London farts- part 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm typing this in an internet cafe- in the Millenium Dome!!!!!!!!!!!!! See, it's good for something!!!!!!!!!! So all you dome-knockers (Ooh-errr, that sounds a bit rude!!!!!!!!!!!) can stick that up yer lum!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I finally got to that big ferris wheel (aka the London Eye), and spent bloody ages queueing for a ticket only to find out that they were booked out hours in advance!!!!!!!!!!! I got a ticket for 4:30-5:00pm, so hopefully the sun won't have set by then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, here I am, at tha Dome!!!!!!!! It's interesting so far!!! I went on a rather spectacular fairground ride, which involved being strapped into a vehicle thingy, which was lifted up by magnetic coils!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then it was dropped to the ground!!!!!!!!!! Luckily some magnets at the other end slowed it down before everyone was squished!!!!!!!!!! I would have been most cross if those magnets didn't work!!!!! I notice they advise you to put your valuables in special containers on the ground to prevent them flying away or something!!!!!!!!!!! Which is really handy for them because if the machine goes wrong and everybody on the ride dies, then at least they've got your valuables safe!!!!!!!!!

I've only been in 3 "zones" so far... The Money one was absolute claptrap propaganda!!!!!!!! It was basically telling you not to worry too much about not having enough money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Work zone was a bit more interesting, but I couldn't help feeling it was also trying to "mould" folk as well, especially some of the wacky "games", which looked suspsiciously like those funny "prometric" tests all those "human resources" suits are really keen on these days!!!!!!!!!!!

The Learning zone was a bit better tho!!!!! It started with one going up an escalator to the strains of the theme from "Take Hart"!!!!! Then you entered the room, and it was a big school hall!!!!!!!!!! There was some young lady who acted as though she was a Headmistress!!!!!!!!!! And she had the cheek to say I was setting a bad example "to the other boys" by putting my hands in my pockets!!!!!!!!!! I countered that she was setting a bad example to the other girls by dressing in such a poor approximation of a St Trinians naughty schoolgirl!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, after the riot was cleared up, we were finally let into some big room, where some corny film was show on the screen for a bit involving some young girl who had obviously attended stage school rather than the real one portrayed in this one!!!!!!!!!! Then at the end the screen lifted up, and there was some massive mirrored room with loads of fake trees, and some old woman pretending to be the young lady in the film, inviting us in!!!!!!!! Then we went in, and found there was nothing in the room apart from some "interactive" trivia machines!!!!!!!!!

Then I went outside, and a few strange people acting strange to keep the people in the queues amused!!!!!!!!! Then I ventured into the centre of the Dome, and found this place!!!!!!!!!! Great huh!!!!!! ATM there's some bunch of kids on the stage opposite who appear to be doing the sort of performances one would get on "Michael Barrymore's 'My Kind of People'"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, enough craptalk from me- I going to take a look in on that Blackadder programme!!!!!!!!!!!!

A fart in London!!!!

Yes, I finally got down there!!!!!! And now I'm typing in this stuffs from the internet terminal in a Youth Hostel in London!!!!!! Yes, they still have electricity after all those storms last week!!!! Will wonders never cease?!?!??!

So far, there's been no signs of gales or rain or earthquakes or whatnot, and apparently the weather is going to be decent-ish 2morrow!!!!!!! So it looks like a packed day tomorrow!!!!!! I think I'll go up on that big ferris wheel thingy!!!!!!!!!

Mediterranean Farts!!!!!

Well, you might have heard of the Antartic Ozone Hole, but here's a new one!!!!!!! Watch out for the Mediterranean Methane Bubbles!!!!!! Apparetnly there's a lot of "gas" lying around on the floor of the Mediterranean, and global warming could be causing it to rise!!!! The bubbles could even cuase ships to sink, turning the area into "a kind of Greek Bermuda triangle"!!!!!!! Oddly enough, methane bubbles has actually been suggested as a way of explaing the Bermuda Triangle as well...

Death by gassy farts from the bowels of the planet!??!?!?!? Sounds a bit nasty to me!!!!!!!!

Thursday's rather useless quote!!!!!

It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. [Well, yes, I suppose it is, but I'm not aware of any memory that works in a forward direction, are you!??!?!?! If that were the case, you would have memories of reading the next story before you read it, you silly sausage!!!!!!!!!]

Calvinist Coffee!!!!!!!

Now this is vaguely interesting!!!!! Some columnist in the Glasgow Herald has offered an illluminating insight into the complexity of the Christian faith in Scotland- and he's explained in terms of a brown liquid!!!!!!!!!! Yes, he's explaining the churches in terms of coffee!!!!!!!!!!!

Think Presbyterianism, think coffee. The Church of Scotland, to which I belong, is the decaffeinated version of Presbyterianism. It's a bit bland, worthy, and generally kindly: a broad Church, with all the strengths and weaknesses that term implies. The United Free Church is also decaff. As you move to the right, starting with the Free Kirk and moving through the Free Kirk (Continuing) to the Reformed and Associated Presbyterian Churches - plus the other theological splinter groups whose differences cannot be observed by the naked eye - the caffeine gets stronger and stronger. In fact, the granules become positively nuclear. When you reach the outer fringes, you're taking 100% proof intravenously; you're in the specialist territory for serious addicts.

No wonder a lot of those fundamentalist types act so wacky!!!!!!!!! They probably have trouble getting to sleep!!!!!!!!!!

Another busy day!!!!

Well, I've been faffing about with Flash, jostling about with Javascript, and attacking ASCII files today!!!!!! And I've had absolutely flip all time to do stuffs for SC!!!!! In fact, I've only got time to tell you I don't have time to do anything else!!!!!!!! Harumph!!!!!!!

BTW I am actually going to London this weekend!!!!! From Friday to Monday!!!!!!! I dunno if I'll be able to get as much written when I'm down there, as I was in Paris tho!!!!!! I mean, it's not the continent of Europe!!!! They might look on "internet terminals" as new fangled down there!!!!! And also, the poor folks in the South of England have been getting battered by the elements (wind, rain, snow, tornados, etc!) recently!!!!!!!!

So I'll be lucky if the electricity's still on when I get down there!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday's "gritty" quote!!!!

You can't clean up this world with soft soap; it takes grit. [Just try washing your hands with grit then, you complete g(r)it!!!!]

Glasgow Herald: Not a friend of McLeish!!!!!

Hmmm!!!!! We reported on last week's Herald story about new Scottish First Minister pissing off some tabloid newspapers!!!!!! Well, now the Herald's doing some more on McLeish!!!!! The funny little man from the Western Isles has been taking off time writing about the Renfrew Ferry and suchlike, and slagged him off!!!!!

Newspaper politics, eh!!!! Still, it has some interesting stuff about former US president Calvin Coolidge (Who I used to think was some old quiz show host turned fashion guru!!!!!!!!!!)

"I bet a friend, Mr President, that I could get a dozen words out of you tonight," trilled a lady at dinner. "You lose," said Coolidge. Mrs Coolidge once inquired as to the substance of the minister's sermon. "Sin." "What about sin, Cal?" "Against." Coolidge declined a second term in the White House; his entire withdrawal statement was 10 words - "I do not choose to run for President in 1928."

Cripes!!!!! A US presedential debate with folks like that would last about 2 mins!!!!!!!!!

Badly designed webpage says: Flash is bad design!!!!!!!

Well, after flash being cast as Satan not so long ago, there of course had to be someone fighting back with religious fervour!!! And that person is of course Mr User Friendly Experience himself, Jakob Neilsen, who thinks overuse of Flash contributes towards bad design and usability!!!!!

What's amusing tho is that there appears to be a bit of a design flaw in the web page itself, which results in the article appearing in black text- on a black background!!!!!!!!

Time to sort out your own useability there, I think!!!!!!!

Watch out for the yottabytes!!!!!!!

Nope!!!!!!!!! We're not talking about some distant archeological relative of the trilobytes here!!!!!!!!!! We're of course talking about a measurement of data storage size!!!!!!! If you thought gigabytes and terabytes were a lot of stuffs, then apparently the world produced 2.1 "exabytes", and if you don't understand that you need to read this spiffy article, which talks about, erm, what a jolly big wad of information we store these days on tha compute!!!!!!!!

BTW I've probably viewed at least a terabyte in web pages alone since I started Senior Citizen!!!!!!!!!!!!

To locate people on a Friday- use elves!!!!!

Well, I bet you'd never thought you'd see the day when mythical fairytale characters appear as spiffy handheld computers!!!!!! Well, to be honest, neither did I!!!!!!! But this lot did!!!!!!!

At least, they've named their spiffy handheld project "Electronic Elves" for some reason!!!!!!!! There's also some unexplained reference to a "Friday People Locator Service" as well!!!! Tho, why, I dunno!!!!!!!!

I notice one of their crew is named after that Chandrashekar dude who worked out equations governing the size of the singularity of a black hole!!!! Well, let's hope this project doesn't get sucked into oblivion by an extreme gravational force!!!!!!!!!! That would be really unfortunate!!!!!!!!

Wot do you mean that foxtrot is illegal, officer?!??!?!?!?

I'd better watch out when I'm strutting my funky stuff on tha Derek Dancefloor, in tha Nigel Nightclub!!!!! Because, according to this article there are now "Dance Inspectors" in Scotland!!!!!!!! And they've come up with the completely unexpected conclusion that Scottish men are crap at dancing!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I never!!!!!!!!

Wotz tha Groove?!?!?!?!?!

I saw this thingy being launched the other week, but I didn't post a story because I didn't exactly see what the actual point of it was!!!!!!!!

And I still don't see exactly wots so spiffy about Groove, even after reading this helpful article, which informs me that it's a bit like Lotus Notes, but based on the web rather than a local network!!!!!!

Well, I suppose that clears all it up!!!!!!!!! (By the way, I'm actually being sarcastic there!!!!!!!!)

Wacky weather!??!? Blame China!!!!!!

So, after Britain gets stuck after the "wrong" type of weather, maybe it's citizens will be a bit more attuned to the idea of weather modification!!!!!!! However, the number one country in weather modification is none other than China, which many are seeing as the next Cold War villian!!!! (Which is a bit ironic, when you think about it!!!!!!)

Even more ominously, it's expertise is in creating rainclouds!!!!!! Cripes!!!!!! if South East took any more rain, it would sink!!!!!!!!

Tuesday's "interesting" "bon mot"!!!!

The best way to criticise the work of others is to do yours better. [Of course, you can always slag it off later as well!!!!!!]

UK: "a nation of big girls' blouses"!!!!!!

Well, the South of England is now recovering after a rather large showering and some rather stiff wind!!!!! And now here's someone grumbling about the coverage!!!!!!!!! It's David Aaronovitch, the bloke who did that classic Doctor Who episode where the Dalek goes up the stairs!!!!!! In his "amusing" article, he says:

BBC2 has recently been full of excellent programmes warning of global natural disasters that are inevitable. A mega-tsunami, or tidal wave, unleashed when half of Gran Canaria falls into the Atlantic Ocean (as it's going to) will unleash a wave 650 metres high on the east coast of the United States, swamping everything from Walt Disney World to the spire on the Empire State. Meanwhile, heading towards us through the uncharted depths of space, is an asteroid with our name on it. It may come tomorrow, it may arrive in the year 4007, but when it does impact, then it's perpetual winter. Which is a long way from a great fart in a south-coast caravan park.

?!???!?!?! I don't remember being in any caravan park in the south coast last weekend!!!!!!!!! Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else, Aaronovitch?!?!?!

Inevitabubble Hallowe'en piccy!!!!

Faq start!!!!

OK, this is another busy day for me, so no time to do loadsa mega stories!!!!!! In fact, I might be busy all week, and the rate of stories might end up a bit thinner than William Hagues bonce!!!!!!!! But I have finally added the long awaited FAQ to SC!!!! Look out for the link marked "FAQ"!!!!!!!!!

Wot do you mean it looks crap!!!!!! Well, don't worry, a redesign is coming!!!!!!!

Monday's "fruitcake" quote!!!!!

Look on the world as a big fruit cake. It wouldn't be complete without a few nuts in it. [I'll remember that one when I'm answering my email!!!!!!!!!]