It's a bank holiday and yet here I am sat at my desk.

My new contract (yes I do now have that research job -hurrah!) states that we get bank holidays off -if they are outside of term time. However, that seems to have been overlooked by my boss and most of my colleagues who have failed to turn up for work today.

Consequently I am going home! Sod 'em all.
It's a beautiful sunny day and so I shall now go and spend it sat in adark room watching DVDs since the house I am in has a garden that is unfinished. :-)

Or I could hang around here and finish off those posts I have been writing and keep abandoning....
naw, home it is. See you all tomorrow.

The French Say "No!"*...

... to the EU constitution. The Dutch are lined up to say no. The Danish might say no (it is unclear). The British? Well, we probably won't be asked now (supposed to be Spring 2006) since it appears that the EU constitution has died on it's arse.

So what was it all about? How tragic/wonderful is this for the EU and for Britain? Don't ask me, I haven't even read the sodding thing. I've been far too busy attempting to do some work and have a life. I doubt more than 1% of the UK population has read the constitution. I find it hard to beleive that the 70 odd percent of French people who voted in the referendum read the constitution.

And now it's likely to die, so is it worth me reading it? Or should I wait for the next one? Well of course I will read it. I have to know what it was that the jumped up Brussels beaurocrats** actually decided needed to go into the constitution. Then I can formulate an opinion and be for or against it on merit, and next time see how they change it from this effort.

There is a kee-jerk anti-European culture in this country. We don't trust them and we probably never will. We may appear liberal to our American cousins but in actual fact the British tend to be rather conservative on many issues, and one of them is a real fear of losing identity and having the country run from Paris, or Berlin.

Anyway, this post served no other purpose than to say that the French said no and that I, like many of my country men, am completely ignorant about the whole thing. Sad really.

(see how all the countries have lined up so far)

*Fed up with seeing variations on "French say 'non!'" in newspapers. Lets keep it English here, you unoriginal moronic newspaper men. God I hate the tabloid mentality.
**I'm generally pro-Europe and even I think most of them are a waste of space.

Low postage...

This blogging thing is hard! Real life just keeps getting in the way, it is highly inconvenient.

The best of intentions morph into daydreams and wishful thinking as more urgent matters take precedent.

Of course it doesn't help that I no longer have a connection at home. I miss my broadband.

I got a cheque from the IRS. Woohoo!!!

{doing the 'I got a cheque from the IRS' dance}

It's nearly all over...

I have just 10 days left until I am no longer responsible for students. Admittedly, if I get the job I am after then I will have to deal with a handful of (trying) postgrads until September, but my dealings with the undergrad population will soon be done.

Hurrah!

Teaching at University level has been an eye-opener for me. Traditionally new lecturers are supposed to have a light load in the first year of their contracts to ease them in. This allows them time to secure funding and polish off some research before getting an RA of their very own. I was not so lucky. The friend that I was standing in for, on a temporary basis, was actually quite senior and had quite a heavy work load.

I was expecting this since I had listened to him bitch for years, but now I truly appreciate the pain. I spent a good portion of the first term feeling drained and tired. To the amusement of my housemate I would simply fall asleep on the coach within minutes of sitting down to watch a show.
Things got better after Christmas when the bulk of my lecturing was done, though lab teaching was pretty grueling as well. However I had an excellent assistant (who was better at the stuff than i was!).
On the upside, my knowledge about the subjects I taught has improved significantly and I impressed the head of department no end, which will help me in the future if I still want to be a lecturer.

Now I am at the stage where I just need to finish some marking and then I have to find ways to arrange 'accidents' for my postgrads and the next few months will be relatively blissful.

I might even manage to publish some more papers. That would be novel.

After my marking is done I feel that a discourse on how some students are morons and why that is so will appear. In the meantime I have an article on natural selection which is half written and an idea for a bit on climate change - and why celebrity scientists should get their facts stright before shooting their mouths off. I'm afraid the science angle never goes away...

By the way, a coronal mass ejection was flung off the sun recently and headed straight for Earth. The impact caused a geomagnetic storm which triggered aurora as far south as Wisconsin. See I told you that it could happen during solar minimum.

Sex!

Over at Ideonexus Ryan is almost to the end of his 6 part exploration of sexual reproduction. With no offense to Ryan but this seems to have gone on for much longer than the 5 parts he is supposedly up to. No matter, it is good reading.

Anyay, the latest installment, which discusses female circumcision, got me to thinking:

There are limits to Multiculturalism's mandate of tolerance. No one suggests cannibalism or genocide requires respect and protection as a cultural practice. So the question orbits the issue of human rights and whether these women are being oppressed.

Clearly a balance must be struck between accepting and promoting multiculturalism and certain rights that many of us believe we hold as human beings.
But where is the line drawn?
Who decides?
What implications might it have for practices in our 'own' culture?

Go and read Ryan's post and see what you think. It asks an interesting question at the end, something I had never thought about but in fact is a very good point. Let me know what you think.
And Ryan, how about a little something for Cabal?

Child of Bias

I am a child of bias... allegedly.

I often hear how biased the media is; most often in the US but it does occasionally echo across the dales here in the UK as well. The bias in question is usually to do with the political spectrum and often centres around the BBC. Not always though.

Growing up I got my news from the Express, Sunday Times, local papers, local radio, BBC news and ITV news. I'm focusing on the TV here though. At no point have I ever watched an ITV news report and a BBC news report and thought 'ooh this seems to be different from what the other said' and so I conclude that whatever bias one has, the other must also have it. Popularly the opinion seems to be that the BBC (and by my dodgy analysis, ITV) has a large lean to the left in politics.

Additionally, I have recently learned from Meryl Yourish that the British press has a distinct anti-Israel bent. I was not aware of this.

Anyway I am going to make a leap here: if I have gotten my news (almost exclusively) from these biased sources then surely it would have affected me in one of three ways.

• I adopt the media view without thinking and so immediately lean left and am anti-Israel.
• I recognise the institutionalised bias for what it is, rebel against it and form my own opinion.
• I recognise the bias and agree with their points anyway.

So which represents me? (Let me know if you can think of any more).

First, I disliked Neil Kinnock and the Labour party under him (I liked John Major, but not Thatcher). I dislike Tony Blair intensely (as many of my readers will know). But that is just a measure of how I view the leaders; where do I stand on their policies?
I agreed with the Conservatives on some (but by no means all) things at the last election and disagreed with most of what Tony Blair said. I believe in public services but I think the government should be small and efficient. I believe that the private sector is not always the best solution for every problem and in following that path lies ruin. I think the government should stop sticking its nose into the classroom. I am against the death penalty and dislike the idea of abortion intensely (I imagine that I am not alone here since I know of no pro-choice people who are actually pro-abortion). You have seen some of my ideas about tax. I would argue that I am a moderate who adopts sensible ideas from across the political spectrum. I would not say that I lean predominantly left or right. Strike number 1 and number 3 assuming a large left leaning bias.

On the question of Israel: I sympathise with the Palestinian civilians who are killed in the fighting. I sympathise with the Israeli civilians likewise. I also sympathise with the men and women of the Israeli military who are under constant threat. I disagree with some of the Israeli governments attitudes and I disagree with much that comes from the Palestinian Authority. I have no time for Palestinian terrorists (call a spade a spade).

Is there a cycle of violence? Yes there is: the Palestinians attack, the Israelis retaliate, the Palestinians retaliate for the retaliation of the Israelis, ad infinitum. That is a cycle of violence; it is a descriptive term, nothing more. Who is to blame? Whoever started the latest round, and I would say that more often than not it is one of the terrorist groups. Israel must be allowed to defend itself, simple as that. Does Israel provike? I think a case can be made sometimes, but quite frankly there is never an excuse for firing weapons at civilians and/or military targets unless it is in direct response to defend yourself from an attack (defend not pre-empt).
Do I think Israel should not exist? Don't be ridiculous, it has as much right to exist as the next country. Do I hate Jews? No, why should I? What have the Jewish people ever done to me? Plus I detest it when people use a broad brush to paint an entire people (religion or country) the one colour. Other people are individuals and are just as complex as we think ourselves to be. If we simply dismiss a nation because of a few bad eggs (to use a cliche) then we are bigots.

So I would say that I am not anti-Israel. I believe that there should also be a Palestinian state and that will go someway towards solving the problems but I am realistic enough to recognise that it will not solve all the problems. Only a genuine change in attitude amongst many of the local players will lead to any sort of lasting peace.
So where does that leave me? I don't see consistently leftward leaning reporting and I don't see a huge British media bias against Israel (Orla Guerrin, not withstanding - no time for her at all). My critiscism of those that do would be that I think sometimes they read too much into the language; they see insults where none exist and over analyse what the reporters say looking for the meaning that they are expecting to find.
In many ways the real test is what people with no vested interest in the conflict think: I am one of those people and does the media here in the UK make me anti-Israel and pro-Palestinians?

My answer is no, it does not.

So do I see that bias in the media and choose to ignore it? Again, I say no. I do say that on a case by case basis I see sloppy reporting and detect individual bias creeping in for specific issues but sometimes those selfsame reporters who I have criticised will file a report in which I see no fault. Our perspectives change on a daily basis and colour what we might say at a given time. Emotion interferes at every step and sometimes detachment will come later and so a given situation will colour a given report.

Basically my point is that I do not see an overarcing bias in the media. of course there is always the fourth option:

• there is a bias but I am too stupid and pigheaded to see it.

Of course I would wonder whether that says more about the person who thinks it than it does about me...

Now I'm back

... but blogging is still sparse. I am still really busy and the deadline is looming!!!
It's amazing how it always seems to go that you have a quiet period suddenly filled with shit loads of things to do. I anticipate the next quiet time with relish.
In order to add to the excitement I am moving house this weekend. Oh the joy.

In the meantime, check out this weblog by my friend Ade. He is very new to this and is sort of testing things out at the moment. Leave a comment to tell him you dropped by and he might tell you stories of his adventures in the frozen north. Or he might not. Who knows.

Anyway, stop bugging me, I'm busy. ;-)

I'm away...

...so posting is slow. Keep coming back as new stuff will appear soon.

Just got back from seeing Queen live in Sheffield. Absolutely fantastic. Paul Rodgers, who was the frontman with Free and Bad Manners, is performing with them and puts his own spin on the Freddie Mercury role. No one can truly replace Freddie, but Paul really stamps his mark on the numbers he performs. Biran May did the honours on a special rendition of Under Pressure, and really captured the Mercury lyrical style. Very cool.

Anyway, more to come soon...

Aside: Forgot my blogspot password yesterday. Probably a good thing since I was all set to post a mean attack on Glenn Reynolds for being up his own arse and spreading unfounded and malicious lies. Then I thought: oh who cares? Those who agree with him won't be swayed (or even read this) and those who don't probably already think what I think (and won't even read this).

I want to blog but...

... I am just swamped! I managed to finish exam marking but still have coursework marking (or grading for Shinobi) to finish off plus two proposals to write in a week. Daunting task indeed. Plus I have project students who seem to be deluded into thinking that I am here to serve them and give them orders on exactly what they should do at a given time. It is highly frustrating!!!

My door never seems to stop swinging as bloody students keep traipsing in to ask me another question or beg me to write their project for them. One of them has now taken to calling me to remind me to do things, the cheeky fucker. What's worse is that I didn't even forget to do the things he keeps reminding me of. So I sent him an email explaining how I thought it was unnecessary, inappropriate and that things were getting done. I highlighted that this week (and next) has been incredibly busy for me and that I would prefer that he not disturb me outside of the established contact times for this period.

He then shows up in the department 15 minute later, at which point I bark at him that I am way too busy and stride right past him with my arms full of marking!!!! I hope he got the message. If he really wants me to micro-manage then I can make his life hell for a few weeks until he is sick of it - but not until a week next Monday!

It is seriously pissing me off and stressing me out. So much so that I have erected a poster on my door to drive students away. So far it seems to be working (that one guy never got as far as my door, he ambushed me in the corridor). The depressing thing is that I actually finish the teaching job at the end of this month. I then, hopefully, slip into a nice research job here at the university - same boss, different (and better) job. This doesn't sound so depressing does it? Well, here comes the depressing bit: I don't get to give up the students, I have to keep working with them until September (and beyond for one of the part-timers). So even when I should be getting back to research I am instead forced to do teaching. It sucks, big time (though not all of my students are a problem, 3 of them are very good so far).

Anyway, that's me just blowing off steam...

[rant over, normal blogging service will resume shortly....]

And now for something completely different...

In an effort to remove myself from mentioning the election for a while (well apart from that one mention there) I have decided to follow Michele's suggestion and try answering the 10 questions:

1. What is your favorite word?

decadence

2. What is your least favorite word?

bourgeois

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

music of various varieties

4. What turns you off?

students who are incapable of thinking for themselves and so it becomes your problem.

5. What is your favorite curse word?

arse

6. What sound or noise do you love?

jet plane roaring past my window

7. What sound or noise do you hate?

car horns and the fire alarm (testing will give me a heart attack one of these days!)

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

fiction writer and maybe UK dictator for life

9. What profession would you not like to do?

teacher - underpaid, underappreciated and overworked.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

'There you are! We were expecting you much earlier than this!'

Crushing defeat for Blair

The latest score is Labour = 32, Conservatives = 1, Liberals = 2, SNP = 1

Coming in thick and fast here (yawn).

One swing to the Tories from Labour, no change for everyone else.

Right, I'm off to bed :-)

UPDATE: Well Blair won. No real surprise there. I can't even say that I am disappointed since I never for one moment harboured the belief that he would lose. One glimmer of hope is that the Labour Party now has a reduced majority - still a hefty majority, but reduced.

So far someting like 619 out of 646 seats have been declared. The breakdown is as follows:

Labour: 353 (-47)
Conservatives: 195 (+33)
Liberal Democrats: 59 (+11)
Other: 12 (+3)

I am not sure how the popular vote went. As I stated before, it was quite clear that Labour majorities were being sliced in individual, safe seats, and it was the Lib Dems that were doing it.

What does this all mean: Well theoretically it means that Blair will find it harder to steam roll his agenda through parliament. In real terms it all depends on how much the two main opposition parties manage to really oppose. We shall see. there is already talk that Blair may well walk sooner rather than later; I will believe it when I see it. At the very least I hope a little bit of doubt and humility creeps in - that would be a novelty.

UPDATE 2: Worst news of the night. George Galloway defeated his Labour opponent. Now as you may have surmised, I am no Labour fan but Galloway is an odious little man who should never darken the doorstep pf parliaments again, but he won on an anti-Iraq-war platform.
I think that the war played a bigger part than Labour thought it would - even Tony Blair said it had an effect, but now the press will of course discuss the Iraq issue as a somewhat deciding factor and Glenn Reynolds will get nice and smug about his prediction. I leave it to you, my dear reader to see the obvious flaws in Glenn's logic (self-satisfied, smug moron!).

Live Blogging the Election...

... would be an incredibly dull thing to do. I feel that at some time around 3 in the morning I would have lost the will to live.

At the moment Labour has 5 seats to zero for everyone else. However the seats so far reported were all safe Labour seats and the notable fact is that there have been severe cuts in their majorities: between 4 and 9% down and tending towards the higher end. But the 'experts' have suggested that this could result in a large swing away from Labour. I don't see it myself, but then I'm not an expert. Well, we will see.

We have just been told that this is a drama and the tension is building. My arse! No tension here, just increasing boredom as we wait out the results that are incredibly slowly trickling in.

Also it seems turnout is up, but nowhere near the 70% we used to have. When that was is not clear to me.

I may blog again. Or I may just go to bed and read the result in the morning. Hmmm, think that is much more likely.

NEWSFLASH: Poxy bomb blast manages to have zero effect on UK elections

A bomb blast in New York, USA, today caused absolutely no panic amongst the British public.

Tragic loss of glass and concrete. Flowers, mourned.

Two homemade devices were detonated outside the UK consulate in New York. They caused massive levels of devastation to a flower pot and broke some windows. Shrapnel was found half a block away!

This terrible attack against plant life and masonry came just as the UK went to the polls to select a new government and mirrored attacks in Madrid that, as any rightwing moonbat can tell you, caused the Spanish to be cowed into doing the terrorists' bidding. Oh, except, those attacks were truly horrendous and resulted in a tragic waste of human life, whereas this one didn't.

It is expected that this hideous anti-flora attack will have absolutely zero effect on the outcome of the UK election and that the grinning chimp, Blair, will get another term in which to screw UK citizens over some more, whilst the Conservatives continue to implode and the people whine about: 'I'd have voted for the Lib Dems if I thought they could have gotten in to power'.

Sheesh!

How did they vote?

Just finished a series of meetings and now having some downtime before resuming marking (if I can drag myself away from msn messenger that is...).

Anyway, I was cruising the BBC news site when I came across this snippet:

Labour leader Mr Blair cast his vote, along with his wife Cherie and two sons Euan and Nicky, at the Trimdon Colliery Community Centre in his Sedgefield constituency.

Now I would bet that Cherie voted for her husband, she knows he needs the job to keep up repayments on their mortgage. However what about the boys? Have they rebelled against their parents? I don't think that I am wrong in thinking that at their age it is not unusual for children to develop different political ideologies than their parents. Perhaps they are sick of having the family home at No. 10 Downing Street, which is hardly the easiest place to come and go from.

It would be interesting to know.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Hmmm, after a burst of posting I have gone pretty quiet here for the moment. I wonder, is it perhaps comparable with post-coital sleepiness? As a man, I understand that once the deed is done we need a period of deep, undisturbed rest. It is a fact of nature. Well hopefully I will 'wake up' again soon. When I do re-emerge I can offer the following topics:

• the UK election and politics here
• evolution
• climate change

At the moment, I have a deadline looming for four separate things including buckets of exam and coursework marking. Will the teaching torture never end?????????

Caption Competition!!!

Winner gets to say 'I won', plus quasi-public recognition, plus potentially raised self esteem.

Expanding, not reducing...

Ilyka is following a trend set by Laurence Simon (in an sarcastic sort of way, I think).

She has formed a list of the 10 blogs that she would read if she could only read 10. Hubris and A Small Victory are on there, which means that either I have taste or Ilyka does not ;-)

Well, I'm not going to do that. I fear a world in which I am restricted in my blog reading and the idea of it sends me into spasms such that I can not write about such a world.

However, I have now added two more blogs to my blogroll!
All hail:

• Sharp as a Marble
• Tall, dark and mysterious

two sites which I read periodically but keep forgetting to link to. So now I have linked them :-)

Aside: I see that there appears to be a blog-feud going on between Protein Wisdom and Laurence Simon. It seems to stem from what looked like an over reaction from PW followed by some quite mean spirited posting by LS. In fact some LS comes across as pretty snobbish (and hypocritical) about PW and other bloggers in his sneering at 'memes'.

I don't read either and so have no horse in this race, but I am confused: what is the point? Really, what on Earth is the point in feuding via blogs? Surely it just makes all concerned look foolish eventually? Just like any feud does, actually.

2nd Aside: For those who wonder about the amount of posting I am doing today, it is simply because I have shit-loads of marking to do and quite frankly I get bored inbetween every 3rd or fourth paper/assignment.

Is there a link?

Here are the stats again. This time with red lines indicating days when I posted something, whether it was a single post or a raft of posts.
So, my question to you, dear readers, is:
What does this information tell you about this blog?

Mexican Wave?

Here are the stats for Living in the Real World since I started using sitemeter. The first spike is somewhat misleading as at that point I had not discounted myself from the stats and I passed through the page often that day as I was playing with things.

It's interesting to note that my traffic really went up today in comparison with past times. This included a fair number of unfamiliar readers.

Bizarrely when I looked at the referring pages they all came from Spanish-language blogs. I am guessing that each of the surfers was using the next blog button at the top of the blog page. I am not sure what criteria blogger uses for determining the next blog, though I imagine it is random. If so, it's quite bizarre that so many people who used it last night on Spanish-language blogs were then sent to me. Go figure.

Messing about on the... canal

Whilst a walking, my wife snapped this shot of a marina on the local canal.

I find the sight of narrow boats and still waters to be somewhat relaxing. I guess I see it as a sort of gentle, lazy idyll; the slow meanderings of the boats along the water highways of Britain.
No hurries and not many cares other than whether you will find a good pub at the end of a days slow cruising.

I have never had the good fortune to do a boating holiday though my wife has and speaks about it in glowing terms. Maybe someday soon...

This reverie I feel is somewhat akin to the nostalgia I feel for steam trains. Not having ever experienced a time when steam trains were the norm (I am far too young) I look back upon it with rose tinted spectacles. I guess it is far too easy to romanticise the past and forget the hardships and problems that actually abounded. Oh well, I kind of like my historical fantasy world so I think I'll keep it for now.

Sheep Blogging Returns!

Yesterday evening my wife and I went for an uncharacteristic stroll out of the village where we live. Uncharacteristic because she has a bit of a dodgy knee and I am incredibly lazy. However, we had been in the house all day and it was a beautiful spring evening and so we hit the trail.

We headed on down to the canal and against a backdrop of an increasingly pink sky we got some shots of some of the local fauna. As we peered over the top of a hedgerow, it looks as if we piqued the interest of the fauna as well.

It was a lovely sunset as well...

...and the show lingered even after the sun went down. We live in one of the wettest parts of the UK, but when the weather is fine, my God, it is beautiful here :-)

Tower of London

Our visit to London included spending several hours in the Tower of London. From across the river the White Tower, the oldest part -built by William the Conqueror I believe, is quite a fantastic view

Upon entering we were greeted by a Yeoman of the Guard (a Beefeater)...

...as well as one of the Ravens. This one was caught in mid 'caw'. They are actually quite beautiful birds. They have had their wings clipped to keep them at the Tower, since there is a prophecy that if the ravens ever leave then the monarchy will crumble.

On the inside the White Tower is even more impressive than from across the river. Even with somebody's forehead in the way!

My wife took this shot as we were leaving, heading up to Tower Hill tube station. It's a nice juxtaposition of the new with the old, with City Hall sat facing the tower across the river. The oldest symbol of law in London sat in opposition to the newest.

London Baby!

Some friends came visiting from the States recently and we all headed down to London for the day. It was actually a very nice day and at the end of it my wife managed to get this rather neat picture of the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster.

Earlier that evening we had strolled through St. James' Park and managed to get a great shot of Buckingham Palace. That was the Union Flag flying and not the Queen's personal standard so I guess she wasn't at home.
The next day was the London Marathon so it was probably wise for her to avoid the capital.

On our way back from Buck house I managed to snap Nelson's column with the clock tower in the background. The colours and structures of the clouds reminded me of some of the fantastic paintings that hang in the National Gallery... which by coincidence was about 10 feet behind me when I took the shot.

On our way back to the hotel, we got this shot of the London Eye.
Unfortunately it is a little blurred, but it still captures the atmosphere quite nicely.

Blogging so far...

Does anyone else think it hilarious that when I use the spell checker on my posts in blogger, it always fails to recognise 'blogging' and instead tries to turn it into 'flogging'

No? Just me then, okay.

Anyway, in this rather uncharacteristic third post of the day I have decided to stop and take stock of what has gone on in this blog so far. Be warned, I have no intention of stopping, no, this is just a momentary pause to see where we are on this little cyber-journey.

So far I have had over 200 visits to my pages. How many individuals? Well, I don't know, I haven't checked but I estimate about 8 people that I would term regulars and a handful of curious people who have dived by when I have popped up in searches or referenced in other blogs. So I am not exactly setting the world alight, but then I don't really care since this is a resource for me. One of those pointless, self-indulgent blogs :-)

However, I am intrigued by a thought. Of those poor, but wonderful, fools who read my blog what would you like to see here? Is there something you think I should write more about (yes I remembered about the porn, Hubris)? Please let me know and I shall try to accommodate.

Actually, I won't try to accommodate at all, I will probably keep going my own sweet way, but I am curious :-)

Anyway, I have blogged about a number of things so far:

The sun/solar cycle

Aurora Blogging

Sheep Blogging (and other animals)

The Pope

Stuff I have seen and done

My beefs with bizarre statements and erroneous reporting

Taxes (nuff said)

To name most of them.
Strangely the most striking thing to me is that I have so far failed to blog about how moronic students are. Hah. Considering that it is a thought that runs through my head most days I am amazed it has managed to avoid being blogged about. Then again this guy articulates the problem in a much more amusing manner than I ever could.

So there we are. Now, normal service (or lack thereof) shall resume forthwith.

May Day

No I don't need help, it's the first day of May: May Day.

So what does everyone have planned?

Any dancing about the May Pole going on?

Spot of Morris dancing anyone?

I may even take the bank holiday off this year since I have checked my contract and found out that it actually says I am entitled and my boss has been feeding me a line of crap about having to work bank holidays.
Though I doubt I will do much dancing around May Poles...

Oh and be prepared as later on today we should have the welcome return of Sunday afternoon sheep blogging. I know you have all been waiting breathlessly!

More from the Sun... oh, who am I kidding?

Don't worry this isn't another post on the current state of solar activity. By the way, thanks to David for throwing me a bone on the last one ;-)

No, today I would like to report that I have won an award!!! Hubris has carefully selected this site as being worthy of an award. Not a real award you understand; I've not see anything material here. No trophy, no statuette, hell, not even any cake! And, thank God, not even any signed pictures of the man himself (small mercies, etc).

But hey, it's an award. Hurrah!

Oh and a load of other people got them too.

Actually everyone on his blogroll got one. But dammit, I'm still special and I got an award!

Oh, and Hi to those readers of Hubris who have wandered over here following him giving me an award. A nice little blip in traffic from mysterious IPs that I have never seen before...

I am thinking of changing the name of this site to:

Living in the Award Winning Real World

Do you think that would be too much? No, really, your honest opinion.

Plus, and this is even more exciting than me getting an award (!) (though only just.. well maybe not but..), the latest installment of Roadhouse Revisited is up!!!!

If by some bizarre chance of fate you read this blog but do not read Hubris then shame on you! Get over there now and witness a blog that actually serves a purpose (well it makes me laugh and that's a bloody good purpose as far as I am concerned!)

By the way did I mention that I won an award??!

Too much? Yeah, I thought so too.