I just worked out that I’ve been in work only 57% of the time I should have been this year. Ooops. I’m planning to be in all this week though so maybe I’ll hit the dizzy heights of 60%.
Today is actually the 6th anniversary of when I joined the good ship Nimrod. The plane was meant to have flown about four years ago, yet I still sit here testing my software, pretty much the same software I was testing back in the year 2000. Won’t it be strange when it has fully flown?
Do ya see what I did there? Sorry.
Also, tomorrow marks the 7th anniversary of me actually starting work at BAe. What a waste of my youth, I’d have done less time for manslaughter. As there is rumour in the paper that they may cancel Nimrod, I may actually put down on my CV that I’ve spent the last six years in prison. It’d be less embarrassing to have ‘1998-2004 Strangeways – For sexual abuse and manslaughter of seven chimpanzees’, than ‘1998-2004 Nimrod – The one they cancelled for being four years late, and the wings not fitting’.
Unless I went for a job at the zoo.

…

We spent the weekend in t’midlands. The reason for going that particular weekend was that we had tickets to go and see Gene on the Friday night. We missed it, as we seem to do with gigs increasingly often. We’ve wasted nearly 100 quid on gigs we haven’t attended already this year. As with The White Stripes it wasn’t our fault, we were stuck in a traffic jam on the M6 because of an accident. We were sat there for ages, looking at the back of the same cars, moving at approximately 3 miles per hour. We would have probably still have made it in time if it wasn’t for the really annoying way that gigs in the Birmingham Academy at weekends are pushed to earlier times, to allow for the increasingly shitty club night afterwards. So Gene came on stage at 8:30 instead of the more usual 9:30.
So instead we headed for Julia’s and spent an evening there. Everyone seemed quite merry on vodka, EXCEPT FOR ME WHO HAD TO REMAIN SOBER AGAIN BECAUSE I WAS DRIVING.
Sob.
Still it was quite a nice night.
Saturday was Valentines Day, but we don’t really celebrate it. Last year we watched Heathers to mark the day, this Saturday we spent the day wandering around Shrewsbury and watching a quite poor film. Not for us the “one meal out in a year“ tradition. I bet restaurants were teaming with couples staring at each other blankly, before getting drunk on wine to ease the silence, and then nipping home for squelchy sex.
‘Same time next year?’
‘Aye, I’ll see you then.’
We marked the occasion with a card and flower/cactus swap, but I didn’t whisk Marie off in a hot air balloon or pull a bottle of champagne out of my pants. I don’t really see the point, we don’t want to appear inconsiderate but for both of us the day matters little.
Anyway, I had my hair cut on Saturday. I went back to the place where I’d had it cut last time, many moons ago. I thought I’d learn from my mistakes on my last visit, I told the hairdresser guy that I hated it long at the back and that when I washed my hair it looked ‘like a big helmet’. I stressed repeatedly that this was a bad thing. He seemed to understand and the actual cut went well. It all went downhill though when he used a hairdryer on me (volume increase 100%) and then put fucking wax in my hair (volume increase 200%). It looked to me like a beehive but he seemed quite impressed with it. He’ll have probably cried if he’d seen me leave the shop and then spend ten minutes flattening it down the best I could.
I’m trying to live with it, the volume has been reduced, yet I can see bits of my forehead again, and the shape of it seems a bit haphazard. I think I need some mud and grit in it, that’ll probably help.
We saw the film Ned Kelly on Saturday night. Now it’s not the worst film ever made, but it was a bit poo.
The story itself was pretty unengaging, I’m sure it’s only Aussies who give a toss about him. I think the director knew this as well as he tried to entice American viewers using oft-used clichés and stereotypes. So we got lots about Ned Kelly being from an Irish family in Australia. Loyal and loveable Irish family? Check. The love of the “crack”? Check. Some dancing to “fiddely-diddely” music? Check. Prosecution of the loveable Irish rogues (who love their ma) by evil English and Irish people toadying to the crown? Check. Leprechauns? Sadly not.
It also took staggering liberties with the truth. I’m not claiming to be a Ned Kelly expert but I know he wasn’t the loveable innocent the film tried to portray him as. I guess the obsession of filmmakers in showing minority populations being kept down by evil colonial types shows no sign of abating.
I don’t fully blame the Aussies, it’s not like they have many interesting historical characters to choose from in making a film. Maybe they’ll try Mrs. Mangle next.

…

Who am I going to vote for?
I’m from a family that has always voted for Labour and always will, even though my parents are as disenchanted with them as I am. I don’t really think I can anymore.
I remember being really pissed off that Neil Kinnock didn’t get in 1992. Tony Blair seemed like a watered down version and I had my doubts but in 1997 anything seemed better than another term of the Tories. I stayed up that night in 1997, it was great to see a Labour MP for Fleetwood for the first time in my life, and I took great joy in seeing various people I detested losing their seats.
It didn’t take long for the doubts I had to appear real, yet it’s only since the last election that things have become personally intolerable. I don’t think I could bring myself to vote for them again. The constant stream of lies and scandal are bad enough, yet it’s the way that the government has such disregard for the people who voted them in that really pisses me off. They seem to think they can do whatever they like, the opinions of the general public are irrelevant. This country didn’t want to go to war with Iraq, there was no support in it. The government gave the impression though that it didn’t give a toss what we wanted. It will in a couple of years when it wants us to give them another chance to do what the fuck they like, but in 2003 our viewpoint is of no importance. This government seems to be terminally afflicted with a smug arrogance.
Yet in a few years time they are to ask us our opinion on whether this country should join the euro. Why? Why do they want to ask us that?
Because they already know the answer. The small minded xenophobic mass that lives on this shitty island will scrawl their X next to the ‘No’. It doesn’t take much to guess that will happen. So the members of the government who are actually keen on the idea will keep delaying it in the hope of some sort of miracle conversion by the Burberry clans to the pro-euro cause. Not going to happen.
Anyway, back in 1997 I never thought I’d be answering the question ‘Has the country noticeably changed for the better in the last 7 years of a Labour government?’ with the answer ‘no’.
I wish the whole Labour party were like our councillors in Plungington-Le-Ribble. They are great and get so much done, the government could learn a lot from them. They actually listen for starters.
So who do I vote for?
I won’t be voting Conservative, our beliefs will always be completely incompatible. I also can’t foresee a time when my urge to vote for one of the little noddy parties will outweigh my sheer laziness. I’d rather sit on the couch and eat crisps.
So, do I vote Liberal? I’ve always found certain principles and views of the party to be unworkable and a bit daft. Some of the values outlined in their manifesto and statements seem to be made just to provide an opposite, to stir things up or to provide an alternative just for the sake of it. Would a lot of what the liberal party believes actually prove practical in the unlikely event of them ever getting power? Or would it be a big wishy-washy mess? I really don’t know, I’ll probably wait till just before the election to see what the party promises to do before I make a decision. At this very moment though my choice seems to be between the Liberal party I have doubts over, or not bothering at all, which all seems quite disheartening.
I was talking with Marie about this the other day and she made a good point about the Liberal party, which I think is completely true in politics, and also in general life.
The Liberals seem to be the one political party that occasionally can admit their mistakes. It is seen as a sign of weakness in politics and in life, to actually admit that you’re wrong or you’ve fucked up. I personally don’t see saying sorry or admitting a mistake to be a weakness. Christ, isn’t it a strength? To be relaxed enough in your beliefs or actions to be able to admit when you’re wrong? I know so many people who blindly go through life with an inability to admit this to themselves. Saying ‘sorry’ would probably cause their whole ego to crumble. It’s not the sign of a weak human being to admit to having made an error in your life, it shows you are willing to learn from it and are sure of yourself enough to realise your whole fucking personality does not depend on your infallibility.