Slumdog Trillionaire

Ah booze. The blogger's best friend (especially the angsty emo teens, where would they be without cheap cider?) and literature's worst nightmare.

I've just sat through Robert Peston on the beeb being excited, nay orgasmic, over the apparent 1.3trillion (that's 13 and... well a lot of zeros) you and I have promised to the banks. And then almost fainting with glee at a letter about the Royal Mail's pension fund being billions short. A squee moment to be sure, particularly when like Peston you know that while the credit crunch may cost millions of jobs in the UK, yours will be last to go, because we all need someone with strange mannerisms, suspicious looking hair and David Tennant eyes to use fancy graphics to tell us all about it.

Fantastic - a story about Slumdog Millionaire showing them filming a scene on a skateboard. Genius.

Can't believe I'm almost liveblogging the BBC News here - an activity made pretty much art by Anna Pickard at The Guardian's Organgrinder. I'll spare you the more depressing stories. That said, in a bizarre twist I've turned over to ITV to find a Meridian Tonight interview with Gordon Brown conducted by Fred Dinenage (on a train, at that), who I'm convinced was on quiz show 'Call My Bluff'. One can only hope that the full interview ends with a statement about Labour staying in power and Dinenage revealing a card that says "bluff"...

And Simon Parkin (of broom cupboard fame) doing the weather of all things! I guess sometimes you can't be picky about the work you do. This credit crunch is really biting, isn't it?

Interesting stuff

It's awards season folks. And the winner for the best blogspot profile interest goes to... Soulwinning!

I'm poking my way through Blogspot's arcane blog-finding-tools (which seem to be undocumented, making it a system worthy of my office) and finding that, as I often do when doing that kind of thing, I'm taken with a strong urge to bolt all the doors and windows and never have any contact with any new people ever again. Especially Americans. The sheer number of American profiles with pictures that feature guns is terrifying. As for all the pictures of naked (male, alas) chests... Ugh. Surely some of them must see the sun?

Of course half the planet claims to be interested in photography. Much like I now claim - I like looking at pictures of things. Particularly as it removes the need to, you know, read words.

So I'm actually looking to set up some stuff to read through this blogging lark. I'm not foolish enough to think my ramblings will contribute much to anyone else's life (other than explaining to wifey what all the tapping is about upstairs), but dammit I want to get something out of this, even if all the other authors will get from the relationship (should they dare look) will be information about rare swans and not, as they might be hoping, words of wisdom about Leadership or, heaven forbid, Service Level Management (hint - have a service first, then manage it's level - this means you, University of Surrey).

I like wine and whisky. Seems like a good place to start. I'd love to read reviews of whiskys, or thoughts about wine regions. Something intelligent. Sadly the list of people who also like wine is growing at such a rate my picture appears on every page and to get my fix of whisky-wisdom will also mean sitting through essays on ex-husbands, annoying school friends and rare black swans. And that's before I address the whisky/whiskey issue.

I'll leave the smallholding stuff to wifey, but I have professional interests too (at least during office hours). Operating System Snobbery aside, I use Microsoft Windows a lot. It's a pretty pervasive thing so it's a bit of a disapointment to be sharing the interest with a cat and a 14yo spaniard. Although I'm man enough to admit that sometimes that cat will probably have more success than me in dealing with it.

What can we learn from this? There's the temptation to mock Blogspot. In fact, as it's a Google operation some would insist the mockery is mandatory. Personally though I'm of the opinion you should never be mean about an organisation who knows what you were searching for the last time you were drunk and sat in front of a computer...

Hmmm, I'm approaching my word limit (i.e. my fingers and brain are getting tired). Sadly, after all of this, it seems the world is dramatically lacking in the sanest people of all. My search continues...

Merchandise

Hey, I can follow my own blog. How self-loving is that? Perhaps I'll un-follow myself, lest I end up blogging around in circles.

Welcome (wifey), to my first dalliance with blogging for many a year. Let's hope this thing has a spell checker.

A random discovery - as if Google didn't already have a license to print money through their increasingly opaque search algorithm, it seems Google has joined the trend already helped out by tat-mongers like Cafepress and sells it's own Google branded merchandise. Fantastic looking stuff. Especially the kids stuff. And the lip balm. And the bike speakers (lucky they're stereo, I hate listening to music in mono when I'm weaving through noisy traffic).

Coming soon - ttsud branded hand drills, traffic cones, thermometers, wardrobes and denim-covered pencils. No, wait, those are real...