...your patience is appreciated."

Quick question, how do you know I'm patient?

Now, I'd had to get through half a dozen automated menus that ALL led inescapably to another like a Stygian maze.

I'd typed in everything from my card number and date of birth through to my projected score in this week's game between Stafford Rangers and Exeter City and the girth of my manparts.

I'd still only reached this stage....

Trust me, patience was a waning virtue.

Patience was not helped by the 10 second loop of this lady informing my slowly vanishing patience was appreciated, I'm positive one single woman is the voice for every hold speech, in fact, considering how immensely stupefying she sounds I think it's one LIVE woman, chained in a small recording booth in the middle of Chipping Norton doing these inserts live...

It also didn't help that their hold music sounded like something that would introduce a genericly bad American drama, as it looped for the fourth time I was hallucinating about sweeping New York skylines and lots of lawyers in suits banging their fists on tables shouting "DAMMIT, DON'T LIE TO ME BOB!"

Finally, my patience snapped...

My patience was helped when I tried a different number and got through to a real live person after a third of the menus and a passable (non-hammond-organ) rendition of Vivaldi...

Guess which number I'll ring in the future...

Think I've found you summat

CLICKY

It felt so much later in the week than a simple Tuesday today... and I'm feeling a tad tired, dunno why really cause I got an early enough night last night...

I think it's because I'm not doing the MOST vitally exciting part of my shift... I find I get more tired doing the less mentally challenging parts of work.

I suppose it's the same for everyone but it seems a bit weird, the more tiring the work, the more awake I feel, the duller the shift, so the more enrgy conserving, and I feel like dropping off.

*thinking I should start doing exercises in the office*

Well, considering it was sposed to be raining this morning it was actually a gorgeous sunny morn...

Course that was then put down slightly by a stressed day in the office... BUT...

I was 'entertained' twice in the journey home. There was a small weedy looking bloke with a bumbag on attached tightly around the level of his ribs. Nothing major there but he did cause confused looks from me and the lady in the atrium when he insisted on taking his trolley for a walk...

He walked through pulling it, stopped, wandered back. Then did that a couple times. Then went to the toilet... came back out again and went to fetch his trolley and took it to the toilet with him...

Then took it for a couple more random walks for the rest of the journey, consider this is only a 20 minute trip!

Then I caught the bus... that paragon of strangeness... and had an entertaining drunk sat in front of me.

He was glugging from one of those big cola style bottles of booze you get in Iceland, the blue ones.

He was a Grade A mutterer, a post-grad degree holder from the university of hand waving and a certified Master of The Guild of Wobbly Leaning.

Singing, muttering, moving his hands in time with a secret beat, holding them up and staring at them in wonder at times and suddenly at intervals would chat to invisible people only he could see...

All in all a distracting piece of street theatre and at no times felt the need to hit anybody...

As I was running early I also decided to go on a little jaunt I've been planning.

After my light trails post the other day I knew I wanted to take a trip to a big road bridge we have near us with my tripod and camera set for long exposure and...

OK, hows this for the height of bureaucratic stupidity...

A couple Devon areas might have to give back 5-6 mill of EU funding because...

Wait for it...

You'll like this...

"They have not been able to spend the money quickly enough."

Yes, the article is HERE but the gist is... Because they haven't blown their money and have a budget underspend... they might have to give it back...

I especially liked the sentence "Last year's underspend was £400,000, but that had come down from £2.5m in the closing weeks before the spending deadline."

It gave me the impression of a big, council sized game of Brewsters Millions, frantically running around because they don't want to be the "losers" in the massive game of Blow The Cash...

"Yes, I'll have that Dodo feather-boa, the chess set made of platinum and diamond, the ministerial Hummer Limo, four crates of the most expensive champagne and the use of Trixie and Fifi for the next month... Yep, that should blow enough!"

I feel like ringing them and pointing out for a small fee of 50 grand I could go photograph the areas...

They should thank me

...about the photo before you posted it...

CLICK HERE

Umm, what can I say... awkward composition?

...Feel the power of the rain making the garden grow.

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

"The must incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value."

"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother."

"The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat."

"When asked how World War III would be fought, Einstein replied that he didn't know. But he knew how World War IV would be fought: With sticks and stones!"

"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S RELATIVITY."

"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

So, I'm Skyping with Subs and all of a sudden... BAM, showing herself in the full...

Jesus people, clean yer mind up, I mean what I saw out the window...

Her...

Right, so to move away from my ranting of the previous post have some pics...

Autumn leaf, this was fiddled a bit to give it zoom blur.

When I got back and was waiting for my bus I decided to have a little fun with a long exposure shot or 2...

*beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep screebeepeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep screebeepeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep screebeepeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep screebeepeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep screebeepeebeepeech beep beep beep beep beep beep beep screeeeebeepeeebeepeeebeepeech beep....*

Now imagine it for 40 minutes...

Course, I know it's my fault.

See, where I hear the ear-splitting, glass-cracking, nails-up-a-blackboard screeching of a bothered baby her mother and the much-yelled-for "Auntie Grace" obviously heard something akin to Dame Kiri TeKanawa from their looks of happiness and general lack of any desire to quieten the child, in fact I'm sure as I was getting off Auntie Grace was going around with a hat and a bundle of CD order forms...

I'm obviously a cultural philistine.

As I was about the child's older brother.

See, I had little handheld games when I was younger, you know the ones that you lose interest in when you realise there's only three different options.

I hadn't seen all the possibilities.

I didn't realise those games aren't meant to be played, they're meant to be used as accompaniment to an operatic sister by pressing the same button every half a second... beep, beep, beep, beep... You don't need to do anything as silly as play it, just have it hanging aimlessly by your side with a tricky but smooth movement of the thumb keeping the music alive.

Again, the lack of any dislike from Mummy and Auntie Grace shows only one thing, that I am unable to see below the surface irritation to the music beneath that will last for generations.

So, if you'll excuse me I'm off to place a bet that "Symphony for handheld game and screeching child" is the big winner at next year's Classical Brits, I feel ashamed I had to leave a mere 40 minutes into the live recital...

For some reason this PC has decided I shouldn't have access to my blog today...

Well, I can but I can't do anything, it's constantly loading my flickr badge and for some reason there's a glitch on this PC with Firefox, if I try to do anything while a page is loading... BAM, it hangs on me and I have to crash out of Firefox and stop the process in the task manager before I can try again...

It's highly irritating and not anything I have on any other PC running Firefox, it's the same version, has the same few add-ons as my other FF versions...

Anybody else have this problem?

So, I'm not being unfriendly to those lovely souls who commented since I was last on... I just can't!

So, it turns out events in Beijing might have to be postponed because of the life-threatening smog...

Course that's a double celebration...

1) The athletes will be fully prepared for London.

2) Our sorry lot will actually have a valid reason when they choke...

So, my day started...

and ended...

With great sun effects, took far too many photos.

In other news... I'm pretty sure I've done something wrong...

...I can't stop scanning through ebay for the lens I'm saving up for...

So, I'm sat at one PC answering the show phones with my lappie sat beside me catching up on blog!

I'm really bloody knackered, left work at 11 last night, got home just after midnight then... back up at 6.30 to get my arse in here... oh what fun!

Ah well, can't complain, got some nice "early morning" shots.

Had a massively hectic day and haven't had a chance to blog surf...

I'll try to catch up tomorrow...

Has anybody else noticed what an inordinate amount of time per day is spent watching one of these ironically named things...

...said in his best Mexican bandit impression...

I'm thinking field mouse but if anyone knows better...?

It's funny, you may remember the other week I met a couple of little birds at the station, one of whom modelled for me.

Well, today I had yet another near-nature encounter, walking through a Plymouth back street when there's a rustle of leaves and up pops a little mouse, the make of which I really don't know...

Seemed ok in the general vicinity of me but was still nipping around and making the taking of photos a bit trickyer but I think I got a couple.

Again though this darn work computer can't process CR2 files so you'll have to wait!

So was that just a cruel trick to have you singing that all day?

Only half...

I woke up this morning with a strange feeling of existential dread, not quite to the level of going back to school but not too far.

I think after a "holiday" over the weekend it just feels a bit naff to be dragging myself into work, damn those 6 numbers for not coming up over the weekend...

This does remind me how glad I am to have my weekends off, for the first 7 and a half years of my career I was working at least one weekend day, sometimes both.

I started by needing to get in for half six on a Sunday morning, then moved to half five on a Saturday morning then moved onto the footy and for a while the late night newsreading/prog assit shift both days at the weekend...

Not fun.

I got really sick of getting to Friday and having everyone around me celebrating while I sat like Scrooge in the corner mumbling how "some of us still need to come in tomorrow"

Ah well, can't complain I suppose... it pays for the camera gear... (almost half way to my new lens...)

Right, to work!

Oh, quick Edit... why did they, on a Manic Monday wish it was Sunday? Why not Saturday, then you've got the whole weekend?

Oh, it doesn't rhyme... riiiight.

Now there's a stewards inquiry into three of the F1 drivers that finished in front of Hamilton today... meaning if they're found guilty, he gets bumped up to fourth and wins the title...

Has anybody actually won anything RACING this year?!

...I shan't bother you with them all, go to my Flickr site if you want that

Viewing Platform

Crashing Waves

The Inner Harbour

I was walking as fast as I could!

May look like a castle but it's a church... Not surprising as Teignmouth has one chuch for every three people it seems...

See, another one!

The view

Keeping Guard

The Pier

Coastline

So that's where Nixie went...

Looks like Subs owns a shop too...

Was a really good day, specially after the dissapointments of yesterday

Hmm, still waiting for the photos (116 at end of cutting) to upload...

Some of you may have noticed I've changed the name... Anyone? Hands up?

OK, so nobody noticed... but I sort of have... I think this will continue to be COASF for me (partly because I can't be bothered to change all my design headers) but I wasn't sure it gave the right impression... I never really talk much sport anymore, things have changed, my mindset has changed and my original plan, rant about sport, has sort of gone away...

So... the COASF name will sort of remain and, as I can't change the url, it'll still be sportsfan but I think the nice simple AJ's works for me.

Course none of you give a toss but it gave me something to do while the photos are uploading

Blimey have I got some sorting to do...

Suffice to say today was a lot better than yesterday which is why I have 267 shots to go through... glad I got the bigger memory card!

I actually found myself walking along smiling today, camera in hand, sun in a blue sky, blue sea to one side of me, green sea front park on the other...

I also had a laugh when I spotted a building called "Resorts Office" and my brain took a wander...

Wouldn't it be great to have a Last Resorts Office... bringing you all those things you don;t really want until it really is a last resort...

You know, there's nothing on tv, you don;t have anything to watch, you're bored out of your mother loving head... and somebody from this office nips in with a copy of any movie starring Jennifer Lopez...

Or maybe you need a drink (possibly thanks to having to watch a movie starring Jennifer Lopez) but there's nothing in the house... so up they pop with a six-pack of real sex in a canoe* style supermarket brand lager...

OK, OK, so my brain is weird...

*fucking close to water...

After yesterday's slight weather debacle it is, I'm assured by many mediums, going to be sunny today...

So I'm trying a photo expedition again, to a different place of course!

I'll catch up much later, wish me luck good weather!

36 days ago, 36-0, now 15-6

You know what, I don't mind this loss to South Africa, the boys have shown heart and spirit and a level of sporting behaviour seen right through the tournament.

I've loved this World Cup, partly for the shocks, the Argies etc but also for the way the players have acted.

A try wasn't given for us, I believe rightly. Was there a hounding of the ref, was there a mass shouting match, was there petulance?

Nope, the captain said "we think that's a try"... and then nothing, they got their asses in gear and got on with the job, take the decision, move on.

Footballers take note...

So congratulations to South Africa, across the whole tournament you deserved it, playing great rugby in a great way.

Very worthy winners.

Swing looooooow, sweet chaaaaariot, coming for to carry me hoooome!

Hey, a Liverpool (flukey) win, Hamilton in front of Alonso on the grid for tomorrows Grand Prix, all we need is to bash the Boks!

...I've already been up for an hour, this isn't right...

I remember a time I thought Saturday was only half a day, nothing existed before around about midday...

Strange how things have changed, my reasons for being up this morning?

I'm going on a photo expedition and the weather is supposed to be better during the morning...

Oh dear...

Anyway, I'm off out, cya all later!