I learned two very wise quotes yesterday:-

You might be a Cunning Linguist, but I am a Master Debater.

and

If you’ve got an issue, here’s a tissue.

Yes, the film was Austin Powers Goldmember.

Saw Tony Blair today coming from Deansgate. Not only has he involved us in unjust wars, he also held me up in traffic as I was rushing to the library. Can he get nothing right???

I thought of flipping the smirky twat but I had a rucksack on my back, and with my swarthy good looks I might easily be mistaken for a Brazilian.

On the application front, I was writing “…and would be excited to be invited for an interview…” when I decided to replace the word ‘excited’. My options according to Word?

• Keyed-up
• Animated
• Energised
• Wound up
• Bored (Antonym)
• Provoked
• Overwrought
• Hot and bothered
• Upset
• Calm (Antonym)

That’s halfway between somebody who markets stuff and someone who tells you how to wet Mark.

I have applied.

I hope there’s no-one called Mark at that place.

Another email says “Boost your skills with a charity role”

Underneath which are:-

1. Women’s Aid
2. MacDonalds

British Library (“The World’s Knowledge”) has collected loads of British accents from all over England and Wales. Over 30 hours of stuff to listen to. Real entertaining stuff. Go to the Collect Britain website.

Apparently he said

“I just don’t worry about vindication or standing. . . . You’ve got a lot on your plate on a regular basis. You don’t have much time to sit around and wander, lonely in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, ‘How do you think my standing will be?”

I somehow get the feeling that’s exactly what he’s been doing.

 

I always read exceprts from the big compendium called ‘The Oxford Book of Humourous Prose’ to cheer up, and have decided that my favourite author is this “Ibid” guy who keeps cropping up (with a remarkable variety of styles and indeed from a remarkable number of centuries).

I see it’s been a while since an update. My neighbour seems to have cottoned on to my internet pilfering; the connection’s still there, but I can’t ride the wagon!!

Had an interview yesterday that went ok, except for the fact that I’ve never used Citrix and Novell systems before. So I’d be like a duck playing basketball while balancing a cornetto on its beak when it came to helping other people use the systems. I saw a competitor coming in as I was exiting the building (exiting, not exciting) and he looked like a propah South Indian I.T. boy replete with deep-sea-diving specs and funny accent (he was on the phone).

The book ‘Tell me no lies’ is a real eye-opener, and it’s amazing that what’s actually happening out there is so well-masked by politicians, it’s as if the public want to believe the lies. And those of you who may think the book is a bunch of conspiracy theorists spouting crap, it’s not. Because I says so.

Damn windy out there.

 

Okay, now I’ve seen it all. May I present to you my sister Yasmin’s blog, all the way from Bangalore. It’s a long way to go, but please make the effort and visit her. Life Drumming

Something Jillan Jeh said about chalk marks reminded me of my college days in Bangalore.

I used to regularly bunk classes (or be unceremoniously ejected from them) and started frequenting pool halls. I’d like to think that, along with my mates who introduced it to me I was responsible for starting a pool mania that swept through St Joseph’s College and contributed generously to the local economy.

One sure sign of having been playing pool is the chalk on your bridge (left) hand, and we’d vigourously rub the green stuff in so it’d stay on all day, thereby granting superior staus to us cool cats whenever we met other strays around town beacuse we’d stiffed it to the Establishment (in the form of Rev. Father Clarence D’Souza, (now there’s a name from the past!) a long-suffering gentleman).

We soon got to drinking dark rum neat as well, hoping the smell would carry on our breath in cleverly-staged conversations with peers, elevating us even higher up the hierarchical ladder.

My registration number (I am not a person, I am a Number!!) was 971299, but I was infamous to all lecturers and the anti-hero of many a staff room story as, simply, 99!

…is a compilation of the best of investigative journalism since 1945. Edited by John Pilger, whom you might have heard a lot about in these pages, it’s a pretty hefty book. I’ve already finished reading Anna Politkovskaya’s dispatches in Novaya Gazeta about the Chechen conflict. Anna is the Russian journalist you may remember was murdered in October last year just before she was due to publish a damning report on a Russian general involved in the Chechen atrocities (I think; check the facts out yourself).

I’m looking forward to some of the exposes here, as they are unlikely to have made the popular presses due to swift political “intervention” or outright suppression.

Oh, and check out this light-hearted review of the new Sci-fi film ‘Sunshine’ by the folk at New Scientist

• Looking forward to United playing Europe XI today, what a cracker!!
• Have an interview for next Monday, the job’s very close by home.
• Was Gareth’s birthday yesterday, I hope you all knew.
• Hungry now

Later:- What a crap game! I’d be incensed if Id’ve bought a ticket for that crap! The “Europe” team had has-beens Stelios Giannokopolous and Diouf (Bolton), Fowler and Zenden (Liverpool), and some No Name defenders. But worst of all, Fuckin’ Materazzi!! No Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Juninho, etc. And United in the second half fielded an equally crap side with Eagles (not the band), Cole and others.