I Am Spartacus!

Other than Apple computers, there is only one other thing that America is good at, that's making films and TV shows.

Currently I'm rather in awe of Spartacus, Blood and Sand, there's certainly never been a TV series like it before. The amount of blood and gore, sex and full frontal nudity and real down to earth swearing simply makes it one of the best shows I have ever watched. Plus the lead character actor was born and raised in Wales, so by proxy I'm also just as hard and deadly. 😀

The season finale is on this evening, go on, watch it, you know you want to!

Spartacus,-Blood-and-Sand

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Can’t Drink!

It's official, I can no longer hold my drink! When I say that, I don't mean that I have trouble grasping a mug of tea, I mean that I can't drink as much alcohol as I used to.

I've had quite a relationship with alcohol throughout my life, I was what you may call an 'early adopter'; I remember  the first time I got drunk at my dad's works do when I was about ten years old. A parent had inadvertently allowed us kids to have a jug of Bass shandy to share, the results were not pretty. One of the kids pissed on Santa and it definitely made us all hyperactive.

When I was a little older, I'm sure I was around fourteen or so, my dad bought me my first pint of lager at another shindig. It came in a massive handled jug and I remember thinking how heavy it was, but I managed to quaff a couple before I dropped half a pint on the floor when I missed the table.

Before long I realised that I was tall and hairy enough to get served in one or two of the local pubs, notably The Red Lion. A few friends and I used to go there to play darts of an evening and have a few bevvies. Back then the laws on serving to minors were not as stringently enforced, plus the pub was one of those quiet ones that nobody went to so the landlord was happy to earn some cash and have some company. I'm sure that almost everyone has that type of pub in their community, it's almost like a right of passage to becoming an adult.

By the time I was eighteen I was already a hardened drinker and was getting bored with going out and doing the same thing each weekend, so I decided to get a part time job as a barman, my thinking was that I would still be out with my friends and earn money at the same time. A year down the line I was managing the place and doing quite well at propping up the bar each night after the kitchen had closed. The owner and I would finish cooking and clean up and crack open a bottle of wine each and relax after a hard days service. Rarely did we stop at one bottle though.

Having moved on to pastures new I found yet another job running a town centre pub, this one was slightly different in that it had a nightclub, so my hours were longer but the parties got wilder. At this time of my life I'm pretty sure I was an alcoholic, I was drinking to excess every day, one of the perils of working with alcohol. It's very hard to say no when you are surrounded by it all the time and people keep buying you drinks, plus I had split up with the love of my life and I was absolutely devastated.

Luckily for me the place was earmarked for demolition and I had a change of career for a few years into construction, so my drinking habits changed, otherwise I think I would have easily self-destructed.

Moving down the timeline to today, I can't even drink five pints without falling over. To some that might sound like a lot, trust me it isn't. There was a time when I could easily demolish ten pints and a bottle of wine then some spirits to finish off, much in the same way as most of the kids do nowadays. 

So what has changed?

Obviously I'm older, my body can't deal with a large amount of alcohol anymore plus my attitude towards drink has changed.  I no longer feel the need to get totally smashed every time I imbibe, I certainly don't feel the need to have a drink every day.  Nowadays I drink twice a week on average, usually a bottle of wine on the weekend and about five pints on a Wednesday.

I'm surprised that I survived all those years of abuse, looking back I can see that I was drinking far too much, I was fast becoming what I promised myself I'd never be, that washed up old man that bangs on the door of the pub at 11am, shaking with the DT's, needing a drink to be able to function. Luckily I didn't get that far but I wasn't too far off.

Like most people I still enjoy a drink, mainly for the social aspect, after all, the UK has a deep-set tradition of the local pub being the centre of the community. I still love going out and meeting up with people of all ages, gossiping and bantering, I doubt that will ever change. 

In a way I feel a little like Ozzy Osbourne, I've got many stories to tell about the years of abuse, most of it was fun but I don't think I'd revisit that time again, the memories of twenty years of late nights and hangovers is enough to send me to bed with a cup of tea and a newspaper.

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Murder

I've just read that a young woman has been murdered in my hometown last night.

Not so much of a big deal for most people who live in big cities, murders happen all the time, but for a tiny town in the middle of nowhere it's almost unthinkable that such a thing would happen. After all, the place rarely sees anything worse than a drunken brawl or a speeding ticket.

I'm slightly in shock to be honest, I've always thought that Porthmadog was the last bastion of safeness, a boring town where nothing happens out of the ordinary, a place where you wouldn't think twice about letting your kids walk around unguarded. It now seems that my slightly blinkered vision of the place has now been shattered, Porthmadog is just the same as everywhere else.

I suppose I've been kidding myself that the place doesn't have a 'Blue Velvet' style seedy underbelly, it seems that there's a lot more going on there than I imagine.

I hope that whoever killed this poor girl is found quickly, I don't relish the thought that there is a murderer walking about my hometown where I still have family, especially since her body was found a stones-throw from my sisters house.

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Can We Have a Go Now?

LIberals

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iPad

Yes, I want one. However I'm not that much of an Apple Fanboy™to give up food and such for six months to get one. 

You see, I've never been an early adopter, I have never felt the need to rush out and buy the latest piece of technology on the day it is released, I find it counterproductive to do so. I mean what's the point of buying a new car for instance? The second you drive it out of the showroom you have lost a few grand already, stupid stupid people!

As we all know Apple have a tendency to bring out a better model within months of the initial release, so there will be 700,000 people in the US alone who will be rather irked by August when the iPad 4G with digital camera and a larger hard drive gets unveiled to the adoring public. I think that's the one I shall aim to purchase if I can afford to do so.  Or maybe I wont, that's the mistake I did with my iPhone, I only have the 3G, whilst the 3Gs is slightly better. Argh, it's like a chiaroscuro of schizophrenia! Do I? Don't I? Maybe? Maybe not? Gollum! My precious!!!

A lot of people don't see the point of the iPad, after all, I already have a Macbook and an iPhone, so why do I need an in-between solution? 

Well, I do read a lot of e-books and although Stanza for the iPhone is remarkably fantastic, and it has made me read a lot more, the screen on the iPhone is rather tiny for reading for long periods. 

I've also seen the Marvel comics application, now that looks pretty cool to me, to be able to read comics digitally. I already have a few of my favourites digitised but reading them on a laptop is a bit cumbersome as the screen is at the wrong orientation, with the iPad this is not a problem.

Also, the iPad is meant to be the saviour of the publishing industry. I've already stopped buying newspapers as I read all my news online. I have forked out good money to get the Guardian App for the iPhone, I love it, so there is no reason why I wouldn't like the iPad version, which I expect will be better than the New York Times demos I have seen. 

These are my main and only reasons for wanting one, plus I'm a sheep who likes all things Apple and if Steve Jobs tells me I need one, then surely I do!

As a content viewer I think the iPad will become a game changer, I doubt very much this is going to be a flash in the pan phenomena, I know this to be a fact because Kirk and Picard have been seen to use them three hundred years in the future, and who can go against the word of Trek?

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Day of Annoyances

I've just come back from a food shopping trip. It's one of those days where it's pissing it down with wet rain, you know the type, it comes at you from all directions so that even your arsehole gets drenched. 

Anyhow, I had to go shopping because I needed supplies, but I was amazed at how many people who needn't be out in this weather doing what they would normally do if it was bright and sunny.

Take for instance the lonely jogger. She looked to be in her mid forties, most likely she was only twenty three, the ravages of hard exercise had evidently take a huge toll on her body, plus the rain had washed away her much needed make up. She looked to be in so much discomfort I was almost going to ask her if she needed assistance, but she was obviously not an amateur jogger as she was dressed like an athlete, although I don't see the point when you are only having a casual jog around town. I was pissed off and wet, she must have been much more so, I'd hate to think how she felt being so wet, cold and out of breath. I'm very sure that wearing only shorts and a t.shirt in this inclement weather will help her to an early grave.

Lets face it, all these fitness fanatics are going to the grave far quicker than I will. I lead a very sedentary life, I only run if these is a tiger chasing me, my exercise is walking to the pub, but if I reach my sixties I'll guarantee you that my knees will be in excellent shape and I will not have been run over by a lorry because I was running by the side of the road.

Here's another one, it's Good Friday, so all the religious nutjobs are out in force.  Our local christian church is large enough to hold a few hundred people, so it was with some delight I only saw a couple of dozen walking out after their service. What really annoyed me about them today was the fact that three of them were carrying makeshift crucifixion crosses. Now, this I would find acceptable if they used crosses that were of similar size to the one that the Jewish Terrorist was nailed upon, i.e. fucking big lumps of hardwood nobbled together with iron nails, not two pieces of two by two pine stapled together with a knitting needle. Surely the reason they were even walking around town with their pitiful crosses was to highlight Christ's pain, fair enough it was raining and that caused some discomfort for us all, but to pitifully walk about with a cross as heavy as a loaf of bread is hardly going to impress me!

What I wanted to see was the local vicar dressed in a loincloth dragging half a ton of railway sleepers on his shoulder whilst the local Italians take turns whipping the living shit out of him. Now that is religion in action!

My final irk was a personal one, I had a tiny bit of stone in my shoe.

Normally I'd stop and take my shoe off and sort it out, but this one was slightly more annoying than most, it had made it into my sock! Because it was pissing it down I decided to brave it out and hope that the piece of grit wouldn't grind its way through the sole of my foot all the way to my kneecap. I wasn't prepared to sit down in a puddle on the park bench and remove my boot and sock in the pissing rain, so now I have a hole in my heel.

Two sodding hours of standing on a grain of sand and now I have a hole in my foot, you'd think that after 35 years the skin of my feet would be hardy enough to take such a small irritation, but no, I have to have feet that are as soft as a baby's bum cheek. Pfft!

Now I'm home, almost dry after a good towelling off, I'm not going to shift for any other reason than to get food to stuff my face with, so take that lonely jogger woman, whilst you're still killing yourself slowly by straining your body for no reason, I'm doing the same by sitting down and stuffing my face with cream cakes, I know which one we both would rather be doing!

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Experiments in Cooking #125,055

So, tomorrow is payday which is my normal food shopping day, so that leaves me with almost next to nothing in the cupboards today and it's at times like these I stretch the boundaries of cuisine simply because I have to. 

Roll over Mrs Beeton, your cookbook I scorn upon. Jamie Oliver? Pah! Delia Smith? I'd teach her a thing or two! Just because you earn a crockpot full of cash for knowing how to boil an egg doesn't mean that you are at the cutting edge of culinary delights!  I'd liken myself to Heston Blumenthal, I have the glasses after all. He and I search for what is possible within the envelope of food structure and taste.

On this occasion my experiment with cooking didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped. You see, I was rather short of ingredients. Well, if I'm honest I had a few spices, some peanut butter and a little rice. I also had a tiny bit of lime pickle in the fridge from circa 1922. 

Brilliant I thought, there is a definite Thai influence here, I can make a satay sauce with the peanut butter, add a bit of lime, ginger and garlic salt and I'm practically a third of the way there! I'd embellish with some chilli sauce and voilâ, a feast fit for a king!

In my defence, I did know that without coconut milk there was a rather 'slim' chance that this wouldn't quite work, but I thought that a little water would do the trick, after all it has no flavour and it would help to water down the peanut butter to make it a bit more saucy, so how could I go wrong? If it got a bit too watery I could simply add a stock cube, which sort of added to my woes.

What I ended up with resembled what I would consider to be cat diarrhea gently draped across a bed of boiled rice. It smelled rather nice though, so being the brave soul that I am I decided that the cover of this book should be ignored.

I dived in, all good intentions and tastebuds willing only to find out that what I had produced was in fact watery peanut butter on boiled rice. 

Now, peanut butter is rather tasty on toast I feel, rice on its own is boring but quite edible, but mix them both together and what you actually get is a brown mush! The overall texture was as close to lumpy poo as I'd like my mouth to get close to, the taste was a sickly sweet combination of sour limes, chillies and sticky butter paste. Not my finest hour in the kitchen that is for sure.

And yes, I did finish it.

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Desert Island Meme

Lady A posted this little meme on Facebook, but I dislike that site so I decided to share here. It's an old one that made the rounds back in the Modblog days, but people change with time so I'm going to do it again.

If stranded on a desert island for the rest of your natural life, what would you have with you?

Where? I'm tempted to say a lovely island in the Indian or Pacific Oceans, but in reality I wouldn't know enough about these places to make judgements on what I could eat. So to be on the safe side I'd have to say Jersey or somewhere similar.

Book? Taking Desert Island Discs into consideration, I would already have the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, I suppose the Bible would come in handy to start a campfire or two. But I'd find it hard to pick one book above all that would last me for the rest of my life. I'm tempted to say Lord of the Rings, I usually read that book every couple of years or so, but I'd miss my Pratchett. If I could dump Shakespeare and take the complete works of Pratchett I'd be much happier.

Thinking about it a bit more, I'd probably do better if I took a field guide by Ray Mears though…

Film? Another difficult question, which film would I take? If we're going on the amount of times I have watched a film I'd have to take 'Scrooge' the musical version with Albert Finney. I think I have watched that well over a hundred times. I've also watched David Lynch's version of Dune far too many times. But I think I would like to take Zulu or V for Vendetta with me, both of those I find very uplifting. 

Music? I'd take the best of Royksopp, or some early Queen.

Partner? My raging hard-on says Gillian Anderson, my brain says Ray Mears. 

Essential Item? A good knife, I'm confident in my ability to survive if I have a reliable sharp knife.

Thing you can't have but want? 1Gb/ps internet connection.

Clothed or Nude? Most likely nude, saves on laundry bills.

Once you have set yourself up. Saved or Stay? Stay, I rather like the idea of living away from the rest of the world. 

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Ping & Skype

Yesterday I was trying to chat to a friend of mine in New York but Facebook chat was being a nightmare and wouldn't work, so we ended up sending a few emailed messages instead. However during the exchange it became apparent that my iPhone contract is rather odd as she tried to ring me.

You see O2, my carrier, has seen fit to block all incoming international calls, this I wasn't aware of and I'm sure that a certain fella from Oz has tried calling once or twice and probably thinks I'm ignorant for ignoring his calls. However I am allowed to make outgoing calls as long as I have sufficient credit on my prepay, but as is usually the case I don't have the funds to do so!

But it gets even weirder. Incoming international SMS messages are allowed to be received but I'm not permitted to send them out. I am however allowed to listen to my international voicemail messages.

Rather convoluted isn't it!

So, someone on Twitter pointed me towards an answer that would help out on the SMS front if my friends have iPhones, and that is a free little App called Ping Lite. If you click on the link it will download in iTunes.

It's pretty good, it works like a dream and it also has push notifications without any lag inbetween sending and receiving messages.

I also succumbed into installing Skype on my iPhone to cover for the times I want to chat, however I couldn't seem to get it to work, I'm sure it does but I may have checked the wrong box somewhere. I suppose what is needed is more than one person that I can chat to.

So there you go, two more ways to converse with me if you are that way inclined. PM or email me for my contact details 😀

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Social Quandries

So I'm an online social whore and my new addiction is Twitter. I seem to gather likeminded people like a rolling stone gathers no moss.. Hang on.. That didn't make sense…

Anyhow, I'm having a slight moral upheaval about Twitter though. Should I allow under 18's follow me?

To the best of my knowledge I think there are only two or three non-adults following me, although the number could be more as Twitter is a rather easy place to hide who you are should you want to. I know I'm following two young people as I sometimes converse with them when they send me a tweet. 

Although I see no harm in replying to them, I do sometimes wonder if I'm putting myself in danger. In this day and age it is no longer permissible for a man to have any contact with minors, even if there are mitigating circumstances.

Let me share an anecdote with you to illustrate my fears.

Last summer I was walking into town when I was passing a playing field for the local kids. A young girl, perhaps about five or six came rushing out of the park and came running up the path towards me but she tripped and fell flat on her face. My initial reaction was to rush over to her to help her as she was in some distress, but then I realised that I was there alone with a crying child without any other adults around and from where I was I couldn't see any other kids either. In the interest of self preservation I turned away and went another way, even though it broke my heart to do so. This is how the modern society has changed how men can act towards unknown children. I simply could not put myself in a position where I might be found at fault simply by being a good Samaritan. And to this day I can still see the look of betrayal on that child's face when I turned around ignored her.

So the issue arrises, should I allow a situation where there are a couple of Twitter followers who are still of school age to follow me and should I reply to their tweets which are directed towards me? Hell, ask yourselves if it's permissible to engage with youngsters online at all? Should I even reply to anyone who is under 18 if they leave a comment on my blog?

It's rather a deep quagmire isn't it.

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