Meg inadvertently posts a link to a site about the XB-70. I’ve been fascinated by this aircraft for years (reaches for anorak) - designed at the height of the Cold War, it flew at supersonic speeds by riding on top of its own shockwave (the wingtips fold down to ride on the cushion of the shockwave), the intention being that it could “deliver” a nuclear bomb to Moscow from very high altitude, and yet be halfway back to West Germany before it hit the ground. Awesome. But what is most fascinating is that there was a passenger version planned, which would have been around three times faster than Concorde (if my memory serves me well, around 2000mph!) and quite a lot bigger.
Of course it was scrapped, for three reasons - the tragic accident that is documented at the site, the fact it was costing billions of dollars (probably enough to feed the entire third world for a year) and also the advances in missile technology which allowed a small, disposable “vehicle” to do the same job at a fraction of the cost.
The remaining aircraft is in a museum in Dayton, Ohio, and apparently is still capable of flight - now that would be something to have a go at!

Stephen’s posts from the last couple of days have elevated him to “preferred blog” status at this site. Welcome to the permanent link list, mate.

NASA scales down plans. Which is rather sad - just when it looked like we were getting into the most exciting phase of space exploration in years.

Joseph Cyril Bamford dies. Wouldn’t it be great if, in fifty years time, something was known to all and sundry as a GHS? That would be quite cool.

I’ve updated the “about” page so that it now matches the main page and archive in style. Will do the same for the “CV” page and also “meetlinks” in the next few days. Incidentally, if anyone has any new meetlinks links to add, let me know.

it’s not just me then. big hugs to Marcia.

Us? Suckers for a meme? Never!
We’re a little tired, stressed, depressed and edgy this morning, so this sort of thing is just the ticket to cheer us up and set us thinking about things which are even less important.

People who have been reading Grayblog for a long time may recall that we used to feature links to news stories from Romania on a regular basis, especially those of an amusing nature. We’ve been considering choosing a new nation for inclusion in the all-new Grayblog that you are now looking at, but can’t decide on a suitable candidate. We’ve considered China, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and even Lebanon. But none of them seems to come up to the mark. So, which country would you like to see featured?

Well, the inevitable debate has begun - is International First Person Plural Awareness Day a good laugh or sheer stupidity and wank? We think it is probably the latter, but we’re in the mood for the former, so don’t care. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow (thank god).

what do you get when you mix Meg’s head with vodkajelly and testtubes of evilness. We think that we all know now. At least it explains everything.

today is my very very very good friend Sarah’s 30th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! warm hugs and much much love to you.

new word for today: ignboring - the act of ignoring someone to such a huge extent that they get bored and piss off. I’m an expert.

you know you’re getting old when you buy jazz compilation CDs. next thing, I’ll be listening to Radio 2.

today I seem to be plumbing new depths of despair. Wonder if I will *ever* get over all this. guh.

Robyn is great and is cheering me up hugely with an IM discussion about pretending to be a tiger, instant coffee, Japanese girls, music teachers, singing sea shanties in the round, and other picture postcards.

For a big, 6ft1in, grown man who is only a few weeks away from his 30th birthday, I spend far too much time crying.

Respect is due to my friends for not throwing up their hands, rolling their eyes and walking away. You guys put up with so much, yet you’re always around, making sure I’m ok. Am I worth it? Probably not, but I try.

yesterday was a bad bad day. Today on the other hand is a good one. I’m in a positive frame of mind, forward looking and (moderately) cheerful. Probably to do with the fact that I don’t have a hangover, the sun is shining and I got a nice chirpy e-mail this morning.

another cheery thing was that last night I went to see Paul F and Could Be Good play the newly refurbished and reopened Nags Head. The band were good, the beer was good and the pub looks good - so why were so few people there?

In common with several other UKbloggers, I’ve been getting increasingly bored with Ananova’s sensationalist tabloid style of reporting. The BBC Online news service is certainly superior, but I also rate the Telegraph’s offering, even if you sometimes have to grit your teeth at the horrendous anti-European political bias. It does have the advantage of showing the work of Britain’s best newspaper cartoonist.

Meg gets a pressie after praising e-street.com - given my previous post, I’m now waiting for nice things from BBC News Online. And, should they need help with suitable present ideas, they should look here or maybe even here.

I’ve just eaten a plateful of pork spare ribs in fivespice sauce. Tasty.
But I’ve also just had one of those life-enhancing moments when a great truth has been revealed to me…..namely, spare ribs are the most pointless food ever. Any food that is around 75% bone has to be of questionable value. It certainly is a pain to eat the damn things, especially if you plan to eat them without covering yourself and every nearby horizontal and vertical surface with whatever sauce they are covered in.
So, I have decided. I intend never to eat spare ribs again.
Don’t get me wrong - kudos to Waitrose for selling very good, tasty spare ribs. But in future, I want my meat in convenient slabs, thank you.

apologies to the person I so expertly ignbored in the red Peugeot 205 who hooted her horn and waved vigorously at me this morning as I walked past the Job Centre on my way to the station. Sorry, I was in a foul mood. Besides, I couldn’t see who you were for the sun. Although you did seem to be female and possibly blonde, so do get in contact!

my stomach is convinced it is lunch time, even though that is not for another hour and a half.

this is proving to be a long day.

I’ve read this site once or twice in the past, and stumbled upon it again today (it’s almost too embarrassing to say how, but I’ll tell you anyway - it was via this site). I read this post, and I have to say that any prospective partner who reads the whole site is likely to be absolutely terrified! I know I would be. Anyone like Lyssa would scare the pants off me, but then I’m a timid country fella, even if I do wear a lot of black clothing.

nice site. I like these people. or their products at least.

both the “about Graybo” and “gissa job” pages have been updated today. please contain your excitement.

I don’t mean to start a rush or anything, but I was in Waitrose here in Chichester earlier - and they have had a delivery of (whisper it) meat. So now have stocks in the fridge of beef and gammon. Nice. I’ve also picked up a great recipe card from Waitrose for chicken in wild mushroom and champagne - sounds delicious and very healthy apparently. Just need someone to cook it for (serves two!) - any volunteers? You will, of course, have to fulfil the usual criteria.

wish list for today’s budget:
- dramatic cut in income tax, say by 10%
- make CDs zero-rated for VAT
- cut tax on beer and wine by 50%
- extend tax rebates to all single people, especially those who live in one bed flats
Of course I believe in prudence, so I’d pay for all this by cutting all expenditure on ministerial salaries. I’m sure that with a manifesto like this, I’ll be swept to power in a landslide!

TPL update: a mediocre 25 points taking me to 733 in total.

not had much to say today, but one thing I wanted to record yesterday (but didn’t) was this:
announcement heard on train on way to work:

Littlehampton - a place for which there is no suitable adjective. Unless you can come up with one.

Time for a disclaimer methinks:
contrary to any rumours that may or may not be circulating, Robyn and I are not an item. Never have been, are not, will never be. Very good digital friends, yes. Item, no.
And incidentally James, don’t you think that “you could do worse” is a bit of a lame compliment to Robyn?
As an aside to that, all single girls reading this should note that, unlike the aforementioned orbynmeister, I *am* single *and* looking. apply here.

I’m actually in a brimmingly good mood this morning, in spite of the fact that it is grey and miserable outside, and that I know I’ll have to work through until around 9 or 10pm today. Fingers crossed that this continues.

What is it that sometimes provokes us to remember things from yesteryear? I remembered an incident the other day which occured when I was around six or seven. I was on holiday with my family in Norfolk. We were staying at a cottage that belonged to a neighbour in Swaffham. On this particular day, we had gone to the market in the town (we led adventurous lives) and I was fascinated by the huge array of wares on display. I’m still fascinated by markets now, and could quite happily spend hours wandering around somewhere like La Boqueria (and have done so).
I stood before a particularly large stall which was weighed down with every variety of nut, bolt, screw, nail and other fixing you could imagine (where are stalls like that now? all you get these days is old tat). I was utterly transfixed by this. As I stood there, I reached out and took my father’s hand, and stared at all the boxes of steel, iron and brass.
I must have been like this, mesmerized, for three or four minutes, not letting go of Dad’s hand. I noticed someone close by was laughing, and turned to see that the hand I was holding wasn’t Dad’s, but was that of a older man, a total stranger, who was smiling at me. His wife was standing next to him saying something along the lines of “How sweet!”.
Panic. I looked round and couldn’t see my family, so started running in the general direction of the cottage where we were staying. And then I heard my Mother’s voice calling my name and ran towards them. I was in tears by this point and blathered some gibberish about “you weren’t there, and there was this man, and .. and..”
Mum produced a nectarine from a bag (I’ve always loved stonefruit) and I was soon appeased. I was angry they had walked off without me (they insisted they had called after me).
Looking back on it, wasn’t it good that you could let a child out of your site in a crowded place, and be pretty sure that no harm would come to him/her. Of course, plenty of children did have a terrible fate befall them in that sort of circumstance, but it probably didn’t cross my parents’ minds that such a thing could happen to me. Today, most people I know who are parents would be terrified to think that their child was somewhere like that and alone. That’s a sad reflection on life today - not so much that these horrible things happen (I’m sure they are not a new thing, merely better reported), but that we fear them so much.

Barnham now has a speed camera - the most exciting development in the village since the arrival of the cash machine at the NatWest. Be still, my beating heart.

Bad day: yesterday my brother dropped something onto a can of luminous yellow spray paint that was in his car. The can ruptured. The inside of his car and everything in it is now covered in yellow paint.
Moral of the story: do not carry cans of yellow spray paint in your car without making sure they can not be damaged.

If things go as well as I hope they might, then I may just get to be in an even better mood than I already am at the moment. I’m not prepared to say any more than that at the moment, because I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, but things are, as they say, looking up.

highlight of the day so far in a work sense - the man from the Ministry dropping by to check us out for noxious pests. Looks ok, so that’s good.
Today is one of those busy days in which not a great deal is actually achieved - I need better time management. Or a holiday. Not sure which.

I love piccalilli

last night: drinks with DA, Kearn, Paul F, Paul C and a couple of their mates. nice, to use a well-worn word.

today I went to St Albans to give a lecture. quite good, although I’ve got a feeling I may have got myself a speeding ticket as I rushed up the A3 - bummer. at least there was a guy with a speed camera, and I was doing 85. not good.
St Albans is an interesting looking place - it was Sarah’s home town when she was small. Roman ruins, a cathedral, a bustling market, and a distinctly unchanged-for-years feel to the city centre - the branch of Marks and Spencer has very old-fashioned neon sign, the sort that the branch here dispensed with years ago.

oh, and for those who are wondering, I’m trying to be a cool cucumber at the moment.

A grey and not particularly cheerful day outside, but inside, the good mood marches on.
Last night I went for beer with Fi, Alison and Sarah, as well as a few of their mates, and also bumped into Arron and GSWUTWBTB in W2. The triumvirate returned here for coffee post-pub and we discussed rye biscuits - it was one of those nights. Today we’re meeting up for lunch.

Yesterday, I finished reading A Sweetheart Deal and cried for most of the last two chapters. It’s a brilliant book, certainly Ben Richards’ best so far. If you haven’t bought it and read it yet, go and get it now. Sorry - you can’t borrow my copy as I’ve loaned it to Fi.
Inevitably, as soon as I’d finished it and got through an entire pack of Kleenex (I’m *such* a softy), I zipped down to Waterstones in search of new entertainment, and emerged with Atomised by Michel Houellebecq. Any book which has a picture of a near-naked woman on the cover and is described by the Independent as “gloriously, extravagantly filthy” has to be worth a look. Seriously though, I read his previous novel (Whatever) and enjoyed that, and this book focuses on relationships and interaction with the world - which if you have looked at the novels I’ve been reading in the last few months, you’ll know is a theme I’m always returning to. Will report back as I progress through the pages.
But do go and buy that Ben Richards book … no, now! go on…! go!

very very big grin.

just been for lunch with Sarah in the Nags, which was excellent, and bumped into Paul F whilst there. Also bumped into Tim. So many friends, life is damned good.
(incidentally, this post is in no way related to the one below)

just updated my Amazon wishlist. Go spend money.

happy birthday Meg (deliberate link to Meg’s homepage to encourage you to read stuff other than her blog!)

last night, went for beer in W2 with Paul F and Aris, then Paul and I wandered down to the Nags to have beer with Kristian, Leah and also Bora.
must say that the new barmaid in the Nags is *most* decorative.

today is one of those very long and particularly unexciting days. and it’s raining.

in order to defeat the dullness of the day, I’ve just been and thrashed some cash at lush.co.uk - which has to be recommended.

can’t decide if I think Atomised is a good book or merely self -indulgence on the part of the author. Guess I’ll have to read it through to the end to find out.

this evening looks like it is going to be long one. Maybe I’ll just go to bed early, I am pretty tired.

having just re-read yesterday’s entries, and decided that they were the epitome of boring, I’ll try and give you stuff today that is more worthy of the term “content” without the adjective “crap”.

MEME ALERT!!
I tell you, by the end of the day, EVERYONE will have one of these!

contrary to my earlier post, it is approaching the end of the (working) day and nobody seems to have one of the below-mentioned doohickeys.
which merely goes to prove that nobody reads my blog.
why do I bother?
encouragement welcome

I take it all back

a few people have commented (thanks Luan) that I don’t write so much about me here anymore. Well, it’s true, and there are several reasons for it:
- I’ve not had too much to say
- I figured people might be getting bored of reading about me all the time
- sometimes it is best to keep quiet.
But, just to appease those people, here is a snapshot of my state of mind:
- yes, I’m still furious at what happened. It hurt. Bad. But I’m content to ignore and avoid the people involved and let them get on with it. I’ve got my own life to lead, and I’ve spent too long in the past chewing over “stuff” when things have gone wrong. I’m trying to move on and move forward, and lately I’ve been feeling pretty good about it. There have been a few positive things happening, and hopefully one day something good will occur (don’t worry, when it does I’ll be so full of myself that it will all be related here!). That does not mean that I am going to forgive the people that were involved in the bad stuff - in fact, I think I can safely say that nothing is less likely to occur. Other than me winning to lottery perhaps.
So: it’s forward looking, positive, happy, cheerful things going on around here and in my head. Further bulletins as events warrant.

apologies to Marcia. apparently she blogged the virtual host thing last week. guh. and to think I thought I was first. note also that I have added her site to the favoured blogs list.

happy birthday to Angie!
I’ve not read Momblog UK before today - it’s good! go read it! (although a bit loved-up for us sad single people!)

busy day today, lots to do. But feel free to send me happy chirpy e-mail. I’m not sure what sort of mood I’m in this morning - wavering between a happy one and a less-than-happy one. So cheer me up, ok?

TPL update: 3 points, total now 736 (not many matches at the weekend - only three of my players involved).

mood update: it’s just radically improved.

Catherine blogged the virtual host thing too - on Feb 26th. I feel so outmoded.

unusually, I can actually empathise with Tom at the moment, although it sounds like he has made a bit more progress than me. To Tom, my advice would be this - find a particularly trustworthy and patient friend and use them to offload all your unrequited phone calls and emails. That theory is working for me right now - hopefully, that friend will be able to give you good advice like “chill out, be cool, take it easy” and so on. This course of action will save you from appearing to be excessively “keen”.

wise words

We’ve been getting a lot of junk faxes at work lately. They usually offer us things we don’t want, and even if we did want them, we’d have to dial a premium rate number to get them.
Today we received two faxes offering to get us off the junk fax distribution lists. Sounds good so far. But how do we achieve this? Ah yes, by dialling a premium rate number.
Hmm.

On the subject of junk faxes, my friend David tells me: “Our company spends over $750,000 every year in fax broadcasting (junk faxes as you call them). They bring in over $2.2m in sales.”
But they are still a pain in the arse.

I’ve heard this morning that the CIM have sent out our exam results today by first class post. Which means they should arrive just before I leave for work in the morning. So expect my mood to be either bouyant or bad tomorrow.

every home should have one of these (link poached from Marcia)

Vaughan takes a break. Nice idea, but I don’t think I could ever trust anyone else with this site. And who would do it? Actually, I can think of a couple of people who might volunteer!

Waited and waited for the post to arrive this morning, but decided I could wait no more and had to get to work. So I should have my results waiting for me when I get home. Will post the outcome here.

Went for beer last night with Phil from college, Sarah, Paul F and Ian, and later met up with Paul S and his mate Mark. Admired the barmaid’s “attributes” in the Nags, but otherwise uneventful.

do good deeds with other people’s money:
visit Mo and give £1 of someone elses money to Comic Relief.
alternatively, visit Richard and give 50p of his money.
better still, give some of your own money by whatever means you feel to be appropriate.

gah. exam results *haven’t* arrived here yet. humph. so I’ll have to wait until the morning to find out how well I did. or worse still, they won’t turn up until next week, if at all - which, knowing the CIM, wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

oh, and in spite of the lack of exam results, I’m in a fairly good mood. not sure how good the mood should be at the moment, as I’m having doubts, but hey, enjoy it whilst it last.
[more cryptic that the Times crossword, eh?]

possibly a bad plan, but I’ve started snooping around other people’s Amazon wishlists (here’s mine, since I know how generous you are) in order to get some sort of insight into the minds of their owners. Here’s a random, but revealing, selection:
Monkey! (I can imagine Robyn running around the playground in her youth shouting “haaaar! munkeeeeeeh!”, much as I did with my mates)
Fat Harry White (Mo turns on the luuuuuurve in his Bedford Rascal)
You Are Being Lied To (makes me wonder if I should ever believe anything I read at Tom’s site)
Bob the Builder (you begin to wonder how much of this is for Harvey, and how much is actually for Angie!)
Harry Potter (Richard clings stubbornly to his youth)

Not sure what, if anything, can be read into this, but an interesting exercise nonetheless.

exam results in - a pass and a credit, which is good, and at least means I don’t have to do them again! now I suppose I should focus a bit more on the current studying.

went for beer last night in the Nags (briefly) and then headed down to W2, in the company of Arron (who is off to St Lucia for a week - envy!) and Sarah. The girls behind the bar (Claudette and Michelle) had dressed up for Comic Relief - or should I say, “undressed-up”. Al was wearing the loudest shirt in history as well, which, to be honest, was much less easy on the eye than the girls’ attire! I don’t know how much money they had by the end of the evening, but at around 10pm Michelle told me they had collected more than £300, which is pretty darned good.
Sarah came back to mine for coffee and we chewed the rag. I wasn’t in the most bouyant of moods, and can’t say I feel much more cheerful this morning (which is not helped by a hangover and awful weather). However, the new issue of wallpaper* arrived this morning, and that has helped.

tonight, I have been reminded of some of the conversations that took place on Thursday night with Sarah, Paul F and Ian. and, no, I’m not going to repeat them here. cripes, I must have been really pissed!

drinks last night in the company of Sarah, Kearn, Jim, Jayne, DA, DAGS, Paul F and Dom. Tim spotted in the distance. A most mellow evening.
However, today I’m not in the mood for a Sunday at all - maybe it’ll improve.

Well, I’ve finished