Maybe people shouldn't give them ideas

Rain, rain, rain and to make a change a little more rain

It's been raining just a little bit.

Actually saying a little bit is like saying water is a little bit wet. Quite literally it has not stopped raining apart from a 5 minute or so period.

Which meant Grumpy and Owen have got very wet today. Twice! Whilst out on his walk. I also got very simply by moving between the car, the minibus and then into the office.

Plus with the wind it's been a very cold, wet and generally all round yucky day.

Which is apparently the technical term for it. Or so I'm told.

Still despite the bad weather the important thing is tomorrow I get to go and see the new Avengers movie. Mind you I'm refusing to call it "avengers assemble". What marketing genius thought of that idea? Because if you know about the avengers you know the significance of "avengers assemble" so you don't need that as a clue to what the film is about and if you don't know about them then the title is going to mean nothing asides from being a bit of a mouthful.

Later folks

Shouldn't you be happy that they are reading a book and leave it at that?

Okay, I've seen an article that not only got me seething but made me wonder about Nemesis's response as this does feel under her purview after all.

Apparently public libraries have had to withdraw a number of long standing childrens books after some parents complained the books were racist, blasphemous, violent or otherwise unsuitable.

So who is on this short list for warping childrens minds?

Roald Dahl was top of the list which for some stories, okay maybe they have a point with some of the stories but others no. Unless Matilda has been accused of encouraging children not to listen to authority figures.

But his books have been joined by the nutcracker and Ali Babba and the 40 thieves as too sinister or frightening for children. I would have thought the Nutcracker would have had complaints about it being confusing rather then Sinister.

And the list goes on. Tintin has been accused of racism and joining him facing this charge is Babar. That's right Babar the elephant. We apparently have racist elephants. Maybe it was a character trait that never came out in the tv cartoon.

The racism charge has apparently coming about as they are both accused of exposing children ethnic stereotypes. Tintin in his trip to the congo and Babar in meeting "savage cannibals". No comments though if it would have been fine for him to meet " perfectly nice and civil cannibals".

Babar is the only elephant to face the racism charge as two elephants, one black, one grey having a dispute were accused of being racist.

But racism wasn't the only issue on the cards. Two monsters in the unsurprisingly named "two monsters" book were accused of using aggressive language unsuitable for young ears ( and eyes obivously)

And this agressive language " Twit" and "dumbo". Which must mean these parents never let their kids watch any soap operas ( imagine the fainting if the parents watched a episode of hollyoaks).

Not even critically lauded books that have been turned into tv shows have escaped complaints as horrible histories which aims to "take the stuffiness out of history" has been accused of celebrating and trivalising violence, while another complaint about it's sister series Horrible Science feared it would encourage children to perform dangerous experiments.

Well as long as they haven't bought little johnny his own particle accelerator it shouldn't be too dangerous.

and depressingly the list keeps going with the Big ugly monster being accused of damaging childrens self esteem and Flabby Cat and Slobby Dog being accused of giving negative messages about Obesity.

So there you have it, Libraries and reading can not win. People complain that kids don't read enough and when they do, we complain about it.

Maybe it we fill the childrens sections with copies of the latest celebrities autobiographies and copies of heat. Everyone will be happy....

well asides from the people mourning the breakdown of western civilisation but no one listens much to them these days anyway.

141 and counting

I was reminded today of a comment Nemesis made when she was over here in the uk ( yes this comes from quite a well ago but you know me and my memory :-) about petrol being more exspensive then certain items on the black market.

Well I was a little shocked to realise that the average price of petrol round geektown has hit the depressing heights of £1.41 !

I can remember when 80 pence seemed liek a lot. Heck I can remember the howls of outrage when it passed the £1 mark and now we're closing in on the £1.50 mark! as the airport petrol station is on £1.44.

anyway,

Later folks

The light at the end of the tunnel

well after what seems like one of the longest and most drawn out decoration jobs in history my room is almost complete.

And sooner then expected too as the guy who is coming to fit the new flooring and curtain rail due to weather putting a lot of his outside jobs on hold is now coming tomorrow. Which had prompted a fair amount of running around like a lunatic as I've tried to get the last few bits in order ready to remove everything from my room ready for the new floor to go in.

So tomorrow morning is going to start with a very early start to get rid of the old bed and chest of drawers, then it's a full day at work before returning home to put together my new bed and new chest of drawers.

Which I fully expect will mean I won't be able to find anything for the new few days but c'est la vie.

And then starts the full task of trying to decided what's going to go back into my room. It's time for another sort through and a trip to the charity shop methinks

Later folks

Ally McBeal High school edition

At the weekend Grumpy and I ( well more Grumpy then me as he was manning the stand most of the day) helped out TapDance by taking some of her pictures to a art and craft fair to see if well we could see them basically.

You could dress it up in all sorts of flowerly language but that's it in a nutshell basically.

Anyway this show was at my old high school. Well kind of.

Basically during the time I went there many years ago they knocked the old school down and put a new one up in it's place and this did this by basically building the new school up on one side of the campus whilst the old one was still up and they then knocked the old one down.

As the meerkat would say "seemples"

Although they left the swimming pool and sports hall where they were, which means the site is now very different but strangely familiar.

So in the new school we use of the new ideas which is supposed to apparently help reduce bullying by having uni sex toilets ala Ally McBeal and it doesn't end there.

The said toilets right on the main corridor and are open plan. So all of the cubicles and wash basin are in plain sight.

Now maybe the "kids" today are comfortable in sharing bathrooms in that way and maybe that's something if they had tried "back in my day" might even have worked. But having a open plan toilet right off the main corridor?

That would be too weird even for me.

Later folks

Well read

Our team manager was recently amused to note after a quick morning walk round to check on the team the rather different selection of reading material that different members of the team had.

In fact she decided that in fact we were probably the best "read" team in the building as she noted that among the reading material we had a magazine on pool, a book of cake making, a guide to giving up smoking, a copy of the telegraph, a magazine on canoeing, a magazine on golf, a magazine on photography ( guess who that one belonged too :-) a copy of the hunger games and a book of mental puzzles.

Which to put into perspective you need to compare the next nearest teams reading material which consisted of one copy of the Sun newspaper, one copy of Heat and one copy of inside soap.

And just in case anyone was wondering the reading material is for Breaks and lunch only, cause we sure as heck don't have time to read it anytime else.

I also had a big surprise last night as I realised I had what can only be described as a masssive "d'oh!" moment as I had it fixed in my head Elder Enginseer was due back in May. Well he wasn't as he is actually now home.

And how did I find this out? How else do you find anything out these days? Facebook!

later folks

The power of physics

Feeling slightly depressed the other day at going from YSA to SA, physics took it upon himself to cheer me up in his only usual unique way by listing what he saw as one of the main benefits of the move up, or as he put it back on my birthday " Becoming super old".

He pointed out that I have technically gone from having three letters as a identifier to only having two. He then proceeded to point out that this obivously meant it was good thing become super old as going from three to two means I have got a free 33% boost in efficiency.

Which set me off into a complete fit of the giggles as he reminded in his own way yet again that church can actually be fun sometimes :-)

Still, it's only a couple of weeks before the new avengers movie is out and boy have I been looking forward to this one. Plus it's directed by Joss whedon so my expectations are really high.

I am also considering to go and watch the movie battleship. There my expectations are nowhere near as high but who knows. It could be fun.

Anyway,

Later folks

Postive proof

Sometimes it's hard to deny that the weather seems to have a sense of humour.

Take today for instance. We've just had a four day bank holiday weekend where the weather could be described at best as "miserable" and what happens this morning when everybody is getting ready to go back to work?

Why what else? Lots and lots of sunshine.

And of course lets not forget the chaos that resulted from a four day closure and the subsquent backlog of requests to deal with.

Ok, Chaos might be too strong a word. Yes it was busy but it was also quite entertaining as well.

Which lets face it was good as it kept me out of trouble.

Later folks

Irony, irony,

Okay, so we've got hose pipe bans over large chunks of the country and it's now a Bank holiday weekend.

So can you guess what the weather has decided to do???

Yeap, it's raining. Not really heavily mind you, or in a fascinating throwing it down it kind of way that makes you glad of the roof over your head.

Nope it's that boring kind fo rain which is best described as a drizzle.

And I've managed to write eight lines so far just describing rain! So, not breaking the whole geek stereotype here am I?

Still, it's the easter weekend which means I get four days rather then the usual two before I have to go back to work.

and who knows I might even manage to do something constructive.

Hosing Around

Well across large swathes of the uk a hose pipe band has come into effect.

If you ignore the irony of the fact we live on a island surrounded by water and yet in certain parts of the country we're critically short of it, it's a laudable idea trying to save water by restricting the use of hose pipes.

Asides from the fact that it only applies to hose pipes, so if you really want to, you could spent all day flinging buckets of water over your garden and nobody could do a thing.

It would be pointless and you'd end up with a flooded garden but hey at least that will "stick it to the man" hey?

Thinking big random thoughts

One question Grumpy posed this week which I couldn't answer

" Why do compact camera's come in multiple colours but DSLR's all come in one colour?"

Any ideas anyone?