Neighbours, Weddings and why Anne Coulter is not a nice person.

The wedding mentioned last post was lovely, really informal, no speeches, few tear (of joy) lots of beer and a pig on a spit. Woot!

We have new neighbours next door, this happens quite regularly as it's a rental property that is just about up the code. If its the rental code from the 1690s. The heating just doesn't work the toilet backs up reguarly and theres an interesting fungus growing the bedroom wall that only answers to 'Kevin'.

As you can imagine the turnover is quite high and with Friday night being seriously cold the neighbours, who appear to be perfectly nice, had to go and stay somewhere else. However they left their dog in the house. So the pooch wakes up at 6:30 wonders where everyone is and where his breakfast is coming from. So he starts barking, and barking and barking and barking. Unfourtunatly this sets off the kennels in the house three doors down, so suddenly, lest i remind you at 6:30 IN THE MORNING, we have the canine equalivent of the St Martins in the Field choir blasting out all around us.

Em, bless her, can sleep through nearly anything. I however had to get up and I think it stuck me in a grump for the rest of the day. thats the only way I can explain pushing some of the weaker pedestrians into traffic as I stomped around the high street.






Anne Coulter, who I have mentioned before as a ferociously intelligent dangerous right wing bigot who's had her homepage hacked. The reason why this is funny is most right wing names are, to be fair, limited in their intellegence. Shaun Hannity, Bill o'Reilly these are not people who debate or explore topics. They are the finger pointers, the agitators, the empty vessels making the most noise.

Idiots in other words.

But Anne Coulter is not an idiot, she is incredibly intelligent and this she fascinates the other side. "With a brain like hers she should be with us!" Which is why an open letter explaining your entire career was a joke has a strangely plausible ring to it. Sadly it is a fake, she's still the same brittle, attractive, damaged woman she ever was. More's the pity. She des strike me as someone who's hollow inside.

In the interests of balance her real website is here but, honestly, if you're used to thinking for yourself and your political views sit anywhere to the left of, say, Goebbels I'd give it a miss.

Enjoyed the last game of the world cup. I did think the fairy tale for England would come true but a stronger south african side held out in a tense nervy game. And actually with all the hyperbole surounding the Springboks I can only imagine the reams of shit that would have been spewing from the commentators mouths if England had won it. Anyway, England have nothing to be ashamed of, they showed that experience can be more effective than youth. It does however help if you have youth in the shape of Tait and Flood to come on as fresh legs. Those boys really impressed.

The Welsh were simply abysmal. But could talk for weeks about that, and will do but not on this forum.

Oh and if you've never seen rathergood.com this is a good introduction. Its just flash animation and musical stupidity but a great way to pass the time. Main site here.

Peace out homeboys.

the sweet sweet smell of....

..A day off! Woo!

One of my old school friends is getting hitched today and I've had to take the day off. I mean I could have gone to work early as the ceremony starts at 4:00PM but I thought sod it, I'll have a long weekend to recover.

Caroline and Steve are great individually but together they do make the perfect couple. Anyone that spends any time around them can see exactly how their dynamic works and its really a beautiful thing. I couldn't be more chuffed for them knowing how much happiness my own marriage has brought me.

We went out for a chinese meal on wednesday as a little stag/hen do type thing for them and I was sitting around a table with the same people I sat around a table in the sixth form common room and it did not feel in the least bit weird. Its lovely when you can stay in touch with people that mean a lot to you. It hapens very rarely so when it does hold on to it for all you're worth!

Passed my Exam resit. I say pass. I think 81% counts as slightly more than a pass. In fact it proved what I knew all along. My tutor didn't doesn't and will never know her arse from her elbow. This was the exam I previously failed by a couple of percent and she missed clear marks that were on the paper and when I called her on it she blew me off with some pathetic excuse.



You can insult my knowledge of football, film, computers, rugby, anything you like and I'll take that info on board and try to improve. But don't tell me I know nothing about payroll when I live breath and eat it.

This has been a public service message brought to you by the number 5 and the letter §.

honeymoon,

The pictures from the honeymoon are now on my flickr account, top left.

 

And yes they are all clean, I think.

EDIT: Now also all the right way up and with captions!

Still clean though.

Back

Back to find a mountain of post and about a gazillion thank you letters to write.

Oh, and in the post? Another essay due in by the 25th september, however due to work and family commitments I'm going to have to post it on the 19th. thats right, I have a fortnight to create the perfect 5000 word essay and post it out.

Its at times like this that I hate Michael Moorcock who'd consider less than 25000 words a 'slow' day.



(Edit: And I do not begrudge the thank you letters one jot, there are a great many people who am I espically grateful to, and the only way to really express that thanks is to send a letter.)

I've started and discarded six posts so far.


I am unable yet to sum up how I feel about what was possibly the best day of my life. I keep getting side tracked and getting a little over-emotional.

The warmth and generosity of our friends and family is truly overwhelming. Simply thank you is not enough. But while you're all waiting for your bouquet or troop of dancing monkeys, take a quick peak at the flickr tag on the top left. The only photos there are the ones I snapped using my phone so I'll put the good ones up when I'm back from Paris.

Its just been the most amazing and marvellous couple of days.

I am/we are so lucky.

Last work day for a while

Got a wedding in Kendal tomorrow and then I'll be back in Wales for friday to prepare for my own nuptials on the Sunday.

I'm pretty calm about it, apart from the moments of sheer mind-rending fear.

I know there's something important for the wedding I've forgotten but I can't for the life of me remeber what!

Just finishing up my last working day for a while. been a long drawn out battle from 9AM this morning but I think I'm getting near to finishing now!

As I'm going to be away for a bit now I'd like to leave you with the first episode of a series I call Switch. Let me know what you think.

Rob

Crappy tuesdays.

I never could get the hang of tuesdays. I've got nothing really to do in work as tomorrow is my last day for two weeks so the day is dragging-dragging-dddddddddrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaagggggggiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnggggggggg.

Just trying to find little issues I can deal with quickly rather than getting involved in problems that are going to be a few days in the solving.

MEt with the registrar yesterday and she was very encouraging. Nothing was a hassle and it was all clear and straightforward. Which to be fair is exactly what you need to hear at this stage in the proceedings.



Oh and 'Overnight' is brilliant but I can't help feeling that if I'd had the same shocking introduction to the world of celebrity I might have turned into the same kind of ass-munch.

I'd have formed a better band though.

Things

Woke up at six and couldn't get back to sleep. Many many people over the course of the last few weeks have asked me if I was nervous yet. Well for the first time I woke up this morning and I was. I just kept on thinking about all the things that could go wrong over the next eleven days. There so many variables and so many people involved that almost anything could happen. Pigs falling from the sky wouldn't surprise me now.

 

The basics of it, the fundamentals, are in place and have been for months now. I have the rings and the booked the person to turn them into a legally binding contract. Everything else is really just window dressing, as vital as they may seem to the process if we had only the two of us and two tramps we dragged in as witnesses we would still get married and that's the part that doesn't scare me at all.

 

Committing myself for life to the one person that means everything to me is a real no-brainer. With her I am more than the sum of my parts. With her I can actually achieve the potential of who I could be. 

 

 

*Bleugh*

 

Sorry, got a bit soppy there. But its the toing and froing of people and events and the ephemera that surrounds the wedding that worries me. Not the actual event itself.

 

 

 

meandering worthless thoughts.

Odd kind of day today, I find myself thinking along the same sort of lines I remember thinking about a a year or so ago but for a different type of fiction.

That's progress for you I suppose going from the same starting point to totally different conclusions.

I've got so much stuff on at the moment its not funny, I've even had to turn down free beer on Friday so I've got a clear head for the workload on Saturday.

That's right I just turned down free beer. There must be something wrong with me apart from getting responsible.

I've filled the sixteen places on my stag do now and if I'm, being honest I'm far more nervous about a drunken night out in Cardiff than I am actually getting married. I'm just not sure I'd enjoy being handcuffed naked to a streetlight at three in the morning.

Hopefully it'll just be a good laugh with some close friends rather than some of the nightmare stag dos people have been telling me about. I'm not sure how much the stags in question have told their wives, but clearly not very much if they actually went ahead with the ceremony.

Bit rambly today but hopefully that'll clear up as I've got about a hundred replies to wedding invites to sort through tonight.

This wedding has suddenly got very VERY real.

Laters.