Blogiversary!

Hells bells, 'gemmak' is four years old today!

I'm sure when I started this blogging malarkey I didn't ever anticipate I would still be at it four years later, but it seems I am and it would appear I owe you lot a vote of thanks for having the fortitude to keep on reading it all that time!

I'm still not sure why I do it, sometimes I love it, sometimes it has felt like a millstone around my neck but mostly it's just a part of my life now and one that for the most part I would miss. It's caused me some hassles along the way but it's also made me some very good friends, provided me with support when I needed it, given me a place to rant through the tough times and celebrate in the good ones and it has been directly responsible for changing some aspects of my life completely.

So...thanks guys for hanging around, another four years? Who knows..... ;o)

Now I remember....

....why I was tee-total for twenty five years!

This morning I seem to have a hangover, or at least I'm assuming that's what it is, it's not good, I don't like it.

bleugh!

Ok, no more words, I can't do words today, a picture instead, from a few days back, don't recall exactly when....

Shortlisted

Wow...two good things in one week! What's going on?

First the crap car surpassed itself in passing it's MOT test and now Schmap have shortlisted one of my photographs to accompany one of it's articles.

This doesn't of course catapult me to David Bailey status, it doesn't involve any payment (though I would get credit and a link) and the final decision is yet to be made but to even be shortlisted is quite pleasing. :o)

The crap car!

After much professional advice to the contrary and in the full knowledge that by my own investigations much was wrong 'the crap car' (you perhaps have to read 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' by Marina Lewycka to find that phrase funny) it amazingly managed to drag itself, kicking and screaming, through an M.O.T. test yesterday........ and passed!!

I am still stunned! The car God's must have been smiling on me!

I had gone in there very well aware that should it fail on what I suspected it would then this was probably the end of the road (pardon the pun) for it, given that my none existent meagre bank account was not going to be able to even contemplate the bill.

This was not going to be a happy moment and nor was it going to assist the employment search. As it was it turned into one of those ridiculously elated moments and I suspect that the guy testing it was a little taken aback by my reaction to the news, which I have to confess involved some degree of jumping up and down!
Yes, it does still need a fair number of repairs, the cost of which is way beyond me right now but none of them were severe enough to cause a fail and all of them can wait a little longer for the necessary attention. I might add that this is not new where this car is concerned, I bought it new and almost from the day the warranty expired it began to fall apart, I have never had so much trouble with a car in my life, I think I have replaced almost every part over the last few years...some of them twice and most of it documented here over the years!

It may be a crap car, it may be 'getting on a bit', slow, boring and most other things one doesn't normally want in a car but to me it's pretty important, it's gets me from A to B, it's about the only possession I haven't lost over the last few years having fought the bankruptcy courts hard to keep it, it feels somehow like my last bit of independence and it's mine and the only one I've got!

Today I love my crap car! :o)

Incidentally, if you haven't read 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' you should, it's without doubt the best book I ever read and utterly hilarious in a strange way.

The definition of a true friend....

....is the one, who when life is giving you a hard time and you send them mail at 2am bemoaning your woes, not only reads that mail but responds to it at an equally unearthly hour, with coherence and sense!

Thank you.... you know who you are.

So you think you know your movies?

As a self confessed movie dunce, or at least with a mind that seems only to retain information for a nano-second these days, I didn't do too well with Fletch's latest offering....a 50 movie sound clip montage, I scored only 25!

If you wanna have a bash and see how many you can name it's HERE.

Cat fight!

The following quote is taken from an article by the BBC today concerning why teenage girls are more frequently becoming involved in physical fights than they did previously and why that might shock or surprise us. The girl quoted has more than 20 violent offences to her name:

"It's only when I've had a drink and I think I'm on top of the world and I think I can take on everybody. I know I shouldn't but I can't help myself when I've had a drink."

Perhaps I'm just getting old but there seems something of a glaringly simple solution, at least in part, to this individuals behaviour, does there not? Doubtless she suffers any number of other social issues and problems but a little less alcohol might be a start! Ok, so now I'm beginning to get myself into much deeper issues and perhaps she drinks because of those issues but none the less my knee jerk reaction still is just..... jeez!

....and just for the record I would feel the same if it were a guy being quoted.

An engineers guide to cats

This is very funny...well I think so at least! ;o)

I suspect...

....that Mr Brown is laughing on the other side of his face this morning!


Let's face it, the last two days have not been the finest in his career but then by now he should be getting used to it having managed quite spectacularly to end any career he might have had within weeks (was it even that long?) of his moving into number 10!

Surely not even copious amounts of spin and rhetoric can't save him from the dogs now.

Even Boris the buffoon has made his way the top spot in London, if I were Gordy I think I would be house hunting this morning...assuming of course his bank will give him a mortgage! ;o)

Excuse my sniggering.

Five tips for a woman

1. It is important that a man helps you around the house and has a job.

2. It is important that a man makes you laugh.

3. It is important to find a man you can count on! And doesn't lie to you.

4. It is important that a man loves you and spoils you.

5. It is important that these four men don't know each other.


Sorry, it's an old one I know but I couldn't resist!

Paranoia!

Twice a year the letting agents that manage the flat we live in send someone round by appointment to check that we are keeping the property in the manner stated on the lease. We are of course, those who have read this blog will know I am on the OTT side anyway when it comes to being clean and tidy but nonetheless, in the sure and certain knowledge that today was 'inspection' day I thought it best I make an extra effort.

Not knowing what time of day this visit was to take place I began early getting the place absolutely spick and span......you know, doing all those little jobs you always 'mean' to do, like getting the carpet absolutely pristine, cleaning the outside of the windows not just the inside, giving the paintwork a quick once over and polishing the laminate flooring rather than just giving it a quick look at a mop.

Now when I say we adhere closely to the rules laid down in the lease, did I forget to mention um...just the one anomaly?

This is a 'no smoking' property, or at least that's what it is supposed to be, in practice though that is very much not the case. The pair of us smoke like troopers.

Mindful of this most wicked and heinous of breaches and only too aware of the lingering smell etc. I had the windows and doors open all day despite there being a distinct chill in the air, I burned scented candles, I squirted copious amounts of doubtlessly environmentally very unfriendly air fresheners about the place, I utilised all manner of 'clean smelling' solutions for my cleaning activities and worst of all, I had to trail up and down three floors to access the great outdoors (ok, I took the lift back up), every time I wanted a demon cigarette!

.......only to find that when the guy finally arrived he wasn't here more than 15 seconds and his inspection was so perfunctory that I doubt he would have noticed had there been an elephant parked in the middle of the living room!

Next time I won't be quite so paranoid!

U.K. blogger fined for post

Yesterday in Wales a 24 year old man, Gavin Brent, was fined by magistrates for the content of a blog post in which he subjected a police officer to what was considered a 'menacing' attack.

Brent had been charged with nineteen offences of theft and vented his apparently extreme displeasure by making the post, the content of which attacked the officer and his new baby. The charge for the post was bought under the Telecommunications act.

I may very well be wrong here but this is the first time to my [limited] knowledge a blogger has been convicted in the U.K for the content of a blog post and it brings up once again, that old chestnut, freedom of speech. Should we be free to post anything we wish or should we be held responsible under law for our written opinion?

Again my knowledge is limited but I assume that should one publish a post for instance, likely to incite racial hatred or to promote terrorism, charges could be bought against the owner and in principle at least, journalists have guidelines to which they have to adhere, hard though it is to tell sometimes should you subject yourself to our delightful daily red top publications!

I can never quite formulate an absolute opinion on this question though I err on the side of believing we should be held responsible, under law if the case is suitably extreme, for the content of any post we put 'out there'. In the case of Mr Brent's post however, whilst undoubtedly it was very offensive, it appears to be merely the silly rantings of a stupid individual annoyed at being caught and perhaps would have been better treated with the contempt it deserved!

Your opinion?

Blow into this!

Every time I up-sticks and move to a new area, and let's face it I have done more than perhaps my fair share of that over the years, I have to go through what is fast becoming a bit of a 'ritual'.

I am asthmatic (yes I smoke I know, I never said I was perfect), I have been asthmatic since I was three years of age, I use an inhaler (or two) and my asthma is so well controlled that I barely, if at all, even think of myself as asthmatic. This is of no consequence.

Each time I sign up to a new doctors practice and go for my 'introductory' appointment, I am steered, despite my gentle protestations that it's only a few months since I last saw one, to an asthma nurse....who invariably puts me through the same old malarkey.

I am not a health care professional but I would hope at my age I am at least a little familiar with the workings of my own body. I can tell the nurse before she even hands me the peak flow meter what my reading will be to within five points but still he or she will insist that I huff and puff into it....and hey presto it dispays the same reading I already offered.

This done (and my reading is pretty decent even for a smoker) I will always be asked to illustrate how I use my inhalers and I will always be told I am doing it correctly, though this seems to be of no matter for always a new and modified regime of administration and dosage will be suggested. I try politely to mention that the dosage and timing I use has been worked out over many years and has been found to be the optimum for me but nope, it is always insisted that for 'just a few weeks' I adhere strictly to the new regime..... and in the face of professional opinion I always give in.

So, as always I have spent the last few weeks huffing and puffing and wheezing my way to the follow up appointment in a few days time, when I will present with a much lower peak flow reading than before and as a consequence the nurse will always 'advise' that I go back to my old regime!!

Hey, ho, I suppose he or she has no real idea that I know what I am talking about and so in these days of medical paranoia it all has to be checked and then re-checked but somewhere along the line it does seem something of a waste of precious resources to me.

Cat diary

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.

They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some
sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.

In an attempt to 'scare them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about "what a good little hunter" I am. How dare them!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event.

However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.

The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move.

My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe.