Pentland Walk

I went for a walk up the Pentlands last week, near Torphin golf course. The next day it went on fire. Wasn't me.

If this thing works, you should see a slideshow of my walk. If not, try this link.

Twitter: Watching William & Kate The Wedding So You Don't Have To

So today the UK's Channel 5 screened William & Kate: The Movie. Sadly, I missed it, but thankfully Twitter came to the rescue and filled me in on all the pertinent details. Which I shall now share with you and, indeed, posterity.

FacePimp
Obligatory Diana reference #solemn

AdeMitchell
This is like a porn film with no porn.

andyb2910
They should show this to the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay - more effective than waterboarding.

millsymoomoomoo
Ooh a london bus on the wrong side of the road

FacePimp
Obligatory Diana reference 2 #insulting

MissWendabella
wow...typical student accomodation...just like mine when I was at college...ha

TallulahMiggins
Could they not have got an English English-speaking person to check the damned script?

BrenUK
He's groping her arse! Nice one Wills. That's what I call Royal protocol.

MrsStephenFry
Stephen and I are watching Will and Kate: the Movie. It's like a fairytale - without a fairy. Or a tale.

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Obligatory Diana reference 3 #comparisons

jonanamary
Kate, a tip: keep your knees together when getting out of a sports car.

castiels_angel
I love how an hour & a half after the film started my auntie just piped up "Is that meant to be Kate?". The power of acting.

Ross_Lawson
THEY WERE ON A BREAK!!!!

bilbobaggins2k
She's never cut a cucumber in her life!

emmylouscutt
I keep waiting for Ben Cross to shout 'I was in Chariots of Fire you know!'

DirtyMackem
Is this our generation's Mr Darcy moment?

rahulmansi
'Assuming, Miss Middleton, that you wear undergarments.'

matton79
"I can assure you I wear undergarments."

hooflethroid
I don't wear 'undergarments' #justsaying

keithy73
I love American made shows set in Britain like #williamandkate. Has anyone shouted "wanker" yet?

Yeloop
When is Wikipedia going to be updated with all the new facts we have learned today?

hooflethroid
I've just realised the nice couple in this story have the same names as Prince William and Kate Middleton. How odd.

FacePimp
Obligatory Diana reference/flashback #tragic

Disco_Jesus
I know whenever i go camping in africa, i always take my chaise lounge and silverware with me

gaby_w
Best Green Screen EVER

Yeloop
WHEN DO THEY SING ACUNA MATATA?

Ross_Lawson
I can't believe Kate went back to her home planet.

rastansaga360
and i hear the sequel is being shown next Friday

I can't wait.

Now I Feel Bad

So last week I was in some foreign country and I didn't take my camera most of the places I went because everybody's already taken a zillion photos of their Spanish holiday resort and honestly who wants to see even more of that crap unless they're planning to go there themselves and want to check it out first? But I did take my phone because now the EU's ordered the mobile phone companies to stop gouging their customers with "roaming charges" for taking their phones abroad when it costs the companies themselves a fucking pittance to interoperate? Not that I use the phone all that much for phone calls but I feel lost without Twitter and guess what? They still charge an arm and a leg for data, so I had to top up twice.

Anyway, I used the phone to take some snaps and post them to Twitpic, but of course this phone doesn't upload Twitpic photos because O2|Sony Ericson|Twitpic are assholes. So I had no way of knowing if the photos which I posted at great expense to Twitpic had actually arrived as sent until I sat down tonight at the PC to review them. Oh, fuck.

Someone did post a comment asking if I'd even checked my snap of Steamboat Willow because it was shit and I just blocked him out of force of habit, but it turns out he wasn't just being nasty. Steamboat Willow. Sorry.

As a special treat, here's another picture I took from the apartment.


Also, I tweeted most of what happened while I was away but there's no signal at 30,000 feet, so here's what you missed if you're on Twitter:


No signal? *Hyperventilates*

Reading Mrs F's magazine. Munter, munter, @ThisIsDavina, munter, @RealLorraine, munter, done. Bored now.

So we're five miles up, held aloft by the latest technology...why do the seat rows go 10, 11, 12, 14?

Seven quid for a baguette? What's on it, unicorn or griffin?

Coming over the Spanish coast now. I wonder if I left the gas on?

Everything on this flight costs extra. I hope if we crash, it's on land. Otherwise they'll be trying to sell us life-jackets.

The cabin crew are friendly but dead behind the eyes. They're speaking Spanish right now. I assume they're saying, "I hate my job".

We're coming in to Malaga. Or Mauritius. Or Morocco. Something beginning with "M". I suck at geography.

Then we had a holiday. Which was nice. And then...

Glad we checked in online, only had to queue 45 mins at the "bag drop" (check-in) desk.

Also? Incredible number of morons here with no grasp of the concept of "excess baggage" or "no bottled nitroglycerin".

Some twat has left their bag unattended. Bit wary to report it in case they evacuate the airport.


Yes, we would go back. As soon as they invent Star Trek type transporters.

That Was The Week, Was It?

So I was reading Tired Dad's blog post about his top five most hated television programmes and I was tempted to join in, but my attention was caught by this highly-pertinent but almost throwaway comment:
Several people list that “fuckin 10 O’Clock Show shite” in their top five, and I briefly argue. But even I have to concede that I WANT to like it more than I ACTUALLY do.

And I know exactly what TD means. Every week, I tune in in the hope of watching some cutting-edge biting satire of the sort that hasn't really been seen since That Was The Week That Was, back in Olden Times (pre-Moon Landing). And every week I feel vaguely disappointed that it wasn't longer, that some bases weren't properly covered, that it was all a wee bit "shoddy".

But then, maybe my memories of TW3 have become sepia-tinted with age. After all, I was just a nipper and couldn't possibly have understood most of the jokes. On @10OClockLive it's remarkably similar. Jimmy Carr, for example, will make some hilarious double-entendre, listen to the first wave of laughter and then glance at his watch while the cognoscenti who "got it" right away explain the joke to their less clued-up companions...aaand there goes the second wave.

And a live news show is always going to be shoddy; it's the whole point. Some items are literally thrown in at the last minute, which is every editor's worst nightmare, never mind stand-up comedians.

Still, I do feel that the presenters are letting off lightly the politicians who deign to appear on the show, ready to be cross-examined by some posh bloke from Oxbridge. Sometimes it seems it's David Mitchell who's being hung on the ropes by media-savvy, well-coached, silver-tongued weasel-word merchants. Or perhaps producers are afraid that if he were to really lay into them, the supply may suddenly dry up. Time will tell.

Lauren Laverne makes very pleasant eye-candy, but other than that she seems to be very much the token female. Appearing in just one short prerecorded sketch per week, she spends the rest of the time trying to keep her boys under control long enough to go to an ad break. Maybe Jo Brand could show her how it's done?

Of course the star of the show has to be that lucky bastard who married Konnie Huq. Charlie Brooker has taken to live satire like a duck to bird-flu. All of his own segments appear to be well-rehearsed, coherent and relevant, while he joins in the group discussions with carefully-constructed snippets of wisdom. I want to be him when I grow up.

The show as a whole just doesn't seem to fit into it's ample 65-minute slot. Maybe that's down to the ad breaks, but at least they stop any one item from tying up the whole programme.

Oh well, three months to go. I'm sure it'll all mesh together by the end of the run.

And That's Why I Never Insure With Domestic & General

Earlier this month, I received a letter from Domestic & General Insurance.

"Dear Sir," it began, quoting a reference number, "Further to your recent communication regarding the above agreement."

I thought this was a mite odd, considering that I make a point of not using their services, ever, and certainly hadn't communicated with them recently.

The letter went on to explain why the agreement I don't have with them had been cancelled.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Then I checked the Direct Debit mandate which they had helpfully attached, and all became clear.

Clear as mud, to be honest.

The signature didn't even remotely resemble mine.

Come to think of it, neither did the name, address, bank, sort-code or account number.

Although, on closer inspection, the quoted reference number was only one digit different from the one in the letter.

Ah.

At that point I picked up the phone and called their customer support number, which only took a couple of button-presses to put me through to their complaints department, where a very articulate young chap answered immediately, listened attentively to my explanation of why I felt his company was in breach of the Data Protection Act, interjected only to say that my reference number was for a make of appliance I haven't even owned in ten years, then apologised profusely and politely suggested that I score through the letter, write "return to sender" across it, attach a note explaining what I'd just told him, pop it in the enclosed envelope and stick it in the post, which I promptly did.

And I thought that was the end of it.

Until.

This week, I received another letter from Domestic & General.

Oh, how nice, I thought. They've taken the time to send me a written apology. Yay.

As it turned out, not so much.

"Dear Sir," it began, quoting a reference number, "Further to your recent communication regarding the above agreement."

My heart sank.

It was the same letter.

Had it fallen through a wormhole in the space-time continuum?

Well, no, because it was stapled to my letter to them, their original, scored-through letter to me and the same Direct Debit mandate.

Fuckwads.

I quite enjoy a game of ping-pong, so I'm sending the entire set of correspondence back to D&G. Only this time I'm sending a copy to the person named on the Direct Debit mandate so that they know why their appliance isn't insured.

And another copy to the Data Protection Registrar.

Because that's how I roll.

Every Time I Sit Down To Write A New Blog Post, I Get Distracted By The Bloggess

Not that this post is about Jenny; it's actually about something I saw in the news today - and I've just remembered what it was.

The UK has a census coming up and in that census, there is precisely one question that's voluntary - "What's your religion"?

The last time around, 390,000 people put "Jedi".

This year, I'm joining them. *You must do the same.

It's not as much of a protest as sitting in Tahrir Square chanting, "Mubarak must go", but it's a start.

What are they going to do - blow up a planet to bring us into line?

Or perhaps they'll offer us a choice between death and something else.



* Old Jedi mind trick.

Do As We Say, Not As We Do, Urges UK Government

So the House of Commons has just voted to flout the law as laid down by the European Court of Human Rights. The vote was 234 to 22 in favour - a 99% majority according to innumerate Tory MP David Davis.

With such fine, upstanding citizens as these telling us that it's ok to pick and choose which laws we can ignore, is it any wonder there are so many prisoners behind bars in the first place?

Now excuse me, I'm just nipping off to burgle my MP's second home while he's down in London - assuming he's not simply fiddling his expenses. Again.