The Lair

I like to complain. This is well known. I can be the crankiest, most depressing person ever. My glass is always stolen; never mind half full or empty. I can be the black hole of negativity into which all things positive are sucked in, never to return (much like the dryer and my socks, I think).

So, for a change – instead of bitching about the weather, the allegedly rough neighbourhood, the depressing environs of this town and sundry other causes for complaint – let me share what I like about this country.

In no particular order –

• Malt vinegar – on chips (fish are optional, since I find that approximately 1-2% of fish varieties give me horrendous allergic reactions)
• Sunday roast. Preferably with nice and crisp Yorkshire puddings that sop up the gravy
• The whole pub culture in this country. No, seriously. I don’t know of many places where it is acceptable to nurse a few beers and watch a widescreen television intently … which brings me to
• Football, Six Nations rugby and various other sporting events, most of which the Beeb screens for free
• The sense of humour. Acerbic wit is so very under-rated, but among people of a certain age and educational background, it’s practically a sine-qua-non.

• Decent cider. No, this does not include Strongbow. It never will.

So what if most of those things are food and drink? That’s just how I roll.

It seems not. I go into the local Aldi when I land and even the shelf configuration is almost exactly as I recall from last year. Never mind that I shopped in a supermarket nearly 300 miles away – within a few minutes, I was on shopping autopilot – throwing things into the cart without even thinking about it too much.

Something I try to do in a new and strange town if I have time – intentionally get lost. Given that my sense of direction is all sorts of weird, this isn’t difficult. What happens next is a walk of a few hours while I try to remember place names and street names and find my way home.

Sometimes this works. Of course, it is cheating to consult strangers or hop into taxis. Given that the town I’m in is smaller than York, navigation wasn’t too difficult. A castle looming in the hillside above the town also helps.

Now, if only the town wasn’t inhabited by chavvish teens after dark…

Someone has convinced me that my life would complete if I purchased one of those newfangled iPod things. You know, touchscreen. Exactly like my trusty PalmOS device had for the last … uh … decade, but cooler? Yeah, one of those. It apparently allows someone to listen to music too, but I wouldn’t know about that – I’d be too busy holding it up so that all the laydeez can see how hip I am (and simultaneously dodging all the would-be muggers out to wrestle the fancy toy out of my sweaty palms).

This could be the fabled slippery slope, people. The point where I start paying money for software like this instead of using the perfectly serviceable (and free! for my use via the corp) alternative on a much stodgier computer.

But seriously – Omnigraffle seems to be very very cute. If only they had something that worked on Winders or Loonix… Alas. Maybe I need to try Balsamiq instead, since I have been pressganged into that line of work for now.

In other news – Tintin could have been written by a racist after all. We’ve had conversations about Tintin in Congo before, with inconclusive results. Also, I never quite figured out how so many kids in my neck of the woods were exposed to Tintin and Asterix growing up when it allegedly isn’t all that popular in the UK.

And these photos are eerie, since I know the places, but find the streets unrecognizable without a constantly bustling foreground of people and vehicles.