Right now

Wanna scream at industrial relations books.....

Aaaarrr! Swash my Buckles

My pirate name is:

Black Morty Vane

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Lent

Off the booze, the coffee, the chocs. Booze feels difficult right now. Pissed off with tea. Would chomp a toffe crisp with some haste. So Ribena it is then!

Sore froat

Sleep looks good.

Urg......

Blink's on the blink. I have a request for a review pre-refusal so not got a scoob how that works. Mevin is in. Train is interesting on return home because it is running late as a result of passenger illness. Becomes a bit of a recurrent theme, Cub's is cancelled due to ill leaders.

Get Monst to work and then plan on relaxing at home.

Jimmy the Hoover

Empty Cal's Room, Clean, Fill Cal's Room.

Hiding in the Bunker

Major disagreements between Monst and Cal today. I'm due to be tidying upstairs....it's the saest option! Deposit the pair of them in Woolton to get the boy's glasses repaired. End up watching darts as I clean the bedroom - weird.

A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil

The other place features on Heriot-Watt's Internet Resources Newsletter 158. Cor, that's posh it has an ISSN! Cheers to Roddy, Catherine and Marion for the plug.

If you're not familiar with it I am of course referring to the Fade Library blog which had been taking up my blogging time recently. It's loads less scurrilous than here and seems to be going well.

If you hadn't realised the new years resolution is to try and get a daily post here. Been neglected for too long, been a bad blogger. Must try harder.

I Ain't The Walrus

The heating remains sick but is getting better I think. Here's hoping our lodgers will have gone by Monday.

Day goes by without major events, get to chat to some fine people.

Return to Siberia

First day in and as reported to me yesterday by Helen the heating groundfloor Reggie is still knackered. Worse than that the penguin family that are inhabiting the library right now seem to have invited a nuclear outfit of polar bears to join them. If a Walrus moves in too then I'm off.

Wake late so car to South Parkway and then train to Reggie. No sign of the Ushanka.

The heating (or lack of... if you prefer) engineers appeal to us to let them do some welding. We're up for it, we could crowd round and get some heat and apparently it's needed to complete the heating repair. A risk assessment holds it up. The suggestion that the risk assessment should read, welder = sparks = fire risk = be wary when you do it ain't good enough. Fairy Nuff. The Walrus may arrive anytime tomorrow. We arrange for everyone else to be elsewhere while I hold the fort. With any luck the heating will be fixed tonight and I'll be in a version of the tropics..... Not gonna put the 'Toucan perch available' sign up just yet.

Work wise, a tickle from the pre-crimbo sexual health gig we did (how can you compete with a Durex stand?) brings work and cold cure advice that matches my usual advice (currently being put into practice with some Bushmill's 1608). The folk at Halton sort some stuff for me as a result. Do a little blog wrangling. FoI is busy. Chat to the Queen of Mortality (usual sick level of conversation which amuses the pair of us) who helps me sort a nice man from the Beeb. Sorts the request. MEN raise their head above the parapet and the Liberals get in on the act to. Some blog advice to Sue. Chat to the other end of the St Halton gig too. So good to chat to some fine folk while sorting stuff.

Meanwhile back at home Monst sorts the decs and does a stunning clean up job on downstairs just leaving the kitchen to me. Shove on some Seasick Steve and sort it.

Paisley Underground

It's kinda inevitable, it's my age, nostalgia kicks in. Good stuff. Not a starting point but an early marker I feel. D-day is good. Spend the day keeping Cal amused. We discover the delights of Mahjong, it wastes the day nicely. Snow is forecast, one of the more bizarre outcomes of the cold snap and my public transport experience is I have an Ushanka on order. Bet it arrives post cold weather. Still my ears will be warm as a result..... when it does. Yet to begin 'Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks'. However 'Fallen Idle', 'We All Live in a Perry Groves World', have been consumed and I'm 4/5ths through 'Berlin Soldier 1945: An Eye Witness Account of the Fall of Berlin'.

Happy New Year and All That

Hootenanny.... Rab C. .... Monst at work calls, world explodes with fireworks, Bicycle Kid and the Lemmings piss me off .... usual start to a new year then. Resolutions.... bah! Still feel rough following traditional Christmas cold.

Chickentown and Clutches

Into Reggie and the phone leads me to Evidently Chickentown.

Monst calls me. Chickentown calls me. Monst is upset as I fling a blogging gig Tracy's way and apparently ignore her down the phone. Scab a tenner off the poor unfortunate Nicola because I haven't a bean on me and the wallet is at home. I'm told it's down to fog in Brizzle, and the arm flapping ain't happening. I arrive marginally early following a stressed up drive. Fog has lifted by curtain up. I return towards the Mersey, scab a free parking situation as the machine refuses to eat the money borrowed from Nicola (makes it easy to give it back mind!) and get to the Rocket and conduct an experiment in non-laxative, laxative impact as I break down at the Rocket. Not a good spot to be in, with a huge artic right behind you (I'd say up the jacksie but despite the fact I'm often called to vocalise with it, it ain't that big - honest!). Call the RAC. They come, looks like my clutch is going, 'Ooh! Er...Missus'. Dysfuntional in the afternoon as a result. Ring garages an relieved that the some demanded is not as bad as I imagine!

Hello

I'm still alive - just!

Weekend

Saturday Airport, curry (bizarre pint as I wait, during which strange patriotism is exhibited around me). Call from the airport to celebrate free scran. Rugby World Cup Final is wallpaper and brings memories of Tom. Early to bed. Sunday 'Control' at FACT. An interesting venue, an interesting film. I see it in the box and wasn't prepared for the array of two seater sofa type things in there. Very bohemian, reminded me of something I think I read in the Godfather. OK the movie was a cheery exercise in the life and death of Ian Curtis, 'er maybe not. Mind you that doesn't make it a bad film and the fact that at no point didn't I want the hanging to happen earlier has to be a good sign. The lack of rustling sweet wrappers was a good guide to the quality of the film. Sure it has great music but that is to be expected but on reflection I'm getting confused about Ian Curtis the real person and the screen versions. It's a bit like Tony Wilson, if I think of him at all, I see Steve Coogan mentally. Wierd. So unhappy in a joyous sort of way I head home. Cook a fine meal, watch shite TV, finish my news bash. Feed the cat. Open a bottle of beer. Sort an answering service.

Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee

Wednesday
JY visits me in the library to inform me I have a flat tyre. Blogger is playing up so I'm behind on the news. Aaargh! Shit day and it's only a coupla hours old. The new Mrs Hicks informs me of a venue for tyre repair. I go fetch a new bottle of tyre gunk from the garage, pump up the tyre, get alarmed as I hear the air escaping but it hold out for a fair while pre gunk. I finish the news. Gunk the tyre and head to the RR, NC and Mrs Hicks recommended Jetyres. They replace it with minimal fuss and just charge me an arm leaving out the leg.
Other than that the day consists of me learning more about waxing than I care to know about. Still if anyone knows what a Las Vegas Brazilian is that's beyond my informants knowledge. It all sounds like the sort of torture your local inquisitor might dish out.
Finally locate the Mark Gardener album 'These Beautiful Ghosts' for download over at United for Opportunity. Don't have time to listen to it as I eat a ruby as I download because the family need picking up from town from Beauty and the Beast. Don't even have time to transfer it to Johnny Notpod (I eventually get a listen on Friday and it's beautiful an instant fave).
Thursday
Day off to get Visas at the Consulate General down in Brum. I have a cunning plan, catch the first train out of South Parkway that heads that way. The alarm cat wakes me early, too early. I catch up with some stuff I'd recorded, reset the alarm cat and fall asleep. The alarm cat wakes me 20 minutes before I'm due at the station. No probs, tumble into the car and head off to my fave local station. Grab a coffee from the trolly dolly and the jobs a good 'un.
The great book disaster. I have on my person 'Jude: Level 1' which I finish before arrival. Curses, don't have time to buy another book before heading to the consulate so grab an Indie.
Have a Manchester experience on the way to the consulate that is rescued when I see an advertising hoarding that I recognise. Get up to the consulate to find myself at the back of a significant queue. The bloke ahead of me is back from the previous day, he tells me that they ran out of tokens. No probs, I think that'll have been sorted by today, they just need to nip to the local cheese counter and blag some. 9.30 and the queue starts to shift. Then this bloke comes down the queue after about 10 minutes to tell us that they've run out of tokens an unless you are travelling in two days it's time to go away. So I leave, ring home to a frosty reception from Monst. She isn't impressed - she hasn't wasted a days leave.
So mightily pissed off I go back to New Street via the Central Library (I need a bog, and am quite impressed by the Cafe Library in the gaff). Hungry I sort a ham and cheese toastie and coffee at New Street. Then discover I have around an hour to wait for a train so sort new books in terms of a biog of Joe Strummer, some low life sub-victorian sci-fi and another of the Conn Igguldon books that I've been enjoying but not certain why - if you want a list there in my current reading on the Fade Library Blog right now).
By the time I'm back at the station I still have time to wait. So off for a pint of the black stuff. Train home. I get a massive welcome at home, no note of apology for the wild goose chase just the comment that I was meant to stay in Birmingham to sort it the following day. Ring work, check I've nothing on. Fill the car with petrol head to bed early - in grouch mode I don't wash up, set the alarm cat. Transfer things to the Notpod and hit the sack at 9.00.
Friday
The alarm cat goes off early at 2.00 am. This despite a twenty minute session explaining to her I wanted waking at 3.00 am. Stoopid cat. Watch some more stuff I recorded and get in the car after it. The M6 to Brum is fine, full of lorries but no more and I make good time. I suprise myself at rolling into the jewelry quarter just gone 4.00 am. Park right outside the consulate. More suprised to find someone else queuing already. I'm second in the queue at 4.15 and the place don't open for another five and a quarter hours. From that point on people drift into the queue, by 6 other people needn't bother turning up. It's cold out. I've restricted my liquid and food intake to reduce the need for a lavatory, I even eschew the bloke selling coffee from a trolly when he pitches up. 8.30 they let us into the building which is at least a little warmer. 9.30 up the stairs and the application is in. Wander off and find a welcome breakfast at the Orange Cafe.
To fill some time take some photos of the jewelery quarter, a graveyard and St Paul's church. Wander into town, revisit the public library and visit the Equiano exhibition. Fascinating and moving. We are a horrid species.
Return to the consulate for 1.20'ish prepared to queue in advance of the 3.00 pm opening. First in the queue as I hide from the sun. Sure enough I'm out by about 3.45 and on the road in time to catch the early dart to avoid the rush hour. The drive back is painfully slow as a result. Monst drops me a message to say that they are due to finish at Disney on Ice at the MEN in the land of Manc an hour before we expected. I head straight for the land of Manc. I'm knackered. Find the Pizza Hut they arranged to meet me by and go in for scran. It's off the Bagpuss diet but I'd eat the saggy old cloth cat himself right now. I'm just about finished when they appear. I ache, I'm dehydrated and knackered. Consequently not full of bonhomie.
Car demands oil on the way back so pull into the service station at Warrington. Home and bed to sleep the sleep of the righteously indignant.
Saturday
Lie in, sleep, read, sleep, cook, argue with Callum. Blog. Do no work. Listen to music. Watch some shite TV.

Odd Blog

Lace, corporate induction, groups are too large, the Bish Bunker has horrid acoustics. Helen plays a blinder. Lesson learnt, in future smaller groups and make the CG folk work for a living. Build a fair trade sugar inspired Zebra trap at Reggie. Any stray Zebra down by the Mersey will be lured into the library. Positive vibes in a direction that needs them right now.

The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered

SG ain't no Gibson but he brings some interesting Athens figures into sight. 06/07 we saw a 48% rise in sessions. Top of the shop as far as PCTs are concerned in the wacky old NW. Is this a result of the marketing? Is it a sign that it's working? I'm content to think so but it isn't something I can prove conclusively. This infuriates me. Back to banging the head against the nearest hard surface with the odd bit of pain relief from the folk around me.

LIHNN/HCLU briefing goes well. Meet a few new people. M gets a wotcha blogger. Usual mutual love in with L around H, TT joins in which is no suprise we have a frequent love in there. Gain a couple of blogging gigs out of the deal too. Cool. Hum a few mental bars of 'Black Crow' at one point. Nice to see Fran and nicer to hear her news... positive vibes in that direction just don't look at today's news, I'm sure a 17lb'er wouldn't be ideal.

Nip to the 'works to drop stuff on the way, yell at JY at some lights at his instigation. Afternoon closes on a bizarre high.

Bagpuss diet at home. Tempers are short in consequence. I'll benefit as a side effect. Come home from the supermarket with more fruit and veg than we usually have in the house. The veg isn't an issue but I'm deeply suspicious of the fruit, too many bones for my liking. I compensate with olde worlde englische apples (is that enough superfluous e's?) These have the archaic appeal advantage. Mind you I'm like Mack the Knife with the buggers, can't be doing with cores...... Round them of with a fruit that you can start spelling but can never stop....

Evening is filled with too much Wonder Stuff and way too much washing up. The former is entertaining the latter leaves me with dishpan hands.

Where ya been?

For the last couple of days I've been facilitating at a Citizen's Jury for the PCT. It's been interesting seeing real people and reminds me of several things:

1. NHS - people instantly think Hospitals and find it hard to get out of that mind-set - but given some help will get there. This fits in nicely with the licensing models of e-journals suppliers who have this bizarre fascination with numbers of beds and buildings - just hope they're as intelligent as people.
2. Presentation - always remember who your audience is and write your presentation accordingly - don't recycle what you already have - start afresh.
3. Understanding is a journey - sometimes bumpy and rarely direct.
4. This sort of thing is tiring.

Either way it was a fun thing to do.

Pieces of Eight

Stats are sorted, word gets out. I get alarmed at some stuff I hear. I wanna respond to it but am advised not to. Next time I speak to the person concerned I'll thank them for the stuff they did.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day - I celebrate and hurt my throat. Next year I'll have to dress up, I also send a mail out that prompts a few fun responses from the library folk locally.

Chat with G an S, fruitful good stuff and I enjoy the CF chat in the morning.

Home and discover the Romans are Cal's focus in history. Aaargh! I don't do ancient history.