“Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes” - Steven Wright

Billie passed her G.C.S.E.s.
I'm genuinely impressed, I was in no way prepared or mature enough at 13 for that. Were exams harder then? Probably not, it's just that we were children for a lot longer if you see what I mean. At 13 today you are a little adult , not a kid. Is that a good thing? Personally, I think not. I don't want to molly coddle, but adulthood is so completely rubbish, you should have a little more time to be carefree. It's not as if there is a need to mature early so you can outrun predators, or go work down the pit. The bank of Mam and Dad will happily bank roll you until at least 18, and rightly so.

I'm still on holiday, but passing the hospital today I notice that a huge grey monolith is being constructed in the Car Park. Either this is to advance our evolution (see '2001 - A Space Odyssey' for details), some form of NHS mind control device, or just maybe a telephone mast. Er, which is most likely? Which is most desirable?
I read a local history book the other day and walking through my so-called 'town centre', earlier, I was saddened by how much has changed. This wasn't me simply being a Luddite though. My towns architectural demise began with heavy bombing during World War II, as we then had lots of heavy industry. Then when combined with the trendy sixties notion of demolishing everything you could get away with, and replacing them with some concrete monstrosity that would last 10 years before crumbing and being replaced itself. The town has no structural heart or visible centre sadly. Once great Victorian edifices replaced with anonymous shutters, skillful masonry relpaced with poured concrete. I'm starting to sound like Prince Charles!

Sadly everything is transient now, while opening your new iPhone you already know you will be drooling at the thought of it's replacement six months later. Technology , of course , is by it's very nature temporary, consumerism isn't really constructed to promote craftsmanship and durability (now I'm sounding like William Morris) is it? Without the need for replacements , workforces and economies would suffer (see 'The Man in The White Suit'). Rant over.

I finally got to see 'Avatar' the other day. I feel a bit like the boy in 'The Emperors New Clothes', when I say, what's the big deal?
It is a competent sci-fi action movie to be sure, and I'm not the first to point out it's another version of 'Invader goes Native and saves the hopeless indigenous people' ("er, why didn't we think of attacking with our flying lizards in large enough numbers to overcome those mercenaries? duh? really, why didn't we think of that? thanks outsider, who despite destroying pretty much our whole way of life, we've grudgingly come to love! thanks again!").
I did enjoy it, I really did, maybe I just came a bit too late to the party, and maybe I should have seen it in 3D. (I'm still puzzled as to what evolutionary purpose being blue would serve in a such a verdant environment? Well at least in the daytime, what with the nocturnal bio-luminescence (!) you might as well be hot pink! The predators should have just hunted at night, when even your footfall gives away your position. I thought I said 'rant over' ?

Oh, it's my Birthday on Friday.

I love this song, but it's ending on far too upbeat a note, so...


That's better (but 'miserabler', if you see?)

“If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?”