Got to grab some of the black today. Remember, it’s good for you.

I think he should be allowed to interrupt any awards show he pleases. If the organisers are stupid enough not to ask him who he thinks the deserved winner should be then he’s perfectly entitled to come up on stage and tell us. He can halt proceedings and spoil the winner’s moment and humiliate them as he sees fit.

Then he can be clubbed to death live on stage. The fucking prick.

Pigeon, the rat of the sky. How could this happen? Aren’t you glad you don’t live there.

catch that pigeon!!

Today I dismantled and fixed my dishwasher. Pretty impressed, aren’t you? I was. Except… I broke the kitchen re-installing it. Why’s it called a kick board anyway, just tell me that.

Everything about Hugh Hefner gives me the creeps. That’s all.

It’s out soon, this weekend I think. Won’t be going to see it though. What happened to Tarantino? And I’m not talking about his spelling.  He made stylised, quirky films with a passing nod at other genres. Then somewhere along the line he got scared and decided his “style” would become a caricature of itself with the characters’ dialogue duelling with the screenplay for most cringe-worthy.  Kill Bill was well on the way there. Death Proof, need I say more.

Jackie Brown’s my favourite. Doesn’t look like he’s in any danger of surpassing that. Tarantino at his best.

Some scientists have come up with a theory that suggests there is no dark matter, that the universe is not expanding due to it but that we’re observing a wave passing through the cosmos and the associated compression/expansion that naturally accompanies waves. But, I also have a theory. It’s based on the fact that my laptop network card stopped working, my desktop PC broke down, my work laptop then went kaput, attempts to log in to my work network on another PC failed and IT support exhausted all their knowledge trying to get me connected. I am Dark Matter.

I have decided to have a DNA test to prove to the world that I am the father of Michael Jackson’s children. Or Michael Jackson, I don’t mind which. It’s just business.

Aoooooooowww!

The local daily paper, The Belfast Telegraph, recently published this non-story on their website. I chose to leave the first comment. They chose not to publish. I resubmitted the following, this time copying it as a record, two other comments now showing. I don’t see the problem.

“Most people would think a single mother getting pregnant to her ex on a one night stand would be a pretty irresponsible thing to do.

The article describes her “ordeal” (though this may be the journalist’s words and not her’s). Most single mothers I know have managed to find a solution to this sort of circumstance.
It’s called work.”

Update, they finally published the first comment 15 hours after it was submitted. Perhaps moderating comments in chronological order is more difficult than you would imagine.

Another update, they’ve only gone and made an even shitier article from this apparent “news”. Let’s see how long/if they publish my latest comment.

Today I am a non-smoker. So far today that is. I hide my smoking from anyone I’m not begging a cigarette from. If there’s no-one around to beg I buy a 10 pack. On reaching the end I always say that’ll be the last one. The paradox is I fear cancer more than anything. I don’t like smelling of cigs or the cough they give. Smoking is receding my gums, God knows what it’s doing to the inside of me. I need to stop. But I like it.
Yesterday I caved in and ordered these.

Yes, it’s usually beautiful. Yes, it can be absolutely jaw-droppingly stunning. But it’s also a total bastard.

I’m knackered. Why? A hard, hard couple of weeks of work; I actually had to take a nap earlier today at 5:30pm, so I could function this evening. But now it’s bedtime I’m wide awake and have all sorts of shitty thoughts churning around in my head. Why? New fucking moon, that’s why.

Four days before the full moon I go mental, and often four days after as well. I’m a slave to the bastard.

I hate the fucking lunar cycle.

Seeing as everyone now seems to think Michael Jackson was a fine upstanding citizen after all is it okay to bring out the Gary Glitter records? Is Phil Spector a good guy too? What about Jonathan King?

I take no pleasure in Michael Jackson’s death but I feel no sorrow either.  Hang me.

Parliament has just published MPs’ expenses & allowances. I checked my local MP’s to see what he’d spent my money on. I didn’t imagine I’d find anything to query that the Daily Telegraph hadn’t already but within 3 minutes I’d noticed something curious, a claim for PC equipment in what looked like Australian dollars. Why would you buy PC equipment for your office in Australia? Checking the receipt and Googling showed that he’d spent about AU$500 on a top of the range wireless 8×10 digital photo frame, or to be specific, this one. I imagine all MPs have one in their office.

Peter Robinson’s expenses 07/08.pdf see pages 26 to 31

A few hours ago I typed an email that might lead to my demise. A power struggle where I work led to a new regime coming to the fore a few weeks ago. Today I had the audacity to ask an administrator to stop sending  emails  reminding me to do some reporting on what I do. In a 55 hour week I can’t find the time to do it because I’m too busy doing the doing and explained with several examples of my workload over the last 2 weeks. She thanked me for my “input” and copied in the new leaders.

Today’s security alerts in Belfast caused widespread traffic disruption. In the midst of this I collected my 5yr old from her after-school. She asked me what a bomb scare was after hearing it on the radio. It was the first time she’s heard the term that I and many others grew up with. I tried as best I could to explain what a bomb was  and what one would look like.  I thought I’d done a good job at my second attempt but she interrupted me to say she’d remembered seeing one before.

“They’re black” she said.

Recently, I’ve had to stop eating certain things because they wre causing stomach upsets. They had been for years, and I had tried figuring out what was causing it, but it turned out it was a huge combination of foods, weird ones too. So out the door went my favourite foods: spinach, fish, bananas, tomatoes, soya milk… The list goes on. But finally, comes the tough one – I have to give up beer.
There’s only so much of one’s life you can spend on the toilet before it becomes boring, after all. And I have marathons to run, dammit.

Already the May Day holiday weekend is upon us. With everything that was going on I’ve managed to arrive in May without the BBQ cleaned and not a seed planted. Tardy in the extreme but I’ll try to right those wrongs this weekend.  Not that failing to do either would be life threatening. When life gets tough I find it’s the small mundane things that I look forward to that keeps me sane. They gain an importance much more than logic says they should in the overall scheme of things but that artificial over-weighting helps to balance my scales.

Now and then I take a couple of pics. Nothing special. It’s just a hobby of mine. Abstract, landscape, portraiture, they all interest me  and many others too. Over the last few years, since September 11th, I’ve read reports of casual photographers being stopped by the police, challenged about their right to take pictures and sometimes have threat of deletion or confiscation. There is no restriction on photography in public (bar some government buildings) but police and security guards continue to bully people practising their hobby. Here’s another example. A tourist. I’d stop him from wearing those specs though.

• Curried chicken livers, lal chicken, Guinness, shiraz, raspberry mojitos, Bisongrass vodka and a hotel room are not good bedfellows. That’s even before you factor in Egyptian cigarettes.
• Following that up with the first review with a new boss the day after isn’t clever either.
• Trying to pack in much needed revision for an imminent exam whilst being distracted by the mere task of breathing, tricky.
• Losing all the health benefits I’d accumulated in the last two weeks through being generally sensible coupled with the stunningly novel idea of going to bed when tired rather than fighting through it.

The weather forecast was wrong today. Thankfully so. It stayed dry and was sunny all day. Only 13/15 degrees mind but manageable without a coat. Spent the day in the Mournes with mini-me, crossing rivers and taking shortcuts through forests imparting what little I know about birch and pine trees and badger tracks. Capped off with seafood chowder and fresh wheaten in MSB on the way home. Tough day.

Every day another example of stupidity presents itself that makes you wonder what bubble some people live in. So called animal charity PETA have asked pop duo The Pet Shop Boys to rename themselves Rescue Shelter Boys.  I believe they politely told them to fuck themselves. Quite right too.

Fact is usually stranger than fiction, isn’t it? Not sure? Here’s an example. Leading retailers Sainsburys have decided that people should be eating the much underrated pollack instead of the over-fished cod. So far, so good. Sainsburys have also decided that people won’t ask for pollack so…..they’ve renamed it. To Colin. Story here. I kid you fucking not.

I’m quite glad about this. I mean, what people like her and Angelina Jolie have been doing is not far removed from child trafficking. Why separate these children from their relatives? A little of their money would go a long way in the childrens’  countries.

Just back from a  meeting in England that had been planned for some time with forty colleagues from all over the UK.  Got a bacon buttie and  name badge on arrival with a  letter H in the corner. We were told to go to various rooms depending on which letter our badge had. I asked one of the organisers why it seemed so X-Factor ish and was our room being sent home but she didn’t hear me. Later I found out the Gs were denuded of all company paraphenalia, phones, schedules and asked to sign non-contact agreements. Twelve gone.

Isn’t that what they say? Something like that. I’ve missed a few days, haven’t I? I had some blood tests done at the start of March to check on my liver and immediately fell ill with a painful swelling under my chin that then grew around my neck. I mentioned it here. Saw various quacks, got given more pills than Amy gets through in a weekend and progressively got worse until I ended up in Hospital Sunday and Monday. Finally on the mend, I think.

It was this. Fatal, 1 in 10.

And the liver? Next time.

I see the pope has said that handing out condoms is not the answer in preventing  AIDS/HIV. He’s advocating fidelity and sex only through matrimony. Is  His Eminence stupid or uncaring? None of that has made a blind bit of difference so far  because…

1/ superstition informs belief and in some areas having sex with a virgin is considered to provide a cure

2/ only 1/6 of Africans are even Catholic and likely to follow anything he says

3/ the former South African Health Minister maintained that beetroot was the most effective treatment for AIDS/HIV

Why not just shoot them, it’s quicker?

On the way back to the car picking my 5 year old mini-me up from after-school today she said…

“Dad, you just dont wear glasses to look good, sure you don’t?”

I know what she meant but I hope you’ll excuse me if I choose to swap it for a compliment.

Every two years Comic Relief rears it’s ugly head. Every two years I avoid it and it’s mostly unfunny celeb sketches and embarrassing Lenny Henry who must have appeared funny to a small demographic back in the eighties but who has been resuscitated biannually by/for this. At ten minute intervals between the unfunny skits they troop out African children dying of AIDS, TB, malaria and children closer to home having to care for their parents and worse. As a parent I just can’t watch it. It troubles me. A cheque will be in the post tomorrow. ‘Til next time.

Generally I try to avoid seeing doctors. I mean, the surgery’s full  of sick people, why would anyone want to be there? Over the last few days I’ve developed a hard painful swelling under my chin, the submental lymph node. Last night was sleepless and by this morning I’d turned into Johnny Vegas and grown a second mini-tongue under the first to boot. Googling last night didn’t help and the doctor wants to see ME, today. Unreassuringly he’s asked permission to video the consultation. I accepted his first request but politely declined the second.

There’s been some bad weeks in there over time. Some friends died tragically, others stupidly, all sadly. Sometimes, bad things just happen: redundancy, losing a girlfriend, going hungry. You might fall out with your mates, piss someone off with selfishness, or just plain not like yourself. All happens at some point.
But the worst week of my life for pure incident was the week where I got run over on the Monday, set fire to on the Saturday and my favourite dog in all the world was put to sleep the same weekend.
That was one shit fucking week.