Everything and nothing. Read it, shrug your shoulders and move on.


Thursday, August 17

thedacs are off on holiday

In roughly an hour and a half thedacs will be leaving their home and starting the journey to Luton airport.

From there we'll be making our way, via Monarch, to Lanzarote for a two-week, all-inclusive holiday.

A holiday that has been much needed and much anticipated, especially after the two weeks in England we had last year where it pissed down for the entire time. This year we'll be sunning ourselves by the pool, by the beach, swimming in the sea and generally having a cracking time.

Wednesday, August 16

Tuesday, August 15

Matching Man City

In response to the comment on this thread about Tesco, I have decided to follow my own advice and send an email to the club building a new stadium locally regarding renewable energy because we can't let those Northern bastards outdo us now can we....


'Hello MK Dons,
First of all congratulations on a good start to the season, a successful footballing year will do wonders for garnering support locally, as will the opening of the new stadium.
Which rather neatly leads me onto the question I wanted to ask you...
As the stadium is a new build and not yet finished, I was wondering if the club had any plans to match Man City by incorporating a small-scale wind turbine atop the roof?
Since Milton Keynes is a city that leads the way in innovation and achievement, Pete Winkleman and the Dons themselves being perfect examples, I would like to think that the club would hate to languish behind others when it need not and would grab any chance to match or even surpass them if possible.
Whether it's a practical possibilty or not to attach a wind turbine to the stadium roof I don't know, but if it hasn't been considered before perhaps it should lest Man City continue to steal a march on us.
All the best,
thedacs.
PS. If you stick a wind turbine on the roof i'll definitely switch my support to my home town team - MK Dons - rather than continue supporting my Dad's team (Bottom of the Championship at present. Ho hum).'

Up to 499 visitors to our blog by the way. Absolutely bugger all to the lucky 500th reader!

A near death experience

On the way cycling home from work this afternoon, I was party to a near death experience by the lakeside.

Not for me but rather the rat that I almost ran over.

Peddaling my way through the geese and ducks (Not to mention the gallons of shit they leave behind) that congregate around a certain sharp bend, two rats ran out in front of my speeding bicycle. One evaded me with ease but the other, slower and more dense, rat ran in front of the tyre one way, before volte facing and darting back across my path. The wheel crashed down a nanosecond later where his tiny little rat head had been.

I heard him (Or her) plop into the water moments later as I burnt past. Let's hope he's safe.

But i'll get him next time you mark my words Rat God!

30% of students in the UK say they believe in creationism and intelligent design

According to a survey reported on here anyway.

I suppose for many who believe that Britain is a totally secular country where a belief in God has been sidelined to the extent of extinction, these findings may be somewhat worrying. But for those of us who, although having no belief in God, Creationism or Intelligent Design, have a wider experience of people in Britain it's not really a surprise.

Nor would it be a surprise if those third become more vocal in the future

Monday, August 14

Decorating

Hand luggage allowed

Hurrah!

While it is absolutely pissing down with rain in good old Blighty, with overcast grey skies staring back down at us, the restrictions in place since last weeks terrorist scare have been slightly relaxed.

Which means the unappealing prospect of sitting in a cramped airplane will be somewhat alleviated by us being allowed to take hand luggage onto the plane with us. Yaaaaaay! Books and puzzlers and Nintendo's and MP3 players and head rests to name but a few will soon be unpacked from our main luggage and stuffed into a bag.

A bag that conforms to the strict size measurements of course...

Thursday, August 10

Plot to blow up planes disrupted

Acording to the BBC this morning, a terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the US has been disrupted.

Aside from the terror and death averted, the news is filled with the annoying fact that hand luggage is no longer allowed on planes. Save for a few essentials which must be in a clear bag, you can't take owt on. Thank fuck we're going next week and have time to organise themselves. Those flying today must be all over the place, physically, mentally and emotionally.

C doesn't even know the news yet, since she left for work at 6.30am and didn't switch the telly on while getting herself ready. Not sure she'll take it very well. Still, not a lot we can do about it other than prepare for it.

Tuesday, August 8

Monday, August 7

What Muslims want

An interesting and revealing documentary just aired on Channel 4 tonight.

Based on a survey of around 1,000 British Muslims, tonights Dispatches was an 'accurate portrayal of what Muslims want'.

Doubtless there will be some cherry-picking of the more unpleasent findings, and there were a few troubling opinions expressed in the show and via the survey, but overall it didn't offer a glimmer of a Clash of Civilisations. Which was nice.

Kenan Malik (A controversial journo apparently) wrote a piece on the site giving his intepretation of the findings. His conclusion is reproduced below and, quite honestly, it sounds spot on...

So, what does all this mean for politics and policy making? First, we must stop treating Muslims as if they formed a single, homogenous community and thinking that the only way to engage to them is to appeal to their faith. Second, we need to stop feeding the victim culture by exaggerating the extent of anti-Muslim hostility. Such hostility certainly exists, but the gap between the perception and reality of Islamophobia provides fertile ground for the growth of conspiracy theories and extremist views. And finally, it is time that politicians stopped subcontracting out their responsibilities to so-called community leaders and started taking seriously the issue of political engagement with their constituents, both Muslim and non-Muslim. Without such engagement, political disenchantment within Muslim communities can only deepen.

Immigration

The desperate author

Thursday, August 3

English Colonialism

No, not the racism-trufflers favourite of British Imperialism being to blame for all the worlds ills or an excuse for the twirly moustache knuckleheads to bang on about railways, but rather the far more interesting colonial conquest of England itself.

The 4th of August see's the online launch of the Domesday Book, William the Conquerors mahoosive audit of England compiled in 1086, 20 years after he had defeated the English led by Harold (Who incididentally, had just got back from the North after giving the biggest ever Viking invasion fleet a damn good hiding) and become King of England. Whereupon he promptly set about establishing his Barons as landowners over the defeated English, establishing a French-speaking elite of around 10,000 Norman aristocrats and noting everything down so he could tax, tax and tax again.

The Book (Or rather books as there are two of them) contain an almost complete audit of every person in England, their status, their land, their dwellings, their livestock, their worth, their due taxes and all noted down on more than 800 parchment pages containing the names of 13,418 places.

According to Dr Stephen Baxter, lecturer in medieval history at Kings College, London, and an expert on the book. "Between 80 and 90 per cent of all villages named in the book are still in existence."

So, if the site doesn't crash under the weight of visits, have a look and see if if you can find some of your own history sitting in the pages of the Domesday Book, and also see if the story of there being a medieval Grocer named Tesco is true or not..

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday

Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday dear D
Happy Birthday to me.

It's pissing down with rain, the trees are bending in the strong wind and I have to bike uphill to work. Happy Birthday...

Wednesday, August 2

It starts on Saturday

The 2006/2007 football season that is.

And I should point out that it's the real football season that starts on Saturday, not the hyped-to-hysteria Premiership or Champions League, but rather the Championship, League One and League Two.

We've got Crystal Palace at home. Although I must admit that my alligience toward the Tractor Boys has been waning since the MK Dons established themselves here, and if I had the money (Jesus it's tight this month, sacrifices may need to be made soon and that could include t'internet access - hopefully the job I applied for today at Victim Support will come in after our holiday (Two weeks tomorrow until we go!) and our finances will rebalance themselves) I'd take thedacs to their home game against Bury on Saturday.

Either way, it will be fantastic to have football back on Saturdays with the joy or pain of watching those results roll in.

Birthday

Tomorrow is D's birthday.

And he'll be all alone as A is at her Dad's and C is at work from 6.30 til 9.45.

Ho hum