Long Way Down: In each episode...

In each episode,
Ewan will say 'amazing'
Charlie will question why the world is such a horrid place
Ewan will mention his tedious wife
The tour manager chappie will mention their schedule
The tour manager chappie will mention team building
Ewan will say that it was really great to be in a team
The swiss cameraman will be onscreen for 1 second
They will visit a UNICEF project
They will profess to how lucky they are
They will whinge that they are riding their bikes all day
Each country is amazing but they're only there for 2 days
They will camp once a week - and stay in luxury hotels for the rest
They will fly at UNICEF's expense to each UNICEF camp as to ride there would be 'dangerous'
At the end of each episode they might have to turn around because of an insurmountable obstacle
At the end of each episode someone will fall off a bike 'next time'
Nobody will mention that it has become apparent that their schedule is painfully tight
Nobody will mention that Long Way Round was considerably more challenging
Nobody will suggest that this rich boy's beano is a cynical ploy to sell shedloads of DVDs, CDs and books at Christmas

I don't like bars anymore

I prefer pubs. I should be more specific - I don't like London bars. They're overpriced and full of pretentious wankers. I was in one called Lonsdale in Notting Hill on Friday. To be fair it wasn't such a bad place, the service was good and the cocktails were very good. Now that I think about it, £23 for 3 drinks is about right. So it was a pretty good bar all round. I think it just grates that it is Notting Hill and not Soho or something. Still a pretentious place. It somehow feels like a sham, which is a good name for a bar.
I never really feel comfortable in a bar. At least they're not smoky anymore but they are invariably packed, with huge queues, overflowing toilets, toilet attendants, and ear blisteringly loud. Bars only seem to get better the more intoxicated you get, which doesn't really say much about them. Pubs are far better. There you can actually talk to people which is what I want to do when I go for a drink.
I've got a friend who only goes to bars and hates pubs. I'd rather go to pubs and never to bars (at least not locally, not when popping out for a drink). Its proving hard to find a compromise with her, but if nothing else, Notting Hill has more than its fair share of good locals though they're becoming harder to find.

Amazon's CEO Launching the Kindle

Book Burning

Amazon have just launched a new e-book reader in the US in a vain and doomed to failure attempt to get people to ditch the paperback. Its never going to happen as the advantages of a book over a gadget are almost too numerous to mention. I mean here's three just to start with.

1) Books are cheap
2) Books are virtually indestructible and even when they fall apart they can still be read
3) Books don't need batteries

The hardiest test for any form of technology is the beach test. Sand is annoying to humans so think of the consequences on delicate circuit boards. The only technology I've seen that had any semblance to being beach proof was the Sports Sony Walkman, and rubber seals aside even this ended up with sand in it. Luckily it was mostly mechanical so that didn't matter. So my requirements for an e-book would be:

1) Sand proof
2) Water resistant (including salt water)
3) Impervious to sunlight
4) Can be used as a pillow/sun shade
5) Suntan cream proof
6) Will be undamaged by dropping.

Though they try, as it stands the paperback book is unbeatable. Perhaps they should be targeting commuters who might like the prospect of automatically downloading a newspaper with the addition of video playback. A paperback sized iphone if you will.

Buying games and never finishing them

Why do I buy games and never finish them? I'm not alone on this one as it can be applied to just about any item that you repeatedly buy but never use. Take CDs. I buy them, rip them, then lose them on my mp3 player. I found an LCD Soundsystem album this morning that I've listened to half of about 9 months ago. So what's behind this prolific spending? I think it comes down to materialism. To further my denial of the tedium that is my life I spend more and more of my disposable income in the pursuit of that gratification received when you buy something you've been wanting for for ages. Its no fun when you can afford any game of your choice but this doesn't stop me.
So the problem is: too much money, too much time, dull job that I don't care about, humdrum life.
My solution: bury myself in new toys in a desperate but ultimately fruitless effort to satiate my desire for something interesting.
I suppose I could be whoring instead but somehow half-finished games are more fun and less dangerous.
Result - games that need playing (that I can remember):
Xbox 360:
King Kong
Far Cry Instincts
PGR4
DiRT
Tomb Raider Legends
PC:
Supreme Commander
Company of Heroes
Dawn of War
Bioshock
Tomb Raider (the new one)
Neverwinter Nights 2
HL2
C&C 3
and those two lists are soon to be joined by Mass Effect and Crysis.

Call the Health and Safety Inspectors!

I just suffered a freak accident involving a Muller yoghurt. My plastic spoon snagged on the base of the pot and flicked half a teaspoon’s worth of yoghurt directly into my left eye! This is freakish for two reasons:

1) My eye was half a foot away from the pot
2) I wear glasses

You may not know this, and I sure as hell didn’t until 10 minutes ago, but yoghurt in your eye bloody hurts. It may come down to flavour. Who knows, mandarin always tastes a little acidic. I had to leg it out of the room and now I have a bloodshot eye.
I may write a letter of complaint to Muller and see what response I get. Injured by yoghurt indeed.

The Outlook is not good

I just looked up lung cancer on the NHS Direct website as I know next to nothing about it. This was in the diagnosis section:

"The outlook for people with lung cancer is not good. Only 20% of people are alive one year after being diagnosed with the disease, and only 8% survive for five years... Although lung cancer is only one of several serious diseases caused by cigarette smoking, it is often the most distressing because it is almost completely preventable."

It sounds horrible.

The Pineapple in question

Killer Pineapple

I've just had a run-in with a pineapple chunk. I like pineapple but it does bad things to me, normally a tummy ache. This was somethings else. I put a particularly large chunk in my mouth and as I munched it a huge amount of juice came out. This juice seemed to fall like a fructose rapid onto the gum that covers a wisdom tooth at the back of my mouth with a sensation not unlike a hot needle. Indeed it was like I'd poured some Alien acid blood in my mouth so much so that I was convinced I was bleeding. I'm not, but it bloody hurt.
Time to bite the bullet and call the dentist. I've been putting it off for 6 months...

Giving up smoking Part 2

I’m trying to give up smoking again. I’m using a different technique this time. Last time I went straight from fags to the patches, and I didn’t reduce the need for nicotine at any point. Well that didn’t last for long. Why bother using the patches when you can smoke and smoking is more pleasurable than patches? A twisted logic but a logic nonetheless.

Here are my new techniques:

Steady reduction in nicotine:
This time round I’ve gradually reduced the amount that I smoke day by day halving that amount. Yesterday I had 3, the day before 6, so today I shall have one although the aim is to have none. This way I’ve reduced my need for nicotine.

Not enjoying cigarettes:

Remember you weren’t enjoying them so don’t start again
They were damaging you and you know it
Don’t forget the FEAR of the unknown

Distracting the Crave:

Rather than craving cigarettes I’m aiming to crave the patch.
Chewing gum – industrial quantities
Putting on weight – seems to be de rigeur

The Positive Side

One day at a time
Self-discipline – you’ve had too many years of not caring how much you smoke, how about a time of reasserting that control you once had
You don’t smoke weed anymore so why are you still smoking tobacco?

Yeah! We Made It!

Long Way Down

Some people seem to have a problem with the rich going off and enjoying themselves and then filming themselves enjoying themselves and then selling this to Joe Public as some kind of anathema to their crushed dreams as they sit in an office wondering where their lives have gone. Why live like that when you can watch Ewan McGregor and Charley Borman piss off round the world on motorbikes. If I had the time, money and inclination and if I knew that I could sell a dvd, cd and book of me doing it, I'd do it too.

What I resent is the pretence that they're going by themselves when in fact there's this huge film crew and they've this tight schedule and all in all its treated like the shameless cash cow that it really is. Hey, it’s a shameless cash cow but there are ways of making it less obvious. A longer schedule for instance. 1 week to go through Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. If it wasn’t for the fact that they’ve already had a trip of a lifetime in the first series I’d be thinking that Ewan’s calendar is somewhat busier than perhaps Charley’s is. And then there’s the contrived conflict of Ewan bringing his wife along. It was like it was inspired by Spinal ‘Dobly’ Tap. And the ‘just dropping in on the Motoguzzi factory’. With our camera crew.

You see there are three big differences here:

1) Series 1 really was a great journey

2) Series 1 was on Sky 3 and Series 2 is on BBC2

3) The Long Way Round DVD an unexpected runaway success.

And the upshot is this. Ever been on a guided tour when there wasn’t enough time to see anything as you were hustled on all the time. That’s what this is. Tunisia in one day, Libya in two. Its just annoying now.
Should you be tempted by the book, don’t. My brother read the first one: Long Hard Slog. Here’s the Guardian’s take on the second one:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/digestedread/story/0,,2206031,00.html

Gordon Ramsay's new tv show

Gordo has a new tv show. Its dead clever. In it he takes a tired restaurant which is going to the wall and then he turns it round purely through the use of the word fuck and before you know it its the best fucking restaurant in the fucking world. Wait a second, how many fucking series of fucking Gordon's Fucking Kitchen fucking Nightmares have there been? Fucking Gordon Ramsay has fucking set me fucking off now.
On last night's edition yet another restaurant was dying a slow death and then leatherface turned up and before you know it Ramsay was fuck this and fuck that, and that's a fucking disgrace and that's fucking disgusting. He then left the kitchen and started banging on at the owner about the fucking crusty knickers on the fucking paintings. Then the owner to his credit told Ramsay that he had crossed a line and that he should fuck off and take his film crew with him.
The only sad thing is that Ramsay didn't fuck off but came across as such a fucking prick that I fucked off.
It was, as the saying goes, a fucking disgrace.