In 6 months time...

...I'll hopefully be able to look back at this and smile. Apologies for the self-indulgence, but this post is probably more for myself than for anyone else. I've pondered doing this post for a few months now, but I wasn't ready. Now though, I feel like I am.

Saturday 21st February 2009 was going like most other Saturdays. United game on television, argument with my mother, artery-clogging fast food for dinner (pizza, that night). When we realised that our loft was on fire, however, things changed. Everything seemed to happen so, so quickly. I won't go into detail about that night, and the weeks after, as it's personal stuff and still a bit raw. However it's time I gave some shout-outs.

Thankyou to Merciless Public (Dan) and Pyschedelic Puritan (Shaun) for their kind words at the time - I still have your messages saved guys. Thankyou to my friend Ivan, not just for his support, but for being at home and near a computer that night. They won't read this, but thankyou to the firemen (and woman), police officers, ambulance staff and trauma team (thankfully not needed) for getting to the house so quickly. Firemen are just too damn brave. Much respect to all of you guys.

Thankyou to Jackie, the greatest personal tutor anyone could ever have, for her speediness and concern. My English lecturer Frank showed what a genuine class act he is with his prompt e-mail, and his touch of humour brought a smile to my face at a tough time. Thanks also to another English lecturer, Debbie, for her understanding and assistance. I'd like to thank the lady at Dialstone Library in Stockport for her help, even though I wasn't a member there and technically I wasn't allowed to use the computers.

We go up to the house every day, to pick up the mail and see what's going on. Yesterday I finally took the plunge of taking some photos, a mere 5 months after the fire. I'm going to post some now, not because I take any pride in them, but because hopefully in six months time I'll be sitting in our house, our fully repaired and revamped house, and looking back on these will make me so grateful that it's all over. Here's hoping.

1) What greets you as you enter the porch. Eagle-eyed amonst you will spot the reflection of me in my United shirt.

2) Lounge.

3) My bedroom. Where the white Dulux tin is would be where my TV was. Laptop would be to the left, my chair being where that metal step is. That shelf you can see is the first of 3, and that one housed my sports autobiographies.

4) Our "lawn" at the back. The whole garden is completely wild now, the grass above ankles when walking. Lotta work to do on that when we move back in.

5) Brother's bedroom.

6) Dining room, and a bit of my thumb.

Now do me a favour. If you're at home, go and check your smoke alarms, please. We didn't have one in the loft anyway, but the fire made me realise that no matter how many times I watched that advert with Julie Walters in, I never did a damn thing about checking they work. I also realised that you never think it will happen to you...until it does.

I don't usually post over the weekend, and this weekend will be no different. I'm off to my homeland, Sussexshire, for a family BBQ. Catch you guys on Monday sometime.

The dark side of politics

I got a shock last night when I perused the stat-porn, and found that someone had visited my blog with the referring URL being a twitter site. I clicked on the link, and got directed to a twitter feed dedicated to the BNP. I don't know how they do it, but clearly once I had published a blog entry with BNP and Nick Griffin referenced, they picked up on it, and posted the link to this blog on their twitter feed, the bastards.

I've now once again referenced the BNP and Griffin, so let's see what happens now. If there are any of you reading this now, I welcome all comments, no matter how misguided they are. If you're not prepared to leave a comment, then be a good little racist and move along quickly please. There's nothing for you here, my blog is for sane, multi-cultural and decent people. If you try and follow me I will block you.

Finally, you see the woman at the top there? She's the girl I would marry, if I could. Pretty, isn't she? Shame she's Serbian, eh? Would you frown on that, English blood mixing with an Eastern European? Never mind, here's some wholesome British girls for you instead: http://www.viceland.com/wp/2009/07/babes-of-the-bnp/

Enough of this bollocks

I'm annoyed, which is amusing considering Question Time is still 3 hours away. By the time it's finished, and I've been subjected to pillocks saying things like "illegal war", "Gordon Brown was not elected" and "bring back capital punishment" I'll be a snarling, enraged monster. And it's a political reason why I'm annoyed currently, because once again my local paper, The Shropshire Star, has decided to publish a letter by J Wendy Slark from Oswestry. Yeah, Slark, I'm calling you out!

J Wendy Slark has been a cancer on the Sloppy Star's letters page for many months now. Let's see what shit she has to say for herself today. What you're about to see goes as follows - Slark's letter will be in bold, my responses will be in this normal font. Apologies if there is swearing, a mere week after I told someone I would stop swearing on this blog after he showed it to his mother. HELLO LOIS! (waves)

The Braveheart who calls himself 'name and address supplied' once again says (Star, July 14th) "Our nation shamed by BNP views".

Many reasons why people send letters to papers anon. I've done it myself once. Doesn't make these people cowards, so frick off with your "Braveheart" jibe, Slark. Especially when they're not saying anything particularly controversial.

I would like to point out that this country has never been shamed by anything my family has done.

Glad to hear it. It's also irrelevant, as I believe Mr Anon was talking about the BNP, not your family? Let's stick with it...

My father is listed in the book of Flying Aces which says, quote: "A Flying Ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft during aerial combat..."

There's a bit more to the quote, but I'll not include it for length reasons. Funny that, though. I thought a Flying Ace was someone who was able to stick 4 peas up each of his nostrils.

He also was ordered the Military Cross and extremely extensive burns when his plane came down over France.

Congratulations to him, and he's a braver man than I ever could be. But what relevance does this have? Get on with it.

All the BNP members and supporters of an age physically fought the Germans. They are all entitled to an opinion on matters related.

I couldn't agree more! Let's have a glass of wine, eh, Slarkie? I've done you a misservice - you are absolutely right. No, hang on, there's more? Don't go a bit crazy on me now dear.

As regards the assertion that Nick Griffin and Mark Collett have not put their lives in danger in their fight for free speech for us all, truth can be found in the words of Geert Wilders on the BNP website.

Surprise surprise, that loony-bin turns up on the BNP website. So, what did he have to say? I'm looking forward to this.

The House of Lords invited him to talk to them but Jacqui Smith banned us from being able to see him. Where are our rights?

Sorry, you were meant to be talking about Mr Griffin and Mr Collett putting their lives in danger in their fight for free speech, using the words of Mr Wilders on your website. Please now do this.

If you would like to see the speech

I want to know what he said about Griffin and Collett putting their lives in danger in their fight for free speech, so I can laugh at you. You still haven't done it. Please now do this.

this brave resistance fighter

This attention-seeking, racist, crazy pillock.

made from the Land of the Free (USA) visit the site above.

Nobody has called the US that since 1904. And once again, I need to point out to you that we're patiently waiting for you to use what Mr Wilders said to (presumably) support your view that Mr Griffin and Mr Collett have put their lives in danger in their fight for free speech. You still haven't done this. Please now do this.

Mr Wilders is a very refined gentleman.

Debatable. And still not the point.

See if you think Jacqui Smith is a person to believe or are you appreciative of this man's courage and decency?

So much wrong with this I don't know where to start. Let's just simply say this - give me an example of him being courageous and decent, Slarkie. Just one.

(pause)

Oh, that's the end of your letter. Right.

It's not just this letter Slark, it's the barrels of bullshit I've read from you over the past few months. Just think how much ink and space you've used up with your misguided ramblings. I expect you'll get another letter published soon. I'll be here, Slarkie, ready and waiting. May as well bookmark this site right now, to be honest, because I'm gunning for you, you crazy fool.

Mixed Bag #3

A few loose ends to tie up, so let's shove them all into one post.

1) If you're reading this because I've just started following your blog, and you have no idea who I am, than welcome! A short biography of me is available to your right - I'll leave you to ponder which bits are true. I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting blogs, whatever they may be. I hope you enjoy reading mine in return.

2) I can't decide whether I'm on the verge of "the flu" or not. At the moment, I have a sore throat and a runny nose, so it could just be a cold. If it is the flu of the swine, I have given my funeral requirements to Merciless Public, and if he does not obey them than I will haunt him forever. "All very depressing" you might be thinking, but we both listen to The Smiths, we enjoy misery.

3) Hello and welcome to my new follower Sue! Please go and visit Sue's blog which you can find here: http://smjl123.blogspot.com/ Sue is a fellow student, and on her blog takes news stories and puts her own unique and interesting opinion on them. Most people reading this will already be familiar with her work, but for those who aren't - it's a blog worth following.

4) Some great sport this weekend. The Open was a funny old thing - it was one putt away from being the greatest ever, but in the end turned out to be an anti-climax. Congratulations to Stewart Cink, but The Open 2009 will forever be Tom Watson's Open. The cricket is going well, although if Freddie and KP are injured than I don't fancy England's chances of hanging on to the series lead. You have to expect Mitchell Johnson to start bowling like a professional cricketer at some point as well.

5) I have the theme tune to "Tales of the Unexpected" stuck in my head. This is annoying because a) it is annoying and b) I always hated that series. Peter Cook once called it "Tales of the wholly predictable" and he was right - once you know the twist is coming, the twist loses it's impact. The one where the police eat the evidence was quite smart though, I'll give them that.

6) There's still time left to sign up to the Fantasy Football league that myself and Merciless are running. I know a number of you who are reading this have signed up - thanks for that! If you are interested, just get in touch, I'll send you the code. Free to play. And if any of your friends are interested, tell them to drop us a line. You don't have to support a Premier League team to play - we have someone who supports Walsall, and a couple who support West Brom. I was going to make a lame WBA joke there but I can't be bothered.

7) Erm, yeah...so that's about it. I might carry on my series of holiday posts later, this time dealing with Connecticut. Or I might just go to bed with a nice magazine. Mmm, bed.

The joys of Myface

Living in Telford, I'm well aware of the number of braindead, vacant, soulless chavtastic idiots that there are in this country. Everytime I watch the Jeremy Kyle show, I find myself sighing and wondering what our fine country is coming to, at a time when unprotected sex is cool, intelligence isn't, and having a baby is the new fashion accessory, no matter how old you are.

A common ground for these pillocks are social networking sites, such as Myspace or the more fashionable Facebook. I'm about to show you some pictures (these are not my Facebook friends btw, I've nicked these pics from a forum), and whilst you look at these pictures, just take a moment to think about our country. Take a moment to wonder what happened to spelling. To grammar. To our fine and beautiful language. To intelligence. Take a moment to consider life, in 2009, in Great Britain.

That's just a brief selection, there's literally hundreds more. Ladies and Gentleman, boys and girls - Great Britain in 2009. As I said to my friend the other day - at the first available moment, I am out of here, and you won't see me for dust.

Seriously?!

I've just seen this picture on a football forum. Now, I honestly don't know whether it's genuine or not, so if it's one big hoax a) I apologise and b) I've been right royally merked.

In case you didn't know, in a few days time there's a by-election in Norwich. How do you think New Labour would try and attract your vote, if you lived in this area? What important issue do you think their literature would focus on? Had a guess? Good.

And if you said 'fox-hunting', you are fibbing. What a spectacular shambles they are at the moment. I presumed that their pasting in Crewe would have woken them up a bit, but clearly not. This is how desperate New Labour have got, folks, and it's a shameful state of affairs. To most people in Norwich, that probably just looks like a bizarre threat to murder a cute fox if they don't win the seat. Pathetic.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/07/labour-wants-the-people-of-norwich-north-to-vote-for-the-fox.html More on this story here, so it might not be fake. I only hope for them that it is.