Like 2004, 2005 was a year of change. Whereas 2004 was a year of change for the overall worse, 2005 was a year of change for the better, even though quite often it was one of the worst years i think I've had.

2005 saw me living at a friends house, and ended with me in my own home, for the first time in my
life.Inbetween, my friend and their partner got together, moved in, and I , having been there some time, could no longher stay there. So inbetween, A friend let me stay in their front room, sleeping on a metal sofa, two feet from a mjaor road. Not ideal, but without them, I would be utterly utterly screwed - because the alternative was the homeless hostel. I was turned away from the homeless hostel, for reasons beyond my control and beyond parody that really don't matter right now. I was simply, not eligible. I've been turned away from a homeless hostel and had nowhere to go, whilst my life was packed up in a storage unit. And then, for a brief William Gibson-esque few moments, I considered living IN the storage unit.(The dutch heavy metal guitarist in the U-STOR-IT container was optional). I tell you, being turned away from the homeless hostel was a pretty low moment in my life. Couldn't get much lower, So, it was my friends front room or nothing. A month or so later, I took posession of my own flat in a housing estate somewhere in the south of town, and have been there pretty much ever since. Three homes, then, this year.

I hope never to move again.I've moved into my own home for the first time ever. Its a brilliant brilliant feeling. I can't undersestimate how this makes me feel.Some stability after years in the wilderness, at last

2005 saw me becoming a father, for the first time. Not as I had imagined, because for some reason I always thought I'd become a father within the confines of a stable relationship with someone I lived with, Didn't happen that way. But what did happen is I have a daughter, who has brought to me things I never thought I could ever imagine. Its something that can't be explained if you don't have your own child, and I dont mean that in a smug way. Its just beyond the confines of anything I had otherwise experienced I think i'm becoming a baby bore, so I'll shut up, and I won't tell you about Becca happily talking back to the TV when watching soaps, before sulking as its bedtime and she wants to play by talking with the telly.

I had a nervous breakdown in April. I papered over the cracks on the outside, but when you are screaming in fear when the phone rings for no rational reason whatsoever, then you really do have to adnmit you've got a problem.Seems to be getting better.

I've visited countries I've never been before. Well, Scotland.It was cold, but damn pretty. People talked in funny accents, and used strange words. But it was an experience, and one I've been looking forward to. I even saw the sea, but the sea was on the wrong side of the land! Wierd.

I've had one girlfriend - and they didn't even live in the same country as me. It was a 1100 mile round trip to see them, I calculated.

I've seen Pink Floyd. 23 minutes and 49 seconds of Pink Floyd, In the flesh, live in 2005. that a whole 24 minutes longer than I ever thought they'd ever play live again. And I never ever thought I would ever see them. It's a memory that will stay forever. Maybe it didn't mean that much, but it mean a lot to me. And yes, my eyes got wet during 'wish you were here'.

I saw U2, at the same gig. Mostly rubbish.I've still yet to write the review od liv8, if anyone is still bothered. I gave up about a thousand words in.

Star Wars came to an end, but it was good.

Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy surprised the hell out of me by being bloody good.

But most of all, being a father and having my own home are the two most important - and best things - to have happened to me this year. Its changed my life beyond all recognition, and in a good way. There's a lot more to do in 2006,especially in terms of restoring normality, but 2005? It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. And That little ray of sunshine actually turned out to sunshine, rather than another one of gods cruel jokes of that cloud / silver lining / cliche interface.

I'm actually looking forward to 2006. Believe me, I really am.It might turn out OK. I hope it does. And I hope it does for you also.

Merry New year, and all that bollocks eh?

And All is quiet on New Years day....


PLUS!
PLUS!
PLUS!
PLUS!
PLUS!
PLUS!
PLUS!


Well, thats my plan for new years eve. Vodka. pernod. Coca Cola. Dvds. Air guitar. Drinkering. And the unhappy ending.....

As nicked from the holymoly mailout....



"I saw one of your groups at the Brits and thought their drummer was mad tight. Ferdinand or something? The drummer was incredible. But the music's not for me. And the way they dress? I didn't quite understand it. Thought it looked a touch gay. No offence." (NME)
UK rap DJ Tim Westwood dismisses Franz Ferdinand for 'looking funny'

So lets just get this straight....(pun slightly intended)


= Gay.



= Straight.

Obviously.And such prejudice coming from a man who promotes his station with clips from Elephant Man's 'We Nuh Like gay' (or is it 'Chi Chi man'?). I mean, how can you tell someone is gay or straight? Well, by this logic,by the clothes they wear; because dressing snazzily = gay. Dread to think how that leaves poor old Elpehant Man (see the second photo, in the big red leather jacket), or the blatant macho-bonding of the other picture of Tim and ligger @ homelands. The blatant macho bonding obviously is only practised by blatant heterosexuals, who assert their dislike for getting physical with men by... erm, getting physical with other men. wierd.

In fact, no...wait, I've got it! Franz ferdinant aren't i)Black (unlike pretty much every other picture of Tim Westwood on google images) and ii)Don't pose with semi-automatic weaponry, being used as a penis substitute/enhancement (that those soft c1al15 tabs he bought form a pharmacy in mexico obviously needs a little something extra). And thus, if you don't fit these two requirements then therefore they must be GAY!

Jeezus, Tim. Grow up. People may look differently to what you would wear, but that doesnt make 'em gay, for gods sake.And it doesnt mean that just because they conform to a different cultural style than your aggressive, homophobic, gun-laden style of urban music, they are therefore, homosexual. the subtext thus, is obvious. Real men listen to homophobic, violent music, which glorifies self-aggrandisement, murder, the sexual useage and disposal of women as little more than walking condoms, and the worship of money above and beyond all others. Anyone who doesn't therefore = not a real man, and therefore homosexual. Maybe I was asking too much to have expected such prejudices froma vicar's son eh?

Sorry, Tim, but you are talking......

*

* P.S. yes, that really is Tim Westwood's number plate. Well, for one of the three 'lowriders' he owns, at any rate.

P.P.S. Incidentally, the number of anti-gay songs seems to be relatively high, especially when compared to the number of anti-lesbian songs. Blatant sexism surely - as it's eitehr ok for women to be gay, (but not for blokmes) , or...girls don't have sexual impulses in a very victorian manner as befitting such prejudice. the upshot of which is this - if its OK for women to be gay, then why? is it because a gay woman isn't going to invade their rectal cavity with a phallus? (Obviously, these sheltered individuals have goen through life without never having encountered a starp-on, i guess. mmmm. This seriously does dent their reputations as 'Mr. lovermen' eh?) Questions , questions....

GLADIATOR:EXTENDED EDITION (aka GLADIATOR redux)

So...you went out and bought Gladiator (the 'spectacular 2disc set') when it first came out in 2000, and were pretty well, impressed with its arrangement of extras - commentaries, and a full second disc with hours of extra stuff and deleted scenes. However, five years later, now comes along the repackaged 'extended edition', which, as director Ridley Scott takes at great pains to mention, isn't a directors cut. The directors cut is the one you saw at the cinema. So what is this then? Basically, its the version with all the deleted scenes put back in. yes, all the deleted scenes off the original release you bought back in 2000. Albeit with some completed digital fx this time. In reality, there's nothing here you probably don't already have, in terms of the film itself. Sure its longer, but its flabbier. A couple of the scenes put back in add to the film (as in the machinations of the plotting of the senators), but the vast majority of the 17 extra minutes should have stayed on the cutting room floor, because all they do here is just slow it down and make it less effective. Slower. Podgier. Longer. The only good thing about the film is that well, there's more of it.

At least the making of stuff is good. Though thanks to a wierd fuckup with layer changes it starts to repeat itself some 40 minutes into the the 3hour, 20 minute long making of documentary, the other stuff you get is damn good - especially where they tell you just how they got Oliver Reed back from the dead.But you don't half get the impression that they really were making it all up as they went along ; for example, when they started filming, the Djmon Houston character (juba), had 1 line of dialogue and nothing more - in the finished product, he becomes the thematic link of the film, the kick-ass action sidekick/conscience if you like. It seemed like a completely chaotic, haphazard shoot refined together at the end by a good editor and ridley 'meglomaniac genius with cigar' Scott. Characters got resurrected 15 minutes before their scheduled death scenes were supposed to be shot whilst money flew up the wall at an astounding rate. The most amazing thing is that the final product was actually as bloody good as it was, because on basis of this, it could have been a disaster of 'Battlefield Earth'-ian proportions judging by the behind the scenes chaos and flip-flopping going on, if it hadn't been for good luck and Ridley Scott being unaturally gifted.

And if I see another documentary on costume design, I'll happily get on an elephant and hunt down all the designers until they choke on their own needle and thread. I don't bloody care.So you can sow and read a history book? Wow. Looks like I missed my vocation in life, eh?Darn it!

Im a huge fan of Gladiator. Saw it four times at the cinema. Loved it. love it still. but this? I won't be returning to this, except to listen to the commentaries like the massacist I am. I know which version that works, thats infinitely more powerful,and it's the one you already own, not this new one. You really don't need a scene with a scholar who speaks seven languages pissing himself just before he gets his head smashed in, honestly. In this case, less is more, and more is less. And gladiator redux is la lesser, but longer film. there's just more of it, nothing more.

The movie that became a smash.
The smash hit that became one of the best-selling dvd's of all time.
The dvd that turned into yet another double-dipping cash cow*





Perhpas www.dvdtimes.co.uk said it best....

"Allow me a brief interlude of non-professionalism while I go on a rant. People, paying good money for this release, are going to be greeted, every single time they insert the disc, by a loud, annoying and non-skippable advert telling them that piracy is evil. That, to me, is completely ridiculous. I don't need to be told, every single time I want to watch this DVD, that pirating a movie is the same as stealing a car, and other such half-baked nonsense. The irony being, of course, that a pirate copy would probably have had the aforementioned warning removed. This is yet another example of the studios punishing those who have bought legitimate copies instead of going after the real troublemakers."

or, as the simple 4 line review from the same page states, rather more succinctly :-

"1. Dun-dun-da-da - pompous Universal logo.
2. Hey hey hey - you're a potential criminal! Just remember that!
3. Menu. Hit play.
4. "Hi, I'm the director of this film, and I'm going to make it blatantly obvious that what you're about to watch in no way meets my approval. In fact, I'm bored to death just sitting here telling you this."




P.S.By the way folks, the Alien Quadrilogy 9 disc edition (rrp £70) is in tescos for....£22.97. If one were so inclined.

I had a letter from the council this morning. They've commenced abandonment proceedings against me, claiming I don't live in the property.

Yes, i too was amazed. One phone call later it seems to have been sorted out. But the reason for this? Well, it's the council's fault, in its own crazy way. Now, Because I don't live on the ground floor, anyone who wants to visit me has to get to the communal stairwell at the bottom of the building and then get entrance to the building before they can knock my front door. They can't get access to the communal stairwell or enter the building simply because, well, I don;t know people are there. I don;t know people are there because I don't have a doorbell. The repairs service say I need to contact the neighbourhood office, but the neighbourhood office say it was a one off program which has now ended, and is now the responsibility of the repairs office. Either way, I don't have a doorbell for the (shared) building I live in.So, consequently, when people from the council turn up and I don't know they are there, seven days later they automatically begin abandoment proceedings, hence the auto-generated letter. But currently, There's only three ways people get in to visit me:-

i)I meet you somewhere else and then escort you back (not an option for anyone who turns up to say, read the gas meter)

ii)You ring me upon arrival to the property so I know to let you in.However, This does not work if you don't have my phone number, or don't have a mobile phone. Not everyone does, mind you.

iii) I sit in my kitchen looking out of the window for hours at a time, simply just waiting for people turn up at some unspecified time.(Oh, a Morning appointment eh?)

As you can imagine, I am less than pleased at this bureaucratic cock-up, people shifting responsiblity from pillar to post and no one wanting to take responsiblity - and even less people trying to help. However, the crisis appears to be temporarily averted....

Christmas was a quiet day. I got up at three PM, watched a lot of DVDs (Band of Brothers, Flight of the Phoenix, Oceans twelve etc.), learned that the Americans in fact did in fact, win every war ever (see band of Brothers, which aside from being the best thing about WWII I've ever seen, was deeply offesnive in its' portrayal of the English as stuck up toffs who just get nothing done except act as stupid cannon fodder, and the fact that 'why we fight' = because of concentration camps), and ate chicken pizza for Christmas dinner. Well, it was poultry.

What else have I done? Erm...go through paperwork. File cassettes away and do up databases, organise clothes and so forth. All fun and joy. And sleep. Mmmmm. Not much else. Planned doing the rets of the decorating too, and bought some floor tiles. very heavy. Hardly left the house. |Got a Christmas card from the neighbours. Seen the snow, of which there is a brief smattering.

Aside from writing a blog post recently that was just lost because it wouldn't accept the tagging (i tell thee, when you've less than a minute left before a reboot on a library PC, its not exactly easy to start searching for unclosed tags in the time youve got left), and getting annoyed at truly everything.com, I can't say I've been up to mcuh else. mainly because, erm...I haven;t done much else....

The Star Wars marathon may re-commence in the new year. in the meantime, there may be some changes at Maison de Graham.....And I don;t mean the fact that the US government has authorised the invasion of the Hague in a way of immunizing itself from international law. So much for keeping the peace eh?

Dear trulyeverything.com,

when I pay for a service, i expect to be able to use that servide as intended. So when i purchased the use of the internet on boxing day in birmingham to check my email (courtesy of the local libraries being shut), I did not anticipate

i)Being unable to see my baby pictures because the webpage in question was was deemed to be "blocked due to offensive content"

ii)being unable to log into blogger , because I wanted to change the settings on the webpage so i could see the baby pictures. I was unable to log into blogger was the site was deemd to be "pornographic"

iii)To not even be able to read my email because it too was deemed to contain too much offensive language. In fact, the onmly way i was able to do so was to change my mail option to display 10 rather than 200 messages per page, so as to reduce its 'pornographic' content.

iv)As a grown adult, I think you might be aware that baby pictures are not pornogrpahgy. Similarly, as an adult, i know what the f word means, the c word, the mf word, even thew Q word, and a lot of other things too. Don't treat an adult who has purchased your product as a criminal or an infantile buffoon, (see the 'Dont buy pirate DVDs' warning on every DVD i purchase, which is another 46 seconds I'll never get back everytime) because if you do insult your customer (see copy conrol CD's) , they stop paying you for the privilige of being condescended and talked tdwon to.

Dear, trulyeverything,I have made both my first and last purcahse from you.This is where w epart ways, thank god.

Graham x

Did you enjoy the baby pics? i did. So did the beckster, although she has a bit of a cough at the moment, which worries me a bit. But those pics you didn't see were the ones where she was i)crying because she was hungry or ii) just looking sulky (never take photos of babies when changing the nappies,. eh?). Mind you, some said she didn't look like me, but thats because well, all babies look like winston churchcill.

Does Dad know? he asked. Well, yes, dad does know. But the main problem I'm expecting is quite simple. Look at her colour. My daughter isn't white. Oh, the stigma! (of which i feel none, by the way) I must admit, out of all of my friends who are now parents - and its growing as time goes by because more and more of us are breeders, especially given that the average age for a new father in the UK is 32 - that because the mother is of Jamacian descent, my daughter is what you'd describe as bi-racial, if one were so inclined to put people into boxes based on countries of origins and skin colours. Wierdly, no one else I know has a bi-racial child. I'm the only one. though I can see through skin colour, not everyone can.I've had many conversations with my dad where all of a sudden the phrase fucking paki's has turned up, much to my disgust. Last time, I told him off saying, " Dad, that's not the way you brought me up" .

It seems to be only the paki's, as he calls them, that he has trouble with, based on an experience with a gang of asian youths who took it into their heads to declare part of Bolton as a 'no-whites zone' when he was supposed to be delivering something there, and then they unleashed a torrent of threatening abuse at him for daring enter a self-proclaimed area of segregation. It makes me wonder why exactly, they voluntarily declare it as such - would they prefer to have their own seperate area's of public transport, and not being allowed to share the same sanitary facilites eh? People like Martin Luther King were killed for protesting against such things, so quite why anyone would voluntarily re-segregate themselves away after years of struggle for equality I don't understand. Mind you, its worth bearing in mind, it's not these youths who had to struggle for equality - it was their fathers, and their forefathers, and they never had anything as glamourous as fifty cent, an uzi and a pocket full of bling and a penchant for hanging with their homies to do. Now black culture seems to me, to be celebrating the same old amos n' andy stereotypes of the 30's as uncultured thugs who deal drugs, propel themselves forward in violence, and never pay the price. After all, when 50 cent dies in his hilariously monikered game 'bulletproof' (Cautions contains frequent strong bloody violence) you can always press restart. Sadly, there's no such ability to respawn in real life, and once you meet a real uzi, it's game over. Video game violence just isn't the same. Sure, you can claim there's a little difference between say, the power fantasy and gun fetishisation of Rmabo and Lethal Weapon compared to 50 Cent, but the subtext is incredibly incredibly different.

Rambo was a fictional power fantasy written by american who wanted to win on the cinema screen a war they lost in real life, slaying celluloid russians played by impeccable british characters actors. 50 cent, on the other hand, is a real person.The character you play in the game is Real - a real person, still living and breathing. his own past in dealing and petty crime is undisputed. And now he is worth millions, selling by the truckload, and minting it in. He's got the money, the power, the prestige and the pussy, and what image does he present to his audience? Deal drugs, kill people, perform crime, and all this can be yours.Crimw pYA. Like the spinning globe in Tony Montana's mansion - THE WORLD IS YOURS. And this is what worries me. Sure, he might be reflecting the world of the 'hood', but these negative stereotypes enforce every white power supremacists fear of the black man as nothing more than a thug, an uneducated crook, a sexual predator with a FUBU jacket; (lets face it, there are people out there who make porn videos entitled 'big black monster dicks and tiny white chicks', shockingly enough, the artwork of which plays up to every racist stereotype known to man). Look at the recent game starring D12; festooned on the front, is the image of them armed with guns and baseball bats, and your task is to rule the streets by violence and crime and killing,. These people are successful, millionaries, and the message they say to the world is - lie, steal, sell drugs, kill people, and you too can be successful.You too can be a player. And you too can be a winner. Look where it got me.

I wonderhow exactly that is empowerment, how that exactly is progress ? Enforcing and playing up to every single stereotype the white man has of the uneducated, unintellignet, violent, criminal black man- feeding every single redneck prejudice in the cold empty hearts of the KKK? What you have here is a generation of entertainers no different tO Amos and Andy and the black and white minstrels, rushing willingly into the neat little box the white man had put them in and gratefully accepting their 30 pieces of silver for selling out their own skin for a flash car and a video game license. whose only allegiance of colour isnt black or white but green - the colour of money.And in the meantime, Little England and Daily mail readers abound in fear of a dark face, because of all these images of the aggressive black people they are having constantly imprinted in their brains. And is it any wonder I worry that when becca grows up, people won't see her, they'll see her colour, see her skin, and cross to the other side of the road in fear? And the very thought of that disgusts me and infuriates me.

You are not your skin colour. Sure its part of what you ARE, buts its not all you are, no more than every gay bloke I now ends every sentence with 'dahling', dresses in drag on a saturday night, and loves celine dion records. No matter anything else, no one is a stereotype, no one is a cliche, unless they actively choose to reinforce that stereotype and reinforce other peoples negative images of them, and willingly embrace them. Hell, people like 50 cent I have NO respect for, and do you know why? All that money, and its made on the backs of reinforcing years of oppression by choosing an image that is negative and racist. Selling short his own skin colour for the glories of making white men rich. Famous and Dandy, just like Amos and Andy. Hell, the only rappers I respect are ones with gold brains, not gold chains - and thats people like Chuck D and Michael Franti. (Every home should have the Hiphoprisy album -FACT). And why? because they use their platform to the public not for personal aggrandisement and infantile petty turf wars, but to try and break this cycle of racist stereotypes and make people do what MLK and Mandela did - make a better world where colour isn't the most important thing about a person - but where the person matters. And until we break that cycle, I worry about her, and the world she'll grow up in, and I wonder if people will see her and feel fear at a dark face, like all those other dark faces posing behgind guns and baseball caps and FUBU jackets telling the world they're millionaries becaus eof their crime empires. yes, 50cent, Im talking to you you sell out minstrel.

I don't see the colour of peoples skin. I see A person. I don't see what race they are., because they're only one race that matters - the human race. White, black, purple, whatever, it doesn't matter. We're the same, and I hate the fact she's going to grow up in a world where she'll be called 'nigger' by people the same colour as her dad.

I worry for her, I really do. Every minute of every day. I hope she has a great Christmas.

And I hope you do too. It might say, bah Humbug at the top, but I dont hate christmas really - just a;l the trapping that go on around it, from the endless loop of wham and the pogues to the red hats and all thaty bullshit. it's about celebrating the birth of christ, not the birth of credit card debt and can anyone tell me why, if santa lives at the north pole, then why do most presents say 'made in china on the back? just a thought, though.

Anyway, merry christmas you lot. take care, and see you on the other side x

Merry Christmas.

And here, as my Christmas Present to you, are the baby pictures.I'm so proud of her, I just feel like the other night feeding her and putting her to bed was the msot special thing I've ever done.And I've never put pictures of her up before, but it's Christmas, so here they are.


01."hello Dad!"


02."Mmmm, are you bringing me food?Oh yes you are...."


03.Daddy and Becca at feeding time.

I've lots going on in My brain. Sadly, most of it is the usual, irrelevant bollocks.

So, what have I done?

Watched

i)'Stealth' which is macho gung-ho dreck eye-candy of the most avionic, pyrotechnic and oddly cloying kind imagineable, complete with facistic macho power fantasies - its Firefox for the Ninetendo generation minus the talent. I can imagine George Bush watching it and thinking 'Why has no one told me about this super-invincible Mach 5 fighter jet then, and who can I bomb with it'?, only no one has the heart to tell him it's NOT REAL. It Makes Top Gun look like Saving Private Ryan.

ii)'Flightplan'. yet another in the Jodie-Foster-Plays-Sterotypical-Single-Middleaged-Woman-looking-after-her-daughter-thriller genre.Which was surprisingly good, with a twist I didn't see coming at all, with signposting ahoy, distraction and A slight dig on i)Americna foreign policy and ii)European Airport Security. However, once the twist is revealed, and the truth comes out, its all smoke and mirrors, thats the only thing I'm saying. Things are NOT what they appear. The ending was naff as hell though, But I can't think of a better ending myself.

I can just imagine the story pitch..."Its PANIC ROOM ....On a 747!". genius, whats next? Snakes On a muthafuggin Plane?

Looks like I spoke too soon.

In other news, I went to Sutton, Saw Chris, gave him a christmas card, swapped baby pix (Talking of which, do you want to see some Baby pix? Ok then, give me a minute), rushed around town, got accused of 'disrepecting' someone because I was in a hurry to get a train and nudged past them, even though i said sorry (Far more dramatic than it actually is) and, at 3.30AM, I was playign AC/DC and Arcade Fire at maximum volume down the phone to someone. They could hear my dreadful singing, but they assured me their singing was far far worse. And just the sheer ability to sing along to a song down the phone to someone in a seperate country, well, it's a small joy that made me beam from ear to ear, if only because of the sheer what-the-hell of it all....' now that I’m older, my heart’s colder; If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up'....

Mr. garrison Says "You Go To Hell! You Go To Hell and YOU DIE!!!!!"


Sorry, Mr. Garrison.

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	High
Sloth:	High
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Very High
Pride:	Low

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

In other news, We now have 24 hour drinking and gay marriage. Society hasn't collapsed. The only thing that remains is this... Who's going to tell the Christians?

They might be disappointed to discover they were wrong after all, that's all.

Oh, and because Stef and Darth Phil (sorry about the lack of hyperlinks), were discussing it in the comments box, here's my review of the Rush R30 live DVD.

*plays air drums to YYZ*

ding da ding ding ding da ding ding ding da ding....

Gwen Stefani is Pregnant. I just wish to assure you that I am NOT responsible, and it's not my fault.

Honest.

I couldnt sleep on sunday night/ Monday mornign because I was upset. So I didn't. The Sofa still smells, but fabreze is the way forward. (If I carry on writing cryptically like that, I'll end up sounding like I'm hawking 50FT C1AL15 TAB5, though.)

Tuesday was spent asleep. I slept from 10pm on Monday to 4pm Tuesday. needed it. Was kind of drained. Drained like I wouldn't believe. Got up, and went to see Becca. God, she is beautiful. Small, cute, and she even opened her eyes before going back to sleep again because I kept storking her hand and waking her up (Sorry, Becca). I just can't believe how much I feel for her sometimes. And I never ever seem to get photo's of her smiling. I fed her again last night, and when I pull the bottle of milk away to let it get some air in, her little hands reach out at the magical potion of white liquid, and I, the terrible milk thief, just have to put it back in her mouth. And then She laughed. Well, giggled a little baby giggle, thats so cute it's untrue. Then I put her to bed. It's wierd, because I've never written a christmas card and signed it 'Dad' before. But I wouldn;t have it any other way now. I love Becca so much, I can't possibly explain it to anyone who isn;t a parent. Thats not supposed ot sound smug, but it's something so far beyond my realm of experience I can't compare it to anything at all.

Went to see my mate Nic, who sent me a text message earlier in the day. She wantyed a chat. Thought something was up, which it wasn't, but I would have known it wasn;t serious if it had been a "Bored wanna chat?" text rather than "Want to talk, can I ring?" sort of text. And I filled up the freezer too, very important. It's got a lot of chicken in it.Spoke to Giles.

And i've been doing a lot of thinking. I know, i think too much, but still, thats not the point. The point is, I'm reading a book, and I think if you've any interest in politics, you should read it. It's called Web of Deceit:Britains Real Role In the World by mark Curtis, and if you've any illusion about the reality gap between what our government says its going to do and then what it actually does, you SHOULD read this. Revelatory , and shocking,. And Brilliant.



here's a random thought for the day - I know we've got a British War Museum...but whats wrong with a Peace Museum? Well, for a start, it would be very small> Read the above book, and you might discover just how committed to peace British Foreign policy is.

And the truth is, shockingly, not at all.

EDIT:As requested by stef
clicky here

I've just had a realisation. Since 2pm on friday, i've only slept 14 hours. So thats 14 hours sleep in 72 hours....

and I wonder why I have a headache. Really. Couldnt sleep last night. just couldn't.

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE*
1. DJ * (worst paying job I ever had, but I did get paid for it, and had a good time too)
2. Musician (I got £2 for a 35 minute gig = below minimum wage! yay)
3. Record Shop manager (aha, still rubbish pay)
4. Journalist

*I'm only listing the cool ones here. 'Telemarketing Phone Monkey', 'Admin Assistant' and 'Office Administrator' are not cool.

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER
1. Solaris
2. Fight Club
3. Koyaanisqatsi
4. Titanic

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN
1. Birmingham
2.Middlesbrough
3. Nuneaton
4. Walsall

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH
1. Spaced
2. Adam And Joe (back when it was one)
3. Star Trek
4. Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION
1. Barcelona
2. Paris
3. Teignmouth
4. London

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. Blogger
2. yahoo
3. thefinalword.co.uk
4. www.dvdcompare.net

FOUR OF YOUR FAVOURITE SONGS: (right now)
1. Arcade fire - Wake Up
2. At The Drive In - Invalid letter Dept.
3. Coldplay - Fix You
4. Pet Shop boys - Home & Dry

FOUR OF YOUR ALL-TIME FAVOURITE RESTAURANTS:
1. Big Johns
2. The local chinese
3. Wetherspoons
4. Grahams Kitchen

FOUR OF YOUR FAVOURITE FOODS:
1. Chicken
2. Chicken
3. Chicken
4. Chicken

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
1. Home
2. In bed
3. Where it's warm
4. *zzzz*

Sometimes you think you've got forever, and then all you've got is memories, and regret. Regret you didn't stay in touch. it's easy to put things off, because there's always tomorrow. After all, you know it's gonna happen someday, but It's not going to be today. is it? of course not.There's always tomorrow.

And then there are no more tomorrows.

When the phone rang, I just knew it was my dad on the phone. something in the back of my mind knew it was about that time of year for the Christmas phonecall. I was half-right. It was my dad. But for the wrong reasons.

I can't remember the last time I met my grandmother very well. It wasn't recently. I put it off too much.I neglected seeing her, even though I was the closest of her children/grandchildren, because I was the only one still in Birmingham.I had a simple though vain, reason. I wanted her to be proud of me, and not to disappoint her. But I had nothing of which She could be proud of.

The last memory I have of her is a second hand memory - when my brother visited her, she said about me; 'Graham hasn;t done very much with himself, has he?'. At the time, I was infuriated by this, for two reaons - firstly, I was trying to claw my way out of the bad way I was in (failed marriage, unemployed, technically homeless), and in that situation i didn't need anyone casting me down, what I needed was to get out of that situation (which I have partially ) ; and secondly - she was right. But even if she was right, it didn't mean telling me the bloody obvious which I already knew was going to help the situation in any way, but just humiliate me even further.

Such things don't matter now. Not at all.

My biggest regret is she never got to meet her great-grand daughter Rebecca. I do remember speaking to her last christmas on the phone, but I didn't know then it would be the last time we ever spoke.

You never do.

I'll miss her. And all the chances I never took to get to know her better. And those chances I'll never have again.Sometimes you think you'll have forever, but then, you've no more time. no more time at all.

Well, from the archives.... this is a blast from the past, my alleged internet claim to fame !Thought I best dig it out.And I'm still wondering why not a single person has mentioned the name change of the blog...! Have none of you noticed, really?

And without becoming a baby bore, its little things like text messages that makes me smile.This one always done.

"It's so wierd she wasnt here this time last year and now she has come along and taken over i can't imagine her not being here, she looks at me as if she has always known me, sleeps in my bed as if she always had - gosh i didn't think i could love anyone as much as i love her"

Well, i didn't get up this morning because I didn;t go to bed...I was pottering around and re-arranging furniture., This was because

i)the free sofa liberated from the house clearance came from a smokers house. And it smelt. it smelt like an ashtray of death. the Very smell I hate. And I don;t want to have that smell everytime I breathe. So I decided on a different chair instead. Which will be better. (I didn't chuck the sofa, I just decided not to use it as a primary sofa, ie the one next to the PC desk and the one i would normally sit on)

ii)Tried to work out alternative furniture plans. None of them worked out.

ii)Had a bloody miserable time. And this is quite simply not due to housing, but other issues. For a long time, and especially recently, I've come to realise that like everyone, I have my own little psychoses. Prone to depression, sometimes despairingly so, self-doubt, and bleak moods that nothing seems ot lift me from. I just want to cry for hours sometimes. Other times I feel paralysed and unable to function - my brian literally cannot make decisions and freezes up. So it seems. Couple this with a general lack of socialbility - I joke about not liking people, but the truth is, I genuinely feel ill at ease confronted with large groups of people and am always very nervous around people I don;t know, maybe even to the point of actively not seeking out social contact, or not even going out. It was these things that, whilst I can function pretty well on a day to day level, mean I am often hermetic, to the point of costing me relationships and doing so on a quite serious level. So all in all, I am just retreating into myself a lot I think.

I know it doesn;t have to be this way. But it is. I don;t really know how to get out of it. I hope I do.It was the onset of a particualrly bad phase of this that made me think i had what was, to all intents and purposes, a breakdown earlier in the year. My apparently 'paranoid' behaviour around my ex and a general level of complete unsettled ness didn't help at all.

All in all, though, i see myself as slowly getting back into things. one step at a time. I see the years 2000-2005 as basically, my 'wilderness' years:- where i just wandered around aimlessly bereft of purpose and direction, lost and as my life fell apart. From this day , I feel like I'm more grounded, and slowly putting things back into shape.

With that in mind, 2006 should be a little better.

Oh, and by the way, I am currently SINGLE and open to reasonable offers. You Must be i)female and ii) a millionaire. there is slight room for negotiation on the latter point though. Of course, with my selling points as above I expect to be snapped up almost instanteously - which in geological terms means anytime in the next 300 years. Enquiries to the usual address c/o 'I, bah Humbug', please.

*ahem*

Time for the 2005 round up. Early in the year I set myself some goals, lets see how I did, shall i?


"01.Finish the bloody book I've had living in my head for the past few years. Hopefully it might be good enough to show people and not be a bottom drawer book."

Nope, still not completed. Started it as part of Nanowrimo, wrote 24,000 words in 7 days, but at that point I moved house. And I've still not unpacked fully. So I think thtas a pretty good reason for not completing it. It will be finished in 2006. However, that outspurge of 25,00 words did teach me the following;i) I could do it if I put my mind to it, ii)secondly, I could do it quite well and iii) I surprised myself by doing things I had never done before, makign mental connections and linking and cross-refering themes, phrases, and imagery with each other thousandsof words apart ina way i never thought i could do...


"02. Try my hand as a stand up comic"
ha Ha ha.And in the style of marking only seen in Eurovision Song contests....Null points!

"03. Not hopelessly fail as a stand up comic"
Norway...Null points!

"04. Get my own place"
Yes, thank god. Got that done. I'm in so much better a headspace because of it too.

"05. Get a job, a good one, (not working at Thomas Tudbury's job place though)."
Sorry, no movement there. I resolve 2006 will be better!

"06. Find someone I can be truly happy with"
I thought for a few weeks, I had. Then, I had a mental breakdown and well, that put paid to that. Time will tell, really, whether things pick up in that way.

"07. See the Finalword actually get somewhere"
No, stalled on that also.But I've been writing a bit more for it recently.

"And most importantly - because there's been 27years of dreams riding on this one -
08. Find Revenge of the Sith to redeem the trrilogy and not be a complete and utter bag of spanners." Yes, that did turn out as hoped. However, it had nothing to do with me, and thus I cannot take any credit. Except that I realise that all I franchises I follow ar enow, pretty much, irrevocably, dead. Star Wars, Lord Of the Rings, Matrix, Trek, Riddick, all gone to hell. Only bond remains, and I don't hold any hope.

Well, 2006? lets set some targets

01.Finish that bottom drawer novel.
02.Get a Decent job. Or failing that , a job.
03.Get my home sorted and organized.
04.Most importantly, Be the best dad I can be.

Cheerio.

Well, I've done the mouldy freezer. It was horrible. i can still taste the green particles of mould in the back of my throat, though the cough has been ongoing for about a month now. Pretty much since i moved into the new place, come to think of it.

Again, i'm still stuck on that impasse. At the moment I just stick DVD commentaries on, and then potter around unpacking boxes as much as I can. the problem is its difficult and awkward with a hundred differently shaped and sized boxes, so instead im sticking them all together into larger , uniformly sized boxes. this isnt rearranging deckchairs on the titanic, but simply it is organising what remains to be done. the problem is simply space - I dont have much of it when I need to clear a room to wallpaper it and then carpet it. And I'm seriously thinking about carpeting the ohallway, bathroom and kitchen too. Seriously.

How our lives change eh?

The other night I was going through some a diary from ten years ago. It made me not so much sad, but realise just how much my life has changed since then. So much. 8 houses, 7 jobs, 7 girlfriends, 10 years, 1 child, and god knows how many prescription drugs. Either way, It was like reading the ramblings of someone else. A little more naive, a lot less grown up. Tales of petty squabbles and rows in nightclubs with people I can;t even ever having met, but it all seemed so important at the time. I've changed so much since then. And now I look back at the people I know who are roughly now the same age as I was then - and there's a few of them - and see in them the same way I was then; physically grown up, but with a lot of growing up to do, a lot of experience to come that will make up be more settled, more grounded in a way - the realisation of letting that which does not matter truly slide.((c) Tyler Durden)

Talking to a friend the other night, who just bought a house, turned 30 AND got engaged in the same fortnight, They mentioned that The Wonder Stuff (i use the space because it is no longer The Wonderstuff, but simply a similarly named group with some identical personnel, and therefore is different and no longer the group it was), are touring.I wasn't bothered. A band who used to mean so much, who at their last gig in 1994 I cried many a tear (during Can't Shape Up, at least) , and now I can;t be bothered by a new album, a new single, a new tour. I said I wasn't interested. my friend was. Why? Becuase I realised - we used to go to see the band. now we don't. Now we go to see the people, the friends from around the country, that we know will go to see the band. The people we met at the gigs back so many years ago.

'I smile and think how much i've changed ; All the money in the world, couldn't buy back those days...'

I wouldn't want those days back.

As Lifted from PostSecret


p.s.I will be offline from the 24th to the 29th.the Libraries, goddamit, are shut, and I have no internet at home. Probably a good thing though; it means I can regulate my useage to say, less than every waking hour of the day....

If you were coming along to the housewarming,you shoudl have an email in your inbox right now with the new details. if not, just mail me. in the meantime, DOOM gets reviewed

I've not seen a PC since Saturday afternoon. I

In fact, i've hardly left the house since saturday evening. So I was feeling a little hermetic, a little stubbly, and very overwhelmed. Not to mention driven to be unpacking boxes, so i started to do that.Sadly, with so many boxes, its usually half an hour of moving stuff around before i can get anywhere close to them it's that cramped, so its taken longer than anticipated.

Then I realised that maybe, just maybe, the week before christmas wasn;t a good time to have a housewarming party, but mainly because it's turned out that the drop out rate is huge,precisely because of family obligated christmas events and the ilk. (Two examples being -i)my brother and his family couldnt come ii)neither could someone else due to a friend returning for christmas before going to Kenya and.... iii)A bunch of friends havign a pre-arranged christmas do in the pub on the same day). So, i've rescehduled. It can;t be the week after - its christmas. or the week after that - it's new year. Or the week after that - I've a friend coming down. So, the first weekend possible is the second weekend in January, ie about Saturday January 14th. is that any good ? let me know. Usual address. Spell this backwards!
moc.oohay@ku_deerbmaharg . (it's so written so phishers and spammers don;t continue to make silly offers about 'have you ever wanted to play billiards with your penis' and the such like.)




And, thanks to the guardian, behold! the glory of freecycle !

Merry Christmas. No, seriously.

Actually, I bloody hate Christmas. My memories of christmas are always ones of my mother deeply unhappy, miserable and in tears, working her arse off so everyone else has a good time, long long after I realised Santa Claus wasn't real. Thats why I hate christmas - a overcommercialised bastardisation of a festival designed to increase end of year profits. And Santa Claus, as we know him, was invented by Coca-Cola, so screw him and the reindeer he rode in on.

Someone the other day saw the look of disdain I gave them when seeing them walk around in a red bobbly hat like santa, and then shouted up "its christmas!" at me as they walked off. Maybe if they had 20 minutes and didn't mind a bit of pricking their brain with intellectual debate, I would have so kindly shattered their 40 something delusion.No, Santa isn't real ; and how is your level of credit card debt by the way?

Anyway, this christmas, I'm going to have a day off work, and I'm staying in with a bottle of vodka, a lot of chocolate, snugging up under a big blanket and watching the entire of the two holy trilogies (Star Wars) in one sitting for the first time.

merry fucking christmas indeed, you jedi poodoo.

Went to see DOOM. Great, but totally brain dead, fun; and sadly, if you never played the game for hours and hours when younger, much of its guilty, lock n load, frag em bag em and tag em pleasure with be lost. It was a blast, literally.

Nopt much else to report. Still chuntering along day by day. The Becca is still great, and cute, and i even put her to bed the other night. Awwwwww.

Shit, is that the time?

Well, I've discovered the reason why its going so slow in the unpacking and organising. I've reached an impasse. As much as I can unpack, I have. Which means, until the bedroom is decorated, there's no point putting anything in there, because it will all have to come out anyway when putting the carpet down and sticking the wallpaper up because, well, you cant do that in a room full of stuff. So, I've got to take everythign out and stick it in the living room...oh, the joys, the joys of moving.

Giles should be popping over tomorrow and then working out a battle plan and helping me with it. No wonder I felt like I wasn;t getting anywhere, now I've realised why.....

I've been quiet. And busy. incredibly busy. Watched the new Rush DVD, saw the ex, saw Becca, and then moved the rest of the stuff out of the storage unit. Which took ages, because of typical administrative bureaucracy.

Howvere, because these pc's in the library are unbelievably slow , Im logging off. Busy as hell, Im afriad.