermassive Black Hole....

2008-11-23T11:37:00.003Z

Baaa da daaa da da da ba da dalladadaaaaooowwnnn...

A view of the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster, one of the most massive objects in the universe, shows the effects that a relatively small but supermassive black hole can have millions of miles beyond its core. Astronomers studying this photo, taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, determined that sound waves emitted by explosive venting around the black hole are heating the surrounding area and inhibiting star growth some 300,000 light-years away. "In relative terms, it is as if a heat source the size of a fingernail affects the behavior of a region the size of Earth," said Andrew Fabian of Cambridge University.

Photograph courtesy NASA/CXC/IoA/A. Fabian et al.

Meet Nanobama!

2008-11-12T09:23:00.001Z

This image shows the tiniest representation of the new US president yet. Each face is built from roughly 150 million carbon nanotubes . As the artist/mechanical engineer that made them, John Hart, puts it "that's about how many Americans voted on November 4". Although, of course, only about 53% of those nanotubes actually voted Obama......

Picture Perfect

2008-10-31T08:49:00.003Z

Some more stunning shots, this time from the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year hosted by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife magazine.

The show by Catriona Parfitt (UK) Young Wildlife photographer of the year. No lion in its right mind would dare to attack a grown giraffe: a well-placed kick from one of those long legs could be fatal. Yet as Catriona and assembled gemsbok watched one evening near a waterhole at Hobatere Lodge in Damaraland, Namibia, this young male lion repeatedly harassed the thirsty giraffe.

First encounter by Brian Skerry (USA) Winner of The Underwater World category"Swimming along the ocean bottom with a 14-metre long, 70-tonne whale," says Brian, "was the single most incredible animal encounter I have ever had."The picture was taken some 22 metres down off the Auckland Islands, far south of New Zealand.

Snowstorm leopard by Steve Winter (USA) Wildlife photographer of the year and winner of the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife Steve had taken a number of pictures of snow leopards between January and July, but the shot he was after eluded him: a snow leopard in a snowfall with a backdrop that conjured up the atmosphere of its extreme environment. Checking his camera one freezing May morning, he found this snow leopard gazing back at him exactly in the place in the frame he had hoped it would be.Today, the snow leopard is at crisis point, hunted as a predator of livestock but also for its luxurious coat and its bones.

Frodo's prize by Cyril Ruoso (France) Winner of the Animal Behaviour: Mammals categoryFrodo, now 31 and going grey, may have lost the alpha status he held for many years, but he is still the biggest, most powerful and most skilled hunter of the Kasekela chimps in Tanzania's Gombe National Park.Usually the chimps go for monkeys. This time Frodo, egged on by the frantic screeches of the rest of the group, had caught something much more unusual: a bushpig. There had clearly been a frenzied tug-of-war, because the bushpig's body was ripped in two.

Deadlock by David Maitland (UK) Winner of the Animal Behaviour: All Other Animals categoryIt was at about midnight when David discovered this life-and-death struggle. A cat-eyed tree-snake, coiled around a branch, was locked in an embrace with a Morelet's treefrog - a critically endangered species."The snake had failed to get its jaws around the whole of the frog's head," says David. "It wouldn't let go, presumably because the frog would have leapt away. But it couldn't swallow it, either."

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-27T20:23:00.002Z

The Front Fell Off......

2008-10-21T15:12:00.002+01:00

From the very, very big.....

2008-10-17T19:04:00.005+01:00

To the very, very, very small.....Ladies and Gentlemen a selection of the finest photographs of small stuff as judged by the guys at Nikon.

"Glowing-hot carbon nanotubes form an expanding orange ball in this image by Paul Marshall of Canada's Institute for Microstructural Sciences, a winner in the 2008 Small World photomicrography competition. The nanotubes are elongated, hollow cylinders of carbon atoms. To make a carbon nanotube--just 1/50,000 the width of a human hair--a piece of carbon (graphite) must be heated, for example by lasers or electricity. And sometimes, Marshall says, the heated mass of nanotubes grows like a bulb in the spring."

"Albert Tousson of the University of Alabama was recently testing a new laser microscope in his lab and put a petal of a lily of the valley under the lens, which magnified the petal 1,300 times--resulting in his winning photo in the 2008 Small World photomicrography competition. The enhanced color of the petal's red cell walls and green and yellow starch granules comes from the laser light, which causes molecules within these substances to fluoresce--the same phenomenon that gives objects under black lights an eerie glow."

"Cell-therapy researcher Matthew Springer took this snapshot of growing amoebas--magnified a hundred times--as part of his postdoctoral research at Stanford University.Springer wanted to know whether these organisms, Dictyostelium discoideum, would continue to grow even when deprived of a crucial motor protein, myosin. He discovered that myosin is only needed for the first and final stages of the amoeba's development and that, in all stages between, myosin is like a candy bar after lunch--nice but not needed."

"Using polarized light and 5 X magnification, David Walker of Britain was able to coax a wide palette of colors from the center of an ordinary CD case. Walker enjoys "showing how common objects around the home can look extraordinary when studied under the microscope," he told the organizers of the 2008 Small World photo contest."

You're Joe-king....

2008-10-03T15:35:00.003+01:00

Joe Kinnear. Just when I thought that the situation in Newcastle couldn't get any worse, they've appointed someone who makes Gordon Ramsey seem like Mary Whitehouse. Without doubt the funniest press conference I've ever heard, and up there with "I'd just love it" Keegan.

Must be something in the water in the Toon....

Joe Kinnear: Which one is Simon Bird (Daily Mirror journalist)?

Bird: Me.

JK: You're a cunt.

Bird: Thank you

JK: Which one his [Niall] Hickman (Daily Express)? You are out of order. Absolutely fucking out of order. If you do it again, I am telling you you can fuck off and go to another ground. I will not come and stand for that fucking crap. No fucking way, lies. Fuck, you're saying I turned up and they fuck off.

Bird: No Joe, have you read it, it doesn't actually say that. Have you read it?

JK: I've fucking read it, I've read it.

Bird: It doesn't say that. Have you read it?

JK: You are trying to fucking undermine my position already.

Bird: Have you read it, it doesn't say that. I knew you knew they were having a day off.

JK: Fuck off. Fuck off. It's your last fucking chance.

Bird: You read the copy? It doesn't say that you didn't know.

JK: What about the headline, you think that's a good headline?

Bird: I didn't write the headline, you read the copy.

JK: You are negative bastards, the pair of you.

Bird: So if I get a new job next week would I take the first day off? No I wouldn't. If I get a new job should I call my boss and telling I am taking the first day off?

JK: It is none of your fucking business. What the fuck are you going to do? You ain’t got the balls to be a fucking manager. Fucking day off. Do I want your opinion? Do I have to listen to you?

Bird: No, you can listen to who you want.

JK: I had a 24-hour meeting with the entire staff.

Bird: Joe you are only here six weeks, you could have done that on Sunday, or Saturday night.

JK: No, no, no. I didn't want to do it. I had some other things to do.

Bird: What? More important things?

JK: What are you? My personal secretary? Fuck off.

Bird: You could have done the meeting Saturday night or Sunday? You could have had them watching videos, you could have organised them?

JK: I was meeting the fucking chairman the owner, everyone else. Talking about things.

Bird: It is a valid point that was made in there. A valid point.

JK: I can't trust any of you.

Hickman: Joe no one could believe that on your first day at your new club, the first team players were not in. No one could believe it in town. Your first day in the office.

JK: My first day was with the coaches. I made the decision that I wanted to get as much information out of them.

Hickman: But why Monday, no one could believe it?

JK: I'm not going to tell you anything. I don't understand where you are coming from. You delighted that Newcastle are getting beat and are in the state they are? Delighted are you?

Hickman: Certainly not. No one wants to see them get beaten, why would we?

JK: I have done it before. It is going to my fucking lawyers. So are about three others. If they can find something in it that is a court case it is going to court. I am not fucking about. I don't talk to fucking anybody. Everything I fucking say or do. It is raking up stories. You are fucking so fucking slimy: you are raking up players that I got rid of; players that I had fallen out with. You are not asking Robbie Earle, because he is sensible. You are not asking Warren Barton? No. Because he is fucking sensible. Anyone who had played for me for ten years at any level you will find some cunt that .....

Journalist: How long is your contract for Joe?

JK: None of your business

Bird: Well it is actually, because we cover the club. The club say you are here to the end of October, then you say six-to-eight games which would take it to the end of November. We are trying to clarify these issues. We are getting no straight answers from anyone. How long are you here for? It is a dead simple question. And you don't know....

JK: I was told the length of contract. Then I was told that possibly the club could be sold in that time. That is as far as I know. That's it finished. I don't know anything else. But I have been ridiculed. He's trying to fucking hide, he's trying to do this or that.

Bird: What happened at your meeting with Ashley?

JK: At the meeting I was asked how did it go, what reception, this that and the other. I told him not too clever. He wanted to know how the team done. I told him. Better second half than we were first half. I asked him what is the situation. Any news or updates on what is going one. He said I have six to eight consortium lined up and that is all I can tell you. That was it.

Bird: Have you met Mike before?

JK: No

Bird: Not even at the Orange Tree pub, Totteridge?

JK: You want to get your facts right. Dennis Wise never played under me.

Bird: None of us have even written that...

JK: Another one of you wrote. We met in a pub. We are friends in a pub and that is when it was done, in a pub. Good imagination eh? It is nonsense.
Will I get time and get judged on results?

Steve Brenner (Sun): We are all grown men and can come in here and sit around and talk about football, but coming in here and calling people cunts?

JK: Why? Because I am annoyed. I am not accepting that. If it is libelous, it is going to where I want it to go.

Press office: What has been said in here is off the record and doesn't go outside.

Journalist: Well, is that what Joe thinks?

JK: Write what you like. Makes no difference to me. Don't effect me I assure you. It'll be the last time I see you anyway. Won't effect me. See how we go at Everton and Chrissy can do it, someone else can do it. Don't trust any of you’s.
I will pick two local papers and speak to them and the rest can fuck off. I ain't coming up here to have the piss taken out of me. I have a million pages of crap that has been written about me.
I am ridiculed for no reason. I am defenseless. I can't say nothing. I can't do nothing. Then half of you are trying to get into the players... and I am not going to tell you what the players think of you all. So you will think I have a split camp. It just doesn't stop.

Journalist: But it's only been a week!

JK: I'm ridiculed for no reason. I'm defenceless. I can't get a point in, I can't say nothing, I can't do nothing, but I ain't going to be negative. Then, half of you, most of you are trying to get into the players. I'm not going to tell you what the players think of you, so then you try and get into them in some way or another, so I've got a split camp or something like that, something like that. It's ongoing. It just doesn't stop.

Journalist: It's only been a week.
JK: Exactly. It feels more like a year.

Journalist: It's early days for you to be like this.

JK:No, I'm clearing the air. And this is the last time I'm going to speak to you. You want to know why, I'm telling you. This is the last time. You can do what you like.

Journalist: But this isn't going to do you or us any good.

JK:I'll speak to the supporters. I'm going to tell them what the story is. I'm going to tell them. I don't think they'll interpret it any different, I don't think they'll mix it up, I don't think they'll miss out things. I mean, one of them last week said to me - I was talking about in that press conference where you were there, I said something like ‘well that's a load of bollocks'.

Journalist: 'Bollocks to that' is what you said.
JK: 'Bollocks to that.’ And what goes after that?

Journalist: That was it.

JK: No, it wasn't, no it wasn't. What was after it? I don't know if it was your paper, but what went after it?

Journalist: I don't know.
JK: It even had the cheek to say ‘Bollocks to Newcastle'

Journalist: I didn't write that.

JK:That was my first fucking day. What does that tell you? What does that tell you?

Journalist: Where was that? Which paper said that?

JK:I've got it. I can't remember. It was one of the Sundays, not a Saturday. It was a Sunday.

Journalist: But you didn't say that to the Sundays, you said that to us. That was during the Monday press conference.

JK:I've got it, I've got it. I'll bring it in and show it to you. Why would I want to say that? And why would you want to put something like that behind it?

Journalist: Are you saying that someone has reported you saying ‘Bollocks to Newcastle?'
JK:Yes. Lovely.

Journalist: I don't know who's reported that.
JK: I'll tell you what, I'll bring it in.

Journalist: That's obviously going to damage you. That's not a good thing. But I don't think someone's done that. We have to have some sort of relationship with you.

JK:So have I? But I haven't come in here for you lot to take the piss out of me. And if I'm not flavour of the month for you, it don't fucking bother me. I've got a job to do. And I'm going to do it to the best of my ability and get on with it. I'm not going to spend any more time listening to any crap or reading any crap. Ok? I know you've got a job to do. Stick to the truth and the facts. That's all you've got to do. Stick to the truth and, I'm saying, the facts. And don't twist anything. That's all I'm asking you. But that's impossible in journalism. Because I've been...

Journalist: You know, you know the game.

JK: Of course I know, but I don't have to like it.

Journalist: Today we'll print the absolute truth, that you think we're cunts, we can all fuck off and we're slimy. Is that fair enough?
JK:Do it. Fine. Fucking print it. Am I going to worry about it? Put in also that it'll be the last time I see you. Put that in as well. Good. Do it.

Journalist: Ferguson said it the other day to the Man U lot. But down in London some of your best friends were journalists.

JK:Like who?

Journalist: -------------. They were big mates of yours weren't they?

JK:I don't know ------------------. I know a -------------. But they were honest. They were honest. They didn't twist anything I had to say. That's why they were my friends. I'm as straight as they come, but I will stand up and fight for myself in any corner. You're not going to fuck me off or frighten me in any manner. Whatever you do, or whatever headlines you run,you're not going to embarrass me. I'm not going to stand for it. I've come up here for a simple chance to fucking prove myself. Just wait, wait and make a decision after whatever period of time you want to. That's fine. Until then, get off my back and let me get on with my job. That all I ask. Just do that. That's all I ask of you. fucking hell. Was it last week, who wrote the headline ‘It's gone from bad to worse, it's Morecambe and Wise'. That's one fucking headline. I've got that as well. I don't know which one of you has done that. ‘It's a circus now', that's another fucking headline. ‘The circus leader's come to town', another headline. That's journalists. Are you happy with that?

Journalist: The people who write the headlines are based in London. We don't write them.

JK: Am I supposed to be delighted with it?

Journalist: Newcastle has been called a circus long before you arrived.

JK: Yeah, I'm the ringmaster of the circus.

Journalist: It's the situation. It's not just you. The club's up for sale. It's the whole situation of the past three months, all the Keegan stuff, whatever, that you've come into. But you're not the spearhead of everything. It's not a case of 'you've come in so now we're going to slaughter you'. That's not how it works.

JK: For two days I don't think I saw a decent report. There might be one today. For the first two days, I haven't seen one. Not one. A pile like that (gestures). Some of you are either feeding some dummy to say even more, to put the boot in even more. So it's like that.

Journalist: But you've hardly come in to a club where it's stable anyway, there are so many other problems going on, everyone…

JK: But why do you want stories on the negative side?

Journalist: (Unintelligible).

JK: The only way to get the positives is to get a result.

Journalist: Seriously, with the best will in the world, when you got the job, the club released a statement, and in your first interviews you contradicted that statement by saying you'd got the job for a longer period of time, you admitted you got the job because everybody else had said no.

JK: Well I can't tell a lie about that, that's a fact.

Journalist: You said that Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan were parked around the corner to get the manager's job after you.

JK: Hold on, hold on. I said that was relayed to me. But you didn't put that in though. You missed that bit out. You did, I saw it as well. You wrote it “I'm not saying it was you” in such a way that you didn't put in half the things that I said. You twisted it each time. I've been in the game long enough to know that.

Journalist: Can I finish my point?

JK: Yes, well I'm telling you your answer.

Journalist: We have to reflect and report on and try and find out what's going on at this football club. In your first public statements you contradicted things and said things.

JK: Tell me what I contradicted.

Journalist: The length of the contract, who was coming in next ...

JK: Do you want to see it? So you're calling me a liar then?

Journlist: No, I'm saying that it was a contradiction of the club's statement, which we've already established.

JK: I didn't know that. I didn't know there was a statement, why didn't you tell me you had a statement?

Journalist: I think we did say that.

JK: I told you exactly what the truth was. What it says on my contract.

Journalist: Yes but it was contradictory to what the club said.

JK: Ok, I take your point.

Journalist: You also made several other points that we had to find the truth out of. KK and Alan Shearer. Now if we approach those people and they say 'no, we've never heard of it', it doesn't help the feeling around the club.

JK: Well where have you been then? Where have you been before I come, what were the headlines then? Where were you? Another planet.

Journalist: It was chaotic before you got there.

JK: No. The write up. What was the write up.

Journalist: Sorry, I don't know what you're asking me.

JK: The write up was the consortium from Nigeria or wherever it might be, the agent spoke quite clearly that he had spoken to Mr Ashley and we've decided on such a such fee and yes, hold on, let me finish, you might have wrote it, it's true to say that I'm in talks with KK and AS. Right, ok. So that's written.

Journalist: That doesn't mean it's true.

JK:Really? You asked me what the consortium said. And I said exactly what was said in that paper. And I'm saying exactly what was told to me. I've got no reason to say it and you tried to change it, whoever it is, one or two of you, that you thought I was hiding behind it. Yes you did, yes you did.

Journalist: There's a difference between a consortium coming in and saying we want KK and we've spoken to KK and you reporting what Mike Ashley is telling you, that KK and AS are parked round the corner.

JK:No. Mike Ashley told me that he had got that from the consortium. So you're not getting your facts write. So when I said the consortium told MA who told me, that was discreetly missed, it was missed and so you go onto the negative stuff.

Journalist: The point I'm trying to make is that this was your first day in the job and it's created more chaos and unrest and we've reflected that. It's not about you as a manager. I don't think of us have called into question your ability as a manager or what you bring..

JK:What are you talking about? I've been crucified. Absolutely crucified in every single newspaper.

Journalists: No, that's not true.

JK:Absolutely. Morecome and Wise headlines!

Journalist: You said yourself you got offered the job because everyone else had turned it down.
What's that got to do with Morecome and Wise?

Journalist: I don't know, I didn't write that headline. You said that fans would be disappointed you got the job.

JK:Yes.

Journalist: right, ok, we've reflected that. No one has criticised your qualities as a manager. We've not seen them, we've not seen the evidence on the pitch.

JK:What other way did I get the job then?

Journalist: Sorry?

JK:What other way did I get the job then?

Journalist: Because of your track record?

JK:No I got the job because I was honest. Half a dozed managers turned it down. Ask them what reasons they turned it down. Why did they turn it down?

Journalist: I don't know.

JK:Well they you are then. Do your fucking homework and ask them.

Journalist: But that's the reason why it's farcical. Not just you, it's the whole situation. Nothing specific about you. The farce is that it's a club up for sale with no manager, six people are turning down interim jobs, it's not you. Dennis and Mike can't even come to the ground, it's the whole situation, the squad's threadbare. This all predates your arrival. But your arrival didn't help the situation in the short-term, that's what I was trying to say.
It's not 100 per cent personal with you, no way. Even Chris a few days before had admitted he'd had no contact with the people upstairs. It's the whole lot that's a farce, that's the thing. If you look at the papers before your arrival, they're exactly the same, that this club had become a laughing stock.
The fans are saying it, go on the message boards. They're saying even worse than us. We're just reflecting the whole situation, it's not just Joe Kinnear. Then you're banned for the first two matches. Not your fault, but it doesn't help the mood around the club. Is your decision not to speak to us final?

JK:I think so, yeah. I don't see any future in it, anyway. Whatever happens, the only way I'm going to win anything is by getting results. And it's still going to be negative, negative, negative. I'm reading one negative story after another after another. Half of the stuff is shit, I don't know where you're getting your information from or who's feeding you the stuff. Anything I tell you, you can write. You can write what I've said today. Go on, bang away. I've said it and done it. I don't have to hide anything.

Journalist: I don't think it's in your interests and it's certainly not in our interests "I'm being selfish" not to speak to us. I don't think that's a good decision. Obviously you're very angry and perhaps with some justification in certain circumstances, but I don't know if that's a good decision on your behalf in the long run.

JK:Well that's your point of view.

Press officer: Let's get on to football. Let's have an agreement that everything said so far, if anyone has got their tapes on, it's wiped off and we' re not discussing it.

Journalist: But that's what Joe has said he thinks of us.

Press officer: I'm saying don't push it. Let's accept what's been said on both sides and try and move on.

Journalist: Move on to not doing any more press conferences?

Press officer: No, to doing something now.

Journalist: What, one press conference only?
(Silence)
Journalist: Any knocks?

Press officer: Come on, let's go football.

Journalist: What are your plans for training in the next three days? How's the training going?

JK:It's going very well. No problems at all.

Journalist: Do you feel as though they've accepted you?

JK:Yeah, I think so.

Journalist: Enjoyed getting back in the swing of things?

JK:Absolutely. I've loved every moment of it. What can I say? I don't need any more burdens than what's happening at the moment. The only thing I want to be doing is to be left alone to work with the players, try and get a vocal voice and feedback from the players. I've sat them all done and had one on ones with Michael, Nicky Butt, Shay Givens, I mean Given, you'll pick up on that again. And it's been good. I've enjoyed it. It's difficult asking players to play out of position and getting some shape in the team.

Genius.

Nick's new girlfriend

2008-09-29T11:20:00.003+01:00

I'm pleased to be able to offer this world exclusive photo of Nick's new girlfriend. Not bad mate!

Well, it's a rosy-lipped batfish actually but i'm sure you gathered that.

Hover car please!

2008-09-29T10:57:00.002+01:00

Good news everyone! There's a decent chance we'll have hydrogen-cooled hover cars in a decade or so....not to mention the possibilities for space exploration. Full story at the Oracle that is New Scientist - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125681.400-relativity-drive-the-end-of-wings-and-wheels.html?DCMP=ILC-tabView&nsref=mg19125681.400

System Reboot

2008-09-29T10:51:00.002+01:00

Well that was fun! Back at the grindstone now after a week recovering from a minor cardiac moment - there's nothing like machines that go 'ping' reassuringly rather than 'beeeeeeeeeeeep' or 'pingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingpingping' as they were a week and a half ago.

Still - that's what you get for not getting enough sleep, and working too hard. I know - me working too hard, what's that about?!? Current medical opinion is "Err....a virus?" which is doctor speak for "Buggered if I know mate but you look okay now" 24 hour ECG to come in a week or so but now I'm better that will probably not show anything!

But there's only so much LOTR and TOCA you can play in a week so I guess it's no bad thing to be back.

Shabba!

Jesus and His Jet Boat

2008-09-16T07:48:00.002+01:00

GRRRR!

2008-09-12T12:33:00.001+01:00

Hmmm... seem stuck in Classic template mode hence have lost everyone's links.

Have followed the instructions provided by Blogger but there's a crucial button that just don't appear.

Serves me right for meddling I guess!

Normal service will be resumed once I've finished beating my laptop to a pulp.

A note...

2008-09-11T20:28:00.003+01:00

Having enjoyed the track White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes very much when I heard it on BBC 6Music I decided to throw caution to the wind and invest nearly £7 in the self-titled album.

What a fantastic record. If you enjoy Band Of Horses, Simon and Garfunkel, Pet Sounds era Beach Boys or The Shins then this album will slide seamlessly into your favourites pile. To play entirely safe I'd start off with track 2 on the album (the aforementioned White Winter Hymnal) and then run through and play the first track last. By then any possible doubts as to the quality of this record will have evaporated.

Go and buy it, you'll be well rewarded. The only album that even comes close in terms of value for money was the mighty £6.75 I paid for Vampire Weekend's debut - if you don't have that then you really need to get it!

Thousand Ruby Galaxy

2008-09-04T16:01:00.002+01:00

This is a real image - not false colour.

How pretty....

A composite image of Messier 83 reveals the shining stars and red hydrogen gasses of the "Thousand-Ruby Galaxy." The image was captured by the ESO/MPG 2.2-meter (7.2 feet) telescope in Chile's mountainous Atacama Desert on August 25. UV radiation, created by newly formed stars in the galactic center, ionizes Messier 83's hydrogen and causes its reddish glow. The dramatic pinwheel galaxy is some 15 million light-years from Earth, but appears in many ways much like a smaller version of our own Milky Way.

Space....brilliant.

2008-09-01T15:45:00.006+01:00

Right. Found these and had to share them - sorry Wak but please feel free to enter into "nice space pics" wars!

Sheets of debris from an exploded star swirl in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy in this Hubble Space Telescope image. At a distance of about 180,000 light years, the LMC galaxy is a relatively close neighbour of the Milky Way. It can be spotted from the Earth's Southern Hemisphere without a telescope. Apparently. Nick?

This false-colour view of the Cartwheel galaxy was created by combining images captured by four space telescopes: Galaxy Evolution Explorer, Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope, and Chandra X-ray Observatory. Astronomers think a smaller galaxy, possibly one of two galaxies seen here (bottom left), passed through the center of the Cartwheel galaxy about 100 million years ago. Bet that was a messy one.....

A Hubble Space Telescope image shows unprecedented detail of the Antennae galaxies, an intense star-forming region created when two galaxies began to collide some 200 million to 300 million years ago. The bright, blue-white areas show newly formed stars surrounded by clouds of hydrogen, which are colored pink. A similar collision is expected between our galaxy, the Milky Way, and the nearby Andromeda galaxy in several billion years....see previous posts for how much I'd like to see that!

The Milky Way

2008-08-27T10:40:00.002+01:00

As seen by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, here is a rather nice composite of our own little galaxy.......A bright spot at the lower left is a blazar, a galactic nucleus where a supermassive black hole violently accelerates particles. The Crab Nebula, which hosts a spinning neutron star, appears as a bright spot on the right in the galactic plane. Most of the image is formed from cosmic radiation hitting clouds of gas in space.

Wind turbines make bat lungs explode

2008-08-25T20:14:00.001+01:00

No, it's not a Daily Star headline, it's from the Oracle that is New Scientist...quite funny in a "innocent flying mouse suffers excruciatingly painful frothy blood filled death" kind of way.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14593-wind-turbines-make-bat-lungs-explode.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news2_head_dn14593

Rise of the Robots

2008-08-19T21:15:00.003+01:00

Okay, they've gone a bit too far. Fans of Asimov (which you should all be) will recognise this as the first Positronic brain.

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg19926696.100-rise-of-the-ratbrained-robots.html?DCMP=ILC-tabView&nsref=mg19926696.100

Malaysia '08

2008-08-19T15:29:00.004+01:00

May was Malaysia time, and I was only too pleased to get back to my favourite country. There's lots and lots more to come, but these photos are just a taster of the general gorgeousness......

That's my mother in law by the way, and the bottom shot is taken from the balcony of our hut on Lake Kenyir in the north of peninsular Malaysia, not far from the Thai border. Largest man made lake in SE Asia (and it's really, really big) and the "hotel" was in the middle of nowhere. I mean really - nearest taxi driver was 40km away and he lived in a hut by the side of the road. The only place you could buy beer (except the hotel, naturally) was a good hours drive.

I know this because we did a beer run to avoid the extortionate prices!

The wildlife was insane, as you'd expect from 350 million year old rainforest, with giant Hornbills, monkeys and HUGE lizards. Oh and King Cobra but mercifully I didn't see any of those. Every day we got a massive storm about 3:30pm for an hour or so which cleared the air nicely - there's some cool video to come but I can't upload it from my work laptop which requires faff and hassle. Not things I am particularly enamoured with.

Christmas in Venice

2008-08-18T20:35:00.007+01:00

Now I'd heard a lot about Venice before I went - how busy it was, the hordes of tourists blocking every street and pickpockets at every turn, the ever present stench of sewage......none of which were there ! But what I really wasn't expecting was a peaceful, almost spiritual atmosphere and a surreal calm as there is no traffic other than the odd boat.

We were rather fortunate with the weather too - clear blue skies and sunshine (admittedly brass monkey's cold, but that's what Grappa's for!) and I can't recommend it highly enough for a peaceful Christmas.

There's also a HUGE amount of really cool modern art - not just glass (for which Venice is rightly famous) but also this beauty, crafted from old buckets and tankards.

Mars....

2008-08-14T17:33:00.001+01:00

Nice pics of the Red Planet

Mars 2!

2008-08-14T17:29:00.003+01:00

Oh and these two as well.

Tom Waits

2008-07-29T08:42:00.004+01:00

What's going on? Two posts in one day?
I've recently "discovered" (durrrrr) that YouTube has every song I've ever loved on it. So instead of watching the news in the morning with my tea and toast, I've been searching out records from my past that I've loved and lost.

Tom Waits is one of these artists - his voice was described as "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car"

He's also one of the best lyricists around - many of his songs have been covered by more famous artists (Rod Stewart owes him much of his solo work) with more commercial success, but to hear the originals gives a different insight to this thoughtful, honest writer. He's also steadfastly refused to allow any of his music to be used in adverts - Screamin' Jay Hawkins version of 'Heart Attack and Vine' was used by Levi's. Tom sued and won, with a payout and a full page apology in Melody Maker. Classy......

If you've not heard any of his stuff before, go play on YouTube and find a few you like. This one is one of his more melancholy songs, but spellbindingly beautiful. I've had this on about 4 times so far this morning and I suspect it may have another few goes before I leave the house.....

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XrkThaBWa5c

Evil Eye Galaxy

2008-07-29T08:16:00.003+01:00

What a great name! What a great picture!

Hubble is due for it's final service in October. What the hell are we going to do when it breaks? I'm not aware of a replacement.......in the meantime, we can all enjoy pics like this.

Space...

2008-07-28T10:37:00.004+01:00

Most things of import that occur in the world of space stuff are admirably covered by Herr Wakmeister in his splendid blog (see TeamWak on the right)

However, I too have a love of all things extra terrestrial and will occasionally weigh in with my tuppenceworth.....and here it is.

The planet's buggered. And we buggered it up. Whether or not you subscribe to the great CO2 debate (to be covered on another day) or not, we need to start the "Save Humanity" campaign rather than "Save the Planet" which is our current focus.

The planet will be just fine until it is swallowed by our sun a few billion years - or the Milky Way collides with another galaxy (wouldn't mind tickets to watch that one!) In the slightly shorter term though, there's a damn good chance that humanity will be wiped out by either our own self-destructive tendencies or by failing to evolve to suit our changing environment.

So we really, really need to start looking at leaving our solar system and finding somewhere else to pollute/destroy. This will take at least 100 years even if we start now - we've got to develop propulsion systems that can shift a space ship at a minimum of 0.5 light speed, ideally FTL. Then we've got to test it, overcome the issues of cosmic radiation and cryogenisis, FIND a decent planet, perhaps terraform it a bit and then figure out who gets to go to the new world(s).

If the yanks try, it won't work. If anyone else tries, the yanks will nuke them unless they hand over the keys and agree that the new world will be called the United States of America II.

We need all the world leaders to take a slightly longer perspective view than 'your grandad killed my grandad so I'm going to enslave you and all your relatives' and actually look at the survival of the species.

Any offers?

Less ranty!

2008-07-24T16:01:00.002+01:00

Okay, okay last time i was in a fairly foul mood but today the sun is shining down and it's hothothot! It may even be hotter than an australian winter....you never know.

Thought i'd stick a link to this song up as it's just ace - worth checking out the rest of their stuff while you're there as it's all good.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=T8YCSJpF4g4

Planes Trains and Automobiles

2008-07-18T08:36:00.004+01:00

Okay - a rant.

Our road network is overloaded with traffic - in particular huge numbers of lorries. Meanwhile, our rail network is predominantly over 100 years old, crumbling and no longer fit for purpose....why can't we spend money on improving the rail network instead of continuing to subsidise the haulage industry?

Here's what I mean - the current road tax for lorries is subsidised by the government; trucks cause far more damage to the road network than their road tax pays for. I'm sure you've all driven down motorways where the inside lane has a lovely pair of "truck tracks" grooved into the road surface.

In the mean time, freight haulage costs on the rail network are proportional to the impact caused by the trains. Why can't the government spend money on improving the rail network and make it economically viable to move most freight by rail and have local depots served by LGV's? Road traffic would massively decrease, carbon emissions would decrease and the cost of just about everything would fall as moving a trainload of stuff would reduce haulage costs significantly. Therefore lower inflation, and as demand for diesel would drop fuel prices would come down too.....not to mention our cars would be more economical as we wouldn't spend hours sitting in traffic jams caused by unroadworthy Lithuanian trucks shedding their loads all over the M1.

I think the main problem is that the governments transport policy STILL assumes an oil price of between $25 and $50 per barrel - with this assumption road transport is the way forward but in the real world it just doesn't work!

And it's not just freight either:
For the cost of a return ticket from Doncaster to Reading (a journey I unfortunately must make every month or two - £206 if you're interested) I could drive from lands end to john o'groats and still have enough fuel to make it back to Edinburgh.....crazy.

Still - on the up side, the government has decided to invest in some stretches of high speed track - trains will be able to travel at over 120 mph! Crikey, at that rate we'll soon be able to compete with the Japanese Bullet trains that are a mere 40 years old.

And the government still won't pay for the entire network to be electrified - so we're trying to buy new high speed diesel trains when the rest of Europe is only buying electric trains because they're so much more efficient, less polluting and quieter.

Fair Point!

2008-07-16T16:56:00.001+01:00

As Vernonicus Moronicus quite correctly pointed out, there's been a dearth of blogging of late - mainly due to being too damn busy (and forgetting about it, admittedly....)

Still, will try harder - honest.

More to come soon (don't hold your breath though) as I'm off to pick the wifey up from work.

The first of many

2008-05-02T00:12:00.000+01:00

So - it begins.

I've been resisting a blog for some time as I think they're generally self indulgent and not of any real importance in the grand scheme of things.

And I stand by that - and don't expect anyone to read this, as it's just an outlet for the frustrations of one of Thatcher's children watching the world as I know it fall apart....the NHS privatised by a Labour government for starters - but we'll get onto that in due course.