R.I.P - M.J (1958 - 2009)

"You've been gone 17 days, and 17 long nights" (wrote ickle lickle Prince once upon a time) and that, I'm sorry to report, has indeed been the duration betwixt my postings. Perpetual infantile stewardship is depleting valuable resources and so I'm finding that I barely have the energy to depress the keys on this keyboard, let alone depress the keys in the correct order to produce mildly entertaining nonsense to boot. Is there anyone out there willing to jack right into my cerebral cortex and simply drain the essence of my musings into html format, with pics, for the blog so I can carry on sleeping whilst simultaneously remaining 'online' and "current"? No? . This brain needs coffee and crullers, stat!

Anyway, despite that pediatric preface, I refuse to turn this blog into a baby update noticeboard (you can use the My Coco link on the right for that :0), so let's have a pop at Steve Davis instead. For those few of you out there who didn't watch BBC2 on Sunday afternoons in the 1980's, Steve Davis used to be the world's number one snooker player. He was also, possibly unfairly, perceived to be an extremely straight and drab and boring ginger man. Now, it is customary in snooker, as in a lot of sports actually, for some of the more successful or prominent players to be given epithets relevant to their persona, attributes or playing style. Some of Steve's contempories at the time therefore were awarded somewhat flamboyant and exciting nick-names, such as Alex "Hurricane" Higgins and Jimmy "Whirlwind" White. Steve's nickname however was "Interesting". Steve "Interesting" Davis. Personally I felt that was a bit off and they could have at least stretched to something a bit more in the weather vein (excuse the pun), something comparable to Alex and Jimmy's nicknames and possibly also emanating from the Beaufort scale. Steve "Gentle Breeze" Davis maybe?

His eminence at snooker, dull personality and lack of "wind based" nickname therefore made it all the more confusing for me when I saw this advert:




Now I've checked Steve's Wikipedia entry and nowhere can I find anything that even remotely hints to him being any sort of authority on double-glazing (that would be Dennis Taylor with his over-sized glasses shurely? Ho ho). Why and how would any advertising company connect Steve Davis's snooker prowess with PVC windows, doors and conservatorys? I find the whole thing a bit suspect to be honest. A bit like a bodge job and cheap shot (trick shot? - Enough with the puns!! Ed) at pure attention grabbing advertising. What's also odd is the thumb thing he's doing. It doesn't look at all natural to me. Looks more like a picture that's been Photoshopped for an ulterior purpose. To help illustrate the point, here's my "artist's impression" of how the original would have looked, with the missing snooker cue re-instated:




Poor Steve isn't the first celebrity to fall foul of the develish photo editing application that is Photoshop and I doubt he'll be the last. It's the least we can do in the meantime though to boycott the despicable Network VEKA. Peace and love comrades.

And as if by magic, a baby arrived. Subtitled as, "At last, a valid use of the blog!".


So, here we have: Coco Brockbank-Gash, 7lb 4oz, born at 07:34, 07/06/09 at Wallingford Cottage Hospital.

Just two things to note:

1. She is much happier in real life than is suggested by any of the photos I've taken so far
2. Yes, we have unscrewed her hands to stop her from scratching herself

Awesome.

Measured quietness reigning down from me at the moment. Even in the house we're speaking in hushed tones in case any overtly loud noise brings on the contractions early or some such malarkey - homunculus disgorgement is imminent...

To while away some of the time though I knocked up this piece of trash.



I purchased a homemade oil painting from eBay for the princely sum of 99p, and then proceeded to defile it with vintage (1983-86) transfers from He-Man, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider. It didn't actually turn out as well as I'd hoped - I think the term, "over egged the pudding" would be an accurate description of the result - but it's going to go into Toby's room anyway, and he likes it.

And finally, the fruit (literally) of our labours in the garden.



Not the sum total of course, just the stuff that's ready to eat now. I know what you're thinking, "you're going to have to freeze some of that over-harvest or it'll spoil". Pathetic isn't it? And I don't even like strawberries. All the other stuff in the veg patch is either over-watered, under-watered, partially gnawed by cats and\or pigeons or appears to be descended from some kind of rare breed dwarf variety that refuses to, or is genetically incapable of, growing beyond the stage it was at when we planted it....4 weeks ago. More "gardening sucks a massive wiener" stories at a later date pop pickers...
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are you watching me........?

Aaaaand again:

Whilst perusing our SharePoint portal today, my deranged colleague asked me if I was going to log a defect for a minor cosmetic issue I'd noticed by the site's login box. One of the background graphics was slightly distorted; I said it looked to me like a hare-lip, but no, I wouldn't be logging it as a defect. Half an hour later I had to go to a meeting with James, one of the portal developers in a different building, reviewing open defects. The chap sitting opposite James had a hare-lip. Which I couldn't stop staring at. Not because I was being insensitive, but because it was a sign from God an interesting co-incidence.

Clarification: It was I that had mentioned "hare-lip", I'd never been to that floor of the building and had never met or seen either of these 2 guys before.

More co-incidences. I thought I'd be upfront about it at least and tell you straight off. I don't want you getting halfway through the post and then face-palming yourself with, "Oh not again. Get over it!". So, you know the format:

1. This one's a bit self-referential (is that the right word?). I was telling Simon, my new work buddy, about a co-incidence I had last week. I had seen that someone had posted some free tickets to a gig at the Roundhouse in London for a guy named Holger Czukay. I'm always up for a freebie, particularly if it's at the Roundhouse, which is a great venue. Unfortunately I couldn't go and also I had no idea who Keyser Soze, or whoever, was. Later that evening I discovered that he was a co-founder of krautrock band Can when I read his name in a review of an unrelated CD in The Wire - it was literally the first paragraph I read. Simon wasn't that impressed with the co-incidence, and come to think of it, I'm not now either. They always seem weirder when they happen personally and out of the blue. Anyways...

2. I was telling Simon this (in hindsight, un-) interesting story, when I had a heart palpitation. I exclaimed a faint, "Oh" and checked my pulse. He enquired, in his sardonic Brummie brogue, "What's wrong, have you trodden on a frog". I was pretty shocked by his throwaway jocular query. And why? Last night at about 8.30pm whilst walking up the path to water our fledgling vegetable patch I trod on what I thought was, and felt like, a slippery cat poop. Of course it wasn't a poop, it was a frog which, bizarrely and thankfully, hopped off unharmed.


Now, this is the sort of thing that the Lost script writers wove into a 6 season TV series, so whether you find it interesting or not is irrelevant - I've got some killer material here. Now if only I can rope in some "hot" actors and a tropical paradise setting...

It's been a gorgeous Bank Holiday weekend so far, so no time to be sitting down tappy tapping stuff and nonsense, but I did have two co-incidences today to keep that little topic spinning along:

1. Toby had a friend over to stay last night and so we had to drop him off this morning after I got back from some fast and furious mountain biking down near Henley. In the car on the way to Newbury we 'lounged' to the Best of Acid Jazz album, which I often dust off as soon as we get prolonged periods of sunshine (predictable? moi?). US3's Cantaloop was just finishing as we parked up and headed into town to get something to eat. We chose ASK as a fairly safe bet (except actually I had to send my calzone back as the pancetta in it was raw!!) and, as we walked in, playing on their stereo was Herbie Hancock's Water Melon Man which, as I'm sure you know, was the source of the samples for Us3's Cantaloop. Cantaloop? Canta-spook more like.

2. Idly flicking through the micro-blog links on Ben Goldacre's BadScience.net, I ended up at a site blogging about a book reader app for the iPhone called Eucalyptus (it looks very cool - I'm starting to get hunger pangs for one of these iPhones now; dangerous...). I watched the short demo movie which turned the pages (as though they were real pages) of Jules Vernes - Around The World In 80 Days, just as an advert came on the TV for next Sunday's family film...Around The World In 80 Days (the rubbish one with Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan).

Spook(y).