North of the Border... (Completed)

Odd, my right shift key no longer lets me type capital S or N. How infuriatingly odd.
OK, fixed with the aid of a screwdriver. Still weird.

NOTE: Quotes from certain people, myself included, are not reproduced verbatim. These events occured days ago, and while I remember the events, the exact words used over the past few days may have skipped my mind. Note also that I describe the events in varying amounts of detail, but the order in which they happened may be incorrect. This is for the same reason. I suspect that I have, in fact, got a few presentations/tests out of order - there were a lot of them.

NOTE TWO: Covering 3 days in great detail is not the sort of thing you can do at a keyboard in the space of an hour or even two, so I'm going to break this down into sections.

PART ONE: AFCO

So I'm sat in bed, relaxing, being generally warm and lazy, and living the lazy equivalent of the good life, when the phone goes off.
Annoying when that happens, given that it happens a lot.

My dad answers the phone fairly quickly though, and the upstairs phone stops ringing.
Thank sod for that, back to sleep I go.

However, about 20 seconds after the phone goes silent, my dad shouts me from the bottom of the stairs, telling me that it's Sergeant Thingiewhatsit from the carreers office.

I stomp downstairs and answer the phone, as my new recruiting sergeant politely and professionally, but frankly asks me what the bloody hell I've been doing - or not doing - as my Army application has been dragging on and on for the best part of 8 months.

"Yes", I tell him, "I'm still keen". So he asks me to pop along to the office for a couple of interviews just to make sure that my details/circumstances haven't changed and whatnot.

So a couple of days later, I catch the bus to town, and after a quick but yummy breakfast, wander up to the AFCO about 5 minutes early for my meeting with this "new" sergeant who I've never met before.

To my pleasant surprise, the stern concerned sounding sergeant on the phone turns out to be a fairly friendly, chatty bloke. It comes up in conversation that if he decides I'm suitable for the army, we will get my application back on track, and I will conduct another interview that day.
Seeing my evident alarm as I start to point out that I'm not dressed for an interview, he tells me not to worry about turning up in trackies and trainers, as he will make it clear he didn't tell me I was to have another interview. He goes backstage (well, through the locked door to the rest of the offices) to do something and I get talking to another soldier, who turns out to be a photographer in the army. We spend a while chatting about what that job entails, how you get involved (you have to transfer to that job from within the army, you can't join as a photographer)

So off we go to the interview, and he starts before we're even in the room.

"You're so nervous aren't you"
"yeah"
[laughs] "I can feel it radiating from you, don't worry mate there's nothing to be nervous about".

Of course, my interview with him goes pretty well, and as we go through my record, he notes that the only problem with my application has been down to me having uncertainties - unfounded in retrospect - about my own physical fitness. He stresses that he is absolutely certain that I am ready for selection, and once again I watch the video about what happens there.

He then tells me he has no hesitation in asking me to go along to the second interview, and I am to wait in reception to be called by the senior recruiter. Fair enough.

Eventually the senior recruiter turns up - a surprisingly friendly easy going guy who was quite different to the stern frowning guy I'd expected. He asks me a load of questions - as you'd expect - about what selection entails, what my job entails, why do I want to do that job, why do I want to join the army etc etc etc.
Afterwards, he tells me he is also happy to put me forward for final selection, and asks me how the interview has gone.

"Well, I'm not sure, I think it went well, I think if I had any criticism, it'd be that I was very talkative, I didn't really treat it as a formal interview. I think I might have waffled on a bit".

He grins. "Ah well, you see, I have interviewed people who as soon as they realise it is an interview, just clam up and say next to nothing. They give loads of one word answers, and finding out anything about them is like drawing teeth. Whereas this I think was actually one of the best interviews I've ever had. You're a pleasure to interview because you actually volunteer information - it makes my job a lot easier".
So he also tells me that he's ready to put me forward for selection.

I talk to the my recruiter before I go, and he says he'll call me in the next couple of weeks with a date for selection, and I can expect to get about 2 weeks notice.

A couple of days later, the phone goes, I answer and it's my recruiter.

"You know you asked for two weeks notice?"
"Yeah I did?"
"You've got five days mate, is that okay?"

I start to waffle on about not being fit, but he cuts me off "Trust me mate, you know you're ready, we know you're ready, we've got the assessment results to prove it. Come in on xyz-day and we'll sort out your train tickets".

So I go back to the AFCO a few days later, he hands me my tickets (I'm amazed to see that the army don't even know if I'm physically/medically fit enough to join, and they've paid nearly £100 for my return ticket to Edinburgh!

Of course. The next few days are filled with nervousness, tottering about looking for shorts, washcloths, shaving gel and whatnot, ironing shirts, and generally getting ready for one big long job interview. Eventually though, after passing two self-imposed "be in bed by:" deadlines, I levitate into bed and surprisingly, fall asleep pretty quickly.

PART TWO: TRAVELLING

Of course, my body likes playing silly sods when it comes to sleeping, and when i HAVE to get a good night's sleep, it rarely lets me. Three or four hours after falling asleep like a log, I wake up, and am unable to get to sleep.

I'm too hot. I push some of the blankets down the bed.
10 minutes later, I'm too cold. I pull them back up.
I decide I'm uncomfortable sleeping on my left side, so I flip round and lay on my right.
10 minutes later, I don't like laying on my right, so I lay on my back. And I'm too hot again.

After about 2 hours of this silliness, I manage to fall asleep, again, managing (I think) to wake up just in time for my alarm to go off.
I press "snooze" and settle back down. It'll go off again in ten minutes.
My second alarm I set on another clock goes off. I turn this one off. The first one will go off in five minutes.

Eventually, it does, and admitting defeat, I get out of bed and get dressed. No running around, I did that all last night. A final check to make sure I haven't forgotten anything, and I'm in the car with my mum, who has very nicely agreed to give me a lift - all the way to the next town so I don't have to mess around changing trains.

On the way, this rather happy-yet-bittersweet (a word I try to avoid using) tune - rather fittingly by a Scottish woman, comes on the radio, and I resolve to remember it, so that as with so many other events, a song will remind me of a time in my life :-). Eventually though I get dropped outside the railway station.

First impressions, not good. I'm on my own in the next city, it's dark, freezing cold, and the station looks like a world war two hauptbahnhof (German central railway station). I go inside.

My train isn't for over an hour.

A summary of the next hour:

I go to the platform, and see a couple of trains there. They leave. So do I.
I go back outside. Meh, still cold.
I go back inside.
I go to the empty platform.
I go to a different platform, which also doesn't have a train at it.
I go back to my platform.

I'm glancing down the tracks at the local scenery. A couple of depressing concrete tower blocks, a brightly lit shopping centre. Crows hop about. Passengers wander around, which is like hopping about, but less purposeful.
Occasionally a cross-country train blasts through the station, electric sparks from the cables above tracing its course into the dark fog.

"I don't like this very much" I think.
"Calm down, you don't like anything very much. It's a train station, not death row" I think after.

Eventually, after 10 minutes counting down the minutes on the information board, I watch my train come out of the distance and stop at the platform. A fairly modern looking train, a couple of sharply swept carriages at either end, 9 passenger coaches in between the two. "If it's an electric train..." I think, "...why is it making so much damn noise?" [Answer: Because the train, is a British Rail Class 221 Super Voyager, which actually uses Diesel-Electric engines. It says in the article that the train is 5 carriages long - mine was 11. I counted. And no I'm not a train nut. I just have an inquiring mind :-)].

After getting on the seat, I find that the seat that was reserved for me has a table. Around it are two businessy type gents, tickety-tapping away at notebooks of varying vintages. Eventually I manage to get sat down, and off we go. Well, off I go, they were already going. Until they stopped. Now we're all going together. My back is to the direction of travel, so I get to watch the scenery as it goes past.

Before long, we arrive at York. Yikes, that didn't take long! We all stay seated as the scenery starts moving away from us. I glance out of the window to see the western front of York Minster receding into the distance. A huge building, but getting steadily smaller as we go through the countryside.

Next up, Darlington. The guy opposite powers down his computer and makes to leave. About 30 seconds before we start moving, he reappears, and sits back down, explaining that he meant to get off at Durham, our next stop. I don't recall much of the town, as again we disappear into the countryside.

Occasionally a train rocks the carriage perceptibly as it blasts past us, going the opposite direction. 11 carriages disappear in seconds as the southbound trains disappear from view.

Durham eventually appears, and from the huge viaduct I have just learned we were on, it's certainly an impressive sight, and a great view. And as I watch the castle, and the cathedral set within what looks like a rather pleasant - and busy - town, recede into the distance, I wonder why I've never been here before.

Next up, Newcastle. We've travelled about a hundred miles north, so far, and the day has begun, the dark blue sky has now turned become slightly less dark, and as the train crosses over the Tyne, the dawn light affords me an amazing view of the city. Four huge bridges, one behind the other, all high above the river, fill my view, and behind them, my travelling companion notes, the controversial - because it stopped functioning properly (the mechanism used to raise it stopped working, leaving the bridge immobilised) some time after it was installed - Gateshead Millenium Bridge. [Oddly enough, another bridge with "Millenium" in the title, the London Millenium Footbridge, about 300 miles south of Newcastle, is also infamous for severe technical problems (is that enough nested sentences for you?)].

The track curves round as we enter the station, and as we leave, I'm afforded a very close, and quite final glimpse of the iconic (and bloody big) Tyne Bridge, before the view is blocked by office buildings, car parks, and other features of the city center, that quickly give way to yet more suburbia, itself receding into the ever-present countryside.

We head north through Alnmouth, past Lindisfarne (mentioned in Blackadder), and up towards Berwick-Upon-Tweed.

This unusual town has an odd history. Being very close to the border between England and Scotland, the town has changed hands from one nation to the other and back again several times during several bloody border wars in the middle ages. Now firmly in English hands (since 1482) it was an unusual place to see.
From the train, in the dark early morning, it looked as if the city was cut in half by the river (it is, hence the name). The darkness gave the river the appearance of a great canyon, accentuated by the fact that across it, from one side to another, a pair of tall bridges stood high above the water, climbing steeply from one side to the other.

The train Stopped, but only temporarily.

I decided I fancied some music, and stuck on an album. As we again went into the countryside, the rail line hugged the coast. fields gave way to cliffs, and as we passed above them, I was amazed to see houses nestled in them, so close to the water that a violent spray must have flooded their gardens, seeing these nameless places, these places too small even to be called villages, made me wonder that perhaps the UK isn't such a small place after all, and if you've seen one city, maybe you haven't seen them all. The music seemed oddly appropriate, as the train rushed from Northumberland to the Scottish Borders, as English countryside gave way to Scottish moorland.

Finally, the train began to slow, preparing to end its journey across the country. As houses started appearing, turning into suburbia, and as the buildings got denser, taller, and more numerous, the driver announced that we were about to arrive in Edinburgh.

"Funny", I thought, looking out of the window. "It doesn't look Scottish"...

To Be Continued (as they say)...

RIGHT: That's me done for tonight, I've been at it for a good 90 minutes, having written a good 2,400 words, I'm off to go and relax. I'll work on part two either tomorrow or Sunday. I WON'T be creating new entries for later parts of this entry, they'll be added on to the bottom of this one (to give the entire entry the same creation date, thereby preserving the space-time continuum). You WILL be able to see if I've updated the entry, I'll change the title each time I do.

All the best.

PART THREE: DAY ONE

I get off the train, noticing the change in temperature straight away. Definitely cold up here!
I spend a while wandering aimlessly around the station (which compared to the one I boarded at, is huge!) and finally decide to leave the station and walk around the perimeter until I find the coach.
Rounding the corner, I see, not the coach, but a bunch of lads hanging round outside the restaurant, including one lad who rather amusingly (surprisingly, he didn't get any grief for it throughout the course - he did get grief for being a twunt though) had turned up wearing a camouflage jacket.

"You lads here for ADSC" I say to the nearest lad. He replies in the affirmative.
Filling a lull in the conversation, I turn to him and his mate.
"Where you lads come from then?"
His reply is so thickly accented that it takes me a few seconds before I work out what he just said.
"Darlington, eh?" I reply. The other lad turns out to be from Durham - they must have met on the train or something.

So we're stood around outside, it's absolutely freezing, and rain is beginning to fall. I look around at the scenery. "Bloody hell" I say, gesturing towards a massic stone spire (that turned out to be the Scott Monument), I bet that took some building.

After a short while, the coach finally appears and pulls over. A Scottish corporal sticks his head out of the door, shouts something in impossibly accented English at the now-assembled crowd, and then ducks back inside the coach. "What did he say?" I ask turning to the nearest lad. "Didn't understand a word, mate" he replies.

We get on the coach and are assigned numbers. My number is a secret because I'm mysterious like that. Eventually though, we're sat down and the coach pulls into Edinburgh traffic.

I spend my time staring out of the window trying to find anything that looks particularly Scottish, but with the exception of a Scottish souvenir store, and one lad waiting for a bus wearing a kilt [where would you find a kilt big enough for a bus to wear?], Edinburgh looks just like any other British city, albeit one with spectacular architecture.

After a short time we arrive at the Army Development and Selection Center, and comments start going back and forth. "It's smaller than I expected", "hey, looks like a nice place".

So off the coach, and first thing to do is take care of the Sample business. Pick up a numbered badge and your sample container. So off we go. Having obtained (contained, perhaps), said samples, we return downstairs. "I think mine's leaking" said a voice from the back of the group. Laughing, I think to myself "Carrying round a plastic container of piss wasn't what I'd been expecting).

Coming back, we're told to sit in one of the presentation rooms.

A fairly large room, with a huge white board at one end, on which is trained a projector. This projector is connected to a computer on the podiums, to the side of the whiteboard.

As we fall quiet, a Major walks to the front of the room.

"Hello lads, welcome to the Army Development and Selection Center. Before I go any further, I just want to show you guys something". He gestures to the screen and opens a WMV on the computer.

The sound of gunfire fills the room as the screen fills with a scene of British soldiers in Afghanistan. Heavy gunfire whistles overhead, as the soldiers fire dozens of rounds into the distance. There's the occasional boom of an explosion in the distance or the whoosh of an RPG flying overhead, and every now and again, with a high pitched pinging noise, an incoming bullet will end its journey in the nearby wall.
The scene cuts to another couple of sildiers firing a machine gun into the distance, before returning to our lads flinging more lead downrange. Some chatter on the radio, one of the soldiers gestures to his mate, and the soldiers change their target and open fire in a different direction. The screen goes blank and the sound of combat disappears as abruptly as it had started.
The room is silent.

"That's what you lads will be facing within one, maybe two years of you passing this course. Are you all still up for it?
The room seems subdued, not surprised, of course, but still reacting to a point that has been pressed home, yet again. Glances fly back and forth, and a ragged chorus of "Yes Sir"s hovers above the crowd.

"Sorry lads, can't hear you".
"Yes Sir!" the room shouts as one.

The major goes on about the purpose of the course, detailing the assessments we'll be undertaking. He hands over to a couple of other guys, who have their presentations to conduct, and after what seems like a couple of hours of powerpoint presentations, we get taken off for food.

After the meal, we get taken down to the Med Center for our medical assessments. This is the bit that makes me most nervous. If I fail here, there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

We sit down and fill out a couple of forms. Ross Kemp is on one of the huge TVs and as lads get taken off for their individual medical assessments, a quiet chatter fills the reception area.

Eventually I get called for my hearing assessments, with a group of other lads. We sit in what are allegedly soundproof booths, with headphones on. The headphones play a very quiet, almost silent, tone (varying in frequency and volume) in either ear, and you have to indicate with a button, when you think you hear a sound.

The test went quite well. It would have gone better if we hadn't had to listen to the THUD THUD THUD of the nurse stomping around while trying to do the hearing test. Seems these soundproof booths aren't as soundproof as they were intended to be.

Eventually though, She opens the booth, tells me I've passed, and directs me back to the reception area. There's plenty of humour among the lads there. We all know part of the medical examination involves having your naughty bits checked by the doctor, and a lot of the lads were joking about, "I hope it gets done by that sexy nurse over there"...
...There was a burst of laughter each time an elderly male doctor stuck his head out of the door, and the face of the guy he called, fell.

Before long, I'm called in for some other tests. At this point I am relieved (haha, er...) of my sample, which is tested with a piece of paper, before the whole lot is unceromoniously dumped in a bin marked "Biohazard".
Usual stuff, height and weight, any distinguishing scars, tattoos, etc. Then comes the vision exam/eye test.
I didn't have any problem with the first part - it seems that my visual acuity is excellent, as is my overall eyesight. That's reassuring because I had wondered.
Next comes the colour perception tests. You get a load of bits of paper (Ishihara Test Plates, actually) covered in a pattern of randomised circles of varying shades, within which are numbers made of circles of a slightly different colour.

Simple enough, look at the images, and read the numbers. Any person with normal colour vision would have no problem identifying the numbers. Unfortunately for me, it became clear fairly early on that I was having quite a difficult time identifying a lot of them. Either the numbers seemed to shift from one number to another (say, 74 to 21) or they simply remained hidden and unable to be seen.
The mood which was fairly informal at this point suddenly tensened as the nurse and I realised that we had identified a problem.
She sits me down to do some more tests. A machine lights up two tricolour LEDS on its front face. Each LED lights either as white, green or red, and from a distance, you have to identify the colour of first the top LED, followed by the colour of the bottom one, so an answer would be say, "Red, Green".

I do this test, the machine shows me a few dozen combinations of different colours, and I try to identify them as best as I can - it's not as easy in practice as it is in principle.

The nurse switches the machine off. "Have you ever been tested for colour blindness?".
"No, never." I reply, fairly alarmed.
"Well these tests indicate that you have Red-Green colour blindness.

I was amazed. Never having been tested for it, this "condition" if such it may be called, is something I've lived with since I was born. It was weird, I'd always assumed I was the same as everyone else, but all of a sudden, I'd learned that I wasn't.

"Will this prevent me from being eligible for the job I'd wanted?"
"I'm not sure, let me check. What job were you going for?"
"MBT Crew".
She checks in her Big Book of Eligibility (made by the same people who make dentists' equipment - inside joke ;)) and in the silence, every second stretches out, until:

"I don't think this will be a problem".

Relieved, I am directed back to the reception area to await the final part of the examination.

Eventually my name is called, and I'm relieved to see "my" doctor seems to be a pleasant woman, looking to be in her mid forties. She asks me various questions about my life, do I drink, do I smoke, have I ever taken drugs etc. I felt like I was digging my own grave, but having been told at the induction that honesty is the best policy, I answered truthfully that I had been a occasional weed smoker when I was younger, but hadn't touched it for five years. In response to her further quesitons, I answer that I had not suffered any nasty psychotic side effects, and I had never needed to seek treatment or councelling for any drug problem. This is dutifully noted down, the doctor commenting "No problem, that's fine".

Then the medical examination proper. All my joints are checked, my eyes, my ears, my teeth etc, my limbs are moved in directions I didn't realise they went, and at the very end, yes, the naughty bits test.
"Right, No problems here, I think it's safe to say that you've passed".

For the second time that day, I'm amazed. I'd been expecting to fail, I'd worried about it so much in the preceding weeks that I was practically convinced that I'd fail. Being told that I'd laid all my cards on the table, and had still passed, was a huge weight off my shoulders.

I spoke to the Doctor about my diagnosis of colour blindness, and we spoke about it for a while. Turns out that something like 8% of the male population actually have some form of colour blindness, and that I should think of it not as a problem, but as a fairly common condition.

Unfortunately, she also told me, that being colour blind, I would never be able to achieve my long term goal of becoming a helicopter pilot. Certain conditions exclude you from being eligible for pilot training, and colour blindness is one of them.

"Oh well", I thought ". I'll stick to tanks then.

Having passed my medical, I swap my numbered badge for a numbered bib, and head out of the Med Center to the next activity.

More to come later: I've been at it another two hours so I'll crack on with finishing this later on in the week. Hope it was worth the wait. Cheers :-).

UPDATE: 7th Feb: I intend to finish this writeup/article/journal/whatever at some point in the next few days, but due to various offline problems have been concentrating on other issues recently.

PART FOUR: SILLY BUGGERS, AND HYENAS

We're met at the med center by an NCO whos identity I remember almost, but not completely, not at all. We disappear down the corridor and via a route I don't recall, return to the Presentation room.

At some point during the proceedings, we're introduced to a senior NCO, who briefs us on our terms and conditions of service, pay, holidays, medical benefits etc etc, on our interview tomorrow, and other things.

This person seemed to me to be an extremely larger than life character, and certainly filled the room with his presence. It seemd to me that if I were to superimpose imaginary speech bubbles over people's heads, the words within this gentleman's speech bubble would be red, bold, underlined and in capital letters.
The following is based upon this guy's enunciation, spelling edited for emphasis. (italic R is indicative of rolled-Rs)

"To meeake a goooode h'impression at your h'interview tooo-morrrrowww, you have to become a good h'act-torrrr. Can anyone tell me what a good h'act-torrrr is?"

Silence.

"Is Mel Gibson a good h'act-torrr?"

At this point, someone should have expressed an opinion. If only to say that, well, Mel's acting skill or lack thereof has been vastly overshadowed by his personal controversies. But no, absolute silence.
Nobody said "Yes, until he starred in Braveheart". No one had the courage, me included.

During our briefing on Terms and Conditions, the senior NCO happened to mention that we'd get two payrises each year. He'd already demonstrated his dry sense of humour, and when quizzed by one of the lads, took the opportunity to show it again.

"Do we get promoted each time we get a pay rise"
*silly whiny singsong voice and dancing around* "Argh, do weee get promoted each time we get a pay rise"... *voice returns to normal" NO! Otherwise we'd all be bloody Generals wouldn't we!

An informative lesson, and a humorous one.

Later on, a bunch of the lads, myself included, are taken upstairs to a classroom (for want of a better word) to do a maths test, to determine our maths skills (I don't know why, I wasn't aiming for a job that required any). The period was spent in silence apart from "has anyone got the answer to number XYZ"
Idiot from the front "Yeah, it's 34"
Me: "No it bloody isn't. It's 21"
Him: "It's 34! Don't listen to him!"
"You've multiplied it when you're supposed to have averaged it, you tit!"
A burst of laughter and a mumble coming from the other side of the classroom "mmm twenty... one..."

We weren't supervised. Whether they assumed that this would aid our scores (i.e. the scores all increase because everyone copies off the smart guy) or whether they were simply short of people, I don't know. What I do know is that 35 questions into a 55 question test, the corporal returns and tells us we're out of time. From the entire room comes a rapid burst of activity, as those who hadn't finished the test pick answers at random to try and be in with a chance of passing.

Later, in a lull, while some of the other lads are having their medicals (I believe) a group of us were taken to a classroom elsewhere in the site. Chairs spaced around the wall, and under each was a pen, a pad, and a grenade. "Odd combination" I thought. Still, I suppose a grenade would be quite effective at removing any spelling mistakes.
As part of our course we're given a lesson in the characteristics of two different types of grenade.
"[Grenade] has white stencilling, on a blue background. I've not read the test but I believe you may be asked about it, somewhere around question - hmmm - four".
More laughter.

We then went outside to an area close to the perimeter fence, where we were each handed a practice grenade, that is, one without explosives in it.
A bunch of targets had been set up, and each of us had to throw the grenade to get it to land as close to the targets as possible.
I think I did pretty well, in retrospect.
"Don't throw the bloody thing over the fence like Number 14 did earlier" our corporal remarks to more giggles. Only later when I met our "Number 14" did I find out that he actually HAD thrown the grenade over the perimeter fence, and no, no one had been sent to retrieve it!

We go back to the presentation room to be met by the PTI who wants to give us a lacture (lacture? Like a lecture but with more milk, I suppose) on physical fitness in the Army and whatnot. Eventually, time for some more assessments.

We're led through a gap in what I (wrongly) assumed was the perimeter wall of the facility, and down a hill to a large collection of buildings. Blinking, I realised that the place was twice as big as anyone had realised.
Off we went down to the gym, myself and three other lads, to do our strength assessments, pullups etc. Never having done most of these before I wasn't sure what to expect, but you'll be glad to know that I passed them.

Later in the evening we got on with physical activities, the good old Jerry Can carry, and a sodding bloody horrible Bleep Test. Eventually though, time rolled on, and we wound down for the night with an hour at the on-base bar. No alcohol, (some of the trainees were under 18).

Eventually we returned to our accomodation and after a while of chatting and joking, one by one the lights went out and we went to sleep. Well, mostly.
Unfortunately for me, I spent the next 3 hours tossing, turning, gyrating, spinning, revolving, contorting, exploding, and I all but changed species in an attempt to get to sleep. Finally after 3 and a half hours, I started to drift off.

I heard on the very edge of hearing, some muffled whispering and some giggling. Obviously a couple of the lads sharing a joke. The giggling continued, to be joined by a very odd noise. The best way to describe it, would be the sound made by somebody who was not only in extreme pain, but who had just been told the funniest joke in the world.

Folks, I am filled with moderate indifference as I present "Hyena Boy".

Unfortunately for us - trying to get to sleep - laughter has an oddly contagious quality. Trainee by trainee, his odd hyena-ish laughter moved from one end of the room to the other, until we were all in stitches of laughter. Eventually silence reappeared, but only after the entire room was in pain from laughing too much. As a room we wiped away tears and tried to get on to sleep again. Occasionally there'd be a burst of giggling from somewhere in the room, and usually the giggling died down. Sometimes though, just as a starter motor kicks an engine into life, this giggling yet again set Hyena Boy off, which in turn got the room laughing again. Eventually the desire to sleep overrode even the most jovial sense of humour, and eventually, after several repeats of this cycle, and several polite attempts by various folks to get him to be quiet and go to sleep, an angrily hissed "shut up ya f***ing prick" from the corner of the room did the job and eventually we all fell asleep to the sound of the driving rain and wind trying to uproot the flagpoles outside.

PART FIVE: EARLY TO RISE

I woke, as I always do when I value my rest, about 15 minutes before the first of the clock alarms went off (this would be about 4:45AM, I feel tired just thinking about it).
15 minutes of hoping that it wasn't too late to get back to sleep.
Eventually though, the first of the alarms went off, and none of us really had an excuse for staying horizontal.

We got up, folded our blankets, shaved etc, and sat around in the room waiting for Our corporal to come up and get us. Better that we wait for him tan vice versa, especially on an assessment. Luckily almost everyone agreed, and even though there were one or two dissenters, we were all up and ready to get cracking on with the day.

First thing, breakfast. Scrambled eggs, Sausage, Beans and Fried Bread. Yummy.
We looked at each other, chatting, yawning, rubbing eyes and generally feeling tired and a bit "oh, do we have to?". Yes we did, and before long we found ourselves down on one of the training fields ready to do the command tasks.
I was looking forward to these, I'd always excelled at them.

In retrospect, the main difference between the practice assessments and the real assessments is not only the pressure to perform, but the fact that as a result of that pressure, EVERYONE was shouting encouragement, instructions etc in an effort to drown each other out and to be noticed. It seems that your performance in this case was measured strictly on your ability to out-shout your team-mates, rather than any command/support/encouragement criteria [Actually, as I found in the interview, this is broadly true]. We got together pretty well in our teams though and one by one we came up with working plans. Finishing on a high we beat the other team across an obstacle field, cargo in hand. Great, so that's that done. A discussion on the value of motivation and teamwork later, and we're off up ready for the run.

Our PTI comes back down, tells us what we're going to be doing, about our run, etc, asking us to check shoelaces, make sure we'd had a drink of water if we needed it etc.
"Any questions?"
Hyena Boy puts his hand up.
"Can I have a fag?"
The resulting laughter served to ease some of the tension.

Eventually we're taken up to the Parade Square. We're shown the route, and after a couple of warmup laps, we assembled on the start line.
Is this where I go on about moaning and suffering for ten minutes?

Well no actually. Six times around the parade ground, and 11:30 came and went. I finished somewhere around the 11:40 mark. So I'd dropped 15 seconds off my most recent time. Hardly surprising considering that once the snow started coming down, my running took a back seat (better to lose a few seconds than break your bloody leg trying to run on ice!)

The run was over surprisingly quickly. We got back to our accomodation, had a shower, got changed, exchanged run stories etc, and got on with getting ready for our interviews to find out whether we had made the grade or not.

We were taken up to the classroom again, nothing to do now, but wait.
Some of the lads decided that they were bored with "wait" and found "make paper aeroplane" much more interesting. One at a time, paper planes of varying designs took to the skies, flying in lazy arcs (and frequently, hectic death spirals) from one end of the room to the other, accompanied by childish laughter. Ahem.
Hyena Boy asked why I was picking on him - I answered honestly that I tried throwing the planes in every direction except at him, and they still all managed to hit him in the ear.
"Look, see?" I said, throwing a plane into the corner of the room, where it hit some lad in the temple, to more laughter. After the events of the course had been all but completed, we weren't really concerned anymore about anything except our own waiting

For some reason it was determined that we shouldn't stay in the classroom (maybe more dudes had to do their maths tests) so we were brought downstairs to the presentation room. And there, we did some more own waiting.

In true literary fashion, I was one of the last to be seen. We had no outright fails ("don't let us see you round here again" and didn't really have many deferred passes ("better luck next time"), eventually I was called in for my interview by a Major who I'd seen around the camp a couple of times.

A Smile, a good handshake and a confident voice, and this is how we start.
I perched on the seat, ill at ease, trying to look like I wasn't ill at ease. Without fidgeting. Which was an unusual combination.

"So you're from Sheffield?"
"Yes Sir"
"Tell me about Sheffield then".
I wasn't expecting this.
"What would you like to know sir? I mean, from a tourist's point of view, or a student's point of view or?"
So I told him about the city, what it was like to live here, I tried to guage whether he was assessing me or being genuinely interested - realising such things would put me off my stride, I pushed such thoughts to the back of my mind and concentrated on answering the questions put to me succinctly, but thoroughly (if that's possible).

The Major asked me about my life, my family, asked me how I thought I'd done throughout selection. Answering honestly, I replied that although my practices had gone fantastically well, my Team-Task (Command Task) assessments could have gone better.
Answering frankly, he agreed, but did concede that over the course of the morning, the tasks had turned from an exercise in teambuilding, to a "who can shout loudest" competition.

There was silence for a few minutes as he shuffled his papers, looked (presumably) at my data on the screen and steepled his fingers.

Eventually he broke the silence, and told me that despite the command tasks not having gone quite to plan, he had examined my test results, and having spoken to me personally, had decided that he was happy to put me forward for training, and that this constituted an OFFICIAL job offer.

"I assume you still want to be Tank Crew in [regiment]?"
"Yes Sir".
"Well I will write up my notes here, and send your report to them indicating that I believe you are ready for training".

He handed me the certificate, THE certificate, the big green and white PASS certificate that I'd come all the way to Edinburgh to obtain, shook my hand firmly, and directed me back to the waiting room.
While waiting, I filled out a "how did you like your course/training/staff/meals/presentations" etc survey.

"Are you relieved mate?" asked one of the other lads.
I sat and thought about it for a second.
"No mate. I'm not relieved. I was worried about passing this, now I've passed it, I've got to go and do the bloody thing all over again, times ten, in basic".
He grinned. I lightened up and laughed, "Yeah I'm glad I passed mate. I'll be stopping at the offy on the way back tonight!"

Stifling a yawn, I rubbed my eyes, and wondered, after a 3 hour train journey back home, would I really be buying loads of beer and celebrating?

Eventually the commanding officer of the camp returned with the rest of the trainees who had been living it up in the mess, gave us a closing presentation (congratulations for those that passed, commiserations for those that didn't (about 5 people out of 22) etc), and before we knew it, we were hustled back onto the coach, carring our certificates, suit bags and other assorted messes of baggage. Helping myself to a free packed lunch on the way out (apple, sausage roll, apple juice, biscuit, packet of crisps etc) we boarded the coach and got taken back to Edinburgh.

On the way back we chatted, discussed the course, our passes/failures, and what we thought of the course. We ogled three or four GTRs that were casually lined next to each other outside the local (local?! It was bloody 3 hours train journey from my house - still, you know what I mean :P) Nissan dealers. I'd only ever seen one on the road and here were three/four lined up next to each other.
Chatting more, we agreed that the course had been a laugh, and resolved to stay in touch with each other after we got home. I looked out of the windows onto the streets of Edinburgh, and with a certain degree of wonder, at the snow-covered mountains that surrounded the city. "It's not such a small world after all" I found myself thinking.

Eventually we got off the coach, back outside the rail station. We were in the same situation we were in before, collectively, but the stress level had dropped by approximately one ADSC course.

We stayed around and chatted, and eventually moved into the station and chatted, which is exactly like staying around and chatting but lower down. Feeling incredibly overdressed in my smart shoes and suit, I hurried off for somewhere to change into my more casual clothes.

Having found an "accessible" bathroom (which a member of staff kindly let me get changed in), I hurried back to my mates, and carried on chatting. About half an hour later, we wandered along to our platform, to catch the train that would take us home.

PART SIX: LATE TO BED

We found our train eventually, and we found to our vast amusement, that we had in all probability, all travelled up on the same train, and just hadn't bumped into each other in the course of the journey. We got on the train.

Eventually, we found somewhere to sit in the mess of reserved seats, and finally, the doors closed, and we started moving. And the journey back was much as the journey there. But it seemed shorter.

Looking out of the window, the scenery appearing from behind me and whooshing off into the distance, the rolling hills and what was turning into a very dramatic red sunset, I decided to stick some appropriate mood music on, and for a couple of minutes, kept myself to myself.

Hours pass, as do the cities. One or two of the lads go to sleep, the rest of us stay chatting.

A woman came down the train pushing a cart. One lad had a hot chocolate, for my part I paid £3.80 (!!!!) for a tiny teeny weeny bottle of wine. "You've got to celebrate somehow" was my only explanation as I opened it.

Finally and at long last though, the train halts at Sheffield station and we (myself and a trainee dude who I only got talking to on the train back - if I'd have got on the train at Sheffield instead of further along the line I'd probably have known him pretty well by the time we arrived) stepped off it, back onto home soil, if you like.

Saying our goodbyes, he wandered off, and I noted that I was now alone once again. I exited the station, noting with some wry amusement that Sheffield station was no more familiar to me than Edinburgh's.

Stomping wearily through the town center I wandered up to the bus stop. Glaring at the timetable, I sighed as I noticed that after all, I had to wait 20 minutes for the next bus back.

Eventually I got on the bus and after an interminable journey through pleasantly familiar surroundings, got off the bus just outside work.
I went in and had a little chat, proudly showing my pass certificate, before popping up to the off licence to buy some beer.

I walked home. After a 30 minute coach trip, a 3 and a half hour train journey, and half an hour on a bus, I walked the final 25 minute slog to my house, my family, and most importantly, my bed.

I came in, exchanged pleasantries with my family, and eventually plodded upstairs.
I unpacked. I looked at the beer. Then at the bed. Then at my beer again.

It had been a long couple of days, and though I was almost ready for it to end, I had a couple of things I wanted to do first.
Shrugging, I sat down and opened the first can of celebration beer...

Thanks for reading :-).

Whiteout!!!

I woke up to hear something that I only used to hear either in Need for Speed games, or at the local retail park on a wednesday night.

Looking outside, I saw a silver Ford Focus estate, struggling to get up the road (or at least, struggling to avoid sliding back down it). The noise coming from the car, was the sound of the driver bouncing the engine off the rev limiter repeatedly, combined with the sound of his (ruined by now, probably!) front tires going "SKREEEEE" against the road as they kicked up impressive arcs of...

Snow! Snoe, snoeww! lovely snoe! Well, lovely when you don't have anywhere to go I guess :-).
At a rough guess, we probably have 3/4 inches of it at the moment, with the sky still flat grey and the snow still coming down. Oddly, even the telephone cables that go from the utility pole to the individual houses, are caked in snow, and look really odd, now being about 2 inches thick, instead of maybe 1cm thick.

One other thing I woke up to was the sound of my mum, taking the christmas decorations down. Obviously they need to come down because if they didn't, how would we put them back up? Despite this, I've always found it a depressing affair. Weird cos I've always found putting them up infuriating.

Sooo, as I ask each time, what have I been up to?

Well, drinking a lot actually, to the point where even I would question whether it's a good idea. 24 pints in 10 days - can't be good for you.
Regardless, a fun time was had by all (me) and I didn't cause/get into any trouble which was fair enough :-).

One other thing I may have been up to is watching the New Year's celebrations on TV, as I do every single year, with my family. Don't know why, surely it'd be great to count it down with a beer in your hand or something - I dunno I prefer spending the time with my family.

After the huge firework display on TV though, we did indeed go outside, to find...

...fewer fireworks than we expected. This year everyone seems to have replaced their fireworks with those Chinese Lantern thingiemabobs. Not to worry though, because there certainly were a lot of them. Drifting over houses and off into the distance. Over 15 in the sky floating about at one point, which certainly made the place look a bit surreal. They were like little mobile constellations.

Anyway I'm off now, have fun :-).

Update 16:42 (Written at the time, on my ipaq, copied to PC 02:53 the following morning):

Well, sorry about having to dash off, nephew was being a little bit hyper.
We went out for a lovely wander in the snow, which turned out to be closer to six inches in places, rather than four as I'd suspected.
The little guy had a fun old time, dancing in the snow, watching the various dogs being walked, and giggling at all the kids sledging, some of whom had turned a heart-shaped sandpit into a three-man/kid sledge, a-la Takeshi's Castle.

Eventually, my nephew decided that he was too cold to enjoy himself in the snow, conveniently while we were at the fathest part of our route, away from the house.

I managed to get us home fairly quickly, detouring through the estate across the park, before heading through the "Magical woodley woods".
Oddly upon getting back, I was apprehended and asked to brush the snow off the windows of our cars. A fool's errand obviously, given that it was - *checks out the window* - is still snowing. I don't know where my dad thinks we're likely to be going tomorrow, in at least six inches of snow, but at least the windows will be clear.
Except they won't, as it's in the minuses outside, and since I cleared them, another CM of snow has fallen.

Well, I'm off to play Pocket UFO on my iPaq, my nephew having commandeered my computer to play the zoo game. Have fun :-).

Update: 02:57: Well, the snow continued to come down intermittently, switching between not snowing, to snowing reasonably heavily. Nothing major, but enough to keep the snow fresh, and more than enough to once again, cover the windows of the cars.

By 6pm, we'd finished taking down the last of the christmas decorations, and they're now safely stowed in the loft ready for christmas this year. The room looks kinda plain, but hey, it looks tidier.
Appropriately, tonight I finished another one of my ickle christmas presents: One that I forgot to open on Christmas Day.
While I was off out some time, my nephew and my mum conspired to cook me some lovely shortbread Christmas trees. I figured "meh, home baking, won't be as good as the stuff you buy in shops".
I tried them, and I was right. They weren't as good. They were much much better :-D.
So having finished them, and having made my bed, I'm now off to sleep in it. Hopefully we'll have plenty more snow overnight :-D.

Byee!
Oh yeah, some pictures - the table is our little feast we had on the 27th - another nice family occasion :-). There's my shortbread, and there is a snowy shiny photo of the woodley woods :-).
Dunno why they're so big, but hey :-).

That time of year again...

21:24: ...well someone's started the fireworks early.

After a day of looking after my nephew (not really a challenging task as it consists mostly of putting Zoo Tycoon on for him and leaving him to it for an hour or 12)...

23:09: Must stop getting distracted.
So yeah, after an uneventful day of tidying up, playing Walking Legs - scoring 9 flag captures to 0 (until my nephew randomly changed team on my behalf, giving the team I'd just left a chance to lose for a while) and scoring over 350 kills to the most skilled bot's 40ish - and generally keeping the little guy happy it seems to be a peaceful and quiet end to the year.
So 2009, what's happened in it.

I've bought plenty of camera stuff over the course of the year, I've settled well into what was at the start of the year, a new job, I've had the very unnerving experience of being completely offline for ten or so days, and my fitness has gone up and down, up and down, with my army application crawling along at a snail's pace.

There have been plenty of other things too, but if you want more detail you'll have to find it in my blogs further down the page.

Yeah, 2009, not a bad year, not a great year, but I've had much worse :-).
Let's hope 2010 is the year that changes everything. For the better!

So to all of you out there, in whatever time zone you currently happen to find yourself in, all the best for the coming of (or just past) midnight, and all the best for this/next year :-).
I'll be back after the clock strikes 12 :-).

Xmas Day!!!

01:18: Wow, that's the last of the pressies wrapped.

So where to start from...
Hmm, "this morning" (christmas Eve).

As the roads began to ice over, I got to sleep fairly late, in the expectation that I wouldn't be woken until the late morning, when we went to Morrisons after some of the snow had thawed.
Of course, this is me we're talking about, so I was completely unsurprised and surprisingly unbothered, to be woken up at 05:30 to check on the roads, to see whether the snow would pose a problem.

As it happened, apparently they would, as despite the fact that the odd car or van was zooming up and down the top road, after some discussion between my dad, my dad and my dad, w/he decided that it would be unsafe to go to Morrisons.

After the odd couple of arguments, mostly by me - a great big stickler for rigidly following christmas traditions (but no other traditions, odd, seems maybe christmas is the big rock of sanity in my life), I went downstairs to calm down, only to see that the light snow had in fact become extremely heavy over the course of the hour, and the light snow had now turned into several inches of settled lovely fluffy crunchy snow.

Eventually we headed off to the local shop, but midway changed our mind, with me being told that I was going to Morrisons in the next town.
Having not planned to be "going out", I didn't have my camera with me, which (at christmas, and especially on christmas eve which is a big family occasion), and I was horrified.

But as time passed, I calmed down in the cafe at the local Morrisons and within ten seconds of my ickle nephew turning up, I was in a cheery mood. Sure it wasn't "OUR" morrisons but we had fun shopping as a family.

I spent the rest of the day after returning, trying to get some sleep while my nephew played on my computer, alternating between "Walking Legs (Unreal Tournament 3)", and Zoo Tycoon. I spent a good 5 hours or so in that lovely warm fuzzy state where you're not asleep, but you're not awake either.

My ex-neighbour had come along with her kids, who once little, are now getting on towards 13 and 15. The dude kept my ickle nephew company, spending most of the day watching the lil guy playing Walking Legs, and trying to persuade everyone to let him install UT3 on his laptop.

I finally managed to grab a little sleep, only to be shouted awake with the news that Father christmas was about to turn up on his sleigh.
this he did, and the little guy managed to get a Flake Chocolate bar, while one of my mates wandered around handing out mince pies and buns, which was kind of awesome of him.

I even managed to get the little dude to help me sprinkle the reindeer food outside the front of the house.

Eventually though, time to go off to work, and the day started slowly.
I took about three deliveries all night, and was in a foul mood, until a lovely nice kind woman paid for a £23 order with a £10 and a £20, telling me to keep the change, which was kind of awesome of her.

The night improved as time went on, we sold out of stock pretty quickly, and closed about 9pm.
I was surprised to be told we could have a beer after we'd closed, and sure enough as we closed, one thing led to another, and before I knew it, an impromptu christmas party appeared in our restaurant. A few of us disappeared off to the local off licence/liqor store, and returned to hand around beers, and JD and cokes, drinking all of the above with great merriment.
We left work in a very cheerful mood.

I wandered home through the next estate, listening to lovely christmas music, drinking my lovely christmas beer, and looking at all the sparkly and shiny christmas lights outside the various houses.
On my way home I took a second detour through the local park, which was perfectly white and glistening with still-undisturbed snow. I tried my hand at making a snowball, and managed to come up with a nice shiny almost perfectly spherical snowball by the time I got back.

I stuck it on a fencepost outside the house.
Maybe it's still there.

I came in, helped myself to one of my mum's awesome quiches, swept up the reindeer food, and came up here. Since then I've been sat wrapping christmas presents, drinking christmas beer and looking forward to - what is now - the main part of what is now today.

I had a nice time the other day with my mum, wandering around Meadowhall looking for nice christmas presents, and while I'm not going to go into detail about it, I thought I'd mention it, entirely for my own benefit, so I can be reminded of it when I read this again.

One thing that I did wish - sort of - I'd bought as a present, was something from a model shop.
You'll remember I gave my brother a photo of the "Jedi Plane" (G-JEDI), well the shop was selling a perfectly detailed model of that very plane, right down to the awesome registration number.

Of course, my brother's desk is probably like mine. Filled with touchscreens, technology, and other alliterative awesomeness.

Still. I guess I'm gonna sit back and chill out for a bit. Got to be up at 8 to get the house ready for everyone :-).

But before I go, I'll take the opportunity to wish anyone reading this - particularly my awesome friends Lexi, McGee, Ryon if he's still around, David Whatsisface, and any others that are sitting about, an aesome and completely christmassy christmas.

Hope you all get lots of presents!

I'll update this as time goes on!

Bye for now :-).

23:00: Wow, what a day.

I woke up about 8am, and wandered downstairs ready to get the living room ready for christmas. Even as I set the place up, I noticed the distinctive shapes of the packaging of a few things i'd asked for for Xmas. Woo, I hadn't opened a single present and I already know that I'd been given two of the presents on my list, which was cool.

After half an hour of arsing about fetching presents from everywhere, and struggling to determine where everyone was going to sit, my sister and ickle nephew arrived.

Shortly after, my brother and his other half turned up, with our grandad, and after a short while, we were sat down and ready to start opening presents.

Time passed, and I did indeed open both my Eikon fingerprint reader, and my 52mm UV Filter.
I also asked for Eddie Izzard's "Stripped" tour on DVD, but was awesomely surprised to find myself opening a boxed set of all 7 of his tours on DVD (not including Live at the Ambassador's, which Eddie said would never ever be put on DVD).

One of the first presents I opened was a huge new lovely warm egyptian cotton duvet, bought by my sister, which is great because it's about time I upgraded my bed. Eventually, I opened my Terry's Chocolate Oranges (self-addressed-present) to people#'s considerable amusement which was awesome.

So from my personal presents receiving point of view, Christmas '09 was fantastic. I got a load of stuff including all but one of the items on my Xmas list (3 out of 4 items :P)

My grandad bought me a really cool jacket, that rather oddly, has a zip up the centre of both the front and the back. I can only assume that the jacket is available in different colours, and you are able to zip different coloured halves of each jacket together. My bro and his fiancee were responsible for the Eddie Izzard DVD, as well as some really cool beering stuff, including my very own personalised drinking tankard, personalised drinks coasters and personalised bottle opener.
My mum and dad got me a wide variety of stuff, including the aforementioned print reader, and photographic filter.
I also got some more stuff from Visibledust, in this case, an Arctic Butterfly electric sensor cleaner (which I've just learned from their site, seems to be horrifyingly expensive!!). I also got a load of books, from them including a couple which look quite funny, and my nephew/sister bought me some alcohol, and of course, a huge toblerone.
So yeah, from a purely selfish point of view a good day, but I was more involved than that.
The Bag I bought for my sister seems to have gone down quite well, and my mum seemed very fond of both her new earrings and her smelly candle stuff. I wanted to buy my brother's other-half a Black Eyed Peas album, but despite being shipped last week sometime, it still hasn't turned up. As a make-do IOU, I bought and wrapped up a can of "Black-eyed beans, in water, 350g" from Morrison's yesterday. Fortunately, the joke went down pretty well.
The most fantastic present given to anyone that day would seem to be Khet, a present from me to my brother. Turns out he'd seen it online, and having decided it was incredibly cool, spent a while trying to get it before christmas, to no avail (all places everywhere in the world sold out completely). I had the game sitting on top of my wardrobe waiting for the big day for maybe the last 5 or 6 months, at a guess, and I don't think I've ever seen him so happy to receive a present. So woo, seems it cheered both of us up. We played a couple of games after we cleared away the empty boxes and wrapping paper and stuff. My nephew also took to his new playmobil, and seems to like it loads which is pretty cool, but the lego which my brother bought him has taken center stage, which is also pretty cool. The lil guy's getting good at putting the models together now.

Christmas Dinner was great, my nephew didn't want his soup so I got 2 lots of soup and extra bread, which was great. The melon that preceded it was nice, and I had a nice meal afterwards of turkey and cranberry and whatnot.
Still haven't had any christmas pudding yet though!

Since then I've alternated between playing with my nephew, tidying up after him, playing with my new stuff, tidying up after myself, and generally collapsing slowly, as the accumulated sleep-debt of the last few days begins to catch up with me.

But despite the hazards and pitfalls and downright unpleasantness of early yesterday morning, today has been absolutely fantastic, and has gone extremely well.

Just before my nephew went, We let him in on a surprise I'd been keeping for him. Handing him a letter, I explained to him that the letter included a treasure map, and that if he found the treasure, he'd get to keep it.
After a short time, he found the treasure (itself made from a gold-painted box with gems, filled with a load of chocolate coins, a load of plastic coins, and a load of imitation pearls and jewellry and whatnot), as well as a note directing him to look elsewhere in the room. Once he found it, he opened it to find his Chipod.

Again, he seemed pleased with his latest acquisition.

Well, now I think I'm going to have a beer in my nice new beer mug thing, and I'm going to chill out and watch the latest Eddie Izzard DVD.

Have fun folks, hope you all had an awesome christmas :-).

Fog Blog! (Xmas eve!!!)

Wow, the fog!!!

16:43: Having just been woken up with the warning "Father Christmas coming in 15 minutes!!!1!!1!11one" I've leapt out of bed to write this.
And so I am with my cute ickle nephew bounding around my bed for some reason, I'm going to perform the dual tasks of getting ready for work AND getting ready to take my ickle nephew out :-).

17:09: Well you've heard the phrase "christmas comes early", in this case it was true, with father christmas on his van outside before we got to the front door.
A brief spell in the foggy snowy coldness outside, listening to the happy christmas tunes from santa's sleigh, and my ickle nephew was given a miniature Flake chocolate bar :-).

Well, I'd best be getting ready to go to work, I'll write more after I get back.

Ciao!

Kerrist, it's cold!!!

"You're stating the obvious, hahahaha".

Shut up.
This is England, a country where earlier THIS YEAR, we had 4 inches of snow in february, and less than EIGHT weeks later, sweltered in 35C (95F) heat.

But Kerrist, it's been cold this weekend.

Last night was nothing special. I wandered off to work listening to happy christmas tunes, crunching through the already-melting snow.
and out I went, into the night, delivering here there and everywhere, slippety-sliding down hills, freezing my butt off, and getting (secretly) first angry, then frustrated, then bemused, then amused, as customer after customer looked out of their door at my frost-covered bike, at the little snow that remained, coming down, at me shivering my ass off, and somewhere in their mind the little light that lit up the button labelled "give this poor kid a tip" never really came on.

Four hours into a five hour shift - in the snow - on the ice - on a bike! - was when I got my first tip. Having mentioned to the woman that "you're the first person to say [keep the change] all night", she snorted and spat "some people just don't think".

"That's not for me to say" I said, professionally and politely.
"Not while I'm still being paid anyway". Which made her laugh.

I'm only human, and I'm allowed to show it. A big plus over my last job. Look - here's a video with some of my ex work colleagues in it.

I got home last night, to find my computer on standby (After I turned it off), and my room a general mess (after I cleaned it). Turned out my ickle lovable nephew had been in wanting to play Zoo Tycoon, and having been unable to find my mouse, had gone to search my room for it.
Must have been a shock when the cupboard door came off in his hand (it's been broken for a while).

Of course, I couldn't find my mouse either, and I was convinced the little guy had nicked it.
So gently, I woke him from his sleepyness and figured he'd be more co-operative if I could have him offering to help, rather than admitting his guilt.

"I think my computer mouse has run off, can you help me find it?"

So the little guy got dressed and looked around with me and we couldn't find it. Eventually I found it in my wardrobe, right where I left it.
Feeling guilty, I wrapped the little guy up in blankets, and hesat there, cheerily eating Milky Way Magic Stars while I showed him various exciting (to him) christmas videos, and then off to bed.

I got woken this morning, several times, by the little dude wanting to play the lego game.

Course I left the little guy to it. Eventually my dad seemed to take great pleasure in telling my that I had to get up and go out with her. Various arguments ensued, including the point at which my nephew was told he'd have to abandon the zoo game and go downstairs.

Nephew + Computer = happiness
Nephew + Computer - Computer = Instant tantrum.

Anyway, we had the usual family flobwallops (new word) and eventually we went out, but not before my ickle nephew turned up at the door wearing an awesome little "mummy's little helper" apron. Off to do some baking, they were.

And off we went, my sister and I, to town.
We managed to park up, bimble around the toy section, and then eventually escape from the... well, grannified, as my sister would put it, nexus of shopping that is John Lewis, in Sheffield city center.
Yep, we were surrounded left and right by junior call center managers with upwardly mobile ambitions, and even as we moved from floor to floor, you could see the glint in their eye that suggested that buying such and such a gift would move them from an expendable level of middle management, to a slightly more intimate, slightly less expendable, slightly less appropriate level of aspiring very-junior-senior-management....

No, the place wasn't quite like that, but still.

We wandered around the shops, where I satisfied another christmas tradition, by buying two Terry's Chocolate Orange - one normal one and one "snowball" (white chocolate) one.
While waiting to pay I dropped the "snowball" and in the process of trying to catch it, accidentally flung it at the woman in front of me.

Well, as she said, I was the first person to throw a snowball at her this christmas :-P.

One thing I also bought was quite cute - I bought a packet of "reindeer food". "Colourful crystals and oats". I've already got it figured out, the oats are to feed the reindeer, the crystals make them fly. I want to sprinkle it outside the front of the house with my ickle nephew on Christmas Eve.

I managed to get a few presents while I was in town, though I'm still wating for the playmobil spare parts I ordered to turn up. My sister still has no clue about what she wants for christmas, which is mildly worrying because it's the big day in four days' time.

I managed to get to work only 15 minutes late after leaving it a little late to set off home, and sodding hell did the weather turn foul. The night was fairly quiet to begin with, but over the next couple of hours, a little drizzle came down, which turned into flurries of nice lovely sleet, making me wet, and cold.
The water washed away the rest of the snow, ending a nice little part of Christmas.

I didn't do too badly for tips though, and came home in a cheery mood, relaxing with some beer.
I woke up early this afternoon, to look out of the window to see...

Snow! Lots of snow! Inches of it! It wasn't long before the first cars appeared, struggling to get into their driveways and whatnot. I was sent out to distribute the christmas cards to the local houses, and took the opportunity to wander round in the snow.
I don't think I've ever seen the place so quiet. I spent about 2 hours just wandering round the local (and not so local) streets, discovering alleyways and shortcuts to places I didn't even know existed. Eventually I decided to head back home, walking in snow for 2 hours being quite tiring and whatnot, but not before I tried to make a huge snowball in the local park (only to find that the snow is that powdery stuff that doesn't stick together very easily - not that this stopped the creators of any of the dozens of snowmen I saw while on my travels...

It started to snow, just as I got home.

So yep, I'm off to have a nap, and then I suspect I might go round for a wander in the snow again tomorrow :-).

Have fun :-).

Chestnuts, Open Fires, and All

Meh. I hate colds.
It's been a bit of a poor fortnight, health wise.

One day I was changing my watch strap and managed to nearly slice the bloody end of my thumb off. A couple of days later I cut my finger on the same hand. THEN I got a mouth ulcer, THEN I got a cold. 51 weeks since my last one though so my health track record isn't THAT bad.

Why should you care? You shouldn't really, but I do. On the bright side, a cold is the worst thing to happen to me all year so I can't really complain :-).

Though it has been pretty crappy, what with the whole headachy sneezy congesty whatnotiness snotiness, which sounds like the name of a Roman general.

I went to a nice Christmas Do, last night. I apparently made myself popular enough with my colleagues at my last job, to be invited to their Christmas do, over a year since I left the company. Yay, go me.
The night was pretty nice though, the food was fantastic, the only hiccup was when I ran out of loose change and had to use plastic to order a beer, and since the minimum spend on card was £5, I had to get two beers instead. Hardly something to complain about.

I did spend £10 out of my tips jar though, so I woke up dutifully, earlier today - (really? I thought I could write blogs in my sleep - I should, they'd be interesting - thanks to eating a little bit of cheese each night before bed, some of my dreams are VERY interesting) - and proceeded to set off to the shops to withdraw £10 to put back in the jar. Cos I'm good at accounting like that, apparently.

I wandered out looking at what seemed to be a normal wintry/wintery (?) sunrise. And then grinned as I looked down the road, to see that the wintery sunrise actually occupied about an eighth of the sky - the part directly outside my window - and everywhere else was covered with very dark, very purposeful lead-grey clouds.

I wandered off to the shops and before I'd even got there, it started drizzling. And yet, noticing that this drizzle seemed sharper than usual, I glanced at a streetlight, to see illuminated around it, a flurry of the winter's first snow.

The snow got pretty heavy on the way back, though it seems to have died off temporarily. Still, put a smile on my face.

So what Christmassy stuff have I been up to?

Well I started my little alcoholic advent calendar (calendar with alcohol, not a calendar for alcoholics - I checked online, I exhibit one of the nine criteria required for being an alcoholic, so it's official, I don't have a drink issue :P) yesterday evening. I put the Whisky Cream and Kakao in the drinks cabinet, because I'm not going to touch them this year, on account of them being crap, which made it an eight-day countdown.

Today's drink was Ferro China, bottle number 3 apparently, which was vaguely pleasant and drinkable. Even as I finished the last drops I reflected that it wasn't as good as last year's blog made it out to be, but it was quite pleasant, and I probably wouldn't be getting any more, so I was mindful to enjoy what little I had.

I also took what I think is probably my best christmas photo ever. Again it's not so much about technical quality (though the exposure seems pretty sharp) as the content of the image, and I love the colours and the whole warm cozy christmas feeling of this one. The Living Room is purple because of the red lights from the wall lights and tree, mixing with the blue lights in the window. It seems others are getting into the christmas spirit, with my lovely friend Lexi secretly slinking off to drink Eggnog straight from the carton.

My bedroom turned out pretty well with christmas lights, and the rest of the decorations have finally gone up. The whole process was pretty painless, and I even decorated most of the big tree myself, which was a novelty.
One other thing I got up to was making a start on wrapping my Xmas presents. I've not wrapped the big playmobil presents yet because I'm waiting for a few spare parts to arrive from playmobil (£4.50ish for 9 parts, including postage - can't complain!). Once that's done, I'll get it wrapped and away.

Well, I'm off to exist for the rest of the day (which despite the snow earlier, is shaping up to be an extremely clear and bright - if extremely cold - day), and with some luck I won't miss The Bill tonight, as I have for the past three weeks. Hopefully my resurrected Ipaq (yes, this one "died" too, due to an EXTREMELY low battery - had to do a hard reset and lost all my contacts) will be able to remind me in time.

Finally, I'm going to "put" a christmas shout out to my mate McGee, if he still reads this. I haven't heard a lot from him recently, though despite his return to the UK, he's feeling a little down, so here's thinking of you bud, hope you got stuff sorted.

Have fun all :-).

Oh, as a tiny miniature christmas gift, here is a link to the Vicar of Dibley Christmas Special.

A lovely christmassy episode :-). Quite warm and fuzzy :-).

20:32 Update: Well, after a freezing day, with intermittent snowfall, we now have about a centimetre of snow on the roads, roofs, paths, trees, cars, and other assorted horizontal sky-facing surfaces of all manners. Thanks to the freezing cold, the paths AND the roads are also covered in ice, which means that the snow as it lands is now settling on anything it touches.

If this keeps up, we should be in for a white day tomorrow. Hopefully I won't get sent out on the scoots!

00:02 Update: Woop Woop! I've just been paid! Now I can sort out the rest of the Xmas pressies :-). And I can go to Princes Risborough, if I wanted to, which I don't, so I don't know why I mentioned it.
The snow's been coming down in varying degrees of severity and at one point was actually coming down pretty heavily.

Today's randomly selected Christmas countdown drink is the good old "Water from Penis Mountain". Well, it says "Amaro Monte Penice" but we all know what they meant :).

Miaow! Which is like ciao, but fluffier.

Merry 200th!!

15:43 So folks, this is the big 200, the 200th post on this blog. Crikey, I didn't realise I spent that much time writing the thing. Still...

I'm not going to waffle on about where the last 3 (or so) years have seen me, if you're that interested there's plenty of stuff that goes into all that in more depth than I could here, given my memory, or lack thereof, patience, and time. Needless to say, the blog's proven pretty valuable to me, if only because it allows me to sit and look back, through rose tinted spectacles, at various things that have happened, in the true "Haha I lost my job wasn't that funny. Hey, look at this I had to be victimised by a dentist for hours hehe that was fun" sort of way.

I'm not going to drink loads of celebration beer, because I did that the other day, and had quite an enjoyable time.

So what am I going to do instead? Well, I'm just about to get all the christmas gubbins down from the loft. So I'm gonna go get a drink, wait for my dad to get out of the way, and then get on with it.

16:52: Still haven't got on with it. Have spent the past hour and a half preparing my computer for a major backup. Gonna do a deep system virus scan too which should take until about 1am. Just backing up some stuff to CD and then off I go to do this christmassy stuff :-).

18:09: Well, that's the christmas decorations down. I think I've figured out which ones are mine, though even as I speak I'm struggling to find any signs of wear and tear (or stickyback velcro, which usually covers any possessions of mine that I might feel compelled to stick to nearby vertical surfaces) that my lights have (a couple of broken bulbs, nothing serious).

Fortunately for me, I'm amazed to see that my christmas candle arch works straight out of the box, with none of the burned-out bulbs that seem to plague christmas illuminations everywhere.

Still, I'll crack on and see if I've got what I think I've got, lights-wise.

18:21: that's the lights untangled, now to find some tape to stick em up. Oh, and a three-way socket.

19:46: After messing about for a long while, I managed to dig out a four-way socket that I thought I needed behind my desk. 40 interminable minutes later, I'd got the lights stuck up and arranged nicely, and they've just this second been switched on, for the first time. It feels more christmassy already. Now to tidy up after myself.

01:17: Well, I'm sitting here in my nice tidy room, looking forward to going to bed later.
The little christmas lights are twinkling away in their electrical type way, and shortly I'm going to be putting some supper in the microwave.

So what else has happened recently? Well, my sister and I decided to go shopping for christmas presents a couple of days ago, so off we went. We had a pretty good time, and took the time to participate in welcoming the Light Dragoons back from Afghanistan, as they marched through the town center, to cheers and applause.

I didn't really spend a great deal of money, I got a couple of christmas pressies (and a cool new razor), but that was about it.

I returned to find a card shoved through the door by the postman, saying that he'd called round while we were out, and that I'd have to collect my parcel.
The parcel, is an ebay auction that I won, for loads and loads of playmobil stuff for my ickle nephew.

We collected it the following morning, and went round Wentworth Garden Centre's playmobil section to see if there was any cool stuff there.
There was.
There always is.
But both of us are approaching being broke, about now, so it's debatable whether there's any more to buy, playmobil wise.

But hey, a look at the playmobil that arrived. I think it's fantastic. The little guy wanted an airport, he's getting an airport :-D.

On a related note, my dad has asked me to show him where to buy my christmas presents from, and says he'll buy them. Kinda spoils the surprise I guess, on the other hand, it's nice to know that they're on their way.

As for my christmas list, I'd show you. It's lovely handwritten calligraphy on parchment and it took me hours, but my mum has cleverly lost it. Meh.

Still, just for you, here is my christmas list:

UPEK Eikon USB Card Reader

Hoya 52mm HMC UV Filter
Eddie Izzard "Stripped" DVD
and added later as an extra

Cyber Snipa Tracer Mouse Pad

Well, I'm off to make a cup of tea, and to get some spaghetti bologneise (and toast, yum).
Here is a slideshow of my nephew's awesome playmobil (the plane and helicopter are last year's xmas pressie - the rest is new :-D - remember as always, this blog is nephew-proof - restricted area, no nephews allowed! :-)



Oh and finally, here is another pressie I bought.
His name is "DeskTriceratops". I was thinking of starting a cult of personality based around him.
If a science fiction author can invent a religion from scratch, surely I can get people worshipping a plush dinosaur?

Over to you :-D.

Off out!

09:25: Right, despite a thoroughly filthy horrible wet and nasty night (during which I got completely soaked at work), and an even worse filthy horrible early morning with incredibly heavy rain that woke me up (though when I got back to sleep I did manage to have a really cool dream where I got to fly in the back fo a Hughes 500D), I hve woken up feeling slightly rested and quite cold, and apparently we're now off out, to good old Kelham Island :-).

Updates to follow :-).

01:19: Well, after a rainy start, the day brightened up, and turned into one of those lovely wintry days, bright blue sky, very bright sun, cold wind etc etc.
We met my nephew (sister, brothers fiancee etc) there, to my nephew's delight, and started looking round the various stalls and exhibits.
We wandered round looking at things, my nephew drew some lovely pictures and made a christmas cracker, and I took the opportunity to have "Soupandaroll" (all one word), which unfortunately came out of the soup container at about 356 degrees C and was still hot enough to burn my mouth several hours later.

There was a momentary blip when as with last year, we ended up splitting into two seperate groups, each unable to find the other, but by the time we got reunited, my nephew was ready to go on some fairground rides, which he did.

All in all, a nice family morning out, and was quite enjoyable :-). Now I've got to get some sleep and I'm going to go to this here christmas concert thing later on, which should be nice.

I've imported some of the photos, they'll all need procesing so I'll do that at some point . I'm going to have a nap and suchlike, I think :-).

Byeee

EDIT 03:25 8th December: Here's one photo - More may follow :-). Incidentally, I have uploaded the entire demonstration of the awesome Don Engine. You can see it here.

Gainsborough!

Part One: Prepiologue
(A cross between an epilogue and a prologue - it's a bridge between "today" and "tomorrow" (today ends when I go to bed and starts when I get up, regardless of what the clock might say).

Yay, it's that time of year again where we're looking forward to going to Gainsborough Old Hall, to look around the christmas market, to enjoy the mince pies, and to sample various curiosities such as chilli chocolate, and (probably) chips and sausage, with scandinavian cola.

But before I get to that, a word or two about "today".

I woke up, as it says, to what looked like a pretty crappy day. Unrested, cold, and in a grouchy/nervous mood. Said mood improved once I got into town to meet the rest of the lads, but nervousness didn't go away.

I didn't get red-one this time, instead being designated yellow four, which was fair enough. We did the heaves again, with the usual mix of performance ranging from swarthy 8 stone 16 year olds doing 8,9, maybe 10 heaves, and the ones who hadn't trained, failing to do a single heave. I scored three, which I wasn't happy with, but at least I passed that module and I know what to work on.

The Jerry Can Carry went pretty well. It didn't seem quite as hard as last time or the time before, and I ended up passing that with no problems. the younger lads, despite their light weight and relatively high fitness, as a side effect of that light weight, were somewhat lacking in physical strength, and as a group, they seemed to find this particular module harder than everyone else.

The run, as normal, wasn't particularly easy (especially because they shoved an extra 50 meters on the start), and wasn't particularly fun. My time wasn't awe-inspiring, at 11:25 (25 seconds slower than my best) but still secured me a pass. Said swarthy youngsters scored 8:30 and upwards, and the worst time was somewhere around 14 minutes.

The command tasks went okay, we all worked pretty well as part as a team. I didn't feel I "shone" as much as I did the first time I did them, but I did get my say in proceedings and since I figured out the fundamental secret to passing that particular challenge, I was pretty happy.

So all in all, a good day. Not the most awesome performance, but not poor by any means, and as far as I've been told, I should be looking at an acceptable pass. Which now, leaving time for further improvement, means I should be well on the way to passing at ADSC - the one that counts. There was plenty of humour, spirits were high even among the "deferred pass"ers (come back and do it again), and I made a few good mates, some of which, thanks to the magic of the internets, I'm able to keep in touch with, whether we ever meet again or not.

Looking out of the window, the day seems to have ended the way it started. Cold and drizzly.
Except now I've got a third pass under my belt, I'm much more cheerful, and much less stressed.

I'm looking forward to getting some sleep, so I think I'm off to do that now. I'll update the blog later today :-).

Have fun!

Part Two: Out and about

"Today" started pretty much the same as yesterday did, with fog and rain making its presence felt. We managed to get off in pretty good time.

Going through the local towns was interesting. I used to work in one in particular, and it was an eye opener to see the change - and lack of change - in the town. New buildings were being put up, loads of construction work going on, and yet, buildings I figured were not long for this world still stood quite happily, as they had done since before I ended up working in and around the place.

We carried on through the countryside, and eventually, despite the increasingly heavy rain, arrived at Gainsborough to find the place in fine shape, with good weather all around.

Not much to report as far as the hall itself is concerned. Everything was much the same as it always is, a nice christmassy day out. We bought a few craft-type items to grace the house come christmas time, and had our traditional mince pie and fruit punch in front of the fire. After a relatively quick look round the place, we were off out into the town, searching for Pork Crunch and Christmas Presents.

We managed to go to the retail development that I mentioned last time we went (nov '08) where we picked up a fantastic object:
A ball, exactly 4 inches across, fairly heavy for its size, (575 grams) filled with some kind of oil or something, suspended in which are maybe a teaspoon's worth of very incredibly fine (like flour) reflective metal particles.
The thing's a toy, shake it around and the powder swirls around in the fluid, giving the impression of swirling clouds within the ball. The thing looks like it's rolling even when you're holding it still in your hands. A cool present - so cool in fact that I'm trying to see where I can buy a second one for myself. [EDIT I spoke to my sister, asking if my ickle nephew would find a magical cloudy ball interesting. She agreed he would, but added that his interest would fade terminally after about ten minutes, after which time the ball would join the ranks of forsaken but heartfelt gifts under his bed. Meh. Well, on the plus side, at least I get to keep it. Yay.]

We popped into a local coffee shop for something to eat, where I had, I'm pleased to say, foreign Coca Cola (russian this time) as is traditional in Gainsborough. The food was pretty damn good though, the burger was tasty and the chips were pretty great :-).

After that, off to Tickhill Garden Centre, to look over the Christmas Decorations there, and then home. All in all, a nice christmassy day out :-).

Sodding about (or, "Nervousness")

Bloody hell it's 8:37. I want to be in bed at 9!

Right, it's that time of year again. I'm not going to make a big song and dance about it because I'm due for an early night shortly for reasons that will soon become apparent.

Wait for it.

Right.

NOW.
I'm off to Strensall again tomorrow - yay, go me, for a third time. Yep, I'm off on another day of running until I feel quite unwell, wandering about carrying sodding heavy jerry cans about, and worrying about whether I passed the course or not.

Excuse me for sounding flippant. The fact is, that this assessment is an important part of determining my physical and mental aptitude/suitability to join the army, and cos of a couple of issues, mostly my fault but one not-my-fault, I'm off to do it for a third time. Knowing what I'm in for doesn't make me feel any better. Surprisingly, neither does knowing that I've already passed twice. I don't know, the eternal pessimist, is me.
So wish me luck for that. With some luck, I won't need it.

In other news, I decided not to put computer neons on my christmas list, for the simple reason that I shelled out (£8, big deal) and bought some myself. Despite being attached to my computer with horrible crappy sticky pads that won't stick when you want to stick them on, and won't unstick when you want to take them off, I've managed to get three neon (cold cathode flourescent lights actually) tubes installed in my case, and it now looks really sparkly.

Look See?

One other important thing I've done (with some help) is finally get my wireless mouse working. It wouldn't hold a charge which really annoyed me cos I paid £70 for it, and like an idiot, instead of returning it, I shoved it in a cupboard expecting the problem to go away/expecting the cupboard to somehow fix it for me.
Not sure what we (me and my dad) did, but it's now charging properly and is now finally doing the job that I bought it to do.

Oh well, I hope everything goes well tomorrow, I really hope so.
If it does then I'm set for a great weekend. I'm off to gainsborough on sunday (read last christmas's blog if you're curious, I'll stick a hotlink [hyperlink? What the hell is a hotlink?] in when I have the time tomorrow) with my mum to do some christmas shopping, and that evening I'm off to a christmas concert. If I pass tomorrow's course, I'm going to buy lots of beer and celebrate in a very drunken fashion on monday evening. You may or may not get a blog entry of total crap out of me. Depends how drunkenly generous I'm feeling.

Eek. I don't want to go bed! The sooner I go bed, the sooner I go sleep and the sooner I go sleep, the sooner I wake up to have lots of sergeants and PTIs telling me to run faster and whatnot.

Oh well.
I'll be fine - I hope.

ciao!

Update: 06:53 the following day:

Well, that was probably the most unpleasant, most broken night's sleep I've ever had. I must have spent about 4 hours trying to fall asleep, and when I finally got close, something would wake me up again.

To top it off, I've woken up to a freezing cold room on a godforsaken dump of a cold and drizzly saturday morning, out of what was a relatively warm bed (cold and bloody uncomfortable, tonight of all nights, it seems actually), so I could be slightly more cheerful, but I don't think I can stretch to that at the moment.

Meh. Let's hope there's better news to come.

Have fun, I sure as hell won't! :P

Lovely climate...

CHAPTER ONE (I guess) - XMAS PRESENTS

It was a dark and stormy mediocrity...

Well actually, I'm not sure whether it's a dark and stormy anything, and the only reason it's a mediocrity is because there's so much damn fog around that it's impossible to see further than the corner of the street. As for the storms, well, it's that horrible fine drizzle that doesn't so much fall as meander gently downwards, when the air currents conspire to let it through.

Fact is, it's fairly par for the course, given that we're two thirds of the way through November, and doesn't time fly, because last time I was up here going off on one, it was Halloween. I've not been around much, because nothing has really changed. Work, eat, sleep. Repeat for 3 weeks = my life.

More or less. One of the recent things that I've managed to do that I'm quite happy about, is start working my way down my nephew's Xmas pressie list. I've been working to stick loads of videos on the cheap horrible Chipod I bought for him, so he can now watch a variety of cartoons, home videos, and other little amusing clips and whatnot, as well as listen to some of his favourite tunes.

The lil dude also said he wanted some playmobil for xmas, and so, to go with his newly repaired (I bought some spares to replace the bits he lost, and now it looks good as new) playmobil airplane, I'd been looking at getting him various airport stuff, a little playmobil airport terminal, and whatnot (bugger, just spilled coffee)...

One thing that I'd promised I was going to buy him, on account of it being really cool, was the Playmobil Cargo Crew (an awesome little set with a load of things like movable stairs and baggage trolleys and cargo loaders and whatnot, to go with his airplane). Another was the little Airport "follow me" safety car, which I figured would be a cute extra. I managed to get both sets for a pretty good price, so I spent some of the difference on getting something else for him too :-).

So now, I've got my mum, my sister, my grandad and my brother's fiancee to buy for.

Have I thought about what I want for christmas? Sure I have. Not had a lot of luck though, can't think of many things I really want. Maybe some Case Neons or something like that, though I did find this natty USB Fingerprint reader (UPEK Eikon!), meaning I wouldn't have to sod about with passwords and usernames and whatnot. Looks cool, is really slinky, and lights up, which means it's ideal for my computer :-D.

[Grr at neighbour down the road, who has fitted a loud exhaust to his car, along with lots of engine tuning and whatnot, but still hasn't grasped that fitting bodywork from two seperate cars (making your car look like a damn zebra) looks crappy - don't get me wrong, the car sounds nice, and the new side-exit exhaust is cool, but damn dude, sort out the paintwork!]

CHAPTER TWO - AFTER DARK 2009

Ahem.

Back at the start of the month we took my ickle nephew to After Dark 2009, a huge fireworks event. After planning to go, even going so far as to try and find their cold weather clothes, my parents suddenly decided that because it wasn't bright sunshine (at 5pm) they weren't going. This is probably the first (of the next 20 years' worth of occurences) occasion of them citing ill health as an obstacle to doing something they don't want.
My ickle nephew was horrified, having been looking forward to going for ages, only to be told at the 11th hour that it wasn't happening. If I sound a bit "attitude-y" that's because I was pretty bloody angry about it too. To be honest, as I said at the time, I didn't even want to go, but the ickle man did, and that was what counted.

In the end, my sis and I ended up taking him ourselves while our parents sat at home under blankets complaining about tired bones and ill health and the slide into retirement and infirmity and whatnot.

We had a pretty nice time, the weather held off, though when the bonfire was lit, some kind of weird temperature inversion thingie (maybe, I dunno, I'm not a meteorologist) meant that when the smoke from the fire reached maybe 20 or 30 metres off the ground, it stopped rising and instead started spreading outwards like, I dunno, that big storm off ghostbusters 1 maybe. Looked pretty dramatic, and was kinda cool.

We wandered round the thing having burgers, bottles of coke,candy floss, chips and whatnot, putting our rubbish into bins (I think we're the only 3 people that did), trying to ignore the acts on the stage who with a couple of exceptions, were your generic manufactured chav-hop rappers from luton going on about how hard life is and stuff. But the crowd seemed to like em so I think the fact the music was crappy is more down to me than to the artists, not sure about that one. But hey who cares, it was fun, not a music critic show or whatever.

The lil dude went on various rides, ate his candy floss, became fascinated with a discarded (and partially deflated) inflatable football he found, and eventually we enjoyed a pretty cool fireworks display.
And then the crowd decided to go home. Yep, what must have been fifteen thousand people all moving in one direction, gives a whole new perspective on the phrase "I was swept along with them". Moving at 90 degrees across everyone else, when everyone else is 5000 times as many people as you are (three of us, remember), is kinda difficult. But eventually the place cleared out, and we sat around waiting for the car park to empty. A few more rides, another bottle of coke maybe, and off we went. But not before we bought the lil' dude a flashing LED laser sword (the generic flashing toys that people sell at such events). It was a good night :-).

CHAPTER THREE - OTHER STUFF

So what else have we been up to? Well, a while ago I reinstalled Zoo Tycoon 2 on my computer, figuring that my nephew would like it.
Unfortunately for me - and for him (when he has to stop playing he throws a tantrum - though he is slowly stopping this and learning to cope with being apart from his zoo) - he loves it so much he wants to play on it all zer time. All, zer, time.

So I've built a couple of zoos for the little guy, only to find that to my horror, since ZT2 is processor/ram dependent and not GPU dependent, when I build a huge huge zoo, my machine (which cost me over £1000 to build, 3 years after ZT2 was released) slows down! Regardless, my nephew loves creating his own zoos, though as you can imagine, he hasn't grasped the finer and more advanced points of, say, not putting an ankylosaurus (my favourite dinosaur, hehe) in with the aardvarks. Or a tyrannosaurus in with the meerkats, for example. As a result, a dozen of his zoos have fallen victim to the "Quit without save?" menu ;-).

One day he wandered in while I was playing UT3 (warning, BIG picture!) and he seems to think it's fantastic. Admittedly it's not the cuddliest game ever, but he's accepted that shooting at the opposing team only makes them go to sleep, as "they come back again" (respawn), so he's kinda made it more kid-friendly himself.
In any case, he doesn't do a lot of shooting, no, like any boy his age, he's more taken with the vehicles and the whole driving around side of things. His favourite vehicle is The Darkwalker, a vehicle that he has affectionately dubbed "Walking-legs".
So to go along with that, we also have the Fury (Flying-Legs), the Scavenger (Spinning-Legs) and the Nemesis (Sliding-Legs).

His favourite though, is the Scorpion (good quality picture not available) - a cool little buggy that features (to my nephew's obvious delight) "swords" that swing out from the front of the car.

He also loves what he calls "The Spy Gun" (sniper rifle), so called because it has a "spy telescope" on top :-).

So yeah. I still have reservations about letting him play on it, but since most of the time he doesn't get close enough to the other team to actually see any fighting, and instead flies around the map in the vehicles, shooting Redeemer missiles into nearby walls (with predictable results) and generally exploring the architecture, firing at inanimate objects, I'm content to let him stay with it.

My sister did suggest that I install something more child-friendly, so out from my software bin came Lemmings "now-works-on-windows-95!" and he loved it, up until level 6 when all the lemmings died and he started crying. So back we went, to Walking-Legs, which has since become his name for the entire game.

PS: ENVIRONMENTALISM IS A LOAD OF CACA - OFFICIAL:

Yes, one thing I forgot to mention is that some enterprising person broke into the computer network at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit - a bunch of dudes responsible - ostensibly - for learning about the causes of climate change, and how best to combat it.

However, when the public read the 65mb of files, emails and PDFs that had been stolen from the network (and are readily available to download anywhere now), it became clear that not only were the guys at CRU not able to actually FIND ANY EVIDENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING, but had found THE OPPOSITE and WERE NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS AT ALL.

Not only that, but among the files, were emails requesting that research members delete inconvenient or embarrasing emails, to prevent people using the FOI to examine them, complaints that people who hadn't been taken in by the man-made-climate-change cash cow were still allowed to criticise and judge their work, and general hand wringing and moaning about the fact that "if anyone finds out we HAVEN'T FOUND ANY EVIDENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE, WE WILL LOSE OUR FUNDING". Or thereabouts.

SO THERE. TAKE YOUR GREEN TAXES, AND [CENSORED].

Sorry if I got a little fired up there. I've been a doom-and-gloom skeptic since governments first thought of the environment as a useful way to levy new taxes.

Daily Mail article on the leak
Telegraph article
The BBC make little mention of the contents of the files, and have drawn considerable criticism, for, well, being up the CRU's arse.

There are a smattering of pro-environmentalism websites out there that play the whole thing down, and various skeptic websites that play it up.

Without knowing the authenticity of the documents, and having read them, I can't say whether I believe the documents to be genuine or not (regardless of the CRU's assertions that some of them are - I wouldn't believe that bunch if they told me zebras were black and white). Regardless, it's nice to see people pause for thought, instead of furiously salivating over (very expensive/lucrative) ways to make their home "greener". Let's see what comes of it :-D.

PICTURES

My ickle Nephew even drew me a lovely picture of Walking Legs (and Flying Legs). Annotated by me, for those of you that aren't as good at recognising pictures as he is at drawing them ;-).

I'll also throw in another couple of pictures, free of charge. This will throw the formatting right out.

Crying out loud, tables are so basic, and still I can't add one to this thing :(.

Oh well, I'm off for a coffee. Bye!