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...

The freezing cold Tea bag tester

Some days are sent to test our resolve, sanity and basic human emotions, of this I have no doubt and I can attest to sampling many of these challenges over my life so far. I usually have a bad March and then a bad October, which being almost equidistant to one another means I can shore up the defences when the individual months mentioned above are approaching: this means cancelling any non-essential trips or appointments, ensuring I have some pittance saved to one side for emergencies that are bound to arise and trying to remain calm and collected in the face of an insurmountable Fate intent on disrupting everything around me.

Gaming the light fandango... pt 1

I am a moron. There, I’ve said it now. In fact I’m going to go a step further and state that I’m not only a moron but an ape, an arse, a clown, a cretin, a tool and ultimately, a twat. Indeed, there are many negative terms I could relate to myself without even becoming abashed at the brevity such monikers instill within our society because I accept that I am nothing more than an absolute pillock. And why, may you ask, am I reducing my very existence to the lowest of common denominators? Well it’s all because a life-long, crippling addiction - controlled for years via private solitude and introverted withdrawal - has suddenly raised its wanton head into my life again and in doing so, now appears to have cost me immeasurably.

GTA V Trailer: Read It and Weep!

The first look at Rockstar Game's newest GTA Sandbox world has finally arrived, so click the link above, jump inside and sample the pixel shaded trailer Elysium that is GTA V (that's 'Grand Theft Auto Five' to all non-gamers out there), which by a stroke of genius is accompanied by the opening instrumental music from the 1968 Small Faces song, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake! Surely 'tis a beast...

A neighbourhood in waiting... pt 2

As the din continued underneath, I stood listening for a few minutes frozen behind my front door, safe in knowledge that my unlit vestibule and the coats draped across its security glass camouflaged me from the noise-inducing cretins below. The same loud thudding that had awoken me seemed a little louder now that it had less brickwork to dampen its echo and through the wired glass I caught a few murky, distorted shapes moving around in the stairwell beyond: actual morons were in my midst.

A neighbourhood in waiting... pt 1

It was a low and dull distant thud that initially brought me out of my early morning slumber, where I was partly protected from the outside world’s intrusion by the yellow foam earplugs snugly fitted into my aural canals. I blinked once and then squinted at a point on my nearest bedroom wall, feeling the relaxation of the last eight hours of sleep rapidly dissipate as I awaited the arrival of another muffled bang.

Tick-Tock Tattoo and a case for wearing glasses

Every two weeks on the Friday, I’ve got the unenviable task of signing-on at my local Job Centre. It’s a place governed by streams of Liberalised red tape and populated with unemployed cretins and employed denizens who have an inability to crack a smile: if you attempt to lighten the mood with a little banter, they’ll glower at you as if you’ve just spat out a hate-filled Bernard Manning joke, regardless of whether you’re just someone trying to earn their next Job Seekers giro or you’re actually an out-of work comedian trying to get a laugh.

Smoking: uttering the dreaded 'S' word!

I used to adore smoking. Not having a joint or anything like that, just smoking normal, tobacco-filled cigarettes. There, I’ve said the ‘S’ word now and I don’t care: if anyone wishes to rain fire and brimstone down upon me because I dare to mention such a social travesty in our health-conscious, non-culture of the 21st century ‘Tweenies’, then feel free to cast your misjudged, self-righteous indignation my way, for I can take it! I’m neither embarrassed about nor regretful for the many years my body suffered at the hands of nicotine, tar and the many assorted chemical ills within each cigarette I interned.

Bad letter day…

My Postman is as blind as a f**king Bat and although his misreading of envelope addresses has never caused me a direct problem in seven years, last week this Elysium all changed and the effect has been affective, to say the least. It all started when I became aware I hadn’t received any mail through my letterbox for nearly a week and yet, I knew my quarterly bills should have arrived and added to my current money woes. Now, whether it’s my latest six-page BT bill full of hidden charges or it happens to be British Gas’ reams of electrical extortion matters not one iota: the simple fact is my personal expenditure is processed and sent out to me on paper, in order for moi to settle the debts as these monopolising conglomerates expect their pound(s) of flesh, regardless of excuses.

Subconsciously counting backwards

It’s a while since I last wrote about one of my dreams - see "Dreams of what lie beneath" for more details - and so by chance, I just happened to have had a very vivid and quite disturbing dream last night. This subconscious rumination’s origin seems to have been a letter I received in the morning post the day before, but which I’d put off reading for 24 hours due to the potential implications laid out within its organised font. I will forsake exploring what was in the letter until after I’ve explained the slumbered intricacies that I can recall for this blog entry, but feel free to guess as you read along from the imagery, metaphors and subtexts used in this story...

BT to TalkTalk and back again... pt 2

It had only taken 40 minutes before the reassuring sound of an actual female human voice - albeit one with an Indian subcontinent twang to it - reverberated in the handset I was holding. During this time, I’d avoided the judgemental gaze of people wandering past my stationary phone-box stance and had grown increasingly furious with each passing nanosecond I had to endure the swirling blasts of icy air from the gap at the base of the box.

‘Hello, may I help you, Sir?’ was uttered once again due to my belated response.