The Blog has now officially moved!
Since Blog.com has been so rubbish lately as to be unusable, I’ve shifted the Blog over to it’s own site.
The new, better, shinier Blog can be visited at http://www.lonesblog.co.uk
I’m be keeping this site to function as an archive for the years of backposts, but will no longer be updating it.
Onwards, to a new future!
Recently my favouritest hobby has been fishing. Fishing, fishing fishing. Mmmm fishing. I like it.
It’s a pretty cool hobby, I say hobby, because I’m pretty reluctant to call anything that mainly involves chilling out with beer, sunshine, and beautiful surroundings a sport. Sports involve sweating, bodily odours, and people with far too much testosterone (including the ladies). Fishing is exactly the opposite. It’s relaxing, BO free, and at the end of it you get to take home a lovely fish for dinner if you’re lucky. The one thing that has somewhat blunted my passion for it is the fact that apparently the fishing community frowns on the use of harpoon guns. I really can’t see why. Oh, that and hooking yourself, which I do at least once every fishing trip. It really hurts. Really, really, hurts.
Some visual proof of my love of fish hunting.
I love fishing, fishing, fishing.
Of course in order to catch any fish it is necessary to sing the tradition Olde English fishing song, it goes along the lines of ‘fishie fishie fishie, I’m gonna catch ya, I’m gonna kill ya, I’m gonna eat ya etc etc. Here’s is my brother demonstrating some of the dance moves that go with it.
Fish Dance
Here I attempt to use the little practised technique of ‘cool’ing the fish straight out of the water and onto the bank through sheer intimidation and personal presence.
And it’s not just blokes who like fishing either, my lovely girlfriend Nat really took to it, much to my utter amazement and happiness.
Here’s one I caught earlier:
Anyways, enough about fishing for now.
In Other News of Other Things
1. I really wish blog.com would just sort it’s arse out. There’s forever things going wrong, like me being locked out and half the pictures above being without frames and captions. Anger! Sort it out!
2. Spammers love me. No, Spammers REALLY love me. I’m constantly touched by them leaving their comments, letting me know they read the Blog. Check out their comments, maybe even leave a few of your own. You Spammers are great, you make me feel special. When I wake up in the morning with a thirst for whisky it’s you guys who help me hold out ’til 10am. I love you Spammers.
3. Slightly worried by some of the search terms people use to get here. “Emo boobs” I can understand, everyone likes breasts, and someone out there has to like emos. But “Emma Tapson”? Tapski, if that wasn’t you, then you’ve definitely got a stalker.
4. I just want to say thank you to Chuck Palahniuk for sending me my awesome Fight Club t-shirt so quickly, and with 2 lots of free stickers and a hat too. You are one cool dude Chuck Palahniuk. Not quite Chuck Norris cool, but cool all the same.
5. I’m currently dreaming of the camping trip in a week’s time. Sometimes the dreams are nightmares. Ok, quite a lot of the time they are.
6. Emma, stop passwording your blogs! I can barely remember my main passwords, let alone any new ones!
7. I’m really getting into Florence + the Machine. Who’d a thunk it?
Wow, what a weekend. Mr Dix’s birthday was the occasion, Brighton was the setting, and madness, celebration and love were the themes.
As always with anything that Mr Dix organises there’s an element of Fear and apprehension. You just don’t know exactly what you’re going to get. Will the drinks be green? Will the sofa be packed with explosives? What or who will I wake up wearing?
Luckily there were no nasty surprises and a fantastical adventure of fun and loveliness was had by all. After the most roundabout train journey in my entire life, I was greeted by the lovely birthday boy himself and taken to Christen’s house of insanity. Lovely green medicinal drinks in the garden were supped, people meeted, greeted, and generally a smashing time was had by all.
After that we wandered down to the pier for fish and chips, kid’s colouring packs, and the ever popular game of throwing stones at a can (and people) on the beach. After that it was back to Christen’s for a cocktail extravaganza, ironing of the shirts, and a game of Ride the Bus that hated me.
After that we went down the pub, and then later off to Digital the most confusing club in the world. I really wish I’d taken a map. Apparently there was a ball pool, bouncy castle, and Twister, but all I managed to find was a scary lady doing face painting. Unfortunately I lost my bet with Christen that the painting lady would let me lick her head, and was roundly disappointed that the only part of my anatomy she would paint was my face.
Pretty but hurting
Pretty!
So labyrinth was the club that I eventually lost everybody and ended up walking home on my own, via a kebab shop. Reunited, those still awake at some gods awful time in the morning watched the totally bizarre but brilliant film Harvey Krumpit. I laughed, I cried, I liked it. Now I want you to do the same. Watch it. WATCH IT!
Click for Full Film
The morning was as good as it could be considering I woke up next to Mr Daryl with a huge hangover. Bucks fizz, orange juice, and sausage sandwiches care of Christen, the hostess with the mostest, kept us all alive.
Taking the morning air in the grounds
Food and drink made everyone else feel better, but I had to fall back on camouflaging myself as an Ent in order to get myself through the morning. It helps, really it does.
Treebeard
After some time getting back to nature I felt well enough for us to head back down the beach for some fun and human burial.
Buried Alive
Beach Baby
Fishing Adventures in the next post. Don’t miss out!!
Ps. Thank you to all the spammers who leave comments. Your encouragement gives me the strength to carry on. Love you guys.
So that was a long To Be Continued. Kinda feel like I owe the Blog Monkeys some content now, so will try and cram as much into this post as I can before the Blog.com server decides to put a shotgun to its motherboard and commit suicide again.
Been trying to write a post for a few days now, but the Blog.com server seems to have been constructed from rice pudding and isn’t working worth a damn. In fact I’m not even sure this’ll post and not just be lost forever in the virtual aether somewhere, but there you go.
So I’ve finally given in to peer pressure (damn you’s internets!), and signed myself up for Twitter. The Twitter username is NickCockayne. Follow me at your own peril. This is mainly for work purposes, corporate networking and so forth. Nonetheless, I shall be tweeting on occasion, probably the same mundane useless junk that you can find on here anyway, but in a much shorter form. It’ll be rather like buying a Big Mac Meal (something I recommend you never do anyway), blending it down, and then inhaling the concentrated gloup through an orifice of your choice rather than going through the tiresome process of actually having to chew for yourself. Apparently reading is such a chore now that we can only manage 140 characters at a time. Go Progress!
I’ve recently been spending quite a bit of time laughing over an internet phenomena called Chat Roulette. For those of you not yet in the know, it’s basically a website that randomly pairs two people with webcams up for a chat. And then hilarity ensues. True there are a lot of people (read guys) on it who seem to have forgotten that it’s polite to wear clothes when meeting strangers, but the odd penis is worth ignoring for the potential comedy gold that is Chat Roulette Trolling! Honestly, check it out. Can you really afford to miss moments like this?
The Short News
-Too many Easter Eggs makes Lone fat and spotty.
-Labour’s Election warcry of ‘We got you into this mess, it’s up to us to get you out’ fails to impress the voting public.
-Twitter claims another victim.
-Blog Roll and Funny Links update 4 years behind schedule. (Check it out)
-Paris Hilton gets necked, again.
-Chat Roulette: not just for perverts.
Funny Links
Ever wondered how the Chinese Army all manage to march so smartly as they go off to stomp on Tibetan monks? Clicky
For all those who sometimes question the quality of the Daily Mail’s ‘journalism’, here’s a musical treat from two very talented chaps. If you’ve not seen this yet you’ve probably been in a coma, here’s what you missed. Apparently this got the legendary Stephan Fry’s seal of approval. Dan&Dan.
Until next time.
So, it’s been a while. A while isn’t too long, so I don’t feel too guilty, so no apologies this time. Ha.
Let’s see…
The Boss and Co-worker are back from Australia, ending my reign as Fuhrer of the Office. This is slightly disappointing because it means I can’t start my day with coffee and heavy metal to wake myself up before moving to folk songs and pasties for a mellow afternoon. Now the only sounds in my office will be the constant ringing of idiots on phonelines and the occasional growl of the shredder as it makes another attempt to eat my hand. Boss was very happy with how I ran things while he was gone, so much so that some unexpected, and very welcome, financial gratitude came my way. The downside (and there’s always a downside) is that my hours are to be cut again. From full time running of the business, to going back to 3 hours a day phone and monkey work. Ouchies. I understand that it’s due to financial constrictions (that’s what you get for letting an accountant make the business calls) but it’s still a swift kick in the trouser region. Am trying not to let it get to me, I know they want to have me on full time, but I’ve got to balance how much I like the job and its letting me write against making sod all in wages.
A visual aid to my recent career progression:
Master of all he surveys
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Office Monkey
In related work type news, the Essential Guide To Vitamin C (printed and ebook formats) has been selling well, especially in Australia. I think about 400-500 have sold so far. It’s even made the much coveted (and specially invented) Book of the Month prize. The first draft of the difficult second in the series has been completed and sent to the Boss for editing, so watch out for The Essential Guide To Vitamin B1 in the not too distant future. [Ooh. Aah.]
In other writing news 1 old article (advertising copy for, ahem, a sex dating website) and 4 old book reviews have recently sold, so that was a nice surprise. Think I’ll have to start really hitting the freelance writing now in order to make up for the shortfall in wages the 3 hour day will bring. Not that I’m at all bitter about that, no sir.
I feel the urge to get down the gym and stomp out some of my frustration on the treadmill (and any posing teenagers who get in my way), so will finish the updates a little later.
To Be Continued……….. (Dah duh daaaaah)
Work
It’s midweek, the worst possible part of the week (excluding Monday mornings, which are a very specific kind of hell unto themselves).
At work the phones are a’ringing. There’s 5 of them and one of me, so I’m getting a little irate. This isn’t helped by the fact that apart from one very pleasant Rasta man, all the people who’ve called this morning have been complete idiots. From the lady who couldn’t understand why we didn’t stock a certain product when another company she uses does, to the guy who couldn’t wrap his tiny mind around the fact that some berries we do used to be sold as organic, but aren’t any longer. I’m fast becoming of the opinion that the people least qualified to voice an opinion will always be the most vocal in doing so. Damn their filthy hides. I’m wondering if it’d be ethical to install some form of multiple choice quiz into our phone system, at least that way I’d only have to deal with people of a certain minimum IQ, or very lucky idiots. Just because thick people own a phone doesn’t give them the right to spread their idiocy to the rest of us. They’re a gods damned Plague, and it’s down to us to stop them.
Life
I suppose life is all about balance, and having a good weekend means conversely that I’m doomed to a shitty week. At the weekend Nat came down, we had fun and frolics, at least as much as you can in the middle of nowhere. If the idea of a day trip to the beach by a nuclear power plant followed by the best fish and chips in Kent (the fish are massive – must be something in the water) strikes you as a little weird, then you just have to remember that in the countryside you have to take amusement where you can find it. When the weather’s good enough I’ll be back down my local trout pond with a six pack and my rods, aiming to catch me some dinner.
How I imagine the fish looked before cooking.
On a more normal note we went to the cinema to see Legion. I was a bit apprehensive, worrying that it’d be a total flop (like Soloman Kane, now there was a terrible film), but it was surprisingly good. Any film that manages to inadvertently make an entire audience laugh when a one armed man belts a demon granny around the head with a frying pan can’t be all bad.
News
Just been watching the local news and saw a report I feel the need to comment on. There was a teacher in Brighton who went for a night out, got drunk, fell asleep in a wheelie bin and was crushed to death by the compacting lorry. Tragic? Yes. Intelligent? No.
The story was that maybe he couldn’t get home, or maybe it started raining, so he took shelter in the wheelie bin and fell asleep.
What got me was that the reporters said that this has lead to a wide scale re-examination of the risks of wheelie bins and the health and safety procedures to stop this kind of thing happening so much.
What???!? Can you repeat that please? The risks of wheelie bins?
Nothing about the danger of being so drunk that you think a giant bin is a good place to sleep. Nothing about drinking yourself comatose and not waking up as the entire bin is turned upside down. No no. People aren’t stupid. It’s wheelie bins. They’re dangerous. Really dangerous. Deadly in fact. We must clamp down on all this wheelie bin danger before it’s too late and it starts spreading to household bins, or, gods forbid, those tiny bins you put under the sink in the bathroom.
Use your brain, don’t sleep in a wheelie bin, for all our sakes. (Oh, and reporters, stop talking such absolute shit.)
Funny Links
I feel like spoiling all the Blog Monkey’s today, you’ve been reading hard so you deserve it, so here’s a little something to keep you entertained.
Meat Loaf’s I’ll Do Anything For Love – sung literally, with the lyrics reflecting what’s happening in the video. It’s a long one, but bear with it, it’s worth it in the end.
Peaces
Well hello, and welcome.
Life has been busy if unspectacular since last we spoke. This whole running an offic full time thing is working out ok. Sometimes there are moments when the 5 phones are all going and the one of me is running between them, having to be awfully nice to foolish people who seem to want to have a chat more than make an order. My attempts to use the Force to persuade them to stop talking and get lost have as yet yielded no successes. At such times my failure as a Jedi hurts me the most.
Went to Harps at the weekend for the bi-weekly trip to see my lovely girlfriend. As usual fun and games were had, got to have a few drinks with the lads, compare facial hair and tattoos with Dom and generally have a blast. The fun stopped on Sunday though when England were shamed at the rugby by the Irish. Good game, pretty tense, and just when we needed to hold on to our lead a lil’ green blur runs past to score a try and leave the England players standing around scratching their heads and wondering what the hell just happened. I hate it when we lose at rubgy, it depresses me so. But at least it’s still better than watching the football.
Camping plans are afoot for some time in early summer. Mr Daryl is scheming and plotting them as we speak, and people are muttering about Fire and Booze under their breaths in anticipation. From what I hear on the grapevine it’ll be a weekend under the stars that will become legend, making all that have gone before seem tame and making the Authorities quake with fear and loathing.
First off, I believe apologies are in order, as they often are. There’s the by now standard ‘sorry I haven’t been posting’ apology, for which I can only plead sheer laziness. But this time there’s also an apology due for the lovely people (Daryl) who’ve been trying to leave comments only to be denied by system. Damn that system.
So what’s been happening in this, the year of our Lord 2010 so far? We’ll to be honest, it’s been a pretty mixed bag. There’s been laughter, tears (or there would have been if I wasn’t just so damn manly), destroyed cars, broken noses, excellent plays, lovely nights out, pay rises, publications, great relationships, awful films, funny pictures and more intercourse than you can shake a rather large stick at.
Although the year started in a pretty mean and filthy way, it appears to be picking up. Last night I went for a fantastic seafood meal at a great restaurant with the family for my Mother’s birthday. Good times were had by all and it was nice to spend some proper time together. Last week I finally had a satisfactory Valentine’s Day thanks to the lovely Nat. Chinese and pie were eaten, beer drunk, rugby abused. We went to see a great play, ‘Warhorse’, which had simply the most amazng puppetry and was so poignant and moving that mine was the only dry eye in the house (yet again, just so manly). Thanks goes to Nat’s Dad for that one, getting us the best seats in the house must have been no mean feat. Before the play we had cocktails, martini’s (mine was called a Dirty Martini with good reason) and Bavarian food.
With the boss and workmate just starting off on a book tour of Australia, I’ve been left in charge of the office. While it’s nice being your own boss for a month and a half, it turns out to be a lot less rock and roll than I had expected. My day’s work mainly appears to involve drinking lots of coffee, trying not to eat all the nutrition products, and occassionally attempting the odd spot of writing. There’s not even enough petty cash in the office account to afford dancing girls, so I don’t know how they expect to get any real work done around here. The only good side to the whole shebang is that I’m working full time, and I get to rock out to metal in my place of work. Life could be a lot worse.
The Blog – Saving the World from itself, whether it likes it or not.
I’ve been informed that lately the posts have all been a bit on the bleak side. The winter winds a blowing, the wolves prowling on the lawn, the broken residents crawling blindly in circles inside the ruined house, chewing on the sideboards and being sick in the corners. That kind of thing.
But here at the Blog, we’re a happy bunch really. Even if it does feel like someone is sticking sharpened chopsticks up your nose when you sneeze.
So to lighten the mood here are a few things that make me smile.
(Warning – adult [childish] humour)
This weekend I was meant to be enjoying attending a lovely wedding in London with my lovely girlfriend. In fact, right about now, I should be waking up to a cuddle and a minor hangover. Instead I’m sitting here, trying to stop yet another nosebleed, and wondering how inbred people manage to breathe exclusively through their mouths all the time without getting cracked lips.
I shall explain. Woke up Thursday feeling pretty ill. Brother had recently had stomach bug thing and was hoping I didn’t have the same. Went to work, was ill, got sent home early. Driving home, felt dizzy, veered onto some gravel at the side of the road, corrected, started fishtailing, lost control and ended up wrapped around a tree in a ditch on the opposite side of the road.
The long and the short of it is that I’ve managed to break 1 pair of glasses (indenting them into my face), 1 car, and 1 nose. Not bad considering. If I’d been going at the full speed limit I’d have been looking at much worse than a broken nose, tooth through the underside of my lip, bruised ribs and various scrapes. And while it’s true that airbags do save lives, they also break faces (well my old school one did anyway).
It turns out that broken noses aren’t nearly as painful as I thought they’d be. In fact they’re a lot less painful than a really nasty blackeye. They are, however, more ugly and more annoying than anticipated. For a start, 3 days of continuous nosebleeds is just a pain. As is spending the morning coughing up the blood that’s leaked down into your lungs over night. Having to breathe through your mouth is a major hassle, especially when you’re eating or drinking (breathe, chew, chew, chew, swallow, gasp for air), I’m not sure how backwoods inbreds manage it day in day out.
The only benefit I can see is that afterwards you’re left with a nose with ‘character’. As I was no oil painting in the first place I can only hope that ‘character’ will mean ‘a bit manly looking’ and not ‘looks like a failed boxer’.
Anxiously waiting on news from the insurance company, and looking forward to getting the nose reset once the swelling goes down enough.
Apologies to Nat for having to stand you up this weekend, I’ll make it up to you. x
Original Articles. Constant-Content.