Tales From A Crowded Island

A couple of weekends ago I went to the RSPB reserve at Old Moor with Dad again. They have opened a new hide round the other side of the reserve and I took this picture as we wondered round to it. To say I took it on my phone, I think it came out pretty well.

We had a good day and spotted the following notables:

Loads of Snipe
A couple of Little Egrets
One ruff
Kingfisher
Hundreds of Golden Plover
One female Wheatear
One female Stonechat
At one point we could see over 20 herons from one hide.
A couple of Green Sandpiper.

Usual epic helpings on the Sunday Lunch at the visitor centre canteen too.

Being the lazy ass bachelors we are, Andy and I have taken to doing our big shops online and getting them delivered. You would think with food price inflation being higher than it has been in recent years and politicians spouting off about us all wasting food, that we would be a little more careful in our food ordering. Earlier this evening I took a quick look in our freezer, it was approximately two-thirds full, so I remarked to Andy, "I hope you have not put much on tonight's order for the freezer." "Oh no, I have hardly got anything for the freezer," he retorted, admitting only to a bag of chips.

A few hours later, here is Andy trying desperately to fit the abundance of culinary goodies he had ordered into the freezer.

Not looking good...

Desperately trying to rearrange...

Ooops. Still strugggling...

I think we found the culprit. This brick has had to go in the fridge in the end...

We have had to put some of the food that would have gone in the freezer in the fridge, which I think means we have a weeks food to eat in two days.

Just where do the BBC keep on digging up this "no shit Sherlock", pseudo-scientific [if indeed that is not an insult to pseudo-scientists everywhere - sorry creationists] research from? Furthermore, how do the scientists keep getting funding for this shite? I am sure we would have cured cancer and stopped global warming now if scientists were not beggaring about stating the fucking obvious with headline grabbing research like this.

What's the upshot of this 'sponsored by Lynx' science then? Let's see then [emphasis mine]:

Telling someone you fancy 'I really like you' could make him or her find you more attractive, research suggests.

Could? Could?! Nothing like being definitive is there. Also, I don't about you, but the last time I even heard of someone saying 'I really like you' I was at primary school. Ok, there was this one time when I was really drunk and out with some people from work, but that's another story.

The research, brainchild of some muppet from Aberdeen University called Dr Ben Jones, is deeply insightful isn't it? There are more gems of wisdom that will have you talking you way into your ideal partners bedroom in no time. Dr Jones unleashes his genius thus:

"Combining information about others' physical beauty with information about how attracted they appear to be to you allows you to allocate your social effort efficiently,"

What the fuck is he talking about? Does anyone talk about dating or one night exchanges of bodily fluid like this? "Well, I was watching you on the dancefloor and taking a moment to combine the information about your physical beauty and correlating that with the flirtatious gazes you were casting in my direction, so would I be correct in assuming that I am not squandering my social effort?" "What?! I'm just horny, wanna shag?"

For the research, the guinea pigs were asked to look at flash cards of different faces using different expressions.

The volunteers were then asked to rate how attractive the faces were.

The preference for the attractive face was much stronger when people were judging those faces that were looking at them and smiling.

They needed to put 230 people through a pointless flash card experiment to find out that they were more naturally drawn to people that are looking at them and smiling, as oppose to looking away from them and/or frowning?! What is Dr Ben's next project one wonders, a scientific test to see if bears that live in forested areas do in fact also take a shit there?

Dr Jones concludes with the munter beware parting shot:

"Maybe one of the ways you learn your level of attractiveness is through how other people behave towards you."

Just to decipher Jones's slightly archaic language and placing it in something resembling layman's terms, "If you are always getting hit on, chances are you are pretty goddamn hot." Next time just mail the cheque for the research to me please...

In the words of Stained's 2001 monotonous single, "it's been a while" since I updated my blog; two thirds laziness and the other third time pressures with work and whatnot. I will try and get back on to a more regular blogging schedule, but for the time being just a brief update about last weekend, which was spent down in Brighton visiting Lee, Jules and Oliver.

Hard to believe that Oliver is already two years old. He started nursery two mornings a week last week too. He has energy to burn now too. There was lots of jumping around, including into me whilst holding a three quarter full pint of beer [they are use to me spilling stuff when I am around Oliver now]. Mum and Ralph came down with an antipodean visitor in tow, none other than my Aunty Sue, who was on some kind of crazy international hospital benchmarking trip. It was good to see her and we even managed a Skype video call with Uncle Dave [minus Fribble] on Saturday afternoon. There is going to be a mass family exodus to Tasmania for Christmas and New Year 2009, which should be great.

Andy and I were booked into a 'boutique hotel' literally across the road from Lee and Jules's place. Not sure what made it particularly 'boutique', unless covering everything in crushed velvet counts. It was alright, if a bit on the pricey side, but the main reason we checked in there was because we are lazy arses who did not want to walk very far to go visit LoJ. Ayan and Karen also came down on Saturday for some beers and the buffet spread Lee and Jules kindly put on for us. Fun times.

On Saturday we dug out the bubble machine that I purchased Oliver on his first birthday. He loved it! Running around, popping bubbles, hiding from bubbles, asking for more bubble etc. Here is a pic I shot when Mum and Ralph joined in the Bubblefest.

Here is a shot of the Golden Boy right up in my face. Isn't he gorgeous? Generous offers for infant modeling will be considered.

This is one of the shots that Oliver took whilst playing with my camera phone on the window seat; it shows Jules and Aunty Sue grinning for the camera.

The full set, such as it is, is here on my Flickr page. It includes two videos of Oliver chasing bubbles during the entire Bubblefest thing on Saturday morning.

Now what's happening here?

Why I do believe that it is one time scourge of the lager drinking nancy boys himself consuming a cool bottle of my San Miguel. Now this is not some kind of Leeds festival scenario where he is trapped in a large field where all they sell is lager, no this was a conscious choice of going to the fridge and of his own volition selecting a bottle of lager. Tsk, tsk.

This is not an entirely new thing for Andy though, he has been caught, although never photographed until now, swigging a sly bottle of Tiger or two in the past. His excuse?

He points to the bottles label as the pic above and shouts, 'Well it's a premium beer,' as if to infer it is the kind of thing one could quite happily quaff with Giles and Tamsin inside the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. I am so above drinking plain old Carling, I imbibe of only premium beers. A lame sounding excuse I am sure you will agree.

I wrote a little while since about the uncomfortably amateurish launch of the "new exciting new" Ask The PM initiative, which allows people to post YouTube video questions to Gordon Brown, which will then be heavily censored screened for His Imperial Jut-Jawedness to answer after everyone else has lost interest in the questions asked, indeed the entire bloody venture. Interactive politics tempered by Gordo control freakery.

News now reaches us here at TFACI that the Conservatives have launched Cameron Direct. Where on earth do they get these shit names for these forays into simulated voter engagement? Cameron Direct sounds like some second rate internet mail order firm dispatching reconditioned digital cameras from some scammers back bedroom. Here is the launch video, which like Match of the Day, shows the edited highlights of Cameron taking the questions.

What did you think? I have this personal prejudice, possibly borne out of the entire 'Heir to Blair' mantle Cameron has taken up, that much like El-Tone, the more Cameron tries to sincerely 'do' informality the more it takes on the hallmarks a contrivance and just hollow political maneuvering. The clipped way in which he dissects the questions, the stage managed expressive hand gestures and the prowling round the stage, all designed to provide an impression of intimacy, all screaming hours of careful forethought and practice. To a degree this is to be expected, the man is a politician after all, but it just makes the platitudes Cameron mouths when he launches things like this seem hollow and manufactured.

The BBC political editor, Nick Robinson, who was late for the event (tut tut, what is my license fee paying for and all that) said of the launch of Cameron Direct:

It was billed as "the new politics". The Conservative leader would be live, unscripted and unprotected from the tough questions that would be posed by all-comers at a genuinely open meeting. The Tories claimed that their leader would be doing something that Gordon Brown would never dare to do. They believed they were genuinely taking a risk. David Cameron even joked with his shadow cabinet before the meeting that he was ready to dodge eggs thrown by protesters.

Well it is hardly new is it. Indeed it is a very old style of campaigning, although I am thankful at least he did not drag John Major's famous soapbox out of retirement. There is a strategic point in there though that is very much part of the narrative that the Conservatives are trying to hammer home; the Brown is a dithering yellow-bellied fuckwit narrative. Look at down with the people Dave is doing and compare that with the stunted Ask The PM YouTube initiative. For all the stage managed finesse that Cameron injects, this contrast with Brown is still pertinent, as one does genuinely get the impression that Brown could not, or would not, put in a similar unscripted performance.

Cameron does benefit from a general voter sympathy though and I think Robinson's closing point does perhaps indicate an issue for the Tory leader with these events:

Is there, though, another problem revealed by what's being dubbed Cameron Direct (due to come to a town near you soon)? Are they soaring in the polls because they're not Labour but they lack the definition required to produce many direct questions for Cameron to answer directly?

Truly incisive questioning will require a bit more meat on the bone in terms of policy than the Tories currently have. The questions will tend to be clustered around peoples grievances with Brown and his government, which Cameron can get away with answering in vague generalities, but if that is all that is going to happen, then attendees at these events may feel superficially acknowledged, but longer term may begin to wonder exactly what Dave is going to do for them. Cameron has been walking that tightrope for the past few months, and it works and will continue to work whilst ever Brown is on the backfoot lurching from crisis to crisis. It is possible that the government is so accident prone that Cameron can ride this anti-Labour feeling within the electorate to victory at the next general election, but equally, now it is clear Brown is staying, the government may, comparatively speaking, start to get its act together, beginning with a win on the 42 day detention vote.

P.S. The Guardian write up of the event is pretty positive.

I was at the RSPB reserve at Old Moor yesterday meeting Dad and Anne for a spot of birdwatching. The weather was glorious, indeed so glorious it fair took me by surprise, and I spent the majority of my time sweating my way around the hides in a [thin] jumper. Down Old Moor's sheltered paths there was little breeze, so the only welcome relief came if you happened to get on the right side of some of the hides, where, much to ones relief, a cooling breeze blew through the openings.

Aside from the unexpected heat (us Brits are never satisfied are we?) it was a great way to spend a morning. We had good views of a Spoonbill and a female Kestrel perched on one of the boxes. There were loads of Little Ringed Plovers and one Ringed Plover on the scrapes. All the birdwatching, as usual, topped off with an excellent Sunday lunch served in the 'Gannet's Cafe' (only 6 quid - bargain!).

I have not seen Old Moor as busy as it was yesterday in a long while. There were also alot of kids there, which part of me wants to grumble about, but the other half is encouraged by. There was an event on yesterday connected to BBC's Springwatch programme, so maybe that brought some people out. Springwatch co-presenter Bill Oddie was not in evidence though, perhaps laying low after the 'scandal' caused by his smutty comments. Shame really, I am sure he would have appreciated the Great Tits we saw from the cafe balcony...

I have had my current crappy mobile phone for over a year now. I am not inclined to upgrade as it does pretty much everything I need it to. It even has a crappy camera, which I occasionally use for impromptu shots when I don't have my proper camera on me.

The fact that my new Mac Powerbook (pause for effect) has built in Bluetooth has made file transfer from my phone all the easier, so for the first time in a year I have downloaded my pics and videos from my mobile phone onto my PC. The montage that resulted can be found on my Flickr page here. The pictures range from the unidentifiable, to the bizarre (why was I taking pics of Ayan and Andy hugging and dancing in a bar), to the unbelievably cute (those with Oliver in).

What really struck me, seeing the pictures all laid out in a sequence,aside from just how shit the camera on my phone seems to be, is just how much Oliver has developed in the last year. Here are a few of my favorites, demonstrating that very fact:

This is when Lee, Jules and Oliver came up to Chesterfield for a family photo op. I think this was around March/April of 2007.

A picture taken in a pub in Woolacomb in May 2007.

In his little suit at Danny & Dave's wedding, which was during the summer of 2007.

A rather serious looking Oliver during our trip to Ireland in Feb 2008.

The Spa weekend with Mum and Ralph, Lee, Jules and Oliver in April 2008

And finally, my car buddy from last weekend, when we were down in the Cotswolds.

Enough celebrating of my nephew's cuteness already! I know I am biased. I promise to get back to something other than pics of him in the next posts.

S

I was in the Cotswolds over the Bank Holiday weekend with The Boy King and his attendants, plus Dad, Sandra and Nigel. Prior to the weekend I had only ever skirted the beautiful countryside and villages of the Cotswolds on my way to a company based just outside Evesham for a meeting. I am sorry I did not visit the area earlier; it is mostly a mixture of woodland and farmland, peppered with these quintessentially looking British villages (what my Dad calls 'chocolate box villages', presumably because it sounds better than either 'placemat villages' or 'tea towel villages', although I would venture 'picture postcard villages' as a more well-trodden cliche).

These villages all beautifully bedecked with flowers and golden Cotswold stone buildings could have been dreamt up specifically the tourist notion of 'English village'. One has to careful not to fall into inadvertant cliche spotting; there's the red telephone box, there's some old fogies playing bowls on the village green, there's the local Post Office in the ivy covered village shop (assuming we have not closed it yet) and there is the jovial priest departing his rectory on his Penny Farthing. Too much? Yeah, I think so. It isn't quite like that, but it isn't far off.

Aside from travelling around like complete touristas and gawping at pretty villages, we did manage to take in a garden centre, or its cafeteria at least, ate too much, visited a farm park thingy and Birdland, which is not a Cotswoldian massage parlour, but a surprisingly large park and gardens with many species of exotic avians on display. Also discovered, in Stow-on-the-Wold, a great little coffee shop called, unimaginatively, the Coffee House. So if you, fair readers, every find yourself in Stow, be sure to pay it a visit. It is just round the corner from the church.

A few pics of our trip (the rest can be found on my Flickr account here):

Here is the B & B we stayed in just outside Stow. Very welcoming and accomodating proprieter; any B & B owner who lets you use their wireless network for no additional charge gets a thumbs up from me.

Oliver is becoming quite the little man and quite the footballer. We went to a pub on the Friday night which had a large enclosed beer garden for him to have a kick around, and in spite of his clumsy Uncle Shaun busting his lip on the swings (don't ask), he spent ages kicking and throwing the balls around.

Bourton-on-the-Water on Saturday. This is a pic looking down the River Windrush from the main street. By the afternoon when we wondered back from Birdland to this point, the sun had really brought people out and the banks of the river and the surrounding pubs and shops were full of people enjoying the weather and the scenery.

I got some great close up shots of Grey Wagtails along the river. They were mostly, like the one in the pic, catching insects to feed to their chicks.

Stow-on-the-Wold is a typical picturesque Cotswold village. We were there on the Saturday afternoon and spent some time just taking a quick walk round the main square. The sun really brings out the golden hue of the stone buildings.

Some great narrow alleyways break off from the main town square. This is one close to the church in Stow.

Oliver enjoyed an ice cream in his chariot as we took a look round the local shops.

If you can take anymore Cotswoldianess, Lee has a post up about our trip too here. Worth visiting to see a couple of videos he shot too, including one of me trying to eat an overfilled baguette.

S

All employees are getting paid a performance bonus via our Colleague Share scheme at work. Last year we did not lose as much money as we thought we might do, so we were ahead of target, hence this payment of £800. I have already spent mine; in fact I have decided to spend it going over to the other side....

After years of PCs, it is going to be hard to get use to something that does not crash every five minutes, but only has one mouse button (WTF?!!). I will let you know how I get on. Of course, I will be keeping my Sony laptop around, probably reinstalling the clunky old piece of shite in fact. At least them for those few things a Mac cannot yet do (hurry up Channel 4 OD), I will at least have a way os using them if I do so desire.

S