Monday, January 31, 2005
_________________________________________________________
From: hitler.alois@oesterreichcustoms.gov.at
To: karahitler@austriaonline.com
Date: 20/7/1888 14:00
Subject: Tonight
Can we just cuddle? - I've got a headache.
A
_________________________________________________________
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 2:00 AM
Friday, January 28, 2005
Tsunami Ellen MacArthur.
Troubled Aurora passengers.
Jonathan Ross.
Paul Ross.
Meet the Fockers - Fock off will ya.
Houses/Holidays/Neighbours/Partners/Gerbils from hell shows.
Royal nazi numpty nonsense.
Robert Kilroy-Shut-the-f**k up-Silk.
Davina McCall.
Gmail account invitations.
Charles Kennedy's hair (it's nylon right?)freshly squeezed for you by drD at 11:59 PM
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Up at the crack to prepare for The Business Meeting, now at the other end of the day I'm flagging fast. Emotional and physical energy sapped. The meeting went well and my preparation paid off. It's amazing how positive small events are at making me feel I'm progressing. Another thing that self employment does for you is to change your perception of 'working hours' dats for sure. No more nine to five - it's whenever required. As a consequence am now annoyed that I missed the last Tribe yesterday - this series was groundbreaking TV and very inspirational - hopefully will be repeated soon.
Beautiful sunny morning here earlier but: Is it just me or is it bleedin cold? So cold I have to keep a 2kw fan heater blowing up my jacksie constantly to stave off paralysis. My leccy meter is whizzing around like Pavarotti's bathroom scales. I reckon I've eroded at least one millimetre more of the ozone layer today with all my emissions. Shocking.
60 years
Having watched the painfully moving Grandchild of the Holocaust just now - impossible to disagree that we must endeavour to keep the memory alive. The programme polarised the immense darkness of that event with the gentle and enduring power of family love. And if hope were needed, it came in the bright eyed and wise thirteen year old narrator whose grandmother was the subject of the film.
mmmmmmmodernism
Exquisite hand coloured photographs of London tube stations.
I'm tempted to buy several enlargements.
via things
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 11:44 PM
Monday, January 24, 2005
5 of the following are true and 5 are false - but which is which?
1. I can wiggle my ears.
2. I have the autograph of a current world leader.
3. I'm pierced.
4. I spent one night in Bangkok.
5. I collect lightswitches.
6. I've sat in the US senate.
7. I have four names.
8. I'm left handed.
9. There is an inflatable animal nearby.
10 I'm tone deaf.
Answers in twennyfourhours.
Sometimes I scare myself. The bnj prediction came true. Blindin.freshly squeezed for you by drD at 11:59 PM
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Back on the scene - like a blog machine
Saturday, January 22, 2005
Been a busy boy this week hence dearth of despatches here.
It's been just under 3 months since I did summat crazy and walked away from my secure well paid job and 'career'. It's been a step into the unknown. I've always 'worked'. From the earliest opportunity I was delivering papers to lonely old ladies; graduating in due course to retail assistance in a well-known-high-street-chemist on Saturdays [I knew far to much about motherhood at a tender age]. I worked out that I've been working constantly for over twenty years. Unceasing mental engagement with tasks which other people have been prepared to pay me to do. Trading my own preoccupations and desires for capital imperatives which are oblivious to my existence. Only now, after three months, am I starting to fully come to terms with what it means to have stepped off that particular conveyor belt. It's hard to articulate but I think it boils down to 'taking your life in your hands'. I've started to really understand what it means to choose the way you live. Whilst working, I handed over large parts of my day to organisational routines - institutionalisation, I think it's called. I confess to having generally believed the hype: Get qualifications, get a good job, work your way up = happiness and fulfillment. Ahem. It aint so. At least not for me - and, I believe, for a lot of other people too. It's been fascinating to not be at work when others are. To walk past offices full of people staring vacantly at computer screens. To see people running out of factories at 5 o'clock and racing to their cars. To be able to go to the supermarket in the morning when it's quiet. To work late into the night because I choose to and not feel put upon. To be at home when the post arrives. To fathom the daily routines of local cats patrolling their patch. [Yes, they work to timetables] To finally catch the scumbag neighbour who's been leaving his rubbish bags outside my house every week for the past six months. Simple pleasures. I've gone through several cycles of confidence > doubt > panic as I've been laying the early foundations of what I hope will be a profitable and creative future. The thing is that there are no rules. The mental adjustment that I am solely in control is still bedding in. I feel all powerful and extremely vulnerable within the space of an hour. Most of all, though, I feel alive - and happier in myself than I've felt in years. I may be wondering where my next mortgage payement is coming from but, at the moment, I'd far rather have that hanging over me than the thought of another day of corporate conformity.
Grosser Bruder
"I hate to think of what the jacuzzi did to Jeremy's sperm count."
Germaine Greer, as predicted, deconstructs her Big Brother experience. [Realaudio]
Meanwhile I can't help pondering why there are large pots of vaseline on some of the contestants bedside tables.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 8:35 PM
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Forgive my absence dear reader.
It's all gone a bit mental here in bignjuicyville.
I hope to be back towards the end of the week.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 10:20 PM
Saturday, January 15, 2005
No correct takers on the mystery man I see.
He is Raphael and what a short but full life he had. Genius for sure. I'm a bit tied up so unable to finish my intended post about him. More on that story later...
Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of the weekend.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 10:55 PM
Friday, January 14, 2005
Kept me out until all hours this bloke.
10 BnJ loyalty points if you can tell me who this is.
More about him tomorrow...
Fanbleedintastic
We bring you this picture from a billion kilometres distant.
Bril.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 11:39 PM
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Healthy New Year
Did you know that research suggests that at least 50% of cancer cases could be prevented? Halving the risk sounds like good odds to me - at least these odds are better than not having any control at all which is how these diseases often make people feel. Also, there's no fancy stuff you have to do to achieve the 50% risk reduction. Granted, some of them are easier to do than others for some. However, if you only do a few then you're still reducing your risk and that has to be a good thing. Here's the list:
Stop smoking.
Stay in shape.
Eat a healthy balanced diet, including plenty of fruit and vegetables.
Limit alcohol consumption.
Keep tabs on any changes in your body.
Cover up in the sun.
Cancer research UK have more info if you're interested.
Offally good advice
"People should limit eating liver to once a week ... say food experts." So not only are there are people out there who eat these entrails - they eat it more than once a week?
What is wrong with these people?
Probably too much spinal cord lasagne is my guess.
Link: cooking with Hannibal.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 4:46 PM
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Call me naive - but I was surprised to learn that Germaine possesses bras.
I must have got mixed up somewhere along the line.
Fag end of the law
Italy bans public smoking. Yeah right - those Italians are really going to obey that one.
Next: Pope appoints lesbian nun as successor.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 1:09 AM
Monday, January 10, 2005
John Peel can never be replaced. So they're going to hand over his Radio 1 slot to a threesome of new music seekers. The blurb makes it sound like a branch of the NHS clinic for the aurally challenged. The new show, OneMusic [ Note the TrendySpelling ], "will seek out those making music for music's sake rather than for commercial success [You mean Sir Cliffe & Gerry Halliwell get their own show?]. Above all it will provide support to emerging genres of music and styles that have not yet and may never reach the mainstream". [OMG it's the X factor all over again - G4 go large]. A rigourous system of targets will be established and performance measures implemented to ensure best value. [OK, I made the last bit up].
Secondly, February 5th sees the return of rancid bint, Sara Cox or 'Coxy' as she likes to selfstyle, sorry SelfStyle. Coxy will be livening up the weekend schedule on R1 with her classic mix of laddette humour [innuendo about farting, drinking and shagging] and distinctive musical taste [ the R1 playlist + 'ironic' 80's tracks from Gary Numan and Boy George ]. Coxy has just reproduced so we can expect endless cool baby stories too. I for one will be switching off and going to Lidl of a Saturday morning. Sunday morning will be spent in worshipful silence praying for Jerry Springer.
Still Jumpin
I seem to be no 1 on Google for 'Jumping Britain'. Welcome surfer if you've come here from there. My write up on the programme is just below. Meanwhile some further Rush Hour links have come to light.
A real media version of the BBC1 promo Rush Hour.
The film hit the headlines when first broadcast.
Then went on to win several awards.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 11:03 AM
Friday, January 07, 2005
Celebrity Big Brother
Like 15 million others, I tuned in to watch the BB arrivals. It's all going to be rather jolly. Social engineering at it's finest. Can't believe that Germaine is doing this but, thinking about it, I'm not surprised. She is a meja hoor and can't resist challenging preconceptions. I can hear her now on Late Review deconstructing the experience and basking in her new found cred. Mr Deerstalker-Dailymailreader looks set to wind them all up a treat. He is one unreconstructed individual. No doubt with a contract simply to 'be himself' - SMS voting meltdown imminent. Scariest scene so far: John McCririck's outfit. Saddest scene so far: Bez blundering around in a Mancunian wasteland during his intro film. I think he may win.
Jumping Britain
Couldn't take my eyes off the screen. One of the most original things I've seen on TV in ages. Parkour, made famous in Britain by the 2002 BBC 1 promo Rush Hour which featured David Belle, the French inventor of Parkour. Belle was shown making his way home from the office just in time to watch his favourite programme on BBC1. No crowded tubes or pavements featured - rather he climbs out of his office window and clambers home over the rooftops performing astonishing arial movements. The whole film is stunning and includes a 23 feet building-to-building leap, 200 feet above the street. 'Jumping Britain' offered a tour of British landmarks via Parkour performed by Sebastien Foucan, co-founder with David Belle of the Parkour movement. Sebastien was accompanied by a group of British Traceurs who were shown training with him prior to the tour. He came across as a really interesting bloke - incredibly talented without an ounce of arrogance. Great style and dignity. The defining image of the piece has to be the leap across the 12 metre gap in the Millenium Stadium[ Horrible website ] roof in Cardiff 90 metres above the ground.
Jumping around on the roof of the Baltic [ Great website ]in Gateshead came a close second. Clambering cat-like up a leg of the Forth Rail Bridge with no safety ropes whilst watched incredulously by hard-hatted maintenance men; another memorable scene. Parkour has spread internationally and grown in popularity in the UK - there are a number of UK groups and a strong British movement. The impression from the film was that it is male dominated and for young people. The fitness, stamina agility and dedication it requires must place great demands on the body. I was reminded of the, 'You'll believe a man can fly' slogan from the original Superman movie. OK, not quite Superman but gravity defying and inspirational.
The UK Parkour Association
Urban Freeflow
Brummy Parkour
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 10:00 AM
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Via archinect - news of a new Channel 4 series, 'Demolition'. The concept is already attracting savage reviews and it's not on air yet. Seems nothing is immune from reality TV. All you have to do is press your little red button and you can make millions from property between 8 and 9pm, have your parts surgically enhanced in half an hour, star in your own late night
Every little helps
Tesco plays dirty, it seems, when it comes to moving in on a new location. In the drive to sustain their £228,000 per hour profit it looks as though they stop only at illegality but all else is fair in the retail war. Such as handing out cards to employees in a [ small local ] rival's store and poaching their best staff. 'Ruthless', 'money-making' and 'machine' are words that spring to mind. Now they've gone and upset the National Federation of Women's Institutes - ooh er. Nobody messes with an Institutional Woman and remains the same - just look how TB's fortunes have suffered since his little encounter in 2000.
The days are getting longer - thankyou God. It doesn't get dark in Bignjuicyville now until after 4pm and I can just about survive another two or three weeks of unrelenting greyness with the thought that we're on the up - daylight wise. BT - [ That's 'B' as in Bloodsucking, 'T' as in Twazzocks ] - have officially declared a longer day too. As is always the case with BT, though, it's gonna cost you. Accustomed, as I am, at rising before dawn to make all my vital business calls at cheap evening rates I am now to be thwarted. The BT 'day' will now start at 6am and not 8am as previously. What it is to be a powerful monopoly with departments aplenty - all dreaming up endless confusion pricing tactics to squeeze every last penny out of hapless
However, a saviouress [ such a word? ] arrives in the form of Blue Witch, with her latest round of cash register busting. She's worked out a way to make UK phone calls for 1p. I've signed up already - it takes about 5 seconds. Then you have to prefix everything with a handy fifty digit code when dialling. I think calls get routed via the Cassini Huygens probe or summat. Still who cares when you save dosh and deprive the aforementioned of their lifeblood. [ I wonder if Michael Howard is a BT director? ] I really want to find out more about VOIP telephony via my broadband link - any readers who know how to do it or if it's worth doing it - I'm waiting for your call [ or comment ].
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 5:40 PM
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Regular readers may have detected that I'm not given to displays of patriotism. To tell the truth, it frightens me. I think it all stems from The Unfortunate Incident With The Queen Mother when I was working as a gin jonny at a cocktail bar near Clarence House. Do your own google searches on that one. But this week I'm very proud to be part of this country at this time. I'm very proud to be a human being really because the reason I'm proud is not constrained by national borders - like the tsunami wave last week. From the news the last few days it appears that our leaders have now gone into 'caring mode' and are busy 'taking control', arranging photo opportunities and 'not capitalising on tragedy' whilst in fact doing just that. Who cares. In fact, who cares about any of the usual stuff when you see what's happened. I just feel that what we've seen - what's happened to those people, those ordinary people. What's happening now to those left behind. It's all a bit much to bear isn't it? And we want to reach out and put our arms around them and hug them and somehow make it better. So I'm really proud that people are organising things, giving so much money, that we are watching the news avidly and becoming a bit obsessed with it all and writing articles and blog posts about it all and grieving in what small way we can at such distance. I'm really proud that enemies are setting aside disputes and everyone, it seems, is just focussed on making it better. That is a really good thing and it shows what we can do when we're united. Out of great pain we're learning something very important.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 5:13 PM
The radio went off, Big ben chiming, birdsong, stillness, images of the waves, matchwood left behind, people crying, feeling pain, wandering around, children, forests dying, boats upturned. Stillness, thoughts swirling, a car in the distance, sound of tap dripping, radio crackles, birdsong. A sense that everyone is stopped, right now, thinking.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 12:05 PM
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Shame on you Willie for hunting foxes. I know you are a reader of this blog and I want you to know that I do not approve of you getting dressed up in stupid clothes and lolloping around with a powerful animal between your thighs. I also strongly disapprove of you fox hunting. [ boom boom ]. Far better that you spend your time at University in the pursuit of more suitable activities. I've been conducting a little research and I think I've found the perfect solution:
Not much work required, pointless, headline catching, charitable, historic connections and the opportunity to look like you are supporting Scottish enterprise and the economy. In short a right royal PR opportunity with warrant potential too.
You may not have noticed, but there is lurking under your nose, The St Andrews University Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Appreciation Society. (St.A.U.T.C.W.A.S). This worthy group meets together in order to share their great love of the Tunnock's Caramel Wafer and to raise money for charity. I strongly suggest you get round there tomorrow night [8.30pm in the Byre Theatre] and bring an 8 pack and your own mug. Jodhpurs not required.
The Tunnocks Caramel Wafer is that rare combination - a biscuit with almost full snack capabilities. Sufficient portionage to satisfy mid morning carbo-cravings and also to support ones flagging metabolism at the end of hard day of tooth flashing and public engagements. Sized large enough to provoke discussion when concealed in the trouser pocket yet small enough to be stowed in your speedos when indulging in a spot of waterpolo. [ In-trunks plastic bag advised ]. The combination of real milk chocolate, crisp wafer and soft chewy caramel is almost too intense but worth persevering with for it's ecstatic reward. Creamy chewiness, sweetness, warm melting chocolateyness - I'd better stop, this could get messy.
This Tunnocks veteran offers a biblical perspective. Another deals honestly with his obsession. "More than 4,000,000 of these biscuits made and sold every week." I've a few left to tide me over.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 10:11 PM
Monday, January 03, 2005
Missing your mince pies? Pining your pud?
In need of a post-festive sugar boost?
Time for a Tunnocks Tea Cake!
This my top tea cake recommendation and is remarkably available nearly everywhere including Saudi Arabia.
The chocolate dome is gratifyingly shaped like a small booboid hillock. Chocolate is thick. Enjoy at lower temperatures if possible for maximum crispness and a satisfying crack as you lunge your teeth into it.
Sensual contrast with the yielding white mallow filling - not cloying like the now-emaciated wallnut whip filling. Tunnocks tingles on your tongue. A crunchy biscuit base completes the luscious experience - not too crunchy mind you - balance is everything in a biscuit.
But there's more! The packaging is fab too. No nasty plasticy unspeakableness. The teacakes are wrapped individually in foil. The foil is silver and printed with groovy red radiating stripes - this teacake hums, "I'm a sexy - eat me eat me eat me".
You buy one and you eat it. No, don't buy one, buy a box. One is never enough - maybe five - maybe six. The box is brill too. Yellow with Beano style red lettering. There's a nice window and you can eye the sexy booby biscuits inside. They are calling to you.
You must answer. You must eat them.
Tunnocks tea cakes - invented by Boyd Tunnock in 1960. Millions have been made. Tunnocks is an independent family firm still trading from Uddingston, Glasgow. Boyd was awarded the CBE in 2004 for services to teacake temptation [ and charidee ].
The firm have a tea room in Uddingston. Recent visitors report, "The waitresses were of mature years but were by no means sluggish. Indeed their great energy belies their octagenarian frames." I'm going there for my next holiday.
I am not the only teacake fan. Here is review of it on nicecupofteaandasitdown.com. Jack Thurston wrote in to show off a rather fetching modified Tretchikoff green woman painting which he made with Tunnocks Tea Cake wrappers. The man is a Tea Cake short of a Saatchi commission.
The Tunnocks website has a game where you can munch virtual Teacakes. Personally speaking, I've got 5 left so I've no time for games right now.
Tomorrow: The ecstacy that is The Caramel Wafer.
PS: The Teacakes are now available in dark chocolate - if you like that sort of thing.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 1:01 AM
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Whenever I fly anywhere I always like to sit in a window seat if I can. I suspend my natural terror of falling out of the sky by telling myself, 'If it's gonna happen it's gonna happen - too late now to do anything about it'. I figure that once I'm being hurtled down the runway it's beyond the point of no return. In a weird ritual I mentally prepare myself to die - should something terrible happen during take off. I've found that staring out of the window as we take off helps to distract me from my morbid foreboding. I also like to experience the rare spectacle of seeing the earth from a great height. I was once lucky enough to fly over the Australian desert. I remember looking out of the window for about 3 hours and seeing endless nothing. Well, just endless red sand to be more exact. Granted, there was a bit of scrub dotted about, the occasional dried up lake or river and, very rarely, a tiny outback farm or other unlikely settlement. Generally though there was vast amounts of nothing. As we appoached the coast we started to fly over buildings and roads, growing denser the closer we got to the airport. I could imagine the builders of the towns once venturing forth into their designated patches of nothing and laying out their concrete and bricks and asphalt to make those towns. I could see how the thin veneer of urban civilisation had been laid like a rather messy carpet on top of a wild and vast surface. I could imagine the piddly little wires and pipes powering the whole encrustation. Supporting the life below clinging to that surface. That surface extending for thousands upon thousands of miles - areas of land so great that a person on foot would take months or years to cross.
When you are high up in a plane you can make out the curve of the earth - it's subtle but visible. Often, particularly in sunlight, you can't see things on the ground - just colours. When you look at pictures of the earth from space the effect is even greater. A great blue and white ball that glows in the sun. I don't know whether it's the fact that I know it's the earth and it's home but it seems benign and alive. When you see the earth from above you realise that you are very little indeed and that your existence and activities are indetectible even from a short distance. Holding that perspective - that we are just tiny, tiny almost inconsequential things on a vast planet. A planet that is doing it's thing according to imperatives well beyond anything we might be doing on the surface - like beetles pootling about on a mountain top. That view of our life on this planet - a transient fragile existence. That view is terrifying.
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 1:19 AM
Saturday, January 01, 2005
I'm on the train
For twenty years.
Note to self: There are now adults who cannot remember a world without mobile phones. You are now old.
Deliver us
"Some of the biggest music stars in the world are to unite for a charity single to help raise funds for victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami. They hope the song will raise more than £2m for a relief fund. Sir Cliff Richard, Boy George and opera star Russell Watson will sing on the song, entitled Grief Never Grows Old. Former Boyzone singer Ronan Keating may also take part, if a studio can be found close to where he is holidaying in Switzerland."
westcoastmusic
Of course it would be far quicker and less effort for them to pay the two million quid straight out of their large bank accounts direct to the relief agencies, sparing us the pain of their warblings in the process.
Have they no shame in the transparency of their opportunism?
Will no one rid us of these self-seeking hasbeens?
freshly squeezed for you by drD at 8:29 PM