Abysmal

In a similar vein to Jann’s post on the same subject, yesterday here could be described as many things. However, “Shit” seems to be the word of preference – and also an entirely justified one. It was one of those where staying in bed would’ve been the wisest option, but you actually know that if you’d done that, the roof would’ve caved in.

Part of it was due to suffering a coding anti-Midas, where everything I even laid eyes on turned immediately to crap. Stuff that should take twenty minutes to write took four hours.

Going home didn’t improve anything. I received a letter from my local council saying I owed an extra £100 in council tax – quite impressive when I’d actually paid it off entirely when I moved to the new house – and had seven days to pay it, or go to court. No prior warnings, no “you’re late with a payment”, no knack all. My stuff from the OU has also arrived, except I can’t get to it because my neighbour (who received the parcel while I was out) has disappeared off the face of the earth.

As the evening wound on, it just went further downhill. The OnDigital ITV Digital Freeview box was playing silly keffers, as it’s wont to do on occasion, and so viewing anything via TiVo was like trying to follow a conversation with someone who’s photocopying their face as they talk, and only giving you the pictures. And then I got a phone call from a pregnant friend who was having a potential miscarriage, and didn’t know what to do. I still don’t know the results on that one, but at least we ended up with her going to get checked up in hospital.

All in all, an utterly f’king pants day. I just hope today goes better.

</slight self pity>

UPDATED : She was OK – it wasn’t a miscarriage, but under definite orders to do keff all for a while. Thank Christ.

Proliferation

When I looked back the other day at the archives, I realised that I really don’t add as much stuff to d4d™ as I used to a year ago. I’m sure the reasons for this are legion, but I wasn’t really aware that I’d cut down on the contributions. Still, other than when I’m away and not really able to get an internet connection, d4d™ gets updated pretty much every day.

It’s odd in some ways – I’ve seen so many sites end up with hiatus periods, points where it all gets too much, and a break is needed. I’ve never really felt like that with d4d – maybe I will one day, but for now it’s still going to keep ambling along in the normal shambolic fashion. Yes, there are things I want to do with it – a redesign, make the CSS easier to use, that kind of thing. But I still don’t feel the need for a break per se.

We’ll see, anyway. Maybe come the time I’ve been writing it for two years, I’ll want to take space, I don’t know. But for the moment d4d™’s going to keep on going.

Travelling Light

I would love to say that I was surprised to see that a man managed to travel through to Italy using his wife’s passport instead of his own. Every time I’ve travelled, the passport photo has received no more than a cursory glance (both pre- and post-September 11th) and I’d often wondered what would happen if I were to replace my photo with that of someone else. From the look of it, the answer to that would be “absolutely knack all”. Imagine my surprise…

Jewellery

For some reason my brain’s fixed on this at the moment, but I can’t find what I’m looking for. A few years ago, I saw a beautiful cross, done in silver or pewter, and wanted one. I’d forgotten it ’til now, and so I can’t remember who’d designed it or anything. It was on a leather necklace (described as a leather thong, although that seems to have changed definition), and the pieces of the cross had what appeared to be thorns on them. It was a fantastic thing, and if memory serves it was in Paradiso Bodyworks in London’s Compton Street.

In the meantime, any ideas on who did the design? Or where I could find one?

Anniversary

I was just looking back at the archives for this time last year, to see what I was up to – memory like a sieve, and all that jazz. So – did you know that it’s a year tomorrow since the London congestion charge came in? Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?

February 14

So, another of the milestones (or should that be millstones?) for the year has now passed us by. The joys of the day with the second highest suicide rate in this country, and in many others. Unsurprising as it may seem to the regular reader, I really dislike – perhaps even despise – the marketing bollocks that goes on around the event. Flower prices treble, supposedly because of demand, but I suspect that demand is the one on behalf of the stockholders etc., who want more profits, and thus the ability to gouge as much as possible out of the average lovestruck punter. Clinton Cards, Hallmark, WH Smith, and a thousand others suddenly drape themselves in red hearts, and provide a range of cards in which the unimaginative can persuade their devotion’s target of their love/lust/illicit liaisons. Restaurants gear up for special romantic evenings, full of “meals for two” while those who prefer to remain single can stay at home with their meals for one/two.

To my mind, there shouldn’t have to be one day per year where people feel the need to express their love/affection. It’s something that should be able to happen at any time, at random. In many ways, St Valentine’s Day is an easy out, a way to express emotions without feeling vulnerable, or really any risk of rejection. The retailers make it easy to organise anything you want to do, and in theory it doesn’t tae a lot of heavy thinking. But that’s the way it is.

Knowing my views on the entire thing, I would probably now be more naffed off is someone were to buy me a Valentines card, but that’s slightly by the by.

But – and this is a big but (rather like the pole-dancers described below) if I were with someone, I’d still do something for the day. In some ways my principles go out of the window when it’s at the cost of someone I care about. Yeah, I don’t want anything, but if my partner still sees it as something important then I’ll do something for it – because it’s important to them, and Valentine’s is about making the people you care about happy.

So there we go – I’m a hypocrite on that one too…

Lapdances

Oh what jolly japes. The bunch of friends I was with last night decided it would be fun to go to a lapdancing club. In Redcar. Wow, how sexy. I’ve seen bowls of cornflakes with more sex appeal. (Quite honestly, this morng a bowl of cornflakes would go down very well indeed. Which is more than I can probably say for the munters dancers on dsplay last night) Pure, pure nasty.

So – two questions. One :- Is all this supposed to be sexy, or is it normally only attended by bunches of lads and/or single men with no imagination and less taste? Two :- I bet that pole smells really realy bad…

UPDATED : Further to Peter’s comment, I should explain. It actually is both lapdancing and poledancing – in the main area, the munters dancers gyrate around the pole, but if you are a mug want to, you can pay out some extra (I think it was £10) you go to a back-room, where they do a lapdance. And no, I didn’t have one – I don’t know what the ethos is in these places, but I’d have turned one down even if the people I was with had paid for it. (I think the expression “keep the money, you obviously need it” may not be the best one to use, but it’d be hard to avoid) It would probably have got me kicked out of the place (hmm, status symbol, kicked out of “Dr Hammer’s House of Dancers”) but it would’ve been worth it. Ah well.