So a mate and I have been exchanging e-mails all morning about the slew of cr*ppy TV programmes that crop up around all major cinema releases.

With the news that Discovery in the States will be showing a programme called 'The Science of Superman' in the next week or so, it's only a matter of time before Sky One or Channel Four wheel out the C-List celebrities to make important social commentary on the Superman Phenomenon:

Jade Goodie “Oh yes I remember superman – he had that cape and I ate cake while I watched him!”

Johnny Vegas: Yeah, Shpriderman wash my favourite shooper hero. I liked hish boots. And he had eight armsh. Whut? Oh. Shorry. Yesh, Shooperman wash my favourite shooper hero. I liked hish bootsh. And he had 8 armsh… hic…

Posh spice – “Yeah superman was cool because he was early girl power too! And I used to watch him when I never ate anything other than rice cakes and water”

Jonathan Ross: I particularly liked Superman because I could pronounce his name properly, despite the pwesence of an ‘R’.. The Kwyptonite was a nice plot device and Bwaniac was my favouwite baddie. Oh… sh*t.

Tony Blair : “Superman was great (smarm) because he embodied everything we wanted to do with New Labour you know like spinning the truth so that people didn’t know whether they were coming or going and blowing the fiscal budget on stupid expenses.”

Mr T: Superman? He's a Foo. I ain't got no time for your crazy super jibber-jabber, sucker!

The Shat: Superman, yes I... remember. Fought him once. Beat him with my patented... back-thumping technique, then... seduced Lois Lane. I'm Denny Crane.

Vicki Pollard: Yerbut, nobbut, yerbut, I wuz Superman's girlfriend but I dumped 'im cus 'e got off with Courtney Thribble behind the Spar on Stapleton Road what sells cider to kids. Shut up, I got four bottles of strongbow and a packet of fags from the boy behind the counter cus I said would have s*x wiv 'im but I wuz only joken' cus I never had s*x wiv 'im but he went and told Sharon Bishop, who's a b*tch, that I 'ad s*x wiv 'im and she went an' told Tracey Jones who's a slag cus she peed on the back seat in the number 42 an' then said it wuz me, but I never did cus I wasn't even there that day...

Stephen Hawking's New Book

So Stephen Hawking is getting together with his daughter to write a children's book that will be 'a bit like Harry Potter but without the magic', in which they want to explain theoretical science to kids. Sounds like it's gonna be a laugh a minute!

Here's a genuine excerpt which I just made up. To set the scene, Harry has just used his cloak of no special properties to sneak out of his dormintory and has snuck into the headmaster's office to look at his decidedly unmagical books. Obviously, he's just been caught at it!

Harry gazed into the book hoping to see the mysteries of the world explained to him. Suddenly a voice from the shadows made him start.

"What do you think you are doing?" it said in a terrifying robot voice.

Harry backed away as the figure from the shadows emerged and approached him. As it came into the light, he was surprised to note that rather than being a Cyberman, Borg or Dalek, it was in fact a rather small and unthreatening man in an oversized electric wheelchair! It was the headmaster, Professor Stevenus Hawkingbore.

"I... I'm sorry," stammered Harry. "I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd come and read up on some theoretical particle physics."

"That is all right, Harry." said Hawkingbore in his bizzare robot voice. "I admire any ten year old that seeks out knowledge."

"Actually," mused Harry, "I was hoping it would bore me to sleep. Or perhaps knock me out... if I drop it on my head from high enough."

"How dare you," Hawkingbore's monotone betrayed no emotion, "You little sh*t. How dare you trivialise my life's work. I am going to f*ck you right up, now!" The wheelchair suddenly lunged forward at a terrifying slow walking pace.

It took Harry a moment or two to realise that Hawkingbore was a furious and was intent on crushing Harry's small body under the wheels of his death dealing chariot of... er... death! Thinking quickly, he took a step sideways onto the first step of the nearby staircase. A minute later and the wheelchair would have tapped his legs lightly, potentially causing a small amout of bruising!

Hawkingbore swung the wheelchair around to face Harry. It took some time. "Curse you," the awful robot voice intoned. "You have uncovered my only weakness."

It was then that Harry realised that he had defeated Hawkingbore. The weelchair couldn't go up stairs!

"Hah!" he shouted at the seething, wheeled headmaster. "Haven't you ever watched Doctor Who?"

"No, I have not," said Hawkingbore. "I deal only in dry, boring scientific theory. For example, did you know that The kinetic theory of matter says that all matter consists of many, very small particles which are constantly moving or in a continual state of motion. The degree to which the particles move is determined not only by the amount of energy they have but also their relationship to other particles. The particles might be atoms, molecules or ions. Use of the general term 'particle' means the precise nature of the particles does not have to be specified."

Too late, Harry realised that Hawkingbore was not powerless at all. As Harry's eyes grew heavy, Hawkingbore's terrible monotonous mechanical voice seared the fundementals of particle theory into his brain until finally, Harry slumped to the floor unconcious.

"Excellent," said Hawkingbore. "If I was able to laugh manaically or cackle, I would. As it is, I cannot even rub my hands together in glee, but if I could I would. In spades." His wheelchair rolled backwards. "Now, young Harry," he intoned, "I shall use my phenomenal cosmic knowledge to instill boredom into the children of the world so that they shall all grow up in my image! Mua ha ha ha ha. No, that laugh just sounds silly in my robot voice... Now, where's Davros..?"

An Update

It seems the peacock is something of a local celebrity - GWR FM has apparently been reporting sightings of it all weekend. I will advise of any updates...

In addtion, I would like to report that last week's bomb turned out to be a lump of concrete. Ho hum...

Bombs and Peacocks

Hitler tried to kill me yesterday by cunningly hiding an old WW2 bomb on the building site next to my building. We were evacuated at 3pm. Sadly the car park in which my car was parked was within the cordoned off zone, so I was kinda stuck in town for a bit.

The Beeb have a bit of info on it here.

I was in danger of being relocated to London this morning as part of our contingency plan. Thankfully the building is open again this morning, although the bomb is still in-situ and we are likely to be evacuated again at lunchtime today while the army remove it.

Yay. And it’s a glorious day today as well. Highs of 28 apparently. Just right for an afternoon off.
On a slightly different note, I looked out of my dining room window this morning to see something pretty damn bizzare. I was on the phone to my boss - fining out whether the office was open and ... well... the conversation went something like this:…

JDK: Morning, Boss.
Boss: Morning, JDK. May I say what a pleasure it is to be in your kingly presence, albeit in a telephonic fashion.
JDK: (Testily) Yes, yes. I know. Stop simpering, you sycophant, and tell me if the office is open today.
Boss: Why yes, your Majesty. I'm on my way there now.
JDK: (Casually looks out of dining room window) Er...
Boss: Quite the pilaver yesterday, wasn't it?
JDK: Um...
Boss: Apparently we may be evacuated again at lunchtime.
JDK: I... Uh...
Boss: But I'd be eternally grateful if you could see your way to popping into the office and doing some of your impressive stuff.
JDK: Well... Um...
Boss: Are you alright, your Highness?
JDK: There's... um.. something odd in my back garden.

Well, I wasn't quite sure anyone was gonna believe me, so I just took some photos with my handy phone.



Ready?

I wasn't really sure what you do when you find a giant peacock pecking on your back door. I fairly sure it was deliberately baiting Rochester, who was nose to nose with it through the glass with his hackles up.

Given that I have a tiny, tiny back garden which is entirely enclosed by fences, I was somewhat concerned that the peacock didn't have enough space to take off as they need a bit of a run up, just like pigeons.

What do you do when you have a peacock trapped in your back garden? Put up a notice on the lamp posts outside saying: 'Found: Once large peacock. Beautiful Plumage. If you are missing this bird please call the JDK'?

Dial 999, maybe?
Operator: What service do you require?
JDK: Er... emergency peacock rescue?

I finally settled on the RSPCA as an option, but before I could do so, it hopped up onto the fence with the greatest of ease. On that basis, I figured, it could probably get out whenever it felt like it.

Well. Not sure if it's an omen. But most importantly, it looks like we'll be going home at lunchtime. Shame, that.

Bribery

From the Guardian Website:

...we invite the views of chirpy good grub for kids champ Jamie Oliver on the news that Archbishop Thurston school in Hull has boosted attendance rates for its latest series of Sats from 82% to a majestic 99% by the simple but undeniably effective expedient of offering 13- and 14-year-olds free bacon or sausage butties for breakfast. Grand.

How come I was never bribed to go to school with bacons buns? Hmm? This is positively unfair and I'm very upset about it, dammit. I shall be writing to my MP.

Er... I suspect that the response will be along th lines of 'What do you care? you're 30.'; but there's a principle at stake here. Something about human rights or civil rights of bacon bun rights or something.

Pff.

Down Under (Finally)

So, here's my summary of the grand Andipodean adventure:



I managed to swing an invite to a pub crawl with the Perth female hockey team – eleven of the loveliest young ladies I've seen for a while. It was one of those party bus deals where a bus takes you to various pubs and clubs. It was a wonder to behold!

And I went on a day trip to the pinnacles desert – it was a long drive in a coach and there were several scheduled stops for tea and the like. This German girl who was on the tour with me, kept making me cups of tea and fruit juice and stuff, but she wouldn't talk to me. Very strange. Then we stopped at a beach and she stripped down to an astonishingly skimpy bikini, which kinda made my day! Heh heh heh…

I swam with dolphins, which was very cool (although not particularly life changing – not really sure why people make such a fuss about it), went to Perth Mint where I got to play with a freshly made bar of gold worth about £100k – that was jolly heavy, went to the zoo, where an elephant thought it would be funny to squirt water at me… did you know that elephants laughed? Well they do. And I took a fantastic picture of a Tasmanian devil while I was there.

I took a little 4 seater plane over to Rottnest Island off which is the world's most southerly coral reef and did a bit of reef snorkelling there - there were some very large fish there. No sharks though. They did have quokkas – little rodenty things - on the island, which are indigenous only to that island, which is about 2 miles across. I think that makes them officially endangered.

I went to Fremantle Prison where I saw many tiny cells and some lovely gallows. Then I went back a week later and went on their torchlight tour, which, contrary to the name, actually took place mostly in pitch darkness and featured many strange noises, people jumping out at me through doors and an excess of amateur theatrics which were terribly amusing!

I met a man from Stevenage called Barry who managed to persuade a travel agent to pay for his flights and accommodation around Oz and NZ on the condition that he wrote it up for them… how cool is that? I have to get myself a deal like that!

I visited Perth Mint, where I handled a rather large gold bar worth about £100k and met a man with no hand.

I also spent much time on the beach and have almost no tan to show for it, went sandboarding down the biggest sand dunes I've ever seen, also persuaded the tour guide to let me drive his off-road vehicle on said dunes, consumed much barbequed food, visited the oldest pub in West Australia and heard Kylie being played on at least 400 separate occasions!

I'll add some pictures to this entry when I get around to uploading them to the net!

Health Checks and Nudity

So we had a roadshow in the office today, promoting Fitness First. I went along cos I get a free green stress ball.



Anyways, they did a bunch of lovely tests on me and I have some numbers for ya:

Peak Flow (lung capacity): 700 – this was off their scale and the best they’ve seen today! Yay, me!
Blood Pressure: 153/78. Top number’s a bit on high side, but could have been affected by the caffeine in the large cup of tea and the coffee I’ve drunk this morning.
Heart Rate: 68. Spot on.
Body Fat: 24.6%. Top end of acceptable. So I’m not tubby. So there!
BMI: 28.4. High. But it doesn’t allow for muscle mass. At all. Despite the girl in there telling me that it did account for muscle mass. Oddly enough, she couldn’t explain how…

So… anyway. I’m doing ok. Just need to get back into the running.

On a slightly different note...

Nude bather cleared of exposure

A district nurse has been cleared by a court of indecent exposure after sunbathing naked in her back garden.
Lynett Burgess, 55, from Llandyfriog, near Cardigan in west Wales, was filmed by a "shaken" neighbour in July 2005 and was charged by police.
The prosecution at Cardigan Magistrates Court said Ms Burgess's nude sunbathing was "not normal" behaviour.
But magistrates cleared her, adding that it was accepted she did not intend to "cause harm or distress".
The court heard that Ms Burgess's next-door neighbour Morien Jones, 34, filmed her sunbathing naked and took the video to police.
Father-of-three Mr Jones told magistrates: "I was renovating the back of my home with a local builder when Ms Burgess appeared in her garden.
"She walked back and fore completely naked - I went to get my video camera to record the incident.
"I have been extremely shaken by this. It has been very upsetting and worrying. I don't want to bring up my children in such an environment."
The film was shown to magistrates who were asked to decide whether Ms Burgess had offended anyone...

...Trevor Emberton, chairman of Cardigan magistrates, told her: "You have admitted sunbathing naked from time to time and that this has become a normal pattern.
"We do not accept you intended to cause harm or distress and therefore find you not guilty."

(Nicked from the BBC)

Now, come on. People filming their neighbours sunbathing nude in the privacy of their own back gardens? That's not normal behaviour. I can understand a complaint about someone sunbathing nude in public, but in their own back garden?

"I have been extremely shaken by this. It has been very upsetting and worrying."

What a load of old bollocks. I'm sorry, but there it is!

And In Other News...

A number of interesting(ish) news articles came to my attention today:

Cabbies can't wear World Cup garb

BLACKPOOL, England, May 20 (UPI) -- Taxi drivers in Blackpool, England, say a law barring any clothing supporting the British World Cup soccer team is unfair.

The Blackpool Council ruled any shirt with the word England, the Saint George Cross or the Three Lions shield may anger Welsh or Scottish visitors during the contentious soccer championships.

The Daily Mail reports London cabbies are not under the rule, which a 42-year-old Blackpool taxi driver called "barmy."

He found out about the rule when an officer suspended him until he changed out of a t-shirt with the word England on it.

The head of Blackpool's taxi association, Trevor Boaler, called on the council to draw down its ruling.

(nicked from UPI.com)

Now, I don't really give a toss about the world cup and my personal opinion is that anyone who wears a football shirt for anything other then playing football or attending a football match is posessed of dubious taste, but this seems tad out of order. Tell me again who's gonna be offended?

I guess that all football shirts will have to be banned in case the supporter of another team happens to see it and be driven into a blind rage. And perhaps I should chuck away my T-Shirt with the union jack on it just in case a french person walks past and becomes angry.

Frankly, whether we're talking Scots, Welshmen or Outer bloody Mongolians, if you come to England during the World Cup you're gonna have to accept that you're gonna see the George's cross or the three lions and the only peopel who would find this in any way offensive are clearly nuts. Or middle class white Daily Mail readers.

Just imagine the reaction if Americans were banned from displaying the stars and stripes in case it offends a visitor.

(A quick google suggested that this rule has been extended to Cheltenham as well, although I can't find any proper news pages to confirm it.)

Sarah didn't get the hump when taxi driver gave fare share of advice

At 19 stones, Sarah Bramhall was under no illusions about her size, but it took a humiliating encounter with a town centre taxi driver to shock her into action.

The 36-year-old was looking forward to a rare girls' night out. The cab was booked but when it arrived the driver refused to take her unless she agreed to get out at every speed bump.

Humiliated and horrified, Sarah had no other option but to agree. Little did she know that walking those few short yards would be the beginning of her journey to a new life.

A year on and the neonatal nurse and mum-of-two, from Avery Close, Padgate, has now lost six-and-a-half stones after enrolling at her local Slimming World group.

And she is so confident about her new look that she is to become a Slimming World consultant so that she can encourage other women to change their lives.

(nicked from thisischeshire.co.uk)

Heh. After I finished chuckling at the taxi-drives tact and subtlety, I had to nod to myself and say 'good on you, Sarah Bramhall'.

This story allows me to highlight my opinion that we all have a responsibility to let our friends and family know that they are getting tubby before they reach 19 stone. I speak from experience, here.

And finally:

Ex-wives win key divorce rulings

The Law Lords have ruled two ex-wives are entitled to their former husbands' millions in landmark rulings.
Melissa Miller can keep the £5m she was awarded out of her ex-husband Alan's £17.5m fortune, said the lords.

Julia McFarlane is entitled to £250,000 a year from her ex-husband Kenneth for life - not just the five years decided by the Court of Appeal.

The House of Lords' decisions could have far-reaching implications for future big money divorce settlements.

'Stay-at-home mothers'

Mrs McFarlane had argued she gave up a high-earning career when she married 18 years earlier.

After the ruling, she said: "Obviously I am very happy."

Her lawyer James Pirrie described the judgement as "groundbreaking".

"Until today, maintenance for stay-at-home mothers was going to be based purely on living expenses.

"Now judges must consider as well contribution and compensation. For people like Julia this is only fair.

"The judgement recognises her sacrifice and that marriage is a partnership," Mr Pirrie said.

He said it had been a joint decision with her husband that she give up her career to raise their children, which enabled him to increase his earning power.

"Isn't it fair that she should receive a fair share of that?," he said.

He said the ruling was at odds with divorce law in the rest of the world, but the Law Lords' ruling showed that the world was now out of step.

Mr McFarlane said: "Whilst I am glad that the judgement of the House of Lords today brings these matters to a close, I preferred the Court of Appeal's recognition that the achievement of financial independence at the earliest opportunity was a vital part of a fair outcome.

"I now look forward to enjoying life, once again, away from the media spotlight, with my lovely wife and family."

His lawyer, Jeremy Levison, said there was "some optimism" in the "extremely complicated judgements" as they did not necessarily mean that Mrs McFarlane would continue to receive payments for life.

"The court says that as and when the children are a bit older and her child-looking-after obligations diminish, they rather expect her to return to work to help herself."


High standard of living

In the Miller case, Mr Miller challenged an earlier court order that he pay his ex-wife the £5m after their brief marriage failed.

The Millers, who lived in Chelsea, London, were married for two years and nine months and had no children when they split.

A judge had decided Mrs Miller was entitled to a substantial settlement because she married with "reasonable expectation" of a future wealthy lifestyle.

The judge had also cited Mr Miller's adultery as a factor in the award.

After Wednesday's ruling, Marcus Dearle, a family lawyer who works at the firm representing Mrs Miller, said: "What actually happened, at the end of the day, was that the judge focused on the high standard of living that Mrs Miller and Mr Miller enjoyed, and also the fact that a lot of money was earned in that very short... marriage."

Family lawyer Alan Kaufman said one key issue arising from the rulings was that conduct would not be considered in dividing assets, unless it was extreme conduct.

However, Mr Kaufman said: "These cases are very limited to the big money cases, except the issue of conduct applies to all divorces.

"Lawyers are going to be very happy with what the House of Lords have said because nobody wanted to go into any divorce situation, going back over the past with recriminations and who was to blame for the breakdown.

"We don't like doing it and thankfully in most cases we won't be doing it in the future."

The ruling is being seen as the Lords' most significant rulings on divorce in five years.

Observers have speculated on the importance of the rulings to any divorce hearing between former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, said to be worth an estimated £800m, and his wife Heather Mills.

(nicked from BBC News)

Well a couple of issues come to mind here...

"He said it had been a joint decision with her husband that she give up her City career to raise their children, which enabled him to increase his earning power."

Increase his earning power? I should think that his earnings potential remained exactly the same. In fact it would probably have been even higher if he hadn’t married and had kids.

"A judge decided Mrs Miller was entitled to a substantial settlement because she married with "reasonable expectation" of a future wealthy lifestyle."

Well. That says it all really, doesn’t it. “she married with "reasonable expectation" of a future wealthy lifestyle”.

"The judge also cited Mr Miller's adultery as a factor in the award."

Interesting, this. I wonder if it would have been a factor if it had been her who cheated.

MURDER!

I have just murdered this poor, defenceless banana. I ignored its pleas, begging me not to rip its skin off and relished it's agonised squeals as I bit into its fleshy insides.

Mua ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Greetings from Down Under

I think it's only fair to point out to all those people who don't read my blog (which I suspect is everybody but me) that my latest excuse for my irregular posting is that I'm on holiday in Australia. Cool, huh?
Anyway, suffice it to say that It's jolly hot, I'm going rather red in the sun and I'm having lots of barbies. I will post many interesting details of my trip upon my return. In the meantime, I must find a way past the blocks that this library (with free internet access) has inexplicably put on web mail.