I have written a blog post on Orbital.

It can be found at http://jellynewt.blogspot.com/

Feel free to take a look if you're passing...

So, people keep texting me and asking what I want for my birthday, and of course I have no idea. Anyway, for those interested I have tried to come up with a list…

The Essential Ellison (Harlan Ellison)
A book on digital SLR photography
Jewellery
Anything from paperchase (mmmm beautiful stationary…)
Lego head egg cups from the lego shop
Any sf (of course)
Michael Marshall’s new book
The wipe-able desk noteboard from www.bookchair.com
Anything by Dostoyevsky except Crime and Punishment, which I have.


Erm, that seems to be all I can think of for now…
This feels very wrong – my parents brought me up to believe that hinting that you wanted anything was the height of bad manners. Of course then you get older and all they do is ask what you want. Bloody parents!

Our intellectual culture...

GO TO:

http://www.ukdissertations.com/


I'm having trouble articulating a sentence that expresses how I feel about this.

Ok, further to my post regarding the coat hook and the door (see a couple of post back...) a man came today to fit the said hook.

Please note that *this* is the hook that may impale me in a fire:




I was at least expecting it to be a) metal not plastic and b) one of those massive 2 pronged things that you could at least imagine having a chance of impaling you!

Also note that because the potentially dangerous coat hook has had to be put on the wall, the fire safety instructions have had to be taken down (the blue notice on my shelf)!




The world has gone mad! Next they'll be banning 'Dragon sausages' because they're worried people will think there is real dragon in them.

Oh, too late.

(What next? 'Walls' sausaes too? You never know, there maybe 'walls' in them, and perhaps the odd coat hook too...)

This is a corker!

At work everyone has a hook on the back of their door (in their office) on which they can hang their coat. My office has no such hook. With winter coming I put in a request to have a hook fitted to my door, anticipating the need to hang up my wet coat on winter days. Also it was annoying me that I have to dump my coat on a chair - very untidy, and as it's new I felt it was becoming prematurely crumpled. (:-))

I should also point out that the said door is about 2 1/2 inches thick and a fire door held on with 3 large hinges - quite secure.

Anyway, the secretary comes to see me to inform me that 'the man' came to fit my hook, but when she told him 'please put the hook on the door' he shook his head and said (get this) 'Ooh no, sorry love, can't do that. Health and safety'.
Secretary: 'health and safety?'
Man: 'yes. Can't fit a hook on a door in case of the fact that in a fire, the door might fall off and impale whoever is in the office'.


THE DOOR MIGHT FALL OFF??? OMG! If it's that hot to make a 2 1/2 inch door melt off its hinges I'm not gonna still be in my office getting impaled (there is a window and I'm on the ground floor)!!

Who thought of *that*? Someone has actually sat down and written a risk assessment and thought that that was a genuine threat to safety. And what makes it worse is that other people haven't looked at it and said - 'you pratt, imapling by a coat hook on a fire door - what a ridiculous risk!'.


Is it me? Or did I fall asleep and the world went MAD when I wasn't looking?

What makes it worse is that although they've identified this 'risk' they aren't going to remove any of the existing coat hooks. God, in a fire there's just gonna be lecturers impaled all over the place!

One of my colleagues has two - yes TWO- coat hooks on her door. Clearly in a fire she doesn't stand a chance - that's one through each eye for sure!

Or maybe they saw me and identified me as 'at risk'. A bit like 'ooh, look at her - got 'death by impaling (from a coat hook)' written all over her...'.

Gad damn nanny state.

As it is, I'm gonna have the hook fitted 'next' to my door - that is unless someone identifies a risk of the wall falling in.

Anyway, since no one can take responsibility for their actions any more, when I walk into the said door hook (as it will be in the way as I go to open my door, and we’re working on the health and safety assumption that I, like everyone else, have no common sense), maybe I'll sue on the grounds of health and safety... ;-)

I was messing around on Photoshop with the photo's of the Crosby beach men (see previous post), contemplating how great they are and how contemplative their image is, when games_player made a disturbing suggestion...

What if, rather than looking out to sea, they were all facing in the opposite direction?

Scary.

Still, fun on photoshop...




( Read more... )

Went to see the 'men' on Cosby beach on Friday which was great. Tooks some pics... ( Read more... )

Well, during a fab night out on friday for a friends birthday, the topic of the 'dance mat' came up. By the end of the evening I was totally convinced of my need for this wonderful - never leave home again - fitness and fun item. So figuring 'what the hell, lets go right to the overdraft limit' I went and got one (this comes after a long time of attempting to get myself to do some excercise - but I can't cos it's so boring).

So, happily I trot home from ARGOS with said mat and a game that allows you to put in ANY CD and it will create dances for you to do. It also has tournaments, endurance and fitness settings. YEY!

The mat has been a huge success. Already had a night out where dance mat came with me and 4 grown people all made fools of themselves following the moves to funky disco hits.

But then came last night. The lovely dragonzgrace came round with our esteemed collegue A for a curry and facial night. So, we re-toxed (by drinking yummy wine) while we de-toxed (facial steam, mud packs, moisturiser and nail conditioners all round) and we followed this with 'excercise'. Out came the dance mat...

The tournament began... we danced away following the arrows of evil, which was fine untill it came to The Jacksons 'Can you Feel it?' which was REALLY hard! Anyway much fun was had and we finnished off the evening fuzzy, cleansed and sweaty.

Off we went to bed (it's a school night you know...!).

HOURS I lay awake. HOURS! Every time I closed my eyes all I could see were large pink arrows in some kind of fever dream. By 2.30 AM my heart was pounding with the stress of folowing them, despite telling myself - 'you're in bed now - STOP DANCING!'.

Haven't had this since I played too much Tetris and had the 'Tetris dream' (come on - I know some of you have had the Tetris dream) where little blocks just keep on moving down the screen whilst you desperatley try to fit them in... Well this was just like that.

So, sod fitness - think I might give the dance mat a little rest for a couple of days...

Lush have started doing VEGAN makeup. Isn't that the best thing ever?

A big happy birthday to the wonderful games_player.




Woo!

Well, after much trauma, my employment is finally sorted out - I am now OFFICIALLY a full time (0.5) lecturer!
Not only that (and this I find very exciting) but I have my own office - with my own phone and extension number and my name on the door!! How exciting is that!? So exciting in fact, that I'm writing this post from my new office, whilst drinking hot chocolate made in my my kettle which lives in the little tea making area I've made in my new shiney office (er, well, that's not strictly true - it's actually a little bit grim - magnolia woodchip on the walls if you know what I mean. I feel a poster purchasing session coming on...).
Anyway, this is an excited me signing off and about to go and actually do some work - so rubbish - offices are so much more fun when you can just sit, twirl round on your chair, open a drawer and look at your pens, make a brew, surf the net and then twirl round on your chair some more.
This work thing is spoiling the whole sensation. ho hum... ;-)

A few people have texted me and requested Peter's Amazon wishlist, well, sorry to those of you I didn't get back to - it was because I didn't know the link and always had in mind that I'd get my act together and get back to people.
Finally I've faced up to the truth and realised that if I don't do it NOW it'll be too late.
So, here it is:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/3QVGX5P171A5M/202-6064954-4773433

Or you can search on Amazon for Dr Peter Wright, Ormskirk, Lancashire and it takes you to it (but please note - he has two wishlists - an academic one and a personal one for non work related (fun) stuff).

I'll let you know whan celebrations are afoot. currently we're not sure what we're doing... (no, I mean litterally)

The summer:

First of all, sorry for not posting for ages – just been so busy, not had the chance.

( So, what’s kept me so busy? )

Taken from procrastinatrix's lj - share the joy...

( take a peek )

so, I thought I was ok - wisdom teeth PAH!
I came out of hospital rather cheery and, although in pain, it was all not so bad.
But it was a lie!!!
When the anasthetic wore off - that's when I knew pain, like having a bag of razors in my mouth.

Turns out that every nick and pinch is now an ulcer, I had a sore throat and couldn't swallow properly for days and the 4 gaping holes in my mouth ache right along my jaw and in the opposite direction into my ears.

Saturday was the worst. I just lay on the couch feeling awful - I didn't even bother to get dressed, I just lay like a big slug feeling miserable.
Sunday was an improvement but still not great, and yesterday I had my first social contact. Andrea met up with me in Costa for nice coffee. This was good and I was feeling very pleased with myself. Unfortunatley I felt exhausted as hell last night and my jaw/gums were aching so bad I couldn't get to sleep. :(

The mornings are the worst everything seems to sieze up in the night. Everything stings and I have permanent indigestion through inadequate chewing (although I have been on a soft food diet).

The other minging thing (which seems to have gone now) was that my mouth was bleeding for days and so turned my tongue a funny copper colour and gave me 'blood breath' - rather like I'd lived on a diet of raw black pudding for a week. Truly disgusting!
Anyway, now I only bleed when I clean my teeth so I'm feeling much better and 'blood breath' is gone(although I've got a pretty good idea of what vampire breath would be like now!!).

So, all in all, I'm feeling pretty fed up - can't imagine what life was like before the pain! Just want it to go away soon.

P.S. Peter has maintained being a little star in the carer department. :)