Post birthday post

Well, the day’s over for another year, and didn’t go too badly, considering it was totally unplanned. As expected (almost) I listened to Tommy Boyd, but delayed by well over an hour due to coverage of Dennis bloody Rodman’s local basketball game in Brighton. Never heard basketball on the radio before, and hope never to again. ‘He’s bouncing the ball and running at the same time, someone’s jumped in front of him, this is so exciting- look, he’s thrown a ball through the hoop!’. Anyway, the bonus was the new chatroom was up and running, and I got to know all the forum members who chatted during the show. As I wasn’t at home I couldn’t call in as well (not that I had anything to call about), and it was also pretty hard to concentrate on a chatroom with about 30 people in it as well as follow the anarchic calls on the radio. A very nice bunch of people though. So as the birthday proper began at midnight, that was what I was doing at the time. For some strange reason Howard Hughes unexplained programme wasn’t on the radio (FA cup coverage??) but he always starts late for that so I hope it’s not been axed after just over a year, especially with Ed Dames’ ‘revelation’ due next month. Watch this space on that.

The next day I got a card from my Dad’s neighbours and went over to thank them, and spent a very nice afternoon there and also watched Manchester Utd on Sky which was a bonus, and going there made up for missing out the night before. There wasn’t anyone in the gym I knew, and missed going the previous night for obvious reasons. Then there was some decent TV for the rest of the evening, Psychic challenge, which has brought evidence of powers to the mass viewers, but only covers the same basic clairvoyance over and over again in different forms, which people can learn to do in about ten minutes. They really need to go a little further as so far clairvoyance is notoriously unreliable, coming and going in bursts as it pleases, which is demonstrated clearly on the programme. But a bit of compass moving or spoon bending could really impress if it worked, though they probably didn’t want to set themselves up for a fall if it didn’t work. Then the spin off from Inspector Morse, Lewis (his sidekick), which was well worth watching. There’s still some traditional British decent programming around, but very thin on the ground. So that was from start to finish my birthday, and I was told I don’t look 46, when you consider George Galloway who looks about 30 years older than me is actually 5 that’s probably right.

I’ve also started making a list of the things I ‘just know’, as since I claimed it I’ll need to demonstrate it, and hopefully have a chance for people to pick up on what I write. On that theme, there’s both good and bad news on at the moment. The good is Tony Blair (well, he took the credit for it) wants to extend medical treatments to outside hospitals and office hours. If you leave them in for long enough they can’t help mixing the odd good policy with all the nonsense, especially as they’d just cut down on home visits recently as well. On the minus side I just read the UK has the highest energy prices in the world. How the country who used to lead the world (sorry America, it’s true!) is now having the world get it’s own back by treating us like poor relations is tragic. We already have near the highest house prices, and probably CDs and sports equipment (where we also get a minimal selection of the whole range as we’re ‘not a major market’). That was Nike who told me that when I spent my last job working in a sports shop, and dared to ask for something from the ‘world’ section of the catalogue. How it worked was they often had one world catalogue, and we then had to call them and cross out nearly every item as it ‘wasn’t for the UK’. So whatever we did wrong regarding the empire, the empire and colonies have now provided revenge in every possible economic way they can. Half of course is home-grown robbery, where the lack of land and impossibility to shop elsewhere (without a boat trip or £100 return on Eurostar) means we are almost put in the same position as St Helena or Bermuda where all our supplies are flown or shipped in (did I say we don’t exactly make a lot of our own goods any more?) and we’re forced to take what we’re given and pay a premium for everything as it’s in such short supply.
I also read an article which echoed my own view, that in 50 years we’ll all have to work and travel locally as personal motorised transport will almost become a thing of the past. Back to bikes and horses as I said, and unless the hidden fuels that have been reported to exist for decades are released to the public, everyone will be sitting at home on their computers, walking in the park and shopping locally. Sound like anyone else you know? I must be 50 years ahead of everyone already!