Thursday, December 24, 2009

Christmas Cheer

For the first time ever I am spending part of Christmas day (and Christmas Eve) away from my family. Terrible, you might think, but I'm actually spending it with Llyando's family before heading to my family for the second half of the day. So it is definitely not terrible!

And with all the lovely snow and ice I'm feeling very Christmassy...

I love Christmas - people in the street are extra-friendly, families forget their little squabbles (excepting, of course, the traditional barney over the turkey/game of Monopoly) and small children run around with huge grins on their faces.

So I'm particularly lucky. This year I will have not one, but two lots of family and lots of Christmas cheer.

Hope you all have an equally wonderful Christmas!

Monday, June 22, 2009

My name is...

Anonymity. It's quite important to me. Not because I think anything I write is particularly controversial, or that anyone would be interested in stalking me, but because I don't like the idea of instantly linked with what I've blogged.


What I write is truly what I think. But its not always appropriate to voice your opinions loudly regardless of the situation or company you're in. For example, I probably wouldn't launch into a rant about American politics, or cotton wool culture to everyone I met. I wouldn't talk about sex education with someone I didn't know very well. Nor would I be likely to discuss my religious views at work. Or death.

So having a barrier between the real 'me' and the Mylissa who blogs is important. I can (and do) tell my friends where to find my blog. But I don't include the link in the countless job applications that I'm sending out. you get my point.

So the recent ruling regarding the 'outing' of the award-winning Night Jack blogger has come as a bit of a shock. Of course, his situation is rather different. Blogging identifiable details about ongoing police cases was unjustifiably stupid. But the whole thing does beg the question, how easy would it be for someone to track down who I really am? (And no, that's not a challenge...)

Summer is here!

It is official. Summer is definitely here. Not only was it the Summer Solstice yesterday, but Wimbledon has started. Cue the strawberries and cream, the jugs of Pimms and the harsh shrieks and grunts as tennis balls connect with rackets.


Excitingly, there are British hopes this year. Not just the talented, but occasionally inarticulate Andy Murray, but the young Laura Robson. Hopefully they'll both do well. Fingers crossed I get a job and am unable to watch every match...


Update: Bad luck Laura...

Monday, May 11, 2009

Good service and unemployment

Well so much for having internet connection.  A certain British telecommunications company (I name no names), having connected our phone line, decided (in their great wisdom) to cut us off.  They apologised, admitted it was their fault and then told us it would be 3 weeks before we could be reconnected...


Customer service?  You must be joking...

We are, in fact, due to be reconnected on Wednesday. O2, our internet provider, have been very helpful and hopefully the internet will connect as soon as the phone line does. 

It really shouldn't be this difficult, although I must say it has been Llyando who has done a lot of the phoning, rather than me.  As you know, I'm not very good at being assertive.

In other news, I'm now unemployed.  My contract came to an end and the organisation I was working for couldn't keep me on.  So, I'm spending my time searching for a job.  Any job.  Really any job.  So if anyone out there wishes to employ me, please let me know!

Otherwise I'll have to be a kept woman while continuing my bid for world domination through blogging...

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Back for good...

And I'm back. for good this time! We do, finally, have internet! (queue more frequent posts).

In celebration of this momentous occasion, I would like to direct you to the fantastic website http://www.comparethemeerkat.com/
It is amazing, particularly Aleksandr's tv adverts and blooper reel.

Genius bit of advertising really and very funny.


Now I'm off to try and remember how to write proper blog posts....

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Still breathing

Yes, I'm still aliiiiiive! 


Apologies (again) for the lack of posts.  Not enough internet time, plus I'm looking for a job.  So every lunch break I spend my time trawling the net for exciting jobs rather than blogging.  Shameful, isn't it?

Anyway, thank you CorfuBob for your kind offer of posting things for me, but I'm just going to let you all stew for a bit.  Seriously, nothing exciting has happened anyway.  Apart from my car dying.  And going to watch the Six Nations battle between England and Scotland at Twickenham.

I have a few days holiday coming up, so I might have a chance to post then!

Bye for now....

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Connections

No internet yet I'm afraid, but we might get it soon... Probably no posts until the weekend! Try to survive...

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Quote of the Day

I don't mean to imply, incidentally, that absolutely everyone who takes their clothes off for a living is desperate, miserable or exploited. That's the cliche, but really - can you name a profession in which there aren't people who are desperate, miserable or exploited? Which would you rather do? Strip for a camera now and then, or work full-time in an office sitting beside a perspiring Coldplay fan who spends each lunchtime getting bits of moist cheese-and-onion crisp in his goatee and chortling over his Facebook messages?

Monday, March 02, 2009

Back to reality

Well I’m back from my holiday and feeling, well, un-refreshed to be honest.
Having now reached 25 years of life I feel older and wiser, or perhaps not.
Our few days in a holiday cottage in Northumberland did not go without a hitch due to a lack of hot water and a blocked chimney. A letter will be written to the organisation concerned. Then there was a weekend in Durham seeing friends, which was nice, but there was not much sleep followed by a lot of driving (although I disgraced myself as co-pilot and dozed off while Llyando was driving).

So now back to the grindstone, but I’m ready for another holiday already. Bring on the weekend….

More to the point, however, blogging recommences from today. And hopefully (*fingers crossed*) we might have internet at home soon!

Friday, February 20, 2009

100th post!

This is my 100th post!


It was, admittedly, a slow start and progress has been hampered by a lack of internet connection.  but I've made it, this first milestone.  Next step - 500...

In honour of this momentous occasion, I would like to encourage comments on how its gone so far, which have been your favourite posts, any topics you'd like me to cover and any changes you would make if it was your blog.

If you do think Mylissa's Nemeton is the most wonderful blog in the world, then please follow or share!

Thank you all for reading. :D

Mylissa xxx

I would like to be... on holiday

I would like to be on holiday.


Oh wait, I am!

Officially on holiday now for just over a week.  We'll be in deepest, darkest Northumberland for most of it (after a weekend in Dorset), so please don't expect any posts!

I do intend to write (on a piece of paper) a couple of posts and will upload them when I'm back, so you wont be without for too long.  Try not to miss me. I'm sure you'll cope...

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Tutu on Obama

Apologies for this lengthy post, but I was so impressed with this article from the BBC by Desmond Tutu on Barack Obama that I wanted to share it in its entirety.

Desmond Tutu, the first black South African archbishop of the Anglican church and veteran campaigner against apartheid, gives a lecture in London on Thursday to mark the 75th anniversary of the British Council. Here, he explores some of the same themes in an article written for BBC News.

I make no apology for talking and writing, in the UK, about a foreign leader. But expectations of him are so high and attention worldwide is glued to his every step as he reaches the end of his first month in office. He is the story of the moment.

I am obviously referring to Barack Obama.

Three months ago as I watched the news that could define an era, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief and wonder. It could not be true that Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan, was to be the next president of the United States.
During the previous administration's term, I'd been asked to suggest one unilateral magnanimous gesture or action that the incoming US president might make to counteract anti-Americanism abroad. I said that while there were clearly pockets of anti-Americanism around the world, this was definitely not a global
phenomenon nor was it directed towards the American people.

What I certainly could attest to was substantial resentment and indeed hostile opposition to the policies of a particular US administration. I contended, as I do now, that the two are quite distinct and separate. An elucidating example dates back to the years of the anti-apartheid struggle. The Reagan White House was firmly opposed to applying sanctions against the South African apartheid regime, preferring what it described as "constructive engagement". Many of us were incensed by this policy and opposed it with every fibre of our being.

I probably dismayed many people when on one occasion I was told of the latest Reagan rejection of our call for US sanctions against Pretoria. I retorted, out of deep exasperation, "The West can go to hell!" I was then Bishop of Johannesburg, and some thought it was decidedly un-episcopal language.
I was very angry toward the Reagan administration, but that did not make me anti-American. And that is the point, anger and resentment toward the policies of a particular administration do not necessarily translate into anti-American sentiment.
When I was nine or so, I picked up a tattered copy of Ebony magazine. I still don't know where it could have come from in my ghetto township with its poverty and squalor. It described how Jackie Robinson, a black man like us, had broken into major league baseball and was playing scintillatingly for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
I did not know baseball from ping-pong. That was totally irrelevant.

What mattered was that a black man had made it against huge odds, and I grew inches and was sold on America from then on. Remember the extraordinary outpouring of sympathy and concern after 9/11? That surely could not have happened, certainly not on such a vast global scale if people hadn't genuinely cared. Everywhere, virtually. But what happened that all these positive warm feelings toward the United States were disrupted and turned into the negative ones of hostility and anger?

For those of us who have looked to America for inspiration as we struggled for democracy and human rights, these past seven years have been lean ones. When war began, first in Afghanistan and not long after in Iraq, we read allegations of prisoner abuse at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and of rendition to countries notorious for practising torture. We saw the horrific images from Abu Ghraib and learned of gruesome acts performed in the name of gathering information. Sometimes the torture itself was couched in the US government's euphemisms - calling waterboarding an "interrogation technique".

To the past administration's record on torture, we must add a string of other policies that have damaged the standing of the United States in the world: its hostility to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases; its refusal to assent to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; its restrictions on the use of US funding to fight Aids; and the arrogant unilateralism it has employed in declaring to be enemies any countries it deemed "against us" because they were not "for us".

I never imagined in my worst dreams that I would live to see the day when the United States would abrogate the rule of law and habeas corpus as has happened in the case of those described as "enemy combatants" incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay. Or that I would hear an American government and its apologists use exactly the same justification for detention without trial, as had been used by the apartheid government of South Africa - a practice that the United States at the time condemned roundly, as was so utterly right to have done. So, it was a devastating case of deja vu for some of us, thoroughly disillusioning. The Bush administration managed to rile people everywhere. Its bully-boy attitude sadly polarised our world.
Against all that, the election of Barack Obama has turned America's image on its head.

On US election night last November, I wanted to jump and dance and shout, as I did after voting for the first time in my native South Africa on 27 April 1994.
My wife cried with incredulity and joy as we watched a broadcast of the celebrations in Chicago, after the election results came through. A newspaper here ran a picture of Obama from an earlier trip to one of our townships, where he was mobbed by youngsters. It was tacitly saying that we are proud he once visited us.

Because the Bush years have been disastrous for other parts of the world in many ways, Obama's victory dramatises the self-correcting mechanism that epitomises American democracy. Elsewhere, oppressors, tyrants and their lapdogs can say what they like and, for the most part, they stay put. But ordinary citizens living in undemocratic societies are not fools; they may not always agree with US foreign policy, but they can see and register the difference between the United States - where people can kick an unpopular political party out - and their own countries.
Obama's election has been an epoch-making event that filled the whole world with hope that change is possible.
People everywhere identified Obama as the bearer of a new hope, someone who could electrify crowds with spellbinding oratory, galvanizing many out of their lethargy. His election also said more eloquently than anything else that we black people are not God's step-children, despite so much evidence to the contrary.
That whatever we attempt, we can do it - yes we can.

In the midst of this celebration, however, a word of caution is appropriate. In the first days after 9/11, the United States had the world's sympathy, an unprecedented wave of it. President Bush squandered it. Obama too could easily squander the goodwill that his election generated if he disappoints.
It would be wonderful if, on behalf of the nation, Obama apologises to the world, and especially the Iraqis, for an invasion that I believe has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

While he's already promised to shut down Guantanamo Bay, he should also move to ratify the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court. For many of us, an upright US was a great inspiration in our fight against the iniquity of apartheid. I pray that President Obama will come down hard on African dictators, especially because they cannot credibly charge him with being neo-colonialist.
The US administration needs to reach out to other nations, build bridges, listen.
Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have spoken of the importance of smart power and the role of cultural diplomacy in their foreign policy toolbox. The sounds and gestures coming from them are most welcome, but they must now carry through on these.

Keeping the relationships alive between different peoples, and the dialogue going in difficult times is essential. They pave the way for better times. In a world of increasing instability and mistrust and in the face of shared global challenges, we need to build understanding and collaboration between ordinary people, to forge the ties which can last a lifetime whatever is happening on the political stage.
We owe our glorious victory over the awfulness of apartheid in South Africa in large part to the support we received from the international community, including the United States and United Kingdom, and we will always be deeply grateful.
The British Council, where I will speak today to mark their 75th anniversary, worked with us during those years providing educational and cultural activities. These included training in the UK for 200 black South Africans and working with local groups on language teaching and reading in black primary schools. The British Council supported Nelson Mandela's work in reforming the post-apartheid diplomatic service and education system.

And here I must comment on the UK government's role as the US's biggest ally this past eight years, in particular in the war on terror. Your standing in the world has also suffered as a result of this close co-operation, although perhaps to a slightly lesser degree thanks to other more favourable actions in tackling climate change, interest in Africa's problems and campaigning on debt relief.
The problem today is that you don't have the redeeming Obama factor and although you perhaps don't come from such a low point, you don't have his advantage of international goodwill in restoring the UK's perception overseas.
Going forward, as we strive to create a stable, prosperous world for all, we need to work together with other nations for justice, equity and peace. We need to believe that the values of fairness and compassion are not only yours and mine; they are shared by all humanity.

Most of us do want to see peace.

And here I want to end with what seems so utterly obvious about what we learned from our particular situation in South Africa. Peace does not come from the barrel of a gun but is achieved when cultural differences are respected and the fundamental rights of all are recognised and upheld.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Knitting your memory healthy

Good news for those of you who, like me, enjoy nice hobbies such as knitting, reading, crafts, or even playing computer games. Apparently it helps reduce memory loss as you get older.

I have just one question:
What if, like me, your memory is rubbish already?

*cries helplessly*

Religion = Happiness?

Being religious could mean you’re a happier person, according to a study. It seems that religion could provide you with a “buffer” against life’s disappointments and problems.

Obviously I have a tendency to be a little biased here – my religious beliefs have got me through a lot of problems with my sanity (more or less) intact. Of course, I have no way of knowing if I would have got through them in exactly the same way without having religious beliefs – it is an unrepeatable experiment!
However, I would agree that generally, religious people seem to have a more positive outlook on life - a way of smoothing out life’s little ups and downs. I’m not saying that everyone with a religious belief can do that, or even that those without one can’t. And of course, people who believe that the world is damned and that the apocalypse is coming probably are less affected by the minor bumps in the road of life. After all, so long as they’re saved...

Back to my point. I think religion does provide a comfort factor, although I think this varies from religion to religion. Nevertheless, I’m grateful for it.

However, a ‘scientific’ study seems to me to be impossible. How can we quantify happiness? How can we identify what causes it? As people find different things make them happy, how can a study like this ever come out with a sensible answer?!
Equally, religion can be the cause of so much misery. How can religion improve our happiness if it is sometimes the cause of war or persecution?

What do you think?

Monday, February 16, 2009

Quote(s) of the day

Today's quotes are on a theme. No particular reason, except we all need a little motivational quotational on a Monday. Or is this a mistake?!


Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it.

Cullen Hightower


Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.

Al Franken

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

James Joyce

We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.

Dan Quayle

Friday, February 13, 2009

Love is all around us.

In anticipation of a lack of internet at home over the weekend (the assigned installer of a certain well-known British provider of digital, satellite television and broadband apparently failed to turn up today. Again. We're switching to a different provider.), I would like to wish you all a very happy Valentine's Day. I hope you all manage to avoid its hideous over-commercialness and are able to enjoy the day with a loved one.

If not, happy Anti-Valentines Day. Go clubbing, drink and party like there's no tomorrow. Or curl up in front of a good film with some wine and chocolate. Whichever is your preference. Besides, apparently there's no hope for the weekend: sexual desire is entering a recession.

If desperate, you could always check out the anti-Valentines event arranged by anarchy activists Class War. There will be 'anarcho-speed-dating'. How could you possibly resist?!

Or you could test your romance levels with this Love Quiz. I scored 15/18 - 'You are a hopeless romantic. You're a dreamer, who believes that love conquers all.' *tries not to be sick*

Enjoy!

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings

Nine year-old Alec Greven has written a best-selling book called ‘How To Talk To Girls’. Apparently it is great stuff. And it proves, once and for all, that there’s no excuse for getting it wrong. If a nine year-old can do it…

Thursday, February 12, 2009

George 'Zombie' Bush

Congratulations to the South African TV station ETV whose news program fallaciously announced a report of George Bush's death. While testing a moving banner headline stating 'George Bush is dead', a technician accidently pressed the 'broadcast for live transmission' button. He is, in fact, still alive. I think. How do you tell?

Further congratulations are in order, however, for their stunning response to the Afrikaans language newspaper Beeld and the media group's website News24.com who broke the story:

"Its unfortunate, because we never comment on their mistakes," said [ETV News spokesperson] Vasili Vass.

Somebody give that man a pay rise.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Quote of the Day

This little gem is from Nick Robinson’s Newslog, describing the apologies yesterday by British banking leaders:

…the question was left hanging: “what are they sorry for?” For the consequences of banks’ failures for shareholders, staff and customers certainly. What was much less clear, however, is that they accepted personal responsibility for causing those consequences.

This felt more like the captain of the Titanic saying “I’m sorry the iceberg was there” and less like “Sorry I steered my ship into the iceberg and promised you that it couldn’t sink.”

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hello! (in a very Boris-esque way) - by Llyando

So this is me...


..

There we go, that's it, well not really but I'm new to this sort of thing. I'm an Engineer by personality as well as by profession so tend to have a very literal view on most things, including typing to myself on a computer. However, as this has been proposed to me by Mylissa I have little choice (besides, at the very least I'm typing to one person... right!?).
Engineering is a funny way of life, as I said I tend to see things a lot more logically than most people, and a lot more straight forward. If something is broken or wrong, fix it; if it isn't, don't. However, not all engineers think like this - engineering attracts polarities of common sense, they either have lots of it or none at all. I hope to be one of the former, although tend to end up in the latter camp...
Anyway, with such an orthogonal view (some of the time) to Mylissa maybe I can add a bit of a different spin to some issues (and still end up with a bed to sleep in at night!).

Llyando

Introducing Llyando...

Llyando has no blog of his own, and he doesn’t think he has enough time or enough to write to have one of his own. *waits for sounds of pity*
So, I’m going to let him write the occasional post here. Aren’t I the dutiful and loving girlfriend?!

Fear not, this does not mean there will be less wittering or ranting from me. Au contraire, you will now be snowed under by even more witter and rant…
Who knows, Llyando’s posts might be even better than mine. Although if they are, he’s being chucked of onto his own blog pretty sharpish. That is, if he doesn’t get totally addicted and have to start his own one anyway...

I was tempted to stick a great big picture of him here, but thought I’d probably get sent to bed without any supper if I did. I will try and get him to improve his profile at any rate.

So, look out for Llyando’s posts - they’ll be clearly marked. And please keep on commenting!

Quote of the Day

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

Albert Einstein

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Cotton Wool Culture

My father sent me an email this week (see below) that poked fun at not just modern parenting, but today's litigious society. When I came across this story on the BBC, I couldn't resist a post.
Have a look at this picture (from the BBC website). What would you do? Would you stop the boy from sawing? Or would you let him carry on, knowing that he'd learn his lesson and probably only bang his knee?




I'd let him fall.



TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!


First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because:

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were OK. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes after running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendos, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chatrooms....... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS! You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good. While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were. Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

Thanks for nothing

I am one of those British people who is terribly, terribly polite. Even to people who don't deserve it.


Imagine this situation: 
I had arrived back in Basingstoke, off the train from London.  It had been snowing in Basingstoke, but there were cars on the roads. I needed to get a bus home, so I headed to the bus-station.
No buses.  One woman had been waiting for 2 hours.  Apparently the roads were too unsafe for the route out to where I live.
I waited a while, chatted with some other people waiting.  Then I went over to some drivers who were loitering at the other end of the station.

'Excuse me,' I said 'do you know if there will be a number 2 any time soon?'
'No love, too dangerous.' replied a man clutching a clipboard.
'Oh I quite understand.  Its very difficult for you to ask drivers to go out in these conditions.  But is there any chance of letting us know if there are any developments?'
'Yeah, all right.'
'Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.'

30 minutes later, nothing.  no information, no buses.  I wandered over again.
'I'm sorry to bother you again, but have the condition s got any better?'
'No.'
'I don't suppose you've got any indication of when or if they'll get better?'
'No.'
'Ok, well thanks for your help.'

Thanks for your help?!  What's wrong with me?  He couldn't have been less helpful unless he'd thrown a snowball at me.  And I always do this.

Someone walks into me when I'm standing at the station.  What do I say?  'Sorry!'
Someone wheels their large suitcase over my foot. 'Sorry!'
Someone pushes their trolley into my shin at the supermarket. 'Sorry!' I say as I hobble out of their way.

It is a very British condition, but I think I'm a particularly bad case.  Perhaps I have to be more assertive:
Someone walks into me when I'm standing at the station.  What do I say?  'Sorry for standing in your way.  open your eyes next time.'
Someone wheels their large suitcase over my foot. 'Was my foot inconveniently positioned?  Perhaps I should cut it off...?'
Someone pushes their trolley into my shin at the supermarket. 'Oh forgive me for so inconsiderately queuing here.  Next time I should lie down in front of your trolley to facilitate your movement over me...'

Friday, February 06, 2009

Thirty-two mud-encrusted men and a referee went to mow a meadow

Yes, its back. One of the highlights of my year. The 6 Nations starts tomorrow!

Ah, rugby. Such a British thing to watch. Yes British. We invented it, so stop moaning. And yes, England are currently a bit rubbish, but so what?

32 men (and a ref plus a couple of linesmen, but who’s counting?!) racing up and down the pitch, chucking a ball at each other, tackling, thudding onto the grass, kicking, gouging, biting….
And you know what, they’re neither protected by 20 layers of padding, nor do they writhe on the ground every time they stub their toes. Yes, you know what sports I’m referring to.

Rugby. Its what makes Britain great. That and the Queen. Oh, and our tea drinking. And lets not forget cream teas. Or marmalade. Or even our naval victories over the French (I’m not holding a grudge, I promise!). And of course, there’s the Beatles…

Ahem.

Rugby. Its one of the things that makes Britain great.

There will be more posts later in the tournament (some probably slightly rant-like) especially after weve been to Twickenham to watch England v Scotland... Jealous?!

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Pretty in pink part deux

Ok, so the poll doesn't seem to be working.


Comments below instead please!

Edit:  its working now...!

Pretty in pink

Spring has sprung, despite the snow (there were snowdrops in my parents' garden weeks ago...) and in honour of the, um, springiness, I've decided to change the theme to reflect this.  Note the pretty leaves, the butterfly, the pink.


Ye gods, what's happened to me?!

So, should I stick with pink or revert to the plain old blue that was here before?
Vote in the poll to your right please!


Tuesday, February 03, 2009

A prayer with your medical treatment?

Reading this story about a Christian nurse who offered to pray for a patient has left me torn.

According to the BBC, Caroline Petrie offered to pray for an elderly patient after visiting her at home and changing some dressings.  The patient was not offended, but contacted the local health trust because she felt that others could have been offended by Mrs Petrie's offer of a Christian prayer.  Mrs Petrie has been suspended pending an investigation.

The thing is, Mrs Petrie probably meant no offence.  She was offering her personal, spiritual aid to complement the medical aid she was giving.

However, she was employed for medical purposes only - to change the patient's dressings, not to offer spiritual succour.  And I know that if I was lying ill in hospital, for example, I would hate for someone to be praying over me.  Unless they were Pagan. Or a family member. Or a friend. 

Perhaps the problem is that it was unsolicited prayer from a stranger, with no thought as to the faith or personal beliefs of the patient.  We don't know if Mrs Petrie first enquired if the patient was Christian/Baptist, but if she did, then perhaps its more understandable... 

How many of us pray for people without asking their permission?  Does it really matter?  What if that person belongs to a different faith?  Does it matter more?  Or does it give you more of a right to pray for their 'salvation'?!

Could all my friends please give me permission to pray for them?  Otherwise I'll try to remember not to.

Who's the smartest of them all?

Oh the smugness.  20/20 in a quiz entitled 'How smart are you?'


It has made my morning!

Friday, January 30, 2009

Who needs art when you have nature?

Nature is amazing. And beautiful. So is art, admittedly. And I'm not really suggesting that we don't need art.

But nature is pretty special.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Quote of the day

House: Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people.


from House Season Four: The Right Stuff

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Quote of the day

Perfection Wasted
And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market-
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

John Updike 18 March 1932 - 27 January 2009

What's in a name?

So, a couple of people have asked why I don’t use my real name on my blog. Well, it’s primarily to maintain at least some anonymity – something I think is quite important when posting anything online. Apart from facebook, but on facebook my privacy settings are turned up to max…

But why MylissaAriana?

Ariana was taken from Arianrhod of Welsh mythology. Not a particularly nice woman, but I like the name…

The English name is derived from the Italian form of the Greek name Ariadne, which means "most holy" (Cretan Greek αρι [ari] "most" and αδνος [adnos] "holy") and a Welsh name meaning silver (Welsh arian, "silvery").


Ariadne, of course, being the woman who helped Theseus overcome the Minotaur and the Labyrinth by giving him a ball of red wool and a sword.

As for Mylissa, well…
To cut a long story short, I had a very weird, but vivid, dream in which my name was Mylissa. Shortly afterwards I had to come up with a name to use online, and so I went for that.

Simple really!

Excessive force?

More than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its land, sea and air operations against Hamas militants on 27 December, including 400 children. Fourteen Israelis have died.
This statistic in various Gaza/Israel stories on the BBC news website is terrifying. Where, previously, numbers had been qualified by the statement ‘according to Palestinian sources’, the BBC seem to be suggesting that this is an accurate figure. With the recent furor over the BBC’s decision not to screen a fundraising appeal for humanitarian relief in Gaza by the Disasters Emergency Committee, I can’t imagine they’d be lax about their statistics, or allow anything that could be perceived as bias in their reporting.

Fighting a war against terrorists/freedom fighters is extremely difficult, especially when those militants have a history of sheltering amongst civilians. But Israel having made the decision to respond militarily to the rockets coming from Gaza, I can’t think of a way in which they could have effectively completed their campaign (assuming that their campaign was simply to stop the rockets) without huge risk to their own military forces.

But in my view, that in no way excuses the reports of extreme violence towards civilians and children, such as in this story:

…the head of neurosurgery at the El-Arish hospital, Dr Ahmed Yahia, told me that brain scans made it clear that a number of the child victims had been shot at close range.

And then there is this story.

If all this is true, nothing in the world can justify it.

A new look for Father Christmas

Apparently two thirds of people prefer a green Santa. Not an eco-friendly Santa – he achieves that already with his reindeer-drawn sleigh. Although perhaps not. Do reindeer suffer from flatulence?

I digress. Green Father Christmas. Meaning, of course, a Father Christmas dressed in green. According to a National Trust survey, members of the public preferred traditional, green costumes when they were trialed at grottos last year.

A green costume suggests links to pagan ‘Green Man’ and also to Odin. The red costume is a recent phenomenon created by Thomas Nash in Victorian times and then cemented by the hideous commercialisation of a lovely, family-orientated, winter festival by the Coca Cola company (among others).

Admittedly, I might be biased, but I think its brilliant! Hopefully this year we’ll see more green Santas...

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Simple ways to improve your life

AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES:

  1. If you are choking on an ice cube, don't panic. Simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat and presto. The blockage will be almost instantly removed.
  2. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.
  3. Avoid arguments with your partner about lifting the toilet seat by simply using the sink.
  4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.
  5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
  6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives. Then you will be afraid to cough.
  7. Have a bad toothache? Smash your thumb with a hammer and you will forget about the toothache.
  8. Sometimes, we just need to remember what the rules of life really are: You only need two tools: WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.
  9. Remember: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
  10. Never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom.
  11. If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You get another chance.
  12. And finally, be really nice to your family and friends; you never know when you might need them to empty your bed pan.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS:

  • Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are getting weak?
  • Why do banks charge a fee on 'insufficient funds' when they know there is not enough?
  • Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
  • Why doesn't glue stick to the bottle?
  • Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?
  • Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
  • Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?
  • Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
  • Whose idea was it to put an 'S' in the word 'lisp'?
  • If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
  • Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles are always white?
  • Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?
  • Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?
  • Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?
  • Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try?
  • How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures?
  • When we are in the supermarket and someone rams our ankle with a shopping cart then apologizes for doing so, why do we say, 'It's all right?' Well, it isn't all right, so why don't we say, 'That hurt, you stupid idiot?'
  • Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?
  • In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?
  • How come you never hear father-in-law jokes?
  • The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Witches wear wellies when its wet

Thank you Dormouse for pointing out these rather wonderful welly boots.



Of course they're degrading stereotypes, but they're still great! Although maybe they'd be better if they weren't orange...

In a state of utter confusion...

Just occasionally in life, you come across something that not only causes you to stop and think, but something that totally challenges everything.

This happened to me today.

Now, I’m not trying to be immodest here, but I’ve had a pretty good education. I’ve been very lucky. I went to a public boarding school (that’s private school to most of the world) from the age of 8-18 and while I didn’t enjoy it, I’ve got to say that they did their best to educate me to within an inch of both my life and my sanity. I went to a very good university and although I possibly didn’t leave with the best degree (for a variety of reasons), life at uni continued my education in not just an academic sphere but also in a general ‘this is how to live’ kind of way.
I enjoy reading. I read widely and have an interest in politics and current affairs. I like to debate topics with friends and family.
I am, admittedly, very bad at maths and not so great at science.

It is this last fact that should have alerted me that what I was about to read was going to cause problems.

Having read this post on the wonderful Dilbert blog I clicked on the link to the article: Our world may be a giant hologram (New Scientist website)

Interesting, I thought.

I understood about one word in ten. And it isn’t so much the words themselves, but the way they’ve been put together. They made things that look like sentences, but don’t make any sense:

“If GEO600 really has discovered holographic noise from quantum convulsions of space-time, then it presents a double-edged sword for gravitational wave researchers.”

Even the bits where theories were ‘explained’ make distressingly little sense to me:
“According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.”


Concepts, theories… I just can’t get my head around it and this really upsets me! Its like a nightmare and I can't escape.

Most things, if I don’t understand the details, I can look up some background information somewhere and end up with at least something approaching understanding of the topic. With this, I have no hope. None. I just don’t get it. And I really hate that I can’t understand it. I am now in a state of nervous tension with an image of a me, stuck to a giant hologram, floating in front of my eyes. I can’t think about anything else and its freaking me out…

This state of mind is the thing that has really got to me. In a way, the contents of the article are neither here nor there. But it is this feeling of utter bewilderment. Complete confusion. The only time I've felt like this was in Poland where (despite speaking Russian) I understood virtually nothing of what was being said. It is a horrible feeling and now its back. I'm in hell.

So, in order to restore my sanity, if anyone can explain the concepts in the article to me using not just words of one syllable, but also explaining the theories behind it in a way that even an Iron Age woman might understand, then please, please help!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Quote(s) of the day

Out with the old, in with the new...

"There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead."


"When we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."


Can they fix it?

Apart from the fact that every time I see or hear the phrase ‘yes, we can!’ I think of Bob the Builder, I am very excited about the inauguration of the 44th American President, Barack Obama, later today (and not just because our office will be grinding to a halt to watch it on the BBC). Obama is taking over the reins of a country that has an awful lot of problems, but I’m sure that he will rise to the challenge admirably. Hopefully the rest of the country will offer him the support that he will need.
Good luck to him…

Meanwhile, this article by Andrew Roberts in the Telegraph suggests that perhaps George W. Bush wasn’t all that bad, despite these ‘Bushisms’ on the BBC website.

Ah well, it can only get better!

Friday, January 16, 2009

This little piggy went to market…

Those of you who know me probably already know my views on pigs. Intelligent creatures for the most part (both my friends and the pigs. No, my friends are not pigs), pigs are also pretty cute. Well, piglets anyway.

I am by no stretch of the imagination vegetarian, but I don’t eat much pig. Or pork. Mainly I don’t like the taste of ham and bacon. But I like sausages. But I’m very fussy about what type of sausages I eat. I will only eat British reared pig. Not because of the taste (although it tends to be delicious), but because in Britain we have far higher pig rearing standards than in the rest of Europe.

In Europe, pigs are kept in terrible conditions. Intensively ‘factory’ farmed, with the sows locked in sowing stalls and farrowing pens, the pigs are often kept in darkness and on concrete floors. I would recommend reading Jon Henley’s article in the Guardian for further details.

In Britain it’s a slightly different story. We do have higher welfare standards for our pigs. Most pigs in Britain have access to the outdoors, straw in their pens and greater freedom of movement. But it still isn’t great. Often piglets born outside are fattened for slaughter indoors. Some British (Organic) farms are, of course, pretty good. Piglets gambolling about the open fields, out in the fresh air. All of that. But it comes at a price:

Tim Finney, managing director of Eastbrook's organic meats business, reckons that amounts to an extra 30 or 40p a kilo just to keep the system running, plus another 70p a kilo for the organic feed. "Overall," he says, "it probably costs us about double what it costs to produce a conventional pig. Although if we weren't organic, we could run the farm the same way and produce meat that was maybe 25% more expensive. That would still be a huge step forwards in welfare terms."


Jamie Oliver is starting a campaign. Not to improve standards necessarily, but to educate the public. He believes (as I do) that to be a meat eater (and we were bred to be), you have to fully understand where your meat comes from. With no apologies. If you eat meat, then yes, you are causing cute little piggies, curly-lashed calves and woolly, bleating lambs to be slaughtered. If you eat fish, then you are causing fish to be ‘drowned’. Get over it.

Oh, and if you’re a vegetarian, then please stop wearing or carrying leather. It just makes you a hypocrite. And justifying it by saying ‘well they’re dead anyway’ is ridiculous.

Anyway. If you can accept those things, good for you. I can accept them and so I eat meat. But that doesn’t mean that we’re so much better than animals. That we have the right to do what we want to them. We have the obligation to farm them as humanely as possible.

Ideally, of course we’d all raise our own animals like Alex Renton and send them to local slaughterhouses/butchers at the end of their happy, outdoor, organic lives.
Or stop eating meat.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Quote of the day

Every procedure for getting a cat to take a pill works fine -- once.
Like the Borg, they learn...

Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett

I would like to be... in Sweden.

I would like to be in Sweden. Becuase London is grey. And Basingstoke is grey. And even if Sweden is grey, it can't be any worse!
Besides, home is lonely right now as a certain person is on a business trip to Sweden. Lucky sod. Certainly more interesting than being stuck in an office surrounded by technology that is moving so slowly I'm contemplating attacking it with my tea cup. So..... slow....
So. Sweden. I'd like to be in Sweden please. Now.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

A laugh for the day

Forgive the manic multiple-posting today, but this is just too funny not to share:
Buried with your cell phone from the Scott Adams/Dilbert blog.


Enjoy!

Spiritual Development

Sad news – the wonderful pagan – spiritual - philosophical podcast ‘Deo’s Shadow’ is coming to an end. For those of you who don’t know Deo’s Shadow, I would highly recommend it.
Deo and Mandy have moved from Paganism to Atheism and I wish them well, although I will miss the podcast greatly.

But it does raise the question of personal spiritual development – once we fall into a category/religious path, how easy is it to break away or change our views? Having been brought up as C of E, exploring new religions at school was very limited. Everything was labelled, everything fit nicely into a little box and everything was compared to Christianity. But do religious ‘labels’ really do us any good? There is so much in common between the world religions and most faiths evolve, to a certain extent, with the times. So when I describe myself as Pagan, what does that actually mean?

I had a long discussion with my boyfriend about religion recently. It was really interesting, not just the depth of philosophical thought that we reached, but also I became aware of how much I don’t fit into the ‘pagan/witch’ bracket and how much my personal beliefs have changed and developed since I turned to paganism when I was 14/15. Paganism, I feel, does allow for this kind of development. The existence of ‘solitaries’ who embrace their own paths allows a wide variety of beliefs and doesn’t restrict the individual’s personal beliefs, nor does it force them to ‘fit’ to a more widely held view/religion. A variety of published books (some more proscriptive than others, admittedly), online communities or 'real world' groups allow for the exchange of ideas necessary to reassess one’s beliefs.

Not that this makes paganism perfect. Often you are left floundering in a sea of uncertainty, with no one to help, no religious text to guide you (although this does ensure a level of independent thought and responsibility sometimes less evident in other religions). Labels can help you to define yourself and find your place in the world. But paganism’s label can also restrict development. So much is expected of a pagan. Either we fit with often ridiculous long-held superstitions and bigotry, or conversely, we are expected to enjoy a freedom of thought and action (and acceptance by the wider world) that often is unrealistic.

This is still only a small beginning of a barely-formed thought in a very small brain (and still subject to change), but what do the rest of you think?


Update: I've just left the following comment on the Wild Hunt Blog on this topic (Part one here):

Personally I think that part of the problem is the labelling - putting people into boxes according to their label - and then expecting them to stay there! One of the things that appeals to me most about Paganism is its flexibility, that 'solitaries' follow their own path and therefore can change that path as and when they develop.

But perhaps I'm just a very naive Pagan! Certainly I've not spent much time in a wider pagan 'community' (or 'network') either online or in the real world, other than setting up a Pagan Society at University. Interestingly, my aim of the society was to allow pagans to meet and exhange ideas, thus having their own views/beliefs challenged with a view to encouraging development. However it quickly became more 'boxy' than I had hoped and I felt that it was preventing the open discussion that I'd hoped for. If this is what Paganism is becoming, then I'm not suprised that Deo and Mandy are looking for a more open 'label' in which to continue their development! Good luck to them.


Update 2: Well I haven't posted the comment above onto the Wild Hunt yet, because it wont let me. Grr. I'll just have to try again later or tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Blog-a-cat

For those of you who are unaware, our lovely kitty Panjaa now has his own blog! The gods only know how he types so well. Our last cat was only able to create long strings of gibberish. Anyway, there will be more Panjaa photos (and possibly even a video or two including a very funny one featuring my dad) but updating it when we have no internet at home is tricky in the extreme… Basingstoke Library is my destination at the weekend, however, and I will hopefully be able to do something about it then.

The Nac Mac Feegle

The Nac Mac Feegle (or the Wee Free Men) are a creation of the great genius Sir Terence Pratchett. Always up for a fight or a drink (or an opportunity to rustle a large farmyard animal), these little blue men pop up in several of Pratchett’s Discworld books. And they were the subject of conversation this morning. Namely, what nationality are they (loosely) based on? The options put forward were Scottish (of course) or Irish. Personally, I think the ‘Mac’ and the ‘crivens’, the clans, the accents, this article on Wiki, and the red hair and kilts all favour a Scottish descent. However, I fully accept that, despite being female, I am occasionally wrong. Please vote in the poll on the left and let me know what you think!

Quote of the day

Ok, so its a very long quote, but I felt it should be seen in its entirety, it is very funny and demonstrates that I am not the only one planning to take over the world. Although I feel Charlie Brooker has been less ambitious with his plans. It is still full of bright ideas though....

Survive 2009 by learning to love and share. Why not start by frolicking in a bubble bath with a neighbour?

Only one thing's going to get us through 2009, and that's romance. And possibly cannibalism. But mainly romance.

In case you missed the bulletin in your post-festive daze, let me bring you up to speed. According to the latest predictions, here's what we're in for this year: MISERY. Yes, not just misery, but MISERY. In capitals. Just like that.

Dim your lights. Here's the highlights reel. The worst recession in 60 years. Broken windows and artless graffiti. Howling winds blowing empty cans past boarded-up shopfronts. Feral children eating sloppy handfuls of decomposed-pigeon-and-baked-bean mulch scraped from the bottom of dustbins in a desperate bid to survive. The pound worth less than the acorn. The City worth less than the pound. Your house worth so little it'll collapse out of shame, crushing you in your bed. Not that you'll die peacefully in your sleep - no, you'll be wide awake with fear, worrying about the situation in the Middle East at the precise moment a chunk of ceiling plaster the size of a flagstone tumbles from on high to flatten your skull like a biscuit under a shoe, sending your brain twizzling out of your earholes like pink-grey toothpaste squeezed from a tube. All those language skills and precious memories splattered over your pillows. It'll ruin the bedclothes. And instead of buying expensive new ones, your grieving, impoverished relatives will have to handwash those bedclothes in cold water for six hours to shift the most upsetting stains before passing them down to your orphaned offspring, who are fated to sleep on them in a disused underground station for the rest of their lives, shivering in the dark as they hear bombs dipped in bird flu dropping on the shattered remains of the desiccated city above.

Welcome to 2009.

So what do we do? Well, as with any scary situation, we could try scrunching up our eyes and wishing it all away, but that rarely works, unless you're driving a bus across a busy junction and couldn't give a fig for convention. Instead, we're going to have to co-operate with one another if we're going to get through this. I know, I know: ugh. The concept of sharing has been knocked out of us. For years it's been all about you, your nice things, your signature dish and your plasma screen, and everyone else can go swing. Now we'll have to knock on doors and swap cups of sugar. But maybe it won't be so bad. Picture yourself sharing a meal with a neighbour. Or maybe a bath. A bubble bath. Look, there are little tealight candles round the edge of the tub. And you're having a glass of red wine together! It's lovely! Assuming you have attractive neighbours. If not, sorry. Just close your eyes and wish it away, especially when they stand up, turn round and bend over to search for the soap.

Actually that whole bath scenario might represent the way forward. It sounds quite romantic, and authentic romance has been in short supply of late. Authentic romance makes life more enjoyable, but more importantly it costs nothing. Buying flowers and
baubles and Parisian city breaks - that's not authentic romance. That's lazy showboating. Authentic romance could flourish in a skip. Prove this to yourself. Invite someone on a date and spend the evening sitting in a skip making each other laugh with limericks or something. Get through that and you've bonded for life. Or maybe a week. It's hard to tell when you embark on a new relationship. Still, if you split up: time for more romance with someone else. Everybody wins.

Mark my words, you'd be wise to practice your romancing skills now, because when, circa October, we're huddled together in shelters sharing body heat to survive, the ability to whisper sweet nothings could prove useful. Come the dawn, you'll need to pair up with someone to go hunting for supplies with, and it'll help if you've been cuddling all night. The world outside will be dangerous, so there'll have to be two of you. One to root through the abandoned Woolworth's stockrooms and another to stand outside warding off fellow scavengers with a flaming rag on a stick.

Obviously if two is better than one, it follows that three is better than two, especially in the thick of a food riot. Rather than forming boring old duos as per tradition, polygamous unions involving up to 30 or 40 participants will emerge victorious, roving the landscape in packs by day, writhing around in obscene configurations in their papier-mache huts by night - strictly for the purposes of generating heat, of course. We can all do our bit. I, for one, am fully prepared to take on 50 wives if it'll help make the world more manageable, provided I don't have to talk to them and I get to wear a crown and issue decrees and everything. We'll create a kingdom in a cave somewhere and kill and eat unfortunate passers-by, like Sawney Bean and his family. Now they had vision. First potential wife to contact me with full Ordnance Survey reference numbers for a suitable location (warm cave, close to major thoroughfare) gets to be Minister of Skinning Trespassers Alive and Sticking Their Heads On Poles as a Warning to Others of Their Kind.

All things considered, this may be a bleak year but at least it'll be more interesting than, say, 2006, during which nothing happened. So grit your teeth and meet 2009 head-on, because it's not going anywhere until 2010 at the very earliest.

In summary: happy new year.



Thank you Charlie.


P.S. Sorry if anyone has seen this twice, it didn't post properly yesterday for some reason.

Friday, January 02, 2009

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Happy Christmas and Happy Yule to all my loyal readers.  Ahem.  All 3 of you. 

Anyway, apologies for the long absence - it was due to lack of internet access. Due to not being at work.  Due to lots of pain from a screwed up back.

But I have returned and you can look forward to lots more blogging throughout 2009!

One small request - is there any chance you lot could sign up to become a 'follower' of this blog (see link on right), thus establishing how close I am to my ultimate plan of world domination.  Could you also occasionally reply to posts?  Please?  Pretty please with a cherry on the top?  With some lovely Chococo chocolate on top?  Its just nice to know that someone is reading....