boreders

Sometimes you have to wonder how the heck life gets quite as strange as it does. On Saturday, we had a tapas party with friends. Everyone brings round something appropriately nibbly (and some beer), and by early evening we have a table growning with goodies. Simple. Very little organisation or cooking involved, but enough to feed people and have spares for a week or three.

Anyway, with a couple of dozen people in and outside the house, conversation was the evening’s primary pursuit. We’d eaten and drank, the warm, relatively sunny, day fading into an equally pleasant evening. As we stood in the garden chatting, somewhere in the distance we heard sirens. Several of them. Living on the outskirts of Manchester in 2008, this isn’t so out of the usual. However, as we continued chatting there was a sound like something hitting a fence, or possibly someone being hit with a fence, rather closer to home. Curiousity rose somewhat, especially as the sirens continued to persist and get just a little louder and clearer. Falling back into conversation, a russle at the back of the garden drew attention to someone making an entrance. Staggering from the rear, amidst the trees and bushes, came a guy in dark trousers and a green top, with blood streaming down the side of his face. He muttered something along the lines of ‘Sorry… I’ve been in a fight.’, before heading off along the garden path, round the side of the house, and off up the street.

The evening rapidly descended into some bizarre co-mingling of ‘The Bill’ and ‘Scooby Doo’, as various members of the party went off to find the guy or see what that crash was, while others recounted the tale of ‘the man in the garden’. Police with dogs and police in helicopters followed, the latter particularly noisy, with searching beams flashing in the night sky. We were told later that the police caught the guy. He’d hit another driver, at considerable speed, and one or more of the cars had gone off the road - tearing up fences. ‘The man in the garden’ had exited his vehicle, leaving the other driver for dead, to make his escape across the back gardens - and the police had tried to follow him that way, explaining some more fence banging rather reminiscent of ‘Hot Fuzz’.

So… from simple tapas and friends, the evening turned into something very different. By the end of the evening, enough had happened to ensure the whole event would be discussed for weeks and months to come. Good food, however tasty, might not have made the event so memorable!

Relevant viewing:

Hot Fuzz (3-Disc Collector’s Edition)

Universal Studios 2007, DVD, $26.84

Isn’t it heart-warming to know that the Cabinet will be in Birmingham today rather than London, in what may be an ongoing feature of their meetings. As well as holding the meeting itself, they’ll be meeting local people, councillors and doing the whole bit to bolster failing support in the government. In pursuit of popularity, however, they’ll create all sorts of other upheaval. Rather than meeting in 10 Downing Street, already secured to the Nth-degree and within a stone’s throw, no doubt, of each cabinet member’s London residence, this change will mean:

• An extra journey of about 150 miles by car, plane or helicopter for each and every cabinet member (and then doesn’t count the return journey!)
• Pressure on local Police (and no doubt the hush-hush security services) to monitor and protect the attendees and the event locations, taking away law enforcement for local duties; and
• Added pressure on the Birmingham transit system due to the control and diversion of traffic during the visit - and the system is, to be honest, already a tough one

I’m sure I’ll have missed something, but if they plan to make this a regular event, then the same pressures and costs will mount up. Thousands of miles extra travel and fuel consumption, while most of us struggle to keep our tanks full just to make it into work.

And this should improve Brown’s waning ratings? Yeah, right.

Relevant reading:

The Best of is it Just Me or is Everything Shit?

Steve Lowe. Sphere 2008, Paperback, 368 pages, $10.83

I spent a while looking decidedly orange… and, when I saw this WordPress theme, it seemed like time to go orange all over again.

It also gave me a chance to turn my hand to a little Photoshop practice - creating the stars behind the date and the badge in the header. I need to practice more… spend time going through the functions and whatever tutorials I can find. Knowing how to use Photoshop well would certain be a great advantage to me, both at home and in the workplace. Having a grasp of Photoshop is the sort of thing you can stick on your CV and know that it will have value, alongside your spray of other skills, ancient and modern.

So, hope you don’t mind the change… and expect to see more globs and blobs around here in future.

Relevant reading:

Adobe Photoshop CS3 One-On-One

Deke McClelland. O’Reilly Media, Inc. 2007, Paperback, 544 pages, $26.13

Sometimes I’m better off catching the news late. I was mildly lost for words on hearing that Geoffrey Perkins had been involved in a terrible accident that took his life. In his mid-50s, he doubtless had a lot more mileage in him if left to natural causes… unless investigation proves otherwise.

Geoffrey had a long career in comedy, which some might consider had a significant peak in 1978, when he took over production duties on Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, I will remember him as Mike Flex in Radio Active, a show I listened to avidly in my teens, mostly very late at night while tucked up in bed. My eldest brother had a bright red Sony Walkman with a built in radio and cassette recording function, so I would lie in the dark, restraining chuckles and recording shows for future re-listening (almost to destruction, though I still have some recordings in a box). Flex was a detestible character with all the charisma of a mid-African dictator and a general distaste for the stupid, the young and co-present Mike Channel (played by Angus Deayton).

I will, undoubtedly, dig out the old tapes and have another listen. If you can find a copy of Mike Flex’s Master Quiz where the three kids involved showed an astounding and complete ignorance to the point of Flex’s utter exasperated distraction - go for it… it’s worth the listen.

Related reading:

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams. Del Rey 2002, Paperback, 832 pages, $10.89