Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

A weekend is a long time in Me and K's current life together.  We actually had a whole weekend together this weekend. So we went to London. 

We could of gone a day earlier if her bloody co-worker had told her he wasn't going to a meeting on Friday night.  But K went and he failed to show so no meeting and one night less in London for us 2.  Git.

We went on Saturday on the bus as it was £50 cheaper for the 2 of us than the train would of been.  It took a long time though, not helped by the closure of the M1 for some reason.  Thankfully the driver let us off at Marble Arch instead of making us go all the way to Victoria.

After we got to our hotel (Americana - nice but nothing special but cheap, at least on-line booking was) we went on our first walk of the weekend.  We were about a mile north of Oxford Street to start with and we walked through Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens down to the Albert Hall.  Then into town and down to Westminster tube and then all the way back.  It was one hell of a long way in sandals that don't quite fit right.  Lovely evening and lots to see and eat.

Sunday we went to the Zoo hence the title of this entry.  That was an American woman trying to engender some enthusiasm from her deepy cynical teen son.  K wanted to take home a Lion faced Golden Tamarin but I said they'd probably not let her really and she cried (well nearly).  From there we walked along Regents Canal to Camden and ate lovely food and sat and watched the world (always interesting at Camden).  I popped into Oddballs and bought myself a juggling DVD too.  This is one for us all to watch together.  It's the "Best of" the BJCs 1996-1998.  So far I've watched a bit of the first one and seen young Jamie Fletcher, young Rob Firey and a younger Devilstick Peat among others.  My first 2 BJCs were 97 and 98 so I'm hoping to see some familiar faces on them.

Home to Leicester late yesterday so knackered now at work.  Sigh.  Must keep working.

Have fun.

I just put on HBO.bg and they're showing the 2004 King Arthur tonight.  I thought I'd see on IMDB if it's any good or not (it's not by the way) and i found the wording of the US raters to be hysterical:

 Rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences, a scene of sensuality and some language.

 

Fantastic wording.  "This film contains some language."  Marvellous. 

Have fun.

PS to the Americans (and increasingly annoyingly to UK journalists). The verbs "to protest" and "to appeal" need prepositions (or is it adverbs?).  The sentence "He appealed the judgement" is not a complete sentence; nor is "They protested it".

I found this article today.  It's from "Housekeeping Monthly" May 13th 1955.  It consists of points of advice for wives of working men.

• Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives.  Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking.
• Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him.  His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
• At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum.  Try to encourage the children to be quiet.
• Listen to him.  You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time.  Let him talk first - remember his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
• Arrange his cushion and offer to take off his shoes.  Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
• Don't ask him questions about his actions.  Remember he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness.  You have no right to question him.

I might show K this little thing.  She's into tradition.

Seriously though why did I bother with this?  Mainly because so many women I come across from day to day still believe this crap.  I see women every day who clearly won't speak up because it's not their "right".  I had a college friend who was muslim and she had a boyfriend whom her parents had no inkling about.  She said that when she graduated then she would tell them because she will have earned some respect from her father.  What?  So you have no respect from him despite being clever, witty and eminently practical?  Weird.

I wonder when we can get shot of idiotic beliefs and traditions like this old "good advice".

Have fun.

I've had this game for a while now but never really sat down to play it much.  Well I had a go over the last couple of evenings and here are some observations:

1. It's extremely good although the camera is nowhere near as good as Wind-Waker's.
2. Pretty? Wow.
3. It's so hard!  I'm playing it on "Easy" and I still got killed 4 times by the bloody Indiana Jones-style boulder rolling down the hill bit.
4. It's actually scary.  The music is excellent and unsettling, the baddies are worrying.  And I've been injected with something nasty but I don't know what and that particular chicken hasn't roosted yet.

I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

Have fun.

Now here's some sad news.  I was listening to the radio and heard a tale of death and woe at a place I thought no longer existed.  The description reminded me of a place I loved when I saw it in London (and where I was offered a one off job to juggle in).  I went with friends including Frauke and Rebecca.  Loved it.  So it was sad to read this.

Here's some photos taken when I was there.  I hope it doesn't mean the end for this space.

http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/173/316009365/Unconn...

http://www.care2.com/c2c/photos/view/173/316009365/Unconn...

Have fun.

[Edit: 24/7/06]  More evidence that those who write The Daily Fail are complete imbeciles.  This story is on their front page this morning with the headline "2 Killed on Bouncy Castle".  "Bouncy Castle"? What are they on about?  By using this phrase to describe this structure they just demonstrate their continuing dickheadedness.  It is like comparing Venus de Milo with a shop dummy or a van Gogh with a bloody etch-a-sketch picture.  How much longer does this piece of shit rag have to keep publishing their uninformed shit?

Yesterday I saw a Porsche.  That was exciting enough to warrant a blog post yes?  Well after that I saw a Lamborghini and that was cool too, never seen one of those before outside of a car show.  Oh and then I saw a Ferrari.  This was new, I've never seen 3 really impressive cars in one day out in the real world.  Coo.

Have fun.

Have fun.

1. I saw a man driving a convertable car today.  This is strange.  I noticed over the last month that practically every convertable car I've seen was being driven by a lady.  Does this mean convertables are girls cars?
2. If you are lying on your back and the physio says "OK turn over" what would you do?  So many people recently have either said "which side?" or have simply turned to lie on their side.  What do they think "Turn over" means?
3. It's been lovely and warm recently.
4. I've lost interest in large amounts of anything really.  Not interested much in juggling at the mo.  Not fussed by games at the mo.  Not listening to music.  Not reading much.  Not watching fillums.  Why?
5. Rain and storms always hit (or are due) at the weekend.
6. I want a dog.

Have fun.

If she's still reading this site after my last post here's a Happy Birthday to Clurb.

Have a nice day chuck.

Oh and check my "search terms" box for a new and disturbing search that led here.

Now this is an odd post.  I'm going to be supportive of a group I'm not normally supportive of.

That group is Israel.  I have serious issues with how they've dealt with their neighbours and the wider world.  But in this recent case I have to say I'm not too negative about their behaviour.  They could certainly have toned things down a little (IE not bombing ports and mosques for instance) but my thought is how the hell else are they supposed to react to a blatant act of war from Hezbollah?  Israel took lots of grief when they were in Lebanon before.  They did not have any moral basis for being there nor for their reprisals against attack.  However they did unilaterally withdraw from Lebanon and I can't see that would want to reinvade.  So they were attacked and they responded.  They now have some measure of "right" on their side.  It also (sadly to me) vindicates their previous argument that if they withdraw then they'll just be attacked anyway.  This is why they didn't withdraw earlier.  It pains me to say this; they were right.  They did the right thing by withdrawing; they still get attacked despite this.

So why did Hezbollah do this?  They'll say either they want a bargaining chip to help negotiate release of prisoners or that they are showing support for Hamas.  Both of these are utter bollocks.  Hezbollah is a government and army without a country.  They are more powerful than the Lebanese army purely because of their support from Syria and Iran.  Lebanon could not disarm them; they don't have that capability (whether they had the will or not).

They did this purely as a power play and it's seriously going to backfire on them I reckon.  They can't get help from abroad, they can't get supplies and now they can't escape too easily.  I spy lots of dead militia very soon.  I can't see how this is a particularly bad thing.

So that's now.  What about later?  Will this escalate?  The main concern would be Syria and Iran joining in.  I can't see this happening.  Both of these countries know damn well that this would mean huge death and destruction in their own countries.  They are really not in a winning position here.  Their puppet soldiers are being hammered and their diplomatic position has been weakened.  The only thing that Iran can do is sit back and carry on developing nuclear weapons quietly.  They know that if they get too belligerant then their nuclear facilities will be dust within an hour or two.

My main concern is that of what the Lebonese will a: do and b: think about the future.  Here was one country that was developing nicely and doing well for itself (I suppose the only other doing so well would be Jordan).  Now their dream is gone because some self-elected bastards decided to provoke a war in their country.  Will they hate Israel more than they hate Hezbollah?  I think if my peaceful and happy country was hijacked by a non-governmental group then I'd probably hate that group most.  It's difficult to say that for sure as I'm not in that situation.

So yes.  Well done Israel for doing something.  Boo for doing "too much".  And bigger boos to Hezbollah for being utter dickheads.  You've just done the impossible and made me (and no doubt many others) feel sympathy for Israel.  Bet that wasn't on your agenda.  You're idiots, bloodthirsty nasty pieces of work with no brain cells between you.  And if you believe that random unprovoked attacks are legitimate within your religion then you are seriously misguided and by your own logic will be going to your version of hell.  Spastics the lot of you.

Have fun.