A Couple of Days Late.

So my foray into working two jobs has ended already. I just couldn’t cope with being at work for another 12 hours a week. It was too much. I missed sitting down and immersing myself in a film for an hour and a half or so, or watching some mindless TV. The things I claimed to not care about are the things that I missed most. Shazbat.
My Monday evening is taken up with Band Practice, though we haven’t had one now for at least a month, the last one we had was when we were having torrential rain and it was leaking into the studio. My Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were spent at Tesco’s pleasure. Friday was the only evening of relaxation and the Weekend was spent with my lovely girlfriend, so not much time to myself really. I didn’t particularly notice that that was the problem, nor was I physically tired. It was just being knackered all the time and having to rush to and from my jobs that was taking the toll on me.
After a particularly heavy night on the beer I slept for 15 hours, this was perhaps the defining moment for me. I have never, except under really crazy circumstances slept for such a period of time and whilst it didn’t worry me it rather goes against my grain. I hate spending what little time I’m left from my job, sleeping. I want to spend every minute of my non-working days running around doing things, dancing naked down supermarket aisles, dancing naked round municipal parks or just plain dancing naked!
Whatever, it’s over and I feel defeated. But not as defeated as I felt by downloading an official music download. I spent 99 pence downloading Mansun’s last single Slipping Away. When it had downloaded I attempted to play it but then it kept trying to acquire a license, which it wouldn’t do. I was destroyed. The future of music eh? Paying to download things that then won’t work. How come I’ve downloaded hundred’s of Gb’s of films and music and TV and games, none of which are paid for and they work fine? Why doesn’t Windows complain that they need licenses? I was so fucked off I retired to my room and watched an episode of Jeeves & Wooster, which very nearly calmed me down.
Anyway, aren’t the photo’s I’ve posted lovely? They’re of Robin Hood’s Bay that is along the coast from Scarborough. Emily and I have been exploring the East Coast over the last few weekends. We visited Scarborough on the 14th August, where the beach was ram-jammed with people before making our way along the coast down to Filey, where the beach had disappeared beneath the waves and then to the lighthouse out at Flamborough Head, which doesn’t really have a beach. We came back to York and went for a mexican at the delightful Fiesta Mexicana that finished the day of brilliantly.
The following weekend we made our way to Robin Hood’s Bay, most of the recent photographs come from there. The weather was gorgeous, the traffic was awful and the company was the best. When we got down to the bay we started to walk out to the sea just as the rain started to come down. We were walking toward the sea as everyone else there was walking back. When we reached the sea it had started to drizzle, so we stood there for a while before walking back. As we returned the skies cleared again and it stopped raining! The drive back was lovely, if not a little cloudy.
Next was the Bank Holiday weekend. I’d booked the Friday off so as to enjoy a nice long weekend courtesy of Her Maj’s Bank Holiday and my brother and sister-in-law travelled up from Reading for the weekend. We drove over to Redcar in the morning, which is a lot further North than Scarborough and is where I have family. We strolled up and down the promenade, which just went to show how seaside towns are dying, and in today’s world, have little or nothing to offer visitors or residents, before travelling to our Auntie Dot’s for a lovely meal and a chat. Fully fed and happy we travelled slightly south down the coast to Saltburn-on-Sea, where there was still plenty of beach and a couple of pubs overlooking it. As it had been a sunny day and I’d been to the coast three weekends on the trot I figured I really should go in the sea. Utterly unprepared; trousers up to thighs, I staggered into the freezing water. Exhilarating isn’t quite the word. That people go and hurl themselves in, for charity granted, on New Years Day has always amazed me. It wasn’t enough though, so in returned to the shore and dropped my trousers. I went in wearing just my pants, and t-shirt. By ‘eck it were right cold. But it was good fun and a man gave me his towel (possibly from his boot used to dry his dog, but hey! nice gesture anyway) and I towelled myself off before going commando for the rest of the day. To celebrate the Madness of King Oll we went to one of the pubs that overlooked the beach and had a drink.

Thieving Cunts

Just paid 99 pence for the new Mansun single and WMP will not play it because it can't download a fucking license and the huge corporate website that sold me it doesn't have any help file or any information about licenses. Fucking great...

Fuck T**co's I got a life to live.

Blue Skies in My Mind.

What a beautiful place to live...

How to get rid of the midweek blues.

The answer to all those mid-week, crap telly, boring sections of my life given away to entertainment from an entertainment box, is Simple. I have taken second employment, you see, in the services of a supermarket behemoth on three evenings in the week. It means that i'll actually be earning the amount my first job pays me before deductions. Which is still not really enough. I essentially work a 37 hr week with Her Majesty's plus 12 hours for the Universe Consolidators. It's like badly paid overtime. Hmm.

And you might wonder, particularly if you know me, why i should suddenly, age 25, start working hard and trying to improve my financial standing? I wonder too friend. Long and Hard i've Wondered. Many a night. Wondered. Fork knows...

But it isn't as tiring as you might think. Oddly it's not hard work, neither of my jobs involves the all out athleticism that harvesting the lettuce did. Which really was fun in it's own way. And good for me. Both of my current daytime pastimes are, as one of my University Tutors pointed out, Information Processing roles. Both too are jobs that have a limited lifespan in the whole running of the Universe type stakes. Computers will eventually do all our shopping for us and eventually they will also do all our administration too. So i'm not exactly gonna be remembered for my dashing filing and charming gait, and wonderful way with the middle aged ladies.

I went on W. I. Trips (or W. I. Trip according to my Mum who says she only ever took me on one) when i was younger and obviously when you're young and marginally cheeky, in a slightly less cute/actually funny way, older ladies take a shine to you. I suppose something rub offed. Or rubbed off. Or even rob a dob dob, Da^id Ha$$lehoff. Or not.

Yes, rub offed on me it did. I must smell of them, or smell of something they like. Or maybe i glow. Whatever it is, i'm a hit with the older lady in the workplace.

Sadly it's neither use nor ornament; won't earn me cash lest i become a male escort - anyone know how much you earn? - nor will it leave me well remembered for changing the world/universe/fishtank.

While you're not looking, supermarkets aisles and shelves continuously move like in the Magical Boy In the Film of Hollywood, where it's the stairs and corridors. So that is why things seem never to be where they are. This is NOT necessarily true of all supermarkets its only the one i work in that i know about. It's simple, it makes you stay longer than you have to.

Proud to be English?

Love Will Tear Us Apart

Driving Out of Manchester Towards The Dark Peaks


Bill Laswell, Jah Wobble and Dr. Alex Patterson have got it going on.

But at the moment i have not. I am unhappy with my little lot or my lot of very little. I'm 'going out'/'seeing'/'in a relationship with' or perhaps my favourite, 'courting' a girl who's job is in London. Likewise her career for the forseeable future, that too being forged, in London.

Now i'm not someone who thinks the streets are paved with gold down there. Being as I am, a country boy i have no such wish to seek my fame and fortune there. I don't think i'd like to live somewhere that made me feel so insignificant, but, maybe i'm just crazy. Post millenial paranoia and fear of the urban society, so pockmarked by it's environs and denizens. Not for me thanks.

I feel no romanticism about the city and it's years of history and i do not see it as the centre of the universe. Should I? Or do i sound like a thirteenth century peasant? Probably both. Manchester was pleasant on Saturday evening when we were there. Good stuff in a good space. Trousers arse feck.

The Magic is as the Magic does...

It's F**king Great Fun though isn't it?

How does this posting pictures thing work?

Stretch Yer Arms Wrong... 

GMT 23:00hrs ish May 28th 2004

This is the date of the final occasion of my imbibing tobacco through my own choice. I will never smoke tobacco again. It is now 6pm on Monday 31st and i have not as yet, nor do i at the moment, crave a cigarette. I feel free from my self imposed slavery. Free from the brainwashing of society. (Granted , i feel a bit hooked on Alan Carr's Easyway to stop smoking, but that's good brainwashing, i hope.) Never again will i purposefully poison myself with a filth whose only effect is to make me want more.

Wednesday.

Played cricket again at lunch time. Found out i'm quite the bowler, definately not the batsman and quite frankly, you'd be mad to let me play as a fielder. Bowling is the thing for me. We only play with a tennis ball and a faux cricket bat, i say faux, it's actually a piece of wood shaped a bit like a cricket bat, fashioned by one of the little 'cherubs' whom my job is created for and by. Whatever it is and whatever that might mean, i care not a jot. It hits balls and does the trick which is good enough for us.

As stumps we have one of the cardboard bins into which we civil servants put confidential information. I'd be surprised if they ever envisaged cricket stumps as a future use for them. Just outside the fire exit from the office, in a grass and concrete area we civilian-civil servants use to relax outside. Kinda dull.

Fizzy as Buck.

Running here, running there, running every-muthaf**in where.

Busy weekend doing lots of s**gging, driving, gardening and washing. Fun, fun, fun.

Listening to: Jazzanova Remixes, Stoned Soul Picnic by Roy Ayers, some Boards of Canada i've never heard, Chris Morris' Radio 1 shows from 1994 and some Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Space Arkestra.

Also this downloading thing is a pain in the arse when the torrents you've been using are all gone, within days of being uploaded. Recently we were downloading The Tripods, the BBC series which replaced Doctor Who in 1984. The BBC only made 2 seasons of 13 episodes, covering the first 2 books of the trilogy. I remember it fairly clearly, certainly the first series, but what i'm really looking forward to seeing is the realisation of the second series which is mainly set in the Tripods huge cities. But the torrents from which we drew the video files have gone, the search engine for the torrent store has also gone and we are left at least 10 episodes from the full 26. K**aa claims that there are some users with the files but they don't seem to download. Grrrrrrr.

I'm back to explain my experience.

Over the last month or so i've been, by turns: too busy to write on here, too lazy to write on here and too not fussed to write on here. I've also neglected the part of me that believes that what i write has some significance, some power or a need to be written. Does it matter?

I've been too busy wih band rehearsals, though not as busy as we should be. We still only practice once a week, which isn't enough. As every week has passed we've progressed comfortably on from the previous week. We can still just about count the number of practices on both hands that we've had so far. We are now playing together very well, we know the 7 songs we run through each week increasingly more and know ehn to change and snippets of how best to play sections. We are at the stage where we need some outside opinion on what we do, to pickup on the parts that sound good and the parts that don't. My confidence in playing the guitar and singing has increased, my proficiency though still leaves a lot to be desired. It's really quite difficult to be the only person holding the melody together. Both John and Luke have their work cut out for them playing the drums and the bass, but thats the rhythm section and the remainder of the tune is left to me. If i was playing either the guitar or singing seperately then it would be great and i could concentrate on making either one sound as good as it can. Doing both sadly ends up sounding like a clumsy shadow of that which i am capable of.

Talking of f**ked up emails.

From: abuse@gov.us Add to Address Book
To: geofflove1@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: Illegal Website
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:42:56 +0100




I noticed that you have visited illegal websites.
See the name in the list!

+++ Attachment: No Virus found
+++ MessageLabs AntiVirus - www.messagelabs.com



It's a beauty.

I've Been Playing with Myself for Hours.

Yes indeedy, fiddling royally. If you follow this link here:

You too can fiddle by yerself for hours.

Take That

I was searching the internet, in a bid to prove it's existence, for sites about Take That the popular Mancunian beat combo from the early Nineties. I found this about four sites in...

Ananova:

Would-be robber attacked by customer with hammer

A masked gunman was hit on the head four times with a hammer after a customer intervened to stop an attempted robbery on a pizza shop.

The would-be robber had ordered everyone in Stoney's Pizza, Columbus, Ohio, to drop to the floor.

Witnesses said he searched an office for money, but when he couldn't open a till, he tried to get away.

But customer, JR Croy, used his truck to block the gunman's getaway and a sledgehammer to subdue him.

"I was sitting here with the hammer, and he pointed the gun up at me. After hitting him in the head with a hammer four times, he wouldn't go down."

The pizza shop has given Croy a $500 (£276) reward, which he plans to use to pay some bills. The weapon the man was carrying turned out to be a paintball gun.


Now where does it even have the phrase 'take that'?

That's some subtle search-engine action.

How can you really know?

Without listening to every piece of music ever recorded, how can you know if your 'original' song isn't just a copy of someone elses?

Take this/these Franz Ferdinand chap/chappies do they realise that their song is just Trampled Under Foot by Led Zeppelin?

Last day as a temp.

I thought i'd left myself a good few hours work to do today. I had left a reasonable amount of work to do but i just couldn't be arsed taking all day to do it. So i'm off work now til next Wednesday, When i start back there full-time for at least six months more. Hmm.

Broadband is, on closer inspection, quite fantabulous.

That HSBC earn more a second than billions of workers, myself included, world wide do in a week, most a month, is Just Wrong. This statistic (£244 a second) is proof that there is civilisation-destroying disparity between the rich and the poor on this earth.

Worse is the fact that we have the proof; and there is no one to show it to. The ageless creatures in this great universe have no interest in helping us off our dirty, sullied, broken-toy like usage of our planet. Who is there to tell this to? If i did find someone who could do something about it, what would we do? Write a letter of complaint? Plant an incendiary device? Scream and shout from atop a box on a high street? Commit suicide?

I'll just watch some television instead.