Category: Life
-
This Lost Boy, Back From the Wilderness…
Many years ago (1988), I took my girlfriend-at-the-time to see Roy Harper play live. He was supported by a young singer/songwriter/guitarist called James Varda. The gig was excellent, and I was so impressed with James Varda, that I bought his debut LP, Hunger (direct from the record label , as HMV didn’t carry it). It didn’t disappoint, with the best lyrical imagery this side of thin-wild-mercury Dylan, and some powerful use of a semi-accoustic 12-string. I must have all but worn out the grooves on that album. A year or so later the girlfriend left me and – I found out later… Read more
-
AT&T Are Shit
(Sorry, I can’t think of a witty title, because this just isn’t funny…) About a month ago, a representative from AT&T called round offering me their Uverse service free on a couple of month’s trial. This is a combined cable TV and internet service, and although I already used AT&T’s DSL service for my internet connection, I’d shied away from the cable TV service as a friend of ours round the corner had had bad experiences with AT&T. The rep told me that they had since upgraded their network to fibre-optic, and I’d have an optic cable running right into… Read more
-
The Bible Was Wrong*
The in-laws are currently visiting, so I thought I may as well take a week’s vacation (first one since we went to Spain in 2005, I think…) and go somewhere interesting. ‘Interesting’ turned out to be Memphis, Tennessee. “Why Memphis??” everyone here in Houston asked. “Why Memphis??” everyone in Memphis asked. I’d like to think that I went there to visit the “Birthplace of Rock N Roll” (TM) and soak up some of that ol’ blues history, but the truth is that, at 600 miles from Houston, Memphis is about as far as I thought I could take the kids… Read more
-
Paranoid? Sure, without Little Dirk to look out for me now…
Today is the 4th July, which is a public holiday here in the U.S. (officially, it’s Independence Day, although everyone just calls it “4th July” which makes me think they’ve forgotten exactly what they are celebrating). It’s probably the biggest public holiday of the year, which means that just about everything grinds to a halt. Except for me; I’m still in work. My colleagues couldn’t understand why I (a Briton) wasn’t out celebrating Independence Day, too. “Well, what are you celebrating independence from?”  I still think we should push for 200 years’ worth of back-taxes… The up-side to working on a public… Read more
-
Still got game
A couple of days ago I was rummaging around in one of the many boxes of crap piled up in my study, when I found my old Nintendo Donkey Kong game (you know, the old orange clam-shell one). I don’t know why I’ve still got it – maybe out of sentimental gratitude for all the dull church services it helped me through during my boarding school days. I showed it to my 8-year-old son (Finn) who was distinctly underwhelmed, until I told him that this was the ‘original Nintendo DS’ (hey, it has two screens…), and explained that the little guy was Mario of Super… Read more