His Worship Stan has thrown out a subject he knew I wouldn't be able to resist. Music. You can't honestly expect me not to have an opinion. Just so we don't fall out, we're operating on the inevitable truth that is that I am right and any dissent is not just wrong, it is immoral.
I'm sure I must be the only person in existence who craves a longer commute. Every week, my playlist gets extended. I can't bare the thought of taking anything off a playlist, so they're either added to or new ones are started. Naturally, the first additions to any new playlist are virtually everything Fiona Apple has ever done. It's not like I'm obsessed but it's a good job she is across a large body of water; God knows what would happen if she lived in England -- I guess I'd just be a common garden stalker. Seriously, if I were her, I would be worried about me. Perhaps I should file a restraining order on her behalf?
My latest play list augments Fiona with such eclectic delights as Dolly, John Adams, Tori Amos, Phlip Glass, Rachmaninox, Sublime, The Offspring, Talk Talk, David Bowie, David Sylvian, Ani Difranco, KLF, Patty Griffin, Paul Weller, Pentangle, PJ Harvey, Roy Harper, Sisters of Mercy, Shakira, Siouxsie, Stevie Nicks, The Cure, The Jam and the Utah Saints. Even bloody Soul Coughing. I probably missed out some but you get the drift.
Anyway Stan reported on the Guardian's top 10 lyricists. I think I might agree with one, Joni Mitchell. The rest I beg to differ. As we established earlier, I am the moral authority on these things so I put it to you that the following should constitute the list:
1) Paul Simon -- without a fraction of an iota of a shadow of a doubt. No-brainer. 2) Joni Mitchell 3) Fiona Apple 4) Sting 5) David Bowie (it grieves me to say it, but he's there) 6) Macca 7) Paul Weller 8) Kate Bush 9) John Lennon 10) Tori Amos
I saw a meme gazillions of years ago asking for your top 10 frequently played tunes on your iPod. At the time, I had not crossed over to the dark side. Now I have, but it would be sadly predictable were I to list mine. Any surprises on yours? [Rupert-- if you say Bon Jovi, I shall throttle you with your own CAT6 cable. Beardie Wierdie -- if you mention the K word, check under your car for ticking noises. Waaart -- don't even...]
I got an email last week from someone I haven't seen in ages. One day, when I have enough time, I'll explain the circumstances that led to us meeting but until then, you can all speculate. I did have an advert for her on the left hand side here until not too long ago (I should resurrect that, along with a new ad for Steve's new book) but somehow in my rejigs, it appears to have been lost.
The last time I saw her, I was fumbling around York with Evil Albert, when I heard the tinkle of a piano played in a style I knew could only be her so dragged Albert down to the square where there was a stage and none other than Sam Payne. She spotted me in the crowd and dedicated what she knows is one of my favorite tracks from her Shades of Blue CD in my general direction. I went a bit gooey, like you do. It doesn't matter if you look like Kylie Minogue (not that Sam does in any respect), if you can play the piano like Sam does, I'm putty. We had a quick drink and I haven't seen or heard from her until last week. That said, I've not emailed her either so I guess we're as crap as each other.
To cut to the chase, Sam is playing at Len's Bar in Leeds on Friday July 11th from 10:30 until whenever she falls over or you do. She'll be doing a sneak preview of her new album and also the legendary requests. If anyone else fancies going, holler. I'd go on my own but the only person I'd know there would be center-stage. I'm not sure whether there is a cover charge or not but I'm sure if I ask Sam nicely, she'll sort something out. I think you'll be able to get a sample from this link to iTunes.
She's ace, cuter than a button, plays a mean piano and to my knowledge has never questioned my sexuality. Top lass.
» Mugabe is an amateur. You eliminate the competition, force people to vote at gunpoint and can still only manage 85% of the vote. I've texted him to offer Rob the Vanquisher's services for a couple of weeks.
» Along similar lines, I've heard some mutterings from one of my sources in the House that in keeping with the government's hardline stance on tinpot dictators we don't like (as appose to those that we do), the UK government is implementing a ban on Italy participating in the Eurovision song contest next year. That's sure to send a message to those pesky Iranians.
» Debs has now got stage fright. My cunning plan worked. I tried to explain that we all have a common goal of making Kenny look like a prat (the prime objective) so she shouldn't be scared of any, say, "editorial" influence on what she might think she had written.
If you've come here looking for pictures of Kenny in a pink furry cowboy hat and feather boa, you've come to the wrong place. Go hassle Debs for those.
I don't think I've ever written a gig review before and I don't think I'll start now because writing a review could not begin to do it justice. Maybe a carefully worded one-liner will suffice. If you are not completely and utterly in love with Dolly Parton, you have never watched her live. I would go again in a heartbeat, to listen to what are probably the same gags night-in, night-out; the thing is that they're gags of the highest quality delivered by the one person on the planet who can get away with them. Summed up, I think Dolly Parton is the kind of person we all want to be. She's feckless, flirty, hillbilly, honest as the day is long and just downright nice. If I think about other gigs I've been to, there are always the trappings of pretension somewhere. Not so here. "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap" is a gag we've all heard before, but it would not have been the same without it. Likewise, when talking about the British press she moaned "They hurt me a lot with what they wrote. I'd read things about me and think that even if I hadn't done them, they were the kind of things I was certainly capable of." As an ice-breaker, that is about the best I've heard.
The audience were exactly what you would expect. In fact, I whispered to Debs as we went in that we should do this more often because we were actually bringing down the average age of the audience. There were some youngsters, all bedecked in big blond wigs, flashing cowboy hats and pink feather boas. As you would guess, the majority of the males under 40 were gay men -- this was a theme that Debs played on all night, to absolute bloody perfection -- by the time we left, I felt so emasculated I had to use some hard-core pith in order to assure myself I had not just been watching Steps.
Pink was definitely the order of the night. Hysterical 50 and 60 year old women decked out in cowgirl outfits with their husbands looking somber in formal Badlands Preacher Smith attire swarmed around the merchandise with rabid fervor. Debs and I cracked in the intermission and hit the store for teeshirts. Debs got a very subtle [sic] white number and I opted for the closest thing to macho there was; a brown shirt with pink all over it detailing the iconic Dolly poses from the Backwards Barbie tour. Had I been female, I'd have opted for the shoulderless little black top number with the purple artwork -- Debs, bless her, nearly managed to talk me into buying one. Initially I thought she was trying to get me to be even more effeminate than I felt but I quickly realized that her motives were not in the slightest bit altruistic. I was then forced to wear my personal piece of pink for all to see.
As we got back to our seats, Dolly re-appeared on stage, having changed from her blue and silver spangly outfit into her pea-green spangly dress. Debs commented that she was not keen on the green (she's in the fashion design industry so she is allowed to comment on these things). In one of those "WTF were you thinking Kenny?" moments, my filter broke and I responded immediately with "I know. It *so* clashes with the lighting." I knew, the moment the last trailing syllable had left my lips, what was coming. Debs had been waiting all night for a set-up like that and she wasn't going to take any prisoners. "You know what Kenny? You are *so* right...girlfriend." Cue hysterical laughter from Debs and an evening full of wistful lamentations about how great it was to be out with a gay man again. To say she was merciless is an understatement. I can say with absolute sincerity that I am now scarred for life.
We picked up the Supervisor and Debs' husband from Manchester Uni where they had been watching The Fall. Debs' husband has grown this fungal thingumy around his chin and I had quipped pathetically earlier "I see you haven't found your razor yet". When the Supervisor appeared sporting an even larger and thicker beard and a Russian style hat, I then added a "Did you lose his razor too?". An explanation was given that they had not seen each other for a few weeks and it was entirely coincidental that they had both decided to grow mangey ferrets on their chins. Never one to miss an opportunity to reassert my sexist homophobia, having been lampooned all night, I delved for the crassest macho comment I could come up with in a couple of milliseconds: "So you both decided you wanted to look like t**ts individually? Do you think this is like that phenomena where women who work in close proximity start menstruating simultaneously?". Rather than repairing my bruised ego with a bit of mindless bigotry, I saw the twinkle in Debs' eye as she seized yet another opportunity to further turn the screws on me. I gave up and hummed along to Dolly all the way home.
My only concern about the whole evening is that Debs has seriously taken an interest in my Amy Winehouse costume for New Year at their house. Being the fashionista that she is, I get the feeling that I may well be pulling the act off with more style than I had originally planned. Quite possibly, more pink too.
I might try and document tonight tomorrow, but I'm not sure I can do it any justice whatsoever. That has to go down as one of the best nights of my life. We had an absolute blast. From the lousy pizza to the last lost razor gag, one of those nights you wish you'd video'd. There will be a few "remember when..." tales for years to come.
All in all, it was conclusive proof that if you need someone to go to a gig with, you need a Debs. I think she may have some incriminating footage -- if she has, you can rest assured, it will be censored. In fact, thank God she doesn't have a blog because my ass would be toast by this time tomorrow; any respect that you may have left for me would be irredeemably lost.
I'm going to go off on one here so you might want to put on your Kenny bollocks filter for a while. To be fair, it could be worse. I could be in a really bad mood in which case the pathos would be oozing from your screen right about now. The thing is that I'm actually in a truly toptastic mood. How can you not be when this time tomorrow, you'll be watching Dolly Parton live? I say you, I mean me of course. Thankfully I'm going with one of my first choice gig companions too, which helps. As an aside, I had a call last night from an acquaintance I have been dodging for a while who, when told of my impending adventure to MEN, then spent 20 minutes telling me that she would have been a far better companion than Debs -- can I say wrong? I think I can. On every possible level I can think of. I've known Debs for a squillion or so years and the last time we were due to go to a gig (Bauhaus), I cried off. I owe her. In fact, I think the last gig we went to was in Leeds and was Utah Saints with the Sisters of Mercy -- I remember it very well because I recall thinking that the acoustics in the bathroom were fab; I had gastric flu. I will not have gastric flu tomorrow, so it will be an unqualified good night out.
You see, now I'm thinking happy thoughts, the viciousness is abating. Rather than writing reams of angry-ese, I will list the abject nonsense that has had me swearing with a fluency I normally reserve for MIchael Owen:
» Which wittering idiot at the Football Association came up with the idea that under-8s football would no longer have a league? The reasoning? Because it's harmful for a child to experience the negativity of losing. Does this look like America where we must build up their fragile little souls into something worth ten times what it really is, just so they can fall longer and harder when we choose to kick them in the nads? You know what? Life sucks sometimes. If all they ever suffer in terms of suckage is losing an under-8s football league title, they truly are the chosen ones. If losing at football hurts their tender sensitivities, how the hell will they cope with matters entirely out of their control? Words cannot express my disgust at this arse-wipingly moonbat idea. With my apologies to someone I know, I'm going to leave this with a "slap my arse and call me Rupert, I just cannot believe it".
» We know Kenny is not exactly "with it" don't we? When I say that, I am refering to pop culture although it is probably equally applicable to other aspects of his various personality disorders. We know how he has written about a book's worth of verbage relating to Kylie f***ing Minogue being the devil incarnate and how he cannot understand how any right-minded man could even consider sexual relations with "that woman". Well, I don't know how it all happened but I seem to recognize names for no other reason than they are famous. Just an example. Who the frozen giblets is Jordan? I seem to know that she was married to Andy Cole or some such. What exactly is she famous for? Do I want to read her book that was ominously peering at me in Sainsburys? She looks bloody spooky to me. Whatever happened to having proper celebrity sex-symbols? I can understand the oooeeerrr factor with Shakira -- she can dance, she can sing, she's Latino (oops, did I say Latin?), she's pretty hot and obviously has some talent. Jordan registers at 0.1 on the Kenny celebrity scale -- i.e. she's not one. Same with Charlotte Church. What has she ever done other than date a rugby player? I'm babbling but you get my drift...there appears to be gazillions of them (do they mass produce them?).
I should be mellow and listening to Dolly Parton in preparation for tomorrow, but I'm not. This is what I am listening to. In fact at any given point in the day, you can bet I have Fiona on the go. A proper celebrity -- clinically batshit crazy, angry, ditched, psychotic, with brain, articulate etc. -- everything a Kenny looks for.
I promise that's me done blogging until at least tomorrow. You can all relax and pour yourselves a nice glass of your chosen tipple now.
You know, you are never going to see the end of Latin now, don't you? And you know who to blame. I'm sure the world would be a better place if I'd have been picked up on my chronic lack of imagination in quoting muppet dialogues, but life has a nasty habit of not being fair.
I have a horrible habit of picking up other people's catch-phrases, particularly if they're either useful as totally inappropriate comments or if they're extremely endearing. This is not intentional, but you can bet that if you've used a phrase that has caught my attention, it will be assimilated into my endless list of platitudes, acid barbs or euphemisms.
For example, it was only the other week when I was discussing the latest one-day cricket performance that someone piped up with "littera gesta docet, quid credas, allegoria". Being neither a gentleman nor a scholar, I nodded disingenuously and hummed an affirmative "yea, they were shite." Hang on a minute. That might not be right. I might have been reading a quote attributed to Dante. I'm sure some smart-arse will have looked it up by now and be able to tell me its relevance, because you know I wouldn't have the nous to do that. No matter. I think the subtitle will stay until I tire of it, or unless someone can come up with one that is appropriate.
One subtitle that has crossed my mind is "Bless 'em...". This is one of those phrases that I have found myself using over the last few days. Someone I don't know very well, but who I do like a lot uses it. In other people it would probably sound wrong, but she manages to deliver it with the correct intonation ergo (like that? oops, Latinometer at 1 and rising) it has slipped into my every day speech. This is not good news when you're trying to be assertive -- a good "Bless 'em" doesn't really convey what a "Do you think?" does. In every other usage though, if delivered correctly, it can speak volumes or destroy a whole argument in two words. I'm all for efficiency. I love it. You will now probably hear that phrase as often as you hear me scream "Perkin Elmur" as I'm prone to doing when in polite company, "essentially, in fact, totally" which I was subjected to by a loony maths teacher, "moderately useful" [read "it's worthless"], "your what hurts?" and "who shot who in the what now?" which are two of the few endearing Nski'isms and my personal favorite "the rat race is only ever a race for rats so always make sure you're the man wearing the white coat."
Take your pick, but Perkin Elmur make xray machines so that may be a bit on the dull side. On balance, (hell, that's another one of my nasty phrases that gets overused) I think "moderately useful" would get my vote.
I will be posting something about cows' arses and banjos later, but in the meantime, my boss has asked me to translate some firewall rules into Latin.
Just when you think cosmic karma is on your side, some infidel sends you an email asking you what "that pretentious latin shite" is doing in your title. It's crushing I tell ya, crushing. I wept over my keyboard for hours. I wept so much I needed new batteries in it to be able to type this through the tears. Next door's cat nearly bought it twice as I sobbed.
I was just about to give in and change it to something like "Kenny -- he eats pies", you know, just to set expectations, but I thought I'd put it to the test and see what the masses think.
Have at it...do your worst.
Stay or go? I'd ask that in Latin but I don't know how to and, anyway, it would be pretentious.
Sometimes I'm so cruel I hate myself. I should hate myself now. You will see why...
Here's the deal. Waaarty sent me some email today relating to the bit of Latin up at the top. It was a bit arsey. He will not see this post when he checks here tomorrow. He will see all the rest as if normal blathering is well and good, but not this one. This is the post where I prime you...
I'm going to write a new post after this that mentions someone has complained about the Latin at the top of the page and ask for readers' solicitations as to whether I should keep it or not. What I would like to happen is for the first person who gets here once that post is up, to say something along the lines of "What an arrogant git -- does he not know this is not a democracy?". After that first comment, please, everyone else leave a comment agreeing that the Latin should stay. Let's get some pseudo-momentum going. Feel free to ad lib.
Remember your email addresses are not necessary, just a name.
The first commenter who starts the rigged comments is in for four beers. A beer for everyone else thereafter.
Come to think of it, this is really good practice for when I rig my landslide sweep to power after the revolution.
Incidentally, if you don't like the Latin, say so in these comments, not the ones above. Ta.
God, I feel mean, but he hurt my feelings so he can have a bit of mob justice.
Subject: RE: Glastonbury From: "Bryony Gordon" Date: Thu, June 26, 2008 9:21 am EST To: Priority: Normal Options: View Full Header | View Printable Version | Download this as a file | View Message details
Guilty as charged. Got given one for Christmas. Though I did admit that in my demolition of the iPhone!
We've just been trying to name a couple of firewalls here at the sweat shop. One of the lads (you know who you are -- he's a Telegraph reader so I really don't get how he can be such a git) has suggested "Kylie and Jason". Can you guess the reaction? You see that plume of smoke emanating from just near Tetley Brewery in Leeds? Well I'm the accelerant at the base.
Naturally, after I had killed off a few processes (we're not allowed kittens in the office), I started to think about names for a pair of firewalls. The first ones I came up with were Statler and Waldorf. Keeping my eye firmly on the ball, I rushed back to my desk to look up Statler and Waldorf quotes. As with anything Sellers ever did, once I get a particular style of humor in my head, it stays until I'm distracted by something else. You wouldn't want to be around me today, even more than usual.
A couple of comedy peaches to finish with that are more than likely going to have me giggling all day:
Statler: Waldorf> Wake up! Here come the bikinis! Waldorf: Oh boy! Let's syncronize our pace makers!
Statler: So, that was Alice Cooper. Waldorf: You should see his sister: James Fennimore!
Waldorf: I used to have a comb-over. Statler: Ah, yes. To be 65 again. Waldorf: Oh, the memories. Statler: 2 kidneys. Waldorf: Good times.
That last one right there; that's me and Waaarty. We honestly have had conversations that have gone along those lines.
You have to love her. However I do seem to recall a lengthy piece that she wrote condemning the cult of iPod. At the time I was in total agreement. She has obviously had the same non-epiphany that I had. Next up, she'll be after a Macbook (I'm still without one and bonus month seems a long time to wait for such a beast).
Her detractors seem to be up particularly early today. I wish they'd just leave the poor lass alone or have a lie in or some such. I'm sure I'll spend my next smoke thinking how to phrase something suitably pithy to defend her honor in her comments. And singularly fail.
Seeing my subliminal messaging appears to be failing -- not one of you got the references the other day (v. poor) -- I'll not even bother pointing out the obvious reference to Sunday in the title. I'm sure you'll all have got it as soon as you read it.
I've just got the following spam, which caused me to audibly guffaw:
Hello Kenny,
Do you remember your wedding day? What about the day your baby arrived? Life is full of big moments like these. Not to mention all the smaller things that happen along the way. Well you can now record and share these moments - on your brand new Timeline. Start adding to your Timeline here http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/ Signedin/Timeline.aspx
I'm touched. I have responded.
Hello Sally,
It's been such a long time since I last responded to one of your personalised automatic mailshots. How are you? And all the other little scripts? I'm particularly fond of the genesreunited script -- and it seems to be reciprocated because she's always emailing me, sometimes to distraction. I have lost count of the number of times I have dreamt of email from her. Does she have a significant other, lead a swinging lifestyle or have a large personal fortune? None of these are deal-breakers, but I do like to set my boundaries.
Strange that you should remember my wedding day since I barely knew you back then. Which wedding day are you talking about? Wife number one who lasted all of 18 months before I finally conceded the fact that she was homicidal? Or are we talking wife number two, who lasted quite a few years longer but couldn't quite cope with the concept of fidelity -- she used to email me too, much like you. It was usually around payday. The last email I read from her told me that she was pregnant, which I can tell you surprised me no end seeing we hadn't even spoken on the phone let alone shared a bed for about 3 years. You might want to email her about her wedding. I have no such plans unless Bryony Gordon comes to her senses and moves North. As far as remembering them goes, thanks but I'd sooner be stuck in a room full of Antipodean ankle-biting midgets.
You are right to remind me of all of the little things we so quickly forget. For example, I went out to smoke a few moments ago, fully intending to grab something from my car on the way back -- did I remember? No. A moment lost if you ask me. The queue in Tescos was something to write home about too. Imagine if I'd missed that little gem. While I'm thinking of small victories, for the first time in 3 and a half years, I actually got in the right driver's side of the car first time; I seem to be perpetually getting into the passenger side and looking for a wheel and some pedals. Now, if I could only master driving on the left hand side of the road. Ah, such sweet nothings.
As far as timelines go, I'm afraid I'll have to say no. I already do battle with a timesheet provided by your cousin SAP once a week -- she's a fickle minx and takes up too much of the time I could be experiencing more little things. The good news is she's a bit on the thick side so thinks Starbucks is a top priority piece of really technical doofering.
Anyway, nice to hear from you again. Say hi to the rest of the bots from me. How is your sister site? As I recall she had an excellent back-end database and a pair of EPROMs to be beheld. The GUI left a little to be desired but with the correct patches, we could give her a bit of a facelift.
I'm not usually easily impressed by contemporary art, prefering my Pre-Raphaelite idealized work, but it's worth a few minutes of your time to have a gander at this video. My only complaint is that I got the point in the first few minutes; after that Kenny's attention wanders to other important things...in this case, bacon.
"It was a game of three sets. What can I say? The lads did brilliant. At the end of the day, I tried to play my game. I practiced some technical tennis so I can steal Tim Henman's fans but it didn't work. I won, and I'm sorry. I know I have let down those who revel in the defeat of the underdog. It is particularly sad that Michael Eaton appears to have not followed the plan either. He is ranked 661 in the world and is quickly becoming the people's choice, stealing my thunder. I realise there will be penalty points docked from the construction championship. I have let you all down. But I will be back for the next Twenty20 match and then the US Masters in Augusta."
"We know that Cristiano and Andy are world class British athletes who compete at the toppest of top levels. Andy had reported to us that he had placed a substantial bet -- an accumulator, if you like -- that he would be knocked out in the first round against inferior opposition, that the result would be public by 5:00pm Monday and that Cristiano Ronaldo would be signing for Bradford City within the next five days. We took those claims in good faith and ignored the obvious devious mindgame that gave us Ronaldo buying a house in Batley so ran with what was left. We did not mean to reduce the female population of Britain to premature tears. We apologise and will do everything within our power to ensure that our mistake is rectified and that those short of a Y chromosome will be able to justifiably sob in the next few days. We will be providing free Mydol to all female readers."
Get used to this because Kenny is entering a new flavor of Linux. There will be long rants about how Ubuntu does things wrong. And by wrong, we all know, of course, that what we really mean is that it does it differently to Redhat. We all know how Kenny loves his Redhat.
The install was a breeze. I thought the wireless bit was a breeze too but I'm afraid I was wrong. I've done battle with it for a while and quite frankly, I have had enough for the evening. I hate things that work and then just stop working. I might add that I hate installs that don't put obvious packages on by default. It was only when I tried to add these packages that I noticed that the wireless link had gone South. I could see the router but no further. DNS worked on my laptop but not on Ubuntu. Black mark.
I had hoped that I could just get the Linux box into a state where I could use it just as a server in the corner of the room, but it looks like there's much work to be done before that happens.
Sheesh. You work minor miracles with big complex pieces of kit on a daily basis (don't laugh Grom), and you come home to a poxy Linux box that doesn't appear to know that you should be treated as God. As we well know, computers can smell fear. I have none, so what is its game?
The first person to tell me to get a Mac will receive a harsh stare followed by an offer to let them buy one for me.
» Thrice (count 'em three times) I have been asked what is wrong with me today by mi'learned colleagues. Oh, and Grommage, but he doesn't count because he thinks I'm permanently off in la-la land. Apparently my lack of sniping and cursing is upsetting them. I will make amends tomorrow.
» Apparently Jlo passed me on the motorway this morning, while beeping and waving (much to the consternation of the rest of the road users) and I didn't notice. He alleges that I missed him because he could see I was singing my head off, oblivious to the rest of the chaos around me. This might have been believable but it's a rare beast that passes Midnight Cowboy in the morning so I'm thinking he's made that up.
» I sat through a meeting on blade servers, spoke only once and even that was a casually suggestive cough as something nagged at me as not being quite right. I did yawn, but I did not fall asleep. My amateur opinion is that the hardware boys have nearly got the hang of what the software boys have been doing with dumb hardware for years.
» I can't think of a single thing to bitch about.
And as if today couldn't get any better, one of the lads has just handed me an Ubuntu 8.04 CD, ready-burned for my desktop system at home. Guess what I'm doing tonight.
I knew not squishing that spider the other night would pay back in karma.
In a shock result, Andy Murray has been knocked out of Wimbledon the day before he plays. It was a rubbish game and he was eaten alive. British tennis has never been lower. Yada yada yada. Tim Henman, Virginia Wade, waffle. Rain briefly interrupted a picnic in the park nearby. Cliff Richard shocked the crowds by not singing. Sue Barker, John McEnroe, blart. John Inverdale, Nicky Cambpell, nice dress, shocking hotpants. Price of strawberries. More champagne Sinjen? Don't mind if I do Fortesque old bean. Luscious green courts. Speaking of luscious, Sharapova. Foot faults, double faults, double helix. Next generation of hopefuls. Retractable roofs. Murray, regroup, better than ever, unfortunate. See you next year. In the meantime, tune in to 5-Live for commentary on the least radio-friendly sport ever. Text 85058.
There -- that should save you twenty minutes on Wednesday morning.
I spent the latter part of last week fiddling with load-balancers and network gubbins that would make my mother cry. I was glad of the weekend so I could switch my brain into low gear and fiddle with PHP.
Today, I have had to put on my old marketing hat in order to gloss a presentation into management speak, complete with hidden agenda and whaddyaknow, a whole boat load of reasons why it all makes tons of sense. In really small print it gives the costs but if you flick through the main points on that slide, they're contentious enough that the small print will be missed. Job done.
Since then, I have been mostly laughing at the enlightened comments of the Daily Mail's finest correspondents (doff of the cap in the Gromster's direction -- who incidentally sat in the same meeting so is probably just as stir-crazy as I am -- we both came out, nodded sagely at each other and quick-stepped over to Starbucks). I think I might point the owner of that site in the direction of Bryony's comments -- there must be enough fodder in there to fill an entire months worth of bloggage.
The latest reason why you know revolution makes sense.
This is getting ridiculous. I am by no means on the breadline in terms of income but it is getting to the point where my pseudo-jocular references to regime change are starting to become a little more serious. Every flipping which way, there stand Gordon and Alistair with their hands out. Actually, it's much worse than that. Since Gordon and Alistair care ever so deeply for the average man's plight in these times of man-made economic volatility, they very altruistically cap council tax rates and refuse to undertake any major infrastructure enhancements (such as, say, a tram service running West of Manchester) on the basis of cost, prefering instead to focus on lottery funded infrastructure necessities like, say, an Olympic stadium.
I already pay £4 a day to park at work. In some respects, I'm quite lucky, especially seeing that this is a private lot with security gates etc. Still, £20 a week on top of the £90 a week in petrol it costs me is quite a sting. Imagine if I touched just inside the ringroad of Manchester en-route every day. That would be another £4 a day, so my sum total cost for just going to work would be £130 a week. I think I'm right in saying that £130 a week is around what minimum wage translates to. If you multiply up, that's £520 a month. US people, translate that to dollars; about $1000 a month just to get to work. I guess you understand the reasons for your country's existence now: what was the phrase? "No taxation without representation." That is a phrase that should be leaping from everyone's lips here.
I mentioned Barbara Ellen's column yesterday in which she wrote a mocking indictment of the English propensity for capitulation. She compared our acceptance of smoking bans to French acquiescence to most things. The damning part was that the French revolted against smoking bans, albeit while munching Brie and waving white flags. What did we Brits do? Sat back and looked sulky. Which is exactly what we do whenever the government shaft us at every turn.
As you may have guessed, and I've undoubtedly mentioned before, I'm a big Paul Weller fan. Over the last few weeks, I've kind of resurrected my Jam and Style Council stuff (I'd say CDs but Kenny is now eKenny® or iKenny® thanks to the iPod) and the one thing that has struck me is that the reasons for the sentiment behind the music haven't gone away at all. Maybe I missed a few years of quiet desperation while I was in the US, but I get the feeling that the British public sat back and drank their own vile bathwater for a while, believing that things had changed for the better. They palpably haven't.
If you look at the state of the economy, we're in the worst of all worlds; an unprecedented financial quagmire.
So as the government tries to save its way to glory which is oh-so the British way, Rome burns. Rome in this case is Manchester. So Manchester being a local council, ergo by definition a self-serving jobs for life institution, looks to line the coffers by jumping on the Greenie bandwagon and slapping yet another tax on its good residents -- the people who make it what it is and keep the self-serving egotists in a job for life. If you're going to wave a greenish flag, at least admit that green isn't your favorite color -- don't dress up a tax in support of it as the noble construct you know it isn't.
I'll leave it there for the moment or I'll be at this all day, such is the wrath of iKenny®.
Just remember, as someone once said, "When so many people agree with you, you're either very right or very, very wrong." Sign the petition and let's get these hopeless attempts at managers out of the plush offices they slime into every day and get them shouldering some of the responsibility for congestion, environmental damage, chronic mismanagement etc. I've long been an armchair political voyeur, but my sap is rising. At the last election Alfred the OK ran for election. I don't think I'd go quite as far as putting the effort in to run for election but I'm not averse to a coup that seizes power. I can't see any difference between me seizing power and the current oblivious dictatorial regime that is running us into the ground while flagrantly sticking their splayed buttocks in the direction of Brussels.
Now, I must away for the rest of the day to earn enough money to fund the luxury of coming to work.
Apologies to Gerald Durrell for flagrantly ripping off his book title. Back sooner than I thought I would be.
My family never cease to amaze me. Being the eldest of a gazillion grandchildren, I guess I'm the one that's been around long enough to try to weigh up. And boy, do they spend some time examining me. I am treated with copious amounts of love, protection, fear, trepidation and bafflement in equal measures. At times it's kind of hard to know how to react when you know that everyone is sat waiting for your reaction. As I have said on more than one occasion, there are some things I am better off not knowing -- if in doubt, don't tell me so that you know I won't react at all. There's nothing too complicated about that is there?
The only two reasons I can think of for this unhealthy focus on me are that they think I'm either an asset that must be protected from himself or I am criminally irresponsible and a massive liability to the world at large so must be contained. I have yet to work out which it is. Neither would surprise me.
I'd elaborate on why that thought suddenly crossed my mind but you might form an opinion as to which of the above is true and, as a matter of principle, I would disagree.
I really do wish that the Guardian/Observer would sort out their use of the "name" property in their online pages. It makes it highly annoying to point to a link to something and then point out that the something in question is half way down the page, so people have to scroll to find out what the hell you are talking about. I'm not saying having to scroll is arduous, just tedious.
I'm lucky today in that I have a whole day of nothing to do and nowhere to be. I could squander it on finding the vacuum cleaner and polish but that would lead to only half a job being done. It is much better to do these things when you're time limited so you do them with a purpose and quickly. Given a reasonably large chunk of time, I would apply the first law of project management and the whole dealybop would take the amount of time available as I procrastinated, hoovered 1 square foot, had a cigarette, made a coffee, looked at the paper etc., so I guess I'll leave it for the half hour I can find elsewhere in the week. I'm liking the logic behind this and am even starting to believe it.
I made a grand start to whatever today holds by hitting Barbara Ellen's column in the Observer. It may just have been the fact that I was only half way down my first coffee but the main piece about the "bleaching" of Michelle Obama lost me somewhere around the second sentence. I'll try to re-read it once the caffeine has kicked in.
To compensate, Ms Ellen's take on David Beckham's tackle is worth a giggle (shame the online version has no photo -- the paper does). Also, the article on, and I'm paraphrasing here, the English being the new French would be a hoot were it not so close to the bone.
For the crosswordies amongst you, I have not looked carefully, but there is no obvious apology for last week's blunderous typo. Today's took me all of 10 minutes, with one exception. It is eight letters long, I only have two letters to fill in and it is probably the name of a town about 15 miles away from here but can I think of it? Can I hell. It will come.
Bugger -- I've just remembered something I absolutely have to do today. My car tax is due. Damn, that's put me in a bad mood. So much for my jaunt out to the coast. That said, my car tax for the year costs about the same as 2.5 tanks of petrol so it's not exactly stinging. In fact, what the hell is the point of it? Even if you drive a massive Shogun or similar, your car tax is about 4 tanks of gas for a car your size. It's another one of those "Outraged of Welwyn Garden City" taxes that is but a fly in the ointment of your annual motoring costs. I am convinced that the government puts forward these petty little snipes in order for the great unwashed to get all uppity about them, thereby distracting the population from real reports of horror.
One report last week claimed that 25% of all cancer treatment in the UK is funded by charities -- if that is not something to get riled about, I don't know what is. Our overly taxed asses fund a National Health Service which apparently cannot afford to pay for medical treatment. In other areas of healthcare, the figure funded by external sources is higher. Wherever the blame lies (be it with the treasury allocation of funds or with the NHS bean-counters), it is ultimately a governmental problem. One that is far more important than pathetic bitch-slap taxes on motoring.
Alors, given I have time on my hands, I might just drop a one-line email to the Observer and get them to add bloody name elements to their web pages.
I'm sure I'll be back later. That is unless I get a better offer.
Right peeps, I've said this before and this is the last time I'll say it. If you use cable for your internet access and you live in Wigan or thereabouts, please email me (Vanquisher, Emma F -- there's no need for you to do so -- you're on the whitelist). I'm about to scrub anyone who crops up as wiga.blueyounder.co.uk based on some cunning criteria...so unless you are Emma or the Vanquisher, you may very well find that you're going to be unceremoniously dumped soon. I'm not doing this to be spiteful. Well, okay to some extent I am, but that's the least of the reasons. I'm actually doing it for one very, very good reason. Thank you for your patience.
Just when your hatred of Bill Oddie is under control and you casually delete any email from the Waaart goading you on the subject of the bearded wonder with nary a gunshot, fate conspires against you and sends something to test you.
I was just stood outside smoking one of Silk Cut's finest, when an image turned the corner and headed in the direction of the security gate at work. I had to do a double-take. It was the be-bearded one, or his double. I bit my tongue, took a long drag on my cigarette and pretended it wasn't happening. Jlo, who was in attendance, smirked. I looked up again at the smarmalike and noticed that not only was he wearing the same Oddie glasses, but he had a second pair of identical spectacles hooked onto the front of his V-neck jumper. T**t.
I smoked the rest of the cigarette in one single gulp and headed to the gate, where the bearded tit in question had tailgated someone and then slammed the security gate shut, more or less in my face, forcing me to rummage around for my security pass to unlock it. I overtook the git in question on the way to the door, opened it with my card and then shut it before he got there. He obviously doesn't work here as he had to ring the buzzy fella.
Thankfully he didn't head in the direction of our floors so he is not connected to the company. Could you imagine if he was, and I had a meeting with him in it? Or if he was a vendor? Or a compliance guy? Jesus. I would be fired on the spot. More than thirty seconds of such cruel reality would be too much for me to cope with.
I think I need to get Jlo to teach me some of this warrior yoga malarky. That and the headlines today (more of which you will probably hear later) have left me shell-shocked. I must lie down until I am composed enough to drive.
You know the drill. The two-by-four is in the coal shed (yes, we still have those 'oop Norf) and the nails are in the wash-house (yes, we...oh bugger it). Mind the poppies when you do the deed though. One has to finance one's arms dealing somehow.
Thank God that Bryony has kind of peaked my interest this morning or you would have got a veritable torrent of expletives about self-important prats in suits, glued to bluetooth earpieces, sat in Starbucks with the damned chocolate sprinkles removed from the counter and placed in the middle of their table, because obviously no-one else could possibly want to use it. I nearly lost it yesterday afternoon when I had one of my patented moments of utter rage over an be-suited arse who chose to stand outside Starbucks to have his cell phone conversation and then moved away from the entrance when people could overhear his boring and tedious conversation; nobody gives a shit about what you are talking about, and I'm damned sure that whatever it is cannot be that confidential that people popping in for a coffee are a threat. That is unless you are a foreign agent or cell-member -- and even if you are, "5" will have you pegged wherever you run, you pompous prig.
I said you would avoid a torrent. You did. Can you imagine five pages of bile? That's what you would have had were it not for Bryony.
I was half listening to the radio, rather than my usual Fiona Apple at squillions of decibels, on the way in. The statement earlier in the week surrounding the dress code at Royal Ascot which effectively vetoed certain items of womens' clothing, the way they apply their make-up etc. kind of grated on me a little. I'm not totally anti dress-code but to single out women as being the gender who lower the tone with their modern clothes is as pig-ignorant as lambasting them for having the audacity to not be men. Which reminds me of a little story...
A couple of weeks ago, Sunday lunch conversation turned to politics. My mother, and both grandmothers started character assassinating Margaret Thatcher. I approve of such a pastime. What I didn't approve of is a comment that emanated from Die Frau Führer that stated "She was too much like a man." Never one to pass up a bit of a dig I pointed out that her problem was that she was clinically certifiable and it wouldn't have mattered whether she was male, female, transgendered, alien (okay she might be) or the devil incarnate (judging from her spawn, that is a very real possibility). The argument came back at me that only men behave like she does. I pointed out the very obvious flaw in that argument at which point the discussion descended into a women's lib conversation that struck me as being possibly the most bitchy anti-women nonsense I had ever heard. I listened for 5 minutes or so.
When my "talking bollocks" meter hit about 9.5 and alarms started sounding in South American countries, I pulled a rabbit out of the hat -- "listening to you, I swear I'm the only feminist in the room". There was a stunned silence as the penny dropped and they all realized how ridiculous the previous few minutes had been. To raise the spirits again, having fairly flattened their conversation, I appended "I burnt my bra in the seventies." Phew...
Moral: don't eat Sunday lunch with me.
As far as Ladies' Day at Ascot goes, I see it as being a throwback to Victorian Britain full of all that is phatic bourgeois nonsense of the first order. As a news item, it only merits a mention for the chronic snobbery it displays.
If I were Bryony, I'd wear a top hat and tales. A woman in a morning suit? A man of my reputation...? I must get down to Ascot this afternoon.
I mentioned yesterday that I had got to the bottom of an annoying iPod problem. I'm going to post the answer here for the search engines to pick up if only because it was bloody annoying and I was bloody annoyed that no-one else appears to have bothered posting it anywhere. I would post it on one of the Apple forums or some such, but that would involve registering and more junk email, so we'll have to pray that I manage to phrase this well enough for the search engines to be interested.
The problem that I was having was that when my iPod Touch was syncing with my laptop, it kept failing mid-transfer with an error message "could not write to disk". This was quite obviously a lie as, depending on what phase of the moon it was, it would fail immediately, fail half-way through or complete the job (although that was the least frequent outcome).
I trawled the Apple forums looking for advice, which stated the bleeding obvious and did not apply to my PC or my iPod.
I first noticed the problem on Saturday, shortly after I had downloaded series 6 of Spooks and started watching it on the LCD I use as my extended desktop but noticed that the quality of the picture and sound degraded quickly. I was a bit miffed but my laptop is over 3 years old so I figured I was asking a bit too much of it, so I intended to copy the series from the PC to my iPod and use the RGB connector to feed into my TV. Unfortunately, whenever I tried, it balked and failed with the above message. Occasionally there was a sporadic "could not communicate with device" too.
Apple state the obvious -- unplug all non-essential peripherals and try again. I humored them and did so, but no joy.
I tested my long-held theory that some USB ports are more equal than others when it comes to doling out power but even using my known and trusted USB port didn't help. I swapped out my docking station in favor of the Apple lead. Still no joy. I swapped my wireless PCMCIA card out in favor of a USB dongel. Still no joy. I completely disconnected it from any network, disabled AVG, Apache, MySQL -- everything. No frickin' joy.
Eventually, I thought "bugger it" and attempted to do a jailbreak on it, but that just trashed the iPod so I ended up having to restore it. which was problematic because of the disk write errors. I ended up having to do it iteratively. [Aside -- if you take out the Apple connector before you acknowledge the disk write errors, what has already been copied across remains intact whereas, if you don't, the iTunes software cleans up and removes what has been copied. This means that the next time you try to sync, you'll not be starting from the beginning again, so eventually you get a restore done -- keep in mind that that's only okay for relatively small files -- if you fail half way through a video syncing, you're back to scratch.]
From somewhere in my gut, I had a sudden thought...I've only recently bought the flat-panel display and have it as a second display (extended desktop) running off the laptop onboard graphics card. I unplugged it, set the desktop to be jolly old 1024x768 on the laptop screen, started a sync of 3 episodes of Spooks (approx 1.5GB), held my breath, watched the first one successfully copy and then could not watch any longer so left the room for 10 minutes. When I came back, hey presto, all had copied. I deleted those three episodes from the iPod and did it again. Bingo. Success.
So if you're having sync problems with your iPod and your laptop running with a second display (I'm on XP Pro, SP2), temporarily revert to just the main display. Even it doesn't allow you to sync, you've eliminated another variable. I guess the second display puts an added load on the system that might grab the processor for a touch too long and cause timeouts on the USB connection. Or it could be an interrupt problem. If your laptop is newer and better spec'd than mine, you might not even see the problem at all.
As I was typing that, I'm now wondering if the degradation in the video quality while watching TV shows on the extended display is another symptom of the same problem. I should try using the external monitor as the primary (and only) display and then if I still have no joy, try it without the LCD completely.
Anyway, although that might be even more tedious than my usual efforts, if it helps just one person, it was worth doing.
Print the headline: "Olympic stadium 'hits £525m mark'".
If you scan through the archives that are available, you will lose count of the number of times I have gone off on a proverbial one about this.
Salient fact: no country in the world has demonstrably made any money from hosting the olympics. It is a cynical way to raise money to be spent on areas that need improvement but have been ignored by government. It also gives the private enterprise vibe so a process that is bordering on communist is disguised as great for industry. In reality, it generates a stadium that will be filled for the duration of the olympics and then visited by awe-struck hopefuls of tomorrow and the wistful losers of 2012. Don't even get me started on who will build it (shame the protectionist ethics of communism won't be applied to that). The worst of it is that the government, not brave enough to face the wrath of the tax-payer (and if I lived in London, I would be livid) by asking them to completely foot the bill for the largest waste of public money there has been since the Millennium fiasco, will use the back door route of funding a vast chunk of it through the National Lottery.
No, I'm not grumpy. No, I'm not pissed off that my taxes are frittered away on EU subsidies. And finally, no, the tram service in Greater Manchester will not extend West, but will quite happily go North, East, South, Down and Up. No, I'm not really thinking it's time to move on again -- Kennys are fickle beasts who have a tendency not to lay their hats down for too long. I can think of one (admittedly very good) reason to stay in the UK, but that's a pretty poor show isn't it?
Hand me my crossword -- I can feel some violence coming on!
I'm actually in a very good mood, but don't spoil my angry-vibe. It helps sometimes.
Just in case you doubted my purchase of Pentangle and their comedy song titles:
What the hell, while I'm at it...sample a bit of Let no man steal your thyme:
If I still have the energy later, I will impart a nugget of a solution to a problem that I have encountered and been doing battle with since Saturday. iPod owners will love me.
The Waaart has come up with a top notch idea. He sent me the following clues:
27 (5,5) -- bit obvious 27 (6-5,2,5) -- I know I got the first bit right but I had to guess the second two words (try as I might, I could not get "MY ARSE" to fit in).
Let's see if we can add some more...
27 (3,5) 27 (3,4) 27 (4,7,4,3)
The Telegraph was an insult today. New world record of half a cigarette. The Times proved a more worthy adversary -- I have one letter of a nine-letter word left. How hard can that be? Answer: impossible.
Since I posed the question yesterday about the mysterious clue in the Observer, I have had a boat load of hits looking for the reasoning behind the answer to the clue "27" being LONGITUDE. It appears no-one can explain why that is so. The Waaart and I independently came up with LENTITUDE too, but that makes even less sense. My infamous biblical prowess was exposed as a complete sham when I had to ask someone how many days there were in Lent, in a desperate attempt to clutch at *anything* that might be helpful. Nada. I even called His Worship who was none the wiser. If Stan can't get it, there is little hope for the rest of us mortals.
I spent most of yesterday evening writing a lengthy and carefully worded email to do with worky-type things, which absolutely drained the life out of me. Rather than winding down with an episode of Spooks, which is frighteningly plausible in its depiction of the Iran, Israel and US situation, I opted for something a tad more lighthearted; a re-run of Nevermind The Buzzcocks featuring two great tastes, Penny Smith and Amy Winehouse. I've always liked Penny Smith even if she works for possibly the crappest news organization in the UK -- she's probably the one woman on the planet my dad and I agree is totally inoffensive but has bags of carefully masked humor. That said, as a staid and (relatively) law-abiding Telegraph-reader, I really should tut-tut disapprovingly of Amy Winehouse's behavior, but as a young-at-heart thirty-something, I must say that she must be one hell of a scream on a night out. To prove how much my filter must misregister, while I bash the horrors that are the Midget and Carla Bruni, I will state for the record that I think Amy Winehouse is cute. Now I come to think of it, this may explain my marriages to two very attractive yet fundamentally psychotic women. You'd think I'd learn.
Alors, as you were. If I don't harry someone into an early grave, it will be my body that falls into the waiting hole.
[Update: from here, we have "It's a typo, according to answerbank the clue online is "Distance in degrees outlined, shaped around Greenwich initially"., ergo LONGITUDE. Doh!]
There was a long period of time where I looked at the news and shook my head in disbelief. Every now and again, something so patently absurd cropped up so I took it to task, head on, with all guns and many mixed metaphors blaring. I thought the lack of good blog-fodder was just a natural nadir.
And then I read this. It is David Cameron parodying himself. The swine politicians have got wise to our like, lampooning them for their buffoonery (love that word) and have started getting pre-emptive piss-takes of themselves in before we can even fire up a browser. It's just not playing the game.
If anyone can make up a more ludicrous policy, I cordially invite them to stand as my local MP, 'cos they have my vote, no question.
Because I'm busy, I bring you the kind of nonsense that crosses my event horizon on a Monday morning. Unfortunately other stuff has crossed it as well which is pretty pressing so I must be brief:
» I knew when I wrote the title to the post below that it was not correct French so to the pedants who pointed it out, I gesticulate in a cheese-eating fashion in your general direction.
» The lass in Starbucks has ruined my morning. She has been trying to find an English team to support and has come up with Chelsea. If you own Starbucks stock, sell it quick because there's a protest about to happen.
» I witnessed a fantastic Monday Moonbat Moment (MMM™) while in Tescos this morning. A chap who had a paper refused to use the self-serve checkout machine because, I quote, and I shitteth ye not, he had "ideological problems with them". I'd like to think I disguised my look of utter contempt but I have no control over the raising of an eyebrow when faced with a real live moonbat. I know I must have given something away by the fact that the young lady behind the counter giggled as she saw my reaction. Come to think of it, I must tame that eyebrow bit -- someone else caught me out and read my mind even though I thought I had not given anything away.
» Kevin Pietersen's "now you see me right-handed, now you see me left-handed" trick further elevates him to Godlike status in my book. Bowlers have it too easy. It's about time batsmen changed the game a little. Hats off to KP for not only being a fantastic athlete, but by challenging the accepted norms.
» My mate JLo is sore today. The reason? He did "warrior yoga" on Saturday. "Warrior yoga?" I'm speechless.
» I had one clue left in the Observer yesterday. Anyone who saw it will know which one is was. Stan, might I ask you what 3D was? The clue was "27 (9)" and that was it. There was no 27 in the puzzle, but it was on page 27. The only word I could fit in there was LONGITUDE -- if anyone could explain to me (and Waaarty) why 27 has any relevance to LONGITUDE, I will be eternally grateful.
I'm never short of an opinion or two to bandy around. Never can that be truer than a Sunday morning when I'm still half asleep with only a single gallon of coffee inside me, half the crossword done on the first pass, the front page scanned and the Opinion column read. It is my humble submission to you all (and I'd cherish that because they don't come that often) that Barbara Ellen could write about American football and still have me glued. Sometimes the subject matter is a little less than earth-shattering but the style is always there. There are not many constants in a Kenny's state of perpetual flux, but my religious dotage to columnists knows no bounds.
When I turned the page to Ellen's column earlier this morning (okay, an hour ago), I saw the headline and immediately my disinterest filter registered an impending yawn but what the hell, she's usually got a point so I read it. For those of you who cannot be bothered with the taxing job that would be clicking the above link to find out what I'm about to babble about, let me summarize for you...the French president's missus claims to have slept with 30 people and it's all a bit unseemly when dropped into the landscape of others who are apparently one notch short of needing a new expenses-paid bed.
What I must get off my chest first is this: who would want to sleep with Carla Bruni? I reckon I have a defective gene or the wrong prescription in my glasses because if you'll forgive me being a tad indecent, I wouldn't touch her with W's. What is it that people find so attractive about her? I'm sorry to bring up midgets again, but it's the same kind of "WTF?" I get when people start ranting about the Minogue. Now I'm sure that they are both fairly nice people (sic -- well okay, they *might* be), and I hate judging people on their looks but given that the whole world seems to adore Bruni for her sexiness and beauty, I think I'm on ethically safe ground focusing in on that one point. Thankfully, for the most part, we are genetically predisposed *not* to mate with people we find unattractive which is why most of us have secret stashes of Angelina Jolie pictures and not Marty Feldman. My mind just boggles as to which strand of DNA is so frequently malformed.
The second thing that crossed my mind as I ate a fourth or fifth cigarette, is who cares? Well apparently enough people to make it worthy of comment. A more realistic question did crop up though: who counts, and what criteria do you have to earn yourself your "notch"? I mean does sleeping with one of your mates count just because you were both a tad on the frisky side even though you knew that it was a one-off? At this point I would like to reassure readers that may have an abhorrent mind and, worse still, an unchecked imagination, that I'm talking about female mates here. Jesus, the alternative is truly horrendous -- have you seen my mates? [ducks]. I mean, if you'd gone away for the weekend as mates, got separated from the rest of the crowd and ended up really enjoying each other's company and did a bit of knockin' da boots, does that count as a notch? I suppose some would say yes. I know I've done it more than once. Do I feel guilty about it? Absolutely not. Although, were I in the public eye, I would probably feel extremely vulnerable knowing that I had, just because it's nobody's business but my own and the people in question. I'm not prudish about it (as is evidenced by the fact that I am unphased by saying it here) but the public capacity for salacious tales would become an issue.
So back to the first part of the question; who counts? I could not tell you how many people I had slept with. That's not because there are too few or too many to think of; just that I honestly have never even considered the thought of counting. If asked I could most accurately respond relatively, by saying it's certainly more than the number of times I have been in a church. Ooh, maybe I am going to hell. I might suggest that if you can rhyme that statistic off the top of your head, you either married (and stayed married) young or you have very low self-esteem. I suppose you could be an utter bastard too, but let's assume you're not.
I'm amazed I have never spotted this metric before. Now I have, no doubt it will surface subliminally in every society column on the planet. Some days I swear I'm better off just sticking to the crossword.
I tell you, some days, it's hard work being Kenny. I am the dictionary definition of altruism; always thinking of others. So you can imagine my reaction to the horrendous news that Eddy and my brother have had the annual gypsy posse arrive in their little piece of heaven. Tesco is shut and the main street is blocked by endless caravans being towed by filthy non-tax-paying people in caravans. It's my brother's worst nightmare.
I was told this shortly before my father asked how my car had gone at its service. The thing is, my brakes are weird. They're fabulous on motorways but if you are just pootling around town, stopping and starting, all you need to do is look at the brake pedal and they jam the anchors on like there's no tomorrow. Airbags inflate, sirens start and you usually get a HGV approaching your arse at high velocity. Anything approaching my arse at high velocity causes me to wince so this is not good.
I explained to Pater that I had complained that the brakes were a bit "keen" at slow speeds and that it was only a matter of time before I was illegally rear-ended. I then detailed the fact that the bright spark mechanic must have applied a scouse logic filter to what I was saying or only heard the part of about me moaning about the brakes so had adjusted them to be a bit more responsive. As I left the parking lot, I dabbed the brakes and, whoosh, inertia kicked in and I started heading for the windshield.
It's a well known fact amongst those that know me that I do tend to live on past glories. And a nasty habit that was instilled into me by my old CEO is that no matter what the problem, I will have a half-baked theory as to what is causing it, that I will adamantly expound to anyone within earshot. For example, during my time at university, I had the hots for a young lady who shared a house with one of my mates. I was like a puppy dog and would go out of my way to make her life easier. Freezing cold Middlesbrough night? "Here D, have my coat -- you look stricken -- it's okay, this T-shirt will do fine for me." One day I had the fortune to be at their house for a lech brew when D announced that her car wouldn't start. Kenny to the rescue. I went out, had a listen, shook a few pipes, had another listen and then declared that there was a blockage in the fuel line. Having sourced some tools, I took it all apart, washed it down and re-plumbed the offending pipe. Job done, the car started and D went on her merry way leaving me with my one and only mechanical victory in life. She promised me a pint later that evening. From my reaction, you'd have thought that I had been on a promise of acts that would make my mother cry for a week solid. A pint was a start. If truth be told, I was just happy that I was going to get to spend some time with her; she had that vitality that you rarely see in people.
Anyway, long story short, about 15 minutes later the phone rang. The car had packed in and she'd flattened the battery. I strapped on my superman costume, grabbed my jump-leads and screamed to the poor maiden's aid. To my utter surprise, I managed to fix it, but properly this time. Two pints for Kenny.
In some respects this is possibly the worst thing that could ever have happened to me. Since that day, I have never known my limits when it comes to technical problems. I usually have no idea what the blazes is wrong with something, but some warped piece of logic in my head drips something into my guts that tells me where to look. It just so happens that it's usually right when it comes to computers. Unfortunately with anything else I run the very real risk of completely knackering whatever it is that needs to be fixed.
Ever since that day, I have survived attacks on my mechanical abilities by citing that one incident. As such, I will authoritatively state that something on my breaks needs loosening. I have a gut feeling that I must be about due a second victory.
As I reeled off my quarter-baked theory on the brakes to my father who was looking at me with that "Christ, how have I managed to raise such an idiot" look, my mother interjected with the news that Eddy and Kidder had had their planning permission approved by the local junta, so Eddy Towers would finally have a West Wing at some point in the future. Great news indeed.
I picked up my cell phone and texted Eddy, as always pleased for anyone else's good fortune:
"Just heard about the planning permission. Great news. Will your new neighbors be okay getting their caravans in and out?"
You all might want to party in the street. Kenny is just like his car -- a bit slow and has some bald bits on the rear but is otherwise fit for purpose. There's still some nervy things that need to be monitored, but other than that, a big fat A-okay. Dr Serenity issued her usual words of wisdom and packed me off for another couple of months. I just love her to bits. Not in an oooeeerrr missus kind of way, just a "you must be easy company and a positively delightful dinner guest" vibe-y thing. She actually calls me by my proper name rather than my first name, neither of which is Kenny, so she's with the program too. I wonder if I can get her to say "Kenny" over the intercom...that would be so damned cool.
As if life could not get any better, for the second time in as many weeks, I deleted an email from one of the ex-wives while judiciously holding down the shift key and giggling hysterically. As Inspector Dreyfus said "every day, in every way, I'm getting better...". Come to think of it, I have not shouted "Kill Clousseau" in over six months. I must be getting soft. Is there a pill for that?
While I'm in a political mood, can I just frighten the general populus a smidgin'? Act now. There's only a few days left to buy stock in Kenny. For a lump sum of £10k, you too could enjoy the profits of Kenny's labor. There's enough shares left for, say, 2000 of you but you'll have to act quickly. For your £10k, you'll get a 2% return on your investment *guaranteed* for the next year. Normal market fluctuations may occur so the actual amount paid may be more or less but, ironically, it is safer than houses. Honestly, it's a deal and a half. A prospectus will be available but sadly it won't be here before the closing date, so you'll have to just take my word on this. Just send the money to me, and you'll get your certificate by return-post (unless I'm busy in the Bahamas working my fingers to the bone to earn *you* money).
Alternatively, you could display your complete imbecility by taking your hard-earned cash and sitting in a queue to panic-buy over-priced petrol like they appear to be doing at the Sainsburys gas station at the moment. Did no-one tell you Shell drivers were on strike? OMG. Run, quickly before it all dries up.
It's up to you. Which of the above is more rational? You know the drill...I'll have the Paypal link up by close of play today.
As Mr Weller famously said "the public wants what the public gets". I'd swap wants for deserves.
Those of you outside the UK may or may not have been following the monumental farce that has been happening within British politics this week. It's ludicrous on more levels than can be counted on one's fingers.
Essentially the UK has pretty much the harshest laws for detainment of suspected terrorists in the civilized world. We managed to put through a bill that gave the police the ability to hold terrorist suspects for up to 28 days without charge. At the time I think I'm right in saying that there was talk of wanting 90 days. No matter, it is up to 28 days. The government have now decided that what they really want is 42 days.
You can see what has happened. My bet is that the then cabinet knew that 90 days would be kicked out of the Commons in the blink of an eye, but they also knew that if they made the number 42, they would be on shaky ground. So they went for a two-phased attack. First 28 days seems positively reasonable compared to 90 days so most of the MPs bought that story and hey presto, so it was. The next phase was to sit on it for a couple of years while the dust settled and it was proven that the police and CPS would not abuse the new legislation. Having completed the bedding-in phase, a few subtle moans about 28 days not being long enough and they could start muttering about 42 days again. I would imagine they thought that, given the public's appetite being in favor of such a move, now was the time to strike to amend the law. Were the public voting, they may well have been right. Unfortunately, our elected representatives did not see it that way at all. Some opposed it for moral reasons, some for self-serving reasons and presumably some voted against just because they want maximum disruption in Brown's cabinet and government.
The broohaha that unfolded this week showed off every last nasty little wart on the bottom of the British political system.
Many column inches were filled speculating about this being a defining moment in showing Gordon Brown's authority within his party. The extremist right who would, under normal circumstances (or as a government), have supported the extension to the bill saw it as fine opportunity to attack -- a silly move. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a British national who doesn't have an opinion one way or the other on whether you can lock someone up without charge for 6 weeks or not. It's a pretty polarising topic. According the opinion polls, most of the public are surprisingly in favor of such a move. For once I'm pleasantly surprised by the British public showing a little backbone. So the right's move in this faux-liberalistic stance ended up being showmanship only.
What is more disgusting is the spinelessness of those sat in the center of the political spectrum. While the whips legged it around the corridors of power summoning up "Ayes" it became apparent that we were a few "Ayes" short of a "The Ayes have it" (or an "Eyup" in Kenny-speak). This is when it got truly sickening.
In a pincer manoeuvre, the government started dishing out appeasements that were dually aimed at self-service and at sweetening the medicine. The most obvious bribe for the gutless wimps who were unsure (or at least pretending to be unsure) was that private members bills that has been previously ignored would be given a hearing. At its crassest, you can imagine voting for 42 days of imprisonment so you can air your bill to save the listed public lavatory in Estuaryville, Essex. At its nicest, some old dear will have a hanging basket next year, provided by tax-payers' money. Whichever way you cut it, it smacks of self-serving cowardice. The second edge to the sword was to compensate those who fell victim of the law. Should you be arrested and held for 42 days without charge, you would be entitled to £3000 a day.
At this juncture, I have to ask where I sign up. £3000 a day? Game on. If I do it twice, I'll have enough for a really nice house.
But really, in what civilized country would such flagrant corruption be happily reported? Call it whatever ludicrous outdated word you like, but the point is that it's perversion of justice in a literal sense.
The only person who has come out of it with any dignity at all is David Davis. I don't necessarily agree with his view, but I would back him to the hilt for showing some mettle. He could have chosen a more hysterical subject matter on which to make a stance; he probably overestimates the public's view of what has gone on over the last week or so and is of the opinion that they understand and can see the wanton disregard for open government and fair practice, when they don't. His name will be splashed across the headlines for a few days but the fire will burn out quickly. Upshot: he could have picked a better fight which would have resulted in greater impact.
Unsurprisingly, I am actually in favor of the bill in principle. Sadly the furore surrounding it has no principles. For the frequency of usage of the law, it is but a footnote in the vast list of things to be concerned about. Anyone who works in telecoms knows how ball-achingly slow it is to trace phone calls and web activity -- it ain't no Abby flick of the mouse button and "voila". You'll be lucky if 6 weeks is long enough. No matter, that is not the point.
What's important here is that no matter which way you think with regards to the issue, the process and overt indecency should have left you with a very nasty taste in your mouth. The whole episode reflects very, very badly on the UK.
One of my ex-wives patented the random list. I cannot remember which one. Whenever I think of ex-wives I only ever get as far as sharp teeth, pointed hats, broomsticks and the dull thud of something electrical impacting my skull. After that my self-preservation circuit kicks in and I start manically humming Perry Como tunes and wafting away imaginary cobwebs. Thankfully the unpredictable tic I appear to have developed in my trigger finger is controllable using God's own chemicals. Praise be.
While not explicitly admitting to using a random list, I am about to embark on a list that is random in nature. You'll note the subtle difference.
» I've spent the day trying to buy a PC for the paternal unit. You have no idea how much hard work it was. Every laptop that he decided he liked was the last one in stock and had been used as the display system, so Pater being a bit cautious would not take it. We ended up getting him a desktop system with a rather swanky 20" flat-screen display and a decent spec for less than the price of a good meal at Leodi's. Job done. It has to be said that his monitor is nowhere near as sexy as mine though.
» Bryony's column today was a bit of a non-event (sorry mi'dear if you drop by). There were the token petulant comments but otherwise nothing that you could get religious about.
» The Telegraph crossword is becoming an unknown of the highest order. For a few days last week and Monday this week, it was like Crosswords 101; a complete insult. As is documented, for the first time in forever it beat my arse on Tuesday. Yesterday's and today's were tough but doable.
» My young friend's lot goes from bad to worse. Just when he doesn't need anymore bad luck, he suffers a bereavement in the most horrendous way you can imagine. He has all sorts of nasty arrangements to make tomorrow so I guess it will be Saturday before I see him again. Poor lad.
» My father appears to like Fiona Apple. All I can gather from this is that, based on his track record, she has either died in the last couple of days or she is about to die. Such is the curse of Kenny Senior.
» Tomorrow it's service central around here. The car is booked in and I'm booked in at the doctor's for a six-month overhaul. Dr Serene, as I like to call her, will no doubt comment approvingly that I am now at a weight she is happy with. One has to please one's GP because she's just so painfully nice.
Now, when I hit the post button on this, if the session doesn't time out, I know I've fixed a long-time bugbear of mine via the judicious use of some common sense.
I was going to tell you tales of intrigue this evening. I feel like I've been living in an episode of The Bill all week. Armed robberies, arrested neighbors, real-life CSIs. Man, I should have just worn a webcam and broadcast myself on Five US or CBS or some such. Hey, I could have spiced it up a little by having a romantic moment with Abby in NCIS. I promise I will find a webcam for all future outings. I also promise that any liaisons with Goth techie chicks will not be performed for any personal gratification but done in the public interest. Let's hope we don't need too many multiple takes. Cough.
The whole melée of crime action today reminds me of that age-old classic "They've never had an accident but they've seen lots". It's like I must be next on the list. I've been wracking my brain for something I have done that might be illegal. All I can come up with is my vociferous demands for revolution and the associated plans -- I'm sure MI5 know my IM address; they could just intercept all messages there and they'd have the gist.
Speaking of revolutions, I have yet another party member at work. All I did was mention the vanquishing of Bill Oddie and he quite literally asked me "Where do I sign up?" I liked this guy before. Now he is definitely on Kenny's list of top people.
The reason that I have not relayed the events of today in tedious detail is that I was distracted by an email. It was kind of expected but kind of not and I was so chuffed when it arrived that I ended up writing war and peace in response. So it goes. Even Jackie Collins can't write two novels in a day, so I'm giving up for today.
Remember tomorrow is Bryony day so you know you'll get some kind of doey-eyed review of why she's right (usually) and how the people who leave her rude comments should be sentenced to 10 years to life of Bill Oddie re-runs to a backing track of the Antipodean Midget singing Eurovision songs.
BTW, normal crossword service was resumed with a hammering of the Guardian and the Telegraph.
We'll start off with a little story. Once there was a Kenny who discovered PHP and MySQL. He very quickly became enamored with both. He loved PHP because you could make it as simple or as complex as you liked. Being the kind of coder that other coders hate (i.e. keeping things nice and procedural, without unnecessary complication), he set about writing his own blogging software. The basics were dead easy and CSS took care of the rest. As time went by other blogging tools introduced other bits and bobs so Kenny kept expanding upon his little pet project. All was good. Or was it?
While the bits that the readers of said pièce d'ennui saw all seemed, for the most part, to work, the back-end stuff that Kenny had to deal with was doing his proverbial fruit in. He lost count of the number of nights he sat trying to get around the difference between require and include. Worse still, that befuddledness spilled over into hyperdrive when he started considering include_once and require_once. He ended up writing his code around the fact that his pea-brain could not grasp the difference. This lead to, what we call in the trade, a bloody great dirty hack. He has lived with that secret for years, losing sleep over how he could be so sloppy.
I mention this as I consider how much time I have wasted over the years trying to do something quite simple that has evolved into this absolutely obnoxious piece of code. Quite literally, I have lost weeks.
Last night I was flicking through the bible of all PHP programming books when something caught my eye; something I had never noticed before. It looked suspicious. I investigated further, and bugger me, if this bloody function that I have never seen used anywhere did exactly what I have spent years trying to write. The worst part? It is a one-liner. A bloody one-liner. I just did a wc -l on all the source that I have written to get around this isolated bit of gubbins. It came to around 300 lines of complicated and horribly written nonsense. I would never ever show even my pet dog that code for fear of dying of shame on the spot. And it all could have been done in one line. ONE.
God dammit. And no, before the Conners and Dr Stu's of the world start asking what it is that I have discovered, I will not tell you. You both being demigods of coding excellence will know of the beast in question, which will only send me further into apoplexy. And you can shut up too Waaart. Hell, you can all shut up. Jlo, if you're lurking, which I know you are prone to, if you mention this to *any* of the dev boys, your arse will be found nailed to the front gates. Capiche?
On the plus side, it now means I can rewrite all that utterly abhorrent code in a nice and friendly style, tinged with all the humor a Kenny can embed within his code. None of you will ever see it so it will mean nothing to you, but I reckon I can claim at least an extra ten minutes sleep a night in terms of quality of peace of mind.
While I'm ranting about all things terminally geeky, I would just like to say that my new website (for the secret handshake gubbins) is coming along quite nicely. It uses the above mentioned function. It didn't need to, but it bloody-well does.
Also, I had a quick drool over the new iPhone. I am so in love with it but I will resist on the basis that I have an iPod Touch which is fab and groovy and I have a Nokia 6500 that is a passable phone. And anyway, the iPod in the UK is restricted to O2's network so anyone not with O2 is buggered for a while (unless they have it chipped), although I can't see Apple maintaining that exclusive deal for much longer when they technically have the whole mobile market to aim at now. Alors, everyone knows that the *only* phone company to be with is Orange -- I have only ever had one other provider, and that was before Orange existed. I am almost tempted to buy Apple stock but won't on the basis that this little beauty of a launch and its subsequent uptake will have been factored into the stock price long ago. Sealed envelope prediction: this baby will seriously impact the Nokias, Motorolas and Sony-Ericssons of the world.
--
I'd give you an update on my young friend but as the Waaart pointed out, he'd sooner read Oddie and Minogue bashing over poignancy. Suffice to say, it is not good.
Hmmm. Last random thought -- do you reckon if I put a coded message in my "latest" ticker anyone but the intended recipient would be able to de-cypher it.? I might try that.
I wrote that title and then thought that it was oddly familiar. And so it should be.
Yesterday, while running around PC shops with Pater -- his 10 year-old PC's HDD has finally shuffled off its mortal coil and I am going to see what I can recover from it -- it came to our attention that today would have been his dad's 93rd birthday, so we pootled up to the graveyard in what was, many years ago, a small industrial town on the outskirts of Manchester. My grandfather was cremated and his ashes buried beneath a small stone with a plaque with his vitals etched on it, about 200 yards away from where he spent his last thirty years of life. It's a very modest affair, just like everything else he ever did. His true military record never surfaced until after he died -- he would never speak of the war, a war that saw him as the sole survivor of a tank blast where he lost some of his oldest friends. He only mentioned the malaria that he had while in Africa when he finally lost a kidney as a result of it. The only reason we knew that he had shrapnel in his legs still was when the doctor told us. Essentially he led a dignified and very understated life. His plaque sums him up to perfection. Unlike my other grandfather's grave, when I go to my dad's dad's grave, I always feel like I should be saluting. He would have wanted a firm handshake or a salute of respect. My maternal grandfather would probably yell at me for being there and order me immediately to the pub, to which I say "tough luck sucker -- have some flowers -- how macho now eh?" with a wry grin.
Anyway, it was all very somber. I kind of saluted the brass plaque while the rest of the family were not looking and hoped that no-one could see me from the road. How I ended up with some of my dad's side of the family's genes yet managed to circumvent the genetic pre-disposition of calm dignity that appears to be present in every single grandchild, I do not know. I guess I must have tried harder than the rest.
As we walked back to the car, I noticed a plaque a couple of stones down from my grandfather's. It was of a 42 year old man who died a couple of years ago. It didn't say how he died, but that he was a husband and father. My grandmother seems to recall it being the big C. Underneath his name, was written something that most of my family would balk at, so I let it pass without saying anything. It said simply "See you babe". I got a lump in my throat. Three simple throw-away words that you hear every day yet put in this context are, to my mind anyway, beautiful. I think I'd be happy resting for eternity next to those words -- I certainly can't think of any better off the top of my head.
Speaking of eternity and the fact that I do not have the modicum of decorum that I must have been born with, as we exited the graveyard Pater involuntarily said "There's something lovely about graveyards in their own way. I guess it's just the silence." At that moment, someone chose to drive by with a monster God-knows-what bore exhaust pipe and some heavy duty rap banging away which kind of spoiled the moment. I muttered something to the extent that if I were buried there I'd want something along the lines of "Keep it down." followed by "You know what? I bet these people are really pissed off. You wait all your life to finally get a moment of peace and like a really bad alarm call, the whole family pitches up stuffing the place chock full of pollen, saluting like they were in an episode of 'Allo 'Allo and then trot off again for another six months." Thankfully there was a very definite and immediate need for a bit of levity for which I'm pretty sure my grandmother was most grateful. I think my grandfather would have laughed anyway.
I didn't plan to be returning to that town any time soon but got a call at about 9:00pm last night. A friend of mine is in deep and very sad trouble. He lives about a mile away from the cemetery I had been at in the afternoon. I can't go into details out of respect for his privacy but I really do fear for his safety. I'd do something but there is nothing I can do. I drove up to see him last night and spent until nearly midnight talking with him but even Kenny the silver-tongued cavalier couldn't win him around. I had to leave. I've spoken to him today and, if anything, things are worse and spiralling further and further out of his control. I know I'll be told that you can't take on the world's problems; I don't. This guy is a fairly young lad with literally no-one to turn to. I wish I knew what to do for him but there's not a great deal I can other than listen. Very, very sad.
So that should explain yesterday's uncharacteristic silence. A pretty maudlin' day interspersed with techie goodness. I wish the sleep of the just were available to those of us with good intentions too -- I lay awake for a long time last night thinking about what I could do for my young friend. I suspect the same will happen tonight.
Negativity aside, at least I still have a job for the foreseeable future. The latest round of reaping of the grim variety didn't appear to make it as far as my department.
I have been up to many things over the weekend that I may or may not recount. Some were sad in a techie "you sad git" sort of way. One was very sad from a humanitarian point of view that cost me a very late night last night and several near-fatal moments en-route in to work early this morning. The latter will make for some sad reading if I get time later.
All horrors of reality set firmly at the bottom of the proverbial intray, let me discuss one of my favorite subjects and then ask for some information so that I may appear "hip" and "with it" when a particular subject crops up.
Kate SIlverton. There, I've said it. I noticed on Friday and Saturday that I was getting a squillion or so hits, all searching for Kate Silverton information. There were the obviously hopeful "librarians" and equally hopeful chaps all very interested in Kate's sexual preferences. There were the style-conscious who are eternally obsessed with her hair-do. There were those fascinated by her salary. Her boyfriend was a favorite too. It has to be said, though, that the one that caught my eye was "Kate Silverton underwear ebay". A truly quality search. I wonder whether someone comes up with whacky search terms and then just sticks them into google and follows the results just to make site-owners giggle. If they don't, they should. I would back that kind of anarchy.
It turns out that the sudden fascination with all things Kate was because she was on Have I Got News For You. I only caught the last ten minutes of it. I was breezing back inside from a mid-coding smoke and caught a glimpse of the TV. I was half way upstairs when it dawned on me that it was Kate Silverton. Unfortunately, the ten minutes that I saw didn't exactly give her chance to shine -- Merton was on class form and Clarkson was continuing to be the arrogant git that we all love to hate.
Why all these people don't just hit Kate's website, I have no idea.
Enough about Ms Silverton. I know she's not everyone's cup of tea, but I think she's gorgeous. And I'm usually right, as we all know, so we'll leave it there.
The question I need answering is a plea to bring me into the 21st century. Who is Abigail Spencer and why would anyone search for her eating eggs? Further, what on earth have I written that would mean google would hit my site for an answer? I suppose I could do the query myself and find out but I'm sure it will be too much information -- can someone just give me an executive summary such than I can make a sweeping assessment as to whether I should know the name or not? Thank you.
I meant to mention this on Friday but was too busy being "outraged of Wigan" or "the accused". Go and say hello to Pandora. I happened upon her site because her extraordinary good taste in blogs manifested itself as a referal to here. And then I saw her new house. Talk about idyllic? I've emailed her and asked if there's a priest-hole that would accommodate something about the same size and dimensions as a Kenny. Before you start, I know they never had priest-holes in the US -- it's a turn of phrase for Christ's sakes. Hell, I'll take the bathroom closet.
For the second time this week, I'm going to say that I'm not a celebrity but you should get me out of here anyway.
I stayed over at Evil Albert's last night, where Albert's barbeque skills were dusted down and displayed for all to see. Only Albert can start a barbeque using toilet-duck, bleach, fertiliser and a mobile phone. I was gobsmacked. Midst the chomping of chicken and kebabs, some normal conversation broke out, but we soon spotted those moments and reverted back to Kenny and Albert's masterful use of non-existent words that only he and I would ever understand. Mrs Albert, who is of American/Romanian extraction and has been transplanted from the hothouse of California to the freezer of York without too much bleating, tried to follow the dialogue but soon glazed over and went to bed.
I approve of Mrs Albert. I haven't seen her since I popped into Sunnyvale 10 years ago and drank their wine cellar. Last night I just drank all their coffee. The reason that Mrs Albert gets the seal of approval is a comment "Kenny, you haven't aged at all since the day I first met you nearly fifteen years ago." That, right there, will earn you browny points (there's that damned browny again). It's a good job she didn't see me 9 months ago. It would have been "Kenny, when was your 90th birthday?". Anyway, Mrs Albert is now on Kenny's virtual christmas card list for having the guts to speak the truth.
Albert has incredibly offered to host my mysterious gubbins site for free. I just paid for the DNS registration. What a fine chap he is. I have my UK and US company sites with his hosting company too and am, how do you say, "well-chuffed" with all of his hosting products. Had I not just renewed this site and the other one (the old one), I would certainly have migrated them over chez-Albert. Once we've come up for a name for his enterprise, I advise all of you who have hosted sites or are thinking of getting one, to take a look at Evil Albert hosting -- I haven't found anything that comes close in terms of price and speed of turnaround. When the official site is launched, you can guarantee there will be a plug over on the left.
While I potter, feel free to leave me comments telling me I haven't changed a bit in 15 years, apart from the phenomenal wisdom that I have developed (of course).
You know you're hanging around with the wrong type of person when one of your friends texts you to say that he's now a magistrate. [Update: I texted back asking him whether I should call him 'sir' now -- apparently the correct term is 'Your Worship' -- so there you have it, worship Stan]
All I can say is that the background check must not have extended to Kenny Towers. Speaking of, I really need to fill in my CRB form as a matter of urgency -- so maybe sometime next week or the week after eh?
I made my coffee this morning ready for the commute and then promptly forgot it. This is not good news for anyone within a fairly widespread radius. I have practiced continental-style semaphore at various individuals all the way here. They seem to think that, when joining a motorway, it is their God-given right to merge from the left and then basically take a right turn to hit the outside lane where, incidentally, the traffic is moving 20mph slower than the other lanes because of all the other pillocks who have the same mentality. "Have at it suckers" I scream, as I whizz down the inside lane gesticulating wildly in an attempt to express my exasperation at their blatant dumbness..
So, you see, not a good start to the day. I was practically expiring as I crawled across the threshold of Starbucks. Thankfully the team in there know the drill and gave me CPR in the form of a couple of free extra shots. I am now starting to look like I am not about to nuke Bolivia -- it's just a faint grimace. If I up the intake frequency a little I should be nearly human by around 10:30. This will have to do.
Allow me to get a bit holier than thou on this one. US people may shoot me down where I'm wrong here, but my take on this is as follows.
Fact. The US president in his current guise has been tremendously unpopular with non-republicans since before he was born. Putting aside moonbat conspiracy theories, even those that don't believe Mariyln Monroe was murdered by secret CIA ninjas came to dislike Dubya after the Iraq invasion. As a then-resident of the US, I wasn't overly chuffed at his election, but I didn't think it the end of the world. I think many staunch democrats viewed Dubya as satan himself post election and he became Satan (uppercase S) after the Iraq initiative. So, if we assume that only 66% of the US gives a flying jockstrap about politics, we have a guaranteed 33% who were or are rabidly anti-Dubya. Now, some centrist republicans are not too enamored with the republican regime thanks to the Iraq situation so I think we can add a conservative (no pun intended) 10% of dissenters to that 33%.
Given that, no matter what anyone says, this presidential election will be all about Iraq, you have about 43% of the 66% who actually care enough to vote who are vehemently anti-war. If you were a self-serving pompous arse, what would you do to win an election? Yup, you'd pander to the masses. You'd defend the war in Iraq but temper it with a plan to withdraw as soon as the public rallies to a point that you pretty much have to. Spotting any parallels here?
You'd do this particularly if your opponent in the presidential election was a republican who, like it or not, is tarred with the same brush as Dubya. To not do that would be deemed unpatriotic by a nation who are morbidly fascinated with patriotism. That would be some clever boxing.
What you wouldn't do is declare that, in addition to finishing a nasty job off in Iraq, you would use everything within your power to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons. Why? Because that kind of talk is more extreme than your republican opponent. It's naivety on an unprecedented level. Even if what you really mean is that you're going to send them hate mail, set up websites that are mean to them and spill their drinks "accidentally", it's a bit of a gaff of the first order.
Meanwhile, in the chattering galleries, your defeated (yet in denial) opponent as a democratic nominee, who is incidentally likely to be your VP, is muttering about how Obama would be a friend to Israel.
I think there are three points here:
» This year's presidential election will make previous ones look serious. It is going to be black comedy of the most tasteless kind.
» I'm sure the average American cares about what happens in the Middle East but I'm equally sure that they realize that they are not electing a Middle East president but someone who will impact them at home too. So why the democrats are intent on hitting a self-destruct button before they've even started is mind-boggling.
» Sealed envelope prediction: Obama will edge the election and then be a phenomenal failure. Much like Gordon Brown inherited leadership in a time when you couldn't possibly succeed, so Obama gets a job that has about as much chance of success as being the next Chelsea manager.
I promise I'm off my soapbox now. One more coffee and normal service will be resumed.
Gack. Is it browny or brownie? You know, the quasi-satanic sect that girls are inducted into before they are assimilated by the girl-guides? I would have no problem were it two brownies because that just makes sense, but a single brownie looks odd.
No matter. I'm sure someone will help a brother out.
iTunes are pretty amazing when it comes to customer service. When I paid my wonga for Weller's new CD the other night, I was meant to get a free electronic version of the sleeve-notes. I got all the music but the sleeve notes did not appear. I emailed Apple on the off chance they might just email it straight back to me. The reply came within an hour or so, asking me to check my purchases as it was still listed as being there and not downloaded. No joy, so I sent them a message back saying that I was still having problems. I got an email back this evening saying that they were incredibly sorry and that they would refund the whole price of the album. I'm well in pocket then; I suppose if I were rabid about music collectables, I might be a bit miffed that I hadn't got the notes but then again, if I were a rabid fan I would have gone and bought the CD. Things like sleeve notes mean less and less as you get older. I just wanted to be able to sing along with out making a berk® of myself. Anyway, well done Apple. No messing around trying to fix something that they obviously don't think they can fix in a fast enough time so refund the money. I did consider emailing them and saying don't bother because I have all the music, but I figure I spend enough there and they don't exactly have a loyalty program where I can claim free stuff.
Now I really, really must get on with a spreadsheet even though I have a new toy (thanks to Evil Albert) to play with. I'd advertise the Evil hosting company here but I can't seem to find what the main site is called. Albert?
Now I've got my cool and groovy new domains (these are for business purposes not endless wittering or playthings) and, HOO_FRICKIN'-RAY, SSH access, I can start to twiddle with a proper website rather than my cobbled together blog. Years of making stupid mistakes (and probably being able to repeat them exactly) should make the process of making a new site from scratch a joy. Although I did make the fatal mistake of viewing what I had done so far in IE and cursing Microsoft into the inner ring. Next step, come payday, is that Kenny may need to do something that makes his skin crawl. No, it's nothing to do with ex-wives. It's dealing with the tax man. Shudder.
I nearly forgot midst my enthusiasm for spreadsheets (sic), that I actually have yet another website that I need to do in the next month or so too. How the hell am I meant to have a social life that doesn't entail just IMs? Answers on a postcard.
...to pop out from behind a spreadsheet and say...
Poor Bryony can't win for losing. I swear that she could find a cure for cancer and would still be vilified for something, presumably having too many consonants in her first name or some such other drivel.
I think as part of revolutionary planning, I'll have Rob the Vanquisher draw up some laws relating to the press. Those with morbid class hang-ups and self-righteous indignation shall only be allowed to read the tabloids so as to reinforce their moral superiority while scoring a few God points and clucking disapprovingly.
I can't make out whether I spend every Thursday defending the poor girl because I think she's hot, or because I'm paternal -- truly a midlife crisis, right there.
If there is one thing that is more intolerable than a morose Kenny dribbling all over t'interweb, it's Kenny when he's being irrepressibly optimistic and full of energy. I think mi'colleagues at work will agree.
Evil Albert has seen the damage that can be done when a Kenny has suitable motivation and has lived through it before so when I descend on his domicile on Friday evening, he'll be kitted out in the appropriate hazmat gear.
There are a plethora of reasons for this new-found optimism and verve (some personal, some professional) that I shall not bore you with, but as I say above, be warned, there's Tiggr on speed knocking around. And if what I think is about to happen happens, you're going to get very, very sick of my wildly sickening enthusiasm. You'll be begging for some disaster to befall me and for a return to morbidity.
T-15 until Bryony's column, but that will have to wait for tomorrow.
I'm in one of those mixed agony and ecstasy moments. The songs on Paul Weller's 22 Dreams that I like, I *really* like. Cold Moments already has one of those unbreakable associations of circumstance. As if that were not bad enough, it's now one of two songs that remind me that particular moment. It's a bit early to say, but having gone through the album three times while in the car and hit replay on Cold Moments more times than I can count, but I'm thinking this is going to be on quite a lot between now and forever. The caveat is thank God for iPods and the ability to cut out the crap from your playlists. When this has had a Kenny edit, it will be truly toptastic.
That's all from me for tonight. I have just got in (having left at 6:45 this morning) and thrown down a very nice sirloin. One more brew and then it's bed with Rachmaninov, Pergatorio (when the hell will I get to Paradiso and Beatrice?) and a head full of things to do when not procrastinating.
BTW, while I remember -- you all know that there's a Klimt exhibition on at Liverpool Tate at the moment don't you? Who is up for a visit? I would imagine The Supervisor will be. Stan? I know it's shocking -- Kenny going into scouseland of his own volition and it will probably be the first time he's been to an art exhibition since he did the Chicago dealybop where he saw the original Beata Beatrice (swoon). If I may be so crass, it's a bit like the Dolly Parton gig that you will all be missing -- a once in a lifetime chance, not to be passed upon.
To the poor soul from Australia who came here in search of an answer to:
I keep holding down my jugulars is it bad (via google)
I would offer the following advice. It probably isn't too bad, but I'd lay off if I were you. Try some therapeutic Kylie strangling instead. Everyone in the Northern hemisphere will love you.
» The new Weller album is God-like in parts, pretty good in others and bordering on the criminally shite on 2 tracks, but out of 20-odd tracks, I can live with it. I particularly liked Song For Alice so I know Waaart will hate it. To think, we used to share the same taste in music, nearly. I guess some of us move on.
» That jibe in the general direction of York was made in retaliation to an email he has just sent me that reads 'Ha. I know I've said something profound when your retort is "Arse!"...'. The profundity was that he was going to put an entry into wiki for hyperbolog citing my blog as the definitive example. To which I still say "Arse!".
» In reference to Mr Mursell's newly found moonbat status, might I point you all in the direction of here (NSFW). The author of said site might think that, but I couldn't possibly comment -- well, I'd certainly not have called it laughable; the rest...
You know, it's time to keep a low profile around these parts about this time of year. Well I know. Die Führer starts the planning of the annual invasion of Poland visit to her sister's in Vienna. Tonight started with a disapproving monologue on how utterly crap the UK is, that there are no direct flights from Manchester to Wien. The the history of some long-forgotten English royal who ended up marrying a German princess just before WWI was blasting forth from the TV for a while. When that proved too lenient on the poor entrapped English chap and too harsh on the Germans, it was muted as she initiated communication with her sister by phone. At this moment in time, I can hear Germanic machinations from below.
Ich bleibe die Hölle weg.
Thank God I don't speak too much German. I understand more than I would ever let on to Die Führer and that's the way I like it. If she knew I could string together a few sentences in a half way decent conversation, I would be wrong and would have elocution lessons until I spoke German with the appropriate Tyrol twang. I don't even speak English properly so spitting words in what is technically my fifth language is a delight I can live without.
Midst the mobilization of what is left of the Reich, my text messaging has been positively humming with excited texts from Debs about our upcoming trip to see Dolly Parton. She has pointed me in the direction of some of her favorites -- namely Pentangle and Mediaeval Baebes. You can guarantee that if it's on Debs' playlist, it will invariably find its way onto mine at some point so while I was downloading the new Paul Weller CD (which is, I might say, utterly top), I threw in a bit of folk music as recommended by Debs. Upon a cursory airing of a few songs, it sounds like summer Sunday morning music. I approve.
I'm on here again in a procrastinatory capacity. It's hard to believe, I know, but I do have other things to do than download music and waste my miserable hours away sat endlessly in front of the computer. In fact I should be doing them now. I have had over a month to perform these non too taxing chores to prepare for tomorrow evening and I have sat admiring the list of them on a nightly basis for all that time, without so much as a lifting of a finger in anger. In my defense, quite a lot of the work involved just thinking and I can put my hand on my heart and say that I have done that part. But still...
While I'm avoiding the issue; lest anyone misconstrue my constructive (sic) pathos for Mr Mursell and his chosen self-delusion, let me set your minds at ease. I have this horrible reputation at work and within social circles of being a Conservative (with a capital C). I'm not. I may read the Telegraph but I'm not a heartless right-wing thug. Nothing could be further from the truth. The list of work that I have to do is some gubbins for another gubbins that I am involved with. I'd like to elaborate further because I know most of you are very kind and well-meaning folk and would, no doubt, want to help if you could. But as I was telling someone on Saturday, it's kind of my own little piece of land that I need to keep fenced in the corner it belongs, which is a damned shame because it's exactly that kind of attitude that stops more being done. I'm sure were I a better human being, I'd ditch the rat-race and leap into it with both feet, but Kenny and Martyr share only one letter, so it ain't happening.
Anyway, I may advocate the burning of Minogue midgets and arse-kicking of the sexist fruitloop Bill Oddie but on the sly, when nobody is looking, I'm just as big a softie as the next bed-wetting liberal. Only I will be voting conservative (with a lower case C) come the day of reckoning.
End of wishwash. I'm listening to the Pentangle CD.
You have to love a band who call a song "Let No Man Take Your Thyme". Debs informs me that she has always kept hers close at hand. As always, I'll follow her lead.
Now I must away to wind up the Flip-Flop about Dolly. If you can't wind up your S-I-L, who can you? Eh, Eddie? ;)
No! Must focus on list of things to do.
Christ, it's going to be a late one again.
PS -- Do you think I should put up a bit of Pentangle for you all to groove along to? We do have the technology you know!
I love it when a moonbat brightens my Monday morning.
It's been a while hasn't it, since my moonbat-ometer registered to an extent that I felt them worthy of a Kenny® Fisking™?
Well, the Bishop of Stafford, one Gordon Mursell has answered my prayers by comparing people who deny or fail to act upon global warming to the mad warder of Österreich. Yup, those of you naughty people who still use plastic bags, drive a car or still use fossil fuels (rather than the preferred Kenny® Method™ of burning Antipodean midgets) are worse than Herr Fritzl.
Al Beeb, our handy-dandy source on this occasion, reports:
"Mr Mursell added he was not accusing people of being child abusers but shocking analogies were needed."
Even by my own admittedly pathetic standards, this is use of the word "analogy" in a ground-breaking new context. I know I have a track record of mixing metaphors until the cows have roosted, but this analogy is like comparing people who enjoy a good rump steak to cannibals. Being a man of the cloth, shouldn't Mr Mursell know that everytime someone constructs such an analogy God provides us with another Bill Oddie? Where's the humanity?
"In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is - we are in effect locking our children and grandchildren into a world with no future and throwing away the key."
Well that's that then.
He said people were "right to be disgusted at these crimes" but that "mere disgust is too convenient".
Too right. What we want is inconvenience on its grandest scale. Kind of like doctors of old, Mr Mursell would have us all sleeping on stone floors when we suffered from back pain because we all know that the path to recovery is never a relief, but must be suffered in order to guarantee efficacy.
He added: "Could you not argue that if there is no future for our children and grandchildren, we will have been guilty of committing the most appalling crimes as well?"
As I say -- no point decorating that front room is there? We're all doomed. In fact the very act of trying out that beautiful lilac sampler has you knocking on Dis' door.
We all know that I'm not averse to curtailing greenhouse emissions. It's not that I am convinced we're all going to boil -- I find it far too arrogant to assume that man is capable of destroying a system so complex -- but I can't see it doing any harm to try to reduce the amount of SH1 we kick out during our daily lives.
I point this out as a service to those of you who may have noticed a dearth of conspiracy theorists and moonbats in the press recently.
Congratulations Mr Mursell. You made my 06:00 alarm call definitely worthwhile.
One of the things I both love and hate about the media is their endless navel contemplation. On the one hand it's bordering on the obscene to be so self-obsessed yet on the other, as an outsider, it fascinates me. If you'd have asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up (when I was as old as 22), "journalist" would not have even entered my head. Nowadays though I lap up the comment section of any of the broadsheets while analyzing their styles.
I was debating where my fascination came from as I read the Observer comment section earlier. As newspapers go, the Observer is a bit on the media-obsessed side so I very often find myself lost in it for a couple of hours. Maybe I just have more time on Sundays.
I've finally managed to pinpoint when my interest was stirred. As a young and very green techie, I took a position as a product manager within a medium sized US software company. One of my first real duties in the role that didn't involve being a heavy-duty geek was to do a press tour down the East Coast of the US. The first couple of sessions that I did with the trade press had me spinning. I just was not ready for this kind of grilling. Being young and daft, I expected everybody to be nice to each other. As it happens that is, for the most part, true of trade-journalists -- I've had some great nights of drinking beer with the press at trade shows, promising I'll write something for their magazine and then completely forgetting to do it only to be prodded a week before time. The point is that my first encounter with the press was a bitter one.
When I got back from the US and went crying to the VP like Didier Drogba does when his eyeliner gets smudged, complaining that I wasn't prepared for such rudeness, his response was along the lines of "it was the East Coast -- what did you expect?" but he did agree to let me organize some media training for me and my marketing compadres.
Until a couple of weeks ago all I could remember about the chap who gave the training was that he was from the Financial Times. I remember him being absolutely razor-sharp and slicing and dicing every one of us, including the senior management. I think the furthest anyone got before they were absolutely tongue-tied was about three questions. It was bloodshed on an unprecedented scale. I think I held my own for two questions before he ripped out my spleen and presented it on a silver platter, garnished with some rock salt.
After he had completely humiliated everyone is the room, he laughed and said that 99% of the time, unless you were a politician or a celebrity, it was unlikely that you would be flayed so openly; after all, the journalist wants a story, not to report on the quivering remains of your fragile ego. [He mustn't have ever met Paxman]. In my experience since, his words are true. That half-day I spent with him completely changed the way I presented everything. It sounds a bit far-fetched but I suddenly "got it". While the rest of the normally vocal marketing people hid behind screens when the press arrived, I was out there like a thing possessed. It wasn't that I was touting whatever company or product I was associated with, it was the thrill of testing whether I could still keep myself afloat using the techniques that the FT guy had taught me. I loved it. And I loved the shock on my boss's faces when I headed off to the bar with the editor of <insert trade magazine here> in the evening to get the dirt on whatever.
I mention this because I was in a formal situation a couple of weeks ago where the subject of my experience of dealing with the press was brought up -- did I have any? I said that I had been trained by a chap from the FT and for the life of me could not remember his name, but I had experience of dealing with trade publications and a couple of dealings with more national outlets albeit many moons ago. I told them of the brutal lashing I had been given during my training. It transpires that the people who had asked the question had just had some training from a chap from the FT who had utterly ripped them to pieces initially. I laughed. It had to be the same guy doing his party trick. They faffed around and found a business card. As they read the name out, I completed it. Michael Dempsey. Having remembered it again, it is a name that I will never, ever forget.
Ah, happy days. I really should pull together some of my mindless published blatherings and stick them on my real website rather than my quasi-anonymous blog. I have a feeling that a lot of my early days interviews will have been washed away by the tides of the .bomb, but I know there's still some verbal mincing flouncing availably around the electronics industry.
And that, dear readers, is why I'm so damned journo-happy. Blame Mr Dempsey for introducing me to a sport that is more compelling than chess.
In true Sunday fashion, while I'm here and before I disappear into PHP heaven for a while, I just thought I'd remind those of you in the UK who have the bad taste not to pick up an Observer on a Sunday and those of you in less civilized countries where journalism consists of reports on the school sportsday results, that it's Barbara Ellen day today.
When I grow up, I want to be able to write like she does. Until that day I will content myself in the quiet smugness that is battering the Observer crossword in under the time it takes to drink my first coffee.
PS: The Vanquisher has pointed out this rather hilarious, if not a tad on the NSFW side, slating of the Observer-reading classes.
I set about faffing with my archives yesterday evening. I wanted to replace that ugly-arsed form that was there but didn't really want to put any effort into prettifying the existing HTML. Given my current cyclical peak when it comes to all things CSS-related, I thought it was about time I got down and dirty with CSS menus. The initial stuff was quite simple but then I got all confused -- bewilderment is a state I very often find myself in so I treated this little hiccup in a manner that befitted the problem at hand; I started chatting on IM and ignored it hoping that some random flash of enlightenment would crash from the heavens.
Rob the Vanquisher, AKA VP, was lamenting a lack of cigarettes in as poetic a fashion as is legal within a ten mile radius of Wigan. I felt for him and arranged to bob down to the boozer by his house for a quick drink, leaving my poorly menu in a state of disrepair.
I'd only planned on being out for an hour at most but we once again found ourselves discussing the abject state of the world. Some burly young lad, clutching his pint of cider was known to Rob the Vanquisher and chose to join us for a few minutes before realising that neither of us were drunk, were likely to get drunk or to have an opinion on whether the cold war was, and I quote, "a fuckin' waste of time -- why did they bother? It was all the Russians' fault." Being in the presence of such greatness switches me from being an inverted snob to being a caustic arsehole of the first order. To say that my contributions to the conversation were terse is a tad of an understatement. I suppose if you pre-pended "barbed and" to terse, you might get somewhere near. I hope that it was just the beer slurring from the enlightened one but I fear that when he wakes up this morning he'll still be "without".
I digress as usual. The reason that I ended up staying out much later than planned is because Rob and I ended up howling with laughter at our plans for revolution. I haven't had a real side-aching debilitating howl in for as long as I can remember. No matter how carefully I try to relay the conversation here, I could never do it justice. It was a true "had to be there" moment.
At one point, we got off the topic of galactic supremacy long enough to talk about my broken CSS menu. I bored Rob into a third pint and myself into a third mango whatever with the details of how I had been on the search for a CSS book that afternoon and singularly failed but had found a whole range of tomes aimed at the older generation -- "Computers for the over 50s", "Windows Vista for Seniors". You get the drift. Rob lit a cigarette up and said "You should write one of those." Naturally I went to punch him for implying that I was nearly of that age-group -- I suppose someone of his tender years looks at my age and his and sees that I am just closer to 50 than he is to my age -- have I mentioned what a bastard he is? I stopped short of a patented uppercut and just managed to blurt out "with age comes knowledge".
Anyway it turns out that what he meant was a humorous version. A couple of problems there that I see -- humor is not on my hymn-sheet at the moment. I have lots of serious things to do and not many of them can be brought down to the gutter level I would like, and I have no patience for teaching anything, ever. Period.
Ten minutes of hilarious analogies later, I will recite the pièce de resistance and pray that it does it justice...
Rob: "Right. You need to speak in terms of things they understand."
Kenny: "Pension days?"
Rob: "No. Too emotive. Let's see...how would you go about explaining a defrag to them?"
Kenny: "Well, it's kind of like brushing your dentures?"
Rob: "No. You need to draw them into the subject."
Kenny. "I see." [I didn't]
<moments of quiet conjecture punctuated by the odd slurp and puff of thick smoke>
Rob: "You know boiled sweets...?"
That was me done for the night. I had tears streaming down me from the delivery as I imagined a computing book for seniors in which every chapter started "You know boiled sweets...?" Hell, you don't want a "For Dummies" or "For Seniors" range. What you need is a "You know boiled sweets...well <insert subject matter here> is a bit like..."
This is what you will have to put up with in your new Chief Vanquisher. As I have said before, I am pressing him into a guest blog on the basis that I don't want him to be a fictional VP like Dick Cheney. He needs to be out and in front of the people to prove he didn't die during the Bush Senior administration like Dick Cheney did.
