Weekend body boarding

When we moved from our last pad we bought a fair amount of kit from Loopy Lou, our affable but bonkers landlady. This included 2 used but serviceable body boards. Naturally as we live on a pretty good surf break we have been trying them out.

This is an enterprise not without its' hazards as the swell off the ocean comes straight into Maroubra. It gets fairly big and there can be a lot of white water to get through (if you have google earth installed on your PC click on the image to get go to the place marker).

The Sunday before last we had a great afternoon mucking about in the surf which was a fairly consistent 2-3 feet. Due to the physics of waves one in every few is much bigger than the waves around it having been amplified. This means that fun 2-3 foot waves can frequently include a 4-5 footer that can catch you completely unawares. The usual side effect of not spotting this wave until it's a bit too late is that you get completely wiped out by it. Just as you are recovering from the near inevitable drubbing the waves behind the monster normally hit you (they say here that it's the fourth wave that kills you, I have only ever been hit by 2 at time but I am not gong to get complacent). Whilst this sounds terrifying, in practice you don't actually have much time to be scared and self-preservation takes over.

We had had 2 good hours of catching waves pretty easily and not getting hit by anything. At about 5pm the waves started to get a bit bigger but I hadn't really noticed. In fact I didn't really notice anything more than a bit of a bumpy ride until I reached the beach and turned round to see Emily get sucked into the top of a 5 foot wall of water, which then fell on her. The two waves behind it predictably did their worst and she got out of the sea hyperventilating and shaking. Game over.

Unperturbed this Sunday we went out into a much bigger swell with 2 guys who've been doing this for 16 years or more. Using a current to get behind the breakers we soon found ourselves in what Coastalwatch described as a 3 foot swell. Beg to differ, by about another foot. Whilst this may be an illusion created by the fact that when you are in the trough of a wave it looks twice as big as it is, it was a pretty convincing illusion.

This was fun for a while, even restfull, watching big blue and green mountains roll underneath you. I will confess to being a bit scared by how far out we were but soon realised that we were pretty safe, as far as shark bait goes. Catching the first wave in proved pretty easy, the damn thing was so powerful you didn't need to do much to get it. Em got hit by it, and then the two behind it. It is a reassuring testament to human resilience that she got out of the water in one piece. Scared but otherwise unhurt. It took us a while to pluck up the courage to go back in.

This time Emily catches the wave, then gets hit. I get hit twice and then catch a wave. This time though there is a difference, the lifeguard is watching. The net result is a bollocking for not knowing what we're doing (exacerbated by our English accents no-doubt). It's a fair cop guv'. That night lying in bed I can still clearly feel the waves rolling under me. Closing my eyes results in flashbacks of breaking waves. Not the most restful night's sleep I've had. Still, I would happily go for an hour or two of it now. It's 3am and I'm supposed to be playing tennis at 7.

Busses

Sydney's busses are pretty good. They are well used and generally reliable. During rush hour they are crowded to the point of bursting but at the weekends and during even slightly off-peak hours they revert to the normal status of bus networks everywhere i.e. sinkholes for the hopeless, the disenfranchised and the truly strange.

The hopeless largely manifest themselves as people who don't know where they're going or which bus they need to get there. They resort to stopping every bus that comes past to ask exactly the same set of questions, receive negative answers and be told they need to get a different bus. This absolutely exasperating if you have any kind of desire to reach your destination at all. It is only the hung-over look of the people attempting this that holds me back from bellowing at them to stop wasting everybody's time and read the bus timetable handily displayed at the stop.

Other forms of public transport have their nutters but they simply don't have the strength in depth of bus nutters. I'm not just talking about people who mutter a bit and aren't particularly socially able. I'm talking about people who are genuinely odd. There is a guy who gets the bus from Maroubra who must be an urban Witch Doctor. He is probably six feet tall, even before putting the boots on. Naturally he dresses head to foot in black and is covered in totally artless tattoos (spider's webs, inverted pentagrams, you've seen it before). He also wears dreamcatcher earings (black), a skirt (black) and has the habit of starting conversations with people without warning and whether they happen to be there or not.

Perhaps busses are treated as territory by odd people and they feel that they have to patrol their routes regularly. Maybe they are some kind of staging area or display ground for a contest in who can be the strangest. If they are, the prize in the heavyweight class has to go to the lesbian couple whose combined weight must be 200kg (a bit over 30 stones). One of them is clearly an avid sports fan, I have never seen her wear anything other than AFL shirts and necessarily loose fitting jeans. She too is covered in tattoos whose locations probably had more to do with the relative sobriety of the wearer than actual choice.

She has rather fetching haircut with a plaited rat’s tail at the top and shaved sides that makes you think she aspires to being an Amazonian Indian. Though I doubt the rainforest has quite enough lollies for her. Her partner is by far the larger of the two. If she wishes to exit the bus she has to do so without turning around as attempting this manoeuvre in the narrow gangway of the bus would wrap her nameless flabbier extremities around the interior of the bus, potentially smothering fellow passengers. She is otherwise remarkable in that she seems to dress entirely in second hand clothing. Presumably the off-casts of people who have now become thin. Just how many obese lesbians must there be out there to generate a second hand clothes market?!

None of these people are particularly intimidating or scary but there is one passenger that everybody fears. She joins the bus between Maroubra and Coogee. She is docile and keeps herself to herself not even muttering. Sadly she reeks to high heaven of some noxious chemical quite clearly designed to repel the inevitable infestations to her unsanitary person. Her long grey hair is stained a revolting yellow, her clothes cannot now be dated, warped as they are by her lumpen form. Should smells one day become visible this woman will be trailed by an acrid choking green-brown trail.

She seems to be totally unaware that the cloud she lives in brings tears to the eyes and may well be hazardous in poorly ventilated areas. Whenever she is on the bus I find myself wondering if her olfactory sense failed before the smell, or because of the smell. She lives in a scentless world where everyone mutters and coughs behind her back. My sympathy goes out to her, kind of.

The real reason most of these people have to get the bus is, because of whatever reason, they should not be allowed anywhere near a car. In the case of the last passenger because she would suffocate very quickly being entirely oblivious of the toxins building to deadly levels in the air around her. The two lesbians would take hours to get into and out of the car; in fact I doubt that anything without sliding doors would even work for them. The Witch Doctor who talks to absent friends is also liable to stop to allow them to cross the road making him a deadly hazard to other road users. These are people deemed by society to be too strange to drive.


Post script
The part of me that enjoys antagonising idealists (i.e. my brain) wants to point out that the bus is by far the cheapest way around any city and as such, broadly speaking it represents the social underclasses. It will probably go on to point out that trains, whilst nearly as affordable, are slightly more expensive and travel further afield to far more affluent suburbs. After that it will hopefully run out of ideas as the last thing the world needs is a tongue in cheek Marxist theory of commuting. Fin

Spam

Normally I don't get spam but a few emails seem to be creeping through the net recently. I thought I would share the one below as it has a kind of Haiku like poetry to it:

here mischievous beautiful motor? here slow did. love mischievous friends am letters companion?
reply make wife slow bought.
slow is different nothing goes.
beautiful sandwich immediate leader. reply rich yours am? we make anybody least off.
companion here turning he shining.

I suspect it is piece of oriental spam (sweet 'n' sour? spam in black bean sauce?) may have been translated using a crap piece of software.

Maybe I should think up a reply:

here forlorn motor none. mischevious rental driving. already least off. easily companion shining. innadequacy beckons strongly.
improved sin wife no. all bought before.
fast is better everything passes.
reply blog rich are.
beautiful breakfast eventual domination.

It'll do for the moment.
I am sat at home waiting for people to take away the washing machine, I'll think of something good to write in a minute....

Filed under:

• garbage

Linkdump

To add fuel to the fire of my burgeoning addiction to the internet I have added a new function to the sidebar; the linkdump.

In this section I will be posting all the stupid little random links I come accross in the course of dossing about on the internerdwebnet that I find amusing but that don't warrant writing about. It took me a while to figure out how to make this work and it still needs a little fine tuning but I'm pretty happy with it. New clickables are always good.

Unfortunately it also means that I will have to find a new development project to keep me entertained. Hmmmmmm.... tabbed sections, you say? A bit complicated, but I'll work it out.

Landlords:two:Oz

Moving to Australia has meant a return to dealing with landlords, and to be fair, our first experience was fairly easy. All we had to do was deal with a nutty Californian lady who could talk about anything until coherence and subtlety were distant memories. Pretty easy really, especially as she was quite happy to join you for the odd glass of vino whilst she did so. Our current landlord is a different matter entirely.

Whilst trying to rent the place from him we turned up to look at the flat at the time allotted. The estate agent rings on the intercom. No answer. The estate agent tries again:

Landlord: “Er, I’m sorry I got a bit drunk last night and I’ve got a child here at the moment. It’s just not convenient, can we do it later?”

We exchange axious looks of the 'Bloody hell, that’s bit more than dodgy' type. Estate agent looks suitably sheepish but keeps his cool admirably. We are assured that Landlord is not actually a pederast but slightly ditsy and has forgotten to mention that the child’s parent is also there, he hopes.

We struggled through contract negotiations with Landlord during which he tries to bypass the estate agents and manage the property himself. Having learnt that Landlord is a bit useless. We are having none of it and refuse to talk to him until he goes through the agent. After we had managed to sign a contract, about 3 months after we first saw the flat, we are provided with one key. The keys to the building are restricted security keys and can’t be copied at just any corner store. They also include a smartcard that gets you through the front door and up in the lift. We have exactly zero hope of getting these copied. There are 2 of us, there are two names on the contract, we work to different schedules in different companies in different places and do different things outside of work. It is profoundly difficult for us to organise our lives round one key. We call Landlord and ask for another key:

Landlord: “Oh, oh yeah. Of course you’ll need that won’t you?” Yes. Yes, we will. "I’ll bring it over on Thursday."

I leave work early on Thursday to get home in time for Landlord to bring the key over. Landlord fails to arrive. I rearrange for him to bring the key over at the weekend. Landlord fails to arrive. On Monday I call Landlord and then the estate agent:

dataphage: "Landlord has failed to provide us with a key, which means we can’t access our post to sign the inventory you’ve sent us. I have suggested to him quite strongly that he drop the key off at your branch office in our building. Perhaps you could ensure that he does given that he has failed to do so twice this week."
Estate agent: heavy sigh "I’ll talk to him."

I get a flustered call from Landlord assuring me that the key will be left at the office 10am Tuesday morning as arranged. A strange feeling of unease comes over me on Tuesday morning. This grows until I can no longer restrain myself from calling the branch office.

dataphage:"Hello, has our landlord left a key for us?"
Branch office: "No, there’s no key been left here." A note of curious laughter enters Branch office's voice "Who’s your landlord?"
I give Landlord’s name.
Branch office: Unhelpful snigger

They have clearly dealt with him before and no longer have to. I call the estate agent's main office and explain the situation:

dataphage: "If I am to be able to collect the key I must leave work in next 15 mins and it is not where it is supposed to be."
Estate agent: heavy sigh "I’ll talk to him. Don’t leave work until you hear from me."

Three quarters of an hour later I get a call from estate agent: "We now have the key. Oh, and by the way we close in one hour." I am at least a 40 minute bus ride from their office and I’ve just missed the last bus that would get me there in time. A scream of rage escapes my lips and my colleagues give me a look of the kind normally reserved for axe weilding loonies. I charge out of the building pausing only for a brief tirade against the slowness of the lift. I flag down a bus and find that I won't actually have to threaten the driver as it is going in roughly the right direction. To my chagrin it is doing so at the speed of an off-peak city bus in heavy traffic. Eventually I get to roughly where I'm going and have to run for 20 minutes to make it to the estate agent's office in time. Landlord's name is mud, although I find many varied themes on mud most of them far less polite.

Imagine my joy then when the washing machine and the steel shutters on the front of our balcony break. I call the esatate agent who calls Landlord. Landlord's first reaction is to call me.

Landlord: "The washing machine is still under warranty from the shop I bought it from."
dataphage: "...and..."
Landlord: "Well, why don't you go there and get them to come over and fix it?"
dataphage: "Which shop is this?"
Landlord: "Oh you know, the second hand appliances shop on, er, what's the name of that road now.... You go up Maroubra road, take a left at the roundabout, then take a right, and then a left I think, er... and it's opposite the supermarket in that little row of shops hidden away a bit, you might not be able to see it from the road. I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the place."
dataphage: "Do you have any paperwork for the warranty?"
Landlord: "Er, no."
dataphage: "A reference number?"
Landlord: "Er, no."
dataphage: "A contact I can speak to?"
Landlord: "Er, no."
dataphage: "A phone number?"
Landlord: "Er, no."
dataphage: "Right so let me be completely clear about this. You would like me to go hunting around a part of town I don't know, for a shop that I don't have the name of, in a place it might not be, to ask someone whose name I don't have to fix my washing machine for free with supporting with paperwork I don't have?"
Landlord: "I'd better go down there and sort it out."
dataphage: "And the shutters?"
Landlord: "You'll need to speak to the Building Manager. His name is Mark."
dataphage: "Mark what?"
Landlord: "Er..."
dataphage: "Do you have a phone number?"
Landlord: "Er, no."
dataphage: "Do you know where I can find him?"
Landlord: "He's sometimes at the office downstairs at about 8:30. Sometimes."
dataphage: "I leave for work at 7:45"
Landlord: "Oh."

I have to put up with this dipstick for at least the next 11 months.

Landlords:one:UK

It appears I am forever cursed to have inept and daft landlords. They have become a recurring theme whenever I have to rent property from someone I don’t know.

My first muppet landlord experience was, as it no-doubt is for most people, with the owner of our university digs. Dave, Ben and Chris (Bryce too if you read this) you may be forgiven an involuntary shudder when I mention the name Simon Whittaker.

Being at University in the small west-midlands town of Alsager was tough enough without being troubled by idiot landlords. For a start there were the locals who were almost universally hostile until you had either been a regular in their pub for at least a year or allowed them to gatecrash your party. Even then there were a few I wouldn’t like to meet on a dark night, or even on a summer’s afternoon come to think of it…

Mostly though the difficulty I experienced living in Alsager was the general feeling in that time there passed more slowly than in the rest of the country. We were there from 1996-99, the dot.com technology boom and subsequent bust was about to happen, it was just before the turn of the millennium, and the rest of the country was alive with a buzz of energised anticipation. In Alsager it was still 1976 and time shuffled forward in gloomy apathy and total ignorance of the progress in the wider world.

Our house wasn’t bad as far as student accommodation goes, we even had a suitable cupboard to hide Bryce in. The bugbear with renting it was the landlord. Simon wasn’t a bad person; he wasn’t malicious and didn’t do anything out of spite particularly. He was just a tit.

Take as an example what happened when the oven gave up the ghost. We ring Simon and tell him that the oven is broken and receive the answer: “I’ll get my father in law to come round and have a look at it this weekend.” Fair enough. A week goes by and not a whisper from Simon. We ring again:

”Hi Simon. Can’t help but notice that the oven is still knackered and we haven’t heard anything from you.”
“Ah, yes sorry about that I’ll pop round this weekend and get him to look at it.”

Simon arrives on the Saturday morning, half an hour late. Simon collects rent checks and we talk casually pretending that there isn’t a pungent whiff of marijuana in the air. Half an hour later a venerable old gent in dressed in tweeds complete with matching flat cap rides his ‘sit-up-and-beg’ bicycle up to the front door and announces his presence. This could go one of two ways we think. This guy is either going to bring out an ancient Swiss army knife and rebuild the kitchen with it or install a Victorian wood fired cooking range. After a fortnight without an oven either one of these will be a bonus.

The venerable old gent removes his cycle clips, puts on his half-moon specs and fiddles with the controls on the oven. “Hmmmm”, he says, bends down and takes a look inside. He puts a hand in his pocket; here comes the Swiss Army knife we think. He takes out a handkerchief and stands up cleaning his specs. Simon asks:

“What’s wrong with it?”
“Well it it’s broken isn’t it.”

Oh for pity’s sake.

Simon had a habit of arriving unannounced and bringing his children with him. Thankfully as we had a Playstation we had a ready-made way of keeping them quiet and out of the interesting array of stoner gear that was artfully semi-concealed around the house.

It was when he brought around the baby that I think I finally gave up trying to be reasonable and discovered that I couldn’t stand the man. When collecting rent cheques and checking the house for damage you need both hands free. The activity is incompatible with holding a baby, so he gave the wretched infant to me! I found another reason not to have children that day: they’re bloody heavy. Fighting back the urge to rid the world of Whittaker’s progeny, and trying to suppress revolting speculations as to the bore and capacity of Mrs Whittaker I stood there struggling with the boss-eyed baby for about an hour. I was only relieved of one drooling freak by the other when it became abundantly clear that I had categorically had enough.

The last straw with Whittaker came when we were in the last term of our three years and were about to move out. The phone rang:

"Hello Simon"
"I’m going to send round some people to look at the house"
"That’s fine just let us know what day next week they’re coming round and we’ll make sure everything is ready."
"Er, in about twenty minutes…"
"WHAT?!"
"Er, um…"
"Simon you will note from the contract you signed that you are required by law to give us 24 hours notice before any visit. We have spoken about this before."
"Er, um, er…"
"We will do this just the once on the concrete understanding that we get at least a day’s notice in future is this absolutely clear?!"
"Er, yes um er…"

The doorbell sounds before I have put down the phone and 7 wide-eyed 18 year-olds are stood on our doorstep blinking in the sunlight. The house was just about big enough for the 5 of us. I have no idea how they fared with 7 people. We left them in no doubt as to what they are getting themselves into with Whittaker.

The second landlord …er… landlady was not a problem being a very houseproud and efficient person. Unfortunately the reason we were able to rent her flat in Stratford in East London was because she was moving to New Zealand. A fact which meant she left the management of the place to the local branch of Winkworth Estate Agents. These people managed to combine laziness, incompetence and ‘English as a second language’ difficulties in one disastrous package.

When the boiler broke it took three weeks of arguing with them to get it fixed. I don’t know if you have ever tried to do without hot water for three weeks but it isn’t much fun. Cold showers are not invigorating in February, they are life threatening. Naturally we refused to pay the rent that month and made the estate agents explain to the landlady exactly why. She wasn’t pleased and they eventually lost her business.

Winkworth did not cover themselves in glory and like most estate agents wanted to the minimum amount of actual management and still collect the money for it. A pity then that the plumbing in our upstairs neighbour’s flat began to leak eventually leading to the ceiling of our bathroom falling in leaving a hole into our flat you could easily have climbed through. Net result, we can’t use the bathroom for showers or baths, again. Whilst the insurance certainly covered this, the estate agents were so hopeless that we had to organise the vast majority of the work that had to be done on the place ourselves. By the time we moved from Stratford I had truly had enough of renting.

In other news...

I've got a hangover so I'm not doing any work and I don't feel like writing anything good. Instead I shall be plumbing the depths of the internet for crap. It's going to be a long day...

Cartoon causes religious outrage.

Italian granny snatches jewelery. Sorry.

In case you missed this story: British Inteligence's most sophisticated surveillance technology is a rock. Q division are clearly running out of ideas.

The events of 11 September 2001 are all a big conspiracy. No, really.... Although when you read about what everyone was doing the day before you do begin to wonder a bit. They clearly knew that something was about to happen.

A collection of useless trivia, much of it untrue.

Pi to one million places, just in case you need it.

How to turn a room sideways. Bloody students.

Water bottle jet pack.

Don't try and cure hiccups with a gun. It might prove a little too effective.

There is now a new surgical option for ugly people. A genuine face transplant. Maybe that's what world class airhead Paris Hilton needs to be able to change her fixed facial expression.

Dinner ladies investigate what's in Superman's lunchbox:

There were just so many options for captions for this picture that I had trouble choosing one. Rejections included the disgusting 'Superman tosses dinner ladies salad'. Thank God I didn't publish that one.

Still unemployed

I didn't get the job I interviewed for on Monday...

...and to begin with I was disappointed but life goes on. I did well to get an interview for it at all to be honest. I was stupidly nervous and I'm not sure I gave the best account of myself, but it's difficult to perform when your mouth is so dry that your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth.

I now have a lot of people to contact and lots more searching to do. I have also restored the post below which took a quick break whilst gainful employment was a possibility.

And now some pictures!!


A cockatoo, these things are everywhere. They screech extremely loudly and strut around like they own the place, a bit like me after the third cup of coffee.


A wallaby. They all give you this look.




Big lizards are very cool and also strut around like they own the place. To be fair, having seen them fight each other, I'm not going to argue.


Sydney harbour bridge at night.




New years eve fireworks from Taronga Zoo.


The view from our front window. It's a tough life innit?!

Give us a job...

The following post is provided for entertainment value and as an indication of the state of mind of the writer. Any similarity to organisations or people living or walking-dead, whether implied or implicit is unintentional, honest. It is also and an indication that you need to find a new job...

Dear [insert bland first name]

Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today and answer my standard questions aimed at unpicking the ambiguous and confusing job title advertised on SEEK.com. I have read the role description published on your website and am still none the wiser. I can see from this that you have decided who the role will report to and avoided specificity in all other areas so that applicants remain ignorant of the degree to which they will be used as a dogsbody. Clearly you have no idea what this role will actually entail and have rolled together as many indefinite responsibilities as you can into a single list. I have also noted that whilst your advert states that there are ample opportunities for progression and personal development with the organisation that there is absolutely no concrete commitment to this process in any of your literature and not even a suggestion of it in the role description.

Despite the obvious risks to my career, happiness and wellbeing involved in taking on a role that your organisation is clearly incapable of defining and whose exact nature you are attempting to conceal from applicants, the job title would look good on the increasingly elaborate work of fiction that is my CV and I would like to apply for the role. I have recently arrived in Australia on a four year business sponsored working visa. Since August I have been working for a large boring financial organisation doing something far less interesting and important than I can make it sound.

Prior to this I spent two and a half years working for a UK Children's mental health charity staffed largely by mental children. This was an exceedingly challenging and diverse role where I was made to implement secretive descisions made over my head and against my advice. My major responsibility was to plan, schedule, resource, coordinate, track and report on the complete cycle of training projects to unreasonable timescales and tiny budgets for overdemanding and ignorant clients with the absolute minimum of guidance and supervision.

I also undertook ad-hoc projects which were better suited to the remit of more senior members of staff but were evidently too tedious for them to undertake. These could be as varied as: generating strategically significant marketing collateral that the organisation was too cheap to outsource to a professional service; designing and implementing department proceedures for members of staff to bypass; and coordinating organisation-wide events designed to alienate valued employees or expose organisational weaknesses to competing providers.

I see my major skills as:

• Guesswork - Being able to read my superiors' mind and act on half-impressions in the absence of proper guidance
• Bullshitting - Producing written information given as fact based on targets rather than achievements, constructing budget assumptions based on logistically impossible sales targets and being the point of first contact for clients and customers who have bizarre and frightening questions that no one could have feasibly anticipated
• Manipulation - Strongarming people, cajoling, lying, blackmailing, pleading, bursting into tears and when all else fails asking nicely to get my way
• Panicking - Arriving at interim solutions that somehow are never converted into full processes, working out of hours, completing tasks well outside my job description and taking the easy, expensive option when important tasks become urgent ones

I want to continue to develop and continue utilising these skills in an organisation that has a reputation for incompetence, an atmosphere of buckpassing, belligerence and recrimination.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Is that an iPod in your pocket or are you just a poser?

I, like many, have iPod envy. I really want an iPod and far too many people I know now have one. The reason I haven't bought one is broadly the same reason I haven't bought a digital camera of my own. When I have money I don't have a computer to allow me to use it properly. Now that I have a computer I'm utterly boracic.

But it isn't just fiscal limitations that are stopping me from buying one. It's also the fact that owning an iPod also marks you out as the kind of person who owns an iPod i.e. an overgrown music obsessed adolescent who ought to stop spending all their money on CDs and grow up a fraction. This isn't simply jealousy talking or me attempting to cover up any lingering status anxiety I may have. When they first came out the status that an ipod conferred on its' owner could be likened to that of the mobile phone or a filofax. The kind of people that owned one either needed it as a business tool to back up their hard-drive or wanted to be the kind person who needed it and weren't (I shall call these people "Business" Tools).

The iPod seems to have gone through a kind of high speed version of the acceptance that both these functional accessories went through after years of being the mark of a complete prick, probably because of it's stunningly good design and an equally well conceived ad compaign. However, when Levis start making jeans with a remote control, docking station and headphones built in you know it really is going back to being the walkman for wankers. Probably the worst indication of the syndrome is the people that use the headphones that come with the iPod, the horrible little white ones. Proprietry headphones are notoriously and universally bad. The first thing anyone should do when they buy a product that needs headphones is replace the ones that come with it. I don't care who makes them for apple they are by the very definition of the thing, shite. They are also a very conspicuous status symbol, wearing the white headphones is the equivalent of waving your iPod at people and shouting "60 gigabytes of musical pleasure!" in the most obnoxious possible way. When people in London started getting mugged because they were wearing them I was secretly quite pleased (I also wished I'd thought of it first and that I had the guts to try it).

However much I rail against the iPod though the fact remains I desparately want one. I tell myself that I am waiting for the technology to settle down, that the current 60gb machine will eventually reach the size of the current iPod nano in accordance with Moore's Law, that I'd break it and that there are better storage devices out there that do more, but well, they just aren't as pretty really are they? Another problem is that I don't really need one. A 60gb iPod can store about 15,000 songs. That's more than a thousand albums which means unless you are a slightly obsessive DJ you will have paid for an awful lot of empty space. Even if I used the iPod to store pictures it will never be full, it can hold 150 hours of video, I don't watch that much TV, especially not on a screen that size, I don't buy DVDs and I go to the cinema quite a lot.

In any case I'd probably rather have a book than listen to music and the portable eBook reader is still a woefully innadequate thing by comparison almost certainly because books do not have the profit margin of music. Perhaps I will wait for an apple version of the eBook technology that links with something like the iPod (an iLibrary?). Text is a much more easily stored and compressable data format than music, pictures or video. Sony quote an average figure of 800kb for an eBook file. That means that, even uncompressed, you could fit over 76,000 books into 60gb of storage. You could have an encyclopaedia, a dictionary, a thesaurus and a truly vast array of fiction to take with you everywhere. You might just persuade me to pay for that.

Happy New Year!

New Year's day and I wake up in an oven. Is this a hangover induced suicide attempt? Am I trying to end it all rather than face a week-long headache? Tutting at the inefficient method of bringing about my own demise - clearly I was drunk when I thought that one up - I decide to go and find a better one that will deal with the overwhelming feeling of nausea more swiftly. Perhaps I could fill my lungs with gas and inhale a lit match, that at least will be swift and relatively painless and has the added benefit that someone else has to clear up a lot of mess...

Why is it so bloody hot? Vaguely I stagger to my feet wondering what callous bastard has shrunk me and is now trying to cook me. Perhaps I have been kidnapped by a race of giant sadists intent on roasting me for a celebration lunch. I started fumbling around and find that I was actually in the flat, which means at least there will be something cold in the fridge. The fridge!! Quick climb in the fridge! Ahhhhhhhhhhh, that's better. Well what d'you know the little light stays on! Ooh look a nice cold beer. Mmm beer, now how the hell am I going to open it...oh rapture it's got a twist off cap!! What the bloody hell is going on? The door's opening, someone's going to try and take my beer! No getoff stoppit shutthefuckingdoor it's hot out there!

I find myself extracted from the fridge by force, removed from my comfortable perch atop the salad crisper and thrust back into the oven that the flat has become. My mother is shouting at me in a whispery kind of way. Ah, no she's actually whispering. What's this strange uncomfortable feeling? During my brief refrigeration I have sat on the broccoli. Not all my faculties are incapacitated, swiftly I break of a couple of florets and shove them in my ears. The world returns to an almost normal volume. Yes, yes, happy new year to you too now why the bloody hell isn't the air conditioning on? What's that you say? You're going to flay a pig? That's no way for a vegetarian to behave. Ah no I've misheard you haven't I, you're actually going sailing. The ocean, that's a good idea it might be cooler in the ocean.

At top speed I charge back into the bedroom and smack straight into a wall of flashing lights and pain. Making a mental note that moving too quickly makes the chattering monkey that clearly crapped in my mouth hit me in the eyeballs making it difficult to see I struggle with my boardshorts. I remove the lower broccoli and try again - success!

No time for footwear moving as quickly as the pain will allow I grab a towel and charge out of the front door. I can see the ocean, it's calling to me, soothing cold water...ouch...must quickly get to the soothing cold...OUCH... aaaAARRRGGGHH FIRE FIRE FIRE Why the hell do they make roads out of black stuff in this country what a stupid idea. Dash for the sand, that'll be cooler. No it's bloody not!! FUCK.

There are thousands of people between me and the sea aaaarrgh!! In a move that would have amazed my secondary school games teachers who tried in vain to get me to play rugby I flatten six people and run round a further five. There is an audible sizzle as my feet meet the water. The lifeguards are advancing on me menacingly. I offer them some broccoli in an attempt to placate them but it only annoys them. Out into the water pronto, they'll never catch me out there. Look they're jumping around and shouting with raw naked frustration. Call yourself a lifeguard and you're afraid of the sea? You big girl's blouse!

Bloody hell the waves are big today. The rip tide's quite strong too. I wonder if that's what the lifeguards were...SPLADOOSH...glub...WHOOSSSHHH...

New Year's Day was the hottest day in Sydney since 1939 and the hottest New Year's Day on record for the city. Not good weather for a hangover. Thankfully the fairly sizeable swell coming into Maroubra Beach knocked some sense back into me.

Naturally with it being a public holiday and 44ºC everyone, and I do mean everyone, was at the beach. So was I until common sense intervened, I went back to the flat and cranked the air conditioning up. Unfortunately whilst the waves were working their magic the sun was burning my back. Hangover + Sunburn = You Have Only Yourself to Blame. Bugger.

Sydney's 'race riots' (bloody hell, actual news!).

You may have heard that Sydney is currently experiencing a few public order difficulties. This is not a new phenomenon. It's summer, beaches and sunshine attract young people and have always been regarded as territory. Add beer into the mix, a liberal dosage of racial intolerance, beat well and hey presto your very own riot-ette.

The actual facts of how the race riots came to be are both unclear and unimportant. The events of the previous weekend are part of an ongoing attitude of intolerance by everyone concerned. The state premier has said that the riots are a sign of an undercurrent of racism in Australian society, I'm rather afraid he might be right. The Prime Minister said that he did not think that this was the case, even Aussies have greeted this with a degree of disbelief.

This is difficult to explain and has a lot to do with the Australian national character being more than a trifle confrontational. In absolutely no regard is anyone blameless in this situation, everyone involved has some level of culpability. That is not to suggest that there are no victims. As normal everyone ends up suffering for the actions of the idiotic few.

Talking to people this week everyone has some dubious 'a friend of mine' story of being hassled by 'Lebs' on the beach (people of middle-eastern appearance, normally young men). Most of these seem to centre around dress code with people being surrounded and told to cover-up if the girls are wearing bikinis. This pretty much typifies how everyone approaches this situation. The caucasian majority are not too keen on people that look different and the immigrant population are not too keen on assimilating. These stories were all too prevalent and the Aussies were a bit too quick to give them to everyone else.

The original intent of the protests at Cronulla was as a demonstration against gangs on the beach. This demonstration was meant to be a peaceful family event . A text message was sent round by someone who had clearly got the wrong idea calling on people to 'reclaim their beach'. From that point on the whole process seems to have been hijacked by people who had an axe to grind.

The media too must take their share of the blame, which is a sizeable chunk in their case. You may have seen footage and photographs of the riots and they are as unpleasant as one might expect. I doubt very much if anything about them struck you as odd. Compare these pictures to other footage you have seen of riots. All the shots are very close up and are taken from the point of view of the rioter. The photographers and cameramen were in the thick of the action, right in the middle of it. How the hell did they get there?

The media had been talking this story up all week into a race issue in the hope of actually having something to report. Their presence is enough to bring about the display mentality and alchohol and group presence the diminished responsibility that triggered people into idiocy. The reporters were going into the heart of the crowd and asking difficult questions of people that had not the intellect, the vocabulary or inclination to answer. Something the replies showed up:

"No I'm not a racist. I love everyone. We've just had e-fucking-nough. We've had e-fucking-nough."

What he'd had e-fucking-nough of he didn't say, possibly this was the subject of the leading question given to him by the journalist looking for a good vox-pop or possibly he didn't have the wit to qualify his statement.

And then there are the racists, quite a lot of them. Many of them were wearing the cross of the 1854 Eureka rebellion. This flag is very similar in intent to the American confederate cross. This is a shame because it should have none of the racist overtones given its origins. The Eureka rebellion ought to occupy a place in Australian cultural history similar, to that Magna Carta has in England - smaller scale obviously.

Despite all the sound and fury this was pretty small beer as far as riots go. Nothing got burned, no-one was killed, there was no looting and no planned violence. LA, Paris, London and just about anywhere that has had real civil unrest would have laughed this off. To give you some kind of idea of the scale of it, there has been worse violence at football matches in the UK, probably with more pronounced racist overtones. So how did it get in to headlines worldwide? Well for a start because the Australian media are keen to make a name for themselves and really want to export news as much as they import it - which is a little difficult as they are a bit short on product - also because the way they report here has to be seriously overblown to make an impact on an unusually pragmatic and sanguine populace, something that doesn't translate very well elswhere. Secondly because the received image of Australia elswhere in the world is red desert with some kangaroos in it interspersed with beach paradise inhabited by sports obsessed beer drinkers - which is more or less correct - the idea that Australia has overwhelming social issues is a bit new to people who don't think very hard about its' origins and history i.e. everyone. And lastly because nothing happens here and anything of significance happening in Australia is news almost for that reason alone.

The police in any country do not normally cover themselves in glory in situations like this but I have to say the Sydney police seem to have handled themselves pretty well. They protected people from the mob, didn't get involved, and didn't allow themselves to become a target. Actual violence was for the larger part confined to property, there were a few unlucky individuals but it could have much, much uglier. The reaction afterwards has been enourmous. There have been peace and anti-racism rallies, emergency legislation and additional police brought in. All the beaches were locked down this weekend with police putting roadblocks up, searching cars and in real trouble spots not allowing anyone but residents access to the beach. This could be seen as a major over reaction but the police did manage to confiscate a few petrol bombs and some home-made weaponry but total arrests this weekend were in single figures. It is also only 2 weeks to Christmas, and Aussies spend Christmas on the beach. Everyone wants this finished before it ruins the biggest holiday of the year. The cynical amongst us might also be tempted to suggest that this is a result of the Prime Minister being asked difficult questions at an international conference. Whatever the reasons the beach was beautifully quiet. If that is the way things are going to be then the police can have road blocks every weekend.

Shark season

With summer comes shark scares, yay! Most beaches here have shark sirens which are custom designed to scare the shite out of everybody, which is fair enough as nearly 5 meters of shark is going to give you a bit of a breathless moment anyway. However the ensuing panic of hundreds of people making a break for the shore may well excite the pointy-toothed leviathan - turning it from casual observer interested by all the funny soft pink things in the water to frenzied attacker confused by all the food suddenly trying to run away.

Everyone's reaction to a shark in the water must give the lifeguards a bit of a giggle. This quote is from the most recent news story where a good-sized shark was spotted off Bondi Beach:

"There were 100 people up the top screaming like monkeys," said Anthony Carroll, one of the lifeguards who went out on jet-skis to alert swimmers.

It looks like the Bondi shark is either hanging around or has brought a friend as another sizeable one was spotted at Tamarrama yesterday.

It's not like people don't know there are sharks here. Divers specifically come to places like Gordons Bay and Clovelly to see the sharks. It is also extremely rare that people get bitten. It has been a year since anyone has been attacked and people were surprised when that happened. The guy who was attacked last Christmas was English. The shark bit his board so he punched it on the nose, got out of the water, got another board and went back in. Dozy pom. This was at Bronte Beach, which is about 1.5km from Bondi as the shark swims.

The beach that I live at, Maroubra, is listed as critical habitat for sharks and large fish, there are diving and fishing restrictions as you can see from the sign in the picture. It is also one of the most reliable surf breaks in Sydney and on any given day there will be at least ten people in the water on surfboards (most people who get attacked are surfing - wetsuits and surfboards make you look like food even more than if you are just swimming). I have not yet heard of anyone beeing attacked or even seeing a shark at Maroubra, probably because they treat the open water with a bit less complacence.

The normal air patrols that give the lifeguards early warning of big sharks close to shore do not have the funding to run this year and the police don't have the resources to do it instead so there are going to be a lot more of these scares this summer. I've decided I'm not going to let it bother me. If you get bitten you are profoundly unlucky and the chances of it happening are so small as to be comparable with being hit by lightning. I say this because I was in the ocean at seven this morning and it was a great way to wake up. Emily chose this as the moment to tell me about the shark scares and quickly freaked herself out and started jumping at shadows in the water, they turned out to be seaweed.

Summer has arrived...

Summer has quite clearly arrived in Sydney. It hit 40°C here yesterday, even the Aussies called that bloody hot. Thankfully the humidity stayed below 20% so you could still move around in it but it was a bit like being shoved in a tumble dryer. It's on days like that I really appreciate the breeze off the ocean at Maroubra and - joy of joys - the air conditioning in the new flat.

Unfortunately what I really wanted to be doing was not sitting at work in icily air conditioned building. This was however the most sensible thing to be doing. I went downstairs at lunchtime to read my book and made the mistake of putting my bare forearms on the table. The tabletop is was solid granite and had been in the sun all morning. I made a sound like a wounded baboon and found something to rest on.

My mum arrives here for Christmas on Friday morning from the UK, where it is winter - I hope she's ready for it. Christmas is going to be a bit odd I think. We have a couple of friends coming over for dinner and there's mum and Rik and Em and I. That's six people, we have only 5 chairs of various heights, 5 sets of cutlery and 4 plates. Oh well we'll just have to get pissed and not worry about it.

We have discovered that there is a wireless internet connection here, though we can't establish whose it is or why it's here at the moment. I can't say it's troubled me overly. It means I have the internet at home so I shall be spending far more time tossing myself senseless whilst Em isn't around updating things on here and getting some more fiction and other writing done. Of course what I'm supposed to be doing is looking for a job but I've already spent 2 hours doing that tonight and I'm rather bored of it.

I've got to do something productive with my time or I'll go bloody nuts. I recently re-read the entire Lord of The Rings trilogy and it took far too little time. My brain is about to start making trouble for me if I don't find something to do and there's only so much tennis I can play. I have started playing chess again but I'm not too good at it. I guess a proper job is the only solution. I don't want a job I want to spend all day at the beach. It's only accross the road, I wouldn't even have to walk far. Oh well, back to the slog, I'll see if I can find some funny jobs to write about...

Bowls update...

Bowls proved typically sedate, sadly, but with a few interesting additions.

There was the ever predictable cold fizzy alchohol, which combined with the high temperature made for a slightly hazy experience. But what really made it for me was the four-piece jazz band who played loungecore/cool-jazz versions of contemporary hits. My favourite was probably Guns 'n' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine which was very good indeed. Radiohead's Creep wasn't bad either and the couple of Red Hot Chili Peppers songs I heard from them were pretty good too.

Lawn bowls is quite unnecessarily difficult. Why people take it up at retirement when at best they have only 2 decades to practice is quite beyond me (and no they don't bowl overarm here).

Bowls & football

Going bowling this aftertnoon with work...

...Crown Green bowls. Yes the 'Pensioners in White' sport. It is unbelievably popular here, every suburb seems to have it's own club which is well used.

This may have something to do with the Aussies winning the Bowls World Cup some years ago, apparently. The Aussies, by their own admission, take no interest in a sport until they can win it and just don't talk about it if they lose.

Imagine the fervour a few weeks ago when the 'Socceroos' qualified for the World Cup, you know the real World Cup, football with a round ball. You have to call it 'Soccer' here because 'Football' means AFL and 'Footy' means rugby, usually rugby league.

I watched a documentary about the origins of Aussie rules football a few weeks ago. The game was developed by Tom Wills a Rugby School alumnus from the rules of Rugby football and an Aboriginal game played with a stuffed possum - I kid you not.

Tom Wills coached a team of Aboriginals to play rugby despite the fact that the Aboriginals were responsible for his father's death and was a bit of a visionary as far as Australian sport is concerned. Unfortunately he was a raging alchoholic and stabbed himself to death in a fit of Delerium Tremens.

Frankly I'd rather go bowling than play either Rugby or Aussie Rules, though given the natural competetiveness of the average Aussie I'm wondering if they haven't made up some new rather more physical rules of their own. Am I going to come back from bowls black and blue? Updates as they happen.

Nothing happens, no one notices.

Most of the news programmes over here have a section entitled ‘Around Australia’ or somesuch. Some of the channels devote a full half-hour slot to covering the news from all over the nation. The trouble is that Australia is, as has been pointed out before, quite big and has not very many people in the empty bits. This makes Australian regional news a bit like regional news from other parts of the world on a slow news day.

One particular item in the news from the ACT (hover pointer over acronym for definition) was on the fact that bushfire victims get Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This in itself is not exactly surprising, bushfires are absolutely cataclysmic in scale and anyone caught in one could really be forgiven for thinking that nature was trying to wipe them out. The story was aimed at unpicking whether this had been acknowledged and enough support had been given.

The article had a slightly accusatory note to it and contained an interview that suggested, however subtly, that not everything had been done to support these people. However, the interviewee seemed particularly well adjusted for someone that had been trapped in their house by a gargantuan fire. She was able to articulate how she had felt at the time and that recollecting the event made her shake physically. In short she had been given two years of ongoing state funded counselling. The end of the article was essentially a voiceover from the reporter stating that an independant oversight body had concluded that the government had gone well out of its' way to make sure that everyone experiencing ill effects from being caught in the fires was well supported. Non story? Kind of.

What's being said is that bushfires have a well documented effect on people and that support has been provided in a timely and effective manner. The editorial team were trying to force a good news story (government provides excellent support to victims of bushfire) into the shape of a bad news story (government fails in duty of care to provide adequate support to victims of bushfire). The tendency towards tabloid journalism, of which this is a symptom is absolutely rife here. This seems to be a global phenomenon which is infecting every media type and angecy but the quality of investigative journalism in Australia appears particularly low and is often unnecessarily confrontational. Investigative style is often adopted to seem professional rather than because there is a specific need for it. Reportage seems unnaffected but even this isn't great. A lot of the time you get the feeling that the news format is being copied from abroad as is the stiff exterior adopted by most reporters, especially as a lot of the international news is bought from Reuters, The BBC, ABC(America) and others. This is in such sharp contrast to the character of the people that it is almost comical. Australia is still finding it's national voice but it isn't more than a few years away I think.

Even when there are genuinely large regional events the pragmatic Australian national character essentially renders them non-events. As an example a few days ago Darwin was hit by an earthquake rating 5.3 on the Richter scale. 5.3 whilst you can feel it, isn't huge but it was enough for a murder trial to be interupted and it is scientifically quite interesting. What renderred this a non-story was the fact that the editor of this piece had chosen to include a vox-pop from a very typical Aussie whose reaction to an earthquake was typically low key:

"Yeah, I felt it but to be honest it wasn't much and I wasn't sure that anything had happened. But when I looked around the office everyone else had felt it too and some of the light fittings were wobbling."

Perhaps this muted reaction is because earlier in the year Darwin had a much bigger earthquake which was some 15 times more powerful. Would you beleive it earthquake fatigue!

Other brilliant stories included, Brave Children Rewarded, Again (Melbourne) and Local Dignatory Switches on Christmas [Tree] Lights in Shopping Mall (Perth). Out of the two the Melbourne story was perhaps the worst. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the kids who were genuinely heroic in a "pull you out from under a collapsed wall" kind of way. As is usual for this kind of event there were lots of fawning adults and all the kids stood around with a look on their faces that says: 'Is all this really necessary? You'd have done what I did or you wouldn't be allowed to call youself a human being.' Funniest of all were the firemen who have to turn up to functions like this in uniform and look very solemn, pretend they aren't looking for recruits or thinking'Thank God I'm not on watch today, I am so sick of pulling kittens out of trees'.

The C word

Okay there's a month to go you are now allowed to use the 'C' word. No not that one, Christmas!

The Christmas trees have magically appeared in the AMP building and are tastefully decked out company livery. Navy blue baubles, lovely. I have to admit I am having trouble taking Christmas seriously over here. Decorations seem a little silly when it 's warm outside. Being colonised from the Northern Hemisphere there is still a British feel to the decorations; there's things like plastic holly included in them which looks badly out of place, not to mention the occasional snowflake motif which is so ridiculous you actually do a double take when you walk past it.

There are definite advantages to being in Sydney for Christmas: the food, the weather, the food, then there's the weather to think of. Christmas dinner this year will be taken on the balcony overlooking the beach (or actually on the beach). Prepare for a jealousy inducing photo-fest.

My commiserations to the American in Lynn, Masachusetts that found the Christmas post. Clearly preparing for big Thanksgiving weekend they were trying to find out how long you have to cook a 24lb stuffed turkey, to which there is only one answer: you need to have started already!

I suppose I'd better do some work. Boring.

Swimming in the dark = pissing in the wind

Swimming in the dark is a bad idea. Swimming in the dark when you've had a few beers and a few mojitos is a positively stupid idea.

Given that I know that why on earth did I decide to do it? Maybe it had something to do with the beers and the cocktails. I now have a graze on my forehead on top of a fairly sizeable lump. Mercifully it doesn't look too bad but I wasn't in particularly good shape on Sunday.

How did I do it? Well the pool light wasn't working and I decided I would swim the length of the pool underwater. In my defence this was a feat I had accomplished several times already that night. I executed a perfect flat racing dive and kicked out hard a la the Thorpedo. With no light on in the water the far wall was all but invisible and I lost count of my strokes and collided with the wall at the end of a full breastroke pull.

My immediate reaction was unprintable, and not just because I was underwater. It probably went something like:

THUNK!FizzbubbleUCK...gurgle...UNTINGWALL...splashglub...OW!

I rebounded about a meter from the end of the pool and surfaced in a dazed fountain of cursewords. On checking that I still had my head I was duly satisfied that I did and decided that perhaps that hadn't hurt as much as it felt like it had. I relaxed and turned to exchange pleasanties with others in the pool. 'Bloody hell mate, you're bleeding!'. Bugger.

Having showered and dried myself off it still didn't hurt as much as it should. I sat down to watch a movie, drank lots of water and passed out about half an hour in. Woke up, drank some more water, passed out. Woke up, drank some more water, moved to bed, passed out but could still hear what was going on around me. I couldn't move off the bed, not even when it was being shifted to try and extract the rabbit from underneath.

No it wasn't a concussed fantasy, there actually was a rabbit under the bed, a real live rabbit. His name is Sam and he belongs to Stacey one of our guests at the barbecue that had preceded the swimming in the dark incident. Sam is a very well behaved house rabbit. The front door to the flat had been open all night and he hadn't even tried to make a break for it. I did feel it my duty to point out to Stacey that whilst we had said that it was a Bring Your Own type event, I had honestly expected the meat to be slightly less fresh and mobile than this. Initially there was laughter but then I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to cook the rabbit. This isn't fair in my book, I love rabbit and someone had brought a fresh one to a barbecue at my house.

BYO is an Aussie institution. Most licensed restaurants allow you to bring your own wine with a nominal corkage charge and when you are invited to a 'barbie' by default you would expect to take your own meat and beer. This works extremely well and removes a lot of the hassle from having a bbq. Paper plates remove the washing up and quick lighting charcoal removes much of the trauma of lighting the grill.

Most Aussies seem to have gas barbeques, which you would have thought was against their religion but in fact given the amount of barbecues thay have it's quite a sensible idea. Propane does away with a vast amount of the mess and fuss and also allows you to take the bbq around the place with you. State legislation aimed at reducing bush fires apparently classifies a charcaol grill as an open fire and a propane one as a self-contained grill, which I guess is fair enough. Aussies have so many barbecues that many of the flats we've looked at have ports in the garden that allow you to plug your barbecue into the mains gas, which is rather neat.

Anyway, back to me. I tried to get up on Sunday I honestly did but I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Poor Emily was left to start packing the flat into boxes on her own whilst I drifted in and out of consciousness on the sofa in front of the cricket. I could regard this as revenge for me having to pack up and ship out all of our belongings from London, but I'm not that petty.

We shall be moving south from Coogee where we currently are, to Maroubra Beach. Good view, stunning apartment, no pool but you can't have it all. We are moving to a 2 bed apartment over Christmas and a 1 bed in January. Pictures as I have them.

Some changes

Regular visitors to the site (Dad, Chris, Ben and Dave) will notice that there have been some relatively large changes to the way this site appears.

Most noteably the intelligent expand/collapse code for the main posts for which I have to credit ChuBlogga!, who I must also link to because of the discovery of Star Wars Transformers.

I have also added an expandable linklist in the sidebar showing all the links as well as the randomly selected link. I have also hidden the archives in the same way and sorted them from oldest to newest.

Most of the code for these changes is available through the Blogger Hacks page, but quite a lot of it requires a bit of knowledge about JavaScript and CSS. Anyone struggling with other bits of code should also have a look at the W3Schools HTML tutorials.

The biggest change though has been working out the new comments code which has caused all kinds of formatting problems. From now on you will see that I am using Blogger's own commenting rather than the old HaloScan service. This is for the sake of simplicity as well as the fact that it allows me to add features like listing the commenter's names underneath the post. I have tried to make everyone's comments appear in a different colour but because of some techie reasons I won't go into this hasn't worked the way I thought it would. I am working on some more JavaScript to sort this out but it will be a long time coming.

I have also written some code to allow any number of different bits of text to appear in the comment link (attempts to focus etc.). These currently range from 'still fuzzy' at zero comments, to 'this post has achieved nirvana' at more than ten. If anyone can come up with better things than I please feel free to suggest them. Also please feel free to copy the code which you can do by right clicking and selecting 'view source' in most cases.

Now all I need to do is create some kind of category system for the posts, which as I've said before is a right ballache at the moment. What I really want is for blogger to create their own! Come on blogger, categories, categories, categories!