badlyDrawnToy

It’s official. Natalie and I have now officially registered our intent to marry with the local council. Having produced some ID, answered some questions and parted with some dosh, the registrar has approved our application.

So, unless any of you decide to pop into Crewe Town Hall in the next 15 days, and raise any objection, I’m going to be making the biggest commitment of my life!

Yes. You may have noticed that, somewhat belatedly, it has finally sunk in that in a few months time, I’m going to be a kept man.

Categories: General | 4 Comments »

I’m loving this story about John Darwin, the missing canoeist who has recently re-appeared. I haven’t really got much to comment. I just wanted an excuse to bastardise the famous palindrome.

Regardless of the outcome, you can bet John and Anne will make plenty of money form selling their story to the press. And a film must sound tempting.

Interestingly, BBC online shows links to the older articles from when the canoeist went missing. At the time, his wife was quoted as saying:

I have no reason to think he would have left and stage-managed this

Really, Mrs Darwin?

Categories: General | 1 Comment »

I’m currently looking at holiday insurance policies, As I slowly ploughed through the minutia of the policy details, I came across this little nugget

###Section 25 - Hole in One Cover
We will pay You up to £100 for customary bar expenses you incur as a result of, and
immediately subsequent to, You achieving a hole in one during a competition round.

Brilliant. Just goes to show that it pays to read the small print. Well, it would if I played golf!

Categories: General, Travel | 1 Comment »

I don’t know how the young guns at work find all this stuff on YouTube, but there is some mad stuff on there, including this clip of Benitez The Magician.

If only it were true! Gonna need something special to beat the Arse this weekend!

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Last week GastroGrrl and I went to see Control; a film we’ve been waiting to see for a long, long time as it was filmed on our street.

The Guardian has declared Control to be film of the year. That’s a big call, and I guess I can’t be objective, as I spent most of my time looking for shots of Macclesfield. That said, the film really is very good, and I can see Anton Corbijn winning best new Director, or Sam Riley winning best new actor in some film awards.

Go and see it, if only to see Macclesfield in all it’s industrial, northern, working-class glory. I’m not sure why Corbijn chose to use Ian Curtis’ real home and work-place for filming, but for all those Joy Division/Ian Curtis groupies who want to know exactly where it was located, here’s a Google Maps link to his old house.

Categories: General | No Comments »

Another World Cup - another defeat to Australia at the hands of a determined English team. Predictably, the build up to the game was full of the usual hype, most notably by the Australian Rugby Union boss John O’Neill stating that all Australian sports fans hate England.

I’m no rugby expert, but from what I saw, England went into the game with a plan to stifle the opponent - a perfectly sensible game-plan when facing such a quick Australian side. And the plan paid off. The Australian pack was no match for the strength of the English front row.

The Wallabies were beaten not wholly by skills on field (the English team still has a long way to go in this respect), but also by tactical decisions.

The Sydney Morning Herald takes a different stance. They don’t seem to recognise that any element of strategy was involved in England’s win, stating that:

Australia ended their worst World Cup campaign by losing to a substandard England

and going on to say that:

Losing a World Cup final is forgivable. Being defeated in a quarter-final by B-grade opponents isn’t.

Such bad losers! If England are a sub-standard B-team, what does that make the Wallabies?

I think that The Guardian makes a valid point in it’s analysis, noting that neither the Wallabies nor the All Blacks play in knock-out competitions outside of the world cup.

There is a big difference between playing in group/league competitions and playing in knockout tournaments. Just ask any Liverpool fan!

Categories: General | 5 Comments »

This weekend, to celebrate 50 years since Sputnik was launched, Jodrell Bank is turning it’s dish into the world’s biggest cinema screen. Sadly tickets sold out so our plans for a moonlight movie have been dashed. I’m half-tempted to watch from a distance. I mean you can see the flippin’ thing from miles away.

Categories: General | 2 Comments »

Last week GastroGrrl and I discovered the most bizarre vegetable we have ever come across, and soon found ourselves making a impulsive purchase without even knowing the name for our produce.

We know now the official name for this fractal food - Romanesco broccoli.

It tastes like cauliflower, looks like broccoli and is an amazing example of fractal forms in nature.

Categories: General | No Comments »

Occasionally GastroGrrl accuses me of being a geek. Admittedly, I do have tendency to play with my gadgets a bit - SqueezeBox, iPod, MacBook etc. but I’m not that bad.

On the other hand, Stephen Fry, that incredibly clever master of the English language, has just started blogging, and in doing so revealed that he is a complete and utter, unashamed geek. His first entry is an essay on the history of mobile phones, PIMs and PDAs. I read his entry over the course of a day and found myself skipping the sections that were even too techie for me.

Credit to the man. He’s passionate, he has a captive audience (485 responses to his post), and even when writing about a mobile phone, demonstrates his wit and flair when it comes to writing.

He may be a geek, but Stephen Fry is still an inspiration!

Categories: General | 1 Comment »

Is it only one week since I was on holiday? I was sooo relaxed, and now I feel like I’ve never been away. And to make matters worse, GastroGrrl is out-blogging me - she’s made two updates in one day!

This year’s Summer hols were close to home. We live a mere 40 or so miles from the Welsh border, so we thought it about time we learned a bit more about our neighbours. ore specifically, we went to Cardigan, near Pembrokeshire.

Now 40 miles may not seem far, but you certainly know you’ve entered another country. Aside from the fact that we didn’t come across a set of traffic lights all week (believe me, this is very welcome on
vacation), the signposts are in a different language - a language that seems to have no obvious derivation, and is completely devoid of vowels!

I’d love to have grown up watching Countdown on C4 Wales - I’ll have a consonant please; and another consonant; and another consonant…

The Welsh countryside is pretty amazing, with Snowdonia on the one side, and a beautiful coastline on the other. I think the reason that I enjoyed it so much was because it was the first time I’d been back
in the ocean since leaving Oz. I immediately decided that I want to live there, though GastroGrrl assures me that I say this about everywhere we go that is not near Manchester! (except London, of
course). The other reason I liked it was because it stopped raining!

Highlights for me were swimming, laying on a beach, seeing dolphins, windsurfing, eating and drinking. Perfect!

The holiday was topped off by a visit to the highly-rated National Botanic Gardens of Wales, and a visit to our lovely friends Sam, Huw and Gethin in Cardiff.

Now , I just need to work out how to get Nat to move to Wales with me..

Categories: General, Travel | No Comments »