It Gets Worse

So to win back a modicum of good karma I bought loads of sweets from M&S for the 'Trick or Treat' kiddies of old Stokie. Free of artificial colours and flavours, they are eminently suitable for the neighbourhood's little Jocastas, Octavias and Tarquins. (It's sooo Observer 'round our way, dharling).

Problem is -- I'm eating them all. Mmmm, Fizzy Fish and Percy Pigs.

I have no guilt, but I am feeling very full and a bit sick.

I have abjured all responsibility and am little more than a wanton vessel.

Ha. I am the Lord of Misrule!

Running with The Devil

See, I was right. The portents are far from good. Indeed, they're downright diabolical.

Again, this morning there were six magpies in the park.

Great, I think, more of that gold. Show me the money. Show me the money.

But wait. Think about it.

CFC scored six goals on Saturday**. Six magpies yesterday and six again today…

And what day is it today?

Halloween.

Three sixes. 6 6 6. The number of the beast. Beelzebub himself. Satan. Lucifer. The Devil.

Cripes. See what comes of being greedy?

And thinking about it again, that fox (symbolic of me?) yesterday was *encircled* by the sextet of monochrome birds.

We really are doomed.

Paranoid, moi?

**Man City didn't score any goals on Saturday, so there's no 'against' to add and therefore the 666 symmetry remains intact.

Superstitious Mind(less)

My superstitious mind is prone to the disastrous. I see dead people**. Well I don't really, but I do tend to see the worst in the proverbial tea leaves. If things are going well, I just know that catastrophy is near.

"We're doomed; doomed I say."

But today, I think my fortunes have taken a more positive turn. Out with 'madam' this morning I spied magpies. Not the usually sorrowful one or the occasional but deceitful two. No today, six. And all surrounding a mature male fox -- which must double the potency of this most agreeable portent. (The handsome creature to the right is there because P endearingly calls me 'fox').

Six magpies -- that's gold baby!

And only a few hours ago en route to work P agreed to increase my pocket money -- so it's already working.

I'm off now to blow the lot on lottery tickets and scratch cards and ponder the Aston Martin's spec.


**With the dark nights upon us and All Hallows Eve nearing, if the seasonal story in last week's Hackney Gazette is anything to go by, then maybe I soon will ..see dead people, that is. The site of Butterfield Green where we do our bi-daily wanderings was until the 1980s residential housing. It is reported that 69 Spencer Grove was a most haunted place indeed. And while the troubled abode is no longer there, surely there must be some shadow of its presence among the brambles and bushes...

The haunting of 69 Spencer Grove, Stoke Newington, started in September 1967 and involved a mixture of poltergeist phenomena and the appearance of phantoms. Raps and strange noises were heard and furnishings damaged. A disturbing apparition of a woman in white with dark socket-like eyes which emerged from a wardrobe was seen by several members of the household. A series of fires also broke out in the property and the family concerned fled the house. Subsequently 69 Spencer Grove was demolished.

Six of the Best

Sorry Chooch. I'm nicking Sun headlines as well.

Anyway, he may look like Uncle Fester (no, not Didier), but with Henk ten Cate's evident impact at Cobham, Avram Grant has done the impossible -- destroying a (hiterto) in-form Man City 6 - 0.

It works for the arse. Hey, Wenger's no oil painting, but he too puts the 'pretty' on the pitch.

Boring, boring.. :-)

Carefree

Only Words

Words have meaning. Together they have metre. They can be ambiguous, posessed of wonder and meaning beyond their defined purpose. Sometimes they just look strange. And some sound very odd indeed. Verbs, adverbs, nouns.. I just like these.

Coagulation, Teutonic, Conqueror, Protagonist, Globule, Cyrillic, Bellicose, Labourious, Quizzical, Augment, Cipher, Galvanise, Lorem Ipsum, Oncology, Augur, Codify, Necessarily, Cubical, Posthumous, Arduous, Corrosion, Pseudonym, Railing, Tarmac, Believe. Protocol, Arable, Grimoire, Compass, Pavement, Clack, Desolate, Ovis, Corrugated, Puddle, Bulletpoint, Putty, Suit, Refrain, Desist, Blossom, Cistern, Protagonist, Blame, Dough, Blizzard, Optimist, Vague, Intestate, Granite, Articulate, Riddle

Yes, I'm a bit bored today.

Missed Me.. By 24 Hours

A creature of habit, I keep a fairly regular schedule. I wake at the same time each morning; ditto leave the house; ditto leave the office at the end of the day, etc. Each day, orderly the same, while content varies.

I prefer to be home rather than out, so do little work- or friend-related socializing during the week.

Part of the routine is the same 10 minute walk from the office to car each evening, usually departing desk at about 5:00 p.m.

But a little over week ago, as luck would have it, I hosted a weeknight work dinner and so the routine was disrupted.

Thank Christ! I walk past this location (corner of Harewood Avenue and Rossmore Road NW1) every day at this time.

No Lily, it doesn't lie. This (shit)ty does just what it says on the tin.

SCB v2.2

CDL "Integrated Fulfillment Services".

???

A courier firm.

Petri

At a family breakfast yesterday morning, The Observer’s Coolbrands Supplement was the focus of much discussion.

To some amusement, bafflement and bit of (honest) embarrassment, P and I found that we own / use / consume 15 of the 20 top [ehem, cool] brands.

The automotive bling notwithstanding, we really must be most shallow –- a Posh & Becks of old Stokie -- as it were..

And anyway, we don’t want a Ferrari. We’re quite happy with our hulking great Land Rover TVM ;-)

Addendum: On second thoughts, many of the below are rather proletarian -- Google, eBay, Amazon.. So maybe we're not so hideously status-obsessed afterall.

The list from 1 to 20

Aston Martin
iPod
YouTube
Bang & Olufsen
Google
Playstation
Apple
Agent Provocateur
Nintendo
Virgin Atlantic
Ferrari
Ducati
eBay
Rolex
Tate Modern
Prada
Lamborghini
Green & Black’s
iTunes
Amazon

Blog-Stretch

When a blog page takes a while to load, stetches and distorts.

An improvement, I think..

(Fat)man

Zoiks!

The 'Caped Crusader' has been eating too many Gotham Burgers.

Time for mum to prepare a few BatSalads..



And as the theme tune went, "Dinner, dinner. Dinner, dinner. Dinner, dinner.. Batman."

No Shit Sherlock #2

Welsh newsreader, BBC 1, 22:00 Tuesday, 2 October: "Tories accuse Brown of electioneering."

Catalyst for Tory criticism: PM Gordon Brown announcing, on photoshoot tour of Iraq during Tory Party Conference, the withdrawal of 1,000 British troops from Basra by year's end.

Catalyst for withdrawal: War bad in general. This particular war very bad. Snap November election in the offing given strong 11 point lead in polls and withdrawal can only improve that position.

So to the, ehem, snot-Greens: I suppose all those conference proposals of this week -- to increase the inheritance tax threshold and lower stamp duty -- are in no way an attempt to curry favour with middle England and claw-back some poll positioning ahead of that impending snap..?

While I accept that politicians are slimy, self-interested, self-aggrandising back-stabbers, I do expect somewhat less sophomoric journalism from the BBC.

Stupid Corporate Branding (SCB) v2.1

And another spied this morning..

A nice dark blue van run by the firm Calligan zips about the capital delivering …"Business Water".

That'll be somewhat more serious and commerically-minded H2O than the stuff from the tap or supermarket then?

As this is likely to become a series, as a good and true corporate citizen, I've decided to establish an acronym -- SCB and will append numeric iterations à la software and now (dire) films starring Bruce Willis. Te he

Dinosaur Jnr.

So along with 10 million or so others, I logged my details online for the 'Led Zeppelin Lottery'. I waited patiently for three weeks until the magic 1st October for notification *only if successful*. Ho hum, while 20,000 lucky so-and-sos got their stairways to heaven yesterday, I got nought.

As consolation, I've instead forked-out £75 for one of the Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks 30 year anniversary gigs at the Brixton Academy instead.

That's, of course, as long as the broker of 'hard to find tickets' who I've already paid doesn't, in reality, find my tickets too hard to find. All three gigs did sell-out in 15 minutes, afterall. (Not an unlimited supply)

And while I'm quite tempted to give said broker the required £480 to go find me an entry to Zep (likely, in through the outdoor ;-), I'd rather 'get burned', with the best of punky intentions, for £75 instead of nearly £480 for a Zofo no-show or worse, a whopping £555:zip for both.

No fun.

Stupid Corporate Branding Goes Nationwide

Driving through London each morning (naughty me ;-) provides for much opportunity to absorb all manner of corporate branding. There are billboards and hoardings and buses and taxis all brightly adorned with consumer advertising -- for cinema movies, DVD releases, albums, home stores, clothing, financial services, lifestyle magazines et al.

Also, I'm long used to sharing the road (shame) with the ubiquitous "white van man" -- the hazardous road warriors of Britain's small traders. These too announce themselves on their vehicles, but with more low-fi, descriptive 'branding': witness, Honest Bob's Plumbing, Catford, tel: obviously a mobile, email: bobplum@hottail.com.

But increasingly, the good-old, reliable (i.e., no regard for the rules of the road; other road users or pedestrians; their indicators; traffic lights; box junctions; lanes; speed limits etc.) British white van men and women seem to be aping the corporate branding philosophies of larger business service firms. Regardless of their field -- carpenter, bricklayer, electrician, waste disposal.. -- our nation's artisans are all busy devising nonsensical company positioning.

I should know about the sometimes idiotic branding of service firms. I work in business services and my two previous employers, for instance, have carried "Helping Business Thrive on Technology Change" and "Many Minds, Singular Results" as their respective tag lines. While not very elegant, the first kinda says what the company does. NB: It has now since 'rebranded' to the possibly even more insipid "Making Leaders Successful Every Day". The second is a wee bit more obtuse, but dutifully indicates a service mentality. My current employer too has something equally natty yet inscrutable as its tag -- a play on ingenuity, cleverness, value... (Sorry, no names, no pack drill)

But today, I find that I must have awoken to a parallel universe. The capital's white van folk seem to have swapped The Sun or The Mirror for The Economist and Harvard Business Review as their periodicals of choice. Their new brand identities are now homogenous lumps of hackneyed business-esque techno-babble -- 'full of M.B.A. but signifying nothing'.

Two instances today caused me to pull the car over, reach for pen and paper and make notes so as not to forget.

The first van owned by the company, Geze, has positioning awash with the florid meaningless adjectives of a Palo Alto software firm -- 'solutions', 'integrated' and 'systems', and its tag -- "Opening Doors To Innovation". What does Geze do? Furniture design, architecture, advertising? No, it's a glazier. That's the people who fit windows. Mmmm..

The second, JPS Group, offers its customers the intriguing promise of "Infinite Possibilities". And the good people at JPS, what is their business, pray? Systems integration, management consultancy, venture capital? Nope, it's, ehem, office supplies. That's paper clips and stickie notes to you and me. So how infinite are the possibilities for making bouncy balls from elastic bands? Do tell JPS..

Good grief.

Come back all you honest Bills, Bobs and Brians. Your driving is still atrocious, but we expect that of you and at least we know who you are.

Parp

This morning I found a large jar of Greek Gitgantes beans in the kitchen and thought they might make a tastey snack to dip into from time to time at work.

Problem is that I've just eaten the lot for lunch in one sitting.

Eeks. Strong liklihood of windy afternoon.

Slartibartfast.