Sunday 24 March 2013


#10 A holiday

I asked my house mate what I should write about this week. She said "a holiday". I thought "this could be a challenge". I thought "that's not a bad idea though". I like a challenge. It's important to enjoy a challenge. Especially the little ones. The big ones are harder to enjoy.

It's been a while since I had a holiday. We've got Easter coming up though, a big public holiday. You don't have to go anywhere. I thought "what do I want to do?". The default answer seemed to be "nothing". It's a peculiar habit that I've gotten myself into recently, wanting to do nothing. Doing nothing has always been a passion of mine and after years of practise, lately I seem to have gotten awfully good at it. It's actually quite hard though, the art of doing nothing. Nobody achieves it perfectly. At best, we find ourselves doing very little. I'll probably make some doughnuts, probably go for a run, probably do some housework, probably socialise. They're all things. I think the best way of putting it would be that I like to do nothing remarkably significant. I do wonder though, if there's something significant that I could do this weekend. Perhaps instead, I could find something significant, plan something significant, come up with something significant. A significant trip, a significant event, a significant new daily habit.

Time off is important though, to properly relax. It's so important that the company I work for made it compulsory. They don't mind what you do on holiday. Whether you keep fit and healthy, see your friends, see your family, experience new cultures, study a new field, work on your garden, your finances, spend time with your kids. They won't ask you to do any of these things. All they ask is that you take five weeks of holiday a year. Just make sure you take enough time off, they say, because it's important.


Saturday 16 March 2013


#9 Shower time

So this morning in the shower, I started to make up a song and it goes a little something like this.


I want a red, green, polka dot
baby give me whatcha got
I know just the place it can go
Cuz when you're sitting here with me
You and me need quality
This sofa doesn't have it, no!

I want a throw. I want a throw
The height of sophistication oh!
Magic like David Blaine's
We can cover up stains
and other people will never ever know
I want a throw

They come in big ones, little ones
somewhere in the middle ones
Maybe we can give it a try
Cuz I'm feelin' such a whore
Here in this department store
Just tell me baby which one to buy

I've been a good girl all my life
I'm nobody else's wife
You make me feel so special you know
and all our friends have all this stuff
a normal sofa's not enough
I guess you think it's funny, bro.

I want a throw. I want a throw
The height of sophistication oh!
Magic like David Blaine's
We can cover up stains
and other people will never ever know
I want a throw

So now it's time to go to bed
Wanna rest my sleepy head
I think we'd better call it a night
I've had a great big shopping day
Everything has gone my way
our little couch is looking just right

but I'm so cosy sitting here
I might have another beer
and watch some rubbish on the TV
it's getting late but it's ok
cuz today is saturday
and I'm so glad that you're here with me

Cuz I got a throw. I got a throw
The height of sophistication oh!
Magic like David Blaine's
We can cover up stains
and other people will never ever know

I got a throw. I got a throw
The height of sophistication oh!
Magic like David Blaine's
We can cover up stains
and other people will never ever know
I got a throw




Monday 11 March 2013


#8 Let's go for a joyride

Not long after starting this blog, I realised that I couldn't write about the things I really wanted to write about, the things that people would really find interesting... in case anyone read it.

This week's post is dedicated to the Grand Theft Auto videogame series. I recently brought the PS2 back from my parents' loft and dusted it off. Rich picked it up and I grabbed the controller a couple of times myself. Ever since the first top-down version graced our screens back in 1997, it has been a hugely successful game and recent titles continue to explode onto the market every few years.

Credited with bringing American street violence and car crime into the living rooms of millions of homes, the 18-rated (most of us were about ten when we picked up our first copy) masterpiece with a fully-loaded original soundtrack has evolved through time with increasingly cinematic video sequences, story lines and character development. The latest version, GTA 5 looks absolutely stunning and is clearly a jump up from its predecessors. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWP5FKuUjU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4pdEF-FV6g




Saturday 2 March 2013


#7 The universe

This is the seventh post so I'm going to give an explanation of how and why it all happened. This isn't a good explanation. In fact, it might not even make sense.

The questions of how and why the universe began are perhaps holy grails of physics and philosophy. I expect most people ask these questions as young children and revisit them as they grow or are reintroduced to them by their associates.

I tend to imagine the big bang as a large explosion at night. It would have looked similar. Somebody wanted to make a giant firework, so they compressed all these really tiny bits of gunpowder and the whole thing blew up. Whoever did it wanted it to be really big and last a really long time.

So where do we fit in to it all? People are very self-centred at times like this. We used to think that the sun revolved around the earth. We thought that because we didn’t realise that the earth was moving. Similarly, I have often thought that the universe exists in order for us to witness it. People are the only things in the known universe capable of witnessing the real the glory of such a big explosion. We need to exist in order for the firework to exist (the whole tree falling in the woods metaphor). We sometimes want to eat hotdogs while we watch fireworks so the Lord provided pigs along with plenty of water and salt. We had to evolve in order develop senses capable of fully appreciating the explosion.

You could keep saying “yeah but why did this or that event happen” but when you view the universe as a whole, rather than just from your own perspective, cause and effect disappear. Time does too. To use a phrase that makes no sense other than to reaffirm itself, “it is what it is”. By which I mean, there couldn’t be nothing so there had to be something and that something had to be everything. There couldn’t just be a frog because it had to eat flies and sit on a lily.

None of what I have written so far today is particularly original or useful so I’d like to close with a couple of links that I like: