The Mathom House

Somalia

2008-11-23T22:42:00.002Z

This says it all... more up to date news reporting from Weebl, says I!

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/Somalia/

Me

2008-11-05T15:03:00.003Z

I am a poster boy.

Words

2008-10-10T14:48:00.000Z

Petrichor - the sweet smell of rain on dry earth.

I like.

More.

Cuddling Camoflage

2008-10-06T09:50:00.000Z

Clunk-Click.

Things.

2008-09-18T00:47:00.005Z

Things I have written recently:

1. A report on OTC camp for the website.
To be posted as soon as I can be bothered to link in the photos, since one of the last things I put up was about last year's camp.

2. An essay on the title: "To What Extent Should the Second World War Simply Be Viewed as a War of Production?"
Significant because it, and the consequent interview discussing it, me and other animals, got me into Kent University to do War Studies. Giggity.

What a load of bankers

2008-09-18T00:35:00.002Z

Aaaaw. Bless.

Just think, if you were an unemployed ex-banker, wouldn't you just love to go see Joseph's story of redemption and, above all, getting filthy rich?

P.S. I is le back.

24601

2008-02-11T22:54:00.000Z

46664

Gimlet's Rat Delicatessen Doing Well

2008-02-07T00:08:00.000Z

Clicky

And so it begins...

2007-12-31T02:04:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7165406.stm

Two presidents? With two presidents come two governments, two armies and all the joys of civil war. Merry Christmas Kenya, and a happy new year.

On the twelfth day of Christmas the rebels gave to me
12 amputations bloodily
On the eleventh day of Christmas the UN gave to me
11 sanctions pointlessly
On the tenth day of Christmas the Government gave to me
10 "rebels" shot randomly
On the 9th day of Christmas?...

Sponsor a Soldier

2007-12-24T16:48:00.000Z

I think charity gifts are a wonderful idea, but I'd like to see a bit of variety in the sort of options available to buy. Perhaps they could have a "Sponsor a Squaddie" option, where you could send CDs, DVDs, Video Games or even toiletries and confectionary to a member of the Armed Forces serving overseas?
Murdoch MacKinnon, Inverness, UK

- Taken from a BBC News Magazine discussion.

I'd call it Sponsor a Soldier, but certainly.

Terry and the Bomb

2007-12-12T23:05:00.000Z

Author Terry Pratchett is suffering from a rare form of early Alzheimer's disease, it has been revealed. #

"All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers," he said.

"Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet."

He told fans the statement should be interpreted as "I am not dead".

Actually I'm fairly sure he didn't. I would lay money he actually said the statement should be interpreted as "I ate'nt dead".

Did You Know?

2007-10-31T11:50:00.000Z

The Welsh word for June is Meh.

War Song of the Saracens

2007-09-03T15:22:00.000Z

We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late:
We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware!
Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die
Among women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer.
But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout, and we tramp
With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in our hair.

From the lands, where the elephants are, to the forts of Merou and Balghar,
Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rum.
We have marched from the Indus to Spain, and by God we will go there again;
We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny boom.
A mart of destruction we made at Jalula where men were afraid,
For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom;

And the Spear was a Desert Physician who cured not a few of ambition,
And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong:
And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool,
And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when their cavalry thundered along:
For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered up like a wave,
And the dead to the desert we gave, and the glory to God in our song.

-- James Elroy Flecker #

My mother likes to quote the "mart of destruction" line whenever I leave my room in a tip.

The News

2007-08-01T21:51:00.000Z

Good evening. I'm Ron Burgundy and here's whats ~~happening in your world tonight.~~ been happening with Will for the past six weeks.

Wednesday 20th June: Went to the barracks in Cardiff to go on the advance party for OTC summer camp. Due to a cockup and there still being a United States Army artillery unit in our accomodation, we didn't leave until...

Friday 22nd June: Arrived Knook Camp, Salisbury Plain. Unpacked kit ready for...

Saturday 23rd June: Summer Camp began. 1920's Gangster Social.

Sunday 24th June: Deployed 'into the field' in the evening. Everyone else by bus or army truck. Those being hardcore and doing Cambrian Patrol training/selection did it on foot, 12km in full gear, like real manly men. Wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have the radio as well...

Monday 25th June: Lessons on military stuff, night navigation exercise.

Tuesday 26th June: More lessons, night patrol being ambushed and freezing in the light of far too many flares, etc etc. Also falling over Scott while re-orging and cutting my leg on the sights of his LSW. Oops.

Wednesday 27th June: More lessons. Saw paras drop onto the DZ a couple of hundred metres from our wood. Agreed to tell everyone else it was us in the photos we took. Departed for a new wood further away from the mockup village everyone else was living and learning how to fight in. Night time CTR (Close Target Reconnaissance) of the village. You drop a fireteam off in cover, then move in, leave a close support pair and recce with just the section commander and scout. I was in the close support, which was still pretty awesome, but the recce pair got into the HQ building (Bangalore Primary School) and sat in the room next door to the radio post listening to one of the staff brushing his teeth. Awesome. One of the other sections was ambushed just ahead of us on the way back and we counterattacked the ambushers. Later found out they pegged it for 2km still wearing all the fleeces, gloves, waterproofs etc they'd been lying waiting for us in. I'm sure that warmed the poor dears up wonderfully.

Thursday 28th June: Moved into the village. Watched demonstrations by various visiting units. Had annual photograph. Set up barriers and defences in Shrewton street. Prepared to defend it against the horde. Was found asleep on my feet standing next to my sleeping bag, still wearing webbing and holding my rifle, by the guy who was supposed to wake me for sentry duty.

Friday 29th June: The battle of Shrewton Street, where the few shall stand against the many and numbers count for nothing. No really, we were outnumbered at least 6-1 but had bottlenecked the street so well with wire that we were told to counterattack and die gloriously rather than let them take another hour to fight through it. Packed up and marched all the way back to camp. The disorganised main body (everyone else) took another two hours to get their act together and passed us in buses about 1km from the camp. Slackers. Had a BBQ in the evening. Ate a Basra Badger's weight in meat.

Saturday 30th June: Sports day, during which plenty of examples of the Cambrian shuffle (like limping, but with both legs) could be seen. In the evening was the formal dinner, at which I got excessively ratarsed, but at least wasn't the one who threw up all over the table and himself as the top table were just standing up to leave. That was my truly inspirational section commander.

Sunday 1st July: Was hungover.

Monday 2nd to Wednesday 4th July: Section Competition over 3 days. In the order we did them: Navigation; Stands (observation, casualty evacuation, command tasks including driving a Landrover blindfolded); March and Shoot. Cambrian sections, being the elite (and half the size of everyone else's) didn't count in the official rankings, but unofficially we came second of the three Cambrian sections, which beat the rest easily. We also had the fastest time in the march and shoot by nearly a minute (18:53 to 19:40 from 2 Section, 21+ from 1 Section and 23+ from the best of the main body). Our shooting was crap though.

Thursday 5th July: Corps visits: I went to the Royal Armoured Corps, played on a tank gunner arcade simulator with 5 other guys, had a curry buffet lunch and rode in a Challenger 2. Very civilised. Was stuck on guard duty while the band of the Royal Welsh beat the retreat (including a suite from Last of the Mohicans) at sunset, which was quite cool.

Friday 6th July: Had the final parade with promotions, awards etc. Found out I was chosen as best first year from Cardiff Company, although the guy from Aber got it overall along with a huge cup. A worrying lack of judgement from my superiors anyway! Packed up and prepared for the evening's entertainment: skits. Got pumped up on a lethal mixture of neat spirits in a massive vodka bottle being passed around while we skulked around the back of the mess in costume, before performing a special Cambrian version of the 300 in a uniform of helmets, webbing, bedsheet cloaks, flipflops and sock-stuffed boxers, wielding cardboard shields and broomstick handles. Fortunately I got to wear my black rowing techtop underneath, in order to double up as a Sergeant Major/black clad Immortal. The other skits, done by normal company divisions (Aber, Bangor, Cardiff and finally Swansea) were around 5 or 10 minutes. Ours was 13 in the one read through rehearsal and a staggering, cross dressing, bulge flaunting nigh on half hour in performance. Wasn't it lovely, boys and girls?!

Saturday 7th July: Coach back to Cardiff, Pizza Hut, Die Hard 4.0, slept in the barracks.

Sunday 8th to Friday 13th July: Adventure training in Pembrokeshire. Kitesurfing, walking, climbing, land yachting, clay pigeon shooting and kayaking. Also tried wakeboarding instead of kitesurfing when the wind was too light. I was crap, but had great fun steering the Gemini rib (an inflatable tube on each side of a flat board, with an engine on the back) while the instructor did a demonstration, on the basis that I'd "steered boats before". Yeah... canal boats and a dinghy in Scotland that goes about 10 knots (nautical miles per hour, a bit faster than mph). The Gemini does up to 46 knots. Schweeet.

Saturday 14th July: Got back at 1.30am, stayed up til about 5 emptying my camera onto my laptop, faffing on Facebook etc and went paintballing for Jim's birthday at too early o'clock. Will T claimed the credit for letting them know it was Jim's birthday, so he got the honourary 'best man' positition - joining Jim and a stag weekend pair in dresses, being told they were invulnerable and were out of the last game only when they couldn't take the pain anymore. Having admired their bruises and driven home we broke into my house for my swimming stuff by lifting Jim up to the open bathroom window. Chez Jim for swimming and more admiring of bruises, then I fell asleep while the others played Wii.

Sunday 15th to Friday 20th July: Mountain Leader Training in Snowdonia (while based on Anglesey). Walked up several mountains including Snowdon. Ended up spending Friday night at a random party in a house full of OTC people that we (myself and Gaz, also from Cardiff, also on the MLT course) saw from the pub in Bangor we were meeting his Pembrokeshire dalliance in on Tuesday night. Recipe for a good party: a giant space hopper, persuading a random girl to go buy sambuca from the offie up the road, shooting the empties with airguns in the alley behind the house, trying to handcuff people to the bannister, going out to a pound a pint (on a FRIDAY) dive, going back to a pub behind the house that someone's friend was meant to have closed up hours ago, falling asleep in a chair, going back to the house and climbing in the kitchen window in order to fall asleep on the sofa with a Finding Nemo turtle cushion for a pillow. Amazingly I managed to get up in the morning for...

Saturday 21st June to Thursday 26th July: Coillighillie. Got on the train at 8am, got off the bus that replaced the train to Strathcarron from Inverness due to rockfalls on the track at 8.30pm, having joined up with Tamsin who'd got a flight to Inverness. Bangor - Crewe - Glasgow - Perth - Inverness - (Achnasheen) - Strathcarron. Five changes of train plus a bonus one onto the bus at Achnasheen. Crazy. Did the Coillieghillie boat-rowing seal-spotting sandcastle-building hill-climbing Potter-reading thing. Returned on Thursday to make sure Sarah had time to prepare for flying out on holiday on the Saturday.

Friday 27th July: Went to Freeport and dragged Tamsin to Transformers.

Saturday 28th July: Packed Tamsin off home. Started reading Harry Potter again from the first book. Continued from where I started just before summer camp, conquering Europe on Medieval Total War (the original, of course).

Sunday 29th July: Went to The Simpsons Movie with Will.

Wednesday 1st August: Started on the great project: Clearing my room of lingering toys, school folders, old clothes, worn out shoes and assorted other mathoms.

Thursday 2nd August: Felt proud for using the word mathom.

And that's the news. You stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy.

Mega Happy Turbo Joy Joy Fun!

2007-08-01T21:28:00.000Z

glumbert.com - Dolphin massacre in Japan

Worthy cause, but the oh-so-sombre Joaquim Phoenix voiceover cracks me up.

Play Ball

2007-06-19T23:24:00.000Z

More craziness. Someone who was "not European or American" - in other words, probably a Saudi prince - has bought an Airbus A380 for use as a PRIVATE JET. How awesome could that be? You could have a swimming pool in it!

I found out today I got my first choice Mountain Leader course, so I'm now booked for a solid month of Army stuff from tomorrow, with the exception of the 14th of July, on which I fully expect to go paintballing for Jim's birthday. Get it sorted.

Oh, and Salman Rushdie? Should have got the knighthood BECAUSE Pakistan, Iran etc thought he shouldn't. I loved this quote:

"The British monarch lives under this illusion that Britain is still a 19th Century superpower and that bestowing titles is something still deemed important." #

The honours aren't chosen by the monarch, but mostly by the government.
If bestowing titles isn't important, why are you worrying about it?
We have nukes, you don't. This makes us a superpower and you not. Further evidence is demonstrated by us and our dear colonial comrades effectively conquering Iraq in six weeks.

Someone's a little bit insecure...

Gnarly

2007-06-07T19:23:00.000Z

What a dude. He could start a whole new extreme sport, much like train surfing.

He/She/It

2007-06-04T02:01:00.000Z

The verb is indeed to wiki.

Late-Night Bemusement

2007-06-01T03:32:00.001Z

More sheer genius.

The goverment wants to force predominantly white schools to 'twin' with 'ethnically-diverse schools' to stop racial segregation. Uhuh. Sure thing.

So they're going to force every single school in the countryside to bus their pupils into cities to gawk at the blicks? Genius. Or are they going to send out the black and asian kids so that the poor yokels can understand that they aren't so different after all? As for their white council estate dwelling urban cohabitants, kids hang around with whoever lives on their street and gang up on the next street over. It's their parents who try and place restrictions on them, and who move to segregated areas in the first place, but let's get real. This is not Derry or Sadr city.

If the government wanted to force proportional integration within city schools, fine by me. If they want to introduce the poor yokels to 'persons of colour' then make Trevor Phillips walk through every village in the country. (Preferably over hot coals, for being a cretin.)

A Chip off the Old Shoulder

2007-05-26T13:57:00.000Z

What a load of balls.

The existence of private schools removes the burden of funding the education of 7% of the nations children. They're supposed to be penalised for this?

Private schools do not own their teachers. They cannot compell them to work extra hours in state schools. They cannot afford to remove them during timetabled lessons. Private school teachers already have to stay in school until 6 o'clock, teach on Saturdays, coach sports teams and run activities. Boarding house staff are never off duty.

"State school teachers had to teach more varied communities than their private school counterparts." Of course, private schools teach only white, upper middle class English children. How many pupils on average join a state senior school with barely any English? Yes, in some inner city immigrant communities it happens. But really, could most schools say they have french, german, spanish, czechoslovakian, polish, russian, chinese, korean or japanese students? What about ALL of them, plus jamaican, south african, american... In my U6th physics set of 11: Taiwanese, Japanese, Chinese, German.

Private schools have all these facilites state schools don't. Yes, private schools have lots of playing fields. So do equivalently situated state schools. In the country, fields are available. If local councils were prevented or didn't need to sell sports pitches off, more state schools would still have lots of sports pitches.

Private schools should take state school pupils on secondment. You mean like in the old scheme where talented pupils could win state funding to attend private school? The scheme that New Labour abolished?

It's just such a load of vague, posturing, unworkable, unjustified crap.

The Order of Service

2007-05-25T00:41:00.000Z

So... Saw off my Granny today. Cremation with family followed by memorial service at the parish church, then far too many sandwiches back at the house. Random occurence of the day: since she's married to one of my Granny's cousins the recently retired head of MI5 was there.

I ended up pondering, outside the church and later on, what would I want at my own funeral. I'd definitely put a wishlist in my will before going to Iraq or some other sandy holiday destination. Morbid fun all round, until Sarah decided that the poem I'd need read at my funeral would be...

Jabberwocky

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Jim and/or Will could do it in fine style. They could even get in some roleplay, one being the beamish boy. Apart from that awesomeness, there's a more sober and obvious choice:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Hymns:

Guide me, O thou great Redeemer

O God, our help in ages past

He who would valiant be

I vow to thee, my country

Somewhere there should be room for this too:

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

The Cure

2007-05-17T01:12:00.000Z

Apparently there could be a hormone treatment for baldness in the pipeline, but why worry when you can look like this?

I did, on emerging from the gym on Saturday. Bulging Vin Diesel/Jimmy-in-a-giggling-fit veins standing out on my overexposed head. Sexy.

I am the Captain of my Soul

2007-05-08T01:47:00.000Z

Since there is obviously a new verb "To Wikipedia", what should its past tense be? I wikipediad? I google, you google, he/she/it googles... Google is such a nice verb, don't you think?

Be that as it may, Wikipedia, via the 'If' page, brought me to "a short poem by the British poet William Ernest Henley that is the source of a number of familiar clichés and quotations. The title is Latin for "unconquered". It was first published in 1875."

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Quiet Birds in Circled Flight

2007-05-08T01:28:00.000Z

While searching for the "Nation's Favourite Poem" to demonstrate my horror at someone's ignorance of 'If' I found this, which surprised me in not putting either Mr Kipling or Mr Wordsworth first.

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and forever weep.
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and forever cry.
I am not there. I did not die.

- Mary Fyre

The poem became well known in Britain after a copy was left in an envelope to be opened by his parents in the event of his death by Lance Bombadier Stephen Cummins, who was killed on active service in Northern Ireland in 1989.

The Important Election

2007-05-06T21:12:00.000Z

There was the trifling matter of a few councils, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly a couple of days ago, but who cares about that? I was indifferent enough not to vote. What does matter is that Nicholas Sarkozy is the new president of France, in an election I would definitely have voted in. Possibly Bayrou, the third placed centrist eliminated in the first round, might have caught my fancy, but of the two finalists I'd definitely have backed Sarko. Break down the ridiculous French labour laws and generally overlarge state which will actually free up job opportunities for the immigrants he's hated by. Come down hard on crime. All good stuff.

On the topic of important, which T-shirt should I get?

Spiderman 3

2007-05-06T16:05:00.000Z

***SPOILER ALERT***

Prill doesn't think it's worth watching. I disagree.

Spiderman 3 was the funniest film I've seen in ages. It beat Blades of Glory, despite none of the outfits matching the peacock costume. It also contained the most important scientific revelation of the decade: What turns people emo.

The Crow pose and the Emo haircut

So apparently there's some evil black symbiotic stuff that attatches itself to you and exaggerates your attributes, such as being an emo boy. Being Spidey, he also gets to dance like JT, so there's a payoff, but still, watch out for that black stuff. If you're not up to Spidey standards it can make you seriously unattractive:

For the main middle section of this film I was literally laughing out loud constantly. There's the French Maitre D', the haircut, the Adams Family Tango, the haircut, the jazz hands bit to the two chicks in the street, the haircut, the blatant reference to Piers Morgan, the haircut...

Sure, the last part of the film seems to be lacking a load of deleted scenes, for example Peter fits his Richie Rich mate, blows him up with his own goblin grenade and then reappears and he's gone straight to the cool scars and milky eye stage with no real explanation of the time interval or what happened in it. The two baddies who team up together are neither very well developed, but what the hell. After the Grierson-Rickford Aunt Sally (TM) staid, boring good little hero-boy start, this film is FUN.

"Civilian Casualties"

2007-05-02T19:22:00.000Z

Yet again, coalition forces are accused of killing civilians willy-nilly. Yet again, the BBC shows its anti-American left wing core values. Yet again, the reality is probably somewhat different.

A dead civilian in Afghanistan is simply a body without a gun. Over a hundred houses were apparently destroyed. Why? This is not an Israeli firezone clearing exercise. This is not Mugabe cutting down on unemployment by bulldozing slums and turning people back out into the countryside to starve instead. This is house to house fighting. If the guys with guns run into a house and start firing from it and you've got tanks, you just flatten the place. If the women and children haven't got out, is that your fault for firing without knocking on the door and checking, or the Afghans' fault for using a house full of kids as cover?

The problem with invading Afghanistan is that it is populated by the most bloody minded stubborn bastards in the world, for whom guerilla war against the foreign invader is not just part of their history but their entire culture. They are Pratchett's D'regs. They attack at dawn because attacking at dawn is a great and glorious cultural tradition. In D'reg language, the word for "stranger" is the same as the word for "target."

Pace Gladiator:

"People should know when they're conquered."

"Would you, Quintus? Would I?"

Liberty, Equality, Perversity

2007-04-21T23:40:00.000Z

Woman sleeps with 14 year old boy: minimum sentence of 15 months. How long a sentence would a 34 year old man who slept with a 14 year old girl get?

More importantly, why would anyone sleep with THIS?!

Floreat Uttlesford

2007-04-18T12:07:00.000Z

According to a reader's digest poll Uttlesford is the 10th best place to raise a family in the country, out of 408. Giggity. It's apparently slipped from 1st in a previous one though...

I <3 Band Geeks

2007-04-18T12:03:00.000Z

The best bit's about 4.40 in. Until then you can just admire the costumes... my personal favourite is the Bowser bass drummer...

Most Excellent!

2007-04-10T00:07:00.000Z

I have an excuse... I was preparing my costume for an important event. The attack of Paint was completely necessary too...

Hymen Potter

2007-04-01T21:31:00.000Z

The new Harry Potter covers have been released. All keen beans say w00t!

"If Wolverine was female, would his hymen grow back every time?" - Jim. Ah, it's good to be home.

This is Iran

2007-03-24T01:30:00.000Z

Oops. Apparently the Persians, or more specifically the Iranians, are upset by 300. It's obviously an Alexander Nevsky style propaganda film aimed at building support for a US-UK invasion of Iran. Sure it is. There's a Brit in the lead role just to make sure of it. Not a film version of a cartoon version of a Greek saga at all. It's pure fallacy that Persians suck at fighting and got beaten by 300 products of the biggest homicidal cult ever. They had 700 helpers holding another pass, for one thing. Besides, in the Will Thorne (TM) ratings it must be good, it doesn't have Orlando Bloom in.

Anyone up for a holiday viewing?

[All trademarks used with flagrant disregard for the holder's likely superior knowledge of the film, the period, the politics and Rob's mum.]

Hokay

2007-03-20T13:21:00.000Z

Yesterday. Tori's birthday. Blog's birthday. Three years. Haven't blogged for about three weeks. But why?

I AM LE TIRED.

But seriously, my internet's buggered up in the house yet again, plus a certain factor has been distracting me. My bad.

So, in brief, but WITH pictures...

Head of the Taff 2007: Morning we raced in fours, afternoon in an eight. My seat came off after a few hundred metres of the 3.4km and I did the rest of the race sliding on my arse, with consequent huge oozing sores. Yummy.

The next weekend: OTC Royal Engineers Competition, Minley Barracks, Surrey. Endurance run with a stretcher made of a chunk of tank track (team pictured below, after the general group one), command task, bridge building and boat race. I ended up being 'RBS Six Nations Man of the Weekend' for being extra specially good. I ran myself sick, as did everyone. I was supposed to sit out the command task to be used as brawn for the more physical tasks, but I substituted in behind the judge's back on the command task because I'd figured out where they were going wrong. Towers of Hanoi with tractor tyres, elementary, doncha know. I apparently lobbed bits of steel bridge girder around like a loon, in the same testosterone fuelled neanderthal rage that saw me taking over the assault boat we were paddling and beasting everyone on from the back. I'd be an awesome rowing cox, if only I were 40 kilograms lighter. Oh, and I forgot to mention the Hawaiian party on Saturday night. Awesome stuff.

Before leaving Cardiff

After the endurance race

Hawaiian carnage

And finally, this weekend Cardiff Company played Exeter UOTC at football. They had their names embroidered on their team jackets. We had this...

Check out the goalie kit... Go Sweden!

The girls, plus 3 of our guys to make up the numbers including me in goal, won 4-1. We lost 2-1, which we thought wasn't bad really, then went to the OTC bar to watch England lose to Wales. Gutted.

Word.

Cutest. Pictures. Ever.

2007-03-01T05:49:00.000Z

I want the set.

Collide

2007-02-26T02:20:00.000Z

The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you

- Howie Day, Collide.

Stuck in my head since randomly looking at this group earlier today. I love those first four lines, which were beautifully apposite this morning.

Fitting with the title, rowing and OTC are colliding rather a lot at the moment... the last weekend probably removed all chance I had of breaking back into the 'decent' level crews, but am currently being aimed towards rowing with effectively the 3rd eight, consisting of 7 newbies and myself. Rather weird, being the most experienced and technically proficient member of the crew. Sadly I'm not the fastest as of the 5k we did on Saturday but I was only one place and 7 seconds off. With sufficient time in the gym turning my arse numb on the rowing machines I can probably break back at least by ergo time into the top 16, but at what cost? This coming weekend's race, just for starters, clashes with an OTC training weekend. Uhoh. As things stand I'm staying in Cardiff and rowing. I just have to hope that there isn't OTC the BUSA Regatta weekend as well.

And That's Me in the Corner

2007-02-21T00:05:00.000Z

Maggot Racing

2007-02-19T17:34:00.000Z

A fun weekend with the OTC. Saturday's programme went thus: map reading - a fun ramble around the countryside; route planning - in which I was accused of being brainy like it's a disease for dividing 5kmph by 1.6km correctly; and range shooting, which was good apart from one random shoot which looked like I'd sneezed because it was about a foot out. Oops. Sunday was a 6 mile Combat Fitness Test - 4 miles an hour with a bit of weight and a rifle. Hard for short unfit girls, who get put at the front. Tall boys who got stuck at the back marched along grinning, enjoying the ridiculously sunny weather and whistling/humming/singing when the PTI was further up chivvying the short arses. Favourite was "The animals went in two by two, hurrah! hurrah!" which sadly we didn't know the words, but got about 10 or 15 people humming/tumpty tumming along to, with me whistling a bit of random descant. Blame Diehard with a Vengeance for that one.

The highlight of the weekend though was Saturday night in the Officers Mess. Given that we were at a training camp this was a flatroofed single-step-up-from-a-portacabin but still, who cares when you have hobbit fighting (smallest people from each company trying to knock each other using only their legs, hands clasped behind backs, disqualified if they stop hopping) and maggot racing, in which I competed mostly because each team's three racers had to down a pint at the start and end of their lap. That was rule 1 of 3. Rule 2 was zips must be done up to the chin. Rule 3 was no biting.

This, by the way, is a maggot:

Having downed the required pint (which put me into an early lead, being the first off for Cardiff ) the course started with 3 sides of the main bar room around the chairs which penned in the spectators before going up the corridor to another conference room bit, crossing a line of armchairs on the way. Once in the conference room there was a line of normal chairs to be surmounted, a table to be ducked under, a pair of armchairs stacked on each other to be turned around at the end before a sprint back out of the room through a chicane of wall and table, down the corrider, back over the armchairs, back around the bar, jumping out of the maggot and downing the second pint.

Due to some nefarious business with the Swansea company people who were running the event I was held up at the jumping in stage trying to get my zip up and finally started hopping 3/4. At the armchairs in the corridor I caught up with the guy in second who was trying to wriggle over them. Adhering to the 3 rules I jumped onto him, knocking the chair over with him and rolling over him on the far side to jump up into second. Having pretty much smashed through the normal chairs and rolled under the table and sprinted back uninterrupted, diving headfirst over the armchairs and bounding around the bar right up behind the guy from Swansea in first I overtook him with the second pint. James, the Cardiff number two, then shot off and came home about 30 seconds ahead of the competition but Chris, number three, was so far ahead he was met in the corridor by the other three coming in the opposite direction and knocked back down by each in turn and despite a valiant effort (and my foot shooting out from the crowd to pin the back of the Bangor bag and drop the guy like a felled tree) finished a close second, being unable to drink fast enough due to crazy hiccups! A tragic occurence, to be sure.

Alumni Felstedienses

2007-02-16T01:22:00.000Z

The Wikipedia article on Felsted School lists among the notable Old Felstedians one General Sir Richard Dannatt (b. 1950), British soldier and Chief of the General Staff (2006-).

In other words, the head of the British Army. A real gem for Major Christmas... he may even have been the one who inspected the biennial parade the year after I left and presented Sarah with a birthday cake.

Insert Cheese Error

2007-02-15T09:36:00.000Z

2k time: 7:05

Not good... given that I haven't done one since May and it's actually an improvement on that, it might seem good, but actually without the month off pre-Christmas with a strained ankle tendon type thing, the getting fat over Christmas and the 3 weeks of concussion post-Christmas it could have been about 20 seconds faster... and it needs to be. I was admittedly doing it with the top 15 other people rowing for the club atm (a few have been bumped out due to being overqualified) but I came last by a couple of seconds... and 9 were under 6.40, so 6.45 is not an unrealistic goal. Ooh... hours of ergo fun to come.

The 600

2007-02-14T01:04:00.000Z

Go tell the Spartans we made a sequel...

600 posts. Woohoo. Yes, this is one of those "I don't really have anything to say but I've been bullied into blogging" posts. I can't steal something from PostSecret because they're all Valentines themed cards this week, mostly bleak and mopey, and I can't identify with any of them. Sucks to be them. Although it sucks to be me too because I've got a 2k rowing test tomorrow and I haven't been on a rowing machine seriously in a month. It's going to be bad. Possibly horrific. In fact, it had better be. I need more bad stuff to balance out my reason to brave the overly commercialised sickeningly red and pink Valentines displays...

Nuggets

2007-02-02T17:09:00.000Z

Battlefront fans eat your heart out.

On a less savoury note, Hilary Swank and Kevin Bacon eat your heart out.

Pink Eggs and Spam

2007-01-25T16:26:00.000Z

The monkey explained that he’d quite like a hat
That was pink with the texture of jelly
With tentacles made of that slippery stuff
And a wobbly, see-through belly.
“A jellyfish hat is what you require!”
I said as I measured his head.
“I would wear it with pride!” the monkey replied
So I took out my needle and thread.

- From The Tail of the Jellyfish Hat, by one Miss Katy Burgess. As Facebook would put it, "Will knows Katy through a friend" and of course, Facebook rules my life now. Checking up on deviantART on the other hand is a rare occurence and of the 39 new deviations flagged up, this was by far the most awesome in its Owl-and-the-Pussycat-cum-Dr-Seuss-ness. Go read.

Don't Stop at Adoption, Get Procreating

2007-01-24T17:47:00.000Z

Re: What Happens When Prill Watches the News.

2 mothers vs 1 mother.

Same lack of a male role model, twice the time and twice the affection. Ditto 2 fathers vs 1 father.

As long as the kids get a decent role model for what it is to be whatever gender they are, they're doing better than a fair proportion of the population. If it's a girl with two fathers, the deficit will likely be made up by the overbearing preponderance of women in infant and primary education. If it's a boy with two mothers, he'll face the same problem as a possible two thirds[1] of the young male African American population in the United States: no male role model, a cycle that self perpetuates.

I even have a reference:

[1] "Today only [one-third] of black children have two parents in the home."
Dennis A. Ahlburg and Carol J. DeVita, "New Realities of the American Family," Population Bulletin 47, no.2 (August 1992) 8. #

And the Winner Is...

2007-01-22T18:47:00.000Z

Cool little "in pictures story" on the making of an Oscar statuette. They're pewter, plated with bronze, then nickel, then silver and finally 24 carat gold, thus neatly encompassing all three podium medals and er, nickel, because it's handy.

Best... Placard... Ever...

2007-01-19T20:20:00.000Z

'THE BLOKE BEHIND ME CAN'T SEE'
A teenager waves his placard about in the Australia v England Twenty20 match.

- BBC Sport.

The Leaning House of Broadcasting

2007-01-17T22:10:00.000Z

I totally agree with this Times column on the BBC's biased coverage of "Palestine". The BBC reports pretty much everything stated by Palestinian spokesmen as fact. There are no quotation marks, no "alledgedly", no "suspected". In reality the "facts" were inherently disputed though. However, here's how the Times itself reported the incident used as the column's prime example:

Babies die as artillery barrage hits families on picnic beach

ISRAELI artillery fire killed a Palestinian family who were picnicking on the beach in Gaza yesterday, as the shoreline was packed with people on a Muslim holiday.

Cynical, me? Surely not.

"I Grill with George"

2007-01-16T19:55:00.000Z

This grill is automatic
It's systematic
It's hydromatic
Why it's a George Foreman!

My mum was moaning in the holidays about how she thought I wasn't eating enough proper meat. Apparently the occasional offerings of the Fortune House (free prawn crackers if you spend over £10) or even Mr Hong's Three Jolly Luck Takeaway Fish Bar are insufficient, as are sausages, even Lidl's finest spiced Bratwurst. I have therefore taken the revolutionary step of buying "a George", mostly because I saw it was half price in Tesco Extra when I was on my way to buy yet more weight discs. I also purchased a selection of grillable looking things (pork and chicken) that were on half price in the food section. Let the culinary laissez-faire commence.

Tattooing

2007-01-06T23:34:00.000Z

Or for trolls, engraving.

If you were to get a tattoo, what would it be?

Living is easy with eyes closed?

SPQR?

WUM?

Personally I think John 8:32. Just the reference, not the actual verse.

Incidentally, note the raspberry blowing. Also, I got 14/15 on the quiz. Damn that question about the spoon.

There Are Only 10 Types of People in the World. Those Who Understand Binary and Those Who Don't.

2007-01-06T14:04:00.000Z

The Guild of Fools

2007-01-05T20:08:00.000Z

Didn't Warwick SU kick out their Christian Union years ago?

What a bunch of 'tards. Why do they need to be part of the Union anyway? Tithe everyone from their student loans and they'd be rolling in funds. Not that they need them.

Aunt: [slaps him twice] Wicked child!!! Chairs are an invention of Satan!
In our house, Nathaniel sits on a spike!

Edmund: ...and yourself...?

Aunt: I sit on Nathaniel -- two spikes would be an extravagance.

Au Contraire, Blackadder!

2007-01-04T02:00:00.000Z

I am returned from New Year's in London. Huzzah! Huzzah!

There was copious drunkeness and general frivolity. I got the best secret santa present by far, direct from a Cairo souk. There was meeting of random people from Felsted in Covent Garden, dressing up (literally) and stripping of a totally trashed Jimmy, much Mario Tennis and a plethora of pictures. I dragged Jim to the gym. I even cooked! How rare!

I also got a belated present from the OTC: £335... Huzzah!

Pillage

2006-12-28T02:41:00.000Z

Major Christmas spoils: A couple of shirts, a pair of walking boots, 15 novels, a tome on bridges with pretty pictures, a huge painting by my sister that she was very offended to hear me describe as looking like pieces of pizza and a head torch.

I went shopping today to acquire something else for me on my parents behalf:

I also picked up a rather fine rugby shirt. Hurrah for sales.

Well, you know how I love putting up pictures of my shopping...

Tagged and Bagged

2006-12-25T02:34:00.000Z

Having tags on posts, or labels as Blogger calls them, is strange, but going back through my ridiculous number of posts (this will be the 587th) on the pretext of tagging stuff is quite entertaing, mostly because of how dire they used to be and how correspondingly dire the more recent ones will surely seem in a couple of years time.

I've "upgraded" my blog to comply with the new Blogger and thus it now displays labels properly as well as in the new bit in the sidebar. The text on the new version of my template is somehow not quite the same. Pretty sure it's not the font. The spacing between words seems smaller so I've overcompensated for that by making the line-spacing overly large. It may therefore look rather odd.

On the First Day of Christmas

2006-12-25T01:49:00.000Z

Went to the midnight service in Felsted. The Christmas, The Flopster and many more were there. It was ultimate fun, especially when my mum had been at the wine a bit hard and kept starting hymns twice as loud and shrill as everyone else. I on the other hand was using my best Barry White bass. Sexy. But talking of sexy, kids... be good like uncle Jim.

Happy Shopper

2006-12-22T23:54:00.000Z

New trainers from Freeport today have destroyed my excuse not to go running. D'oh!

What News from the West?

2006-12-18T22:55:00.000Z

"I'm going to sexually molest your dog" #

What a legend. That one's definitely coming out the next time I want to insult someone.

In recent news: I'm home, at last, having survived a final week including a Rowing Christmas Ball and a "family" outing to Bounce. Both involved wine and thus naturally somewhat drunken, but I managed to come through with minimal memory loss and no major head injuries. Score!

The best bit of Thursday night was playing drunken sardines til 6am. I was unfindable when I got up into the loft. Go me. Paul swore he heard something but they searched they top floor and when he suggested the loft, I was passed off as "a rat". Lol. Better than that, though, was me, Matt and Moz lined up on the windowsill of the front groundfloor room (Matt's) hanging out of the window to minimise the bulge we were making in the curtains and waving drunkenly at the guy cycling past the end of the road.

God Is An Englishman

2006-12-12T16:20:00.000Z

I've come to realise that Catholicism may be genetic. I think there's a guilty gene that drives me to need to confess things, although not exactly to a priest. I'm using a handy churchgoer as a proxy.

In return for said usage, I went as the psuedo gay friend on a cheering-up trip to the cinema with the aforementioned young lady. The Holiday was, in the Love Actually vein, a slightly superior rom-com, mostly made so by the British-set half. Eli Wallach, best known as 'The Ugly' in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, was also kinda cool. Kate Winslet plays her character as Emma Thompson, even down to the facial expressions. The twist involving Jude Law brings in what was for me the best scene in the film, and not just for the awesome furnishings.

Overall rating: left me wanting hot chocolate, which I duly begged in exchange for being wept on for the last twenty minutes. Personally, I wasn't sufficiently moved, unlike the doorstep signs in Love Actually, which is possibly the most sickly sweet scene ever. Bless.

Dirty Banker

2006-12-04T18:28:00.000Z

I refuse to be banker. That way stealing from the bank's more of a challenge...

Here Wii Go Again

2006-12-02T03:26:00.000Z

"Some early reviewers in the US have complained that the vigorous action demanded by the Wii controller have left them feeling stiff after a long game session." #

WORST. CONSOLE. EVER.

Playing console tennis that actually involves doing exercise? Oh no! But personally I'm looking forward more to sword elbow from Zelda than Mario Tennis elbow. It looks awesome.

Best... Bond... Ever...

2006-11-23T01:48:00.000Z

Bond is the back, reincarnated as a blue-eyed assasin and, in my opinion, better than ever. Daniel Craig actually looks like he could do the legendary Bond one-punch henchman KO... Eva Green is phwoarsome... the cold eyes are chilling... the Juggernaut moment is classy... the only downside is the ending. It's either a subtle suggestion of the unseen final violence to follow or the lead-in to another film. The latter would be immensely non-Bond and annoying. I'm hoping for the first one. Bond films should be stand-alone, apart from the possible reappearance of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, complete with grey Nehru suit and fluffy white cat.

Rhetoric and Roast Beef

2006-11-20T02:10:00.000Z

Went on a little stomp around the hills near Caerphilly today, followed by pub lunch. The posse was somewhat reduced by a combination of food poisoning and girls who are divided over the singularly sexy entity that is Sam. Pub lunch afterwards. Twisted my ankle somewhat and was back home ice-packing and dosing up when I got a text message saying the ergo test due soon would be tomorrow night. Alas, yet another one I've got out of! Every cloud has a silver get-out-of-ergo-free card...

In other news, I'm published, having a little rant. Go me.

More Carnage

2006-11-19T02:10:00.000Z

The one I'm patting on the head (to remind her she's short) is Hana. The occasion was OTC Centurion/Toga night on Tuesday. The floor was sheeted in case of spewage, but Hana made it to the loos... and, once her housemate and I had carried her that far, a bush halfway back to her house... and his lap in the taxi we got from there, because he was trying to avoid paying extra. It leaked through his sheet onto the floor anyway, so he still had to!

I then headed back to town, leaving him in charge, and collected some random balloons on the way. I apparently told everyone in Lloyds, once I found the OTC had progressed there, they should be jealous of my balloons and that's why I remember being chased around the bar by completely random women trying to pop them.

Last night was the Wales UOTC 30th Anniversary Dinner. It was held in the huge vaulted entrance hall of the Welsh National Mueseum (just across the road from the Union) and drinks beforehand were in the Impressionists gallery, surrounded by Monets and similar. The Royal Welsh regimental band weren't at the Wales vs Pacific Islands rugby because they and their CO were there too. The main band were sitting down at one end, as you might expect, but the pipes and drums marched in, played some opening stuff and marched out again. Very bizarre, but quite awesome.

The only photo of me that's made it to Facebook thus far is this one, of me having issues with my bowtie in the barracks loos beforehand. Classy.

Obits

2006-11-14T03:59:00.000Z

Quote of the Moment:
"I love doing sequels" - Arnie on re-election as the Governator of California.

A couple of old-timers weren't so lucky. The legendary Desert Orchid and the awesome footwarming party-pillow that was Ben have both gone beyond the sunset.

Remembrance

2006-11-13T13:56:00.000Z

The Kohima Epitaph:

When you go home, tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrow, we gave our today

- John Maxwell Edmonds (1875-1958)

Thought to have been inspired by the Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC) who wrote the epitaph for memorial to the Battle of Thermopylae:

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
That here, faithful to their laws, we lie

Bingo Partay

2006-11-09T02:03:00.000Z

Got another day's pay for rifle cleaning today: I was there for about 2 hours. £35. I love the OTC. Afterwards I joined a little party going to Sam's to play on his Megadrive. Awesome bachelor pad, PS2, up to the minute stuff, but he just wants to play Golden Axe. Worryingly, Golden Axe was released the same year as my sister.

Ami was also in attendance at the small gathering and bullied me into going to Bingo with her. Bingo. At the age of (presumably) 18. Along with Kat and Warren we were the youngest players in the room by at least 20 years and had severe issues with wanting to shout "BOLLOCKS" in the deathly calm of the bingo hall (and with Warren's constant swearing at his inability to keep up with the numbers, when surrounded by OAPs), but it was surreally entertaining. Just to reinforce her eccentricity, when we went across the road to Tescos afterwards Ami bought pickled eggs, which she started eating on the way home. Bizarre.

Redneck Partay

2006-11-07T12:33:00.000Z

Went to see Borat: CLOAFMBGNOK last night. See if you can find meaning in that uber version of the blogger letter jumble. In the meantime, because for some reason it wasn't in the film I saw despite it being in all the reviews, here's the classic:

Go in peace, kids, and remember to use the second best chat-up line ever:

"Very niiice. How much?"

Nerd Partay

2006-11-06T15:18:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:

He forgot to mention the pringles and the Double-Dash.

Tea Partay

2006-11-03T00:39:00.001Z

Quote of the moment:
"Outing's off, enjoy the lie-in"

- No need to be up at 5am to be boating at 6am, thanks to Alex being off on a physio placement and everyone else being too sensible to want to sub in for him. Giggity giggity...

If only they were English, they'd know better about drinking habits. Pimm's O'Clock, all the way...

Halloween, OTC Style

2006-11-01T23:30:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"You're a big silly! The bears don't get you if you step on the cracks! The bears will help you home, but the snakes will bite your ankles!"

- Welcome to the weird world of Scary Mary. Thanks to my platoon commander deciding he wanted to go against the flow and supplying me with false information, I ended up spending the last hour or so of last night in a club with just him, Mary and Amy, mostly trying to catch up with the mad woman after she ran off somewhere. Highly entertaining though.

Me, most of Scary Mary, Sam and Roz's head. Gaz and Amy are on the left here.

The pick of the spoils of the night was a black vest which Amy got free from the DJ box in Lloyds but I managed to end up with, after Gaz wore it for a while. Girls size, obviously, but nonetheless I promised to wear it to next week's training under my combat shirt.

Other freebies from the Lloyds DJ: bottle opener, vampire teeth, handful of pumpkin shaped lollies. Inidentals picked up in Lloyds and lost along the way: the handle of a plastic scythe, which thanks to my skeleton suit became my pimp/Baron Samedi cane, combined with a random witch's hat set at a pimp angle, and a black tail, which Sam took to whip people with. The bouncer on the club door randomly gave Mary a set of huge foam keys, which she stuck on me as a bangle and thus made it home. I spent most of the time in the club with her witches hat and broomstick stuck through my Donnie Darko hoodie (tied around my waist), having extracted the hat from her stuffing it down my trousers. She acquired a balloon from a random and tied that to my necklace, but got worried he might want it back and took it off after a while (and after he'd gone). Finally, another random beer soaked witches hat off a bollard on the way home. Classy. A masterclass in pillage.

Distinct lack of the accompanying Viking pastime though, before Jim gets excited. Also having got into a taxi with a couple of other OTC guys coming back from where everyone else was, I got out first and left Mary to go home wearing my hoodie. A win on aggregrate though.

Initialize the GBL!

2006-10-30T02:25:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++

After an outing down at Cardiff Bay yesterday and another today in which my rather socialist* 4+ played fox to the 4+ and 4- hounds following us in what was apparently a practice run (and an ensuing burst blister on my thumb) I discovered what I thought were just scratch crews are actually racing on Sunday. It's the inaugural Cardiff Small Boats Head, for which I am a short notice replacement for what was a short notice crew anyway. Someone's out for reasons unknown to me from a race until today unknown to me, because during the post-training meeting on Tuesday to discuss the plan for the year I was marching home and changing into my dare T-shirt. My bad.

* Socialist 4+: A coxed four (4+) which has a n00b (and Welsh, of all things) cox who needs every call fed to him by the stroke and in which most decisions are taken either spontaneously or collectively by the 3 rowers** who aren't called Will, while Will sits quietly being the oppressed peasant.

** Rowers: Strictly speaking they're oarsmen, who handle blades and not oars. It's like guns in the Army. Guns are what the Artillery fire. Rifles are what riflemen fire, even if they aren't Riflemen. Unless they're a Machine Gunner, in which case they still don't fire a gun, but an MG, although not the sort parked outside the Officers Mess.

Can you tell I've been reading Pratchett?

Ghostly Goings-On

2006-10-28T23:37:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself."

Walked someone home last night to the far side of the city cemetary. Having dumped my grey hoodie at home on the way out I had lapsed from Donnie Darko into a mere skeleton, but a skeleton run through the park seemed a good way to get home. Sadly the gate disagreed, snagging my trousers on the way over and leaving me hanging til I ripped them off. Bit of a hole, through my boxers too...

In other news: how to celebrate the end of school (although only to go on study leave) like Aussie leavers...

An Oldie but a Goodie...

2006-10-26T17:46:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Under the sea
Under the sea
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me"

The sexual inuendo doesn't end there. It's sung by a crab... (Eh Squire? Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, know-what-I-mean, know-what-I-mean?)

On the subject of classic oldies, by the time we reach New Year I expect Prill, Jimmy and anyone else claiming musical ability to able to play this:

I also expect Jim to magic a piano or electric keyboard into his house because we aren't going to be in the 'Burgh. Personally, I'll bring my tramp harmonica.

Damaged Goods

2006-10-26T11:48:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"I'M SPARTACUS!"

Birthday outing on Monday night: I lost half an eyebrow and gained a large amount of ketchup, mayonnaise and assorted other condiments, which were interesting to wash out of my ears in the morning. Photos have yet to be posted on Facebook, for which I'm half grateful and half disappointed. What can you expect from 10 pints before going out? Bloody Duncs mate, bloody Duncs.

The damage can be seen in this photo from Tuesday's OTC Dare Night. Yes, that is a handbag and yes, I do love stealing Facebook photos.

In other news: Nato claim 48 dead militants, locals claim at least 60 dead civilians. Same bodies, it's just that they were carrying rifles when they died.

OCdt Shorty

2006-10-22T20:04:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
In the brief moment Skoo was not playing WoW this week we wrote the
following little film about The Toilet Guy. We were also going to try
and do a podcast but Skoo was back playing WoW by the time I was free.

I HATE YOU WoW.

DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!

Here's the toon:
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/toilet+guy/

Haha. The insidious effects of WOW affect everyone.

OTC weekend 1 was fun. I got put in charge of my section, which was joyous, especially trying to lead them back to our lines in the dark holding hands in a very butch and military way. We managed to have 5 girls and 5 guys split into hetero pairs, randomly, which worked fine apart from one pair bickering like a married couple and in another the girl making the guy her bitch while she put on "tactical" green eyeliner.

Oh yeah. I'm 21. Go me.

Aberfan

2006-10-19T13:56:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Official commemorations of the 40th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster are beginning, to remember the 144 people who died in the south Wales town. A total of 116 children lost their lives when a coal waste tip slid down a mountain, engulfing a school and surrounding houses on 21 October 1966."

A reminder that accidents are far more of a threat than incidents.

The 'neanderthal' got his comeuppance. Black eye from Tuesday night, vague flashback of being in a headlock, that's about it. Twice in a week is pretty good going. On the plus side, it's beautifully coloured. An unrelated positive is that we finally have the internet installed and I've just bought a wireless USB stick. Wasting my life on Messenger is possible once more.

Dead Rabbits

2006-10-16T01:27:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:

Reminded me of last weekend. Was lunching in the delightful training camp cafeteria and discussing who would actually join the army. Turned out that out of four people (two guys, two girls) only I would. They then wondered how soldiers could actually shoot people and seemed amazed when I said I'd do it without hesitating. How would I know? Well, I assumed on the basis of A) I've shot small cute fluffy things (with fleas, mind) which are much more appealing than blokes in combats/robes and turbans, and B) I have no ethical objection that could stay my hand. If it were a purely genetic issue, obviously natural selection would have weeded out those who couldn't before now, but with the enviromental effect I think a lot of it is down to instinct and the male instinct is to dominate, to fight for the alpha position.

Apparently I'm slightly prehistoric. Proud of it too :p

Der Panther

2006-10-13T17:05:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannter Stille -
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.

- Der Panther, von Rainer Maria Rilke. Poetry quoting one-upmanship it is. Once upon a time I could reel that off like The Jabberwock, but sadly German doesn't stick in the mind so well.

Further Facebook robbery produced another type of panther...

But some people are definitely not panthers. A guy who eats a whole chicken in one meal, weighs 18 stone and doesn't think he's fat? Is he a professional rugby player? Methinks not...

In other news, I am a mouthy git. While walking home I made an excessively loud comment about some guy slumped crosslegged in the middle of the high street and he got up and pursued us... he got in two punches to my face and got even angrier because I was just amused by him. My views on Welsh inferiority complexes were similarly unappreciated by the rest of the audience... Only because the guys were worried about their Welsh female neighbours taking offence. How chivalrous.

Initiation

2006-10-11T21:01:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:

Induction was baby themed. Baby bib, big white "Hello Mummy!" pants masquerading as a nappy, alcoholic kids party games, vodka laced baby food, baby milk that was vodka with a dash of milk, muchos fun had by all, even me when I wasn't coughing. Went to Shipwrecked. Have bruises on my sides from piggybacking people all the way, purely because I wanted to at the time. Acted in an immensely sober fashion. Poledanced. All still dressed as a baby.

Officer Cadet Poyntz

2006-10-09T16:43:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Sometimes you have to tease
And sometimes you have to say please
And sometimes you have to say hey,
I'm gonna..."

- A suprisingly tuneful back-of-the-bus choir, trying to wake up the girls sitting just in front of them with some beautifully performed Tenacious D.

Hurrah for crusty old bowtie wearing Medical Officers. There were 4 GPs roped in to do the OTC medicals and one of them read his outdated booklet (last revised 2003) and failed me, but I got bumped up to seeing the army MO and he made me list sports etc since the op, made me touch my toes, blustered for a while about the incompetence of civilian doctors and then tore up my old form and wrote out a new one saying I was fine.

That was the most exciting thing that happened all weekend, with the possible exception of Cardiff Company destroying everyone else (Swansea, Bangor and Aberystwyth) at Saturday night's boatrace and leg wrestling. No, I hadn't heard of leg wrestling before either. The basic idea is to lie on the floor like you're top-to-toeing in a bed and on the countdown "1, 2, Cock-a-hoop" (bizarre indeed) lift up the inside legs and try and force the other person's down to the floor (flipping them over backwards in the process). We had 2 players from each company and I lost only to the other Cardiff guy, who happened to be a 6'6 18-odd stone second row known as "The Unit" for his ability to down vodka by the half pint. He does have the mild advantage of being from somewhere in the former eastern bloc and probably having been drinking vodka since his age could be counted on his fingers though.

Initiation tomorrow night. I spent most of today in bed alternatively sweating, shivering and coughing up lakes of green, with occasional red streaks. Mmmm... healthy.

Indiana Jones and the Medical on Saturday

2006-10-06T10:45:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"You'd better leave before I accidentally call you fat."

- A drunk but well meaning Will manages to cause offence anyway. Funny that.

My elven eyes saw yesterday that my new room-next-door housemate, known to me, Jambo and James from last year as Van Helsing when we saw him in supper, actually deserves a more apt designation. As it was pissing down he was wearing his long Gestapo coat with his big Gestapo boots and his wide Gestapo hat, and looked just like this guy...

Awesome huh? I'm living next to the baddie from Raiders. He has the face, the round glasses and everything. He'd just need to trim the classic Games Workshop ponytail (he's still into his Warhammer). What a dude.

Talking of Raiders, Karen Allen as Marion is awesomely fit. Just thought you should know.

In other news, medical allowing I'm in the OTC. Had a bit of a mental first social on Tuesday, downed some strange custard cocktail, had a tug-of-war with a bit of wood (chain of three people on each team, holding the one in front and the front one holds the wood) which was a recipe for blisters when, instead of the normal few seconds of struggle, my round at the front lasted about 3 minutes of hardcore struggle until I got pulled over backwards by my team, flailed my feet in the air and kicked the other guy in the hand. We got the wood but were disqualified for bringing the game into disrepute. My bad.

Leaving on a coach tonight to go to Sennybridge training camp for induction weekend, involving lots of queueing, lots of kit issue, a fitness test and a medical. Hopefully I can convince the doctor that the form issued (last revised August 05) is out of date because ACL repairs are now fine. I had a letter from the Army Medical Board about it and everything. If only the letter hadn't disappeared into the strata of crap on last year's floor...

The Legend of Steve Farrington

2006-09-29T18:05:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Do you know who I am?... I'm kind of a big deal... I have lots of leather bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany..." - Steve last night, to at least 5 separate girls.

Practised the line-out skills again last night. Free Bounce t-shirts being thrown out - I made it home with 3. Score... I needed to change into one of them halfway through because I was drenched with sweat. Yummy. It was so hot and sweaty that the steam was condensing on the air-con ducts and dripping back down. Lovely.

Steve was entertainingly drunk last night. He passed out on my shoulder just after 2, then needed supporting all the way home apart from random moments of manic energy, such as the one when he grabbed a big plastic crate of milk bottles and hurled it at the wall. Fortunately only the bottles broke, not the window he nearly hit. He then fell asleep on the pavement outside Senghennydd Court, before running off around the corner and falling over when I asked for his key. Damn stupid thing to do, eh? You'd never catch me doing anything like that...

J'ai besoin de l'internet

2006-09-25T00:05:00.000Z

...or indeed a decent grasp of French grammar. Shame.

24hr uni computer rooms are the way forward. My room is almost pimped to the max, right down to fairy lights around the bay window, and just lacks my vast collection of predominantly LOTR posters to put the "ting" in the tweeters. Innit. Foolish parents left them at home. Honestly, some people are just so disorganised.

Loves It We Doesss

2006-09-19T21:46:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
(Will comes out of the gym)
"To Tesco now? Oh no, we already decided that, didn't we? Tesco tomorrow coming back from the boat club. K. Not that we talk to ourselves, of course. We wouldn't do a thing like that."

Not out loud anyway.

Moving into the new house tomorrow. Here is a minimap:

Pub
|
|
|-K3/K9
|
Me-----------Union

Scale: roughly 1 centimetre to 50 metres, or 1:5000. Yes, it does look straight down an avenue to the back door of the union. Even I can get home. Even when I'm concussed. Score.

Revelations, Chapter 13

2006-09-18T18:02:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Recently I've been..."

...thinking McFly are like, so totally hot, and like, so cool, especially now they're in like, that Lindsey Lohan film.

No really, I have. Honest. I'm also loving the way the one second from left looks like a girl in boy's clothing. That look is so hot right now. Is it by Mugatu?

Recently I've Been (Hopelessly Reaching...)

2006-09-17T23:15:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"You're never too old to assault a bouncy castle"

Scotland, part the first.

Schotlande, part deux.

Much fun was had by all, apart from when Vicky and I had huge power struggles due to her inability to admit she is completely incompetent at everything outdoors and should obey my instructions to the letter. So... maybe half the time!?

A Paintballing Oops.

Paintballing was aces. As Will T said, "If I do what Will says, I don't get shot". Wise words. I went a little power mad in the end, when I was leading my 6 strong sweepline from tree to tree with coordinate covering fire. Army geek and proud. The other team didn't score a single point all day and I even got a little "Player of the Day" plaque. Highlight of my life to date. That is except, of course, for my Royal Engineers familiarisation visit...

Running (10.2 on the bleep test, a mere bagatelle)
Swimming test at 6.30am
Rigid raiders (Royal Marine assault boats) jumping patrol craft wakes
Awesome complex drunken mess games in the Junior Officers dungeon
Naked bar (when the only light is in the drinks fridge and you're too drunk to see anyway, it seems like a good plan)
Naked arm wrestling (more fun than it sounds, the bar was in the way to keep it safe)
Bridge building
Command tasks (ooooh... fun :D)
Driving a truck the size of a house
Demolitions: blowing up a sandbag each with plastic explosive
Raft race: build it, paddle it around an island, strip it. We had the only raft that stayed intact (of 3) and 2 rowers calling 10 stroke pushes, and we overtook the leaders halfway around the island but ending up losing because we went around it the wrong way. Technicalities, honestly!

All in all, knackering and awesome. I'm now in Cardiff, staying in the S9 hotel until I can go into my own house on Wednesday. Went to bed at 4 after too much Total War, up at 7 to pack all my stuff to leave out for delivery next weekend via the family gathering in Chepstow, 7 hours door to door from South Lodge (Essex) to S9 due to a fire by the traintrack near Slough. I'm off to sing myself to sleep. Mcfly, naturally.

News in Briefs

2006-09-11T00:13:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
Q: Which planet is most easily visible with the naked eye?
A: Earth

Ah, the joys of 1988 edition Trivial Pursuit.

Scotland was awesome, many pictures up soon, paintball was even better, got power crazy and started co-ordinating section attacks on the pitiful green team who failed to win a single point all day, stacked it while blinded by Jim, skinned both knees, Royal Engineers visit tomorrow, swim test and PT test will cane, kthnx bye.

Severance

2006-09-01T19:27:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"I wouldn't want to be accused of not finishing him off when I had the chance." - Laura Harris in Severance.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Not only does she take a shotgun to the head of one near certain corpse, she drops a rock on the head of another, to a nice bit of ballet music. Classic moment when she first tries to lift one that's a bit too big for her, too. Best bit though was a guy trying to shoot people with a heat seeking missile, only to see it veer away from them and blow up a passing plane. Classy.

Hurrah for Jimmy's dad. He's decided to lend us his 4x4 for going to Scotland, instead of using Jimmy's hatchback. I had to go and have a driving lesson from him today to get to grips with it. To get "an easier start" than going out onto the main roads we went bumping around some byways first, which actually required far greater control and was rather new to me. Quite fun though. He also showed me and Jimmy the ridiculous amount of equipment he has stashed in its cubbies, including two tow-ropes, five tyre irons, a collapsible bucket and a foxing lamp.

Tennis this afternoon with Will was an improvement on the previous episode. I've progressed from losing 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 to 6-0, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4), mostly because Will got tired. There was an awesome game that battled back and forth for at least ten minutes of deuces and advantages, before I managed to hold serve (highly unusual) to make it 5-5... If I'd managed to hold again when I was at 6-5 then perhaps I could have forced him to stagger around for a further two sets and an epic five set victory.

Au revoir kiddies... I march to Scotland on the morrow. 6am on the morrow, to be precise.

A Big Pile of Awesome

2006-08-31T00:15:00.001Z

Quote of the moment:
"...and all those ridiculous shows on so-called "music television", like "Date My Sister's Cat" and "Pimp My Mom" and "Gyrate Suggestively For Cash While Having Your Bedroom Covered In Treacle By Supposedly Hot Faux-Skater Boys Who Enjoy Having Their Bottoms Stapled Together by Dwarfs While Nickelback Plays Loudly In The Background"."

Schweeeeeet. Awesome rant. Also awesome today were: going dog walking with my mum, wearing a (carefully weighed) 35lb pack (graded increments, doncha know) and making her yell at me because she was having to jog to keep up; going to Jim's with Will T and telling Jim's mum "Jim said it might be ok if we played tennis" despite Jim not being available at all - we figured if we couldn't get through, his mum couldn't, and warned him that he knew all along when he rang back much later; going to Will T's house to get some stuff and, due to his parents (wisely) not trusting him with the car keys and the attatched garage keys, having to retrieve his backpack from the garage via the back window.

The last was far and away the best. After we unscrewed the small top window with the handy screwdriver from my car, Will got stuck halfway in, the wrong way up. I then tried to post him through the right way up and nearly collapsed into the mess of rotting plums that covered the area, but eventually I, with the aid of the wheely bin, got through the window and managed to unhook my foot which was stuck on the sill and forcing me into a hanging splits. I wasn't really feeling the pain though, because my crushed nuts were still hurting too much.

A Worse Driver than Sarah?

2006-08-29T01:28:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Anyone for tennis?"

An eventful weekend. Attempted to go out to Braintree/Freeport for a haircut (another of these) and a present for Paddy about 1pm on Saturday. Eventually made it out just after 3, because as I was coming out of our side road just outside the house the car in front of me pulled out to go right, stopped across the near side of the road (like a retard, blocking any way past, instead of carrying on) and a motorbike hit his bonnet. It had braked a fair bit because the guy carried on in a pretty flat trajectory and hit the road about 5 metres further on.

An hour and 3 police cars, one paramedic, two ambulances and a fire engine later the motorcyclist was finally removed to hospital where he was diagnosed with heavy bruising on his back and nothing more. The firemen were there, by the way, to disable the engines so they couldn't blow up, not that the damage was that severe because both car and bike were started afterwards and ran fine with a missing bonnet and cracked shell respectively. An hour after that the traffic policeman had finished his measurements, talked to both automobilists and got around to taking a 30 second statement off me and asking if I'd be happy to attend court if the driver got charged.

The biker came back yesterday, complete with family, to give my mum some flowers because she'd been out there "first aiding" for an hour, which basically meant getting him to wiggle his fingers and toes and then holding his hand and making him lie still. Bless.

Paddy's party (to which I took a spankingly good pair of spirit level cufflinks, for engineering types) was overstocked and underattended, which meant more booze and hig roast for those who did attend, especially me. I did however manage to walk to the ditch and lose some of the excess supper, unlike Jimmy, who walked to the loo but later needed escorting to the ditch for a second round. Good effort, that boy.

Everyone was up suprisingly early, but I woke up with an obscene level of blood sugar, got so fidgety I tidied up (truly shocking) and then made people play tennis with me for about 4 hours, with a break for lunch. I eventually bummed off home about 6 and collapsed into bed at 11, which is earlier than I managed all year at uni. Oops. Woke up 14 hours later and have been playing MTW ever since. It's ridiculously absorbing conquering people. I managed, the night before Paddy's, to not look at the clock from 2am til my parents woke up about 9.

Total Shopping

2006-08-25T23:19:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Please stop your nipples staring at my eyes" - a t-shirt that walked past me in Bluewater.

Did some more very exciting shopping... USB Game Pad, PES 5 and Medieval Total War... even they're maxing out the laptop spec. Total War's winning on time commited thus far though. It's also retro enough for the cut scenes not to shudder.

Even more revolutionary, however, than me finally playing something other than Cossacks, is that I tidied my room today. Stuff had been accumulating on my desk, at least, since before I left for the USA last summer.

Danger! Danger!

2006-08-23T22:00:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Can you go here?" Jimmy, Will T and I can... 10 days left til Coillegillie :D

I got a spanky new tennis racket today (and promptly beat my long suffering Mother 6-4 7-5) and also this masterpiece: The Dangerous Book for Boys.

Swallows and Amazons

2006-08-23T01:10:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"If you're going to be moving in to your resplendant new housing in Cardiff prior to the 15th/16th of September (as in permanently moving in, or at least being there til the 20th... I don't know why you'd go back early, but you might...) do you have a garden, and can I pitch a tent in it until the 20th when I can move in to my amazingly-organised-people-who-forget-to-go-in-a-proper-house uni house? I am required for some rowing jollities and anti summer over-indulgence measures, but have a lack of anywhere to sleep. Yes, I am a pratt, and yes, I brought it all on my own head, and yes, you may laugh. If you let me stay you can even treat me as an adopted feral stray and give me a collar that says Fido, if it takes your fancy."

- My begging email.

The page with the dates on for rowing also has a little man endlessly ergoing. I thought it was a brilliantly monotonous piece, with good use of stark colour contrast. Long-list it for the Turner prize. Definitely worth a gold star.

In addition to pre-season rowing training, I'm going to be doing some more messing around in boats. As well as a week in Scotland with Will, Jimmy and a dinghy, I'm finally going on a Royal Engineers potential officer "visit". It's a sort of combination things-to-interest-you and things-to-test-you event, Monday to Wednesday, and includes bridge building and a raft race. Scorage.

Dobriety

2006-08-20T23:20:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"totlally dober" - Drunk Jo.

Impressive. She can even slur her typing.

I spent most of the day (under minimal duress) doing some destructive gardening, hacking at hedges and bramble covered verges, then building a huge bonfire. I was wearing my prized Walmart value boots and reeked of woodsmoke. It was almost like being back on camp, without the kids waving molten marshmallows near my hair.

Talk to Edward

2006-08-19T01:29:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Talk to Frank"

Sadly you don't get to talk to Frank. Instead, you can talk to Edward Thorne, Esq.

For a better detail downloadable Edward of your very own, click here.

Flixster Quizathon

2006-08-15T13:58:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"What was the name of prince eric's dog in the film The Little Mermaid?"

My laptop is back from being repaired, complete with a new harddisk, disk drive and keyboard. I have an enter key. Miracles do happen.

I'm currently using it to play the new Flixster quiz, which is mostly trivially easy (being user compiled). However, I must still prove my geek credentials.

The answer, by the way, was Max. It was multiple choice, but I should still get kudos for getting it right having not seen the film for at least 10 years. It's not at all embarassing that I knew that. Honest.

Return of the Villi

2006-08-15T00:36:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Duh duh duh dun da-duh dun da-duh"

The burn strong on this one was. Pink, he was, hmmm? Peeling still, he is. More details later you will have.

Eat Ewoks.

More Exercise Needed

2006-07-25T23:18:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"It's like listening to the Cirque du Soleil being chopped up by their own chainsaws." - Jeremy Clarkson test-driving a Lambourghini.

Saw this and thought of the Prill m8. Short minds think alike, perhaps?

In the last 24 hours I have: gone for a cycle around Broadstairs at 2am, which was rather awesome, being completely silent except for the waves on the beach; played a set of tennis when I got up; cycled to the beach, along to the promenade to Ramsgate and back along the clifftops; walked the dogs along the beach; played another set of tennis in the gathering gloom with the help of some new fluorescent balls.

All fun stuff, but I'm STILL not tired enough. My dear mother has promised to drag me out of bed for a full tennis match early tomorrow morning.

A High Performance Athlete

2006-07-24T23:59:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"Greetings fellow high performance athletes,

El Presidento, Sanchez and my holy self have formed the new CURC Website."

- Sex Pest appoints himself as the ghost in the evil trinity.

Oopsy daisy... look what's been put on the social page...

Iced Gems

2006-07-24T01:32:00.000Z

Quote of the moment:
"I'm too old for this shit" - Detective Sergeant Murtaugh.

Yesterday there was a clan gathering for my grandpa's 80th. Naturally I spent the day with those on my maturity level. It was great. There were even Iced Gems.