christmas | Wait until next year

At first Secret Santa seems like quite an elegant solution to a thorny problem. Rather than have lots of people buy lots of presents for each other, with everyone ending up out-of-pocket and in receipt of lots of terrible gifts, why not draw names so each person buys one gift and gets one gift in return. Savings are made, as those involved aren’t buying as much, but the gifts might be better as you can probably set a higher budget for that one gift. It seems perfect. Read the rest of this entry »

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December 6, 2013

Failing at Christmas

Man falling over with Christmas tree

Every year, around about Boxing Day, I think to myself, “Christmas is a lot of fun. I wish I’d started celebrating it earlier rather than not really getting into it until a few days before.” Well, I don’t necessarily think those exact words each year, that would be odd, but often words to that effect. It is not that I’m fundamentally Bah Humbug until it is too late, more that Christmas kind of creeps up, doesn’t it? I mean, it is less than three weeks away. How did that happen? Read the rest of this entry »

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November 29, 2013

Spam Comment Q&A

Man with loads and loads of letters, mostly airmail

This place gets its fair share of spam comments. The vast majority are either weeded out automatically by WordPress or I see and remove quickly. Obviously I don’t want the place clogged up with gibberish. There is enough of that in the posts, eh? I also don’t really want a load of links to dodgy looking sites. However, some of the comments are odd enough that they deserve an audience, sans dodgy links. I figured the best format was a Q&A – my opportunity to have a dialogue with strange, automated text. Enjoy. Or more likely, not enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

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September 9, 2013

Autumn, rain, etc

Meteorological station and a storm

As a kid I never liked Autumn. Why would you like the leaves turning brown, when that was just a prelude to them failing off the trees? Why would you enjoy a time when school started again, but started with new teachers, new classes, new routines, all bringing new worries, insecurities, fears? Why be so happy that the summer was over? Read the rest of this entry »

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February 1, 2013

1993

I think it must have been September 1992 when a school friend of mine handed me a beat-up C90 tape. He had borrowed some albums from his older brother and dubbed them on to the cassette. On the A side was Nevermind, by Nirvana. I don’t remember ever listening to whatever he put on the B side. Read the rest of this entry »

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