…grayblog…

Month: February 2004

  • I’m a Celebrity, Get A Life…

    I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here… has been attracting audiences in the order of twelve million viewers. How long is the programme? 30 minutes? Let’s do some mathematics:

    12,000,000 people x 30 minutes each = 360,000,000 minutes

    360,000,000 minutes equates to 6,000,000 hours

    6,000,000 hours is equivalent to 250,000 days.

    250,000 days is roughly 684 years.

    684 years. Think about it. Surely humankind could put this time to better use? Just think – if everyone sat down for half an hour, just once a year, and did something useful, or at least thought about something useful, the world would surely be a better place. I’m not expecting Celebrity viewers to solve the world’s ills, but surely their collective brain power could do something useful like inventing a method for opening tin cans that means that the sauce in my chopped tomatoes doesn’t splatter all over the kitchen worktop. Then again, they probably couldn’t even manage that. Mind you, the heat from their brains all simultaneously struggling to think could be enough to heat a small town without the use of fossil fuels.

  • This week

    This week I will, undoubtedly, be extremely busy. I’ve just looked down my to-do list, and it is both lengthy and urgent. It also involves a sizeable number of tasks that will take considerably more than a few minutes to complete. Oh well, best get on with it.
    In the meantime, get hyperactive with this completely mad Squirrel Game, which, for reasons I can not fathom, features one of those Japanese cartoon girl characters showing her panties. Hmm.

  • Popular culture

    Hmm. grayblog is ranked number two on MSN for sneaky pictures of Jordan and Peter Andre.
    Popular culture. I’m your man for the latest on celebs everywhere. Oh yes.

  • Weekend

    Thanks to everyone who contributed advice on the work problems I mentioned below. The outlook now seems a little more positive, largely because we now think that by strengthening the team and making plans and decisions for the future, we should be able to work things out to a positive conclusion. But that depends on everyone, including the boss, doing everything as we hope. I’m not holding my breath.
    Meanwhile, we’ve had a full-value weekend, featuring dinner out on Friday, lunch with my parents yesterday, a visit to Kearn’s nursery, lunch with Bren and Greg today and a couple of long lie-ins. Also, we’ve made a start on blitzing my flat. Following advice from my estate agent, I’ve been working to reduce the amount of clutter in the flat, with the aim of simplifying the upcoming redecorating task (a lick of paint to make it look bright and fresh, plus replacement cheap carpet and finally hanging the new curtains that I’ve had for ages) and also to make the flat seem bigger than it really is – or, perhaps, less small, depending how you look at it. So far, the shelves in the living room have been dismantled, which means that my CD collection has mostly gone into storage – reduced from 550 CDs to just 70. Hundreds of books have been boxed up, as well as my archive of Wallpaper magazines. Additionally, I’ve had a blitz of my wardrobe, leading to several sacks of old shirts and tatty jeans being taken to the textiles recycling bin at the tip. My desktop PC is currently sitting on the floor, awaiting transportation to the nursery for storage until we get to our new home.
    All this does make the flat seem larger, but it also creates a strange sensation – I’m beginning to dismantle the place that has been home for the last five years, the first home that I have owned and paid for with my own money. Along with the upcoming planning application for new windows (at last), I will soon be ready to put the house on the market and then throw my lot in with Hels (who is also going through the same thing). Life will never be the same again.

    As an aside:

    FOR SALE: spacious one bedroom ground floor apartment in extremely convenient position in central Chichester, adjacent to city walls. Leasehold, with 50% share of freehold of the whole building.
    Accommodation consists of:

    • spacious living/dining room, nearly 19ft in length
    • kitchen, with gas hob and electric oven, large sink with waste disposal unit, space under worktops for fridge and washing machine
    • bathroom, with pedestal basin, low level WC, bath with electric shower over
    • bedroom, with original wooden flooring
    • large hallway with large cupboard/store
    • gas central heating throughout
    • off-road parking

    The property is only two minutes walk from the main shopping streets of Chichester, which offer a wide variety of big name stores as well as small boutiques and specialists. It is close to the historic centre of the city, with its historic buildings, cathedral and elegant parks, and is also only a few minutes from the mainline railway station (London Victoria 100 minutes).

    O.I.R.O. £149,500

    Interested? Email me, and let’s both save some estate agency fees.

  • Biccies

    When biscuits go wrong.

  • Stress

    Open question: if your boss (use your imagination if you don’t have a boss) refused to honour a verbal agreement that he had made with you, and made this refusal clear in an embarrassing manner in front of your colleagues, and generally gave you little or no support and acted like a total arsehole, what would you do? Consider also that you have little recourse to anyone more senior than your boss because he acts in an autonomous manner within the particular company location where you are employed, and that the second-in-command is very much in league with him.
    Also consider that you can not reasonably throw in the towel as the job is quite well paid and you do not believe that you could easily find an equivalent position elsewhere. Consider further that the cumulative stress inherant with the current situation is having an adverse impact on your health.
    Suggestions?

  • J.Lo’s bum: it woz The Sun wot cracked it!

    Yay, yay and thrice yay! Absolute Power returns for a new series, with or without censorship, and is big enough to take mightily satisfying swipes at both HMG and the Beeb. And it’s bloody funny too.
    Listen to tonight’s episode here whilst you can.
    Interestingly, at the beginning of the recording, you can hear the last few seconds of the 6 o’clock News, with Andrew Marr making the following statement about the Government and the persistent problems with the 45 minute thing:

    There are, they hope, only two kinds of voters: those who made up their minds about Tony Blair and the Iraq war long ago; and the vast, the innumerable army of the bored witless.

    Let’s hope that there aren’t as many that are witless as they think.

  • Father figure

    Rodney becomes a father, in fairly terrifying circumstances. Thoughts going to the whole family.

  • Oh look. There’s a comet.

    Cheap Space Documentary.

  • Forget Norway

    Kenya Believe It?