I think that more authors should start rock bands.Of course, they don't listen to anything I say, but if they did they might want to come to me so I can tell them what names to use:- Nick Hornby and the Range.
- Stephen King Crimson.
- King Kurt Vonnegut.
- The Hunter S. Thompson Twins.
- The J.K. Rowling Stones.
- Grahame Greene Day.
- Virginia Howlin' Woolf.
- Thomas Mann's Earth Band.
I'm sure you can do better than that...
Muslim Violence I know that the worldwide events aren't representative of all Muslims. But, I really don't understand how anyone can whip up a crowd to burn buildings and murder people simply on the basis of a supposedly 'offensive' cartoon or two. It seems to me, more and more, like someone is stirring up trouble deliberately. Music Views Thanks to Jonathon for popping by yesterday. I checked-out his music review blog, Bloody Awful Poetry, today and I commend it to you as a fine example of music writing. My Velocipede My quest for sponsorship has gone mad! I've raised well over £500 in just five days. At this rate, by the time I do the ride (14th May) I'll have raised over £8,000. :-)
Woo! And, indeed, Yay!I won a competition.As a member of the Pete Collective (see the banner in the top-left corner of this page) I entered a competition to win a 'Pete On Board' mug. And I won!The last time I won anything was a box of 60 tea-bags at a girl guides' raffle. I was trying to win a girl guide...For supreme divvy picture evidence of this fantastic prize (the mug, not the tea-bags) you can look over here at Flickr.
The fine organisation for which I work has no lack of people who can be guaranteed to ask daft questions on a regular basis. And why do unexpected requests for complicated documentation always come in late on a Friday afternoon - attached to a note mentioning that the customer needs an answer by the end of the week? Add to this the fact that the local pub, round the corner from our office, has a new, guest beer on-tap. It's called 'Swing Low'. And it's lethal! Only 2 pints at lunchtime, and I've been useless since. Which all means that my brain has been completely drained of all thoughts and I had no idea what I was going to write. So instead you have to put up with reading an inane ramble. "What's new?" I hear you cry. Bastards! One delightful thing to report. You will have seen my begging letter for sponsorship on Wednesday. Well, my target of £100 was blown away in a matter of hours. The total raised (in less than 2 days) is nigh on £400, which is quite remarkable. People are so generous, it takes my breath away. So I've raised my target to £500. The only worry I have now is when I attempt the London to Brighton Bike Ride in June. I have a feeling that my acquaintances will be all sponsored-out and I'll have to resort to panhandling to raise the necessaries. I'm not sure what sort of deviant sexual practice panhandling actually is, but it don't sound pleasant!
OK, well, I'm definitely not right in the head.A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I was thinking of signing up for a couple of charity bike rides.Well, the confirmation of the first one has come through.I'm going to be doing the Thames Bridges Bike Ride, on behalf of the Stroke Association, on 14th May this year. 32 miles. Argh! I need to get training.
Mr Estall is to blame!Anyway - obviously I'm not doing this for the benefit of my health. Well, I am, but I'm also doing it for charity. So please cycle over to my JustGiving page and donate away. Please. Any donation - however big or small - gratefully received.Thank you.
The Polish word for "lamps" is "lampy". This I find incredibly amusing, for some reason. I spent most of our holiday singing songs to myself, in praise of a cartoon character called "Lampy". A. Blikle is a famous coffee-house. It's on Nowy Swiat ("New Street") in Warsaw. Their coffee is fabulous, their hot-chocolate with khalua is fantastic and their cakes are divine. However, the dessert which I just had to order was the New Orleans Jazz Banana. Yes, you read that right. Jazz Banana. It's not every day that you discover a brand-new euphemism for the penis, so I've been making as much use of it (the euphemism) as possible for the past 2 or 3 days. This one will never wear out (oh, stop it!).The Polish language has too many letters. English has, what, 26 letters. Which is not enough for all the sounds we need, so learning English is very confusing. The Poles cottoned on to this many years ago and invented 47 (approximately) new letters to represent each sound in their language. So, why the hell does each letter still represent a completely different sound depending on its context? There's a letter that looks like an 'e' with a little tail on the bottom (there's probably a way of showing you - but I can't be arsed to figure it out). In the middle of a word it makes an 'en' sound. But if it's followed by a 'p' or a 'b', it makes an 'em' sound. And if it's at the end of a word it makes an 'eh' sound! What's the deal with that? And don't get me started with the 'L's that have crosses through them. At first, I thought it was an issue with dyslexic signwriters...In private, Polish people speak Chinese.
Warsaw
So we got back (late - thanks BA) from Warsaw. It's a lovely little city. You can wander around the main sites in the center of town in a day, easily.But with the average temperature at -10C while we were there (day and night) it was dead cold. But very pretty in the snow.The mix of olde worlde middle-European architecture, with the occasional stern pieces of social realist buildings and sculpture from the Cold War period makes Warsaw a fascinating place to visit.It also helps that even the most exclusive restaurants are affordable if you're used to the prices we pay over here!All in all - a fantastic few days. You can see some pictures of our adventures here.
This IS a Blog you know
Yes, it is - so here's a real, live link to a web-page!
A good friend of mine has started a family-oriented site. Their idea, it seems, is to try and build a massive web-scrapbook of faces. The ultimate aim is to get 1 Million peoples' faces on board. Mosey on over to www.1-million-faces.com to get an early look at a site that's sure to be a big hit in the future...
Sorry it's been quiet of late. Been rather busy.And it'll be quiet for a few more days yet - The Wife and I are of to Warsaw (in Poland, not the West Midlands) for a few days of freezing our extremeties and snowball fights (Hmmm... I love advocaat).It's pretty damn chilly over there (-16C? Shit!). So I hope they sell vodka!In other news:In a moment of madness I agreed to Mr Estall's suggestion of taking part in some charity bike rides. The first one is in May, so I'll probably start training in, oh, May probably.You can follow Mr Estall's Cyclopathic blog here, 'cos I won't be doing a training log or anything like that, unless something interesting happens. Like falling off and getting maimed by a big lorry.See you next week!
