Wyrmlog

I spent a good part of today updating the standard pseudo-legalese that our template generator puts into newly created client websites, during which process I discovered this…

“…we receives and stores any informations you enter on our website…”

Yes. Our privacy policy was apparently written by Gollum.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Democracy doesn’t work.

That’s right boys and girls, the Federal Election carnival has rolled into town! Get out there and vote today, because if you don’t the Government will hunt you down like a dog! Hooray for compulsory voting! Hooray!

Yes, it’s election day. Will John Howard and his evil minions retain power in the halls of Canberra, or will they be ousted by Mark Latham and his evil minions? Only time (and every bleedin’ media outlet for the next week) will tell!

I got up early and voted as soon as I could. The polls open at 8:00am and there’s one right around the corner at Mercy Hospital, so I was there at 8:05. This isn’t down to some kind of earnest political zeal on my part, it just means you can get it over with quickly and don’t have to queue. Straight in, straight out. It also means you avoid harasment from the various parasites (candidates, campaigners, ‘how-to-vote’ card hander-outers etc.) who acrete around polling stations as the day wears on. It’s 8:30 in the morning and my democratic franchise is well and truly exercised, meaning I can get on and do other things instead.

As for the parties involved this year, the comments I made the last time we went through this ringmarole are still fairly valid. The Liberal/National Coalition are as conservative, bigoted and pseudo-fascist as ever, and have opened a new line in bald-faced lies concerning the war in Iraq and international terrorism (Australia is the third member of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ by the way, we just don’t get as much publicity as the US and UK – thank God). Labour have managed to slightly reinvent themselves thanks to their new leader Mark Latham – they actually seem slightly different to the Coalition for the first time in over a decade. The Democrats on the other hand have totally self-destructed. In the last election they were close to being a real alternative party – lots of candidates, a good deal of respect and interest from the electorate and a real chance of wielding some effective power in the Senate. Thanks to a very nasty leadership struggle (which deposed Natasha Stott Despoja) and a number of frankly ridiculous alcohol related incidents in the House their political star has well and truly fallen. They were getting 10% of the vote in some seats last time, but voters have abandoned them in droves and the polls indicate they’ll be lucky to get 2% this time.

The Greens on the other hand have a good chance of getting somewhere. They seem to have absorbed a lot of disaffected Democrat voters, and while they aren’t as strong as the Democrats were they’re getting to the point where they might weild a bit of influence. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party is no longer Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party having dumped Pauline Hanson in a series of vicious and incomprehensible internal struggles (try to make a bunch of rednecks, conservatives, racists and petty neighbourhood dictators toe a party line – good luck!). They’re now just One Nation, and if anything are even worse. The Natural Law party seem to have dropped below the radar, but in the nutcase stakes have been replaced by the much more worrying Family First.

Almost all of the many Family First candidates (including their leader) are Pastors in the same ultra-conservative pentecostal church – however they deny any connection between their policies and their church whatsoever. Nonetheless in the last week they’ve encouraged their supporters to monitor and catalogue ‘strongholds of Satan’ in their neighbourhoods (their handy list includes bottle shops, mosques, and Hindu and Buddhist Temples) and have said that lesbians should be burnt at the stake. Well thought out and rational policy making there I’m sure we’ll all agree!

So, how did I vote? Well my general policy for the Lower House over the last few years (quick reminder – in Australia you don’t just choose one party/candidate, you number them all in descending order of preference) has been…

1. Democrats – They used to be good!
2. Greens – I agree with most of their policies, and the ones that I don’t agree with don’t matter because they’ll never have enough power to implement them
3. Anyone else who seems to have some decent policies
4. Anyone I don’t know too much about and who seems fairly harmless
5. Labour – They’re slightly better than the Coalition
6. Liberal/National Coalition – Getting towards the bottom of the barrel here
7. Fascists, psychopaths and other dangerous lunatics (One Nation, Family First, etc)

In the Senate I’ve voted basically the same, although inversing the Greens and Democrats, since the Greens have a better chance to do some good there.

This year however I’ve decided that getting rid of the Coalition is the most important thing. I won’t disclose exactly how I voted – but Labour (the only party big enough to take down the Coalition) have got a much better ranking from me. Oh, and the Democrats have done a bit worse, since they’re just plain hopeless now.

So yeah, that’s election 2004. I have a horrible sinking feeling the Coalition is going to win. Again 🙁

OK, I haven’t had time to write anything in a while, and I don’t have time to write much tonight, but as a Geek I could hardly let this pass. Congratulations to Bert Rutan and Scaled Composites! I mean we all knew they were going to win, but it’s still one hell of an achievement none the less 🙂

(What the heck am I talking about? Google it for crying out loud!)

Oh, and while we’re here Girl Anachronism by the Dresden Dolls is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.

Update in a few days! I promise! Probably!

Well I’m back.

I did intend to make an entry detailing the rest of my time in the UK somewhere between arriving home on Wednesday evening and starting work again on Monday morning, but didn’t get around to it. I’ll probably do something about it later this week. Suffice to say work is as depressing as ever, but at least I’ve got a funky new chair. I’ve done a little bit of work on Wyrmworld – specifically redirecting all the old Abandoned in Perth pages to the new hosting, and I’ve played a lot of Civ III. Oh, and the new floor is fantastic – I feel like the apartment is too good for me now 🙂

Work beckons so I’d better go.

P.S. Thanks for the tip on Worcester Helen – don’t know what I was thinking 🙂

As Ali pointed out this morning the Leicester Tigers are a rugby team, not a football (ie: soccer) team. I could make the point that if I was from New South Wales or Queensland I’d be perfectly correct in calling them a football team, but I’m not, hence this correction.

Hmmm, let’s see, what does everyone mean when they say football? Here’s a partial list compiled from a quick web search…

• United Kingdom: Soccer
• United States: Gridiron
• Canada: Canadian Football or Gridiron
• Australia (WA,SA,VIC): Australian Rules Football
• Australia (QLD,NSW): Rugby League or Rugby Union
• New Zealand: Rugby Union
• Republic of Ireland: Gaelic Football or Soccer
• South Africa: Soccer
• Almost everywhere else: Soccer

Wonder if there’s any I’ve missed out?

Well, it’s been ages since |’ve made an entry hasn’t it? This is of course because I’m still in the UK and…

1. Have been staying with various psuedo-luddite relatives who don’t have computers or internet access
2. I’ve been far too busy doing and seeing stuff to be bothered writing

But today I have some time off, and access to a computer so I figured I might as well do a bit of catching up

I’m in Leicester at the moment visiting Helen, Rob and Ali. I’m not staying with Helen and Rob because their flat is a bit on the small side and they’re still on thier honeymoon and hence wouldn’t want me clumping around the place while they’re trying to be newlyweds *grin*, and I’m not staying with Ali because it would just be the two of us which might look a bit suspicious. Instead I’m staying just down the road from Ali with Emma, who is safely married and hence it’s all repectable.

I met Emma and her husband Phil at Helen and Rob’s wedding the weekend before last. I was going to write a long blog entry about the wedding, but I’ve been too busy and it probably needs more care and attention that I could give working on someone else’s computer (that may sound odd, but I’m sure all Geeks would agree with me, you’re never quite as comfortable or efficient on someone else’s machine than you are on your own). So I’ve decided to write it all up when I get home. Suffice to say it was the best wedding/reception I’ve ever been to, even if I did have to sleep in a tent and the toilet block was full of spiders *grin*. Plenty of people dressed up – most impressively Rob’s dad and a guy who came as a pirate ship (did I mention it was pirate themed? The reception that is, not the wedding), and I got to meet plenty of Ali/Helen/Rob’s friends, who were all pretty cool, including the aforementioned Emma and Phil.

I would be staying with Emma and Phil as opposed to just Emma, but Phil is in Belgium building a Coca-Cola plant. He gets back today some time. Then they’re both heading off tomorrow to swim up and down the Thames as practice for a holiday where they’re going to tour the Cyclades by swimming from island to island. Their house is really nice, particularly since I’m sleeping in the spare room which is where the computer is *grin*. There are two slightly eccentric features though. The staircase is incredibly steep, the steps are normal width (or is it “depth” when you’re talking stairs?), but they’re really tall, probably 50% again of their depth. This makes them a lot of fun to climb up and down but I wouldn’t like to try it if I was elderly. The second interesting feature is that the bathroom door doesn’t have a handle. It doesn’t even have a hole drilled for a handle. This makes it rather difficult to close – you have to grab the edge, swing it towards you really hard, then pull your hand away before it gets crushed. And of course with no handle there’s no lock either. The general policy is to keep it closed when you’re in there, and wide open at all other times, which has so far avoided any embarrasing incidents.

(Oh, and just as a point of interest Emma is uncannily similar to an Emma I know back in Australia – same height and build, same speech patterns, even a really strong facial resemblance. If it wasn’t for the fact that this Emma doesn’t have a Scottish accent and is an A&E Doctor [A&E – That’s “ER” or “Casualty” for the rest of us, I presume it stands for “Accident and Emergency”] I’d have trouble telling them apart. I figure they must be psychic twins or doppelgangers or something 🙂

Anyway I thought I’d summarise what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks, so here we go…

• Friday/Saturday/Sunday – Helen and Rob’s Wedding at Ashingdon, and pirate reception at the Museum of Power in Maldon. Got there and back to London via train. Met quite a few people – most importantly Helen, Ali and Rob since we’d never actually met up in real life before, which was slightly weird but seems to have gone OK 🙂 Also Helen’s brother John (he of the beard and drums), Mark (he of… well I was going to say Kevin Sorbo but that’s just cruel ;), Emma and Phil, Will and Harriet and Rachel and Matt (who for various reasons I probably shouldn’t put as an “and” but it makes them easier to remember so I will for the time being). Arrived back in London on the Sunday just in time to see my brother off at Heathrow, and meet up with my Aunt Mary from Southampton.
• Monday – A fairly lazy day in and around Warsash with Aunt Mary. Did some shopping in the morning then visited Tichfield village and abbey, and Lee-on-Solent.
• Tuesday – Caught the bus into Southampton and did the city walls and some of the museums. Large parts of the walls were closed off for renovation which was rather irritating. Also found an internet cafe and checked my mail.
• Wednesday – Train from Southhampton to Bristol, then bus to Glastonbury. Climbed the Tor (which almost killed me), visited the Chalice Well Gardens, then spent several hours wandering around the ruins of the Abbey taking way too many photographs. Then bus back to Bristol, train back to Southampton and dinner at the pub in Warshash with Aunt Mary.
• Thursday – Driven out to Avebury by Aunt Mary. Visited West Kennet Longbarrow, Silbury Hill (which is BIG), Avebury itself and then Old Sarum on the way back. Took way too many photos yet again despite my camera battery being on the verge of death. In the evening Sheila and Mike dropped around to say hi.
• Friday – Visited Fishbourne palace with Mary, then she dropped me off in Portsmouth where I did the historic shipyard thing. Had a quick look at the Warrior, did the Victory tour (which was good although it left the really interesting questions unanswered – such as “Why did Nelson ask Hardy to kiss him?” and “Is it true that the sailors tapped into the barrel holding his body to drink the rum?”), and the Mary Rose which is still being sprayed despite them promising us 18 years ago it would all be done by now. Then caught the Gosport Ferry across the harbour and got a bus back to Warsash.
• Saturday – Driven out to Stonehenge by Aunt Mary. Did the whole Stonehenge tourist thing, despite the fact that I probably knew more about the monument than most of the people gawking at it (conceited? moi? ;-). Then headed off to see the Great Cursus, which proves my point because I seemed to be the only tourist who knew it was there – everyone else just stood around gawking at the barrows on top of the hill. Then did Salisbury and the Cathedral.
• Sunday – Caught the train from Southampton to Birmingham. Had to forciably stop myself from singing the “Manchester England England” song from Hair all day because my brain seems to think they’re one and the same. Tried to catch a train from Birmingham/Manchester to Leicester only to discover they were working on the lines and I had to take a bus instead. Went to buy a bus ticket to Leicester only to be sold one to Worcester instead (apparently British Rail are now employing the hearing impaired in customer service areas, which is admirable if somewhat inefficient) but it didn’t matter because in the confusion of trying to fit a trainload of people onto one bus no-one ever bothered to check our tickets. Eventually arrived in Leicester and was met by Helen, Ali and Rob. Went shopping and bought Mexican food for dinner, including two avocados for guacamole. Rob and I made the guacamole, but had to “force-ripen” the avocado in Ali’s microwave, which resulted in an extremely frightening grainy green paste that no one was really willing to eat – although I did try it for reasons of science. Had dinner at Helen and Rob’s flat before heading back to Ali’s and retiring at Emma’s.
• Monday – Still alive despite the guacamole. Went into the city with Ali in the morning. Had a look around the shopping district, and then did the cathedral and guildhall. Were ambushed by a predatory “Welcomer” in the Cathedral who gave us a 20 minute lecture on Richard the 3rd, Saint Martin and the Leicester Tigers (the regiment, not the football team) and then forced us to sign the guestbook. Had reheated Chinese for lunch. That evening we went out to dinner at a carvery that everyone calls the Foxhunter but actually isn’t with Helen, Rob, Mark and Rachel. There was a semi-amusing man doing the carving who said “Good Morning” to everyone. Ate far too much and got to bed far too late, so overall a good night 🙂
• Tuesday – Met up with Helen and Rob at Ali’s in the morning and tried to figure out stuff to do. Ended up on a quest to find the giant cheese shown on the tourist map of Leicestershire. This took us to a pleasant market town with a name like “Stratford” but which wasn’t called “Stratford” where we critiqued an “Australian” shop (the food was authentic the rest of the stock was rubbish) and had luch at a cafe where you have to ask for mayonaise. Then we checked out the Library and got rather wet on the way back to the car. Next we went to a historic church (at a place called ‘Tickencote’ I think) with really impressive carvings, and also got rather wet on the way back to the car, me in particular since I’d left my jacket in the car to dry out from the last time. Then we drove around for a few hours looking for the giant cheese, but couldn’t find it. We did go past Belvoir castle and Harlaxton Manor (where they filmed the external shots for The Haunting) though. Then we dropped in on Harriet and Will and had apple crumble before returning home. Dinner was spicy pork at Helen and Rob’s, where Ali and I assembled flat packed shelving in return for food 🙂
• Wednesday – Did a load of washing then walked into the city on my own in and spent too much money buying books and CDs. Purchases included the Killers, the Thrills, The Fiery Furnances and an Ash CD that somehow managed to contain all the songs I like by Ash, thus in one fell swoop eliminating the need for me to buy all their albums (good thinking Ash marketing department). I then checked out the castle gardens, but didn’t actually get up onto the mote as the steps were being occupied by a large number of threatening looking young people who glared menacingly at me as soon as I came into view and continued to glare menacingly until I fled. I looked at the canal instead. Walked back to Emma’s, then over to Ali’s for dinner with Helen and Rob. Had shepherd’s pie which wasn’t actually shepherds pie because it was made with beef, carrot and bacon (and potato obviously). Apple pie, custard, Uno and fake Jenga for dessert.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to. No idea what I’m going to do today, but dinner at Ali’s seems a distinct possibility. Well, whatever I decide to do, I’d probbaly better go and do it 🙂

Believe it or not I’m in London. In an internet cafe/Subway store in Tottenham Court Road. This is my fourth day here (not in the cafe, it’s my second day in the cafe 🙂 and so far I have made the following observations about life in the English capital at the start of the 21st century.

1. London drivers are insane. I mean seriously insane. If someone drove like that in Perth the police wouldn’t try to pull them over, they’d open fire.
2. It’s extremely difficult to get a decent orange and mango juice. On the rare occasion I’ve actually been able to find anything labled “Orange and Mango” it’s turned out to also have banna, apple and even stranger things in it which means it’s not orange and mago and doesn’t taste like orange and mango. And I’m not just talking about small bottles, I can’t even find cartons in the supermarkets (or at least in the local Sainsbury’s which to be honest is the only place I’ve looked).
3. There do not seem to be any rubbish bins in central London. I spent a good part of Saturday afternoon wandering the streets near the guildhall looking for somewhere to dump a not-orange-and-mango juice bottle and had to give up and take it hme with me.
4. Edmonton (where I’m staying with my Uncle) is not a good part of town. It’s rather like the Jasmine Allen estate off The Bill, but with shorter buildings. The local market looks like something out of James Cameron’s Dark Angel – minus anyone as good looking as Jessica Alba. The local police station is all barricaded up, obstentiously for renovations but I suspect this is just a cover so the bobbies can hide from the locals.
5. English notes are still made of paper. This means that when you carelessly shove them into your pocket they get all crumpled up and have to be flattened out before you can use them to buy anything – unlike Australian polymer notes that just pop back into shape.
6. There are Starbucks everyehere. I always thought those gags about Starbucks in The Simpsons were exagerated. They’re not
7. The tube (underground railway system for those not in the London know) is pretty quick, clean, and efficient, but the stations (particularly the big multi-line ones) are like rabbit warrens. And all the pedestrian tunnels are one way, so to get around from platform to platform you have to follow all the arrows or have security guards descend on you with batons (all right, probably not with batons :). I changed trains from the Picadilly line to the Central line at Holborn the other day which involved going down a tunnel, then another tunnel, then into another tunnel, then up some stairs, then down another bendy tunnel, then down a sloping tunnel, then up the other side of the sloping tunnel, then down another tunnel, then down some stairs and then through another tunnel and out on the platform. This was in the middle of a mass of hurring people – I seriously felt like we were all rats in some kind of maze 🙂
8. The British branch of Burger King (Hungry Jacks to us Aussies) cannot make a burger to save their lives. I had one yesterday when no other cullinary option presented itself. I had to open the burger to see if there was any meat in it – there was but it was completely tasteless. And you’d think that you couldn’t mess up fries, but somehow they managed to make them like eating hot crunchy cardboard. No detectable flavour at all.

That said I’m having a great time 🙂 Just went to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone and Sutton Hoo finds which were impressive – but nothing on the central courtyard. The building was constructed as a big square with a large courtyard in the middle. For the millenium they decided to plonk the historic reading room of the British Library (which was being rebuilt elsewhere) in a specially constructed block in the middle, then roof the entire courtyard over with glass. It’s incredible. You step out of the already large rooms of the museum into this gigantic dazzling white space (the walls of the museum have been cleaned up and the library shell and courtyard floor are marble) which just completely smacks you in the face. It’s HUGE. Then when you’ve come to terms with massive expanse, you walk across it into the reading room, and get smacked in the face again because it’s so massive as well! It’s one of the most incredible spaces I’ve ever been in in my entire life 🙂

I’ve also done the Museum of London, Victoria Station and taken lots of photos around Battersea Power Station.

(If this is cut off suddenly it’s because I’m out of time on my machine 🙂

Man the last week has been busy. I finished work on Friday, and have spent almost all the time since (apart from a few snatched hours playing Civ III) either preparing for the trip, or moving all the furniture out of the loungeroom so Rebecca and Dom can lay new flooring while I’m away. This latter task was not easy given that…

a) The loungeroom is rather big
b) I own a whole load o’ crap

My bedroom is now a furniture packed cave with just enough space to crawl through and reach the bed. The second bedroom is worse.

Anyway before I depart (my plane leaves for the UK tomorrow, I’m leeeeeaving on a jet plane, don’t knoooowwww Stop it!!!) there are a few things that need mentioning.

One: Congratulations Rebecca and Dom! I won’t say what about – I presume they’re telling people but I’d want to be sure first 🙂

Two: Beowulf is great. I could carry on and on about it but very few people seem to have as great an interest in the Anglo-Saxon language as I do, so I’ll spare you all *grin*. However I would like to highlight one particular passage (talking about the dragon) that I found quite amusing…