Fishermen and bombs

I've had a remarkably shit week.

The weekend was fantastic as we had some guests over from the UK, so lots of wine, food and looking round churches was abound. But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

Firat of all, have any of you ever heard of Operation Stack? Militaristic as it may sound, it is purely civilian in origin. The premise is that any time there may be a problem at Dover or Calais ports, the police close the M20 motorway and line up, or 'stack' all the lorries on it waiting for the problem to stop. This sucks. It fucks up my day every time.

Last week, I had the joy of hearing the words Operation Stack from my London base not just once, but twice. Thursday and Friday.

First, it was the fishermen. The French ones, of course. They went not just on strike, but they organised a floating roadblock in the English Channel (not English as an operative word there, I think this could even be a cassus belli. They blocked the port for 24 hours, causing enormous delays and making yours truly work a17 hour day.

Then, if this wasn't enough, on Friday once the strikes had finished and everything was beginning to get back to normal, some twat pulled off the stunt of the year. Whilst travelling on the Eurotunnel with his car, he decided to transport an old, and very real, World War 2 bomb in his trunk. A souvenir he said. You fucking idiot, say I. Closures, demo teams and controlled explosions later and Ribby works a 19 hour day. Needless to say I was a little tired on Saturday.

Boom

Just a quick post as I woke up late and I'm just leaving for work.

Courtesy of Mick in the UK we have for your enjoyment today a Volkswagen advert. Apparently it was both banned, and the maker had to apologise for fear of an Islamic backlash. Can't see why.

Here it is

Traffic Management

OK, once again I've got a bug up my ass about something.

What is this?



That's right, it's a box junction. There is one very simple rule when it comes to box junctions: Never enter it unless your exit is clear. The reasoning behind this is pretty simple, if you block the junction you immediately gridlock all traffic around you.

Unfortunately, here in Paris it is compounded by a major problem, one that may be replicated in other cities, but I'm not sure. And as I don't work in other cities, I'm not really that fussed.

Traffic lights, the bane of my life. With deference to my friend Ben for the theory, it seems that every time a Parisian is born, the birth is immortalised by the erection (Hurr hurr he said 'erection') of a new traffic light. On some roads in Paris they are separated by a space of only about 20 feet. This would not be a problem if the light phasing was co-ordinated between the two. It's not.

I understand that the sheer logistics and mathematics involved in traffic light phasing are enormous, as far as I am concerned there is one simple rule to understand. If a light is green long enough to allow, say, 5 vehicles through before it changes, ensure that the next traffic light is slightly more than 5 car lengths away. Failure to do this, as I am sure you will realise, causes enormous traffic jams, and I for one, am fed up of them.

I think I need some Valium now.

Cutting edge?

BLOG
Function: noun
Definition: an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log
Example: Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.
Etymology: shortened form of Weblog
Usage: blog, blogged, blogging v, blogger n

The cutting edge of journalism, the new breed of media. Or so they're calling it.

Blogging has taken off in a big way, to the extent that it is starting to be taken seriously by the mainstream media. Recently bloggers were even invited to the White House and various other functions relating to the election.

Why is this? In a way, I suppose it's a pretty simple concept - a way for people to offer free, immediate content-delivery, free of the encumbrances and overheads of the large media megacorps, free of the print deadlines, free of the day-late articles of the paper media. A nobel concept. Admittedly there are problems, however.

Audience share is the main one. In a time where there are still a limited amount of newspapers and (to an extent) television channels, then there is still a fair sized audience for them all to split. However, when you get to the internet, there are billions of "channels" so it is pretty difficult to attract a new audience.

My main problem is this: complete and utter lack of editorial oversight. In any capacity. Authoring, layout, bias - everything.

I was on a random blog-surf this afternoon (may have just coined a new term there), and you would not believe the crap that I came across. I looked at 50 blogs, for a measure of balance, and how many do you think I found worth reading?

Close, but add one to that guess. That's correct, one. To be quite honest that's because the author had left a post on DeGaS' site and I looked at his first. The rest of them were shite. Pure, unadulterated shite.

The particular thing I noticed was the layouts. Most of these sites looked like they had been designed by a 3 year old on a vodka bender. There were .midi files everywhere, scrolling frames within scrolling frames, tag-boards, crosshair cursors and colour combinations to make your eyes bleed. If the majority of sites are designed to be viewed with IE, these sites need to be viewed in a different room.

Apart from the full-on redneck views of a majority of them, the sort of people who thought Hitler was just misunderstood, they were just bland as hell. And a lot of them had stacks of unnecessary capitals, a BiT lIkE thIS, which really gets on my tits.

If you have a good blog, keep on it, I really think they can be a good thing - but if you fill any of the categories above, please do Darwin a favour and top yourselves. Many thanks.

It's not just me...

Following on from yesterdays post, someone was very kind to send me a file relating to the dissatisfaction on strikes by my friends back in ol' Blighty.

London Underground.mp3

And, more importantly, Happy Birthday to ME!

Scabs.

So it's that time of the year again.

It's the first week of the league in the French national sport, and the competition is already hotting up. What is the national sport of France, I hear you say? Is it football? Petanque? Eating? No, no and a resounding no. The national sport of France, of course, is going on strike.

The opening match is a hotly-contested battle between the government and the postal workers on Wednesday, followed by an early evening game against the electricity workers. The rail workers will also be playing on Wednesday, facing off against, in an amazing paradox, Parisian commuters who will be both enormously angry about the inconvenience and totally sympathetic to the cause.

Day 2 of the league is a slightly more disappointing affair. Teachers and civil servants. Not really that bad compared to the tough opening games, but I'm sure they'll make their voices heard. No sign of the police carrying out any action yet, but my guess is that they'll stick around for a while to tear-gas some demonstrators, then come out in sympathy.

Liberte, egalite, off work for a day.

Why oh why do I have to work for an English company? We're too bloody polite to strike. The Germans just get shot if they try it, the Spanish and the Italians don't do enough in the first place for anyone to notice, and the Scandanavians just commit suicide first. But don't forget the Belgians. Actually, yes, forget them.

Guess where I've been?

Ikea. That's where.

Most of you will now calculate that whilst this is only the first time we have been there this year, it is the thirty-second in the previous calendar year. A lot, by anyones standards.

However, that wasn't that bad. It was when we got home that it went wrong.

We bought a sofa, you see. Whilst we spent (some) time this morning measuring the dimensions of the available sofa-space, we neglected to measure one very important part. The doorframe.

Firstly, we brought the sofa into the downstairs foyer and left it there. Then, we proceeded to dismantle the old one (it was a metal sofa-bed combination so at least it was easy to get down the stairs). Once we took this down we spent about 4 hours getting it upstairs.

Then came the hard part.

We got the damn thing halfway through the door before it became truly and irrevocably wedged. If anyone has ever read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency they will know what I mean.

So know we are both standing in the flat looking at this stuck sofa, and I'm starting to get a little bit tetchy.

"I told you it wouldn't fit through the door" say I.

"Don't start that" replies my beloved.

"If you'd have pushed it when I said push it, this would never have happened" I reply, in a moment of bravado.

"Every time, and I mean every time we buy furniture, you start shouting" says she.

"Because I've been dragged to Ikea on a Sunday again you mean?"

"Right. Fine. I'm going for a walk. Maybe you'll be happier when I get back"

Whilst she retrieves her coat in a frenzy of over-exaggerated movements, I stand and quietly look forward to the point where she storms out the flat.

She storms. Or at least, begins to storm. And then looks at the sofa stuck in the doorway impeding her exit. I start to laugh, forcing her to storm over to the lounge and heavily sit down in front of the TV. Unfortunately, however, there is no sofa there any more to sit down on.

I would love for this story to get better, but it doesn't. We eventually moved the sofa and got it in place, and happily made friends again over some champagne. Here is a picture of the finished article:



This made me think of a website I used to visit, and while I am pretty sure you will have visited this yourselves, please take the time out to have a look at Things my girlfriend and I have argued about. It makes you think. And laugh.

**UPDATE** My porn name is Big Al Rod. I like the "big".

Squeal like a pig, boy!

I'm jus' goins out to work on mah truck, but thoughts y'all would likes this site.

Full o' rednecks an' trailer parks. Righteous.

I'll update you later on my weekend, or perhaps tomorrow.

Breaking news

Well, only one part of it is, and it's not breaking in the traditional sense.

Firstly, Happy New Year again to all the Rib Shack diners. We went out for an arse-rapingly expensive meal but it was cool as it lasted all night and I drank enough champagne to sink the Titanic. Hope everybody enjoyed it.

I'm working too hard again this week, hence why no posts for a few days, but I am here so please try not to worry too much.

Of course everybody has heard about the nasty tsunami business which fucked up rice crops and soul searching British holidaymakers across South East Asia recently. (You used to know them as tidal waves, but apparently thats not media friendly enough)

The really ironic part of this was the person who was waiting for an aid package, only to stand there and watch as the bulls-eye hopped-up US pilot dropped it on his van

Back to flight school, maverick.

Silly Hats

Just got back from the restaurant where we spent New Years Eve.

To be quite honest I can't type all that well. I'll give you an update tomorrow.

I love you all. HAPPY NEW YEAR cocks.