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...)

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...

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.”

Nick Robinson

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...'

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").

from Wikipedia

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!

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.

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!

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."

Jon Henley 'Welfare doesn’t come into it'

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.

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.

National Adoption Week

This week is National Adoption Week (10th – 16th November). I was adopted as a baby and am a huge advocate of the system. I only wish more people were willing to raise a child that doesn’t share their DNA. In my opinion, what makes a parent is the love and support they offer a child and the sacrifices they are prepared to make on the child’s behalf.

Sadly, however, shared DNA is not a sure sign of parental ability. This week has been full of the most horrific stories of child abuse involving parents deliberately harming their own children. The case of ‘Baby P’ suggests that local authorities must be more vigilant and aware that the family is not always the best place for a child. Most social workers do a very good job in extremely difficult circumstances, but something has gone horribly wrong here.
Meanwhile Shannon Mathews’ mother (along with a friend) has been accused of drugging her daughter and kidnapping her, in order to claim reward money for her safe return.

How this can happen is really beyond me.

Despite this (or perhaps because of this?) there are many children being adopted by wonderful parents and hopefully the good work done by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering in helping to create new families will continue.

Counting Sheep

Sleep. Its so easy to take it for granted, until you don’t have it. Then all hell breaks loose. Not really – if you haven’t slept, then you wont have the energy for hell. In fact, burning to a crisp in the fires of damnation might sound like a good way to go. It would probably be more peaceful.

One person that doesn’t take sleep for granted is Lucy Kellaway, as she documents in A Point of View on the BBC website. I seem to have a frighteningly great deal in common with her. Apart from visiting Chinese doctors. I haven’t had that pleasure…

‘I went to visit a Chinese doctor. Ah yes, he said, insomnia. Very serious. He looked at my tongue and shook his head. Was I worrying about anything, he asked. I said I was worrying about not sleeping.
By way of reassurance he told me that insomnia had already made my hair dry and skin wrinkled and would in time lead to organ failure and early menopause, and would also destroy my relationships with my family and colleagues. Even my mum, I think, wouldn't have gone that far.’

The really frustrating thing is there isn’t really anything you can do about it and lying there worrying just makes things worse. I find that getting up for a while and doing something else, before going back to bed and trying again to sleep sometimes helps. But often it doesn’t.

‘Alternatively one can give up trying to use the time productively and count sheep instead. Yet this didn't work for the singer Robert Wyatt. In his song Heaps of Sheep, the animals, once counted and over the stile, refused to go further and piled up creating a vast writhing heap, causing the sleepless singer to be so traumatised he could no longer even close his eyes.’ Lucy Kellaway

Being without sleep is like torture. In fact, it is often used as such. It wears you down, leaving you more and more like a gibbering wreck. Unable to think, unable to do anything but sit, staring like a zombie, but with your mind still whirring like the exercise wheel of a gerbil high on sugar.
And heaven help anyone who tries to talk to you. Ratty (or gerbilly) doesn’t even come close. Hyper and running on adrenaline one moment, close to tears the next. You know what’s worse? ‘Missing out on sleep may cause the brain to stop producing new cells, a study has suggested.’

Well, that’s just bloody great. How very typical of my life. I can’t sleep, my brain cells are giving up and I’m going slowly mad.

Ok, ok, those of you who know me know I’ve been mad for a while. But still. Going slowly madder.

End of the world/weekend

Why, oh, why do Monday mornings have to happen? Can we not just skip straight to Monday afternoon? Or how about Tuesday? Wouldn’t the world be a happier place if we went to bed on Sunday night, dreading Monday morning and instead woke up and it was magically Tuesday…

There’s something about that moment of dread as you drift off to sleep: ‘No, no, damn it! Must…. not… sleep… must… postpone… Monday…’ There’s that little knot in your stomach, that utter misery of the weekend being over. Even if your weekend hasn’t even been that great (and for the record, my weekend has been pretty close to perfect) you still don’t want it to end. And it has nothing to do with your enjoyment of work/school/uni/retirement/other existence.

I think I know why. It’s about control. Well, it is for me anyway. I love having the flexibility of suddenly deciding to read my book for half an hour. Or go shopping. Or stay in bed. Or have a drink. I don’t like being told what to do. Yes, I’m a typical woman. Stubborn as hell, and for no good reason.

So what I really dread about the week (other than not being able to be in a small village in Hampshire) is not being able to do what I want, when I want. I’d happily work into the evening, take 30 minutes to wander around Hyde Park, 5 minutes to do the washing up etc etc. And you know what? I’d probably get more work done…

Or perhaps not. Perhaps what I really want is a 6 day week – 4 days working, 2 days off. Much better.

Death. Part 1

Continuing my recent ramble on life, here is death. Not literally of course (well, I hope not) but certainly a ramble on and around the topic death. Suitably cheerful for a Friday afternoon, I feel.
Now, I can’t promise this wont turn into a rant. Rants seem to creep up on me unannounced when I’m blogging. Nor can I promise this wont end up completely off-topic. But so what? It’s my blog, so, nye-nye-nye-nye-nye.

What is death then? Is it really the end? Do we just disappear from the planet, leaving our bodies to rot in a hole? Having recently re-watched the episodes of Torchwood season 2 dealing with Owen’s ‘death’ (Dead Man Walking and A Day in the Death – sorry if you haven’t seen them yet…), the idea of there just being nothing but darkness is quite a disturbing thought.

But is death terrifying because we fear the unknown? Have we created various myths of an afterlife to stave of those moments in the middle of the night when you sit there, pondering your existence and wondering if it’s ever going to get any better?

Or is it a very Pratchett-esque situation, that whatever we believe happens comes true for us? In which case, I’m going to be resting in the Summerland for a while before reincarnating (hopefully not as a frog this time – that’s another story). In short: Paaaartaaaay! Care to join me, anyone?!

I’d like to think there is something after this life, and not just because the thought helps me to sleep. I just like the idea if there being something more to it than ‘wake up, get up, eat, work, eat, work, socialise, have a bath, eat, drink some wine, go to bed, try to sleep’. Because if there is nothing beyond that, no afterlife, no heaven, no souls or spirits going on to a better place, then what does that say about gods and goddesses? It seems to me that you can’t really have one without the other. You can’t have a spiritual entity if you have no spirit. If you have a spirit, what happens to it? Does it just dissipate at death? And if it does, then what’s the point in having one?

So, I believe in an afterlife. In fact I believe in several. I honestly believe that in the same way that we have different gods (see ‘What makes you more right than me?'), we have different afterlives and it’s up to us where we go. So, I might see you there, or I might be in the heaven next door. Bang on the wall if we get too raucous…

What makes you more right than me?

It’s a question I’ve often been asked. Most frequently when ‘passive leafleting’ for my university Pagan Society. ‘Do you honestly believe you’re right?’
Well, duh? Yes, I honestly believe that paganism is right. Some of my friends may not realise how strongly, how passionately I believe that, mainly because I tend to keep it to myself. I’m a quiet religious-nut (and no, that’s not a contradiction in terms).
But the difference between me believing I’m right and, say, a stereotypical, fundamentalist Christian or Muslim believing that they are right, is that I don’t believe that I’m exclusively right.
Yes. That’s what I said. We can ALL be right.

How can I think this? Surprisingly easily… It helps that, as a Pagan, the idea of multiple deities is not a problem. But it also links to what deities are and what they do.
In my opinion, there is a celestial force. Something greater, wiser and more powerful than us (note that I’m not saying all-powerful, all-knowing etc – who says the gods are infallible?). We don’t know what it is. A pagan creation-myth I particularly like just calls it ‘TheOne’. I don’t know if it’s male, or female, or either. It just is.
And all deities are parts, or avatars, of TheOne.

Why do we have different religions then? Well, we have different music, we have different styles of art. We all see colour slightly differently. If we can approach these rather mundane things from completely different perspectives, why not religion? Why can’t one person feel more drawn to one belief without it being ‘better’ or ‘right’? It just feels better or more right for them. And that’s fine. Nothing wrong with that. It would also mean that all religions are a valid path to The One, as a part of the whole. All religions are incomplete, imperfect ways of understanding something that is so much bigger and greater than us – something that we can never even hope to understand, let alone really conceive of completely.

But if we accept that no human can ever fully understand that powerful thing, then who has the right, who can honestly look inside themselves and say that their way is the ONLY right way?

And if you can…. Good for you. Just don’t try and persuade me.

Why 'nemeton'?

What is a nemeton? In pre-Roman and Roman Britain (and Gaul for that matter) a nemeton was a sacred grove where rituals were performed.

Ooooh. Fancy that.

Well, I'm pagan and my degree was in archaeology, so I wanted a suitably pagan (and yet suitably obscure) and archaeological name for my blog. Rather than something overt like 'pagans-r-us' or 'getchorewitchesere'.

Got it? Good. Onwards and upwards.

First Post!

My first post on this, my beautiful blog...


First of all - why the blog. Well, everyone else is doing it, right? And who am I to not follow such an exciting and entertaining trend...

Secondly - I have no life. Seriously, I'm a hermit. And so instead of continuing my hermit lifestyle, I feel the need to spread the love. Although I'm sure I won't have anything much interesting to talk about.

Thirdly - I'm fulfilling my deep need to witter on about anything and everything in an insufferable-know-it-all kind of way. No apologies. Its a blog, what did you expect?!

Fourthly - oh never mind, it isn't interesting anyway.