Oh marvellous! I saw an excellent episode of Family Guy yesterday. Maybe I'm easily pleased or something, but there was such a funny scene that I almost couldn't breathe for laughing.

Brian had to go into rehab for his drug addiction, so Peter decided to go on vacation at the rehab clinic(?) Good choice, my man. Of course, he ended up annoying the staff there, and one of them accused him of not being addicted to drugs or anything. She went on to ask him what his name was.

As they were in the canteen, Peter looked around for things to use so he could invent an alias. First, he saw a plate with a pea on it. Then he saw a girl who was crying, and then rather randomly he saw a mythological creature flying around the room:

"Errrm, Pea.....yeah.....pea. Errrm, tear. Yes, Pea-Tear....errrrm, Griffin. Yep, my name is Peter Griffin. Oh cr@p!"

In case you don't know, that's also his real name! Absolutely ludicrous, but hilarious. I can't believe I never watched this show for years. I have to say, Stuwie is the one who tickles me the most. Blast!

Well, back to other things. Where does the time go? I think I need a few more hours in the day.

Laters...

I've suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened.

If you don't know who Will Rogers is, he's got a page on Wiki! But anyway, I'm referring to the taxman and my power supplier from the last posting I made. Methinks the taxman is after bigger fish than me, thank goodness, so I only got stumped for a bill for class 2 national insurance (yep, another tax we have to pay!) And my energy supplier didn't duplicate my account, they transferred it from my landlady to me - and she's quite fierce!! May the Lord have mercy on their souls!

Very, VERY pleased that the McCann parents got their arguido status lifted this week. Hopefully, that will lead to some better fundraising to help find Madeleine, and a whole bunch of other disappeared kids. No doubt, there will be loads of other related stuff out in the press in the next month or two relating to the investigation. Oh, and the book published by Chief Inspector Cloucao (sorry, don't know if I've got the font to put a Portuguese cedilla on the 'c' ).

I do have the very discomforting feeling that nobody was really ever looking for this girl - they were too busy trying to pin a murder on the parents.

Also in the news, as I mentioned a long while ago, there was completion in the case of the mystery canoeist today - the bloke who faked his own demise, and hopped it to Panama. Six years each in prison for him and his missus, for fraud (amongst other things). Surprising how the wife got a longer sentence. She only play-acted the grieving widow. He did the fakery, stole a dead baby's birth certificate and identity and fraudulently obtained a passport. Oh well, in the UK, you're best off committing mass murder as you'll get a shorter sentence - woe betide you if you dare steal money from the government or insurance industry; you'll get locked up for life!

And on that, errr, cynical note, I bid you 'good day, Sir'.

Things haven't slowed down for me recently, hence I seem to appearing on this site less and less. But don't worry, I won't be disappearing for good!

The whole getting made redundant from work thing, and going self-employed (in a manner of speaking!) has presented problems I hadn't thought about. In a regular job, you know you work a 9 to 5 and then it's 'me time'! Everything's nicely compartmentalised. Now, I sort of potter about, doing stuff - LOTS of stuff. I do get up late, at 9am, but I also work until 3am seven days a week. Absolutely relentless, and I feel kinda guilty if I stop and watch TV or something.

I then found out I'd been badly advised by an alleged financial expert, which opened me up to a hefty penalty from the taxman - did I already mention that on here? Can't remember. Hopefully my forms got in on time, but I still await the knock on the door, and the getting dragged away scenario!

I have also been getting pecked at by my energy supplier, who thought I wanted a new account opening when I moved into my new apartment - actually there was already one set up, so they want me to pay twice, despite me explaining THEY'D made a mistake. Oh, well. I also await them either cutting me off, or selling my 'debt' onto some big men with baseball bats. Yippee!

And on that knee-cracking note, it's 2am already and I've got loads to do - been looking into doing some fundraising for a tiger conservation charity, but there are details to sort out first. Anyway, just time to rummage around for info before collapsing in a heap!

Ta ta folks!

I'll make this blog very short as it's already after 2am here! I realised I've been neglecting TV.com for a bit, and oh the guilt!

Actually I've been away travelling around the country for a while, visiting folks - I wanted to actually see my Dad on Father's Day this year, rather than just chatting on the phone. And so I did. In fact I spent a week with the folks, and saw my brother as well.

Then down to London for a stockmarket seminar, which was very instructive, very interesting. And very nice to meet so many like-minded people from all walks of life! But yikes! It was some pretty expensive travelling I hasten to add. Glad I don't have to do that every week. I guess the rail companies will be happy to blame the high oil prices - so shall I look forward to falling rail fares once the oil price has fallen back a bit? Thought not!

I was out tonight to a park, as they put on a 'Proms in the Park' type thing. It was lovely. It is so much better hearing classical music live and loud - you just can't get the same feel from a CD. Oh and fireworks as well when they played the finale - what else but Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture! So a fun evening out, and great to see so many people enjoying themselves, from toddlers to kids to adults and old folk. The latter particularly enjoyed the 'White Cliffs of Dover' singing along, all out of tune, as they do!

Anyway, I think my bed is calling me - must dash!! So until next time....

And so another series of the Apprentice (UK) draws to a close. It finished with a perhaps unlikely winner in the pterodactyloidal form of Lee, the cheeky cockney - or Essex - boy. Good for him though. He seems to be the one most likely to hang around and do the job, rather than slinging his hook and going into TV or something. Time, as they say, will tell.

There's now the slight annual worry looming on the horizon - Summer television. So Apprentice has now finished; I'm sure House season 4 must be coming to an end soon; the F-Word is always a fairly short run, so maybe two or three more weeks of that. In England we're already getting immersed into the dank, steaming, fly-buzzy diaper-mountain of filth and self-flatulation that is Big Brother - in case you were wondering, it's not my favourite programme. And to make matters worse, we have to put up with unending shame of England not getting into the European football championships. Well, I say 'put up with'. It simply means not watching any terrestrial TV, and sticking to Dog Whisperer - especially when I'm in calm, submissive state, which ain't very often, for sure! Oh and looking forward to Sunday nights for Family Guy - sweet! Yes!

I did wonder what El Gordo Browno - or as Stuwee Griffin would say, the Fat Man - was hiding from us, by fixating the press on the 42-day period that police can hold alleged terrorism suspects without charge - apparently, it's moving all police stations out of town! Great, so if you're getting pummelled senseless in your home by a gang of thugs, you'll have to wait for two hours for the cops to arrive! All to keep crime figures down, because petty crime (ie someone nicking your cellphone) requires you to go to the station to report it - who's going to bother if it's an hour drive away?!

Right, back to my many other blogs! Yikes! Exhausting! I'll be glad to take a break next week and go see my folks! Then off to a seminar about stocktrading - that should be entertaining, but I'm just thankful to have been in natural resource funds (ie oil) since last August!

Until next time folks!!!!

Well, a bit like Homer Simpson, I went to start a new life......'under the sea'! Or in other words, I've been checking out a sort of Wikipedia-type thing called Squidoo. Somebody on one of my other BBs mentioned it, and boy, is it addictive!? But finally I came back to trusty old TV.com!

I saw a section of a UK topical news show this morning called 'The Wright Stuff'. They showed an example of a math 'O' level question from several years ago - in the 1970s I think. Then they showed a typical GCSE question from a couple of years ago. My goodness!!!! The 70s paper was pure algebra leading to two solutions for x if you knew how to do it. I needed a piece of paper. The GCSE was 'it takes Jimmy an hour to get to school. How many hours does he take to go to school each week?' Errrr.....that'll be 5x1=5 then! Bet they can't wait to go to basic uni, and math1.01 to do Laplace transformations and other assorted differential equations!! Good luck!

And then to the Apprentice. Well, ta ta Lucifer, errr, I mean Lucinder. She's not bad really. Honest! Harmless and wishy-washy. I have to say, I was expecting more than just her to get fired tonight. Oh well. It makes for good telly, with an explosive ending hopefully. Looks like they're all fairly evenly matched - about as useless as each other. And whoever 'wins' will have their usual three months working for Alan Sugar before joining the others in media somewhere and somehow. Oh, cynical little me. Must slap myself on the wrist for that. But you know I'm right.

Okay, back to Squidoo - I'm supposed to be starting up a separate blog on arts, writing and music, but never seem to get over there to add anything. D'oh! Naughty Squidoo.

...where, of course, the 'UK' stands for 'Unbridled Knifecrime'. I can't believe how many young lives are being so needlessly and badly wasted. A 'respect' thing? Well, I don't think so. I 'respect' that a knife can cut me up - I know the person brandishing it is a cowardly weasel, and deserves no respect. He should go to a gym and learn boxing or martial arts to gain respect. And the training normally leads to a situation where the youngster no longer needs to 'command' respect from others, as it was only SELF-respect that was in short supply in the first place.

And this so-called happy-slapping thing - well, if they must, how about ONE lad having a go instead of ganging up four-against-one - absolutely spineless, and leaving the family of a poor 17 year-old boy grieving, for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I'm a very open-minded and liberal sort of person, but even I start to wonder whether the 'powers that be' need to start terrorising people again with the threat of capital punishment: happy-slap someone - if they die, you end up on the gallows! Not so happy then, eh? And of course, no age concerns. If you're a fifteen-year-old and know how to kill, there should be no protection in law.

We should all remember we only get one life, and it's our duty to make the most out of our own talents, and to see and encourage the talents of others.

I'll stop preaching now. It's just been one of those weeks to witness all the worst that humanity has to offer. I offer my condolences to the families of the latest batch of stabbings and murders here in England.

It was nice to see 'The System' with Derren Brown tonight. It was originally aired a while ago, but at a key part of the show - explaining how the system works - there was a sound fault, so I was none the wiser! Actually, I could figure it out, but it still ruined the programme, so it was nice seeing it again this evening. What a shocker though, if you thought you'd borrowed thousands from loan companies to put on a nag, only for it to come last! Yikes! Actually it would have been SIX random wins in six races. Probably quite astronomically small odds of winning - I think they started the show with almost 8000 people, so 8000/1.

About the same odds as Gordon Brown surviving to fight the next general election - what? Who said that? I love the Leader. Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah LEA-DER! That's my Simpsons reference for the day. Good on Crewe for doing the right thing.

Good old Eurovision Song Contest. What an infinitely clownesque joke that whole charade is. I can't remember whether the USSR was ever in it, when it existed. But now it's split into 'the hundred and one Eurasians' it's a fix every year now - Russia tonight, quel surprise (is surprise a masculine or feminine noun? Can't remember). Maybe it's time for the Commonwealth Song Contest, where the UK wins every year. I'm sure Mugabe from Rhodesia would be happy to vote for us.

Well I got my heavy bass out today - a cheapo Fender Precision copy. Wow! Extremely weighty guitar but it's got an excellent sound. I'd forgotten I put light gauge Alembic strings on it. So I can bend the strings without almost amputating my fingers on that one. My other bass - ahem, another cheapo bass called Wesley that I bought off eBay - has heavy gauge, but is half the weight and a bit smaller (but with longer range on the fretboard). It's agony after an hour of bending the funk out of it! Ouch! I think I'll alternate between them, but aim to get hold of some medium strings for the Wesley - light gauges are 'soft' on my fingers, but need re-tuning after every ten minutes of bending and popping!

That's it for today. Laters...

Today's been an annoying, frustrating day for me. My internet dongle has been playing up, by only connecting at 50 kbps - that's dial-up modem speed! There's also the problem of having to re-load almost every single page I visit, because there are red x's all over the page, or grainy pictures with mouse-over messages saying to Shift-R or Ctrl-F5. Sooooooo annoying. I went onto a bulletin board, and found that lots of people are getting the same irritating problem, and it's because they moved over to mobile broadband - and believe me, it ain't 'broad' anything!

At least I'm only contracted to my current address until the end of August, and can then move again, to a place where I'll get broadband 'hard-wired' again. Unfortunately, my mobile broadband provider must know how useless their offering is, which is why I had to sign up for 2 years to get it!! Grrrrr! But at least I already know they're history as soon as the term is over - no compromise, they're dust!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh! That's better. I do feel much better now. It's been a real pain not being able to watch the streaming stock prices today, as it makes me feel very tetchy if the markets take a dive and I don't even know what price action is happening!

Oh, and while I'm in a semi-rant mood (again! ) did I notice news today that the government want to store ALL emails, text messages, phone records of us all in the UK? Yes I did read that! All in the name of anti-terrorism. I'm sure after the London tube bombings that Blair said 'we wouldn't allow it to change our way of life.' Yeah, right. So actually, Prime Minister, the terrorists have already won! Terrorism is a minor problem - albeit needlessly harrowing and tragic for the victims and their families - but collating information breeds fraud and corruption. We are routinely told to shred important personal and financial information, so ID theft can be reduced. So why gather all this info for the government to burn onto a CD and leave in the back of a cab?! Information is dangerous; destroying information is where there's safety!

Ooooh! Been a stressful day, as you may have gathered. Time for a little tai chi to calm myself.

I'll be back, but only to bemoan the sad demise of Raif on the Apprentice. Shouldn't have been him. It's all about ratings that show. Forget it as a business show.

Til next time, take care folks!

Right, so I've been paying a lot more attention to my bass recently, and a technique I've been working at for ages called the machine gun triplet. I'd seen a clip of a bass player called Ed Friedland do something which he called the 'funk peel off', which is essentially a triplet consisting of a slap and two popped notes on the D and G strings. So, I think, all I need to do is add a muted left hand slap before the pops. Got it! Great. Now practise, practise, practise.

Then yesterday I happened across this clip of Mark King demonstrating his technique. Wow! It's a great clip, and I knew he was originally a drummer, so it all makes sense. Unfortunately, he makes it all look very simple, and he does a slap, double hammer and pop - at least I think he does. It's all something of a blur! Oh, but the one advantage I've got is knowing my left hand from my right! More practise then I guess.

I saw some of the footage from the Manchester 10K Run on TV this afternoon, which spurred me on with my training. It became a bit of a randomised route-march, with a 10 kilo pack on my back, and when I put the route into MapMyRun it came out as just over 10 kilometers (about 6.5 miles). Not bad, a quarter of a marathon. Very, VERY hilly though where I am, so I'm expecting pain!

Oh, and I got a new addition to my extensive list of (no) friends today, so welcome aboard Paul! Actually I got a PM about somebody tracking my blog a while ago, but I didn't know what it meant, and by the time I found out they'd withdrawn - obviously thought I was a rude ------- (insert insult).

I'm not, honest! But referring to Paul's blog banner and the search for Madeleine McCann, I concur. I'm still wearing my yellow and green wristband, as I promised myself I'd wear it until she was found.

Time to go now, so until the next time...

I've just been on one of the finance forums, which has a 'fun' area on it. People have been posting silly youtube clips of laughing babies. One of them is called 'The Laughing Quadruplets', and is very amusing, but also somehow quite unsettling. One of my favourite baby clips, which has done the rounds on TV clip shows, is the 'Evil Baby' one. His dad says, 'Give me the evil look,' and the baby's face turns....oooohh....EEEEEVIL I tells ya!! Very drole.

Well the jury's out concerning my 'health fix' fasting week. I do feel calmer and a bit more energetic mentally, but also got a killer of a headache, presumably through caffeine withdrawal. Ouch! I certainly don't mind the vegetarian diet - it appears things have moved on from the old 'rabbit food, nothing but lettuce' type options, so I'll keep that going for a bit.

And I finally severed the tie with my old place. Handed the keys back today, so that's one less thing to worry about - I don't know whether I was supposed to be keeping an eye on the place, as I moved out over two months ago! That reminds me of something though. I was watching the Dog Whisperer today and one of the dog owners said that if there were anymore complaints about her dog, she'd be served three days notice! Three DAYS!! Yikes! In the UK, if a landlord wants you out of a rented apartment, you get two months notice by law. Not three days. Wow! What do people do? Live under the nearest overpass? That seems very harsh.

Right, time to dash over to some other bulletin boards. I think I'm starting to stretch myself a bit thin, posting all over the place!

Take care!

Good news. Ramsay's got a new series of the f-word showing Tuesdays. So that's something to watch while I wind down on Tuesdays now, along with Wednesdays with the Apprentice, and Thursdays with House.

I'm not too sure about the f-word though. It's starting to feel a little formulaic. Although there was a fire on it tonight - that doesn't normally happen. They had one of the guests doing blindfold tests of Chinese delicacies - I think I'd stick with noodles! Nothing else, just noodles, if the other options include chickens' feet, ducks' tongues and fish eyes. Yuk! He gave them a go though, to be fair. He was blindfolded, though, I guess. Maybe he'd have thought differently if he'd seen what was being served up! Oh, actually, he wasn't blindfolded for the fish eye - yuk, that was horrible, as he had to dig it out of the head. Nasty, gooey and stringy. Decidedly unsavoury.

Well I won't drone on about today's cringingly embarrassing income tax U-turn by our 'glorious' government as I realise my blog has started to become something akin to a political rantathon. So I'll just say the whole spectacle was a cynical political con-trick, and move swiftly on.

Well, to go along with my new running regime, I've been trying a detox this week - well, not really a detox. I'm just trying to maximise my water intake, minimise my caffeine intake and have a go at being a vegetarian for a while. I suppose it's more like semi-fasting, rather than being a vegetarian. By the end of the week, I'll see how I feel, whether I've got more energy etc, and then decide whether I want to resume my caffeine-fuelled chocoholic ways!!

Until next time....

A trio of news today of all flavours. The good news was that Ronnie O'Sullivan won his third Crucible Snooker Title yesterday. I'm very glad he held his nerve and finished the job - although I did feel a bit sorry for Ali Carter, as he didn't really get a look in. He's young though, and his chance will come.

The worst part for me was that I expected the final, evening session to last longer than it obviously did. I was out having a run at the time...okay, a jog...errrm, a stagger. Okay, a brisk walk then..., let's face it, a crawl? Taxi!! Funny how a four mile route looks so flat on paper! Maybe somebody should invent 'pop-up' maps that show you the really everlasting steep hills I had to negotiate.

Anyway, I got back home, and the snooker was all over. Game over, and prizes being handed out. D'oh!

The bad part of the news was the grim milestone in the Madeleine McCann abduction. I can't believe she's been missing for over a year now, without a trace. I suppose this is a situation all too common in other child abductions. It's a real tragedy, and I do sincerely hope she's alive somewhere and being taken care of.

Third up, apparently Madame Tussauds have opened a vote debating whether to make a wax model of Gordon Brown. It'll probably have better policies, and be more animated than the real one! Although, truely, this wasn't the 'ugly' story I refer to in the title of today's blog. I was banging on last time about the erosion of personal freedoms and privacy in the UK. Tonight, there was a film on More4 called 'Taking Liberties' directed by Chris Atkins. It left me sitting in staggered disbelief. I was pretty much unaware that most of the pillars adopted in 1950 after the attrocities of the Second World War, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, have been diluted or deleted by ten years of Labour rule. Some of the rights effectively 'done away with' have taken hundreds of years to attain, and another - habeas corpus, no detention without trial - was established at the Magna Carta in the thirteenth century! A very enlightening movie, this one, with lots of ugly truths.

So that's it...today's good, bad and ugly in the news. Now, to find a nice, flat route for my next run!

Byeeee!

It's been local elections time here, and it looks by all accounts that Labour have taken an almighty walloping. I can't say I'm surprised. I just wish they'd call a general election and disappear for a while instead of continuing to pile taxes on us. Apparently, they're going to introduce a new 'tax' tax - people who earn enough to pay tax are taxed for the privilege of paying tax! Actually, I'm just being facetious; there's no such tax. But Labour are supposed to be the closest thing we have to socialists, and they are clobbering the poorest workers by removing the 10% tax band. In other words, if you earn very low pay, then you've just had your taxes doubled!! Welcome to Brown's Britain.

They say many will get tax credits to offset the higher tax. I can already imagine a time when the government will tax everybody 100% of their pay, and 'credit' them back with what they - in their infinite wisdom - deem to be a reasonable amount.

Now I'm not necessarily calling it the start of the slippery slope towards a 'nanny state' or 'Big Brother Britain' - but there are CCTV cameras in every street, on every motorway, in every shop and building, allegedly for our protection. They want fingerprints, iris scans, DNA samples and the introduction of ID cards - so now we're guilty until proven innocent. Retail inflation is spiralling upwards and out of control, and the government wants interest rates forced down to help the saps who borrowed fifty times their income to get a mortgage on a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere.

I think the government are desperate for people to keep their homes, because people are relying on property as an investment for their retirement, ever since the government robbed the pension funds of £4 billion per year by abolishing tax relief on dividends - incidentally, this also accelerated the demise of many of the final salary pension schemes, hitting poorer people hardest. Of course, if inflation isn't tackled then people won't worry about their future pensions, they'll be too worried about feeding their families today!

So a very promising set of election results - the people have spoken.

And wow, I put this into the 'News' category. Maybe it should have been a pure 'Rant'. Normal service resumed next time.

So until then, don't have nightmares!

I've been watching a lot of the snooker World Championship over the past week. And there's been some great snooker going on! I didn't realise how many Chinese players were coming through. Good for them! Liang Wenbo is the only one remaining now, but playing very well. It was very funny today when he accidentally potted a red, but didn't see it go in the pocket. He sat down and apologised to his opponent (Joe Swail), but then had to get up and continue playing. Very amusing. Of course, Liang went on to win the frame. Great young player.

I'm rooting for O'Sullivan as usual, as I always do. He's leading in his match overnight, but it's quite a close one with Mark Williams, and the score is 9-7 in a first-to-13 game. Go on Ronnie!!

I have to say that, although I've played snooker for six years, I'm still as ham-fisted as ever. I guess 2-3 hours a week just isn't enough at this particular game. Oh well, I'll keep trying.

Okay, highlights of another game on TV as I write, so I'm going to see how that's going. It's the Robertson-Maguire game, which is looking decidedly one-sided at the moment. Hopefully, it'll even itself up a little bit, so Robertson doesn't feel so bad!

Bye for now!

It looks like industrial strikes are going to be the order of the day for the future. One of the teachers unions, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) were on strike today over pay. The first time teachers have taken strike action in over twenty years. They want a 4.1% pay increase, but were offered a lower-than-inflation rise of just over 2%. Well with food and other commodity prices rising steeply, and energy price rises of around 15% this year, I think the teachers are being reasonable. But for now, it looks like the government are more interested in looking after people with mortgages by reducing interest rates, than tackling inflation - which ironically will probably lead to job losses, and people not being able to pay their mortgages anyway! It's a useless state of affairs at the moment.

Good news for people struggling with their money, as the Office of Fair Trading won a test case in the courts against the banks, regarding unfair charges for overdrafts. Until recently, people could overshoot their limit by £1 and get charged an instant fine of £30. Rampant profiteering, methinks. But it won't be allowed to continue, and it sounds like people will be able to reclaim fines that they had previously been charged, amounting to about £1 billion. Good!

Whether we'll see more discontent over the summer remains to be seen, with a separate strike over the weekend by workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery, and a sharp drop in manufacturing orders.

On a lighter note, there is news floating around of a remake of the old sci-fi series Blakes 7 appearing at some point soon. That should be worth a look! Special effects have moved on a lot since the originals obviously, so it might be quite a good series.

Anyway, more later folks!

Oh dear! In the news today, a family have become the first in Britain to be hit with a fine for 'over-filling' their bins - for those non-Brits who might read this, I'm talking trash cans, or 'wheelie bins' as we call them. Do a quick image search for wheelie bin and you'll know what I'm talking about. They have hinged lids on them, and according to Copeland Council in Cumbria, the lids have to be completely down when left for collection.

So this family - a couple and four kids - had a lot of rubbish to get rid of, presumably because most goods in supermarkets are ludicrously over-packaged. The council sent someone down to photograph the bin, the lid 'up' slightly, and then went to fine the guy £110. He thought they were joking and told them to scram off! The result? He ends up in court, landed with a fine for £225 and a criminal record.

I wasn't aware the UK had become a police state. I was obviously off with flu that day and missed the changeover. Maybe the next one will be a public stoning for leaving the toilet seat up. Gents beware!

Changing the subject, I went for my first run today. It ended up being about 2 miles. Okay, not very far, and I was hoping to run further. It's a start though, and actually quite a painful one. I can walk for miles and miles - and tend to walk very quickly, as I always seem to be in a hurry - but running? Wow. That's a different ball-game entirely. I hope I can progress to a few 13 mile runs before September, and my race! Should be okay.

Anyway, that's all for now folks! 'Til next time...

Wow! I just saw the Shawshank Redemption on TV again tonight. I've seen this movie loads of times, but find myself unable to change channel when I come across it flicking through the channels.

What a fantastic movie, a real cinematic masterpiece in every way. I love the narrative throughout the film, it is almost poetic. The storyline is wonderful and bitter sweet, and the ending always gives me goosebumps! A superb 'triumph over adversity' tale, with a great script, an emotional musical score and perfect casting. Yep, I absolutely love this film.

The only film, in my opinion, that comes close in terms of repeat 'watchability' is the Usual Suspects, another superbly crafted movie, but with a 'first-time only' jaw-dropping finale. I could watch it over and over, but obviously, the shock ending only works once.

Shawshank is a very heart-warming movie though, and I think that's why I love it so much. It tells a story that is transferable, and I really like the sentiments about hope: 'Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things', and the line: 'Get busy living, or get busy dying.'

And I'll finish today's blog with the tagline from the movie:

Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.

Ain't that the truth! Take care.

I think I saw the shock of the series in the Apprentice UK last night. Simon, the ex-soldier, was fired - but he's the only normal person in the show this time around. His 'team' were a bunch of spineless, weasely, sly-mongering, back-stabbing judases, devoid of all sanity, nous or integrity. And I'm being polite! I've never seen anything like it, as they appeared to be thrilled when things in their task started to go wrong. It seems they had already decided their Project Manager -Simon - was going to be the fall guy.

I have to say, though, that from a business point of view, he probably should have been fired. But if his team had bothered to support him, and do their jobs, they probably would not have been the losing team. He once again took on the mantle of grafter, rather than overseeing the smooth-running of the operation - that was his fatal mistake. Good luck to him, is what I say. Hopefully he's won a lot of respect from people who watch the series, and will be more successful in the long term than any of the other clowns!

It appears that TV bosses have decided to cut an episode out of the new show - over here at least - Pushing Daisies. Audiences were enraged earlier this week when it was announced the series was to be shortened, so that the season finale does not overlap with coverage of the Euro 2008 Football Championship. I guess there must be big money involved, as I don't have to tell you what isn't involved - any British teams!! So I can't really imagine I'll be wasting too much of my time watching any of it.

Well, I'm almost ready to bite the bullet. I had a walk around a course I want to run to get into competition shape. For the new year, I promised myself that I'd make some life changes, and this included running a marathon this year. Obviously, a lot of things have already changed this year for me, halting a career that I'd worked on for several years being the main one. So I reckon I'll run a half-marathon instead, and save the full marathon for next year.

So anyway, I've found a nice five kilometer course to run around, just for starters. The race I want to prepare for is in September, so plenty of time - especially as I used to run half-marathons without any practice. I just need to consider which charity to do it for. I already give regularly to cancer and animal welfare organisations. Maybe I'll split it between old folks and tiger conservation charities. I'll post later in the year, when I've decided - if I survive my gruesome training schedule, that is.

Anyway, I'm tired as it's 1am, so time to go!

Bye for now.