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

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.

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.

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)

Funnies! - as always click on the photos for the full galleries.

1. Photobombing - Masters of the subtle art of photobombing (the practice of sneaking yourself into a photo without the intended subjects of the photo realising, with hilarious consequences) are as stealthy as ninjas.  To whit:

I can't think of an even vaguely pc caption for this one.

Stylish photo in ultra-modern new flat reveals a flaw in open plan designing.

That's one very good reason to be scared to go back into the water right there.

A sexy photo for the boys back home, sure.

2. Redneck Festivals - which would appear to include such popular events as ‘most impressive dive into a muddy hole’, ‘bobbing for pigs trotters’, ‘gurning’, ‘toilet seat hurling’, and of course, ‘drinking Bud until you pass out in the sun’.  Can I get a yeehaw?!?

3. Pygmy hedgehogs

I wants one!

4. Books.  Mmmm books.

5. Friends, family, and all that other good stuffs.

Smiles!

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

Truth be told there is no Great Big Booklet Launch Party, at least nowhere outside the confines of my head.  Inside, it’s a blast.  Johnny Depp is swigging bourbon in the corner, firing an enormous pistol at the imaginary bats in the rafters.  Kate Beckinsdale is wandering around in an extremely tight catsuit, just because she can.  Eric Clapton is warming up the stage for Johnny Cash.  Hunter S Thompson lies twitching under his bar stool, whispering seductive nothings to a grapefruit.  Chuck Palahniuk keeps throwing beer mats at Stephen King when he’s not looking and Ghandi is vomiting in the gents.  Ah.  If only.  Perhaps I’ll have a few pints at the weekend to celebrate, but beyond that the celebration is limited to my wishful daydreaming.

So now ‘The Essential Guide To Vitamin C’ is available for advanced sale, with the physical publication itself within the week.  First batch will be 2000 copies, half of which will sit here with me in the UK office and half of which will go on the Australia book tour with the boss.

Good times ahead me thinks.

Ok, so I might have exaggerated, just ever so slightly.  Perhaps life won’t change for all mankind, just for one man, me.  I’m very excited about the entire enterprise.  If I was the kind of person inclined to jump up and down and make ’squeee’ noises, I would be doing so.  But instead I’m a non-demonstrative Englishman, so I’m sat with a coffee and an ever so slight smile on my ugly moosh.  I will attempt to use interpretive media to describe the hidden sheer excitement currently thrilling through my body.

OMG!

OMG2!

As you can see, excitement.  Lots of it.

The official title of the booklet is ‘The Essential Guide To Vitamin C’, a rather catchy little number.  Although it’s not how I originally imagined it turning out (writing projects never are), I’m rather pleased with the end product.  Finally I have an ISBN number to my name.  I can finally call myself a bone fide writer.  If I felt the desire to wear a beret in public, I would now be allowed.

If anyone feels the need to buy themselves a copy, or their family, friends, neighbours, school, university, district, or preferably all of the above: feel free to order at the Credence Online Store.

Today a Vitamin C booklet, tomorrow, the world.

Peaces

Power to the people.

I guess I’ve been pretty rubbish at keeping the posts up to date lately, for which I humbly apologise to the Blog Monkeys and beg forgiveness.

Christmas

Christmas was a pretty low key affair this year, much the same as it is every year.  Had my Nan around, but the brother had to work all over Christmas.  Christmas for my family mainly involves a couple of great meals, some drink, and lots of sitting in front of the tv.  This is really not my thing (especially as I couldn’t drink because of antibiotics), but it has to be done, to be sociable and such.  Over Christmas Day and Boxing Day I watched more tv than I had in the entire year put together.  I do not exaggerate.  I wish I did.

After Christmas I spent that awkward anticlimax-not quite holiday week with the lady, had an excellent time, very relaxing.  Saw Avatar, my first 3D film and was totally blown away by it.  Definitely recommend it to anyone.

Work

As I may or may not have posted earlier, I’d been given a lovely booklet on vitamin C to write over the festive period.  40-60 A5 pages.  How hard could it be?  Right?  Turns out it can be pretty hard indeed.  40 A5 pages is roughly the same size as an undergrad dissertation.  Add to the mix the fact that I know nothing about vitamin C and had to research and write at the same time, as well as having time out for teeth issues, family time, seeing lady time, and feeling sick on antibiotics time, I really had to push the boat out to get this one done.  Luckily, I got it done, and hopefully in time for it to get sent out to Australia for the book tour.  This is something of a miracle considering I got the entire Battlestar Galactica dvd for Christmas. 120+ hours of quality sci fi is not condusive to getting much work done.

The cover artwork is being done at the moment, and the boss is having an edit/rewrite (or as he put it “sprinkling his magic pixie dust” on it.  First run will be 2000 copies, coming out before February.  At first I think  it’ll just be printed in Australia for the tour, but will soon be available internationally.  Much excitement is in order, and I’ll post a link to it once it gets online.

Snow

It’s been snowing like a proper one down here in the backcountry recently.  Almost blizzard conditions yesterday.  Somehow the fact that it’s winter and there’s snow has taken the entire country by surprise.  Winter-snow.  Go figure.   Roads, trains, airports, shops, schools and pubs have shut.  People have been panic buying, and, very tediously, been talking about nothing but the weather for the last 2 weeks.  I know the British love to complain about the weather, but come on, there are limits!

Despite 2 feet of snow, the lack of road gritting, black ice, and general coldness, I’ve managed to get to work.  Lonemobile 1 - snow 0.  All the 4×4 drivers seem shocked to see my trusty car slipping and slidding it’s way down the glacial country lanes, Johnny Cash blasting out on full volume, gamely slewing its way around corners and bouncing off the snow drifts.  Frankly if I can manage to get around in my lovable deathtrap, the rest of the country has no excuse.

You want snow?  This is real snow, damnit.

Real snow

Peace - thanks for your patience, I’ll try and keep the posting regular from now on.

Peaces