Getting them in early?

Nicked from... well, everyone cause unlike you buggers I've been working!

Use your first initial as the first letter of the answers the questions.

1. Famous Singer: Andrea Boccelli
2. Four Letter Word: Axle
3. Street that you have been down: Argyle Street
4. Colour that expresses your mental state: Aubergine
5. Gift/Present you would like to receive: Andalucia
6. Type of Vehicle: Audi
7. Things In A Souvenir Shop: Address labels
8. Boy Name: Alvaro
9. Girl Name: Alison
10. Favourite Movie Title: Anchorman
11. Alcoholic Drink: Ale
12. Occupation: Accountant
13. Famous Celebrity: Alan Rickman
14. Magazine: Auto Weekly
15. U.K. City: Aberdeen
16. U.S. City: Austin
17. Fruit: Apple
18. Reason For Being Late For Work: Abandoned on a station platform
19. Something You Throw Away: Applications for credit cards
20. Something You Shout: Aaaaaanyway...

I know I've blathered about this in the past but here we go...

Got a couple camera mags today and one almost got me screaming on the train.

They have a "your pics" section for feedback.

Now, I'm all for a bit of constructive criticism even though I don't really do anything when it comes to photos, I don't do the rule of thirds, I don't do composition, I'm not great at exposure etc, I just go "oh, that works" and press the shutter button.

In the mag I get more often they do the same thing, they take a pic, point out what makes it good and then suggest things that could make it better.

This other mag... It was fecking Simon Cowell for photos, they're just bitch, bitch, bitch. This should be here, that's uninspiring, crop it here, saturate it there, clone it everywhere...

It wasn't "good shot, this can make it better" this was "Your photo is no good, we work for a magazine so we know, go away philistine".

They even had the gall to complain one picture "looked like a snap"... and that's a crime? Some of my fave photos have been spur of the moment shots when I've spotted something and snap goes the camera.

I just don't get it, these people aren't trying to be pros, they're just out there enjoying themselves and thought "might be fun to send something in..."

That's why I definitely won't be sending photos into any mags...

Another iffy night, just couldn't sleep, the phone went off for one ring, things fell over downstairs, the moon was as bright as a halogen light...

On the plus side though it was wonderfully dramatically misty this morning so I went snapping before work!

As that was dull, have some dumb laws from Montana, USA:

- It is a felony for a wife to open her husband's mail.

- It is illegal to have a sheep in the cab of your truck without a chaperone. (Is there a big Welsh contigent in Montana?)

- Seven or more Indians are considered a raiding or war party and it is legal to shoot them. (Even if it's a touring party from Bangalore?)

- In Montana, it is illegal for married women to go fishing alone on Sundays, and illegal for unmarried women to fish alone at all. (Largely because they'll obviously be so dull they wont have a chance to become married women...)

- It is a misdemeanor to show movies that depict acts of felonious crime.

- Excelsior Springs: Balls may not be thrown within the city limits. (No Paddy, just no...)

- Helena: No item may be thrown across a street.

- Helena: A woman can't dance on a table in a saloon or bar unless she has on at least three pounds, two ounces of clothing. (That'd never work in Torquay, that's overdressed...)

- Salisbury: Pop bottles are not to be thrown on the ground.

- Whitehall: It is illegal to operate a vehicle with ice picks attached to the wheels. (The sad thing? Somebody must have had to do this for the law to appear...)

I got out of work just the hour and a half late than I should have, oh what fun...

Right, lets do some catching up!

Hmm, I knew finishing at 3 was never going to work.

Unpaid overtime, dontcha love it.

Interesting, according to the latest studies smoking makes men go bald.

Hmm, could be tenous unless we have any proof around here *looking round blog*.

...one under each eye...

Not had a good night, got the starts of a cold I'm afraid to report, sore throat all night that kept waking me up, you know the kind when you cough and expect to see something hard and spiky sitting in your hand like a scene from Alien...

Lots of tea in work today I think and wrap up warm.

I think I might be forced to offer my services to HM Customs and Excise...

After two last week it now turns out a further SIX DISCS have gone missing between their Preston and London offices.

So, here's my deal.

Train fare.
Bus Fare.
Oyster Card.
£50,000 a year.

For that, I'll personally pick things up from Preston and travel to London, unlike a courier firm I'll remember if you give me a package or an empty envelope packaged by Dwayne in the post room who is currently trying to work out why those CDs he found don't sound that musical...

I'll also be accountable, I wont be a random driver, I'll be a person guaranteeing delivery.

I figure it's also cheap considering I can actually deliver things and save you from looking like complete morons who couldn't even organise a marriage between a millionaire and Heather Mills.

Anyway, the offer is there...

I went to bed verging on the early side last night which meant, added to my now regular early mornings, I couldn't sleep in.

Woke at 6... Woke at 7...

Decided, bugger it, let's go snapping... so you have to deal with more photos... as you can imagine, half 7 was a tad chillsome.

Dear Steve,

Face the music, do the decent thing, resign.

Your desperate clinging onto the job smacks more of a belief you'll get more money for being fired than any real conviction you'll be England manager this time next week.

You were a knee-jerk decision from the outset when ludicrous politics from the FA stopped our chances of getting Big Phil Scolari and had to try and fill the void left by Sven in a hurry simply because they said they would.

All you've done this campaign is prove to the world why you should have been even lower down the list.

Your tactics have been woeful, you've proven inept at reading the opposition, your team selections have verged on the bizarre and your team talks blatantly fail to inspire.

You're attitude with players is also lacking, I wan;t you to think back to last night and the shambolic defending, akin to the Keystone Cops.

How much stronger would we have been if you hadn't alienated Jamie Carragher, one of the best English defenders around?

Think if we'd had Carragher at the back rather than a second rate stand in from the other side of Stanley Park, chosen, it seems, purely for the fact he has the largest forehead of any living creature?

That was, as with everything else this campaign, your fault.

I'm not going to ease up on the players, they played without passion, without skill and without a seeming care until half time, appearing to believe they just needed to "go through the motions" to be assured qualification.

We needed more, you couldn't fulfill that need.

Do the decent thing and jump before you are pushed.

Yours,

AJ

"You're craaaap and you know you are, you're craaaap and you know you are..."

"You don't know what you're doo-ing, You don't know what you're doo-ing..."

"They're rich, they're shit, a cows arse they can't hit, En-ger-lund, En-ger-lund..."

So, lets imagine what might happen...

England Qualify:

• We suddenly forget a pitiful qualifying campaign and become "the best team in the world"
• The phrase "this can be our year, I really think we'll win it" will ring out in pubs across the country.
• The makers of crap plastic car flags that yell out "I'm a nurk" will be celebrating record profits.
• The management and players will all stay, regardless of results or form.
• The papers will go from a vitriolic "We'll win it, we're the best" script to equally vitriolic "discrace of the world" script when we bomb out in the quarter finals.
• The St George's flag will fly from approximately 5000% more places than St George's day.

England don't qualify (hopeful version):

• Blame is shared between players and management.
• We ignore our xenophobia and allow a top quality foreign coach to take over.
• Players begin to be picked because of their form, not their name or club meaning a more passionate team who actually care.
• Youth is given a chance.
• Money is spent (instead of on the tournament) on promoting academies and youth projects to help bring on the best English talent from advantaged and disadvantaged areas.
• We become a force to reckon with by 2010.

England don't qualify (realist version):

• Blame is shared by Wembley Groundsman and God.
• Steve McClaren gains new 10 billion pound contract with FA declaration "he's the man".
• Players picked because of name or club, not form meaning a more apathetic team who care about their latest book release.
• Aged players are given a chance, meaning callups for Stuart Pearce, Gareth Southgate and the Charlton Brothers.
• Money is spent (instead of on the tournament) on promoting the FA in a concerted damage limitation exercise following public condemnation.
• We become a force to be reckoned with by 2010. In crown green bowls.

It's outstanding, I actually don't care what happens, really don't. Might even be best for the game in this country if we don't go and embarrass ourselves by going to the Euros and being beaten soundly by Switzerland and Poland.

I think I worked out today while I'm feeling a little out of sorts...

It's been almost a week since I took any real photos, barring a couple publicity snaps for CIN...

This is not right, I'm tempted to get my camera out just to mess around with and take photos of nothing...

Oh, and I know, I know, this is sad

...when you ask small children for Christmas carol lyrics...

These were collected from American primary kids:

- Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly

- We three kings of porridge and tar

- On the first day of Christmas my tulip gave to me

- Later on we'll perspire, as we dream by the fire.

- He's makin' a list, chicken and rice.

- Noel. Noel, Barney's the king of Israel.

- With the jelly toast proclaim

Got out of the train station... dry.

10 meters up the road... BAM...

It absolutely hammered down with rain, constant thumping on my umberella and a river flowing down the pavement...

Got in to find our weatherman goig "there's a few showers and it might come your way at some point..."

Doh!

Crap day.

Spent the day on the phone to IT support.

No software that enables me to do my job.

Result: You aint seeing me at all tonight as I'm going to have to spend the night working.

It's karma...

There's a little thing going on right now involving naming BlogBoy, the little blue plasticine mascot on BCUK...

The original posts are HERE and HERE.

As it stands the names we have had suggested are:

Barry
Squidge
Coco
Isabella
Bloggie
Blueboy
Bazza
Blogi
Bleurgi
AJ
Sam
Horace
Bluey
Bob
Buck
ToeKnee
Gillespie
Azure

Rampage from the team has said they'll take a look and perhaps hold a vote or something so if anyone has another name idea drop it in a comment! (Oh, and let people know so it can be a pan-blog choice )

How?

How is it Scotland are out and our sorry lot are still scraping in?

Speaking as an Englishman I'm gonna be embarrassed if we dodgy a draw or more against Croatia, we've been pitiful, Scotland have been massive all the campaign and yet...

Life and footy just aint fair.

So, we return to the case of the man put on probation for having sex with his bicycle in a locked room.

If you don't know what I'm on about there's a post a few down and the latest is HERE.

Now I reckon this guy was badly represented and scared. It seems his privacy was overlooked because he pled guilty... WHAT?!

He pled guilty to getting his rocks off in his own locked room and being caught by two cleaners who basically forced their way in.

Does that mean if I go into a police station and tell the guy I've had a quickie with a shampoo bottle (I havent...) I'll be put on the sex offenders register?

The register is a serious bloody thing, it's supposed to save people from perverts and paedophiles, not somebody with a Raleigh fetish.

Are these people saying I have no protection against people breaking into my room, seeing me mid-coitus with myself and going to the cops?

Which leads on to an interesting other point that hadn't occurred before.

Why and how did they get the cops?

We're they so outstandingly prudish that the sight of a man copulating with a form of transport made them criminally bothered?

As for the how...

Old Biddy: 'ere, officer, I've just seen a bloke in his room having sex with a bike!
Officer: Hey, Constable Missy, sounds like your sister's with someone again....

Totally ludicrous, perhaps any of us who've gone in for a bit of monocoitus should go hand ourselves in once we've finished handing ourselves off, they wont need a sex offenders register, just a book for the 12 people NOT on it...

- So many men, so few who can afford me

- God made us sisters, Prozac made us friends

- If they don't have chocolate in Heaven, I ain't going!

- My mother is a travel agent for guilt trips

- Princess, having had sufficient experience with princes, seeks frog

- Coffee - Chocolate - Men... Some things are just better rich

- Warning: I have an attitude and I know how to use it!

- Of course I don't look busy... I did it right the first time!

- Do not start with me. You will not win.

- You have the right to remain silent. So please shut up.

- All stressed out, and no one to choke!

- Don't treat me any differently than you would the Queen!

- If you want breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen!

- Dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off!

- Out of estrogen, and I have a gun!

- Guys have feelings too but... who cares?

- Next mood swing: 6 minutes

- I'm one of those bad things that happen to good people

- How can I miss you if you won't go away?

- Sorry if I looked interested. I'm not.

- If we are what we eat, I'm fast, cheap, and easy!

- Don't upset me. I'm running out of places to hide the bodies.

Right, after my previous post the top Rampage from the team has suggested we could have a vote on what out favourite mascot BlogBoy is called!

So, spread this far and wide so everyone gets a shot at playing, all blog.whatever sites and all your friends, then leave suggested names below (serious ones please )

Lets start things off with my suggestion of Barry but I'm sure people will think up better ones!

Cause it's his dad's birthday!

Happy birthday BlogboyDad!

PS, hey BCUK Team... does BlogBoy have a name? I reckon our favourite little mascot and his family (Stabbed Sammy for example) should really get names... on site vote?

As promised

Looks like an alien landscape...

It's actually solid ice...

It also got frosty on the way to work...

Oh, and that gent Madders may have beaten me to it but here's Lady Luna giving me a teasing glimpse...

I apologise for not posting your comment upon my previous post HERE pointing out bus passes should only be given for those in need, not simply because of age.

This is largely because... well, I didn't want to.

Allow me, however, to raise a few points.

For the attention of the brain dead and ignorant who began and use this blog.

I can point out that neither myself or any of my readers are brain dead. I'm also fairly happy in admitting when it comes to some things I live in a life of ignorance as, in fact, do we all. It tends to only be those of an arrogant persuasion who refuse to accept and admit their fallibility.

Of the elderly (which you lot will yourselves be one day, provided you don't eat or drink or dope your way into an early grave)

Hmm, personally I may be a little portly but am largely tee-total and have actually lived a drug free life unless you wish to include panadol and to be honest I don't really take that ever since I was old enough to tell my mother I didn't want to...

As for the rest of my readers... well, some may eat a lot, drink a lot, may even partake of drugs but to me early deaths are a crime against the world as life is sacred, certainly too sacred for you to begin using it as an immature little dig.

I would not dream of pointing out your chances of shuffling off this mortal coil but I understand not everyone is as polite as I am.

Congratulations for cleverly using social stereotypes as your grounding block of belief as pertains to young people.

I will now overlook your, admittedly horrific, list of statistics as pertains to the treatment of the elderly and move on to your last point...

So what's a measly free bus pass got to do with the real horror story

It's the point I was talking about, that's what.

If you'd had the decency to read the post in full maybe?

Instead you simply gained a red mist and automatically berated people whom you know nothing about other than your tainted view from a single post.

You vented your anger out on people without even catching one of the most major points of the post, we need to help those based on need not on simply age.

If councils didn't have to give out free bus rides willy nilly would they not have the money to look elsewhere?

Allow me to finish with some advice.

I was told once that as soon as you shout you've lost the argument. Too often people young and old feel the loudest wins the debate, but it's the loudest who is often shouting to cover the holes in his point.

It's also the loudest who turn people against their point of view. Those who are angry for the sake of being angry, those who see all others as their enemy, their vitriol puts a divider between rational people and them.

Rather than helping their case they give even the rational an irrational reason to be AGAINST them.

So next time I would suggest you be sensible, you think about the points you want to make logically not emotively and, perhaps most important of all, you read the subject matter to make sure your attack is actually justified.

I imagine you won't read this, I dont even have your proper email address to reply to your comment or guide you to this post but somehow you stumbled over the original post so maybe one day you'll stumble over this one in time.

Best Wishes and Long Life,

AJ