Belgium: "chaotic"!!!!!!!

Cripes!!!!!!!! Only a couple of days after I mention the old "Do They Mean Us?" prog from the olden days of tha tellybox, apparently the British Council has done a survey of attitudes to Britain from non-Brits!!!!!!!!! And it's not exactly positive either!!!!! One Argentinian is quoted as saying:

I'd rather live in a more chaotic place, some place more emotional, like Belgium.

Stop laughing at the back there!!!!!! Any country that's responsible for the evil brew that is Hoegaarden beer has got to be a little bit 'chaotic'!!!!!! (Or least it will be after a couple of pints of Hoegaarden!!!!!!)

Bush vs Gore- Bad user interface!!!!!!!

Well, we mentioned yesterday the problems some US folk have putting the pointy thing in the right hole!!!!!!!!! But now the voting problems in the Florida state vote for the Prez have become a "usability interface" issue!!!!! At least, according to this page, amusingly titled "Usability bug chooses next president?"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Watch out- it's the "pirate detector" vans!!!!!!!!!

Well, I never!!!! Apparently the BSA, who are very down on software piracy have "pirate detector" vans, which can detect pirate software on PCs!!!!!! And they showed off their "hardware" at no less a place than Glasgow Central railway station on Tuesday!!!!!!

Shame I wasn't there!!!!!! Or else I would have got out my "fib detector" van and scanned them to see what happened!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday's rather unhelpful quote!!!!

It's simply fantastic the amount of work you can get done if you don't do anything else. [Yes isn't it!!!!! But then you wouldn't get great stuff like this lovely page wot you are reading!!!!!!!]

You can get addicted- to gardening!!!!!!!!!

Oh no!!!!!!!! According to this study, behaviours such as gambling can be addictive!!!!!! According to some scientist boffin: "If you accept that, you then accept that sex, computer games, even gardening, can be addictive."!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No wonder Alan Titchmarsh looks so happy all the time!!!!!!!!!!

Relax: The world's not ending in 2030!!!!!

U-no, it's a bit of a bummer when you're speaking to a conference and telling them that the world only has a few years to save itself from the Unix Year 2038 Bug, and everyone congratulates you on your foresight, then you go outside, and suddenly a big asteroid hits Earth, extinguishing all life on it!!!!!!!!!

Well, you have one less worry now!!!!! Apparently that big rock which supposedly had a 1-in-500 chance of zapping the ol' globe in 2030 isn't actually going to hit us after all!!!!!

So I'll have some extra time to do the gardening then!!!!!!!!!

UK Music lovers: give us your money!!!!!

Well, in the UK we might grumble about high CD prices, but apparently according to some survey, we're now more likely to accept paying for downloading music online!!!!!!!!!!!

But why bother paying for new-fangled digimusic when you get really great MP3s like stuff from PritStik for free?!?!?!?!

I'm quite happy to say I would never pay for anything from that group!!!!!

Putting a hole in the right place is jolly confusing, say US voters!!!!

What with this continuing kerfuffle over who's going to be the next US Prez, which has the possibility to get even more confusing, it's good to see that not all the problems with the US elections have been due to legal and constitutional problems!!!!!! Apparently some voters in Florida just found the voting form frightfully confusing and voted for the wrong person!!!!!!!!!

Now, that's what I call an old fish farm!!!!!!!

Well, coming from Scotland, of course I know a little about fish farms!!!!!! But apparently the Bolovians are really old hands at it!!!!!! Archaeologists have found a massive 300 year old fish farm there!!!!!!!

Apparently, the area is also good for edible snails, so maybe there was a lot of French folks around there at the time as well!!!!!!!!

Sarky Britney Spears fan disses MS!!!!!

It looks like Microsoft has been hacked again, right after they said they has secured their website!!!!!!!!

But ouch, my ears!!!!!! Wots that you're bawling!??!?! Wot do you mean "Yes, we already know that, you old man!!!!!"?!?!??!?!? Well, OK, everyone has probably heard the story now, but not so well covered is what the hacked wrote when he cracked the site- as you can see, it's a bit sarky!!!!!!!!!!! He also appears to be a fan of Britney Spears!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mahir's Back!!!!!

I love folkdance I can do - - I love x x x ... If can take good electrik I want many many times

Yes!!!!! Our old friend Mahir is back after travelling all over the world!!!!!! He appears to be quite a good egg really, being in favour of famine aid, human rights, and so on... But he still hasn't found any girls tho!!!!!! Why ever not I wonder?!?!?!? I mean, check out the photo on the page of him in his dancing days!!!!!! (Just above the words "I must not change never"...) What red-blooded female could resist such a King of the Disco Swing?!?!?!?!?!

You have to show a bit of cheek to get in here- literally!!!!!!!!

If you're going to nightclubs in Holland, watch out!!!!!! You might get the bouncers saying: "I can't let you in mate, I don't like your face!!!!!!!" Well, maybe not- but this new computer face-scanning system newly installed in 15 Dutch clubs will!!!!!!! This new system is meant to keep out "troublemakers" and drug dealers!!!!! Only prob tho- what if the drug dealers make enough money to get themselves some plastic surgery?!?!?!?!??!?!

Thursday's interestlingly thought out quote!!!!

Silence is the virtue of fools. [Especially if they talk a lot of crap when they're not silent!!!!!!!!!]

Old Fart misses jewels heist!!!!!!!

Curses!!!!!!!!!! I just missed this one!!!!!! Just three days after I toddle along to tha Millenium Dome, a bunch of thieves get foiled after trying to break into part of the Money, and steal a load of jewels!!!!!!!!!!

Still, at least it was a "great day out" for all visitors on the day!!!!!! And it appears to have helped attendance figures as well!!!!!!!!! (Hmmmmmm..... !!!!!!)

Get email- from a funny little splodge!!!!!!!

Hey!!!!! This sounds like a great idea!!!!!!!! Someone's made some contraption to read a specially printed funny little ink splodge printed on a page next in a product catalogue!!!!!! Then it can link up with your compute, and get it to email details of the products back to you!!!!!!!!

Which sounds really spiffy, as I can't get enough of good ol' spam mail!!!!!!!! (Actually, I'm joking there!!!!!!!!!!)

Senior Citizen: Micromedia!!!!!!

U-no, I used to think "Micromedia" was some computer telly show from the 1980s which featured Fred Harris and Ian McNaught-Davis!!!!!!!!!! But I was wrong!!!!!!! In fact, there's no "BBC model B" in this article about "Micromedia"!!!!!!!!! Apparently it's all about "nascent communities of interest", whatever that means!!!!!!!!! But apparently it has something to do with weblogs, just like the one wot you are reading at this very moment!!!!!! Only we of course started it before Blogger came along!!!!!! Honest!!! Look!!!!!!

Grant Gets Gubbed- at Glasgow!!!!!!!!

Well, I suppose he has to adjust being a more "emotional" "new man" on telly now, but this is ridiculous!!!!!! Ross Kemp, aka former Eastender's "hard man" Grant Mitchell rather meekly resigns as Glasgow University Rector!!!!!!!!!!!

As previous Uni rector Victor Meldrew might have put it, "I!!!! Do!!!!!! Not!!!!! Bee-leeeeeeeeeve it!!!!!!! etc."!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Use Napster on tha w3- thanx to a wierdo!!!!!!!

Well, Napster might be on it's last legs, but that hasn't stopped the folks at Weirdo.com starting a netwebby versh of it!!! You can now go an tha NetWeb, create an account, search Napster and Gnutella, and then resolutely not download any MP3s because of course it's very naughty!!!!!!!!

So it's a bit like My MP3.com without the legal bits, and Napster without the program bits!!!!!

Today's rather prescient quote!!!

If at first you don't succeed, try doing it the way you were told. [Paying attention CNN/NBC/ABC!??!?! Next time try declaring who the president is after the actual flipping votes have been counted!!!!!!!!]

Bill Gates: I was naive!!!!!!!

Cripes!!!!! First Wired does an about-turn on the virtues of bringing the NetWeb to tha Masses, now Bill Gates is suddenly having second thoughts about being a globalistic capitalist!!!!!!!!!!

Gates, who has long extolled the power of computers to solve the world's problems, criticized himself for having been "naive--very naive." He has shifted the focus of the $21-billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from that of donating Information Age technology to meeting the health needs of the poorest, beginning with the widespread distribution of vaccines.

The New York Times reported that Gates "has lost much of the faith he once had that global capitalism would prove capable of solving the most immediate catastrophes facing the world's poorest people, especially the 40,000 deaths a day from preventable diseases. He added that more philanthropy and more government aid--especially a greater contribution to foreign health programs by American taxpayers--are needed for that."

Crikey!!!!! And today we've got the US state where Mickey Mouse lives deciding who the next US Prez izz!!!!!

Has Osama Bin Laden put LSD in the US water supply or something?!?!??!?!

More olde Digi folks!!!!

Well, apart from watching presidential candidates trip up over fallen US TV pundits with egg on their faces, there's not much else doing on tha NetWeb ATM!!!!!!! So here's another bit of feedback to my ad for SC on news://alt.digitiser/!!!!! This one's from Zyogte's, who I seem to dimly remember last time I was on there!!!!

[Quotes entire message and adds...]

Fucking old skool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm... !!! Wots this about SC that causes grown men to swear?!??!?!?!?!

"Mickey Mouse" Election Coverage!!!!!!!

I never expected to be witnessing a US democracy drama over breakfast!!!! But that's what's happened in this morning in my pad in humble old Glasgow, Scotland watching the US elections!!!! At this point the race is now down to one state- Florida, home of Disneyworld and Mickey Mouse!!!! Either candidate must win to enter the White House!!!!!!

When I went into the kitchen to make tea, US TV was saying Bush had won it according to their polls, and declared Bush prez!!!! Apparently Gore had even phoned Bush to offer congrats!!! Which was jolly funny as a few hours ago, the same US pundits were Florida saying was "too close to call", and before that, that Gore had won it!!!!

Anyway, I make the tea, and come back to find that the vote in Florida is actually "too close to call" after all, and Gore has retracted his congrats!!!!

Now... If US TV can hoodwink two candidates for one of the most powerful positions in the world into thinking the election is over when it's not, isn't that a little.. well, "off"?!?!?!

I also heard that in previous elections some voters on the West coast of the US were put off voting just before the polls closed, because exit polls on the East coast and central US had already declared one of the candidates a winner!!!!!! In fact, the whole process of taking electoral "exit" polls, published right after the ballot box has closed, (ie before any of the votes have been counted) as a serious basis for deciding who becomes prez seems a little cranky from my UK viewpoint!!!! What's the flipping point of voting then if the actual counting of the votes is less important than some opinion poll, which, as the ones for Florida show, can be pretty unreliable?!?!?

Look, you idiots in USTV-land!!!!! Counting votes actually takes some flipping time you know!!!!!! It doesn't matter if it's not quick enough for max "ratings" and ad revenues!!!! That's how elections are decided, not your flipping opinion polls!!!!!! In my humble opinion you lot deserve a good kick in the wotsits for this farcical larking about!!!!!

(NB for non-UK readers: In the UK no "exit" polls are allowed in a general election until all the polls have shut at 10pm... Okay, we have only one timezone and not three like the US, but you get the general idea!!!!! And victory is never declared until enough of the actual results- counted from votes cast- have been declared!!!!)

UK: "a nation of big girls' blouses"!!!!!! (Part 2!!!!!)

Looks like David Aaronovitch is apparently not responsible for "Remembrance of the Daleks" at all!!!!!! Looks like I got the wrong Aaronovitch!!!!!! Bah!!!!!!

Anyway, the non-Dalek Aaronovitch hasn't got too much to write about these days!!!!!! He's still banging on about coverage of the recent storms!!!!!!!

[...] hyperbole and absurd exaggeration now paint us, not as a place of civilised contention, but as a "banana republic" or a "Third-World country". Such is the competitive ratcheting upwards of the description of the scale of Britain's disaster that one more event will have us "returning to the Stone Age", or even the Cretaceous period.

Fair enough, Dave, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't consider calming down a little yourself!!!!!!!

Geeks- you're not wierdos!!!!!!

Hey!!!! This is good news for old Net vets like me!!!! By which I of course mean internet veterans, not fishnet vetenarians!!!!!!!

According to some survey, apparently people who use the internet a lot are not socially deprived morons!!!!!

Well, to be honest, I could have told you that!!!!!! I mean, anyone reading this cannot help but be impressed with my immense intellect and cultured outlook on life, can they?!?!??!?!

Senior Citizen predicts Napster Death!!!!!

Well, I was a bit too busy last week to see that Napster has signed a deal with the ol' Bertelsmen Music Group to go towards a subscription music service!!!! Of course, the Slashdot crowd see it as the end of Napster!!!!!!!

Which is jolly strange, as the week before that on SC we were saying pretty much the same thing!!!!!!!!! Spooky or wot?!?!?!?

Hey Kids- South Park is really bad!!!!!

Don't you just love it when an expensive survey comes up with completely unexpected conclusion!!!!!! Get this- apparently someone thinks South Park is setting a really bad example for kids!!!!!!

Well, you might think, why the four fruit marmalade are kids watching an adult programmme like South Park anyway, but strangely enough this survey didn't really bother asking that one!!!!

There's also apparently an "increased confidence in challenging authority" from kids these days as well!!!!!! Er, small point, but given that generally young folk are more likely to have an eye kept on their actions these days, wouldn't you expect that!??!?!?!!?! There's more authority from you lot for them to challenge, and given that you're watching them more, you're more likely to see when they're challenging it!!!!!

So the obvious answer appears to be: stop being so flipping "down" on the kids you idiots!!!!!!

Shakespeare- gone to "pot"!!!!! (Doh!!!!!)

Well, at least in the UK, we've got something to be smug about- the greatest playright of the English language apparently only indulged in waccy baccy!!!!!!!! But for those who were rather suprised by some brainy bods findings that Ol' Shake was on drugs when he wrote that "To be or not to be" doggerel, you might be even more surprised at some of the articles it has already inspired!!!!!!

"By yea and nay, thy lum needs sweeping," quoth I. "Who is thy coal-man? Try it with the damper in."

"Lum me no lums and coal me no coal-man," quoth Shakey, "this hath naught to do with a sea-coal fire. This fragrant smoke is the effluent of my sweet tobacco. I have it from an excellent rogue by the name of Lebanese Red."

He handed me a pipe and a box of Swan of Avon Vestas. I sat in the fireside, the pipe in my jaw. I lit the lump therein, very like an Oxo cube. And on the instant, through the natural gates and alleys of the body, did I feel an easy mellowness ooze - easy like Sunday morning (must use that). And straight did I fall a-giggling.

"What manner of shit is this," I asked the bearded, bald-head loon, "that acteth so strange upon the blood?"

"Such stuff as dreams are made on," quotha. "Now, what seemeth to be the problem, cock?"

And this is from the flippin' Scotsman of all places!!!!!!

Germans politicians: white powder!!!!!!!

Well, with the possibility that the US is going to elect a former cocaine user as leader of the Free World, at least the folk in the German parliament should rest a bit easier!!!!!! Especially after traces of cocaine were found in most of their toilets!!!!!!!!!!

US Presidential Frenzy- in UK papers!!!!

You might have dimly noticed that there's a US presidential election on today!!!!!! In the UK, we certainly have!!!!!! Even in our US-friendly media, there seems to a lot of excitement about todays polls!!!!!!!

When I was doing my round of newspapers, I noticed the Glasgow Herald gave it a front page story, and inside said the result was really important to UK politics!!!!!!! Then I popped along to The Scotsman, which gave it a front page story, and inside said the result was really important to UK politics!!!!!!! And blow me down if I didn't toddle along to The Independent, (ho ho!!!!) and was most surprised to see they also gave it a front page story, and inside said the result was really important to UK politics- twice!!!!!!!

One thing I notice they haven't covered so far is poor old VoteAuction.com, which seem to be under constant attack from various public figures who don't quite like their parody of political funding campaigns and appear to be pressurising various ISPs and even NIC into shutting off access to them!!!! Never mind tho- they've still got an IP number, (62.116.31.68) and are getting loadsa people to point their domain names to them!!!!!! So yet again internet censorship gets a kick in the brown eye!!!!! More exampes of that in this interesting little article!!!!!!

Today's rather patronising quote!!!!

Prosperity best discovers vice- but adversity best discovers virtue. [In other words, the poor are the "salt of the Earth"!!!! Thank you very much for this amazingly original and not-at-all patronising insight!!!!!]

Some feedback from alt.digitser!!!!

Well, I've starting posting the odd ad for SC on Usenet again, and I found out that news://alt.digitiser/ is still going!!!!! And I've already had a reply to my ad on there!!!!

On Mon, 06 Nov 2000 21:53:35 GMT, oldfart_sed@my-deja.com wrote:

>Yes!!! The wonderfull webby maggy SENIOR CITIZEN is back!!!!

FUCK ME BACKWARDS

HELLO MY DEAR. HOW'VE YOU BEEN. WHERE'VE YOU BEEN.

I MISSED YOU.

--Nick.

Crikey!!!!! Thanks, Nick!!!!

The quotes we missed!!!

Time for the supadupa corny quotes we missed while I was getting on down in London Town!!!!!!!

Enjoy yourself- it's later than you think! [Cripes!!!! A secret fan of The Specials, no less!!!! You've gone right up in my estimation!!!!!]

Riches are for spending. [... And right back down again!!!! Riches for spending?!?! What else would they be used for?!?!?!? Playing Cluedo?!??!?!]

Virtues are learned at your mothers knee- vices at some other joint. [Wot, like the elbow?!?!?!]

US Rock Criticism: boring!!!!!!!

Well, you don't need to tell me how incredibly boring some US rock mags are!!!!!!! I mean, Rolling Stone- presumably so called because it's about as interesting as a watching a boulder in transit!!!!!! And Spin- even the name suggests "hype"!!!!!!!!! So it's not too surprising to see some folks on tha NetWeb agree with me!!!!!!! Apparently the main problems are:

1. The bands are boring!!!!!!!!
   
2. The writers are boring!!!!!!!!
   
3. The record companies virtually run the show!!!!! (And they're not very interesting either!!!!!!)
   

Sounds like everyone concerned needs a good kick up the tradesmans entrance if you ask me!!!!!

Wired News says: Internet publishing is not very good!!!!!

Crickey!!!!! It's like Johnny Rotten saying he likes The Corrs!!!!!!!!! Just check out this sniffy little review of Matt Drudge's new book, which is titled: "Review: Drudge, as in Sludge"!!!!!! Apparently it's badly written and Drudge is a bit full of himself!!!!!!

Fair enough, but then we get a lot of self-righteous nonsense about how Drudge's w3site and internet publishing in general:

But Drudge's shtick about being a virtual high-priest of democracy sounds hollow, as does his repeated claims that the Internet will render all other media irrelevant. ("TV is dead," he claims.)

First, as Drudge points out, he made his name at a time when established media had not yet taken to the Internet, or at least not in a serious way. Now they have. The window of opportunity for freebooters to loom large has closed.

Second, the fact that anyone can set up shop at home just as Drudge did also dilutes the impact of any single individual -- or worse.

"The problem I'm seeing immediately is if other Drudge Reports pop up -- and they will -- it is romantic to have one person running down the street screaming, 'Extra! extra!' but if you have a thousand it could start looking like an insane asylum," Drudge told a National Press Club gathering in June 1998. "So, if indeed we start having tens of thousands of people all reporting news, hundreds of channels reporting news, all the different cable channels -- click, click, click -- I think people will grow disinterested."

Erm, so can we assume that this is not Wired News being jealous of Matt Drudge's "Report" starting off the whole "Zippergate" business, and thus affecting the mainstream news media in a way that Wired never did?!?!?!?! And surely the Wired folks can't in any be getting all huffy with the great unwashed moving into their territory, and publishing stuff on "their" internet?!?!?! Hang on, I thought that's what you buffons wanted in the first place!!!!!! But now it's clear that it hasn't quite turned out like a Californian Age of Aquarius, you seem to changing your colours pretty quickly!!!!!

Sounds like a case of that "Californication" lark that those Red Hot Chilli Pepper chappies seem to be going on about these days!!!!!!!

London Farts- epilogue!!!!!

Just to bring things up to date... I had a couple of pints in some pub called Coopers in the Victoria train station!!!!!!!! And I was blethering away with various people about how expensive things are in London!!!!!! Then we got chucked out due to some antiquated licensing law in England which says that pubs have to shut at 10:30pm!!!!!! It's just as well tho- that's when I had to go for my bus!!!!!! BTW does anyone know why on earth they can have an express train service straight to Heathrow airport from Victoria railway station, but they put the flippin' Victoria bus station miles away?!?!?!?!

Well, the bus journey up to Glasgow was not too bad!!!!!!!! I managed to get to sleep despite some flapping bit of machinery that kept tapping arhythmically at the back, sounding not unlike a lunatic with a tambourine!!!!!! I have to say tho, I pity the folks who had to stay on the bus after Glasgow- it was going all the way up to Aberdeen in time for 11 o' clock in the morning!!!! Imagine have to spend 12 hours in a bus with that bloody tapping!!!!!!!

Finally I got home and crawled into my bed!!!!!!!!!!! And now I'm up!!!!!! Tomorrow I'm taking the camera film down to tha megamighty Boots!!!!!

Er... And that's it!!!!!! The End!!!!!!!!!

London Farts- part 2!!!!!!!

So wot did I do today then!??!?!

Well, first thing after I was thrown out of the Internet cafe was I had a nice walk along Kensington High Street!!!! One thing I noticed is that there's a department store called Barkers!!!!!!! No wonder Ronnie Barker retired!!!!! He's obviously very busy in the retail business now!!!!!

After that was some gigantic park thingy (With loads of joggers puffing about!!!!!! Until I started putting tripwires between the trees, that is!!!!) called Kensington Common!!!! Don't expect me to say anything interesting about it, because there isn't anything interesting about it!!!!! It's just a big park!!!!!

At one end of the common is that Albert Memorial thingy!!!!!! Remember that bloke Derek Jamieson on that old "Do They Mean Us?" telly proggy, about how other countries view us!??!?!? Absolutely required viewing of course, not so much because of the telly clips shown but because of Jamieson's hilariously stuffy reactions to them!!!!! I remember one time he was chortling over some Iranian TV piece about how the Albert memorial represents Britain being morally bankrupt imperialist aggressors etc., etc, ...Then there was some bit where some policeman on a mounted horse rides by the monument with some really dramatic music in the background, as if to say "See?!??!?! They're still the same even today!!!!!!", and Jamieson goes "What on Earth was that all about?!??!?!?"!!!!!!!! Mind you, he didn't like Scots then either!!!!!!!!!! Now he lives in Glasgow, thinks Glaswegians are really nice!!!!!!!! Ha!!!!!!!!

Ahem, anyway!!!! Behind that was the Albert Hall!!!! Actually, it looks a bit smaller than you see on telly!!!!!!! I looked at the programme to see what on there, and it's bloody David Essex!!!!!!!!!!!

After a quick persual of my map, I realise that that the Victoria & Albert Museum was not too far away!!!!!! So I walked on down there, and guess wot... On the way, I ran into the entrance of Imperial College, whose FTP servers have stored some of the old Senior Dads demos!!!!!!! In future time, this will be worshipped as a shrine to classic demo design!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I popped into the V&A (As those young whippersnappers who run it now call it!!!!!) and there was almost as much stuff in it as the flippin' Louvre!!!!!!!! There was some massive rooms with gigantic reproductions of bits of sculptures!!!!! They were just lying around, dwarfing the human visitors, making it look like a giants attic!!!!!!! In one room, there were two rather massive columns which threaten to put even my own massive column to shame!!!!!! Talking of which, they also had a full size reproduction (!!!) of that Michaelangelo statue of David with his knob hanging out!!!! I must say that the tourists nearby were most impressed when I loudly declared that it wasn't as big as mine!!!!!

After spending a couple of hours find the way out, I came out the front entrance to notice that it was starting to cloud over!!!!!!!! For most of the weekend, it was actually jolly nice weather!!!!! Not the wind and rain and fire and brimstone that had been predicted at all!!!!! So, it looked like it might be raining soon- wot should I do before it really buckets down?!?!?! I know- hunt some Wombles!!!!!!!!!

So I ventured all the way to Wimbledon on tha tube, had to trek up a hill to the Wimbledon High Street (Which I notice has all the nice cafe and horse riding stables whilst the lower part of Wimbledon has the MacDonalds and supermarkets!!!!) and eventually came to Wimbledon Common!!!!!! But I searched High and Low, and I couldn't find any Wombles!!!!!!!!! It was just starting to rain, but I don't think that's why the Wombles disappeared!!!!!!! Wimbledon Common is not the rolling greenery you might have supposed it was to be from watching tha tellybox- in fact it was more like something out the Blair Witch Project!!!!!!! Anyway, I got bored and trudged back down the hill- at which I remembered that in one of the books, the Wombles had actually moved away from Wimbledon Common to some other place, so there actually any Wombles to find!!!!!!!!! You can bet I felt a right berk at that point!!!!!!

Anyway, back to the centre of London!!!!! And after some eats, I decided to go to Picadilly Circus!!!! Unfortunately it was too dark, and I couldn't take any piccies!!!!! Anywayz (!!!!), I found this rather extraordinary place there called the London Trocadero which was mainly filled with this rather large amusement arcade called Funworld!!!!!! There were the usual "SuperDuperUltraRacer X3.4 VR" type jobbies, but there were one of two rather neato ones!!!!! Ones to watch out for are: Bishi-Bashi Championship, which plays like a game from the mind of someone who watches too much Scooby Doo!!!!!!! And the other biggy is Pirate, which is basically like Pilotwings, only it's a pirate ship, and you steer it using a controller shaped like ye olde wooden captains steering wheel!!!!!!!!!! And the graphics are pretty neat as well- I expect the laywers behind Captain Pugwash will be after the makers of this game!!!!!

So that's that!!!!!! I'm now going to go off and have a couple of "jars" at a couple of pubs on the way to the bus station!!!!!!!

Bye from London!!!!!

London farts- part 1.2!!!!!!!

Right!!!!!!!!!! Now I'm really annoyed!!!!!!!!!

The little internet compute in the Youth Hostel that I was typing my stuff on last night ran out of credits about 30 seconds after I posted my evening doodlings to Blogger, and about 5 seconds before Blogger received my evening doodlings!!!!! So I have to type them all over again!!!!!! Bah!!!!!!!!! I'm now typing this stuffs the following morning from some internet cafe down the road because

1. It's cheaper!!!!!!
   
2. It's reliable!!!!!
   

All I can say is thank goodness that idiot who disrupted the sleep of nearly everyone else in the room the night before last with his authentic snoring impression of a broken down lawnmover wasn't there last night!!!!! Otherwise I might really been in a truly foul mood today!!!!!!

Anyway let's go back in time... (Mysterious "going back in time" type incidental music please, Bob!!!!!)

So, back to tha Dome!!!!!!!!!! While I was waiting until the Blackadder film showing, I went a couple of other zones!!! The "Self-portait" started off a bit primary school stylee with a montage of various pictures and written comments from various random peeps about why such a particular image represented Britain!!!!! There was a lot of the usual suspects (eg The Beano, Dad's Army, Morcame & Wise, etc.) along with the really bizzare!!!!!!! For example, someone had a picture of a loo brush, and said they picked it because Britain is a "toilet"!!!!!! Well, OK, I just made that one up, but some of the other ones were just as strange!!!! Anyway, we ended up in this big hall with loads of big placards telling us how bloody brilliant Britain is etc., and some bizzare sculptures in the center of the room with some slightly less flattering images!!!

If there's been any problem I've got with the dome, it's the slightly propagandist angle of a lot of the exhibits!!!!!! It's like they're saying "Don't worry about the economy, Britains a really great place, and all the big corporations are going to take care of everything!!!!! Oh and by the way you'll need to be able to learn loadsa new skills or else we won't be able to chuck you between loads of 'flexible' jobs!!!!!!!"

Anyway, I then went to the Play zone- and it was filled with loads of strange "toys" that to be honest, I wouldn't exactly want to pay money for!!!!!! There were quite interesting tho, especially the "Sofavision" one, which entailed sitting down on a sofa in front of a camera, whilst someone else sat on a similarly accoutred sofa in the other end of the room, and the images of the two sofa with folks on them were superimposed and broadcast on a tellyscreen in front of each sofa!!!!!!! So people on either sofa could see each other!!!! This effect was usually used by kids to do stuff like pretend fights or sticking the finger "up" the nostril of the person on the other sofa!!!!!!!

Anyway, time for the film!!!!!!!!!! Blackadder Goes Back and Forth wasn't too bad- not too many attempts at reworking old ground!!!!! Tho again, I didn't notice a slightly "patriotic" and "educational" tone to it!!!!!! This film was shown on a big cinema screen at some place outside the dome called Skyscape!!!!!!! Talk about a stupid name!!!!!! Skyscape?!?!??!?! "Landscape" or "seascape" maybe, but "skyscape" sounds like two mixed metaphors getting mixed up!!!!!! It's like calling a radio "televisual"!!!!!!!!! Mind you, it was hosted by Sky telly, so we're not talking about the brightest sparks on the block here!!!!!!! For example, their attempts at audience participation before the film were pretty pitiful!!!!!!! Some people pretending to be "alternative" comedians pretending to be ticket inpsectors or builders or scientests started to harrass random members of the audience in the name of "alternative" comedy!!!!!! Tho they got a bit quieter when I quietly told the ticket inspectors exactly where I proposed to insert their torches if they messed with me!!!!!!!! During this episode, some interminable video of various people dancing like lunatics in what one presumed to be a "comedy" fashion on the screen- presumably the thinking here is that if one can't tell a complete joke, then one can just act like a complete joke, and that's comedy!!!!!!! In which case, Sky must be the funniest television channel in television history!!!!!!!!! There was a big plug for Sky telly as well of course, and some corny "message" promo film for "Reach for Sky"- Sky's sponsored "Hey Kids!!! Get up and do something with your life!!!" type scheme!!!!!!! Unfortunately a lot of people thought it was a comedy sketch and started laughing at the really crappy script and "Grange Hill" style acting!!!!!!!

Anyway, that was the Dome- it's wasn't too bad!!!! If they made the tone of the exhibits a little less sniffy and the price a lot cheaper (£20?!??!?!?!?!) then it could have been a great success!!!!!

So back to the London Eye in time for 4:30!!!!! Actually, the sun was setting at time, and giving a most interesting view!!!! The Eye doesn't actually go round at full pelt like a ferris wheel!!!!! It actually goes around very slowly and unless you look at the wheel, you barely notice you're moving- there's just a very slow change in perspective as you go up very slowly, then go down very slowly!!!!! Actually the view as we reached the top was jolly nice!!!!! On this night of course, there was load of people letting of fireworks, so wherever you looked, there was the occasional little burst of fireworks on the horizon!!!!!!! While one of these was going on, I asked some bloke to take a picture of me pretending to sneeze with a fireworks display in the background, so it would look like I was sneezing fireworks!!!!!! Unfortunately as soon as I posed for the camera, the display stopped!!!!!!!! Bah!!!!!!!

Talking of fireworks, at the time I was writing the original versh of this last night some folks in the park outside decided to let of zillions of fireworks!!!! They were most spectacular- much better than the droning pub band who were playing some "open air" concert not so far away!!!!! There were a lot of racuous ladies from Spain who were also watching the display from their window in the other end of the hostel courtyard!!!!!! However as soon as I stepped out to watch it, I noticed a number of wolf whistles coming in my direction!!!!!! It's good to see the more mature man is still appreciated by some!!!!!!!

Anyway, enough craptalk for now- I'm off to see some more sights before I get on tha bus to Glasgow later tonight!!!!!!