Happy New Year

Happy new year to all my readers... And a reminder that things do change. When the new year card below was issued we all lived in dread that a bunch of godless commies were going to blow us all up...

Nowadays we all live in dread that a bunch of whackjob towelhead religious nutters are going to blow us all up.

Plus ca change.



PS: Horses in spaaaaace!

So this is Christmas

So this is Christmas

Yeah I noticed. People seem to be laying in enough food for the siege of Mafeking, my office has rugrats running around and getting into the server room (one of whom is bawling its head off on my train and will very shortly, unless it shuts the fuck up, be experiencing the wrong end of a dragon's breath weapon) and at the station this evening some twerps were effecting a massacre of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman by playing it exactly half a semitone flat.

And what have you done?

You mean apart from sticking a talon through the back of some granny's head when we were both going for the last pack of chestnut stuffing in Marks & Spencers? Bugger all quite frankly.

Another year over, and a new one just begun.

Don't suppose there's any chance of drowning the current government in a vat of superheated wolf semen before the 31st so we can all have a good start to the year is there?

As you can probably guess I'm not one for Christmas. Basically I'm now on the train home and once inside with the last of the supplies (plus the dead granny the store staff insisted I remove) the drawbridge will be drawn up and I'm not coming out until the 27th when I will no doubt have to contend with every other fuck who has now run out of any form of nourishment which is not poultry based and will gladly sacrifice his children's Nintendo Wii for a supermarket frozen pizza.

For the final word on Christmas, I defer to my fellow grumpy mythological creature, Two the Ranting Gryphon and his thoughts on the festive season....

"Guess what junior, there's some fat red man at the North Pole who's going to fly here on some elk and bring you the latest name-brand dildos."

Hear it all here (very NSFW!)

And with that, I shall see you all in the new year.

Film Review - The Golden Compass

I've been looking forward to this for a while now. Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" has been one of my favourite reads of recent years so I was rather hoping that Hollywood would turn out a good film, after all they did a pretty good job with LOTR and they have got those CGI fur subroutines working really well now so the daemons would surely look good.

Yeah, then they gave it to Chris "American Pie" Weitz to direct and gave him a little under an hour and a half to tell a deep, complex story and under no circumstances was he to piss off the religious people; bums on seats laddie, bums on seats.

Anyway first the good stuff. Visually it's great, the daemons' (people's souls which accompany them in the form of animals) are superbly rendered, especially Pantalaimon and Mrs Coulter's golden monkey - if you didn't know you would swear the monkey was real. The film makes a credible character of the ice bear Iorek as well, an aspect I thought the film would stand or fall on. The feel of the setting is pretty much right on too, a sort of brass and carved wood "steampunk" world of victoriana run riot with modern tech and it captures the familiar but otherworldliness you get from the book. Acting wise I was impressed with Dakota Blue Richards who puts who puts in a sterling performance for a newcomer, Nicole Kidman is a convincing "baddie" with just the right air of menace without being over the top and there are fine supporting performances from Tom Courtney (Fader Coram), Sam Elliot (Lee Scoresby) and my all time favourite actor Derek Jacobi, fresh from playing Dr Who's nemesis The Master, as a charming and sinister Cardinal Ratzinger Magesterial Emissary.

OK so on the Catholic Church all up in arms don't-go-and-see-this-it's-written-by-an-atheist boycott nonsense well sure Pullman is an atheist but certainly in this film (and by and large in the book as well) the Magesterium is a cypher for any organisation that sets itself up as an arbiter of the truth and what can and cannot be spoken about, and yes that includes the church but not really a church I recognise too much in this day and age. In many ways the film representation reminded me more of our dear Labour government, or any socialist government to be honest, especially in Mrs Coulter's speech about "People need to be told what to do, it's better for them." The later books, especially The Amber Spyglass, are more explicitly anti-clerical so it remains to see what happens there. Oh and althogh my classics knowledge is a bit rusty these days I remember that "daemon" derives from the word for "wise" or "knowledgable" in Greek and the daimones were minor spiritual beings between gods and men... souls you could call them. The use of the word "demon" to mean a malevolent spirit came later and the use of the word "daimon" to mean "automated UNIX sub-process" a bit after that (although anyone who has had to repair a crontab at 3 in the morning will tell you that these daimons are definitely malevolent!)

So where did it all go wrong. Well about 10 seconds in, in fact. On comes whoever it was who plays Serafina Pekkela and gives us the Lord of the Rings "I feel it in the air. I feel it in the water" prelude and gives away the fucking whole plot in the first thirty seconds. Jesus, we are not idiots Hollywood, we do not need everything explained by some sodding 21st century Greek Chorus; we are used to plot and narrative so please can you just let the story tell itself. After that everything seemed to be rushed as though the whole movie was an excuse to rush to the big battle scene at the end. Huge chunks of the book which develop the characters and Lyra's world and what "dust" might actually be are missing and the relationships between people and their daemons which is so vital to the story is largely skipped over and they just end up being like particularly loyal and chatty pets. And then there is my pet peeve, when Serafina turns up at the final battle and lands in front of Lara, Lara goes "Serafina Pekkela!" Yes we can see it's Serafina Pekkela you cunts, she was on screen not half an hour ago. I do have a memory span longer that that of a pissing goldfish you bastards.

Oh and the closing credit music. Fucking hell what a dirge! I had to stick the remainder of my popcorn in my ears just to stop from setting fire to the theatre.

OK so there are worse ways to spend an hour and a half (and it was free which was a bonus) but given a Peter Jackson and an extra hour this could have been so, so much more when you consider the source material.


Firey Dragon Rating - Lukewarm

You are my Sunshine

After lots of injections and cannula fiddling and holding up her feed bowl because her neck hurt when she bent down we seem to have turned a corner and Sunshine is pretty much back to her old self.

Your green scaly friend will now permit himself a moment of non-grumpyness and sends out a big shout to Simon and Mark the vets.

The most incompetent phishing attempt in the world, ever!

From my gmail account this morning. Notice the cunning use of an AOL address...

Dear Central Bank account holder,

Because of several failed sign on attempts to you online account, your Central Bank account features have been restricted as of the time of this notification. For more account information, to restore your account features or make an online payment, you must contact us at
http://www.aol.com/redir.adp?_e_t=ap&_a_v=2.0& a_i=100124311x1116601028x1077500809&_url=http://64.26.156.92/icons/update/personal/Home/index.php

This message is for information purposes only.

Please understand that we cannot respond to individual messages through this email address. It is not secure and should not be used for credit card account related questions.

To restore your Central Online Banking features, please follow these steps:

1. Contact us at http://www.aol.com/redir.adp?_e_t=ap&_a_v=2.0&_a_i=100124311x1116601028x1077500809&_url=http://64.26.156.92/icons/update/personal/Home/index.php
2. Sign on to your online banking account and verify your Account Features

After you submitted your message, check for a response within 48 hours. Just return to the Write to Customer Care section and select View/Update Message link.



© Central Bank - All Rights Reserved | Member FDIC. | Equal Housing Lender

... priceless!

Summon God to the Stand

A judge in India has summoned two Hindu gods, Ram and Hanuman, to help resolve a property dispute.

Judge Sunil Kumar Singh in the eastern state of Jharkhand has issued adverts in newspapers asking the gods to "appear before the court personally".

The gods have been asked to appear before the court on Tuesday, after the judge said that letters addressed to them had gone unanswered.

I recall someone who had lost their house in an "act of god" trying to sue the church as God's representatives. The church said they would be happy to appear in court and defend the action so long as the plaintiff could get God to attend and testify in person.

Dr Dragon

"She's in VF, 10ml adrenaline stat. Shock at 150 Joules, CLEAR!"

Well not quite... but I am now operating an intravenous cannula and administering IM injections which given my previous medical skills were more or less limited to going down to the chemists and buying a packet of ibuprofen is a pretty neat skill to acquire over a weekend.

However it's a skill I wished I hadn't needed to acquire as Sunshine (my Irish Draft mare) is sick. Started on Thursday with her just standing about and not eating which isn't like her and in the evening she didn't touch her feed which is not at all like her but she wasn't in any obvious discomfort so it wasn't colic (for you non horsey people colic = über badness) and as the vet was coming round on Friday morning for a routine flu and tetanus jab I left it. Following morning she didn't eat again and I noticed she wasn't drinking so now it's getting serious. Anyway Dr Horse shows up, has a listen and sticks a thermometer up her bum and she's got a temperature. "Hmmm..." goes Dr Horse, "Hopefully it's just a virus and will go away after a couple of days but there's something not quite right here, I'm going to do a peritoneal tap. Does she like clippers?"

"No idea, I've never clipped her."

"Well let's see... "

...click...

...whirrrr....

..."WHINNY!!"

Five minutes later when we had treated our wounds and Dr Horse confirmed that despite pain to the contrary your green scaly friend has not sustained a broken back when Sunshine had tried to get out of the open top stable door via a dragon who was in the way we figured that, no, she doesn't like clippers one little bit so it's time for snoozy drugs.

In goes the needle (which she's fine with).

"What's this then, ACE?"

"Might as well piss in her ear, that's the one we give to owners because it's hard to screw up," he's a proper bluff northerner is my vet, "this is detomindine."

"How long before it takes effect."

"About 30 seconds, hold her head up"

Ever tried to hold up a 570kg horse's head when she's determined that all she wants to do is lie down and have a sleep? In the end I ended up propping it up using a combination of my shoulder and the door whilst playing with her ears to keep her vaguely conscious.

"She seems sensitive to it... might have given her a bit much."

"No shit," grunted the little dragon who had enlisted some flappy wing action in an attempt to keep from being pressed into the stable floor.

Anyway we shaved a bit off the belly fur, needle in the tummy and took a sample which he said looked OK and whilst we're at it filed a couple of sharp points off her teeth, took some blood and give a couple of antibiotic injections plus some pain relief and the apparently obligatory vitamin injection vets are contractually obliged to give at each visit and then make up a bucket of warm isotonic stuff that looked and tasted like flat lucozade, shoved a tube down her nose (that's apparently how you get a tube into a horse's stomach) and poured it in. After all that she started to wake up. Mind you I think I would have done if someone had just poured a bucket of lucozade up my nose.

So off Dr Horse goes to the lab and after another hour Sunshine is wanting out of the stable and is, at last, eating and drinking again - vet says that would be the pain relief.

About 6pm the phone goes.

"You know that peritoneal tap I took and I said it looked fine."

"Yes."

"It isn't; white cell count is elevated at 8 and the lab found some proteins, we're culturing it for bacteria now but we're looking at Peritonitis. She's had a gut perforation."

"Arse"

"I'll be round tomorrow morning at eight."

So tomorrow dawns, Sunshine is scoffing away just like normal and Dr Horse starts preparing to fit an IV cannula. "Now I'll show you how to maintain this."

"Hang on," I say, "I'll get Mrs Dracunculus, she was a nurse before she started poking loonies for a living."

"Now it shouldn't come off," says Dr Horse once the medical staff of Emergency Ward 10 are all assembled, "I'm going to put a couple of sutures in and superglue it to her neck."

"Superglue?"

Out comes a tube of Heinkel's finest adhesive.

"Yes. Works a treat does this." and indeed he glues the top of the cannula to Sunshine. Now that's going to be a laugh come Friday and we have to get it off!

Mrs D however is swapping intravenous war stories with Dr Horse and talking about flow rates and tissue scarring and drawback and all sorts of other medical stuff, turns out that there isn't that much difference between humans and horses when it comes to this sort of stuff and he gets Mrs D to flush everything out and put the first dose of Gentomycin in. Mrs D however whimps out when it comes to the IM injections though as it seems to involve thumping horse bottom before shoving the needle in and being such a soft hearted thing she can't bring herself to do that although I pointed out shoving a needle in probably huts one hell of a lot more.

So it falls to the newly minted veterinary surgeon Dr Dragon to start giving injections. Vet does the first one just to show how it's done and Sunshine doesn't even flinch, then comes my turn. What you do is palm this huge fuck off sharp needle between thumb and forefinger, whack the horse's bum a couple of times with the heel of the hand, turn hand and push needle in. Seems straightforward so off I go and the needle stops after about a centimetre and Sunshine starts dancing round the stable.

"Keep pushing!" yells Dr Horse, I do and in it goes.

"Should have told you that you'll get resistance, sorry."

So there we are. Up at 6 this morning to give injections before dashing off to work but Sunshine seems a lot perkier although she's starting to get very wary when we turn up at her stable with lots of white tubes.

Still, I invested in a big bag of bran so she's getting nice warm bran mashes every evening to make up for it.

Will keep you all informed.

And what's the grumpy angle here? Well apart from being grumpy I have a sick horse you haven't seen anything like the grump I'm going to have once I start getting the insurance company to pay the vet's bill.

Result

From the beeb:

A Christian group has lost its High Court battle to prosecute the BBC's director general over the screening of Jerry Springer - The Opera in 2005.

Fucking A! Now let's get these ridiculous blasphemy laws and indeed anything that treats a religion as something special deserving of legal protection off the statute books right now.

I sincerely hope that the suppurating twat who runs Christian Voice, the group of shaven monkeys who brought this action in the High Court, gets whalloped for every penny piece of the cost of the defences' m'learned friends. Fucking hell I took a wander over to their site and nearly lost my fucking lunch. What an irredeemably nasty bunch of cuntstains these people are. Oddly enough they are silent when it comes to the good shoeing they just received at the hands of the courts but quite vocal when it comes down to their preference for young women to die from a preventable disease rather than have an injection which will "encourage promiscuity". Make no mistake these wankers are just as bad as the islamonutters wanting sharia law; sure their theocracy will bang on about love and saving the nation but you can bet your last penny that given the chance they would be lashing rape victims for being "promiscuous" and stringing gays up from cranes for the heinous crime of loving another human being.

I say we take off and nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Terminations by interweb

Apparently the NHS are trialling early abortions in doctor's surgeries instead of hospitals and specialist clinics.

Quite frankly I'd be happy to have early abortions done in Tescos. Just pop down for a tin of beans and have that blob of cells yanked out. Mind you it does open up the question of if you are allowed to use the "mother and baby" car parking space or not.

And what's all this about the proposal to have one doctor sign the consent form and not two. I mean why the fuck is there a consent form at all? I mean you don't have to have a doctor sign a consent form to have your appendix out so what's so special about a bunch of foetal cells? We could be really green about this, have a website which asks "Do you want rid of the sprog? YES | No | Cancel" and your brat-b-gone pills come through the post the next day. Job done.

Missing

Sorry. Not been posting for a while as I'm absolutely cream crackered at the moment and working silly hours, strung out to hell and back and ready to breathe really, really hard on the waste of DNA that is my project manager if he delays the release one more fucking time.

Makes me almost feel like disappearing, now all a need is a canoe. And on that subject there's an interesting article over on the BBC site about middle aged men (like the one I'm disguised as) who just disappear. Not surprisingly it seems most of these are people who are working themselves into the ground and who just lose it big style one day, like Bernard Cook...

Mr Cook's workload had been immense. But despite regularly working until two or three in the morning, the estates director had showed no signs he was about to be overwhelmed.

No but the fact that he was working 18 hour days was probably a bit of a sodding hint that your life has turned into crap casserole and the human body just is not designed to do that on a regular basis. Sure I dare say we've all pulled overnighters or a run of late nights for a week or two but working 80 hour weeks is nature's way of telling you that you need a new job. The comments on the article are worth reading too...

I work 14 hours a day as an average, seven days a week as an average, and have done so for the past 9 years. And the reason is that sometimes there is just no other option, it's called expectation and pressure. I have no idea what a holiday is, maybe the odd weekend every few months.

And the guy says that he's thought of disappearing but won't because of his family. Maybe he would like to consider what will become of his family when he drops dead from a stress induced heart attack at age 35?

I once got trapped in a job like that, the hours and expectations creep up and up and up and next thing you know the weekends start to vanish and home is just somewhere you crash for a few hours a night. When that happens, leave. Don't even think about negotiating with your bosses because all you will get are empty promises. Alternatively just stop working the extra time, do your 9 to 5. Your managers will grump, moan and call you in for meetings about your "attitude" and how you are "letting the team down". I just said "sod you, it's not worth my health, I'm not doing the hours any more but just my contracted one." Of course you'll get a shite bonus if you get one at all and come the next "rightsizing" exercise you'll be out on your ear but you'll have lined up another job by then, won't you.

After all what's an extra 5k bonus worth if you're not alive to spend it?