You are allowed to enjoy this…

Today, my Internet connection has been upgraded. For no extra cash, BT gave me the opportunity to upgrade to 8Mb broadband. The only thing was that only after I had signed up for the upgrade that they revealed that we could only get 4.5Mb broadband in this area – but when they did finally switch over my connection it was 5.5Mb. How fricking riveting was that? Did I just send you to sleep then? I know I nearly nodded off while I was typing it.
Anyhoo, the really interesting this about this service upgrade is that for £30 they would send me a new broadband router. Why? Well, with this upgrade there’s a thing called BT Broadband Talk which gives you a VOIP (Voice over IP – basically Internet Telephony) with a standard phone set connected to your router. I even get my own “05 ” number so people could call me. The upside is that I get free evening and weekend calls and considerable lower call charges when calling abroad. The downside is that I don’t actually know anyone who I can call or who would actually call me – such is the life of the modern 21st Century Electronic Hermit. The service did work very well when The Missus used it to call her nan. She reckoned that the line quality was better than our exisiting phone line.
Well at least I can download porn at three times my normal speed. JOKE – I just wanted include the word “porn” to send the Googlebots wild. Some more Google Mind FuckTM words you might want to include in your blogs are “Syed and Michelle pictures” – that combination of words has been bringing lots of Apprentice fans seeking on-show romantic entanglements this way.

So I have been remembering more of my dreams lately. This is unusual as I don’t usually remember anything that happens during my noctural activities. The other night I was in a dream with The Missus and there was a constant threat of danger at every turn. It was like a disaster movie playing at 100mph. The sky was black, there was a huge mountain we were trying to climb and ridges of moving ice and danger at every turn. A huge tidal wave was sweeping towards us across the flat plains and despite climbing faster and faster, we were going to be hit by the wall of water. And so I braced myself as the tidal wave hit, holding tight onto The Missus’s hand. We were flung high into the air and landed in a jungle, the tree-lined canopy breaking our fall. There was more danger and more running away and peril, but I can’t remember any more. I just remember the fear of the tidal wave and resigning myself to doom, even though by a miracle we were eventually saved. I think it was a metaphor for life in general.
The dream I had last night was much more pleasant. It started with me walking down a dark corridor and flinging open a door into bright sunlight. As I stepped into the unknown, I realised that I was on a field, surrounded by coaches and people busying themselves. I looked down and realised that I was not wearing my usual clothing and that I was wearing something very unfashionable from the 1970s – flared trousers and a goddawful shirt. I checked my bonce – yup my hair had miraculously grown back down to my backside (like it used to be) and the weight I had gained since being involved with The Missus had gone. I was a young stud again. Hurrah!
On investigation, I realised that I was backstage at some open air festival in the seventies and there were many different people milling past. There were bands and groupies and whatever, but I didn’t recognise anyone in particular. I evesdropped on one group and they were speaking in German – I listened and began to think that they might be some kind of Krautrock group I’d never heard of. In fact, most of the names I’d never heard of. Bob Fripp was standing on a soapbox giving a lecture or preaching about something, but I wasn’t interested in him and neither was the crowd milling around. I was more interested trying to figure out what concert this was. I tried looking for my ticket, but these were the wrong trousers and I couldn’t find my way into the event. How could I get inside without a ticket. In the distance, I could hear the low-dull, bass-heavy, thump-thump-thump, of a rock band performing.
I found myself surrounded by a group and they were very friendly to me. One of them offered me a guitar and asked me to play, but when I tried to play the instrument, it just sounded awful – probably because this was some 13 years before I actually began learning to play the guitar. They all began to laugh at me and call me a chancer. I became upset and found myself alone, bemoaning my lack of guitar-based talent and no ticket to the concert. Suddenly, a friendly face appeared – a another lad like myself and he promised that there was another way into the concert.
I followed him away from field, through some trees, into a gulley. The grass was chest height and we had to wade our way through. There was some kind of trough we had to jump over. I might have been a trap to capture those trying to sneak in the back way, I don’t know. My guide jumped first and insisted I follow, but I was nervous. I stood there for a while, mustering up my confidence and made the leap. As I passed over the trough, I saw a pound coin glinting in the sunlight, it’s markings on the rear were familiar and etched out in great detail. “But there are no pound coins now,” I thought to myself before running with my new-found friend to the concert.
We managed to find our way to the front and could only see by looking around a large concrete pillar. In the distance was the sea and a pier. It seems that the bands were playing on a stage at the end of the pier – walking away, down the boardwalk away from the stage, were loads of different people dressed in Victorian or Edwardian wear – some had familiar faces, but I couldn’t put any names to them.
Then I was woken…
A strange dream, but a nice dream. Not too heavy or depressing like some of the other dreams I’ve had recently. I am still finding it weird how I am accessing this flights of fancy again. Is there a switch you need to turn on or something? I don’t know.
Yesterday, I did a little bit of recording. Working on a piece which is far from complete. The ending came together and I added some strings to it using my keyboard – it sounded a bit Michael Nyman-ish writing for Peter Greenaway. I am not happy with the strings, but here’s a different dub with guitars replacing them. It’s nothing wonderful, just a little snippet of the future:

So it was the local council elections yesterday and our ward was fielding a BNP candidate. In order for us to dislodge this fascist party from our locale it was obvious that some tactical voting was in order, so we voted for our local independent candidate. Unfortunately, the BNP candidate won by four lousy, stinking votes. We tried and we failed. The idiots of Loughton won again.
Anyway, on completely seperate news, Sky One are remaking cult TV show “The Prisoner” and have Christopher “I’m Not Doctor Who” Ecclestone. Why bother when this excellent remake already exists?

Well it’s good being right, isn’t it? Who predicted last week that we’d get an all-female finale on the Apprentice? Why, it was me? Mr Right! 🙂 Oh yes, there was absolutely no way Paul Tulip, the walking gob in a suit, all confidence and smarm, was ever going to get past the final hurdle. Some tips when going to an interview: know your own CV and know about the company you are applying for. It’s really simple, but both Paul and Ansell just didn’t have the common sense to take this precaution. Paul, the incredible bullshitting man, was left out hung to dry, while Ansell revealed that he really was a really nice ineffective guy – a bit like Tuan, really, but with more presence.
So we have Ruth and Michelle in the finale. It’s a bit tough to predict who will win because the final task is key – but from the clips I’ve seen on the promo, Michelle has Syed and Paul on her final team and this could be more a hindrance than a help. While the smashing, crashing Badgertron is like a bull in a china shop, it could be this same bluster that could be her own downfall. I’d like Ruth to win, but I’ve got a strange feeling that the cold fish might just clinch it. How non-committal am I today? No, definately Ruth…I’ve wanted Ruth to win from the early weeks, so it has to be her, but with the Apprentice it is tough to predict what will happen.
Taking of things BBC, I’ve been drawn to the BBC Film Network which lets you download free short movies using a P2P client. It features the excellent short “How to Tell if a Relationship is Over” a funny 2-minute film starring Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh. Also, I found the BBC Motion Gallery which lets you look at stock film clips and purchase them if you are in that line of business. There’s a great clip called HD Andes to Amazon which is a High-Definition film of condors flying over the Andes and all the flora and fauna of the region. Man, it’s High-Definition and I must admit, for nature footage, it’s pretty convincing. No, no, no…pull yourself together man, don’t fall for the HD propaganda.
Meanwhile, here’s a video from the Infadels, an up-and-coming pop combo. Their only claim to fame is that they have Alex Bruford installed on the drumstool. Who? He’s Bill Bruford’s son, but it is a shame that they make him sound like a drum machine. Anyway, it’s called “Love Like Semtex”…it sounds a bit like Big Audio Dynamite and E-MC2. Enjoy!

This a piece of comedy genius. I’ve never had much time for George Dubya, but I think he missed his vocation in the world of comedy. Take it away George(s):

Well I just got finished with watching this week’s Doctor Who and I can only say that it was the best of the series so far. OK – it was sentimental and we had the return of old characters Sarah Jane Smith and K-9, but it was a return to form I had been hoping for. The story was wafer thin but that wasn’t the point – the point was to illustrate that the Doctor was a man with a past and hopefully all the kiddiwinks will be going off to buy Doctor Who DVDs tomorrow to see Sarah Jane and the Doctor in their younger days. The episode itself had much better pace, used all the characters well and didn’t Anthony Head do a great job of being slimy and malevolent?
Me and The MIssus really enjoyed it and there were a few moist eye moments too. I especially liked the introduction of Sarah Jane, her discovery of the TARDIS and the Doctor and K-9 opening a can of whup-ass on the bat people. And when K-9 reappeared from behind the TARDIS at the end, I was a very happy boy. I knew the Doctor wouldn’t have left him all smushed up. Ooooh…look/…I have reverted back to type – I am an eleven year old boy again.
The only thing I am not happy about is that the series has left me feeling a little confused. I still have the hots for Sarah Jane and she’s only two years younger than my mother. I feel dirty…but in a good kind of way. And heck, I even warmed to David Tennant this week – when he’s not being so flippant and blokish, his serious Doctor persona is quite good.
Bring on the Cybermen, I say!

This is a pic of the new K-9 which is going to get his own kid’s series

Today was tax self assessment day. OK – I know I’ve got about six months to file the damn thing but I like to get it out of the way and the really great thing about filing a tax return if you are a freelance writer is that you only need to worry about how much money that comes in and your expenses. It’s not like I have to buy a stock of words and phrases from a wholesaler and sell them on, so I don’t have to worry about net and gross and stock costs etc.
Anyway, it is done and it is the only day of the year that I feel vindicated for sitting at home, playing with myself in front of the PC. This year, I surprised even myself and managed to pull in a record amount of cash – the most ever – and it would have been even more if Highbury House hadn’t keeled over and died without paying me. The weird thing is that despite having a bumper year, money seems to be scarce. I don’t get it. The more I earn, the less I have. How does that work? Mind you, when I had a full-time job and was pulling in over £10k more than I am now, I was still rooting around for money in that last week before pay-day, so it seems that the old adage “more money, more problems” might just be true.
In the post: a stock of blank CD-Rs and quad CD cases. Yup – I also need to print/burn a new stock of “Sow’s Ears” because I is sold out and the stock I thought I had, I’d send off the other month. Expensive business having your own independent record label! 🙂 (It’s called Little Lemon Records, by the way)
In order to keep this blog visually stimulating, here’s a picture of Alex the Wonderdog doing what he does best:

And here’s a badly taken photograph of my fishtank – the yellow fishes are mollys and the brown blur in the centre of the pic is a catfish: