Political Compass

It's been a while since I posted an online quiz/meme thingy, so I thought I'd share this one. I wasn't really surprised at the outcome.

My Political Views
I am a center-left moderate social libertarian
Left: 2.96, Libertarian: 1.42

Political Spectrum Quiz

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Fooood

A few months ago our local supermarket closed down because the firm was bought out by another chain. I was a bit miffed as it was a relatively cheap place to shop for your groceries and such because all the other food shops in town were the 'express' stores or privately owned.  Although all of the others sell fantastic wares, they were a little out of my price range.

So at the beginning of this week out new superstore reopened. Morrisons. Might not mean much to most of you, but for me it's the best food shop there is.  It has a fantastic range of produce, the meat and fish is second to none and they bake their own bread on site. The veg looked fantastic and there was a huge organic section for those of you who are that way inclined. My favourite section is the hot rotisserie, no longer are we to make do with just chicen and the odd cumberland sausage, Morrisons supply joints of pork, pies, racks of ribs and it's more or less the same price as the raw equivalent!

The noodle section leaves a lot to be desired though, only three basic flavours, but they make it up with their basics range. I can now afford to buy a wider range of foods, especially fresh fruit and veg, something I've had to give up for a couple of months as I could barely afford to pay my rent.

I know that my health has suffered recently because of my diet, but when the devil drives your wallet there's not much you can do about it. Even trying the freegan lifestyle is near impossible nowadays as everyone locks up their waste bins behind huge fences in a vain hope to hide how much waste our throwaway society produces.  I just can't see why they don't just make up free food parcels for the unemployed that can be picked up as and when someone asks, especially if they can prove they are out of work! I suppose the health & safety aspect of this does not allow the retailers to hand out food that is over its sell by date. Stupid really as most of it is perfectly alright to eat.

Anyhow, I'm a happy chappy, for my £6 I managed to get enough food to tide me over until my next payment, half of which I'm going to spend in Morrisons next week!

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KoA Design

I'm about halfway through putting my portfolio together for my new venture in life.  I'm going to set up a business offering photoshopping work and design.  I'm not the best but I'll do everything cheaply and quickly and hopefully when word of mouth starts getting about I might actually make some beer money out of it. 

Today I have set up a new email address for my 'company' so it sort of feels like I'm actually getting somewhere.  I just need to spend a little more time on setting up my design portfolio so I can show prospective clients what I can do and then I'm going to start approaching businesses who advertise in the local paper who's adverts leave a lot to be desired for.

I really don't know how this will go, I've never done anything like this before but I have a good idea of cost outlay and I know how to make myself very competitive. I suppose I could be multi-national too, as most of the work created will be digital unless the customer wants me to make hard copies. There's a local printer I can make use of who's rates are reasonable and there is always other things as well, such as book covers, calendars, pump clips etc. All of which I know a good local supplier for.

I'm also going to offer to do some web design, but only in the artistic sense, not in the coding sense as I don't know enough about such things, so if there is anyone out there who fancies doing a few jobs on the web design side, you're more than welcome to be a partner on a 50/50 basis.

I've already got a couple of jobs to do this weekend, one's a childcare brochure and the other is some leaflets for an aerobics class, but I'm not charging for these as I need them to bulk out my portfolio, hopefully my work will speak for itself and I might get some more work through it.

I'm going to start off doing this as a small scale enterprise to see if it's viable, hell, I'm doing it because I can't stand sitting at home all day doing nothing and at the moment it feels like there is absolutely no work out there whatsoever, so hopefully something will come of this and I might be able to get back on my feet and be human once again.

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WOMAD 2009

As some of you might already know, I attended this years World of Music and Dance festival in Charlton Park, Malmesbury last weekend, SmilingGrump and I managed to get a couple of free tickets through his cousin who was working there.  If anyone is interested you can visit their website here.  I wont bore you with the details of all the acts we saw, but they included Peter Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour, Nneka, Portico Quartet, Enkh Jargal, Schlomo, Zambezi Express, Wang Li to name a few I enjoyed, there was just too much to see and do it was amazing.

There's a pile of photos for those of you who are interested on my Flickr page or in the photo library here, have a peek.

I was going to write a day by day diary but because so much happened it would take far too much time and effort to write it all, so I'll just give you a little overview of the whole weekend.

We were lucky enough to get free tickets that gave us access to the Artists and Crew camping area, which meant we were much closer to the festival site and more secure, plus the toilets were cleaner and easier to use and we had cleanish showers to use. On the plus side the Crew bar was cheaper than the normal festival bars and I personally got to chat with a lot of interesting people.

One thing I have noticed about myself over the weekend is that I tend to approach people to chat, I don't think I've ever been as conversive as I was during the festival. Everyone was so laid back and happy, perhaps the vast amount of weed blowing about helped that, but everyone seemed really nice and up for a good time.  Almost every time I sat down somewhere I was able to strike up a conversation with someone and have a laugh.

I suppose I have to mention the henna tattoo I had made.  On the second night I got rather drunk and decided it was a very good idea to have a facial tattoo. I wasn't going to have one but I haggled the guy down from £25 to £10, so being the bargain hunter I am I had it done.  The funny thing was that I have never had one done before, so I didn't realise that after it had dried and flaked off it doesn't actually leave any marks until the next day.  I was a bit angry at the time as I thought I was conned, but luckily it all came out by the morning otherwise I'd have looked like a right twonk going back to their tent to demand my money back! lol

One thing I will say is that I'm no longer as young as I used to be. Sleeping on the floor for the whole weekend didn't agree with me in the slightest.  I used to love camping in my youth, but now I suffer badly with a bad back and arthritic joints, so after a day on the floor I was aching to buggery.  In hindsight I should have invested in an airbed, something I will get for the next camping trip.

I might make another post regarding the festival soon, there is so much to say.

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Lame Claims To Fame

I have been having much fun with this #TrendingTopic on Twitter, thought I'd share some of them here with you as well as I know a lot of my readers don't use Twitter yet.  The majority of these are true, some are dull, some are funny and one in particular will give one of my friends a cringe moment, if I were him, I'd keep quiet…

#lameclaimstofame I once worked at Highgrove House for a couple of weeks. Prince Charles was never there.

#lameclaimstofame I missed Anthony Hopkins when he came into the pub I ran for a pint. Nobody called me!

#lameclaimstofame My dad was a extra on the film First Knight. He met Richard Gere, Julia Ormond & Sean Connery. I had to go to work!

#lameclaimstofame I'm one degree of seperation from Kevin Bacon, I saw Footloose on DVD.

#lameclaimstofame Mark Lester, Michael Jackson's best friend who starred as Oliver in the film of the same name, was my bosses Osteopath.

#lameclaimstofame My mate went out with Olympian gold winning rower Peter Reed's sister. She likes it up the shitter!

#lameclaimstofame Lawrence of Arabia was born a mile away from where I lived as a child. I saw his house!

#lameclaimstofame I have been on TV. I was on Pobol y Cwm as an extra in a betting shop. I didn't know any of the actors.

#lameclaimstofame I have a listing on IMDb. I helped build a movie set, I was good at woodworking & nobody else could saw in a straight line

#lameclaimstofame I went to film school for 3 years, one of my old uni mates must know somebody famous by now!

#lameclaimstofame Keith Chagwin replied to me in a Tweet!

#lameclaimstofame Absolutely nobody famous was educated at my school, we're all famous for underachieving.

#lameclaimstofame Terry Pratchett has met me three times, although he won't remember the meetings I signed a book for him each time.

#lameclaimstofame Before he was famous, Bill Bailey tried to sell me a signed cd of his new stand-up routine at the Comedy Club. I said no!

#lameclaimstofame Whilst drunk one evening, I chased Mike Flowers Pops down the street, demanding that he father my children. I'm a bloke!

#lameclaimstofame I saw Louise Nurding buying a cd in the Hitman shop in Newport. She's a midget.

#lameclaimstofame Cathy Barry, the pornstar, once sat on my knee naked and asked me if I'd like to hear her sing her new song. It was shit!

#lameclaimtofame I once went to a Travis concert, guess what, Fran Healy was there!

#lameclaimtofame You know where Captain Jack from Torchwood stands to go down into their underground base, I've stood there!

#lameclaimstofame My lecturer at uni made the Enya video for Orinocho Flow. She also animated Captain Kirk in Star Trekkin by The Firm.

#lameclaimstofame I have never met Stephen Fry, likewise, he's never met me.

#lameclaimstofame  I was once mistaken for Tom Cruise when I was younger.  I look nothing like him…

#lameclaimstofame The Queen waved at me from a passing car, I'm not sure if it was me or the 30,000 other people standing about waving flags.

#lameclaimstofame My Welsh teacher at school wrote the Jabas series of books which was later made into a TV series on S4C.

#lameclaimstofame  My real name is Robert Williams, I can hold a tune but I don't have £80 million in the bank.  I'm also not a twat!

#lameclaimstofame I once beat off onto a picture of Pamela Anderson, luckily she didn't get pregnant.

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A Brighter Future

Almost six months ago to the day, I wrote one of my better efforts in a blog post during one of the darkest times in my life. I named it The Quintessence of I.  I don't know why I searched it out this evening, I had more or less forgotten about it, but it sort of threw me that it's been exactly six months since I was contemplating doing something silly.

There must have been some kind of psychological trigger in my mind to look for it today so I could compare what I was like then to how I am now.

If I'm totally honest with myself I'm much happier in one way, I'm no longer stuck in a horrendous job which drained me physically and mentally, but that has been replaced by a despondency about not being able to find work. Six months ago I was affluent but clinically depressed, now I'm living well below the bread-line but only feeling sorry for myself which is a much better place to be as I can motivate myself to do something about that.

I know that a man's emotions and standing shouldn't be judged by his profession or career, and I know that one of my readers will mention that I should work to live, not live to work, but there is a certain amount of self pride and self worth that comes from being able to earn ones own way in life.

I think I also lied to myself about the extent of how certain previous relationships ended towards that time.  I now see that I was perhaps far too involved with something that certainly had no future, and once it ended I failed miserably to deal with the issues at hand.

Adding the fact that I had some family issues going on at the time, my father discovered he had cancer on top of everything else he suffers from, and the apple of my families eye, my niece who had a liver transplant, was having complications with drug rejection and fits, I just felt that my whole world was crumbling all around me.

I'm also a very stubborn person when it comes to asking for help, especially from the medical profession.  Something I now see as a very stupid thing.  Having seen the vast differences in one of my closest friends recently after a short time on anti-depressants, I now see that I should have swallowed my pride and asked for help myself.  I'm sort of glad I worked through the last six months without resorting to medication, but I know it would have been much easier if I had succumbed to my needs rather than to my ego.

So other than my work and money situation, nothing has really changed, but I don't feel as despondent as I was.  I don't think I've had much in the way of a change of attitude, but I have begun to plan for the future, I'm no longer living one day at a time.  

I now have more confidence within myself for some reason.

I'm also looking at starting my own business rather than continue looking for work elsewhere when there is blatantly no work available and no likelihood in the future either.  I feel more like taking the bull by horns rather than being trampled, which is what I need to be doing to get out of this rut I'm in.

Okay, this post wasn't as well written as my angst ridden diatribe, but it seems an important post to me.  Six months on I'm in a better place and surely that is a good thing.

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Banksy Exhibition

This is a well overdue post as I wanted to make sure that the photos were clear and I had to wait until I had a working copy of Photoshop to do so.

It was two weeks ago when both my friend Ken and I went to Bristol on an artistic jolly. It was meant to be a few if us in the car but due to one reason or another everyone dropped out except the hardcore Welsh duo.  Ken had lived in Bristol for some time and he was confident in where he was going until we actually got there, where we discovered that the museum he thought it was at was actually closed and a phonecall to one of our friends who was already there let us know that there was a queue of about an hour outside the place.  So after much deliberating with iPhone maps and and suchlike we finally found the place, just down the road to where we were…lol

Queue outside

As you can seem the queue was huge, but it was a nice sunny day and there were hoards of women dressed in their bra's walking by for charity, so I wasn't going to complain.

I think it took us about 50 minutes to actually get into the exhibition but it was worth the wait, as you can tell from my big smile.

Me at the exhibition

The initial room with many of the paintings was chocker block full of people, so much so it was very hard to get to see the works, but as with all free exhibitions on a Sunday, what do you expect, especially with an artist of Banksy's calibre and local notoriety.

The first room was mainly paintings, which I expected, the usual socio-commentary in graffiti form, but the second room was all sculpted installations, all very humorous and very well done.

Banksy 2

Banksy 1

I have to apologise for the photographs as all the animals were in cages and we were not allowed to use flash photography, so most of my pictures came out slightly blurred. I should have taken my tripod, but even then I'm sure I couldn't have set it up anywhere because of the crush of the thousands of people in the museum.

I particularly liked Tweetie on his swing.

You should be able to click on the pictures to enlarge them, well, I hope so.

A lot of the pictures were dotted around the other exhibits, hidden away amongst Old Masters and attributed to a 'local artist', it made the morning a lot of fund trying to find his paintings amongst the hundreds throughout the museum.

We were very lucky in the time that we were there because the whole time we were outside it pissed it down with rain and as we finished the sun came out again, so we buggered off to one of Bristol's nicer sides to dine and then walk on Clifton's Suspension Bridge.

Now I'm not the best with heights, I'm okay with natural heights like mountains and trees, but manmade structures give me the heeby jeebies, and fair play, this bridge is bloody high up.  The scale is hard to see in the photos, but by Dog, I wasn't very comfortable up there.  All there is between you and certain death is a small fence, supremely sturdy no doubt, but with a brisk wind and a slight wobble to the bridge, it doesn't fill you full of confidence to say the least.

Anyhow, that was our little day trip to Bristol, I'd urge everyone to go and see the exhibition, it's well worth the effort.

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Who We Were or What We Are

Twenty five years ago at the dawn of the computing age, those of us who remember, used to be human.

We used to interact face to face, we went outside to play, build camps & hunt, play Hide & Seek, Cops & Robbers, Cowboy's & Indians. We sang songs and made things, we created our own fun. We'd go to work and have to deal with other people on a human level, taking care of what we said and be respectful to others. We grew up making jokes about the spotty nerd who had no friends, he was the one who had an unhealthy interest in solitary pursuits, train spotting and computers. We used to bully this guy, he wasn't one of us, he never would be, we had no interest in knowing this guy so we castigated him and tormented him, whilst silently he waved his fist and screamed that 'One day, one day, I'll be the popular one.'

Today I don't see people. I went on the bus and only spoke to the bus driver to ask for my ticket, I sat at my desk, interacting with software and emailing clients, occasionally picking up the phone to talk to someone a thousand miles away. At lunchtime I went into town and got a sandwich out of a vending machine, I ate it alone in the park with many other office workers whom I don't know and have nothing in common with.

I go home, and the first thing I do is switch on the TV and my computer, I check my emails and surf the web, I chat to people I've never met on MSN and occasionally sent a Tweet. I'm glad I have Facebook so I can keep in touch with my friends.

I go to bed and realise that today I have only spoken to a bus driver and a clerk in Ohio.

'One day, one day!' he silently screamed; I now see that his day has come. The silent nerd has turned the world into this Utopian society where everyone is alone and the further technology advances get the more isolated we seem to become. We are what we used to despise.

It took him some time, but time he had plenty of. Through Usenet he found others who were bullied, found minds who could use this technology to spread the most fatal of human viruses, solitary human interaction.

We no longer speak to our neighbours as we would rather talk to '@spirithawk' online. Old Mr Smith, three doors down, died four months ago, I feel bad because nobody noticed. Oh well, at least I can go smite some skulls with my new double-handed broadsword.

There was a dance class organised in the Town Hall, I didn't go, I didn't want to look like a twit, I mean, dancing with girls?

I flamed this idiot on this blog, I totally disrespected her and her views, but that's ok, she'll never meet me and she can't do anything to get me.

Have you been there?

Today I remembered what it was like to be human.

Sent from Gwyn's iPhone

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A Blog Post! Gosh!

Yes my loyal readers, I have been absent from the Voxphere for nearly a week. I know I've been ignoring you but I do have a valid excuse, but not a doctors note, so you must forgive me.
You see, I've been rather naughty over the last few months in that I've been piggybacking my broadband off a neighbour without their consent. I don't have a landline and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay BT £180 to flip a switch at the local exchange. I have my dial-up 3G dongle, which is as slow as my dead grandmothers ticker and I have my iPhone, which is pretty good considering, but it won't let me post comments on Vox. Although it does let me post a blog, like I'm doing now, it does take a fucking age to type anything with one finger on a keyboard the size of my thumbnail. Plus I can't see if I've made any spelling errors, nor can I see the justification of my blog post.

So you can appreciate my unwillingness to blog, not that I have had much to say anyway.

I hope you're all well and rest assured I do read your posts still, I just can't join in at the moment. Catch me on Twitter, it's easier for me to communicate with you there. @kingofankh

Sent from Gwyn's iPhone

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Trudge

I haven't been online much because I've been very busy salvaging my laptop. The Hard Drive operation was successful but I obviously lost all of my data, so as you would all assume, being an Apple Fanboy™ it should be an easy process for me to restore my files from my back-ups.

How wrong was I?

Well, my main point of criticism with Apple is that they have made things extremely difficult to sync my iPhone with my new Hard Drive. All of my photos, contacts, calendars, applications, music, audio-books, podcasts and my e-books are very stuck on the iPhone because it has a security feature that will erase anything on the phone if it isn't synced with the right computer, great if your iPhone gets stolen, useless if you are in my situation. I have found several different ways of getting around this, but the majority of it meant trudging along and emailing everything to myself one by one. That was nearly 2000 photos and 180 contacts, luckily the rest I could extract using Yamipod and Senuti.

I know that Apple have a way around this for people, but I didn't pay the fee for their MobileMe facility, which would have saved a huge amount of bother. It's surprising as almost everything Apple produce work seamlessly well most of the time.

Anyhow, the upshot of all of this is that I may not have up to date contact information for everyone.  So if you are still interested in being my friend or want to be, please PM me or send your details to me at the usual e-mail address. I won't share it here due to the inordinate amount of dickheads wondering around and I could do without the spam.

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