Andy's Blog

Popularity is always a nice thing, however it’s a little unsettling when the people you’re popular with are only after your blood.  I tried interesting them in my body, but no joy.

It also seems a little strange that being negative is an absolute positive, at least in the minds of the aforementioned Vampires that I appear to be so popular with.

You have to hand it to the National Blood Service, they know exactly which buttons to press to get my full attention, and the lovely female Gaelic lilt on the end of the phone certainly pushed the majority of them; so, on the 9th March, I am off to give my usual armful of red go-go juice.

Truth be told though, I hate needles… Really, really *HATE* needles!  So the thought of voluntarily going to a place where I’ll be jabbed and drained is somewhat of an anathema to me (I think I may have ‘intimated’ in previous posts about my slight squeamishness).

But, seeing as the Blood Services website tells me my blood (O-) is ‘very special indeed‘, it would seem churlish not to gift them some of it for the greater good; especially after such a nice compliment.  Usually when people tell me I’m “special”, I get the distinct feeling it’s not in quite the same way I imagine they mean.

Another reason I go is precisely BECAUSE I hate needles so much!  I am hoping that one day all these visits will finally get me over this little phobia.  It’s this vein hope (get it? get it? vein, rather than vain… forget it!) that I also volunteer to do Kata at each Karate Tournament that comes along.  One day, maybe the one coming up on the 27th February, I won’t be my usual mitigated disaster and complete it without looking like I have swapped feet with my 8 year old son!

It’s a hope, however vein or vain, and until it’s realised I’ll just have to be content with being “special”.

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”.  Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”.  The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out.  Terrorists have been re-categorised from “Tiresome” to a “Bloody Nuisance”.   The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588 when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards”.  They don’t have any other levels.  This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”.  The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender”.  The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability.

It’s not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout loudly and excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing”.  Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides”.

The Germans also increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs”.  They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose”.

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy.  These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Americans meanwhile and as usual are carrying out pre-emptive strikes, on all of their allies, just in case.

And in the southern hemisphere…

New Zealand has also raised its security levels – from “baaa” to “BAAAA!”.

Due to continuing defence cutbacks (the air force being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and the navy some toy boats in the Prime Minister’s bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is “I hope Australia will come and rescue us”.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be right, mate”.  Three more escalation levels remain: “Crikey!’, “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend” and “The barbie is cancelled”.  So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

I *really* wish I could take credit for writing this, unfortunately I can’t.  Received in my email inbox today and copied here for your viewing pleasure once I had wiped away the tears

Never blog an hour or so before you decide to throw up and get a bad case of the vertigos.  Not that it was a conscious decision, but the resultant blog post was a lot more depressing than I had originally anticipated or meant.

Ah well, I shall leave the original blog post up for posterity’s sake, no censorship here… and now if you don’t mind I am off to go and call for Ralph and Huey down the large white telephone.

It’s true, I have reached a kind of prolonged brain-fart.  The brain is whirring around, as much as it ever does, the fingers are itchy to put something down in words, but all that comes out is some slightly stale air.

As much as I want to jot down the daily doings of me, in some kind of narcissistic ‘dear diary’, the truth is that not an awful lot of interest happens.  Life certainly isn’t in any shape or form as life-and-death as Ann Frank’s, or as tally-ho-trousers-down-and-up-the-constituents as Alan Clark’s.

So I find myself, during lunchtime at work, again within one of the music pods, sitting in front of this blog wondering what the hell to write down?  Life, as I see it, is pretty much consisting of the following;

1. Work is work.  I work in a Bank designing computer systems, how exactly exciting do you think that can get?   Of course, the slightly annoying element of me being no longer required come 31st December does cause some concern… but 31st DECEMBER?!  That’s like a lifetime away! (feel free to point me in the direction of this post in 2011 and rub my face in it if things don’t entirely work out the way I hope)
2. Karate is still providing the source of me getting beaten up in various, and intriguing, ways by multiple peoples.  Just as an aside a new lesson has been learnt; do NOT do leg exercises at the Gym just before a karate lesson later that evening.  The results are not impressive and the scowling by ones Sensei is something frightening to behold.
3. Home-life is home-life.  Trying to resolve the latest home based dramas; house, heating, repairs, family arguments, money, etc, etc. is starting to feel like work.  In the spirit of holding my hand up though, this is no different than anyone else.  However the feeling of just throwing the arms up in the air with some of the new drama’s and say “Fine, I give up, have it your way!” is just too strong at the moment.
4. Sleep is not sleep.  ‘Nuff said.
5. Go back to step #1

In my actual verbal self I am a person who doesn’t mind not having something to say.  I am completely comfortable, when I have nothing of interest to say, in saying nothing at all.  I don’t have the gift of the gab or have a hundred and one amusing anecdotes with which to regale friends and colleagues alike, and as seen from the above there’s nothing of note to bore the poor person I happen to be with about.

I just wish I had the same control when it came to blogging, although why blog in the first place if that were to be the case?  Here’s as good a place as any to dump any brain-fartage and it’s not as though anyone reads the thing!

There, “ramble” done and dumped onto the t’interweb along with all the other rubbish that inhabit it.  No violence (or at least none seen), or porn (that would be too terrifying a vision to dwell on) or conclusion to this post….

…just a faint stale smell, depending on how long after I posted this you read it, and a slightly relieved feeling on my part to expel it albeit somewhat publicly (which is very rude).

Meh, you know what?  I had sat down with the absolute intention to try and list some resolutions for this year, but after faffing about without typing anything at the keyboard have come to the realisation that I really can’t be bothered to set any.  This is not actually 100% true, I do have some goals that I have set for myself, but these are the same I always have;

• Get better at Karate (at least one grade better this year)
• Get fit (also interpret that as ’slim’)

But that’s about it.  I also can’t be much bothered to review last years, apart from; I did achieve the two belts, but didn’t get fit.

Ever so slightly uninspired today.  However the cartoon below did brighten the day somewhat…

Being follicly challenged, as I am, doesn’t preclude one from the necessity of visiting the sheep shearers every so often to trim the few strands of hair that still inhabit the top of my head.  The Terry Nutkin look doesn’t flatter.

The walk to the hairdressers shouldn’t have been this hard, but add a sprinkling of snow, a fair few nights in the negative celsius’s, a hill and one 6′1 lolloping idiot into the mixture and things take their usual course.

To be honest I didn’t think the path rose quite as much as it obviously does, but the one step forward and slide 3 feet back seemed to confirm the fact.  I also discovered the now hard learnt lesson that, no matter how cold it is, you shouldn’t keep your hands stuffed deep inside your coat pocket when tackling an icy slope.  Keeping one’s dignity when face planting the grassy border is difficult if not nigh-on-impossible.

Despite the slightly longer than anticipated journey my hair is now back to its usual short ‘n spikey self, I can also confirm that gravity still works and my trip DOWN the hill was considerably quicker and more painful than the trip in the opposite direction!

Arse!… literally.

I looked at the ‘langostinos’ and rather disturbingly they looked back.  I’ll give most things a try, but not when those ‘things’ are able to look at me, with more than a little recrimination, and have more legs than foodstuffs should have!

“Look Dad! Buggly eyed beasties!” the boys bellowed across the table at me, knowing that the unofficial name that I gave this favoured Spanish dish gets me in more than a little trouble with the natives.

I also can’t help but feel a little queasy when said natives are ripping apart the aforementioned buggly eyed beasties and leave what looks like a slaughter of the cast of fingerbobs.

The Christmas meal just doesn’t seem the same without an obscene amount of roasted turkey and a feeling afterwards that you’ll be pooping feathers for the next few days.

This year I thought that, rather than ask for my usual ‘useful’ gift, I would get something completely impractical and feed the big kid in me.  Santa didn’t disappoint and I am now the proud owner of a mini Apache AH-64 remote controlled helicopter!  The little devil fits in my hand and buzzes around the room menacing all that are within the vicinity… mainly due to my ineptness with the remote and the fact that it’s an absolute bastard to control.

In fact the full danger of me being behind the controls of the helicopter meant that I was banished to the spare room to try and perfect my skills without taking out a family member.  The “you’ll take somebody’s eye out with that!” argument wasn’t won by myself when I pointed out that it *WAS* an attack helicopter.

Push the controls upwards and the helicopter shoots up and nearly hits the roof. Suddenly letting go of the control lever to stop it hitting aforementioned roof and it slams into the floor.  Buggar!  Push controls gently upwards and the helicopter lifts 4 foot off the floor and starts rotating in an annoying circle.  Looking down at the remote control for the “rudder trim”, as I remember the instruction sheet mentioning something about this, and the little bastard exits stage left and out the window onto the balcony.  “Ooooh shit!”

The little helicopter was never designed to fly outside, and it certainly wasn’t designed to hover from 6 floors up a block of flats.  As I run to the balcony it gave me one last look and started its rapid descent downwards.  I think the roadrunner type “meep meep” was of my own imagination.

Lunging over the plant pots that lined the balcony and desperately pointing the remote control at the gravity aided bit of plastic I managed to at least check the descent to a plummet.

I don’t think the shouted “Sorry!” to the bouffant haired old dear, tottering along the street outside, did much to calm her nerves.  I don’t think she appreciated the last desperate act of skill that changed the kamikaze dive bombing into a crash landing into the bush next to her.  I also don’t think the liberal sprinkling of potted plant dirt in her face as she looked up was also much appreciated.

My grasp of Spanish is basic, to say the least, but I got the gist of her feelings.  “Yeah, yeah, and that’s for the armada” I muttered after her angrily retreating frame, and started the long trek down the stairs to retrieve the errant present.

I am very definitely a Winter person.

There is something deeply satisfying to me when the fogs of December come rolling in, especially in the early evenings, and the street lights flicker into life and cast the scenery with eerie punctuations of light and shadow.

I am also at my most reflective during these shadowed evenings, especially with all the dramas of life at the moment.  Sometimes just stopping by Abington Park, after karate, pumping up the mood music, opening the doors and taking a calm moment before continuing the journey, is required.

There’s probably a hundred reasons why it’s not a good idea, but there’s just as many as to why it is.  I think next time I try it I’ll source a good cup of java from somewhere.

A trip up to Scotland, especially at this time of year, has been too long a time coming and my batteries are in sore need of some recharging.

Awww buggar, t’would seem that the powers-that-be have finally swung their Sauron like gaze towards me and wondered; “WTF does he do?”

So I now find myself, just before Christmas, in the position of having my role officially classed as “at risk”.  As my manager helpfully put it at my 1:1 interview; “It’s not you, but your role that’s at risk”.  I think I feel better.

However, I am taking this rather positively and am not *too* down.  It doth give me the opportunity to see what new adventures are available out there and I have about 6 months in which to do it in (or possibly 12 if you read the rather vague HR document in another way; head slanted at a jaunty 30 degree angle kind of way).

So I am currently calling upon the mighty powers of Web 2.0, and sacrificing my first born upon its altar (sorry Alex but the Internet is a cruel, yet just, deity) to see what can be found for a jobbing IT Guru without actually getting up from my seat… well actually this blog post comes more from a Pod than a seat, but I’m painting a picture here…

…fin!

A split lip, loud ringing in the ears, seeing double for a while, some very sore ribs and a wonderful sense of achievement… all the ingredients of a successful grading!

It would seem I was a little premature in my moping last week and needn’t have worried quite as much as I did.  Yep, this does mean that I have actually completed at least one of my new years resolutions and graded two belts this year!

It probably seems a strange state of affairs, especially when seen by those who don’t do martial arts, that progress and a sense of achievement is only gained after a beating.. and let’s be clear, I was battered senseless last night, but it’s the way in which you pick yourself up and keep going forward that differentiates between a white belt and a black belt.  Or at least that’s what Sensei says as he delivers another blow!

The other differentiator is having a group of friends behind you, cheering you on, and picking you up when you do hit a low point.  Special thanks to Libby, Sarah and Ed, who always seem to make that little extra effort to gee you up and tell you, when required, to stop being an arse (not that Libby would ever use the “a” word… Sarah on the other hand would probably use something stronger and involve a back-fist to the stomach somewhere in the conversation… but you get the picture).

As Epicurus once noted;

“It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.”