Runnin' On Empty

Hey, just a quick reminder, adding something I missed in yesterday's ramble...

Dad's running in the London Marathon this Sunday, so keep your eyes on a television screen if you can and look out for him! Perhaps more importantly, look out for Matt and I in the crowds too! We'll be shouting, waving and maybe throwing stuff, probably trying to get in front of a BBC cameraman at some point as well!

Take care, peace out.

These Are The Voyages...

What an Easter weekend that was!

Train back up to Newcastle on Thursday, arrived 16:00. Matt flew in to the airport at 21:00, an hour late, and we had a few beers and swapped journey stories. An early start on Friday, and a tour of the city, including the most important sight of the North: the scene from the Newcastle Brown Ale bottle (according to Matt, that's all that he wanted to see and his life "was complete"). I got my third 18" Starship Legends model from Forbidden Planet, this time of the Starship Enterprise-E. Then down to Saltburn for the rest of the time! Saturday was shopping and a trip to see Inside Man at the cinema: a very good psychological thriller with top-class acting. Sunday was surfing and falling off a surf canoe repeatedly, looking very unprofessional but having a great laugh. Monday was mountain-climbing, in which I totally rocked (pun intended), and then Matt flew back to Exeter. Tuesday, from 08:00 until 16:00, Dad and I drove the length of the country in a pinball fashion, bouncing from Newcastle to Manchester, down to Birmingham and then across to Guildford! Arrived home tired, and since then, Mum and I have been relaxing, sorting out all the odds and ends before I leave for Newcastle again, and playing my new PlayStation games that arrived from the multiple eBay.co.uk sellers across the land. Quite frankly, I'm surprised I haven't had a cardiac arrest.

Of course, coming home to the slogan "Vote Blue, Get Green" isn't exactly the best homecoming present ever. While I find it very noble of David Cameron to take the Conservatives up a level and make them accessible to the younger generations, this focus on a specific issue seems to be narrowing the political scene to, let's be honest, one of the least important factors of government. The environment is not going to come crashing down around our ears for at least another one hundred years! Okay, sure, so our generation has a certain obligation to the children of the future (not mine, mind, since I loathe children), but there are already measures in place to slow down the impact of global warming (which is often inflated to silly numbers: while many people don't like him, read some Jeremy Clarkson and he'll tell you how little an impact cars have on global warming, and yet every single time the environment is mentioned, ITV News runs a feature on mothers using sports utility vehicles to take their little darlings to school). This "Vote Blue, Get Green" initiative is heavy on catchphrases and popular movements: while this isn't as terrible as the lies and spin coming from the Kremlin and His Tonyness these days, it still seems to be pandering unneccessarily to anyone but Conservative voters. This could be a danger. Cameron is already under fire from the traditional right within his party for going too far left. Any more policy drives like this could push him so far left he falls out of the Conservative sphere of influence and, horror upon horrors, he'll become a member of the Liberal Democrats... urg...

But for now, it's all good. Peace out, madcap Bonkers fans!

Testing Again

One, two, three...?

Check check... check check...

"She smells sheet-stores on the sheet snore"... no, wait, that wasn't right...

Hello?

Oh, gotcha, need to post this then...

Excuse the mess, madcap Bonkers fans. One of those days, eh? Peace out.

PS: New photo and mildly-amusing username coming up...

A Grand Day Out

So, madcap Bonkers fans, yesterday was the day when Mum and I met up with Brother Matt halfway between here and the West Country (oo ar indeed)! And what a nice day it was too. Now read on...

Mum drove like a legend for an hour and a half to get to the small rural village we had agreed to meet Matt in. Stuck behind an old boy who refused to go faster than 30mph for fear of travelling through time or losing any more hair than he already had (chance would be a fine thing), Mum said "Oh, can't be doing with this!" and yanked the steering wheel in order to screech around him and overtake... Mum? You never used to drive like this! Remember, I haven't been in a car since Christmas, what's going on? Then, of course, we left the main road and hit the winding country paths. A sign passed us saying Warning! Hidden Dip! "Is it houmous?" I asked, causing much laughter. I think I've rediscovered my comedy groove. More on that later.

We met with Matt after a small tour of the village, and he provided me with a dark and gothic graphic novel (which has been started already) in exchange for a DVD from Mum to play on his new multimedia toy. Then we went in search of food! I was in Matt's car, a frightening experience next to Mum's otherwise sedate overtaking! The famous 'sports mode' was used more than once, mainly to smash over already-deceased roadkill and spray blood and feathers at Mum, who drove behind. At one point, the rain was heavy enough so Matt and I backed into Mum on a small country lane... whoops indeed! We'd already grounded the car twice, so what could have been worse? Of course, in great family tradition, there was no "Oh my goodness, what a tragedy, I've hit Mum!" melodrama. No, instead it was hysterical giggles and the occasional "Oh bum!", which, unexpectedly, rhymes with "Mum" and drew more laughter. And since when was I the outlandish one when it came to grand schemes? We passed some cows and I told Matt to honk his horn at them, which he initially refused in shock. It was only because Mum had skidded out of control in a pothole that we had time to kill, so slowing down and honking at cows it was (and there was Mum, thinking we had slowed down to make sure she was alright).

The food in two places was great, including a dotty teashop owner who was completely accomodating and made her own cakes (which were superb). She was fascinated by archaeology, and kept a keen eye on politics, so we had much to talk about! We also visited one of the castles used to film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, with much more amusement than clearly planned. The self-operated mobile phone-like speakers one is encouraged to take around listening to at key moments fell by the wayside after we had listened to speech number two, and was brought back out for comedy moments such as, when we were on the ground floor, "Hey, mate, press twelve!" "You are now on the third floor..." or for when we were in a large room containing a board saying "Kitchen": "We do not exactly know the purpose of this narrow chamber..."

A great day all around. Everyone got back okay and Mum and I were even in plenty of time for 24 on SkyOne and to make sure I won my bids on eBay.co.uk... oh yes, I've discovered online bidding! More on what I've won later when the entire collection is back in my hands!

Take care, ladies and mentalmen! Peace out!

Back from the Dead... *Shuffle*

Okay, madcap Bonkers fans, nobody, that's nobody, responded with surprise, shock or even the smallest hint of concern towards my down-and-out ramblings on April the 1st... probably, and rightly so, because it was before midday on April 1st. Not the most successful April Fool's scheme ever, was it?

Well, I'm therefore back from the brink of death surprisingly bouncy and full of cheer (cheer!), ready to get this work finished so I can actually have a holiday. And what a holiday it's shaping up to be! I've just got the excellently grim and atmospheric Doom on DVD, starring none other than The "Can You Smell What I'm Cooking? It's Some Ass-Whuppin' Gunplay and Hand-to-Hand Combat" Rock. Looking forward to that one, especially the special features which look set to examine the original Doom game in detail and explore how the filmmakers went about transfering that to the silver screen... always a bonus! Mum's got afternoons and weekends off, meaning lots of time for chatting, catching up on great telly (like Season 5 of 24 was going to be rubbish, it's perfect in every single way) and, this coming Sunday, meeting up with The "Can You Smell What I'm Cooking? It's Some Creepy New Lifeform Living in My Dreadlocks" Matt for a Sunday dinner! Then soon afterwards, Newcastle, then Saltburn, for sun (yeah, right), sea (more like liquid nitrogen), and sand (apart from take the sand away and replace it with rocks and seaweed)!

I haven't spoken about politics in a while, have I? Probably because it's all so predictable and dull these days... although much excitement today as the Serious Organised Crime Agency (S.O.C.A., or alternatively, F.B.I. U.K.) has been launched with thousands of undercover agents getting ready to battle the drug-pushers, identity-fraudsters and human-traffickers of these British Isles. Typically, His Tonyness has used it as an opportunity to grip and grin with as many important policemen and ex-spies as possible and once again rant on about how much he loves the next Labour leader, Gordon Brown. And typically, a really sexy and exciting crimefighting outfit has been given a silly name because we're British: "Serious" Organised Crime Agency? Why the "Serious"? Oh, it's a government buzzword, I've just heard His Tonyness saying it twenty times in a five minute speech... clears that up, then. But still, come on! Think about it: the reason all good films and television shows revolve around American agencies such as the F.B.I., C.I.A., N.S.A. and C.T.U. is because they've all got super-cool, sexy, dangerous names! Imagine if Jack Bauer had to kick down a door and yell "S.O.C.A., let me see your hands!" or "I'm Serious, grrr!"

Does not bode well, Mr. Blair. You want to raise Britain's international profile and make us a big player in cultural exchanges? Make sure all our crime-based television shows can have something cool to shout at running people in the street without having to make it all up! Then again, if I were in charge... "Intergalactic Death Squad XIV, drop your weapon!"

Peace out, ladies and mentalmen.

Terrible! Just Terrible!

Sad news, Bonkers fans... the last few days have been downright awful!

On Thursday, I went to BINGO with my Gran, which was bound to be agreat day out because Gran's a legend and I'm completely hopeless under pressure (which BINGO is, very high pressure, no joke)! So we were hoping for a few laughs and then to go home for tea. Well, not only did I win £4,000, which I could not believe, I was then promptly rugby-tackled to the ground on the way out because someone learnt that my cousin Charlotte worked as a staff member at the BINGO establishment and therefore I couldn't possibly have won on my own merit, I had to have cheated. The £4,000 was taken from me and I can never set foot in a BINGO establishment ever again...

But that's not the worst of it. I get home, hug Mum, very nice, all excited... only to find that the essays I've sent home to work on over Easter have become corrupted on both e-mail accounts that I've put them on: in other words, I've lost 1,500 words of my work! The originals should be back on the University servers, which means when I return to Newcastle, madcap fans, I've got a ton of work to do in, oh, two days? Maybe two and a half?

And, of course, the biggest news is saved to last in true Bonkers fashion. Because I'm not at home, Mum never feels the need to go into my old room and just shuts the door for the how-ever-many-months-in-a-semester-there-are. So, that means any problems with the structure of the room would go unnoticed until someone entered the room... in other words, me. I walked straight in, dropped my heavy bag to the floor and promptly fell through the weakened floor down into the living room (absolutely no word of a lie). My bag and all its contents wrecked, my ankle sprained, a gaping hole in the ceiling (downstairs) and floor (upstairs) and, to top it all, the light fitting from my room then decided to fall down through the hole and smash on my head, leaving me with an almightly headache. A visit to Frimley Park Hospital made sure I wasn't in permanent damage, but the house needs serious work done. We've sealed off my room and the section of the living room, workers are due here Monday to take a look. I suspect the flooring supports, which are made of wood in our house, have been rotten for quite some time.

What a complete pisser, eh? For all my usual happy, nothing-is-a-problem-honest attitude, these few days have started to grate... oh, and just to finish off, I've seen the first few hours of 24 Season 5, and they're absolutely rubbish. Totally unbelievable, the acting is worse than ever and the real-time aspect seems to have gone out the window.

Hope you're all having better days out there, gang. Take care, peace out.