The story (Read here) involves a guy, Allan Wardle (no, not Alan Wardle) who, after experiencing trouble using his newly installed BT broadband called technical support. The call centre which the Mail says is “believed to be in India” – Wait, you mean you didn’t check that out? You don’t know for sure? Nice reporting. – for whatever reason was unable to help Mr. Wardle and an argument ensued. An argument that ended, claims Mr. Wardle, with the call centre operative threatening to “blow his house up”.

Yikes! Sounds harsh right? Well yeah but this article smells funny… kind of like bull shit. Mr. Wardle is quoted as saying “I did swear at him, I think, but he was refusing to fix the problem.” First of all, that is totally unacceptable. I work in technical support and I have a firm policy for people that swear at me; they get one warning before I hang up. Of course if the operative did indeed make the alleged threats it is a very serious matter and he should be punished accordingly but i just doubt… really doubt he even said it.

Here’s what I think probably happened, and this is purely speculation: Mr Wardle was too incompetent to correctly set up and use his new broadband and called technical support. Upon hearing the Indian accent, Mr. Wardle instantly engaged the “oh, for fuck’s sake!” attitude. When asked to carry out what were probably reasonable tasks to diagnose the issue, Mr. Wardle either didn’t understand or refused because he thought his time was being wasted. (Trust me, the amount of people who think I’m being difficult when I ask them to reboot their PC, despite that fixing the vast majority of problems, is shocking.) Upon being told that the problem could not be solved without him taking these steps Mr. Wardle flew into a rage and swore at the operative. The operative probably then terminated the call and, in the frustration said something that Mr. Wardle didn’t understand. Infuriated, Mr. Wardle then decided to play the terrorist card because, well because the guy was Indian and people from that part of the world are terrorists, right?

Despite the dubious nature of this story, and the fact that at the moment it’s purely allegations, The Mail (and the Express) have published similar articles about it. Not hard to see why. Their readers love this shit. Anything that might portray a minority in a bad light is the Mail’s bread and butter. This is the reason I should know better and not be so shocked when they publish it… but so help me, I can’t help it!

I’m not saying it’s impossible that this happened… I just really really doubt it. Funny how it’s the Mail and the Express who jump all over it before the transcripts are even released. Not even The Sun has touched this crap. Still, I bet Mr. Wardle is getting plenty of support from like minded dullards down the local boozer and maybe a nice cheque from the newspapers… Hell, I might call up the Mail and claim my pizza delivery man threatened to plant an IED in my driveway for not tipping enough. I doubt they’d take me seriously though as I don’t look like I’ve just walked off the set of the Jeremy Kyle show.

In May, Nat and I took a drive down to Torquay, Devon for a short sea-side holiday. I hadn’t been on any kind of holiday since Canada in 2005 so, believe me, I was bloody ready! Although it was only a short break, it was excellent. Like I said, we drove down and we actually made really good time; just over 3 hours. Because we knew we were going to be moving shortly after, we decided to make it a cheap one. With that in mind we stayed in the Torquay Travelodge – walking distance from the sea front – for only £32 a night! This left us with way more money to go and see sights, have a nice meal or two out and just be able to enjoy ourselves a lot more.

While on the subject of eating out I actually fulfilled one of my life goals while down there; to eat at a Michelin starred restaurant. On our second night we booked a table at Number 7 Fish Bistro. (Excellent restaurant, terrible website) We knew from the get-go that we wanted to have an exceptionally nice dinner one night but we never imagined it would be Michelin dining! I had fillet of sea bass with seared scallops and Nat had loin of cod with tempura scallops and prawns. We had starters (Grilled garlic mushrooms) and deserts (sticky toffee pudding with local clotted cream) too. best meal I’ve ever eaten. Hands down.

Aside from the excellent food, the rest of the holiday was great too. Relaxing on the beach, eating ice cream by the harbour front and cheesy 2p machines in Paignton. It was a really nice time and we hope to go more often, possibly to Cornwall.

So shortly after we got back from the holiday we found our new home. We decided to do a whole bunch of house viewings in one day and one of the first ones we saw, a 2 bed semi on Broadmeadows, really grabbed us and we decided to go after it straight away. It’s really perfect for us with a nice sized living room, very nice, modern kitchen and two double bedrooms. The garden is a decent size too, perfect for barbecuing.

We had family and friends over for a housewarming party the other week and that was great. As well as getting all the family together, our friends got to see our new house. Even Reedy came down from Sheffield which was ace! I hadn’t seen him in over a year.

At the time of writing this we’ve been in the house a month and it’s working out really well. The big modern kitchen has made me really enjoy cooking again where in the old house the kitchen was really old and small I didn’t want to be in it. In the new place I’d say it’s the place we spend most time. The ultimate bonus, though was the fact that we were allowed to keep our kitteh, Juno. She’s settled into the new neighbourhood with ease and, after coming back with battle scars the first night, has found her place amongst the local cats. Oh yeah! After a few weeks in the house the drama kicked off! just around the corner from us, someone got their house firebombed! See the smoke pictures!

Most recently, then, I went to the JapShow at Santa Pod raceway. It’s been a while since I’ve been there so I jumped at the chance to head down there for a weekend with the boys. We saw some amazing shit while there and I’m tellin ya, there must have been some crazy technological advancements in the last couple of years because the pro cars were achieving times that were unheard of when I was there before. A drag modded Skyline GTST was running quarter miles in the mid 7s at over 170 mph!! The highlight for me though was seeing the brand new Nissan GTR. If you haven’t seen one, check out the photos below. There were two stock ones and then a lightly modded one with a carbon fibre bonnet and they were all stunning. The car, though not called a Skyline, continues the Skyline tradition of insane power and performance for very little money. The new GTR costs £65,000 ish but is easily faster than plenty of cars that come in at twice that price.

Anyway… what else should I talk about..? Oh yeah! The new iPhone! I’ve made my mind up that I will definitely be getting one of these bad boys as soon as my Orange contract is up. I’m not just moving to get the new iPhone either. Orange signal is absolutely terrible in the new house. I get no bars downstairs and only 1 or 2 bars upstairs. Nat, who’s on O2 gets full signal throughout the house. So yeah, roll on iPhone 3G-S

So that’s pretty much everything. I’ll try and stay more current in future so to avoid super long war and peace posts like this. Ta ta!

Of course, when this video was posted on a local radio website the controversy kicked off in a big way. On the face of it it looks pretty bad. Of course police are not allowed to punch a suspect regardless of how much he or she fights, but how much can the officer be blamed?

Going on what information has been made available, the man was ejected from a club by doormen who felt that the assault he had committed was serious enough to inform police (minor offences are usually dealt with by the door staff alone). When the police tried to arrest him he began to resist. At this point, the crowd (just off camera) would be beginning to form. After being tased the man is seen to continue to resist, snatching his arms away from cuffs and kicking his legs. After another attempt to cuff the man he is tasered again. The crowd is now becoming visible on camera. After the second hit from the taser the man seems slightly more subdued but he is still resisting strongly. It is at this point the police officer on the right delivers three punches to the man’s head.

So what we have is a hugely stressful situation for the 2 police officers who are first on scene. They know that they can’t afford to drag the arrest out because of the growing crowd and the chance they may turn violent. Couple that with a man, who despite being tased continues to resist, making the situation more and more tense. One officer makes a decision to hit the man. Of course this was a bad call and I have no doubt that the officer regrets the choice with or without the video evidence being leaked.

A few things bother me though. Firstly, in that situation it would have been perceived to be more acceptable for the officer to use his baton, a much more harmful weapon than his fist. Secondly, tasers aren’t used lightly. Like CS spray, the taser will only be used if the suspect is perceived to be very dangerous or carrying a weapon. In this case the taser seemed to be doing very little to stop the potentially armed man from resisting and a choice was made to use another form of force.

I’m a firm believer of giving police greater powers, not making them work under the constant fear of being sued or fired for using “excessive force”. Police have a stressful enough job to do without having to fear the consequences of their split second decisions. Should this officer be punished for his actions? Probably. But certainly not severely. The punches didn’t look that hard and I’m sure paled in comparison to the assault the suspect is said to have committed.

Of course I don’t have all the evidence and future information may come to light that justifies or condemns the officers’ actions. I’ll just have to wait and see. What do you think about this?

In the blog post he proposed that the solution to “The war on photography” was to sue and/or press charges on anyone who gave you a hard time. He said that posting on forums and facebook groups would be simply falling on deaf ears and this kind of action was the way to go…. woah… hold on a minute there, Scotty! I don’t think you’ve thought that one through. Let’s imagine that all photographers did as he suggested. Would it stop the occasional high-and-mighty security guard or police officer with ideas above his station if he thought he could lose his job or even face criminal charges? Maybe… in fact probably. But what would it do for the reputation of the photography profession/pastime as a whole?

Can you remember the kid at school who, when someone pissed him off, even a little bit, would go crying to his parents and even though the transgression was really, really minor the person responsible would get in a world of trouble because the school had to be seen to take drastic action in view of the parents? That’s what photographers would become! No one would mess with them but at the same time, no one would have any kind of respect for them. They’d just be the people that sued everyone!

The article referencing the UK mentioned two cases where professional photographers were harassed or detained by police officers and I am inclined to agree that these particular cases are shocking and are, indeed the kind of case that should be followed up to make sure the officers responsible are reprimanded. That said, I am almost certain that these cases are exceptions to the rule in the most extreme way. For those two photographers who did run into trouble, imagine how many thousands carried out their job without a problem and received the utmost respect from police and security personnel.

The article also talks about new laws, introduced this month under the counter-terrorism act that make it legal for people who are suspected of taking photos to aid in an act of terrorism to be arrested. This includes, but is not limited to, taking photos of police. This is where the concept of mutual respect is hugely important. If photographers got the reputation of being over-the-top crybabies who pressed charges on anyone who got in their way then police are going to be way more likely to exercise their new rights to stop them taking pictures of any kind. Trust me people, the paparazzi have done the photography profession enough of an injustice without the rest of the community becoming whiny, lawyer-happy brats.

So please, don’t listen to Scott Bourne on this one. I know he’s a very talented photographer and media professional on the whole but these over-defensive, militant ideas will do nothing but tarnish the reputation of photographers. Hobbyists; If a police officer doesn’t want their picture taken, respect that, the same as you would for anyone else. Find another cop who isn’t so camera shy. And professionals; If you’re asked about what you’re shooting, co-operate! Chances are these people are just doing what they believe to be their job and once you show them that you’re being responsible and not doing anything illegal, you’ll be left alone. If not, and you continue to be harrased by one or more individuals, then perhaps you could take matters further.

Of course I furnished my better half with chocolates and flowers (Lilies, her favourite) and treated her to an item of clothing she’d been lusting after for a long time, but what I’m most proud of is my work in the kitchen that day. I pulled out all the stops and created a full-fat (I mean FULL fat) three-course meal starting with chilli and garlic king prawn skewers, moving on to grilled lamb steaks with dauphinois potatoes and a red wine and shallot sauce and a home made chocolate tart and vanilla cream to finish. The meal was washed down with plenty (a bit too much) wine.

Of course I have to say I got treated pretty darned well too. I got a lovely bottle of red wine (the kind i love but she won’t drink, and as such don’t get to have that often) and the latest Dean Koontz book; Your Heart Belongs to Me, very fitting title, I thought, even if the plot is somewhat more sinister. I’ve already started reading that.

Speaking of reading, yet breaking away from the Valentine’s day topic, I finally took the plunge and bought Marvel Civil War in a glorious hardcover. I’ve been eyeing that bad boy up for quite some time and when i saw it on Forbidden Planet for £21.09 delivered I thought it would be rude not to. So that, too will be appearing in my ‘Recent Reads’ section soon.

I’m really getting into reading comics/graphic novels again after Watchmen re-kindled the geek flame within. I honestly cannot wait for that movie and I’ve already pencilled in the time and place for seeing it; Release day, 6th of March at Sheffield CineWorld (Largest Screens in Europe). I’ve chosen there because it also means that I’ll be able to go see it with Reedy, my old housemate who now lives in Sheffield. But, anyway from what I’ve seen of the movie in trailers and set diaries, the crew seem to have busted an absolute gut trying to remain true to the style and tone of the graphic novel which can only be a good thing with Watchmen because that style was part of what makes it great. Obviously some costumes have been tweaked to ease the translation from paper to film and, from what I’ve heard, the sub-story; The Black Freighter is being dropped so as not to spoil the continuity of the film but I think, if handled correctly that shouldn’t be too big a deal. What I’m really looking forward to is seeing how they integrate all the important stuff from the little articles and appendices from each issue of the comic. That would have been a challenge.

Film wise, that’s all I’ve really got on my radar at the moment. Sure, Transformers 2 is on the cards and X-Men Origins: Wolverine is sure to be pretty exciting but Watchmen is where it’s at, yo! That’s all from me for now.

‘in a bit!

***EDIT***

No sooner had I posted this, I checked the hashtag for #watchmen and discovered this little beauty:

Me likey!!!

We got up to loads on our days off. We visited several cities including Nottingham Sheffield and Leicester and we got two new additions to the family (pictured left). The two shiny Droplets by the one and only JamFactory fit right in on my desk and, indeed our home. Meanwhile, the other member of our family, Juno-Kitteh has had her lady parts removed so she can take her first steps into the great outdoors. She recovered from the operation very well indeed and despite vomiting mere minutes after she was fitted with a head-cone (yeah it was a mess) she’s been doing just fine.

Oh, I thought I should mention that I have seen both Tropic Thunder and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People during our time off but I’ve been so busy doing other shit with Nat and helping out Adam at MinuteDesigns with a client site to write a proper review for either of them… Sorry about that. If you’re interested I give them both 3 stars. They were both entertaining but nothing more that average fare. I’ve got plans to see Max Payne in the next couple of weeks too and I hope by then to have enough time to give you a proper review.

On the subject of movies… I’ve actually managed to get Nat slightly into horror! Up until now she’s been dead against watching anything slightly scary but now she’s a self confessed fan of the Saw series having devoured the first three installments within the space of about a week. We’ve also recently enjoyed the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror together. I see this as a massive triumph and it means that there is still a chance I could get her into Lord of the Rings. (fingers crossed)

Following our trip to Leicester, Nat and I did something we’ve been meaning to do for aaaages and that is make our own sushi! We both absolutely love the stuff and thought it would be amazing to get all the bits and pieces to do our own. So We bought; Sushi rice, rice vinegar, mirin, sheets of nori, wasabi, pickled ginger and, of course the all important fillings (Salmon, tuna steak, red peper and cucumber). Seeing as it was Halloween night we made a night of it and settled down to some good old horror movie goodness after the delicious Japanese treats (pictured right).

What else, what else…. oh yeah. This Saturday just gone, Nat, Adam and I all went to Rock City in Nottingham. Was a pretty decent time. Saw a lot of my friends from out Birmingham way who I’ve not seen in ages which was nice.

So all in all the past couple of weeks have been awesome and very relaxing. I must remember to do this more often. A big thank you to my lovely girl Nat for making it such a great time.

Of course it’s not as simple as I just put it but the more and more I look at it, the more I see that it is in fact a lot easier than getting an existing theme and tweaking it… and a hell of a lot more flexible. I should have some screen shots to give you in the coming weeks but below you can take a look a part of the re-design flashing some cheeky ankle… suits you sir . I won’t be radically changing the general layout of the site, It’ll still have the sidebar on the right with my latest twitter update and links to my archives and other sweet blogs and the main content area will still contain the latest post in full and the start of the previous four with “more” links. I’m just giving everything a fresh new, more bespoke look. Personally I’m stoked because this isn’t just a chance to get my blog lookin fresh, it’s one hell of a learning experience because every time I build something in WordPress from scratch it gives me a better insight into it’s inner workings. What this means is that I’ll be able to build any kind of site I like using WordPress like a CMS and produce blogs and portfolio sites to other people’s specifications. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to do it too so if you want anything like that doing, get in touch.

So what else have I been up to recently…. hmmmm well, it was recently my boy Brahn’s birthday so we went out for dinner at Le Bistrot Pierre in Derby… it was real good. Before that, though, we took a trip up to the peak district and took some photos which I’ll get up on flickr soon for your viewing pleasure. For his birthday, Brahn got a remote trigger for his EOS 400D which we discovered also worked with Nat’s 350D so we were able to set up a couple of different angles and trigger the shot on both cameras simultaneously. Managed to get some nice shots with that. What we were planning on doing in the near future too is setting up a camera on a tripod and doing some long exposure night shots so keep your eyes peeled for those. While on the subject of flickr, I need to buy my pro account which they only sell in USD for $24.99 or something like that. Problem is I don’t know if my bank will charge me anything for the currency conversion if I pay on my debit card. If anyone knows the answer to this I’d love it if you shared the knowledge.

Oh yeah… on the iPhone front, I’ve pretty much decided to not bother with one unless O2 can match, exactly, my current plan with Orange. Something funny I’ve seen this week though, is how the Apple-loving twitterverse has been talking about the launch. Hard-core iPhone lover Graham Gilbert was one of the greatest, actually tweeting while standing in a queue outside the phone shop waiting for it to open! It’s nuts! Other reactions to Apple’s latest object of desire have been less than gleaming, however. Gav Strange (Jam Factory) lovingly had the following to say….

JamFactory just learnt that the iPhone Apps DONT work on “old” iPhones? What a crock of shit, Apple you are starting to try my patience!

So looks like, following O2′s epic fail last week with the pre-order/upgrade site falling over under the workload that they didn’t expect (yeah right!) the actual device is starting to show cracks. Other tweets point to some of the phone’s apps dramatically killing the battery and as I type this Graham Gilbert has tweeted about the phone getting seriously hot when running any third party app! Not good. So yeah.. if this continues no amount of bending over backwards on O2′s part will make me get one.

Well, that about wraps it up. Until next time sports fans!

When I first saw the new house I was a little scared to tell you the truth because it is super old fashioned inside. I have been given pretty much carte blanche to decorate it how I see fit though which is excellent and now that I’ve moved my stuff in, it already looks a million times better. The 3 piece suite is outstanding, Both arm chairs and the 2 seater sofa are recliners which is just great and the whole lot is plush cream leather. They’ll make the living room super cozy. A couple of things want a lick of paint but that’s easy. So once I’m fully settled in it should look just fine.

By bedroom is going to be the best room in the house. It’s much bigger than my room at Broadmeadows and has had fresh carpets and paint. There’s gonna be room for a sofa in there too which means it’ll be great for chilling out and reading a book or (possibly) hanging a white sheet over the curtains and projecting a movie. That’d be so sweet and I know a couple of friends with projectors plus there’s a small chance I could borrow one from work on a special occasion. The window is massive too so when the curtains are open the room is really light.

This could well be the last post you see from me for a couple of weeks, unless I manage to get one done in my lunch breaks at work. I should get enough time to reply to comments and stuff though. I have to wait until broadband is put live at the new house. There is already an active BT line in place so it shouldn’t take too long, between 5 and 10 working days is normal. When that happens it’ll be business as usual, perhaps even better than usual because I’m looking at buying a laptop in the next month or two to use as my main computer. What makes it even better is that my boss has said it’s cool for me to order it through the supplier that we, at work, use for IT stuff. It turns out that they get a really good discount on Dell stuff so maybe they can help me out. I’m only looking to spend about £400-$450 but 2GB of memory is a must because I want to get Adobe CS3 installed on there and it won’t even give you the time of day unless you have 1GB of RAM available. I also want to find out if it may be cheaper to buy a machine with 1GB or RAM and upgrade it after from Crucial or something. I will has good think about it.

What else is going to be new then…? Well, my mum is on the lookout for a kittie for me. Because of the letting agreement at house in Broadmeadows I couldn’t own any pets so I’m taking this opportunity to get a cat. I’m after a grey short-haired kitten, preferably a female. Me and Nat have already decided it will be called Juno (as long as it doesn’t get pregnant). I’m really really excited about owning a cat as they’re loads of fun and they do the stupidest stuff. I reckon icanhascheezburger.com is gonna be having plenty of new photos uploaded from yours truly.

Well, until next time, wish me luck with the move and I’ll catch you all later.

Dan.

In the past weeks however one of the UK’s favourites, TVlinks.co.uk has been shut down by FACT working with the Gloucestershire police and trading standards authority. The individual who owns the site, a 26 year old man from Cheltenham, has been arrested on charges relating to the facilitating of copyright infringement. These charges are brought despite the man having hosted no media on his own servers and also giving a disclaimer saying he has no responsibility for media he links to.

Unsurprisingly the backlash has started almost immediately with people loyal to TVlinks claiming that no crime had been committed and he was unfairly arrested. Even non-TVlinks users have had their two cents worth, saying that it was unfair to go after a relative small-fry when sites like Google and YouTube not only link to illegal content but host it on their servers as well. They feel that the only reason the major players haven’t been pursued is because they have so much money making them practically above the law and in this argument there is some truth. Both Google and eBay (owners of YouTube) have the money and resources to, if not shrug off the charges all together, engage any prosecuting agency in a legal battle for decades. Neither of those are attractive propositions, especially when the general public are footing the bill.

But I don’t think it’s just the chance of an un-winable or 20 year legal battle that made FACT go after the little guy. I feel there was some strategy here also. Look at the case of Jammie Thomas, a 30 year old woman in the US, who was recently convicted and fined a massive £220,000 for downloading 24 separate songs from the Kazaa network that were protected by copyright. Before this case it was, traditionally, the major downloaders (the ones who pull down several TB of data and are obviously distributing it for a profit) who got pinched. This obviously meant that small time users like Jammie Thomas were unafraid of being prosecuted and continued downloading the odd album here and there without much thought. Now, however, small users are scared. They’re looking over both shoulders and are worried about the possibility of a life-destroying fine. The message FACT are sending out with the prosecution of TVlinks is “Even the small fry is braking the law and we will come after him.”

But let’s look for a minute at the crime he has been charged with here. Certainly a lot of people think that there has been no crime committed and by posting a disclaimer he is removed of all responsibility. I however see quite clearly the crime he is being prosecuted for and although TVlinks will be missed (I love Heroes) I have to say the guy had it coming. He is clearly an accessory to copyright infringement. He is knowingly providing links to known illegal content and therefore generating profit for the hosts of those sites. It’s no different than a guy pointing people in the direction of a drug dealer he knows. Even if he takes no cut of the profits, he’s still assisting the drug dealer by generating business for him. Simple. In this case though, because the drug dealer is super-rich and has limitless resources it isn’t at all viable to go after him.

It really sucks that things are the way they are here because by all rights it’s the ones who host the illegal content that should be made to keep tighter controls on what they allow hosted. YouTube are sort of bowing to the pressure as every now and again you’ll get a message “Video has been removed due to a copyright infringement” or something along those lines which proves that they are keeping a watch on content in some capacity. It seems to be reactive rather than proactive though, like a user has to complain before a video is removed.

The agencies that police this sort of thing are government-run, which means that they are paid for by the tax payer. This creates a catch 22 situation. We want the real culprits dealt with but don’t want to pay for the massive costs associated with dealing with them.

Related Articles:

Guardian Unlimited – TV Links Shut Down for Linking

Channel Register – Cops pull plugs on TV Links, claim “facilitation of infringement”

The Register – TV Links Man was arrested under trademark laws

I’ve been thinking about weddings and more specifically holding them in churches. I mentioned to Reedy the other day that I wouldn’t feel at all comfortable getting married in a church because I am not a christian. In fact I would feel bad doing it as I would feel rather hypocritical making vows in the name of a god that I don’t believe exists. He seemed quite suprised and just said well, it’s tradition isn’t it? Well I suppose it is… like Easter or Christmas, two very chritian holidays that I still celebrate and relish the time I get off work for. I think the difference is, however that you can completely remove all religious connotations from christmas (Except the name of course.. unless you call it X-Mas or Annual Gift Day) and easter and just enjoy time with your family and friends. Church weddings aren’t there yet. You still make vows in the name of god and there are hymns and this and that… not to mention the procedings are overseen by a Preist.

With Gaz however I think it’s being held at the watchorn dispite his beliefs for a number of reasons. First and foremost, his parents got married there… and his grandparents and christ alive knows how many other generations. Also his family and what I have seen of Shel’s are fairly traditional people and, like Reedy said, Church weddings are traditional.

I just wish them both a really awesome day regardless. Of course as best man I have ring-side seats for the whole show, I even take part… by handing the rings over. Lets just hope they know their left from right when it counts! The fun will come at the reception, however, where I have to give a speech. I’ve spent months whittling about this speech and being unable to come up with any decent material. But then I had an epiphany. I’m funnier just off the cuff anyway and I’ve known Gaz well long enough to be able to throw together some witty anecdotes about the tenure of our friendship that should get a few laughs… and maybe a few heckles from the bridal party.

It will mean Booze though and lots of it. and if there’s one thing I’m fond of, it’s beer. Although it remains to be seen if the ubiquitous community centre serves any beers worth a damn. If not it’ll have to be Jack and coke. Shorts will probably be better anyway as there will be, fuck knows how many, kids running about and sliding on their knees just waiting to knock a fresh pint out of my hand and if that happens I’ll probably go all Bruce Banner.

This evening I’ve been down to Derby with Nat and we saw Ocean’s 13. Although I’m not convinced she enjoyed it, I thought it was rather good and most definately bettered the fucking appalling Ocean’s 12. I think the fact that Julia Roberts played Julia Roberts in the second one saw the, once good, actress executed because she made no such apperance in this film. It was a very complex plot, a lot more complex than the previous two films but i think it was played well and was certainly shot well with a very very rat-packesque, 60s feel.

After the movie we went to the Dog and Partridge at Tutbury for something to eat… it was nice, I reccomend it, although I did detect an air of cliqueiness as I left with the local yoakles giving me the eye as I left. Oh well, it must just be like the Boundary, where if you’re not from Broadmeadows, upon entry, the music stops, everyone turns around and from somewhere behind the bar someone begins to whistle Ohio. I’m tellin ya man, it’s fucked up.

That’s about all I have to say this time guys and girls. Join me next time when I can tell you all about the Wedding… and show you photos! Good night!