A slip of the tongue

Early one Sunday morning the other week, while out and about looking for some potential bargains on a car boot sale, I happened upon a three-way heated debate involving a husband and wife stallholder team and a prospective male buyer who’d somehow caused the growing vocal catalyst me and many others were now stood around listening to. The wife was short, fat and incensed, the husband was big, fat and incredulous and the poor bloke appeared humiliated, dazed and confused with all this unintended attention aimed at him and was defensively trying to calm the situation down.

Cycling vs Fate: in need of a new God?

Yet again, I’ve experienced the brunt of God, the Gods or whatever universal energy force may exist out in the nether regions of the ether, pissing on me from up on high and having a good old time laughing its/their balls off at my expense whilst the last drips land. This disruption usually occurs two or three times a year at specific months and after many years of scrutiny and realisation, I try to prepare as best I can for the coming onslaught of Fate’s dice-throw. As I’m still limited to travelling to work using the age-old transport method of the bicycle, this is usually the weakest link in my so-called life and it is most likely to be one of the contributing factors towards my tri-yearly stresses. So it comes as no surprise that this month’s boiling rage has arrived with a plumb and has been ushered in with yet another cycle-related extravaganza of pain and suffering for myself.

40 as a milestone? I'm lucky to have reached it!

On the 23rd of July 2010, I finally entered middle age as I turned 40 years old with the passing of the midnight hour; quite literally, as I entered this world on the clock’s ninth chime, an early morning start to an eventful, if unfulfilled, life. It has taken me a few weeks of coming to terms with this monumental arrival - as shown with the lack of blog input during this period of time - but now I’m back with an amalgamation of my wastrel life’s highs and lows. I have tried to recall some of the key yearly events for possible future dissection of my psychologically damaged brain-box, although limiting my choices was hard work: some years were packed with eventful examples, yet others standout with their lack of instances and there’s a couple I truly cannot recall anything memorable happening at all. So, here’s a single example for each year spread across the last 40 years.

Sky News creates new word: "Capains"

On Tuesday just before noon, as I watched Sky News with Colin Brazier, I noticed that one of their usually meticulous copy writers for the text input on the rotating "Breaking News" banner at the bottom of the screen had made a spelling Faux Pas. The mistake took the form of a misspelt word pertaining to the Ryder Cup vice-captain choices of Golfer Colin Montgomerie and I watched as its luminous yellow background blazed the shameful error onto my retinas every few seconds. So with a spring in my step, I rushed off for my camera to try to capture this unusual occurrence on my digital sensor before the powers that be discovered their blunder and removed it from the fluctuating short-term memories of a half-bored public.

Parcel Force? P*ssing Farce more like!

As I use differing ways of delivering parcels within my job as an eBay manager, I’m acutely aware of which are the best and the worse in the realm of consignment and postage. For the majority of my work-related items, I use a dependable, private courier service that is competitive, always collect on time and offers fair rates; prices do shoot up if any stretch of sea-water has to be crossed and a weekend delivery is non-existent, but all in all I'm happy.

Dreams of what lie beneath

Like most people, I occasionally have vivid and extraordinary dreams that once I’ve awakened from stay with me for days afterwards, dwelling in my consciousness for repeated dissection and scrutiny. Now whether Freud and Jung would be so interested in my ‘mind-doodles’ is debatable as neither religious iconography nor sexual deviancy is really prevalent within my skull at the best of times! So, in the hope of resolving the many psychoanalytical elements which have broke on through from my dreamscape world, I’ve decided to input my latest example into this blog: perhaps someone will feel an affinity with me due to being as obviously confused as I or maybe I’m opening up too much for experts to discover a deep-seated Oedipus complex I was never aware of. Either way, allow me now to take you on a journey into the latest delusional thought process of your author...

The internet? It's bloody massive!

Found this great explaination over at This Blog Rules regarding how vast, huge and overwhelming the sheer size of the internet has now become. Many thanks to Medical Coding Certification for its release and to Ellie Koning for its sublime design:

Google Maps and a blast from my past

I was talking to a mate the other day when he casually mentioned that he’d been messing around on Google Maps, looking for something or other, and that they’d now implemented the street-view, mouse-drag yellow figure in most areas near to where we live. I answered nonchalantly at first but then remembered an instance from this time last year where I was pretty sure a Google Maps vehicle - complete with the four-way telescopic camera set-up protruding from its roof - spun a 180 degree turn in front of my car at a T-junction. I recall looking in Maps at the time on the road in question but to no avail, probably due to the vast amount of digital images Google would have to process before uploading a tiny patch of a housing estate in Chadderton, so forgot all about it until reminded.

Oat-bran - a mixture just too far

I have the unenviable task of having to do my weekly shop with my brother since I crashed and wrote off my own car late last year and as we both usually rub each other up the wrong way, this single forced jaunt can cause friction. I’m indebted to him really as it makes my life so much easier and saves me a small fortune in taxi fares, so to sound like I’m complaining isn’t really my intention at all as I’m completely grateful for his help. The problem is our personalities clash, which is probably due to the fact we both know we have no alternative to our every-seven-days brotherly trip, and either I’ll end up annoying him - or as in this example from our latest escapade - he’ll manage to annoy me with his rhetorical flummery.

In eBay sellers we trust

eBay and the collection of utter cretins that now dwell within its virtual confines have stripped away my very humanity over the last couple of weeks. Amid ever increasing examples of (un)intentional seller idiocy to contend with no matter where I’ve looked, I honestly believe my days on the world’s biggest auction site are now numbered. As I actually run eBay sites for a living and have done so for the last 5 years, the above statement is tantamount to making myself unemployed and back in the bosom of Job Seekers Allowance, which is not the most ideal situation I grant you. However, I feel I have the insight and understanding of selling and buying on eBay as a whole to comment upon some recent examples of moronic traders I’ve had to deal with within this silicon-based market place.