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More hilarity from Tiscali
To continue:
I phoned Tiscali cancellation dept. on Friday and the guy told me thst aerials (or lack of) played no part in the delivery of their TV service. So I agreed to allow their engineer to visit us and work his magic and if we still didn't like it we could cancel. I suspect it ain't gonna be THAT easy. Especially now, it's Sunday evening and I had a phone call this afternoon to arrange a date for their engineer to visit. After some confusion I managed to establish that their left hand didn't have a bloody clue what the right hand was doing. Basically, their customer services wasn't informed about the appointment.
Good God - I wish I could write comedy half as good as this!!
Take care
Paul
Molehills and mountains and tv from Tiscali
Isn't it astonishing how mountains quickly develop from molehills? My molehill was a simple question to Tiscali, the mountain was the convoluted answer which has left me none the wiser. I have exchanged five emails with their on-line support to ask a simple question. If I upgrade to your TV, ...read more
Poetry.com - Scamming Supremos
Farder Muclen
With hid mucus glands aflowing
wid lava mucal verve
Farder Muclen telled da werld
der Bogalld comed doon fra
die horrwid swampons
gedding uggier and uggier widder munchen cussingpids
Hed crumped an crayled til hid tubby ecpanded
oder der wayd od hid abobe
den bangd leebin wun fogging shew
I recently entered this masterpiece under the name Paul Fat Burken on a website Poetry.com for their ongoing contest. Basically Poetry.com are a bunch of scammers, they send you an email telling you what a wonderful and unique talent you have. Eventually you'll be invited to pay for the book in which your superb poem is published. There's also the invitation to go to a function (black tie of course - nothing else just a tie) that'll also cost you bucks and a bit. Go to WritersWeekly.com for more info about these swindlers.
GOT IT!
And by 'it' I mean a BA(Hons) in English and Creative Writing, went into Uni yesterday to get my results. It was a second-class upper (2.1) and my wife, Sue, and I spent the rest of the day getting celebrated as newts. Well, okay we had a coupla beers with lunch, then slowed it down to save ourselves for the evening. The two pubs we occupied seemed to be seriously invaded by students for most of the day, which was excellent. Three years with guys that I'm really gonna miss is over, so it was great to go out with a blaze of booze and general frivolity and nuttiness.
Also picked up 'Best creative writing portfolio' prize (30quid in book tokens). That surprised me because the creative writing group was wall-to-wall with talented writers.
So, all in all, it was a brilliant day.
Obviously today we are kinda delicate and my bowels are thunderous, but enough of that eh? Mind you, tapping the keyboard hurts my ears!
Take care
Paul the headachy Ogg
Fear of pc
Those of you that have been following the my 'Fear' saga will have noticed that one of my main characters, Jenny, is deaf.
Being a disabled guy, I have wanted to use more people with disabilities in my stories. I wondered how everybody feels about Jenny? I hope I haven't tried to make her too much of a 'super-hero' as it were. This is, I suppose one of the problems with political correctness going too far. A person with visual difficulties doesn't develop enhanced hearing, they just learn to use their hearing more effectively.
Yes, my stuff is suddenly getting a bit serious, but not too serious I hope. Part 8 of Fear will be ready soon, but I'm trying to find work as well, so that cuts down on my spare time.
Take care y'all
Paul
Free Hardcore and Life after Uni
Saw something today that made me think, 'Bloody hell that's a bit cheeky.' A handpainted sign inside someone's garden that said 'Free Hardcore'. Then I realised it meant the rubble from broken masonry also known as 'hardcore' - Yikes! Makes you wonder if some guy went there in dark-glasses and grubby raincoat only to emerge carrying smashed bricks in a plain brown paper bag. Surrealist pornography or what? Next thing you know, the newsagent will be storing 'Home and Garden' on the top shelf.
'Look at the brickwork on that - phwooar!'
'Yeah, but check the slates on this one.'
(Got to be a story in there - heh!)
Okay back to slightly more realistic stuff, bought a paper today that exclusively advertises employment in the North-West. Apparently the 'North-West' only applies to Manchester, Wakefield and bloody Liverpool! Completely unrealistic for moi and this rag cost me 2 quid. In a free newspaper I found two job opportunities - go figure eh?
In a kind of limbo at the moment, not officially finished at university until next month, but nothing left to do except look for jobs and when asked, 'what level degree did you get?' reply 'dunno.'
Oh well, take care y'all
Paul
Nearly time to paaaaarty!
Zippy de do dah and all that jazz. The last essay has been essayed, handed in and the last portfolio of short stories is about to undergo the scrutiny of the examiners.
Yep - I finished wiv Uni and boff myy chins are wobbling wiv delight.
See what education does for you? It sends you bloody crackers!!! God what an interesting three years that was. Still need to wait for results day on June 13th (13th for God's sake, not 12 not 14, they had to pick 13 sheeesh). Hoping for a second class upper, dreaming of a first (dream on) but unless I did something horrendously wrong, I've done what I set out to do and now I can start writing for fun - yipppeee!
All I gotta do now is find a job (ahem) not so damn easy, even with a degree. But anyway, I can still carry on scribbling and reading books 'cos I want to, not 'cos I have to. Just started 'DaVinci Code' and started thinking about revamping (sorry) Midnight People (it's about vampires - hence the apology) and making it into a novella possibly. Managed to actually write a horror without slipping into comedy, but not sure about it - it's on here shortly, called 'After the Pain' and would appreciate your appraisals.
Well, must go and start scribbling
Tale care y'all (and you Alex)
Paul the (educated?) Ogg
BBC censoring
Whenever I write in a comment on the BBC website 'Have Your Say' column it never appears.
So I'll say it here where the moderation is even-handed and allows (within reason) any opinion.
The Navy personnel recently kidnapped by the Iranians arrived back safely, thank God. They are now speaking of their ill-treatment. I think it shameful that people have called them traitors for co-operating with their captors.
How bloody stupid can you be?
Armchair warriors who would have probably wet themselves placed in the same situation, foam at the mouth, demand court-martials and generally spend all their times being terminally moronic!
Of course the 15 co-operated, they had the sense to realise they were more valuable dead than alive. I hope none of those gung-ho sabre rattling jack-asses are on this site but just in case, I'll spell out what might have occured;
a) One of the 15 defies his/her captors.
b) He/she is murdered. (And possibly the others are murdered as well).
c) Our government orders air strikes against Iran.
d) Iran retaliates (Iraq might be involved).
e) A lot of innocent people are killed.
f) The 15 don't return to Britain with possibly important intelligence about Iran.
And the list of possibilities goes on.
And all some idiots can think of is 'name, rank and serial no. and that's all yer getting.'
I'm just thankful those navy guys made it back to Britain by being sensible and not giving in to some outdated, useless and lunatic Colonel Blimp mentality.
I'm a bit annoyed.
Take care all,
Paul the Ogg
Draconian Ogg
The Queen's speech is as pointless as ever. These Anti-Social Behaviour Orders are now being regarded by youngsters as some kinda badge of honour. Their street cred goes sky high and they think of themselves as being sooo dangerous. Ye Gods when will we get it right? How about confiscating their ...read more
Htler saved my life???!!!!!
Okay calm down, calm down - he didn't do it on purpose. Point is that I've been researching eugenics as a background for my dissertation. Literature informing society and vice versa, basically writers will have been influenced by social issues at the time.
Well, I found out stuff that made my toes curl. A Virginia Woolf diary entry commented about a group of people with learning disabilities, "Certainly they should be killed."
DH Lawrence wanted to construct a lethal chamber the size of the Crystal Palace
and lead "the sick, the halt and the maimed" to it and they would give him "a weary smile of thanks".
HG Wells, Charles Darwin, Yeats, Aldous Huxley and so on. The US and Britain and Europe were taking the idea very seriously indeed. We escaped enforced sterilisation of the "mentally enfeebled", which incidentally included people with epilepsy - my disability, by the skin of our teeth in 1913. Other nations didn't fare so well, but with the Galton Institute (now the English Eugenics Society) and a staunch following of British writers and philosophers it would be unwise for us to be smug about no legislation being in place. Winston Churchill incidentally gave the 1913 Mental Deficency Bill his support.
Then up popped Adolf Hitler and buggered everything by taking the theory to its logical conclusion and the rest, as they say, is history. Hence my statement that ironically, if he hadn't carried out the programme of mass murder, eugenics would've still been a popular idea and who knows, a relative of mine may have been sterilised and this blog would not exist.
Take care
Paul
Video tapes kick dvd's ass!
We have a dvd player and a small collections of movies on disk. However, we also rent them and I've got to admit, I think the video tape is a lot more robust than the disk. A scratch on a tape can mean upto a minute of the movie is lost. The same scratch on a dvd and you can lose half the damn film. Dvds are smaller and easier to store. How many hours of recording is possible on a dvd? Does it compare with the potential to record 15 hours worth if a five hour tape is used on a recorder with extended play facility? If not, the chances are you'll find yourself taking up more room with dvds to store the same amount of movies/programmes etc.
There are now dvd recorders with hard disk drives too. That is an improvement I grant you. But what if some clever sod found a way to introduce virii into these drives? How likely is it that video tapes could be affected in the same way?
I'm not a Luddite by any means, but I watch people drooling over ipods, digital cameras, 3G mobiles phones, LCD televisions, home cinemas and so on and it makes me wonder if we're not heading for a fall.
A bit uncharitable of me? Well, perhaps, but in the race to have the best electronic gadgetry, have we maybe lost sight of more fundamental values? And as I ponder my next purchase of who knows which digital delight, my property deeds to the moral high ground go up in a cloud of hypocritical smoke. Anybody got a mobile phone with integrated camera to sell?
Take care y'all
Paul the Ogg
The World Is An Awful Place
Y'know, I hear this phrase, "The world today is an awful place" sometimes and I reflect on the fact that I've heard it being said since I was a child. It was being said over the centuries and those that said it were right. Nowadays, we still have people starving to death by the thousands, while others suffer from the kind of health problems brought about by obesity.
We were in Tunisia about ten or fifteen years ago and were regarded as incredibly well-off because we could afford to travel. I hadn't looked at it that way before but it made me think about things I had taken for granted before and how I lucky I was. In Britain, I see people selling 'The Big issue' in the streets of nearly every town I visit. Children are still abused, sometimes in the very institutions that purport to protect them. Alcohol is easier to access than ever with pubs 24/7 open policy. The BNP seem to have gained in popularity feeding on the frustration people feel with the main political parties' ineffectiveness in the face of these problems.
I wonder if these these social ills will ever be cured. In the early days of science fiction, the Utopian twenty-first century seemed a dead cert as far as some writers were concerned. Everybody would be living together in peace and harmony - whoops! Unfortunately George Orwell, Aldous Huxley to name but a couple of writers seemed to have a better idea of what would occur.
Take care y'all
Paul
Control Freaks
It's not their fault! They only provided the expertise, money and materials to construct bombs. They only brainwashed some poor sods into detonating them. They only murdered people, but it's not their fault! It's all down to Tony Blair and his foreign policy in Iraq.
Look, I have little time for Blair or his government, but these control freaks who want to terrorise Britain into taking its troops out of Iraq know damn well that's NOT GONNA HAPPEN! They've given him the golden opportunity to wear the good guy hat and stand firm about his decisions. Blair isn't going to pull troops out and the more the dickheads bomb the UK the more support Britain's citizens are going to give him. I would have thought it was self-evident - you don't get people's sympathy by fuckin' bombing them.
I suppose it's a bit of a waste of space to bother trying to reason with the power freaks. All I know is I'm not going to treat my Muslim friends any differently.
Take care
Paul the Ogg
A Candle For London
As I write, there have been four explosions confirmed in London, three on the Underground and one on a bus. Details are very confused at the moment but it seems almost certain that the explosions are bomb blasts and part of a terrorist attack.
It’s hard to say how I feel right now, just kind of numb. Ever since 9/11, people have half-expected a repeat in Britain – that appears to have happened. The loss of life, thank God, is nowhere near the WTC attacks, but the shock of it happening makes me grieve as much as I did back then. My prayers and thoughts go out to my fellow human beings who are suffering in London. Tonight Sue and I will light a candle for them.
Paul
Bad Mood Ogg Blog
Received a Tae-Bo video throught the post this morning. Scratched to buggery, bought over the Internet. The lady gave rapid response and promised refund (tape was her daughter's and she hadn't checked it first). Sat an exam this afternoon, everything I thought I'd revised melted and dribbled out of my ears. The handed in answer paper is 80% guess work. I bloody hate exams. When will I be asked by an employer in the future to sit in a room and regurgitate memorised stuff without access to resources? The red onion I had with my vegiburger this lunch-time has given me stomach-ache. THEN I read the most banal thing I've ever read today. 'Turn Your Coins Into Cash' declares this machine into Sainsbury's. Basically you shove loads of pennies and twopences into its gob and it converts them into bright and shiny 10, 20 and 50 pence pieces, pound coins as well if you give it enough. By the way, it does keep a percentage back. Scuse me - but coins ARE cash, unless the language has changed since yesterday.
I'M NOT IN A GOOD MOOD!!
Go away
Ogg
(ps - didn't mean the 'go away' bit - I'm just a big ol' softy really)
Stand still - shut up!
Latest giggle from the gruesome twosome B-liar and Pispott - they're backing a scheme to ban all kids wearing baseball caps and hooded tops in Bluewater shopping centre. Oh, and no swearing or smoking is allowed either. This move will apparently teach respect to the young and will cut down on anti-social behaviour. This 'anti-social behaviour' buzz-phrase has become a real catch-all idea to prevent just about anything they perceive as 'anti-social'. It's not the caps and hoodies that cause the behaviour, it's their occupants. Unless we have a sinster new threat - possessed baseball caps - doo de doo doo etc. And what of Princes Harry and William? Or does their cash exclude them?
No swearing - hmm? Have they watched tv lately? Or read a book? Or the newspapers? Or just about any other media available? Respect will be taught by example, not rabidly rubber-stamping every daft scheme some silly anal retentive bugger (sorry) dreams up.
Take care
Paul the Ogg
Invisible episodes
I love trawling shops and seeking out bargain dvds. Yesterday, I bought for £1.49 a disk with 8 episodes of ‘The Invisible Man’ the b/w tv series from the late 1950’s. I remember watching it when I was about 8 years old, so I must have been looking at re-runs. Okay, some of the special effects are creaky by today’s standards, we watched all 8 episodes today and delighted in looking for wires supporting cigarettes (tut, tut) and wine glasses to create the impression they were being held by Brady (Invisible man). Having said that, it was an ambitious project snd a lot of the effects were clever, esp. the one where Brady unwraps his bandaged head to reveal nothing beneath. Naming supporting cast actors was good fun too, and surprising. Ronald Fraser, Honor Blackman, Peter Sallis, Leslie Philips, Joan Hickson and Nigel Hawthorne.
Even the box’s cover was entertaining (but unintentionally). In the write up on its back, we’re told that Brady “decided to make the best of his condition and fight organised crime and justice”. It’s rated ‘PG’ Perental Guidance and claims to have 12 episodes, we’ve only found 8. But what the hell, maybe the other 4 are invisible.
Take care
Paul the Ogg
Siiily Season
I found an article this afternoon on BBC news' website that made me wonder if the 'silly season' hasn't come early this year. The suburbs are becoming ever more popular, it declares. Out of town shopping centres are considered suburban because they offer the “city without the scary bits . . . no ...read more
Watch this space
Hi guys, having a bit of a crisis right now, I've two weeks to write an essay and I'm reaaaally stuck, never mind eh? Huddersfield University will shortly be giving the nod to a couple of my fellow students (and myself, but they've done all the work really.) to launch a website similar to this one. I'll post details as and when. Our friend was to invite us all round to her place for dinner and official launch this Thursday but her oven exploded last week! Nobody hurt I'm happy to say - but as a reason to postpone a party, that's a classic! Doing okay otherwise with assignment grades and what-have-you, but not looking forward to end of year exams AT ALL.
I bought a bottle of wine and some roses for my missus on Valentine's Day (and a packet of Wherthers Original Butter Candies)and she reciprocated with two bottles of speciality beer (yummy).
That's it for the minute, it's been quite a while since I blogged on here, or poemed or short storied, Uni studies seem to occupy every waking moment.
Ta ta for now
Take care
Paul the Ogg
Can't afford a new mobile? - awwww
This is partly to say thanks to all you vundermensch for posting comments about my various 'stuff' - I never seem to find the time lately to reply properly. In view of the terrible events of the last week - I wonder which countries have a population smaller than the number of people killed. It ...read more
Cold Turkey
Not referring to everyone's sandwiches for the next week, but withdrawal symptoms. If all violent and sexual content was removed from our mass media - where would we be? This relates to an article posted by Piggyvic about the mass media and its pollutant affect on all of us - but especially the younger people. I agree that the lewd and aggressive acts in a good many of the so-called ‘entertainments’ are far from edifying or entertaining. So we’re back to the good ol’ days. Shakespeare plays – Romeo and Juliet (14 years old) Macbeth with witches, ghosts and murder. Hamlet (couldn’t make his mind up whether to slash his wrists or not) – so they’re a non-starter. Replace it then with ‘The Waltons’ ‘Open All Hours’ and so forth. Won’t the thrills be sought elsewhere? The public might clamour for more blood and sex in the news instead.
Where do we draw the line? News reports are sometimes quite horrifying, IRA bombings in Britain, 9/11, Bali, train and plane crashes, the list is endless, would they be censored? Hopefully not, although I rarely trust news reports anyway, the truth and the news are hardly ever interchangeable. Think about this though, reality is far weirder than fantasy, we could see the unleashing of an army of news reporters dedicated to seeking out the really, really sickening stories. I realize the media now are not exactly saintly but by comparison the Neo-News Reporters might make them seem positively holy.
I suggest that it’s already too late. We’re on a downhill train journey to hell and the brakes have been removed.
Erm, Happy New Year everybody?
Take care y’hear?
Paul the Ogg
Banned Aid
Now don't get me wrong, I think any help for starving people is good help. However, I get a bit irritated when I hear 'Do They Know It's Christmas' especially the agonised wail 'well tonight thank God it's them instead of you' - please notice 'you' not 'us'. These saints in headphones evidently ...read more
RVC (with respectful bows to Sadijane)
Remaining Vertically Challenged - in case you were wondering, I decided to go pc. Not voodoo curse, not demonic possession, not meat-axe madness, just epilepsy (sshhhh) mustn't say it too loudly. I've blogged about the subject before, but I thought aww, what the hell, I've got it, the dreaded E ...read more
The Self-Inflated Guru Returns
Daa - daaaa! Yep the self-inflated, PG rated GURU, who rools? Me rools ra ra ra! is back - stop sniggering. After a short course of shock therapy (I promise never to use an electric razor in the shower ever again). I have returned with a second cow-pat of wisdom for you to absorb (yech)
A kindly person donated the shaver after reading my first guru blog and decided the thought of me shaving my head, then needing to stick blue toilet paper all over the cuts again was too horrendous to contemplate.
Cow pat of wisdom no. 2
Can't smile on passport photos any more. Well of course not - nothing better as a disguise than smiling, how do you expect anybody to recognise you if you're bloody well SMILING??? The extremely advanced, totally flawless biometric system of identifying you in the future relies on you looking miserable - naturally! How dare anybody look happy. The passport office have given you leave to curl your mouth up at the sides as long as you keep your lips together, what more do you want?
Wonder how they are about showing gums? I think the regulations should be even stricter. No aging allowed, hair-styles to remain identical, skin colour likewise. I suppose you could apply to the government for permission to have a different hair-style, sun-tan or more wrinkles. Oh and you can't go bald without their say-so either. Could apply manure, I suppose.
Take ginseng
Paul the Ogg
Anti Idcarders and Jedi Knights Unite
On the UK 2001 census, 390,000 people listed their religion as being the fictitious 'Jedi'. The government decided not to accept it as an official religion because they thought Brits were taking the mickey. It's apparently the only part of the form where you can give a dishonest answer without being prosecuted. Anyway it gave me an idea - if the government claimed that over 80% of Britain back the introduction of complusory id cards - it would probably occur around 2011/12. But if over 20% of Brits gave their religion as 'Anti-IdCards' in the next census, due in 2011 - that would be a tad embarrassing, hopefully.
So come on Brits, join the religion of the 'Individuals Against ID-Cards' or perhaps we could form an alliance with the Jedis? 'Jedis Against Id-Cards'
Chances are the government will tamper with the statistics anyway, but at least we can indulge in a time-honoured and thouroughly enjoyable pastime of taking the piss out of the politicians and bureucrats.
Take care
Paul the Ogg
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Ogg's Blog