'Aving A Baby!

If you're on my Facebook, you would have already seen the announcement, but for anyone that hasn't seen it, or wanted to know a little more, yes it's true, Kellie and I are expecting our first baby together!

If we're honest, we've known for a few weeks - since she was only three weeks in fact - but have kept it quiet, waiting for that magic "Twelve Weeks" to roll around before announcing it to everyone. We were about to keep it between us for a couple of weeks before we had to tell nosey children and mothers, but other than that, it's been all very hush-hush.

Which is quite impressive, as someone has been sick as a dog.

Yes, after many years of going on about how wonderful pregnancy is, how amazing it is, what an incredible feeling it is, Kellie is eating those words. Well, I say eating... Hurling those words would be more accurate.

Clearly, she never anticipated how awkward things would be carrying Dan-Spawn. Everything has been making her sick, from the smell of the oven, the kitchen, the bathroom (the NEW bathroom I might add!), to the smell of... water... And it's not just morning sickness. Afternoon sickness. Evening sickness. Night time sickness. Sometimes she throws up, sometimes it's just bile, sometimes, she just sits in front for the toilet retching for a while.

Of course, the downside to finding out so early, is that seems to be taking forever. Today we had our twelve week scan, but it's taken forever to get here. Everything seems to be normal, the sizes are right, and in true Dan-Spawn fashion, the Tadpole is a naughty little thing. S/he would not sit still for the measurements, and was wiggling around on the screen... Arms and legs flailing around...

Like I said, naughty. CLEARLY takes after mummy.

I would be lying if I didn't say I was a little worried or nervous, but the special midwife we saw today put my mind at ease, and has sorted us a referral to Guys & St Thomas' Hospital, London, to see the Fetal Cardiologists at the Evelina Children's Hospital. That scan won't be untill late January, early February though, and then we have the 20/21 week anatomy scan at Basildon.

All in all, we're all very happy, our kidsarre happy, and our parents are happy, and we're all looking forward to late-June when the Tadpole puts in an appearance.

Besides, what's one more kid where there are already four of them knocking around!!

Here are the three pictures we had taken today during the scan. For a change, they are all pretty clear too!

NO idea why this one is upside down... Grr...

0ddness II - A New Beginning

For those of you living under a rock, or more specifically, that aren't on my Facebook (OR have me muted... I know who you are...) you will be aware that August has been, well, mentally manic at Chez 0ddness.

With it being Summer Holidays and all the kids being home, with Kellie working, it was decided that - what the hell - we'd sodding well move house too. Because why not?

We've been wanting to move for ages. Chez 0ddness is was beyond cramped. Granted, it was a three bedroom town house (ground floor, middle floor, top floor) BUT it was narrow. For a regular sized family, it was a little tight, but for the tribe...

Put it this way - our bedroom was in the dining room.

Finally, we found a house that we loved, and thus started the long process of acquiring said-house. It was lovely - big, open, spacious, big kitchen, big lounge, lovely garden, big living room... And finally, mid-August, we were given the green light.

And thus began one of the most stressful self-induced hellish fortnights of my life. I won't go into too much detail. It wasn't the move per sé, and it wasn't leaving Chez 0ddness exactly... It was the mess. The chaos. The disorganisation. The "Shit There Is So Much To Do But We Seem To Be Getting No Where" feeling...

My brain isn't wired for this sort of thing. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's the loss of control, the upheaval, even the change... But I was a wreck. In agony and pushing through by day, sobbing in the dark by night.

People kept saying to me "It'll be worth it in the end" and "Think of how wonderful it'll be" and similar phrases. But they didn't help.

Being told those things, while literally surrounded by boxes, rubbish sacks, mess, dust and a list as long as my arm...

Quite how I didn't just run and hide I don't know.

Surprisingly, we were pretty much ready *cough*though not really*cough* in record time. The weekend of the 30th/31st August become Official 0ddness Moving Weekend, and all troops were mobilised. The kids were "helping", Kerry and James were slaving away, Mick from work helped, the 0dd Mother and the 0dd Mother-in-Law helped, Callum & Kathleen were beavering away with Dom & Molly...

Again, hell, chaos, nightmare, mess, disorganisation...

BUT by late Saturday evening, the new front door was closed, everyone had a bed, and all was quiet. We sat and ate takeaway on the living room floor. We could breathe.

We were in.

And thus begins a new chapter in our lives. Chez 0ddness is no more. Chez English is the in thing now. WE have a home. Kellie doesn't "live with me" any more. We live together.

Yes, we are still working our way through boxes. Yes, there is still plenty to do. Yes, I still want to run and hide and scream and cry. BUT there are no more deadlines. No more time limits. I cleared through a few boxes in the living room yesterday. Today, I might not do anything.

I want to thank everyone that helped out once more... Because without everyone helping, we'd never have managed it. Kerry & James were absolute troopers - Kerry had to drive the truck (I know, a woman driving a truck! AND there were ZERO deaths as a direct result of her driving!), and James was DIY Man (because I am still not allowed to use power tools). Callum & Kathleen (Kerry & James' two eldest) helped the kids sort their rooms. Our mums were amazing help - the 0dd Mother-in-Law was driving backwards and forwards, carting things around, buying food, and helping with the packing & clearing up, while the 0dd Mother sorted all the houseplants, made up big garden pots of flowers, and has been helping out with other bits as well. Mick from Work helped James with some of the DIY, and was brilliant at shifting and straightening heavy furniture. The kids were all great, helping out, carrying, lifting, clearing, tidying...

And for you that could see I was a mess, and keeping me sane via messaging, thank you... From convincing me not to kill anyone, for telling me murder is bad, and for keeping me as sane (yes yes, I know...) as humanly possible...

Thank you everyone.

I am aware that there is a distinct lack of pictures of the house so far... And I will remedy this as soon as possible. I was hoping to take pictures without boxes in frame, but suspect that might be a while away. So I WILL do pictures soon. Suffice to say, the house is like us. A bit strange, a bit 0dd, a bit weird, and the outside doesn't tell you anything about what's going on on the inside.

Welcome to Chez English.

Way To Stereotype

I am, in general, a very very tolerant person. I don't care what colour your skin is, I don't care who you love, I don't care who you say thank you to at bedtime, and I don't care if you talk to a spirit, power, supreme being, or an invisible goat called Jeremy.

Be nice to me, I'll be nice to you. Do what you want, don't force it on others. Live your life your way, be mindful of how others live their lives.

There are, however, still people in the world that have Stereotypes sooo far up their own bottoms it is worrying. And I don't mean The Common Person On The Street, I am talking about people that wear a shiny badge that says "I'm a politician" or "I'm in charge of a massive company" or whoever.

I WAS about to do a Musical Monday post, but decided to skim through the news, where my usual repository for face-palming at  humanity - Sky News (also known as "Wow, Let's Sex Up This Headline!") were covering the missing Malaysian Airways 777-200.

Now, I get they have to cover all bases, and I get that they are probably quite stressed out and trying to do everything they can. One of their lines of enquiry seems to be these people that managed to get onboard using stolen passports - which is a little worrying considering how tight security is supposed to be in air travel these days. While discussing this avenue of investigation, I was taken aback by one single line, a quote from Malaysia's Civil Aviation Chief caught my eye, and pretty much made me shake my head.

Now, I am sorry, but someone that is "In Charge" of anything should be somewhat less of a dick as far as I am concerned. I completely get that they have to explore the possibility of terrorism in the disappearence of this flight. I get that the "climate of the world" is somewhat tense. But it seems to me that he is dismissing that line of enquiry because the chaps using the stolen passports were not "Asian-looking"

My first thought was the chap that tried to blow up the explosives in his underwear on Christmas Day 2009 while heading into Detroit. Despite his name, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was also "not Asian-looking" being that he came from Nigeria.

My second line of thought was "What the holy-hell does an "Asian-looking man" look like anyway!?" Asia is, as far as I remember from Geography, a fairly large place. I mean, bigger than Belgium at least.

Side note: Everything always seems to be "The Size of Belgium" when they talk about big things. Don't believe me? Click that link!

Anyway.

Asia is effing big. Like, BIG big, and covers 80% of the Earths land, 60% of the World population (4.3 billion people, apparently) and a bit of research tells me it ranges from Egypt, up past Turkey, Western Russian, across the top of The World, down the side of the Pacific, through the Indonesia archepegalo, and then all along the Bay of Bengal, around India into the Arabian Sea, and finally up the Red Sea, back to Egypt (via Suez).

For clarity, that is 48 different countries (and, apparently, parts and areas of Turkey & Russia sometimes count) for one somewhat-larger-than-Belgium continent. When you think how different all these people look - from the Japanese to the East, to the Turkish to the West, there is no "look" for an Asian person.

THIS is how pissed off the quote has made me - I've been researching all this for this blog post!

It is also worth noting that the aircraft was travelling from Kuala Lumpa, Malaysia to Beijing, China - both of which come under Asia - so I would imagine quite a lot of the passengers "look Asian"

But I digress. And breath.

It just really pisses me off that in this day and age where we should be less "He's Asian, must be a terrorist" and realise that any nut-job can be radicalised by any other nut-job, and be turned against the world for ANY reason. Religion is a biggie, but then there are the Land Disputes out there too that create radicalised people.

/rant


PS: If I suddenly vanish, it's because MI5 or similar security agencies found some of my Google searches for this post, and decided they were worrying enough to lock me away. Currently I can barely walk, let alone be a nut-job or a terrorist... So please remember to get me released ASAP - I don't think I'd do well in jail with my baby-soft skin ;)

Faith in Humanity

I am a firm believer that, in our world, there are more good people than bad. It's just that the bad people grab the headlines.

This last couple of weeks I've been very tight lipped on certain subjects, and have kept my thoughts to myself, but after an hour on Facebook, I've decided to not bother.

Everything that is going on in the world at the moment makes me sick, and the sheer levels of hypocrisy being banded around shakes my original belief that people are inherently good.

For starters, everything kicking off in North Korea is worrying. On top of this, the ongoing hell that is Syria had me shaking my head... Why? Because the superpowers-that-be, who claim they will fight for the weak are no where to be seen. When Saddam rolled into Kuwait, we were there. When it was decided he had weapons of mass destruction, we were there. When it was decided Afghanistan was harboring bad guys, we were there. When Libya kicked off, we were there.

Everyone cried that it was just for the oil, but my faith in humanity was adamant that, no, we were helping. How wrong was I?

Very.

Syria has the same uprising that we helped with in Libya, but are we there stopping those powers that would bomb their own people? Are we fuck. North Korea, threatening thermonuclear war on everyone around them, keeping their people in poverty... Are we there stopping the crazy bastards we KNOW have a nuclear arsenal? Again, are we fuck.

In more local news, people are all still convinced that those on benefits don't deserve it, that we're all thieving, lying scumbags, and thanks to the Daily Mail, we're the sort that would set fire to our house with our kids inside, just to frame someone else. Yet while people are so busy watching those on benefits have their money reduced, they say nothing about how the government is slowly twisting the country into a former shadow of itself.  And when they bump into a little law that stops their twisting, they change the law to suit their needs.

And still more...

Margaret Thatcher died. The longest serving peacetime Prime Minister, the only female to ever hold the position. Half the country loved her, half the country hated her. And she died.

Now, even if you hated her, people singing songs and celebrating and holding parties in the street just smacks of... I don't even know the words I want to use. "Bad Taste" doesn't cover it. Disgusting, Ghoulish Behavior?

You people are a bloody joke. There are people in the world bombing their own people, yet you celebrate someone that died of old age in a hospital? You may have disliked her policies or whatever, but to CELEBRATE?

And everyone going on about how she doesn't deserve a big funeral and all the rest of it... She stated in her will that she didn't want one. SHE isn't the one demanding this, nor her family.

And yes, she has a family. A family that are having to watch people party, celebrate and cheer at her death. Most of whom, it has to be said, weren't even bloody well born when she was in power!

Have some respect, show some dignity, pretend for a minute that another human has passed away, and that us British are not wild savages, but show respect when the need arises.

Lastly, after the explosions in Boston, my first thought was of my American friends that live in that neck of the woods, and even others that may have traveled. Just over an hour after the explosions, while I'm checking in on friends, someone on my friends list posted a photo, supposedly of one of the victims... A twisted body on a stretcher, clearly of a middle eastern event, but captioned as the Boston explosion.

Said "friend" was blocked and reported.

Over the course of the evening, people posted pictures of blood-splattered sidewalks, children covered in blood, over and over... Why the hell do people think that is appropriate?! What makes ANYONE think "here's a grisly scene, I'll share that to ask my friends"

When I complained to someone, she (yes, SHE!) told me she had to raise awareness of the atrocity... And that I didn't understand!

Didn't understand! How many non-Brits have said that over the years to me since 9/11, yet in the 70s, 80s and 90s, we were getting bombed by Irish terrorists every few weeks. Parts of London were obliterated, and we don't understand terrorism?! So many times I had to change travel arrangements because part of London was shredded, or been caught on a tube because the station ahead had received a threat, or we couldn't go into that shopping centre because they were doing a controlled explosion on a suspect package...

But no, i couldn't possibly understand terrorism.

To put the cherry on the top of this ranting drivel, people sharing photos of all this - at least check your sources. Most of the shit you're spewing is fake and has nothing to do with anything.

My closing thought: imagine it was your loved ones caught up at the scene. Imagine it was your loved one that has had their limbs torn off... How would you like your friends sharing photos of your dead and dying family members?

No Wonder We Panic

For the last few winters, I've noticed a strange thing... People get worried, stressed, and on the verge of panic because of a bit of snow. As a kid, winter would roll around, mum would get in the usual amount of shopping, and when the snow floofed down...

Nothing. Nothing bad happened. The roads were usable, the schools were open, the shops were open... Some people got in an extra loaf of bread, some got in additional milk, but for the most part, life carried on.

Now, however, the forecasters predict snow two, three, even four weeks in advanced, and it's on the TV, the radio, the news covers it, Facebook and Twitter is awash with it... Week before last, the news was on, and the weather report made an actual segment of the news for the impending "Arctic Conditions"... Three weeks of heavy snow they stated. Weeks of chaos. Blizzards. Twelve inches or more of snow.

All due to start a week from this report.

A week later? Nothing. No snow, no ice... It was a bit chilly, but nothing.

A week after that - Monday just gone - and still nothing. Then, we were told Wednesday it would snow. Then Thursday. Now today, Friday, we have snow. Just a little bit. A dusting, I believe would be the best description.

For the last 48 hours, however, the news has been filled with terms that I am sure are simply there to incite us, to make us worry and panic and stress out. They alternate the measurements system too - originally, it was "Six to Twelve inches" whereas now, it's "Five to ten centimetres" 

Let's face it, if they were to stick to the same measurement and told the truth, five centimetres is two inches. Two. However, the big NUMBER at the front of the measurement is what people see.

The headlines are filled with words like "Panic" and "Chaos" and "Hell" and "Fears" and suchlike. People run out to the shops and grab loads of bread and milk and stuff... But unless you live in the countryside - the shops are open most of the time. Seven days, mostly, and a lot of you probably live near 24 hour shops.

So why grab all the bread and milk you can, why you can - worst case - slip and slide down to the nearby shop and grab a loaf.

I suspect the press fill their reports with all these "scary" buzzwords for the simple fact that in general, it wouldn't make interesting news. "Snow Expected" isn't nearly as catchy as "Britain Braced For Snow Chaos!" and people wouldn't read it and think "Oh CRAP! Must update Facebook and buy thirty pints of bread or twenty loaves of milk!"

If people would just sit, and chill out, and breath a little, they'd realise that in fact, it's not a lot of snow, if you drive according to the conditions you'll be fine, that the shops are all still open... Don't play into their hands, don't worry or stress or anything else... It's just snow. In the winter. Just like happens every winter and has done so every winter since winter was invented back in 1822.

Sign

Is it just me, or is this sign REALLY necessary!? I mean, seriously...

Isn't that akin to plonking a sign reading "GRASS" in the middle of a field?

Hmmm Oops!

So, for a change, this is not an "Oops, I did something stupid" but an Oops that we have witnessed.

Quite a big oops in fact - to the point it made it to the national news - which, to be fair, probably just wanted a change of pace whinging and whining about politicians...

Today, I had the grand plan of taking the kids up to Langdon Hills. I considered going this morning, but Molly was being collected by her Dad, so we waited till she had been collected. Dom is at his Dads, so that just left Jaysen & Tam. By about half one, we toddled off...

Halfway to the forest, the bus went through a big patch of smoke. "Hmmm, big fire somewhere..." I said to the kids in passing, and thought no more of it. A few minutes later, we saw the source - up on the hill in the actual "Langdon Hills"

I wasn't sure if it was a proper fire or someone burning wood or something similar, but the closer we got, the bigger the plume of smoke. Definitely not good. The bus slowed, we looked out the front, and saw the nice police lady closing the road...

Doh.

With a mile or so still to go, we jumped off and decided to walk. We could only get so far until we saw it was the Triangle Shops on fire.

And I mean on fire. Flames in the air, thick black smoke blowing everywhere, fire engines, police cars - the only saving grace was the fact there were no ambulances... No Ambulances = No Injuries.

As we got closer, the police waved us away - the smoke was nasty, and there was a LOT of firemen running around. Engines from Basildon were present, as well as Grays and Rayleigh - six in all, plus a ladder with a water jet attached too. Police all over the place, dog units, blockades, the whole shebang.

We weren't allowed to walk up the road to where we wanted to go, so had to find our way through the housing estate. We kinda sorta meandered and eventually found our way through to the top of the estate. Looking back, it was pretty chaotic. The smoke had flames leaping in it, fire engines were moving all around trying to reposition themselves...

The picture really doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea.

And so we plodded on - we wanted a walk around the forest and have a trudge around, but the flames were on our mind the whole time... After getting to the top of the hill at The Crown, we had another look back - we were further away but higher up, but none the less...

The smoke was thick and heavy and stayed really low - I've since seen the Fire Brigade issue warnings to the residents nearby to keep their doors and windows closed due to the nature of the smoke.

From that point on, we were in the forest, so could see nothing... After an hour or so, we could hear several dull thumps that sounded like something going bang. Here and there, we could see through the gaps in the forest, and see the smoke billowing for a goodly distance.

After plodding through muddy forest paths, chilling on the swings, and having a good time out in the fresh air, we decided it was time to head home. However, it occurred to us that thanks to the road closure, there would be no buses up there. Which meant walking back down the hills, back past the fire, and all the way back into Laindon.

Doh.

However, this wouldn't be a story if it were that easy. No no...

We went down the hills and back to where we needed to go. Yep, the road was still closed. AND the footpaths around them. The only other option was to go miles out of our way. Literally, miles.

So we tried a side road, and a side road and - oops, we came out behind the fire.

The shops were gone... Some had burned right through, most were unidentifiable as their original purpose, and firemen had hoses running everywhere - including the crane-hose-ladder thing.

Despite our wrong turn, we tried to head around and past to get towards Laindon... But we could go no further. So we had to back up again, and try going around, but the estate is like a mazey-warren, and unlike most men, I asked someone going by if they knew an alternative route.

"You'll have to go through the nature reserve"

Great... While I have no issue with forests in the day or night, I am knackered, exhausted and in agony. The kids are knackered too - we're all out of shape thanks to a lazy few weeks, but we were stuck on the wrong side of a massive accident.

So, without any real option (aside from walk miles, or wait for the road blocks to be lifted) we head back up the hills and into the woods...

Another three quarters of an hour of plodding and trudging through soggy woods, we managed to through to Great Berry (another housing estate), and we had to stop for me to catch my breath and push past the pain... Laindon might as well have been on the other side of the world as I was exhausted.

Thankfully, my brain pointed out we were on the other side of the railway lines - and that was my old stomping ground! Pushing on again, we made it to the bridge and crossed the road on the other side - just in time for our bus to appear!

Hurrah and Huzzah! After struggling to walk, I was able to collapse and sit.

Once home, I had a look online to see what happened, and it sounds like pretty scary stuff - some sort of electrical fault in a Chinese takeaway, and Whoosh! Timber Frame stores didn't stand a chance...

So aside from that, it was a lovely day. You can read the proper news HERE (Local News) and HERE (National News!)


Footnote: My phone battery died after taking that last photo, so no GPS. Yes, I suck. If anyone wants to get a proper GPS machine for my birthday, start saving!

Three Hundred Million Miles Later

I remember many years ago when I were a wee laddy, that going into space was a big deal. Not up there with landing-on-the-moon-big, but still big. People used to watch Shuttle launches, I remember when we flew towards a comet to investigate that (I even remember I had a broken leg at the time!) and I remember where I was when Challenger exploded.

Today, it's almost sad that we send people up into space to spend months living on a space station, and no one bats an eyelid.  People, re-read that sentence. We are sending people into space. To live on a Space Station!

HOW can that not be cool, interesting, amazing and fascinating?!

So this morning, we managed to land on Mars. MARS. A whole 'nother planet. Granted, yes, we've done it a few times before - some amazingly well, some... erm... not-so-well. Today, we landed using a whole mess of technology and ingenuity and know-how, and went from something zipping through space at a thousands of miles an hour, to a complete stop in a few minutes.

And THEN we used a fricking interplanetary crane to plonk the rover on the surface without a scratch.

From several hundred million miles away.

If you don't get what I am saying, you need to watch this video, the Seven Minutes of Terror - and you have to watch it with sound AND in full screen:



I mean, seriously?! How is that not amazing?!

And yet, most of the eyes of the world seem to be on what is essentially a glorified sports day... A man ran really fast. Good for him - he's worked hard for it, he's gotten his body to the peak of physical excellence... But he's running. One hundred meters. Quickly.

Kellie said this morning, "surely the cost of sending this thing into space would have been better spent on medicine or homelessness" and I agree - the cost of sending this thing into space, through space, and onto the surface of another planet was $2.5billion. That's a lot of money.

The Olympics? As of last month, it was at $14.8billion.

BILLION.

For the cost of the Olympics, we could have gone to Mars almost six more times.

Some might ask what the point is... And that's fair enough. For one, if we're going to go to Mars, we need to know what it's like, so there's that. Second, the science that has gone into this thing is properly high-tech, and over the coming years, it will benefit us in whatever ways it is applied by filtering down. Just like Microwaves, Nuclear Power, Medicine - I don't know what will come of it, but it will be something.

If people are willing to scream and cheer human achievement in a physical sense - he ran fast, she swam strongly - then surely the great minds that have just landed on Mars should be screamed and cheered for also?

Personally, I am amazed that such stuff is possible, and can't wait to see what comes back from the little chap trundling around on the surface of Mars.

How Very Dare I...

This morning when I fell out of bed (yes, literally, my leg was caught in the duvet) and managed to stumble downstairs (yes, again, literally...) the first thing Sky News decided to talk about - their main story before the banking stuff hit the fan - was that Fruit Shoot bottles were being recalled.

Now, according to the news then, it was due to "a safety issue" while Sky decided to demonstrate the "new style" bottles not leaking by scientifically squeezing the bottle over a glass. "...and if I squeeze, nothing comes out!" was pretty much all they covered.  Three times between half six and half seven.

Riveting stuff.

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is, but before, you popped the top, opened the sports bottle-style lid, and drank your juice. Now toddlers need to understand pop the top, push down while squeezing and sucking.

No, just... No!

However, the recall says "safety issue" which means someone somewhere has been hurt or identified something that could cause harm. The internet is doing what it does best when it doesn't know - it's guessing what the problem is which, you know, is really helpful.

Guesses (not official statements!) include the suction trapping lids, the press-down action pinching lips, the valve coming and and forming a choking hazard, and the plastic edge of the pop-open cap being sharp and causing scratches.

Britvic - the makers - have not said anything as to why they are recalling, which is just making the Web Trolls jump up and down and scream louder that it MUST be THEIR reasoning as for the recall.

Chances are it will turn out to be something really shite, like the label being wonky or something.

And my point?

Actually, I do have one.

This evening - which saw me stood waiting to go into the School Awards Presentation evening (which will be a separate blog post in a bit!) I noticed that one group of parents had a child bumbling around with one of these bottles.

Now, I say "bumbling around" as this child was about two or three. And kept putting bits of K-Nex in his mouth - little bits of metal with magnets attached if you don't know - while drinking from his new-style Fruit Shoot bottle.

Me being Me, I thought "Maybe they've not seen the news" so stepped forward, cleared my throat, and in my usual quiet-and-polite manner, said to them "I don't know if you've seen, and I don't know why it is, but those bottles have been recalled by the manufacturer as there is a safety hazard on them apparently..."

Now, I should have realised - the child is running around, drinking out a bottle, while keeping shrapnal in his mouth.

Silly Dan. Of course the parents would be very interested in a possible safety hazard of their childs drinking implement...

"Yeah, we saw. So?" came the reply.

Er... OK... "Ah, alright, just thought I would let you know in case you'd not seen it. Also - he's putting the bits of toy in his mouth while drinking."

"He'll be OK, he's always doing it."

Brilliant.

So there you have it, warning parents of possible hazards - regardless of what they may be - is clearly BAD. Additionally, if you do something lots, it apparently lowers the chance of something bad happening. I've been crossing roads for years, looks like I'm saf....

Shit...

Rant: Trusting Government

With the way the world seems to be spinning out of control, who exactly should we place our faith in?

If you've read 0ddness for any length of time, you will know I don't do politics, and I don't often discuss "Current Events" but to be honest, the way things are going, it's almost like there's little choice.

What I don't get is, Government is broken. We have a Coilition Government running the country that - by all accounts - are running it straight into the ground. Cutting this, slashing that, changing the other. Hospitals, Military, Schools - all the important things are losing money. People often use the phrase "Broken Britain" and it's not far wrong.

The Politicians make lots of promises, they say we WILL do this, and we WON'T do that, and they come into power - I should add, that the coalition running the country formed a government, they were not voted into power. So they make all their promises, get into the driving seat, and one by one, they break their promises, and at the same time make it harder to kick them out of power.

Then it comes to light that a good proportion of them are lying, thieving scumbags, taking OUR money with their bogus reimbersment claims. When they get caught, they use the excuse "But everyone ELSE was doing it!" and they get told "Well, don't do it again" and a small handful are used as sacrificial lambs to show "They are taking a hard stance on bogus claims" and then it's forgotten...

Then there's the different political parties. People might think I am having a pop at the Conservatives/Liberal Democrats, but no no... Some would argue that we are in this mess now because the previous Labour government ran the country like it was one big party, splashing money on everything they wanted, setting up sub-sections for each department that needed money, let the banks run riot around the city... They TOO promise to do this or not do that, and then with a hearty "LOL!" they do the opposite.

Then you can say the government before them made so many changes, it was easy for them to do what they wanted, to spend money like it was water... Then the government before that caused it by doing X, Y or Z, and before that... And so on and so on.

To sum up: HOW can you trust government?

Then there's the press. Everything going on with News Corp or whatever they are called, the phone hacking scandal, the politicians involved... HOW can the press get so much power, they can get the government to do certain things?

And as far as I am concerned, if one group of papers has dodgy practices, there's a bloody good chance that most of the others have bent the rules, snapped the rules, gone all-out and butt-f$cked the rules completely.

They point a finger at the politicians, saying "He said I could!" and they point one back saying "Nu-UH!" and they point back, and they point back, etc etc... And when everyone allegedly involved is sat down and questioned about what they did and what they said, they all suddenly have the worst memory ever. "I don't recall that..." or "I cannot remember that event" or similar.

And after it's all done, once again there are a few sacrificial lambs to show "the hard stance being taken" and within a month, it will all be forgotten

To sum up: HOW can you trust the press?

And lastly - everything that is going on with the banks at the moment, trading millions and billions of our money, giving their bosses millions of pounds in bonuses - even when the bank is f$cking everything up - and running roughshod over the countries economy...

Then there is scandal after scandal in their own ranks - the finacial markets are clearly broken, hence the sodding great recession the whole world seems to be suffering with. The big banks losing X-billion pounds thanks to some trader making a couple of mistakes. Rate fixing scandals...

Again, the government is involved, it wants to do this, it wants to do that - the banks kick and scream and threaten to take their ball away, so the government doesn't carry out its threats. And again, there are members of government involved - some have shares, some are on boards... I am not talking just Conservatives here either, Labour was clearly very pro-banker too when it was in power.

With all the scandal and dodgy trading and everything else, the banks mess up the economy, they gamble with OUR money, and the public cry out, and near the end, there are one or two sacrificial lambs - lambs that no doubt will receive multi-million pound golden handshakes regardless of the fact they are quitting because they messed up - and once the dust has settled, it will all be forgotten...

To sum up: HOW can you trust the banks?

So government is full of liars and back-stabbers, and sum are probably corrupt and can be bought. The press does what it likes, and has a foot in the door of government. The banks do what they like, and also have their fingers in government-based pies...

What the flying fornication is going on with this country?!

I was taught to believe that the government - the people that run the country FOR the people of the country - that they are good, and honest, and upright, and each and every Member of Parliament is there to represent us, our best interests, our concerns, to listen and understand what us THE PEOPLE want and need. And yet, they do what they want, spend our money on what they want, and when us THE PEOPLE stand up and say "NO! We do NOT like that, we do NOT agree!" the government give us another hearty "LOL!" and do exactly what they want.

They do not listen, they do not understand, and clearly, they do not care. It doesn't matter who is in power, it doesn't matter what promises they make, they just cannot be trusted.

And clearly, they know that us THE PEOPLE can do precisely nothing about it. Petitions don't work, Strikes don't work, Protests don't work, hell, RIOTS did nothing except make those in power say "LOL! Broken Britain, parents need to be tougher!" and bloody well blamed us THE PEOPLE for it.

If you are rich, have rich friends in the press or in banks, or can drum up a shit-ton of money, THEN you can play Government with all the other rich-people-with-powerful-friends that sit on the front row... Otherwise, you sit elsewhere in the great big room, and can shout and scream until your heart is content, but the people at the front clearly don't give a shit.

Do you ever get the feeling it's all going to shit?

Best Headline For A While

You have six to chose from: Which is the best of all of them do you think?

Good ol' Sky News for getting straight to the point... And in case you want to know more, here's a link to that story. Nice!

There's A Surprise

The last couple of days, I've noticed a story that many are surprised and/or shocked over. Strangely, I can't see WHY people are shocked or surprised...

A woman in New Zealand has fallen over dead because she drank two gallons/ten litres of Coca Cola a DAY. You can read the article here. The joke of it is, the coroner has stated it may have contributed to her death.

May.

Now, when I first read the headlines on my homepage, my first thought was "drinking ten litres of anything is going to kill you" and when I read it out, Kellies first words were pretty much along the same lines.

After reading the article, the coroner and Coca Cola have themselves said drinking excessive liquids in any form is going to shuffle you off this mortal coil. I think it's also referred to as Water Intoxication - athletes suffer from it if they drink too much in a short space of time. She also suffered from Caffeine Toxicity AND Cardiac Arrhythmia (which is, essentially, her heart wasn't beating properly).

Added to this, her family are quoted as saying they knew she was addicted by her symptoms, saying she would:

"go crazy if she ran out... she would get shakes, withdrawal symptoms, be angry, on edge and snappy"

Now, wouldn't you have thought they would have helped her out in the first place? If you see someones habit is adversely affecting their life, wouldn't you try helping them?

Then they go on as saying "maybe it needs warning signs"

No, it doesn't. There's no warning signs on packs of sausages stating that if you eat a hundred a day your heart will explode for the same reason:

Common Sense.

Yes, I know, it's a dying trait amongst the human race as a whole, and if it comes to it, we should put warning signs on everything in existence.

Do Not Jump Off Cliffs
Do Not Insert Genitals Into Lions Mouth
Do Not Poke Eyes With Knife

And on and on... If common sense doesn't prevail, maybe all humans need to learn a new phrase: Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should.

And I'm sorry, if you think it's fine drinking or eating THAT MUCH stuff on a regular basis, then don't be surprised when you too fall over dead.

Well Done Idiots!

Nice to see Sky News being dicks again with their stunning picture-captioning skills. This report is about computer cookies you get from webpages, and can be viewed in full here.

Clicky to Embiggen

If you click the pic, read the caption under the picture bottom right... A picture of - you guessed it - ACTUAL COOKIES! No, it was clearly too much to show an example of the amount of cookies in a Windows folder, they had to show ACTUAL COOKIES. And then point out they were "of the inedible sort"

Bravo.

Don't Mess With Our Street

There are not many on this planet that I would consider to be the very dregs of society, but none come closer to the top of the list more than Drunk Drivers.

If you're going to have a few drinks, then decide to drive home, you deserve more than the law can throw at you. And by "more" I mean longer, harder sentences, and more severe punishments. If you cause injury to others or worse - then you should have the book thrown at you. Literally.

But I digress.

Last night, I was a poorly boy, and just after 7pm, I went to bed.

At 9pm, I was woken by a sickening crunch - the sound of metal-on-metal, followed by an engine revving wildly, followed by another crunch, and a third, final crash. I jumped out of bed and flew to the window and looking outside, the road and pavement outside the house was showered in glass and bits of "stuff" of various shapes and sizes. Kellie ran outside in her dressing gown, phone in hand. Looking side to side, down the road - some eight houses away - was a smashed up car, belonging to an elderly neighbour. Looking the opposite way, the culprit had managed to embed his car into the front of a parked transit van.

While throwing on my clothes to go downstairs, I heard several shouting voices:

"He's trying to run for it!"
"F$cking grab him!"
"Get the c**t!"

Followed by the sound of the wind being knocked from someones lungs.

By the time I arrived downstairs and outside, the first police car had arrived on the scene.

Everywhere outside was showered in glass, plastic, twisted metal, bits of plastic, pieces of rubber. The neighbours had come out en mass to see what was happening. Kellie was talking to a couple of neighbours, one of which was the old man that owned the first trashed vehicle. Bless him he was all shaky and upset, but worse, he only got the car in November.

Looking at it now, it looked like it was written-off. It had been parked in the road. Now, with it's back to us, the left-side of the car was crashed and scraped against a lamppost and street sign. The front right of the car was twisted and bent, and the back-right tyre was at a ninety-degree angle to the rest of the car.

Ouch.

The offending car was in all sorts of a state, the side I could see was scraped and buckled, the wheel was twisted, there was smoke or steam coming out from the engine, and the drivers door was open. The car was empty.

The front of the car was in as much as a state as the front of the van it had hit - clearly at speed. Twisted metal, broken glass, shrapnel littered the area. Something leaked from the two vehicles too.

The whole street was lit by the strobe lights of the second and third police cars to arrive, and the paramedic car that arrived shortly afterwards. As we watched, the driver was hoisted out from under a small group of lads a dozen or so feet away by a couple of burly policemen and "pressed" against a police car.

The stupid bastard could hardly stand. While the police searched him, two other officers held him up. Every time they relaxed their grip on him, he started to fall down. Paralytic, would be the best description. Blind-Drunk also fits.

As soon as the cuffs were slapped on him, he started. Shouting and screaming, help me, help me... Crying about how hurt he was... He was chucked into the back of the police car, and the paramedic checked him over. Considering how fast he must have been going to shift a car from road to the pavement (through a sign post) and to carry on and smash into a van, the paramedic left him in the care of the police...

After talking to Kellie and the neighbours, a clearer picture of what happened emerged. The drunk was going fast along Long Riding even after 70 yards, but had little control over the car. From the correct side of the road, he lost control and veered onto the wrong side, smashing into the old neighbours car, which was thrown off the road, crushed against the lamppost and smashed a signpost half-over.

From there, he decided the road was for losers, and travelled - at speed - along the footpath by the street, past our house, then back onto the road, where he veered across both lanes, then over-corrected back across onto the wrong lane, and finally, ended up smashing headlong into the van. From there, he tried to run, where the community spirit of Long Riding stood firm, and instead of letting the fucker escape, he was wrestled down to the ground.


Kellie was up and about in the living room when she heard the first smash - the neighbours car being hit - and rushed to the window, where she was greeted by the flash of a car shoot past our window fifteen feet away.

Seeing it veer then crash, she grabbed the phone, dialled 999, and shot out the front. Bless her, in a flash of adrenaline and panic, she wasn't quite firing on all cylinders. From what she tells me, the conversation went as follows:

999: Emergency, which service please?
Kellie: Erm... Um... Er... (She is mentally ticking off the different services) Police please.
999: Police, what's your emergency please?
Kellie: There's been a car crash!
999: OK, whereabouts are the cars please?
(Now, what the nice man on the end of the phone meant was, whereabouts has the accident happened, so we can send the men with flashing blue lights)
Kellie: It's smashed into a van!
999: And which road is this?
Kellie: Long Riding... OOH! The driver is running away!
999: Can you see what else is happening?
Kellie: He's running - oh, wait, no - they got him.

After that, it was addresses, contact details and general questions, but she was quite shaken up bless her. After we came in, she had to have a cup of tea and sat to chill out for a while.

We're just thankful that there was no one else around when it happened. Had someone been parked outside our house and sat in their car, they would have been hurt. Worse, had it been Thursday evening, Jaysen would have been on the path outside home at the same time he was speeding along it.

What-Ifs, I know, but scary stuff. Fingers crossed the police throw the book at him, and he ends up in jail. Kudos to the police, the emergency operator and the paramedics for getting here really quickly. The three trashed vehicles were gone later that evening, and the only evidence that anything had happened was some debris scattered around, and a "School Ahead" sign at a jaunty 70-degree angle - which was fixed the following morning.

The moral? Don't drink and drive. Ever. Additionally, if you DO, and try to flee the scene of the accident, don't do it on Long Riding - you can't outrun an entire street that is pissed at you.

Brilliant Reporting (Again)

Very brief post as I don't know how long this story will remain on Sky News for before it's edited... However. Some sleazy reporter borrowed a police horse or something, and the Prime Minister said he probably rode on it.

Now, I get there are probably undertones of corruption and stuff - but I don't care. Politicians & Reporters all seem to be a bit flexible with the truth.

Not the point of this post.

Here is the link, but I have screenshots in case it's changed.

Screenshot:

Obviously, it's a Clicky to Embiggen situation.

Here is the part that made me genuinely LOL my little heart out:

 READ that caption. "A Typical Horse"

Who the buggery needs a picture of "A Typical Horse" ?!  But it gets better - usually you read left to right, and look at the images, left to right, as you would in a comic, correct. In which case, top left is David Cameron, Top Right is Charlie Brooks, Bottom Left is Rebekah Brooks, Bottom Right is A Typical Horse.

Clearly the simple things in life amuse me too much!

Understatement...

I have just seen the following paragraph on Sky News, relating to the sinking of the Costa Concordia. As I read it - this one single paragraph - I couldn't help but shake my head:

Passengers aboard the Costa Concordia have been offered €11,000 (£9,184) compensation for lost baggage and psychological trauma after the ship deviated from its route, hit a rock and capsized.

Now, in regards to the compensation, I am sure most will not see that as enough, and bet your their bottom dollar, everyone takes their arses to court for more. The fact they are trying to settle so quickly says to me that they want as many to accept NOW and not have time to think about it.

Secondly, "Psychological Trauma" - is that posh speak for OhFuckWe'reGoingToDie while stood on a ship that is blatently sinking, but the crew don't seem to know what's happening.

Next, "Deviate from its route" - I suspect that is polite terminolgy for "The Captain is a Knobhead that was showing off and instead of being four miles off the coast, was 300 yards off the coast" PLUS it seems to suggest the ship itself did it, not someone in charge showing off.

The last bit is the one that makes me properly chuckle - "hit a rock" Now, a rock, to me, is what the girls stash in their bedroom when they find pretty ones. This thing in the side of the ship does not constitute "a rock"

Let's take a look at a picture of this "rock" shall we:

Now, to REALLY appreciate this, you need to click that to embiggen it. See that big, long diagonal surface? The little black thing about half-way along, that is a PERSON. Saying this is "a rock" is like saying the blast at Hiroshima was "a bit noisy"

And that's just the part of it we can SEE... Goodness knows how much is IN the ship.

As you can tell, I'm a little loopy on my meds and exhaustion this afternoon. But, being that I am a kind soul, I shall re-write the paragraph for Sky..

Passengers aboard the Costa Concordia have had a measly €11000 (£9184) bribe offered to them to get them to shut up, under the guise of compensation for losing their shit, and for having the absolute bejeezers scared out of them after the ship was piloted by a complete idiot without half a brain cell, who then proceeded to attempt to dent the planet with his little boat, and ultimately managed to flip the bastard over.  Twat.

Granted, it may not be short and sweet, but it IS to the point. Otherwise, it would read

LOL company bribes passengers after their captain nearly killed them by crashing their ship by trying to go off-road

Yes, bored. Tired. Paining.

Hyping It Up

Let me start this post by saying that at no time, in any way, am I belittling the accident that occurred with the Costa Concordia, nor the circumstances surrounding what happen to the ship nor the people.

That said, would people please get a grip, and engage that thing buried deep, deep inside your skull, and stop comparing this ship falling over to the Titanic! And for the love of all things boat-like, we don't need to know that "the anniversary of the Titanic sinking is in X months" because the ONLY similarity between the two, is that they both count as ships.

That's IT.

One hit an iceberg and sank. The other hit the sea floor and landed on its side.
One was a disaster that killed over 1500 people. The other is an accident that may have killed less than 50.

Yes, don't get me wrong, the Costa Concordia sinking - if you can even call it that - is a bad thing to happen to anyone, and the deaths of passengers and crew is truly sad, but to compare it to one of the worst maritime accidents ever is just wrong. The fact that it is now very apparent that the captain is a bit of a cock and was showing off means this was a wholly avoidable accident. Instead of being 400 yards off the coast, he should have been several MILES off the coast.

I've heard people ranting that "Oooh but he saved so many MORE lives by getting the ship closer to shore" but I'm sorry, that doesn't cut it. That's like me torching an orphanage, then running in to save some of the kids.

Wholly Avoidable.

Yes, I hear you cry, it could have been worse. Much worse. And the passengers are saying conditions were crap with the evacuation and that the angle of the boat meant they couldn't launch life rafts and so on and so on... It could have been worse, however, had the Captain done what he was supposed to have been doing - IE, sailing in deep water, not waving at an island - then it wouldn't have happened.

I don't get why they have to compare it to the Titanic. Why not, say, The Herald of Free Enterprise, back in the 80s? That killed almost 200 people. Or how about the one - also in the 80s - that killed over 4000 people when a ferry and a tanker collided? I just don't get why the media need to hype stuff up. Is it to make things seem worse than they are? It is what it is, an accident in it's own right. I just wish the news would stop trying to fluff the story into stupid levels.

Cruises do NOT appeal to me. The thought of being in the middle of the ocean, on board something the size of a small village that is floating... No thanks. Yes, all the amenities might be on hand, but then, they are on hand pretty much where ever you go for holidays.

I am hoping that the events that transpired up to and during the accident are covered quickly, and the appropriate legal sentences are handed out to those responsible. The salvage operation should be interesting, but remember, it's a shipping accident in it's own right, and has nothing to do with the Titanic.

That is all.

Thought: Freedoms?

For those of you not in the UK and unaware of yesterday, there was a massive Public Workers strike. Schools were closed, Airports may or may not have been jammed up, Hospitals & Emergency Care was affected - all sorts went on.

Now, to hear the Unions and strikers talk - and I am neither pro nor con the strikes before you start - they are unhappy with their pensions and what not, and it's their Right and their Freedom to strike to display their pissed-off-ness.

Fair enough - the right to protest is a good one to have. If The Man won't listen, mass as one and see if he listens then. I get that.

Yesterday, Jeremy Clarkson waded in during an interview and suggested that those on strike should be shot in front of their families.

Today, the unions and strikers are up in the air about how he should apologise, that it's disgusting that he should make such comments and yadda yadda yadda.

However. If we have to respect their right to strike, surely they should respect his right to Freedom of Speech? Surely it's a two-way street?

They are demanding an apology. Fair enough. But: are they apologising for shutting a shit-load of schools? Are they apologising for stretching the London Ambulance Service to the very limit (and this isn't a "made up" statement, a very talented Blogger/Tweeter - InsomniacMedic  (Twitter Link / Blog Link)- that works for the LAS, was there all day talking about how hard it was, and how 999 really really only needed to be done in a proper emergency).

No, they are not apologising because it's their RIGHT to strike.

Just like it's Clarksons RIGHT to say whatever the buggery he wants.

And let's also not forget - this bloke (and again, I am neither pro nor con or taking sides) is ALWAYS saying stupid things because it gets attention. Lorry drivers murder prostitutes? Him. All Romanians are gypsys? Him. The list is endless.

Surely if they want an apology from him, they should apologise too? Are their freedoms more valid than his?

And before you start banging on in the comments about how what he said was offensive and wrong - I reiterate: It's Jeremy Clarkson. Does that excuse it? No, but does that mean you should expect more from him? Probably not. Just like disrupting the entire country is going to appeal to some and piss off others, just like saying offensive things amuses some and irritates others.

Incoming...

The news the last few days has been some-what dominated by the fact a lump of metal the size of a double-decker bus has been hurtling straight down to our little blue/green rock. Granted, a lot of that would burn up, but oops, some of the half-ton bits would land with a bit of a thump.

NASA gave out various statistics, like the chance of hitting YOU specifically was 1 in 21 trillion, but the odds on hitting ANY person was 1 in 3 thousand and something, but then, as most of the planet is Ocean, it was more likely to land there, and so on and so on.

I can't say I was worried.  Interested, certainly - I thought it would be interesting to see what happened had it landed somewhere with people scattering around like ants. I subscribed to the UARS Re-Entry Twitter feed which had some interesting information, though most of it comprised of numbers that meant sweet FA very little to me.  For instance:

Sat 24 Sep 2011 4:35UT orbit 87.07 mins 123.6 x 128.4km Position 41.3N,24.5W alt=137.7km Unlit [0.08d] ~Reentry-0.6h

Erm, very nice.

What I did find odd was once they "lost" it, it seemed a bit, well... Keystone Cops? Headless Chickens?  After the "Zero Hour" arrived, they knew roughly where it was when it hit the atmosphere. They then said it could be above Canada. Or Africa. Or the Pacific.

Now, to me, that is pretty UNspecific. I mean, Africa and the Pacific are two bloody huge areas of the planet. Canada, too, isn't exactly lacking in the Huge Sodding Land Mass department either.

So the bits that are coming in are half-ton lumps of metal. Not designed, I would imagine, to be invisible to radar. Not designed, I would imagine, to vanish when tracking was needed, and I would also suggest, not designed to land on your head.

With the net of satellites, radar, lidar, and any other *dars out there, was it just me that wondered how they could lose it on re-entry? Am I missing something? Surely something that BIG would be trackable? If there are all these defensive nets around the globe, say for anti-missile defence - then how did no one notice where the Bloody Great Bits of Satellite ended up?

They are now saying they think they landed off the west coast of the USA. Spread, probably, over an 800km strip of ocean. They seemed more impressed that as there were no reports of splattered people/destroyed towns. And fair enough - I think that would have been an interestingly massive legal bill.

Is it just me here? How could they not track huge great satellite-gut-bombs, yet claim they can target, pinpoint, intercept and destroy missiles from hostile countries?

But don't worry - I CANNOT find the source for love nor, money, but somewhere this morning I read that a bigger, tougher satellite is coming down to earth and will hit sometime between October and November. Bigger bits, heavier bits... Oooh it's exciting!

Bored

Being bored, tired and in pain, I find amusement in the simplest things... The news keeps saying there's a bounty on Gaddafi's head, and this is all I could imagine...

And I have never claimed to be any good at photo manipulation.  Ever.

On top of this - and beyond my "skills" every time I hear the news talk about the Rebels in Libya, I just think of the Star Wars Rebel Alliance running around the streets of Tripoli.

I need to get out more.  Or get on/off my meds!