Lifes Windows

23. Pirates! An adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe (2004)

Mad little book which follows the adventure of a bunch of useless Pirates, who end up meeting Catholic foe Charles Darwin, it’s all very wacky and there is much hilarity. And it’s substantially shorter than war and peace.

24.Clash of the Civilizations by Samuel Hutingdon (1997)

Very prescient book considering recent events. Hopefully the hypothesis of the book is not correct, wouldn’t be very pleasant if it was. Quite depressing really. Think I didn’t even finish the last chapter. Can’t we all just be friends? Could this review be any less intelligent? Sounds like a care bear wrote it.

21.The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire by Raymond Pearson (1997)

My favourite book about the USSR. Concise and very engagingly written. Focuses on the big events 56’ 68’ 80’ 91’, never thought about the fact that they were all 12 years apart, well except 91’ but you could say 92’ as that is when the USSR was properly wound up and no mas. No idea what I’m talking about? Ok. Nevermind.

22. Rumours Of A Hurricane by Tim Lott (2003)

A novel set around the Thatcher era, with the lives running parallel to it; Home ownership, greed, upward mobility, unemployment, fun stuff. Basically an indictment of that time as an uncaring selfish society. Very unsentimental ending, I wanted a happy ending. Guess there weren't many during her reign.

Aww, lovely stuff.

Here. Listen to Tim Westwood being a polite sounding young man back in 1985, and lots of other stuff only saved because some guy taped the pirates radio stations with those funny things called cassettes.

Play this strangely theraputic game, such fun (Use the cursor to move him around):

Bush, balls and falling

Includes the infamous "Ball of the century" and the flared, hair transplanted, text addict making others look foolish; bowling them around the legs and nutmegging one or two them through the legs. You all wish Shane Warne was your roguish uncle. Salute.

Father left a note last week which read;

"Tom, norton security has ended, what do we do?"

Which obviously on first viewing read; "Tom, national security has ended, what do we do?"

Build an underground bunker was my first thought.

That is me at this time exactly last year, jumping 134 metres (440 feet) off a cable cart with a piece of long rubber attached to my feet. Now exactly one year later I am sitting in an office scanning bits of paper. Brilliant.

Nice blazer Argos catalogue man

Whilst walking through my local WHSmiths an advertising board, full of Dan Brown books had the effrontery to announce; “If you haven’t read Dan Brown where have you been?” I was taken aback by the idiocy of this statement, and declined the invitation to buy one get one free, or BOGOF, as it was called during my wretched time in the retail industry.

Beneath this smarmy statement of foolish accusation lay a picture of a man wearing shorts on a raft in the sea, next to what looked like a tropical Island. You see very clever, if you haven’t read these terrible tomes, then you must have been on a desert island, get it. Quite frankly, this particular man is lucky to live in such beautiful climes and to not have to know about such rubbish, that is the Dan ‘Trying to look literary, by wearing a terrible blazer’ Brown industry. The choice is academic.

Anyway where have I been? I have been in a place called taste.

Dan Brown isn’t going to be accepted into the Literary Canon anytime soon, though it would be good to see him fired from one. But seeing how his tentacles are rapidly spreading, he would end up landing on that raft and pester that unassuming Island dweller to read his nincompoop novels, thus our choice is no more, you can have a desert Island, but you have to have Dan Brown.

I am judging a book by its cover here as well. Consensus of valued opinion tells me not to waste my time going past the covers.

I am off to read James Patterson, I have taste as I said before.

Comment superfluous. Be superflous in the comments.

I remember it being a big thing in the 80’s, I'm sure there were public safety adverts saying don’t sniff glue, though I don't vividly remember much from the 80's, as I was between the age of 0 and 9. Never really saw the appeal in sniffing the stuff myself. Perhaps because my experience with glue was confined to pritt stick, which I doubt was a sufficient strength to get high from. I used to chew felt tip pens instead, tangy.

Maybe aerosols have replaced glue; I imagine those of us who don’t fancy aerosol addiction can have a watered down taster version, where we just sniff our armpits after spraying them with pungent Lynx, those of us who think it’s sophisticated and not for 14 year olds.


If I sniffed glue, this is the glue I wolud sniff.

They really are moving into the realms of self-parody. Disney world? They could do worse if they wanted to though. How about the bluewater shopping centre, or Madame Tussauds?

What do these two do nowadays to garner such press coverage? As far as I can tell Peter Andre’s lone talent was being able to rhythmically roll his abs to music (the six pack has since developed into a pork barrel) while Jordan is a walking advertisement for Silicone misuse. Not to mention the couples creosote tans. That’s talent.

I have come to believe in the virtuousness, healthiness and good taste of being pale. I am a pale, white Anglo-Saxon, I accept this (except when abroad when my paleness makes me “unique” and peer pressure and societal acceptance forces a feeble endeavour to turn just a bit brown, though I regret succumbing)

Tanning is tacky, and no, you don’t look exotic. Sophisticats.

A big cloud of alcohol lies there, somewhere, can you spot it?
Space, the final frontbeer (All apologies)

PARIS (AFP) - Astronomers say they have spotted a cloud of alcohol in deep space that measures a bastard big 463 billion kilometres (288 billion miles) across, a finding that could keep the world dosed in free alcohol forever.

The vast bridge-shaped cloud of methyl Trampus (Special strength alcohol) has been spotted in a region of our galaxy, the Milky Way, that is called W3(OH), where stars are being formed by the gravitational collapse of concentrations of hops and barley, the discoverers said in a press release.

Methanol, an organic (carbon-based) molecule, is a cousin of ethanol, which is found in alcoholic beverages. Human beings love alcohol. This 463 billion KM long cloud is being toasted by drinkers throughout the land.

The cloud was spotted by astronomers based at Britain's Jodrell Bank Observatory led by Lisa Harvey-Smith. Their work was to be presented on Tuesday at a meeting in Leicester, central England, of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), but they got drunk and couldn't find the place.

In 2004, Special strength alcohol, also called methyl trampus, was spotted for the first time in one of the disk-like clusters that form around nascent stars.
That discovery opened up a new area of debate in astrophysics, challenging the conventional view that interstellar chemistry could not provide the conditions for creating complex alcoholic drinks, as they would be ripped apart by ultraviolent vagrants and other tough space cowboys.

Around 130 varieties of strong cider and lager have also been identified so far in outer space, fuelling speculation that these complex molecules may have helped to sow the seeds for life on the fledgling Earth.

The seeds of life sown in white lightning and special brew. What a game life is.

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