This quote was on my Google page today:

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists.
  – Jean Rostand

And in conjunction with Ioannis’ (or should I say Ioansu) blog on China’s apparent lack of totalitarianness, it makes me reassert that a healty dose of pessimism is absolutely necessary to survive the crap that we are expected to swallow by the media and government.

Sha and I watched ‘City of God’ yesterday. I finally got to see a film I’d been longing to see. And I wasn’t disappointed in the least. An amazing storyline with absolute grittiness and utter believability, I was sucked in to believing I was watching a documentary rather than a film. Fantabulousa!!

This coming Tuesday, we can all become part of history by recording our day on our blog. Go to www.historymatters.org.uk/ and find out what I’m talking about!!

I just went myself now, and found out that they want us to be part of the world’s biggest blog by going there and writing/uploading our blog on that day. The History Museum or someone will record all the blogs on that day as a snapshot of an ordinary day in British life. It’s part of a campaign to raise awareness about history and what it means to us to know our past, etc.

Taking a quick gander at my archives, I am surprised to see no mention of my bible, the book ‘Cosmos’ by Carl Sagan (1934-96). It is self-described as “The story of cosmic evolution, science and civilisation”. I’ve never managed to keep hold of this book; every time I’ve lent it to a friend it doesn’t come back. I believe this stands testimony to the awe-inspiring penmanship of Carl (who was behind the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and the film ‘Contact’). He makes everything so simple and yet exciting. I’m re-reading ‘Cosmos’ now, which I’ve borrowed from Central Library. It contains a quote from Christiaan Huygens (1629-95) about astronomical bodies in Huygens’ ‘New conjectures concerning the planetary worlds, their inhabitants and productions’. Here it is-

How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only to flatter their Ambition in being Masters of some pitiful corner of this small Spot. 

And at this moment, on this inconsiderable Earth, Man Utd came from a goal behind to beat Wigan 3-1.

…or so they say. But I wouldn’t know!!

Been banging off applications, got another interview Wednesday (why is it always Wednesday?). Another application wants a Russki-speaker, so I was in like a shot.

Lulu’s settling in fine, although I am kind of concerned about her apparent lack of bowel movement. I hope she’s not hiding a pile of the stuff away in some secret corner of the house. I’ve already caught a whiff of something pungent.

 

So England lost 0-2 to Croatia. An easy header from Da Silva (the “Croatian”) followed by a Gary “What the fuck does he do on the pitch” Neville own goal. Ashley Cole was, unusually for him, pretty poor, and McLaren’s tactics left everyone confused.

Somehow managed to miss both Rayk and Rachel’s birthday! I really hate this, but I suppose it’s nobody’s fault but mine. However, I can also suppose it is someone else’s fault for not reminding me. I never make the mistake of not reminding people that my BIRTHDAY is on the 20th of October which is this month.

my BIRTHDAY is on the 20th of October which is this month

my BIRTHDAY is on the 20th of October which is this month

So many comments!! I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy! (I can say this because I am comfortable with the fact that we all know I am damn worthy).

Shasha’s started her training with Halifax today, contributing to society and whatnot. Good luck Girl, and go kill ’em.

Lulu (Ali’s darling darling cat) will be coming over to Manchester today to live with me while Ali finds a new place and moves. She and I will have so much fun, I just know!! I’ll try to put up a piccie so you can all go “AWwwwwww!”

Later:- Here she is Lulu, on a very disturbing background

Yesterday’s Independent made for wonderful reading, they’re celebrating 20 years in the newspaper business and have published in book form excerpts of some brilliant and often predicitive journalism (as differeing from predictable). I bought the paper because, although we had booked badminton from 1-3 pm, we were let down by Sugden Sports Centre because apparently they had to give the block to Grovesnor Hall students. Even though, as Simon put it, “we subsidised them by coming and playing all through summer when no-one else came”. So we only got an hour’s intense play from 2-3, but I made sure we didn’t pay for it!! Shasha’s free badminton hall seems to be in the offing for next Sunday, so marathon badminton is in! And Sugden can sit on this and spin!

Missing – two posts from this blog. Last seen 2nd October.

Answer to the name of “The weekend” and “Humanity, terrorism, terrorist war”. Amazingly beautiful and insightful posts, both very dear to me.

Reward:- My eternal gratitude. Plus a couple of pounds, I guess I could manage.

Please come back darlings. If it’s anything I’ve said or done, I’m sorry. We can talk about it, just come home!!

Yesterday Sha and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth, because we felt we had to do something about global climate this year, and watching a film seemed far easier than actually recycling something.

I said a film, however a more accurate description would be the two films; one on global warming, and the other on Al Gore and how he lost the election to Bush and how he’s a straight guy from the country and almost lost his kid, and his sister died of lung cancer, and what the fuck has that got to do with what I paid money to see? Being American, he can’t resist show-boating, and he seems to merely be one of the first politicians to jump on to the “Global Warming” band wagon, which I predict is soon going to be a huge trend. Band wagon in the sense that they’ll jump on to anything that’ll connect them to the voting public, whether they genuinely care about the issue or not.

Having said that, he clearly has made this presentation many times and does it well, the facts genuinely are scary and clearly stated, if it weren’t for his grand-standing I would’ve called it a great film. A must watch; even if that means you must watch Al Gore. How much better to have left it to David Attenborough (who can do no wrong in mine eyes) to present this. As it is, it leaves one with a contradictory sense of being involved and yet somehow manipulated.

I’m getting a lot of grief from an insurance company based on the Isle of Man, who are supposed to hand me over some money, but have sent me an email saying that instead of the value of the policy, they’ll only be giving me less than 30% of the amount. The rest is going to be swallowed up by them as “penalty” for me wanting to take my money out!! I was apopleptic with rage!!! So now I’ve written them a complaint, taking care to look up procedures and rights with the Financial Ombudsman and the Financial Services Authority. I’m hoping these big names will get so incensed by the immorality of what these guys did that they’ll send in their hit squad ninja accountants with Heckler & Koch HK Mk23 semi-automatic pocket calculators (with the little solar panel on top to take the drain off the batteries) and audit the fuck out of them. 

If you go to the OFCOM website, you can use a sitefinder tool to see where all the mobile phones “cell” bases are. Then you will know. For whatever purpose.

(I love the Internet. It is full of information)