Nothing (much) To Report

The Citizen *heart* Simon Pegg

Whatever the part, however small trust The Citizen to get very excited about it. Every time, without fail, that Simon does something to increase his fame and, as an added bonus, his wealth, this paper will do a feature in which it sounds as though it’s about to wet itself with excitement. OK, so landing a part in a major Hollywood film is big, big enough for an almost full page 3 article. It’s a proper family paper, so we don’t get to see tits on our page 3.

Frankly Mr Pegg would the most famous person to have any connection with Gloucester in a very long time. I said famous, not infamous, although many don’t associate the place with that any more. And it’s about time! We needed to thrust some quality talent onto the wider world, we just did it quietly.

What you can’t see from the online version of the newspaper article is the lovely picture montage someone spent clearly hours on. There are a couple of publicity shots from Shaun of the Dead and Dr Who; a piccy of Tom Cruise, just to make sure everyone knew which Mission Impossible was being referred to; and a black and white photo of a column of kids, with Simon circled second from bottom.

The Citizen comes across as some very proud aunty of Simon’s. “Ohh, look at him! Hasn’t he done well for himself?” I suspect the vast majority of Gloucesterians couldn’t have cared less or even knew who he was. Which is a tremendous shame, as there isn’t a great deal to be proud about in this town.

We need some seriously good reasons to justify the vast amounts of money currently pouring into the city for all the redevelopment because there’s bugger all reason for it otherwise. It’s a fairly crap place to be. I suspect that the vast numbers of houses that they are planning to build all over the place will be bought up by people working outside of the city, as there isn’t any industry here to support them. The student population is due to explode with the relocation and building of Gloscat, the local college, along with a few more houses. This will mean more traffic on a road network which is barely able to cope as it is; all the more reason to avoid town at the weekends, both at night and during the day; the teeny city centre will homogenise even more into looking like every other city/town centre. Don’t come here, and if you are here, leave quickly; just don’t go to Cheltenham. I recommend Stroud.

What a shambles of a post. Glad to see I’m back to my usual quality!

I like Autumn.

Not so much the pouring rain, or the gales, but the days when high pressure is in residence over the country. Bright sunshine, clear blue skies and a slight bone-chilling breeze. I’m sure if I was unsteady on my feet I’d be a little afraid of going out after a night where the stars were visible, at least they were in the country. The skies above the cities don’t glow orange quite as much on cloudless nights, which makes a nice change.

I like the fact that wearing more clothes is the preferred option. And it’s all the really nice clothes too: gorgeous fabrics in usually deep, rich colours. Until someone decides that this autumn/winter season everyone should wear something hideously pink and see-through. But as I’m not a slave to fashion, I won’t worry. Simply laugh at the fools freezing to death.

It’s not all great however.
I don’t like having all the moisture drawn out of my skin by central heating.
I don’t appreciate that the heaters in shops have to be turned up to full blast – I don’t hang about if I have to go out to do my shopping, consequently I am able to sustain a comfortable body temperature even on the chilliest of days. Except inside the shops. More bodies, extra layers, bags to lug about, the frantic pace added to the heaters turned up to eleven all contribute to the sauna effect, without the nakedness.
I also have to try to block out the dual horror that is forthcoming: Christmas and a birthday. Luckily I have two separate days to be depressed and get drunk on, thanks to the doctors not wanting their Christmas day ruined by my expected arrival.

This scares the wotsit out of me far more than Bird Flu, terrorism and the predicted Big Chill. Mostly because it's actually happening and no one is making that much of a fuss about it. I doubt very much there will be major reports about this on any of the news bulletins.

On the line: the internet's future

Ownership: World leaders meet today to discuss regulation; US fighting to regain control of global network. Censorship: State power increasingly used to limit access; Dissenters beaten outside summit site
By Daniel HowdenPublished: 16 November 2005

Over the next three days a United Nations summit, in the unlikely setting of Tunisia, will attempt to thrash out the future of the internet.

More than 40 world leaders, including Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, are set to attend, and the ownership of the World Wide Web itself is at stake. What the delegates won't discuss is the creeping spectre of censorship.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

At present, the closest the internet has to a governing body is an obscure American, non-profit corporation called Icann. This quasi-independent body has, for years, quietly regulated domain names and allocated addresses. But its lease is nearly up. And the world's rich and powerful will join battle for control of what they see as a gold mine.

The Bush administration wants Icann turned into a private corporation, on US soil and subject to US controls. Much of the rest of the world objects to that but the loudest opponents are countries with a history of censorship and repression, such as China and Iran. The likely balance of power in that struggle rests with the European Union, whose position is not clear.

• (a very poor example of) a female carbon-based biped, but you may have already guessed that.
• single. This is unlikely to change within the near or long term future.
• the eldest of 3, with one sibling of each sex.
• the daughter of a carpenter and a slightly scary (in her day) former mental health nurse.
• cursed glad to have both parents still alive and kicking (me up the arse).
• the primary carer to my mother.
• a sister-in-law, but just the once.
• an ex-witch.
• a sceptic, and a bit of a cynic.
• either funny or very dull, depending on your point of view.
• easily bored.
• frustrated in an un-quantifiable number of ways.
• an untidy horder.
• a former Wet Wet Wet fan. Oh, the shame!
• a modest eBay junkie.
• a jaffa cake fiend.
• shamed by my increasingly appalling handwriting.
• more scared of babies than they are of me.
• a Firefox lurva.
• hoping that one day I will own a proper, fully-working version of Linux.
• irritated at my own frequent repetition of opinions, stories and statements, far more so than my friends or family are by me.
• more of a spender than a saver.
• blighted with a Teflon-coated, sieve-like brain. (I spelt that word correctly, for once!)
• a cider (scrumpy rather than icky commercial stuff) drinker, a rum drinker, a wine drinker, a vodka drinker, a snapps drinker, a bourbon drinker, but not a lager/beer/ale drinker.
• a too regular Bargain Booze customer.
• not a vegetarian.
• a non-smoker.
• unable to drive.
• rubbish at:
  • telling jokes
  • reading maps
  • darts
  • pool
  • cards
• trying to get reasonably fit.
• determined never to go back on anti-depressants, ever.
• a loather of broad beans, beetroot, and blue cheese. And my dad's cooking, *shh!*
• a law breaker.
• keen to be someone's mistress, someday, but not their bitch.
• often surprised at my honesty and openness with strangers.
• not in love with myself but neither am I quite the self-loather or self-harmer I once was.
• a decent enough cook.
• a fan of apples, (all fruit infact) quality Cheddar, Earl Grey tea, the Co-op's own Fair Trade Milk Chocolate, ice cream - without bits in it, the Co-op in general, Marmite, honey sandwiches.
• a hater of the iron and ironing board.
• an erstwhile heat magazine subscriber. There are better things in life.
• unlikely to ever produce my own offspring.
• a buyer of more books than I have space for.
• a reader of gothic horrors, detective-type thrillers, sci-fi/fantasy nonsense, laugh-so-hard-that-you-almost-wet-yourself comedies, and the odd female erotic fiction paperback. And the occasional blog.
• scared of heights, wasps and crane flies.
• a girl of simple pleasures, something I realise more and more the older I get.
• a school dropout, which I will regret forever
• probably doomed to be still at home until I'm of pensioner age, tis the punishment for the previous point.
• unemployable.
• yearning to be an A P T.
• wishing I had a life.
• surprising liberal in my view of things, considering the dodgy view of my parentage.
• a mostly armchair gardener.
• not a computer geek.
• more of a language and history geek.
• totally lacking in anything original to write, that is why this post exists.
• going to write about the connection between Simon Pegg and The Citizen, possibly next.

[potentially incomplete post]

I've regularly pondered to myself as to exactly why I do this, blog that is. I could have kept my waffle confined to a diary, but the likelihood of never being able to read back my own handwriting is rather high. Also it would mean that I wouldn't try to make it readable, for myself, let alone anyone else. I just wouldn't bother using words I couldn't spell, or spell them how I think they should be spelt - thus increasing the unreadable factor by 10. What's the point in digging out a dictionary when a best guess will do when the only eyes ever likely to glance at the scrawl will be mine? The entries would also shrink. I'd probably stop using proper grammar altogether and resort to some strange form of notation.

So, scrawled words, badly spelt and probably in a shorthand of my own invention would result in a notebook of unintelligible nonsense.

I know this would be true because I've tried to keep a diary. I bought a page-a-day blue hardback to start last year, with the full intention of writing in it everyday. I lasted about 4 months. As well as the above mentioned trouble, I had nothing to write about. My life is remarkably empty and dull. People can easily say that nothing happened today, but I think I've probably got the monopoly on the dreary, humdrum existence.

That was partly why I bought the laptop, to record some of the slightly more interesting moments and thoughts, instead of those thoughts swirling around my brain for the night, keeping me awake, when I really wanted to sleep. And because the dreams, thoughts, views don’t make frequent visits, I’d never be able to the regular daily entry.

When I read other people’s blogs I’m overwhelming sad that I can’t write about something of interest, or at least write.

I can sympathise those women who are stuck at home with small children to care for. Having no half decent human conversation is a real killer to proper thought. I do have reasonably intelligent thoughts occasionally, but they are often completely lost on those around me. I’m on my own throughout the daytime, alone with mother. I’d love to be able to converse with her, but any attempts to dig away at the past results in a one-sided questioning, with the only answers being “Yes, No”; “No, Yes” (the second answer is the one to take); “this one”; “that one”; some slightly tuneless tune that I have no way of guessing and lots and lots of ummms. All the thoughts and memories are in there, there’s just no way of getting to them, locked up because her speech and language capabilities were stolen.

I once had a brain. It was wonderful being able to think; to work the grey matter; to solve puzzles and problems, to spell, to do more complicated maths than just long multiplication. Now it's mostly an empty void. I do think up very strange stuff, and I could probably convert it into a readable mass, but I think what's the point? I know should keep this blog for my own amusement; it shouldn't be work, except perhaps to exercise my underused brain.

Don't use it, lose it - sadly far too true. Be it brain power, handwriting skills or your washing.

I am going to create an “I am” post page. I could have created a 100 things list, but I'd never reach 50. Plus, everyone does that, so I'm doing something different. Ha ha! brain usage in operation. The I am post has been maturing in the drafts section for almost 6 months now, so I thought it about time it got an airing. This very post has been fermenting in a dark spot of my head for far too long as well.

I'm off to read this week's edition of NewScientist, as in-between doing all of my boring chores.

Sorry, this is a very disjointed post.

I’m currently listening to Aerial. I know this shouldn’t be possible, it being in the very early hours of the day it’s actually released, but it’s a(nother) wonder of the modern age. Have no fear, EMI in particular, for I will be handing cash over for a copy, as the one I’ve acquired is a wee bit jumpy. And I was always going to buy one anyway; so there!

I’d seen a review of the said album on Newsnight a couple of weeks ago. The issue over some of the lyrics was discussed; a critic or two moaned about the washing machine song, as it seems to have become dubbed. It’s actually called Mrs. Bartolozzi, and officially or unofficially, I like it. It seems to me to be a song about a certain of sort domesticity; the rather dull aspects of household chores that don’t need consciousness to be part off, so one might daydream or imagine something or situation far more interesting to while away the time. And that’s something that we have to time do that once wasn’t possibly, if you’re so inclined to think about, which I tend to be. I remember my mother spending hours doing the washing in a twin tub whenever the automatic failed. And watching a recent episode of Tales From The Green Valley has put a newer perspective on things: having to lug your clothes down to the hopefully nearby river or steam, and proceed to literally beat the dirt out, before squeezing as much liquid out as you possibly can followed by draping it over a field. No lines to peg it to, and not only having to keep an eye on the weather but also on any thieves prepared for a dash to nick your not-so-smalls. OK, so some things haven’t changed that much.

This isn’t meant to be a review, nor some sort of insightful comment, as I can do neither. It’s just a small collection of thoughts that came together as I was lying in the dark, listening to something I hadn’t heard before, an activity I relish.

Update 12.40am: Just to clarify I like the entire album. Very ethereal, very good to listen to in the dark when trying to calm down for things like sleep. I think it's going to be the only music I listen to for the next few days, til I get sick of it. Which is unlikely, going on past record.