6 months on...

As I write these words, I cannot believe that 6 months has passed since my last entry on this blog. Indeed, as I have been obsessively busy building my photography blog's content up to an acceptable level - see www.stretchthehorizon.co.uk for further details - this period has passed in the blink of an eye, as we all know 'Time flies when you're having fun' (the best idiom I can find, sorry).

Now let's break my shutter-snapping pictorial absence down a little more, shall we?

• 6 months
• 25 weeks
• 181 days
• 4,344 hours
• 260,640 minutes
• 15,638,400 seconds

So, there we have the explanation of why this blog's entries have suffered so badly for the last year-and-a-half and I hope you will click the above link to assess whether it's been 'Time well spent' or I've just been 'biding my Time' or has it all been just 'a waste of Time' (okay, enough of the Time-related sayings now, eh)?!

Royton, Oldham: let's get metaphysical

While out walking with my camera recently, I spotted the above sign. As my initial surprise wore off after reading it, I snapped a shot of it and then tried to decipher what the confusing message could possibly mean (indeed, Microsoft Word has immediately flagged its wording as being bad grammar):

“This footpath and cycle track are permissive in nature only"

Just an MRI scan away… pt 5

As I pondered this potential life-changing episode, the Nurse spoke and tapped a lowered gurney adjacent to the scanner’s opening. ‘Just pop yourself up on here, lie back and try to make yourself comfortable,’ she said and as I followed her directions, I felt the rush of unfettered adrenaline constrict my airways, blood vessels and any potential thought process that may have been needed.

Just an MRI scan away… pt 4

By the time I arrived at the hospital, I was once again soaked like a drowned Rat and feeling knackered through yet another two miles of incessant pavement pounding to an urgent destination. With virtually no time to waste, I finally reached the correct department, flashed my appointment letter and was then ushered into a small waiting room; luckily, no-one else was sat there to witness the pooling of water beneath my chair and to mistakenly believe I’d actually soiled myself whilst seated.

Just an MRI scan away… pt 3

So April’s Friday the 13th had finally arrived and with it my conflicting appointments: signing-on at my local Job Centre and an MRI scan booked at my local hospital. It was only as I got washed and mopped, ready for the inevitable stresses the day was about to unleash, that I realised the ominous date these two clashes had fallen upon, so it came as no surprise as I left my flat to see the heavens open in a downpour to greet my two mile walk.

From that moment onwards, the day began to slowly unravel...

Just an MRI scan away… pt 2

It was only couple of days after I uploaded my last blog entry - and part one of this tale - that my MRI scan appointment dropped through my letterbox. I ripped the envelope open and discovered the procedure was booked at my local hospital for April 13th at 3.00pm, which was only a week or so away. As I read the rest of the instructions I had to follow before undertaking the scan - and the medical form that was to be completed and taken with me - I kept flicking my eyes back to the date of the scan.

Just an MRI scan away... pt 1

With my ongoing battle against the bouts of my swollen Parotid glands to contend with on a much more regular basis (from a manageable bulging every other month to an annoying almost daily flaring) my outpatient treatment has now started to appear slightly more worrying, to say the least. My latest hospital appointment was at the end of March, which is a full two years on from my last check-up due to yet another cancellation - see “Bad letter day“ for more details - and so during this interim period, I’d been allocated a new and younger Consultant. With this fresh pair of hands and eyes assessing my jaw line, a dynamic shift in my future medical reviews had begun in earnest as soon as I was seated (un)comfortably in his surgery...

eBay, cameras & numpty-headed c*nts

Recently, I have made a decision to spend more and more of my time in the photographic stratum of eBay and as a result, I am feeling a little stress-induced to say the least. I say stress-induced because of the many bad experiences I’ve had to endure - as a buyer and seller alike - and that’s basically down to the absolute cretinism a fair few eBayers show once they’re hidden behind their online monikers, regardless of whether their actions are deemed right or wrong.

Skyrim Fanfic: a prison cell in Riften jail...

(Here is a short(ish) Skyrim-related story about someone languishing in Riften jail, for an unknown crime.)

‘I’m innocent I tell you!’ left my mouth and chased the guard along the dungeon corridor, as I stood rattling the riveted bars of my cell in frustration. I watched him reach the outer dungeon door leading back to Mistveil Keep, swing it open and as he stepped through, call back in response with a cackle, ‘We’ll see, but what you’ve done is a little more serious than just stealing a Giant’s Mammoth cheese butty...’

Zelda: Skyward Sword & EDGE Magazine's Review - a perfect 10 in Onanism

(c) Future Publishing

I have been an avid follower of Nintendo’s Zelda series of video games for the last twenty years or so - from the SNES’s A Link to the Past, through the majestical The Ocarina of Time and its multi-layered follow-up Majora’s Mask on the N64, on past the much-maligned Gamecube’s cell-shaded The Wind Waker, to the current Wii generation’s latest reiteration, Twilight Princess - so I felt my heart skip a beat with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword just last month.

All the gaming magazines’ reviews were unanimous in their adulation for the big N’s newest addition to their action-adventure RPG world, awarding the type of near-perfect scores video games can only dream of in the world of mediocre titles and lacklustre design. So I knew there was just one place to go for final clarification of Skyward Sword’s supposed brilliance and that was Future Publishing’s pre-eminent videogames magazine, EDGE: lo and behold, the latest Zelda title had been awarded the perfect 10-out-of-10 score...