and the big question is ...

whose bright idea was it to give Peter Snow the virtual giant Risk set?

Other news: 421 feckers in my consituency voted for the BNP. Meanwhile, lots of recounts going on and it's looking like Labour have lost to George Galloway in the East End, and have lost Enfield Southgate to the Tories. Bah.

as it happens

no blow by blow coverage here, go read the gruaniad weblog instead.

now we're cooking on dilithium crystals!

Wayhey! Laptop is here, wireless network is installed, now I can blog from the sofa in front of the tv hurrah!

geeky, moi?

R has gone out to buy The Laptop. He was determined to get it today and it's his money so I have to be satisfied with giving him detailed information about what we do and don't need, including what doings will be needed for wireless connectivity, and strict instructions to ring me if any shopyouth tries to bamboozle him.

Even I am slightly embarrassed at just how excited I am about being able to watch the election night coverage on tv while simultaneously browsing election results on line. Don't all point and laff.

if you're still undecided ...

Don't know who to vote for? Don't waste valuable Heat-reading time on all those boring newspapers and manifestos. Just take advice from your fave celeb.

Will you be like Joan Collins, Clarissa Dickson Wright and Nicky Haslam and vote Tory? Or be a 'red' like Tony Blair's mates Sir Alex, Vera Duckworth and Dickie Attenborough? Perhaps Brian Eno, Nicholas Parsons and Fran Healey will tempt you to back the LibDems? Me, I was very tempted by Rustie Lee's stand for UKIP. But in the end, I'm with Tracy Barlow.

democracy in action

Went to vote on the way back from taking O to school, and put my X in the box¹. Our polling station's at the library but judging by the turn out at school today, lots of parents have assumed that the school would be used as a polling station and so would be closed.

last time, our constituency had the second lowest turn out in the country - only 39.1% of registered voters voted. They've really been pushing postal voting this year, but it seems to me that if possible (and obv all polling stations should be accessible), you should make the effort to get along and vote in person. And even leaving aside the potential for fraud provided by postal voting, it seems to me that it potentially undermines the right to a secret ballot.

To this day my mum will not tell anyone how she votes. I can make a pretty good guess, she doesn't hide her views, but she insists on her right to keep her vote secret. That was drummed into her by her own parents, who grew up in a time when men tried to tell their wives how to vote. At a polling station, whatever you've told anyone about how you vote, no-one can see where your X actually goes. But if you are filling in a postal vote at home, I reckon it would be hard to keep your paper secret from a pushy spouse/friend/relative.

So anyways I've voted. Not that it will make much difference, as I don't live in one of these key marginals. No visits from John Prescott for the voters of Madcity Central - Labour majority in 2001 of 13,742. Our MP's not bad I s'pose, as Labour politicians go, but I could not vote Labour this time. For a whole raft of reasons, Iraq and immigration/asylum being just two. But then living in such a safe seat, I have the luxury of being able to make a protest vote. I don't know what I'd do if I lived somewhere there was a risk of letting the tories in. Like, say, Enfield Southgate.

Anyways, it's all over now bar the election-night-athon (incl. Dead Ringers election speshul) Which is the best bit.






Yes I was. May 97. Best. Election Night. Ever. They don't make 'em like that any more.


1. Peter Snow's done a handy guide on how to vote in UK general elections & the basics of the UK parliamentary system, for anyone who doesn't know how tis done - click here, then click on "how to vote guide" - or read about it here

poverty is relative

Today I bumped into a teenage lad I know slightly, who lives near me. We were both waiting ages in the doctors so I tried to make small talk with him, and asked him what he's going to do after his GCSEs this summer. I nearly fell off my chair when he told me he's volunteering on a project to help deprived kids. His mam's an alkie, both his step-dad & his real dad are smackheads and are both in & out of prison, he lives with a shifting population of half-siblings, step-siblings, cousins, and probably one or two kids no-one's can remember who they belong to. He is deprived kids ffs. He's also a very nice kid.

I hope the person who came here looking for the party is having a nice time. And if the person googling s103 answers finds what they were looking for, do let me know, I could do with some help meself.

Random thing I am proud of O for today: he knows that spiders are not insects. And he knows the key difference between spiders and insects. There's quite a lot of adults who think that spiders are insects. Tsk. They probably also think that penguins and polar bears live together and didn't have pedants for parents. They too were deprived, poor things.

And finally, a message for Trin

does my bum look big on this?

Although I love it as a method of transport, my bike is in fact a piece of cheap cr@p which doesn't even fit me properly. Pending purchase of a shiny new bike, I'm tinkering with it to try and get the best out of it. CB has kindly donated me one of her old saddles, which is a bit narrower, a bit harder¹ and generally a bit nicer than the one that came with the bike. Did 33 miles on Sunday.

Monday being a bank holiday, we hitched up the trailer bike and went for a family ride and a picnic in the woods. We did 11.5 miles in all, the furthest O has ever ridden in one day. Le Tour 2020, here he comes.

So, exercise is still happening. I am making a half-arsed attempt at my assigment today and will settle for scraping a few marks here and there. Work is going very very slowly. Eating well let's not talk about eating for now.

And finally, a message for impatient car drivers honking their horns and getting irate because our family peloton cost them valuable seconds of journey time ...

P.S. for Trin: my fave blog-about-neighbours

1. Common bike saddle fallacy no. 1: "wider & squishier = betterer". That's not to say everyone should ride summat out of that yellow pages ad, tho.
For everything you never wanted to know about saddles, ask Sheldon.

spirals

I feel like things are starting to spiral away from me again. The house is a mess (and I mean a mess, a sh!thole, a tip, even by my low standards), work's behind, course work's behind, money's a mess as usual, I'm eating too much cr@p and drinkin too much wine, there never seems to be enough time or energy or ... I dunno, enough of whatever 'normal' people have that lets them keep their house clean and their finances in order and hand their work in on time. If anyone has any spare, let me know.

Not all doom and gloom tho. I have put the notify list thingy on (see sidebar) so Jude'll be happy. Must do some work now - right after I've checked in my 43things, particularly this one and this one.

ok, I give up

Jude, I will put notify list on my blog if you tell me how to. I can't find anything about it on blogger ...

ummm ... what was I saying again?

Well as we all know now, email and txting rots ur brane. To find out exactly how much, take the gruaniad quiz.

It might not be email that has made you stupid, but something has, and coffee is now the only thing supporting your higher brain function. Was that sentence too long for you? Stop. Checking. Your. Email. Try reading something to rebuild your concentration. Start with the television listings. Work up to a magazine article.

See more progress on: Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time actually working

monday randomness

shaving: since we're on the subject, why do male cyclists shave their legs? The view from Just zis Guy and from Jobst Brand.

builders: actually builder singular, there is just one of him and he has to put the whole kitchen in by himself awww. Actually it is more of a teeny weeny kitchenette than a proper kitchen, so I don't think he's that hard done by. Had to spend yesterday evening clearing out all the cupboards tho boooo.

eating: goes from bad to worse. Didn't go to fatclub last week cos I was away but I don't want to go this week either cos I know it will be Bad. Waah.

geology: am on a geology-based unit of my course. Who knew rocks would be so interesting?

busy bee

sorry, have been v busy in the past few days. Lots of work at the end of last week, lots of home stuff to sort on Saturday, 30+ mile bike ride today (and getting the beginnings of a classic cyclist's tan). Normal service resumed tomorrow, promise. When I will make some people jealous by posting about having the builders in.

(oh and sorry to anyone who txt me and hasn't heard back, bit of a lost phone charger situation)

random whining

what is the point of on-line banking if they don't show the on-line payments you've just made?

why am I doing this instead of doing the work I absolutely have to do?

why can't I stop eating?

just how horrible is the meeting I have to go to tonight going to be and how much is everyone going to shout at me?

why did I buy O an electronic pokemon game from ebay that makes lots of noise?

why do people pay more for stuff on ebay than they could buy it for in the shops or elsewhere on line?

why is the daily mail?

why can't I understand how to play the stoopid pokeball game even after downloading the instructions?

amazing new research findings

from the bbc website today:

Playing 'better than lessons'for 4 & 5 year olds. No! Really? Actually they are allowed to play in the sand, they just have to call it science and numeracy work. Sigh.

'1 in 10 teenagers' visit 'adult' websites. And the other 9 were lying.

another day, another bike ride

R is still away, so my friend agreed to look after O so I could go for a ride today. We trail-a-biked the three miles there, the first outing it's had this year (some dusting and oiling and adjusting was necessary before we were ready to go). Dropped O at my friend's, went for a ride with CB, then back to collect O and ride home. I did 23 miles in all, he did 6. He didn't complain, he even seemed to enjoy it. Must get out with trailer bike more!

this is heaven, this is hell

It's all because I'm so lazy. I can be other than lazy but I have to make myself. Lazy is my default setting. I did manage to squeeze a small amount of work out of myself today, then it got to me again and I gradually stopped being productive. So I thought, I'm not going to get anything else done today. I can sit in this room staring at this screen doing feck all for the rest of the day, or I could actually go out of the house and do something.

I've been promising R to take him to see Robots for ages, so that's what we did. And being as how I'm being a lazy @rse, I decided it would be easier to drive to the Trafford Centre than take the bus to town.

Easier? Wtf was I thinking? Had to drive round looking for a parking space, then the walk from the space to the cinema was at least as far as from the bus stop to the cinema in town. And I'd forgot how much I hate shopping malls.

O enjoyed the film (unusually for him, his fave character was the baddie sweeper robots) but he enjoyed the venue more. Not because he likes shopping, oh no. Because he decided the food court, especially the arcade bit, is Pizza Planet from Toy Story made real. He didn't want to leave and worse, is already demanding to know when we are going again. Urggh. And all because I couldn't be @rsed to get the bus. Ah well, granny can take him, there'll be no keeping her away once the new John Lewis opens.

Anyone for the last few choc ices, now?

today's numbers: [sfx]hollow laughter[/sfx]

having a bad day

I feel like cr@p today. R's away this weekend at a conference. O's amusing himself watching Power Rangers Turbo for the n^th time and staging re-enactments of it as he watches. I should be doing some work I'm in a big pile of trouble if I don't have finished for Monday. But I can't do it. I have to somehow but right now I can't. So I'm reading the papers in bed instead. Bad me.

Gah, more stressfulness today. Some people really need a sharp poke with the clue stick.

Less cryptically, spent the morning on O's class trip to the museum then the afternoon dealing with plumbers and such. Am spending the evening drinking wine and eating nuts. Again. Tis becoming a v bad habit.

today's numbers: points allowance ~ 24; points used ~ 27; +/- for week ~ +11.5; exercise ~ 0; water ~ 0; booze ~ 2 (large) glasses wine; crisps ~ 0 (but there were pistachios)

not a nice day

Had a horrible job to do today, but at least it kept me busy. And it's all done and over with now (I hope). Watching the new wildlife prog tonight, I decided a world with rays in it isn't a bad place to live. Steve Leanord ain't a patch on David Attenborough, tho.

today's numbers: points allowance ~ 24; points used ~ 32.5; +/- for week ~ +8.5; exercise ~ belly dancing (60 min); water ~ 750 ml; booze ~ 2 (large) glasses wine; crisps ~ 0 (but there were pistachios)