OCD for cats!

Busy, busy, busy....no time for a real post right now so just a 'cheaty' post today!

Gotta love it tho....

Brand and Ross - Some perspective please?

What's with all this ridiculous hoo ha over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand then?

The media are obviously suffering a slow news week to be making so much of this story and the 10000 of the good and the righteous, who apparently contacted the 'powers that be' to complain about the incident, must have little of importance in their lives if they can get so hot under the collar over what is in reality little more than a prank that overstepped the mark.....albeit arguably not in a very kind way.

I'm not a fan of Brand, though I will admit to being rather amused by Ross and I can perhaps understand why Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter might feel slightly affronted but hell fire, have people lost all sense of humour and perspective? The stunt might have been a little over zealous and somewhat ill considered but it was hardly a hanging offence now was it?!

These guys, like them or not, are at the top of their game, they are in a branch of the industry that has always pushed the boundaries and always will, it's how the 'art', for want of a better word, evolves and it's not too many years since the pious and petty were creating a similar commotion about Monty Python and like (the link is not lost on me, Python, Cleese, Sachs, see where I'm at here?!!!) and look what happened there!

Ok, if it is felt appropriate then an apology might be in order but to sack the pair of them would be utter codswallop!! Hammers and nuts come to mind.....and even more so given that the whole issue lost any credibility when this morning it would appear Sachs granddaughter has seen fit to talk to The Sun!

She must be feeling "totally and utterly exposed and betrayed" then!

I rest my case.

One thing is for sure...most of us had never heard of Georgina Baillie (that's the granddaughter if you were still in any doubt) before all this, but we certainly have now...funny that isn't it? What is it they say about any publicity being better than no publicity?

If the BBC, long time British establishement benchmark of common sense, reason and forward thinking, capitulate in the face of pressure to sack these guys they will go way down in my estimation. An apology? yes, a severe reprimand? maybe but sacking?..... let's get just a little perspective here shall we chaps!!

Don't say 'old'!

Please allow me a moment of self-indulgent, mild annoyance! I am feeling somewhat miffed this morning and what's more my miff'ed-ness is caused by something I can do absolutely nothing about....and that in itself miffs me even more! Miffed, miffed, miffed!

So what is it that's 'got my goat', me is what, more specifically the general collapse of me, the decline of all things physical that are me, or were me once upon a time!

I really never imagined I would dislike getting older, there are in theory at least, supposed to be benefits to the ageing process, we are supposed to feel more 'sorted', more at ease with ourselves, have attained a greater degree of comfort in our own skin, be less concerned of what others think, feel confident in who we are and have the best sex of our lives as a result of all this confidence and comfort. We are supposed be financially secure, at the peak of our career and looking forward to a gradual lessening of life's pressures.

Yeah right!

Whilst I won't take issue with the confidence aspects what everyone fails to warn you about, or you choose conveniently to ignore, is the fact that all these things might be fab.... if only your physical self could keep up the bloody pace!

What's with all this disintegration? I have too many bits already that groan badly in the cold weather, my vision seems to be almost daily getting further from the 20/20 it once was, I have hormones that really are moaning, hell, adolescence was a walk in the park by comparison, I am 'blessed' with some ailment that means my hardly filled teeth, are literally falling out of my head and now if I fall asleep on my tummy (which is the only way I can fall asleep these days) something very peculiar happens to my back and I can't maneuver myself into an upright position without himself rolling me very carefully and gingerly off the edge! How elegant.

Worse still and to add insult to injury I now find a 'dimple' (I can't bring myself to say the 'C word', the ladies among you will understand) on my thigh, I 'lost' my car in Tesco's car park for fifteen whole minutes last week and I find I can't remember a file path long enough to actually get to it, or a piece of code long enough to type the whole damn thing in one hit!

So where did it all go so horribly, hatefully wrong I wonder? When did all this disintegration sneak up on me without my noticing it's gradual advance?

I can see very little to recommend this getting older malarkey save for two things, knowing that if I don't get what I want for Christmas then no matter, the next one will be along any day now and having the ability to find it amusing, when a body part I didn't previously know existed gives way spectacularly, during what is supposed to be some of the best 'carnal activity' of my life!

Yum yum!

Something a little more lighthearted today! Needs sound.

Weird or what!!!

The weirdest, spookiest thing happend to me first thing this morning and I might add it was something I could probably have managed my Sunday morning without !

Those of you who are of a delicate nature might like to close this page now, this is weird and it's not a pleasant subject matter to say the very least.

Ok, we all know how odd dreams can be now and then, the weird and sometimes not so wonderful that our sleeping minds manage to drag up occasionally and mine is up there with the best of them but the one thing I never do is have what might be called traditional nightmares. By that I mean nightmares of the 'horror movie genre'... but last night I did. I had a truly horrible nightmare revolving around the severing of someones head (big ugh) and the subsequent 'transportation' of said severed body part around the streets of some nameless town! Don't ask me any other details, I don't recall any more than that thankfully but it was one of those disturbing vivid nightmares that was still with me, bothering me, when I got up.

The fact that I had this nightmare is probably not very strange or spooky given that last night Fletch and I watched a TV show about horror movies just before we went to bed, but bear with me here, things were about to get very much more weird!!

Having having woken up a little and having just kindly regaled Fletch with the tale of my nightmare (I'm too kind) I settled in front of my lappy with my first cup of coffee of the day and got about the business of checking my mail. At the top of the page was an item of spam that had snuck it's way through to my inbox. I use a preview pane so there was no avoiding the offending mails contents....which was just one line, no link, no nothing, just one, short, line of text as follows;

"Man Parades Streets With Severed Head"

WTF!!??

I have to admit to being er, ever so slightly fazed for a moment or two despite the fact I am not superstitious and believe in almost nothing.... but hey, it was early, I hadn't woken up properly!

Further investigation revealed that there was a news item a few days ago regarding a guy in Bangladesh who paraded the streets with a severed head, so no doubt that was somehow the prompt for the spam but it still seemed pretty weird that I should first have the nightmare at all and then the first thing I see on my computer is that very un-delightful little missive!

A hamster in the hand ....

...is worth two in the cage!

Yesterday, after all these months, I finally got to hold Hammy without suffering a mortal wound and believe me, she is more than capable of delivering a rapid response, disabling offensive that the SAS would be proud of when it suits her...just ask Lisa!

By chance yesterday I was chatting to someone (Thank you LD) much experience in all things hamster, who promised me if I followed her rules I would get this stubborn little creature 'eating out of my hand'.

Before I began I had to furnish myself, as a very necessary precaution, with 'hamster gloves'. These are not purpose designed of course, just nice soft fleecy gloves which I had sourced earlier in the day at Tesco for the princely sum of a pound. It was thus that in the early evening me and Hammy set about coming to some mutual 'understanding' where this biting malarkey is concerned!

And it worked, I did exactly as I had been instructed and within a half hour madam was sitting on my hand, yayyyyy...not for very long I grant you but we managed two repeat performances and I was even able to cup her in both hands and stroke her at one (short) point!

There is of course no pictorial evidence of this momentous moment... Hey, I had my hands full, but it is progress indeed and as a reward she was allowed free rein in her favourite game..... breaking into the treats bag, a game which I might add she completed in record time, pegs? pah...no problem!

Round two tonight. Me and this hamster are going to do this thing!

It's a funny old (virtual) world!

The interweb has long been derided for it's dangers, the risks to children, the odd bods that acquire fixations, spammers, phishers, stalkers and all the other sundry negative issues surrounding it.

We hear endless stories of children sitting for hours in front of a screen instead of 'playing out' and getting much needed exercise, relationship breakdowns, the porn issues of course never go away yada, yada, yada, and whilst all of these issues have importance and in some instances very severe repercussions that require firmly addressing, it's not all bad, in fact most of it is good, it's just that as ever is the case, good news is not news!

I *cough* probably don't need to spell out for you that I love ( I know that's probably an inappropriate use of the word but you know what I mean) the interweb, it's impact on my life has been very significant and for anyone who questions that very fact, yes, it's a good thing! I won't bore you with all the old psychology regarding 'real' life versus 'virtual' life and I'm not going to even attempt to sway the sceptics but again this morning the web bought the two together for me in a very positive way.

Someone I long ago lost contact with for various reasons suddenly popped up on my screen, someone who was quite an important part of my life but who perhaps out of necessity at the time became estranged. Without this thing we call the internet there would have been no way on earth we could have resumed any kind of contact, it just wouldn't have happened, but instead now we have the opportunity to at least pass the time of day, catch up a little and hopefully let any bygones be bygones....that can't be a bad thing in my book internet!

I'm not proud!

So....the relaunched gemmak designs has it's first two customers completed and up and running, here and here. Two in the first few days isn't bad but I want more, I'm twiddling my thumbs and I need something to twiddle them around so to that end I'm extending the '£10* off' offer for a further week.

That means you can have a complete makeover from as little as ($34) £20!!! What more could you want? Don't answer that!

See, like the title says, I'm not proud, I can beg! ;o)

*applies to full redesigns.

The perfect home!

Forget ocean views, spa rooms, swimming pools and bijou loft conversions this is the perfect home! It's in Japan, it's beautiful, it's completely feline friendly and I want it!

I would of course need a cat or three to put in it......

More HERE.

I've been tagged...

...by The Pink Jellybaby

Here are the Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up

Ok...here we go, my six bits of info you just can't live without knowing! ;o)

1. I am obsessed with handbags.

2. I don't much like wearing clothes.....if God (ok, so I'm atheist but you know where I'm coming from on this) had intended us to wear clothes he would have made them fit!

3. I love any medical TV programme, the more detailed the better, strange considering I hate the sight of blood in real life.

4. I have to use a 10x magnification mirror to pluck my eyebrows these days! :o/

5. I have one big secret! Nope, I'm not gonna tell you.

6. I'm short enough that I can lay completely flat in the bath....and float!

And the six um, lucky people I am going to tag are:

Lisa
Daffy
Trac
Mr Nighttime
Daisy the curly cat
Tash

Joe Plumber and Jane Doe

I will confess before I even begin this post that I know almost nothing about American politics, or at least I know little enough that I couldn't begin to defend what I am about to say with any degree of real knowledge, hell I struggle with the minutiae of my own countries governmental carrying's-on let alone that of another but, as I haven't been able to turn on the news or open a paper without coming face to face with Obama or McCain for months, I feel I have some small entitlement to have an opinion, albeit poorly formed in the eyes of anyone politically savvy.

So, feel free to shoot me down in flames but know that I can't argue back with any alacrity, I am not 'Joe Plumber' (incidentally check out this amusing little faux pas) but I am Jane Doe and as such my limited knowledge is probably not unusual, there are alot of Jane Does out there, most of them have a vote (you might argue they shouldn't but they do) and as a consequence they will vote on issues probably not up there at the top of the political pundits' lists.

My vote if I had one, Obama, no contest! My reasons? The man is charismatic, bright and extremely clever, he is forward thinking, appears to live on the same planet as the rest of us, he is on the opposite side to the current administration, which for me can only to be a good thing, if for no other reason than the Iraq debacle, he hasn't bought in an Alaskan bimbo with a twitch in her at eye to try and inject some interest into his campaign at the last moment and he is black.....and it is long overdue that a western power had a black president!

So...my opinion, as is evident, might not be based in heavy duty politics but it is an opinion and probably many with a vote know little more than I do and will place their cross on the basis of a only few, perhaps emotionally motivated points.

If in November Barack Obama becomes the first black president of the United States I for one will be cheering loudly at the outcome of the first American presidential race that has held any interest for me whatsoever and I will be hoping that just maybe, whilst it doesn't go the whole way, it is a step in the right direction and that even Dr Martin Luther King might just be raising a small smile!

I can haz pissed off?

Cats and swimming....hmmmm!

Some Friday fun

Firstly...

The Mandelboat virus from BOFH at The Reg. :o)

and secondly....


An ISP that doesn’t require Internet access? Ummm.... :o)

In memory of Adrian

Today at two o'clock Adrian Sudbury's memorial service will take place in Sheffield Cathedral.

Adrian, a journalist with the Huddersfield Examiner, died in August aged only twenty seven, having fought a long battle with not one, but two types of leukemia. It was a battle that it appeared he was winning, but sadly, ultimately it was not to be and he spent his last three months not only coping with his illness but also working tirelessly to promote a better understanding of bone marrow donation, a campaign that ultimately saw him rubbing shoulders with the Prime Minister and succeeding in inflating the numbers of registered bone marrow donors very significantly.

This was a man who made a real difference, who's courage and fortitude in the face of such personal adversity inspired people around the world and a man who leaves behind him a legacy that whilst he knew his own couldn't be saved, will ultimately save the lives of many others.

My thoughts are with his parents Kay and Keith, his sister Carrie, his family and friends and all those who loved him and will be in Sheffield today to celebrate the life of this very special man. It had been my intention to be there with them but unfortunately it was not to be, though I will be very much there in spirit, I will be represented in a small way and I will be watching the service online, which the BBC is to broadcast live.

Adrian Sudbury; a true modern day hero. May he rest in peace and eat Haribos forever.......