Anthropax's Old Blog

Ok, this is my last one - behold the joys of Babelfish! 新年好 Nouvelle Année Heureuse Glückliches Neues Jahr Buon anno nuovo! 明けましておめでとう С Новым годом Feliz Año Nuevo 새해 복 많이 받으세요 Ano Novo Feliz

With only 3 hours left of 2005, this is my last post - see you next year!

Migrane today. Had to pick up grandmother. Mucho pain. Hot water all used by little sister, slept most of the afternoon. Had dream about zombies who were zombies, but could drive. Had watched 'Malcom X' last night, so they could have been zombie racists. Not Sure (it was a dream, so logic goes flying out of the window). Carefully laid social plans for the New Year (woo-hoo) gone astray. Going to stay home. As I said, Bah.

This has been a bumper year for my consumption of new music - The Job(tm) allowed me a greater purchasing power, which I duly obliged with many, varied media purchases, and, as is traditional, I'll provide the low down over the next couple of days of not jus music, but many other top 10 things (think Channel 4 on a Bank Holiday, but more varied). Although this is a 'Top 10', I'm not even going to attempt putting them in order 1) because I'm not a music critic, and would find it hard deciding that I prefered one album to another, and 2) because the music has been spread throughout the year, and I would like one album more than another at different parts of said year. Also, choosing one album is rather problematic as going for just one as the best purchace of 2005 is a bit OTT. Therefore, I'm just going for these albums, in no particular order. Enjoy. The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground and Nico

Belle and Sebastian -The Boy with the Arab Strap

Sigur Rós - Agaetis Byrjun

The Hidden Cameras - Mississauga Goddam

Mono - Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined

British Sea Power - Open Season

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

Anthony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now

The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike

Analysis

3 from North America

6 from Europe (5 British, 1 Icelandic)

1 from Asia (Japan)

5 came out after 2000

5 before 2000

As a supporter of Affirming Catholicism, I fail to see a good reason to not allow gay people (and women, needless to say) into all three areas of the trifold ministry. The Donatist controversy tells us that it is the office of the priest itself, rather than the individual him/herself that is the 'source of holiness'. I'm also not sure why priests can be in a celibate same-gender relationship, but not a non-celibate one. The Bible does not condemn 'loving, faithful and stable' same-gender relationships at all, and I cannot stand the hypocrites who try to defend a homophobic (although the term 'homophobic' needs updating to make it accurate) view by quoting scripture, and ignore Jesus's love of all, not to mention, as Desmond Tutu reminds us, Jesus's acceptance of and love towards those on the outskirts of society.

Hello, 2005 is a year for campaigners to remember. The unprecedented level of global campaigning on poverty in 2005 has been fantastic. Thank you for playing your part in MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY. You were part of the biggest ever anti-poverty movement and in doing so you made history. In its focus on trade justice, more and better aid and dropping debt, the campaign raised awareness of the global impact of economic injustices. It has highlighted two key points: Poverty is not inevitable. It is possible to make poverty history if political leaders have the will to do so. The Make Poverty History coalition believes in progress through democracy and has shown that governments can deliver real change when faced with such public demand - change that can mean the difference between life and death for millions of people. There is little doubt that the positive political decisions taken during the year would not have been taken without your passionate commitment and the commitment of campaigners all over the world. If governments follow through on their promises without imposing harmful conditions, millions of lives that would have been lost could now be saved. The fight against poverty continues and your passion and energy and the momentum of 2005 will fuel future campaigning for the years to come. The call to Make Poverty History has inspired a generation: 2005 marks the beginning of something incredible. Thanks, The Make Poverty History Team

...website is where I buy quite a lot of my things. Play.com ships from Jersey, so things are cheaper, due to the taxes and so on, and it provides free delivery (beating amazon once), as well as speedy delivery that you don't have to pay extra for (beating amazon yet again). The normally cheap prices (normally about equal to amazons, although sometimes Play's more pricy) are now even cheaper due to the post-Xmas discount. Therefore, I felt compelled to shell out for some top-quality music and comedy. Kudos go to Play's music customers as well, who have purchased more prime Scottish indie music (of the Bell & Sebastian flavour - top 10! W00t!) than Pussycat Dolls (Oh my God...) and Girls Aloud (Thank God) tat. At the moment at least.

It's the Triforce! Woohoo! I'm playing my way through Civ. It's only III for now, as I lent IV to Bridget when my 'puter felt unwell, and it's still up at Lampeter. I'm off to a party (or P-A-R-T-Y as the more enthusiastic folk refer to it as) tomorrow, north of Bristol. I'm quite looking forward to it to be honest.

My laptop had been playing up when I was at Uni, crashing when I was on the internet (Firefox baby yeah!), and coming up with lovable little messages telling me to backup my hard-drive because it was about to fail, and other things. Naturally I ignored them. "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow, I have internety goodness to use now", and in the back of my mind, the thought "If I ignore them, they'll go away". So, when my laptop crashed, I was, needless to say, a little surprised. As luck would have it, I had popped around to Nicks, in order to work on my Study of Religion essay when the final crash happened. He, being a Linux geek, and having a computer with NO ICONS AT ALL on the desktop provided me with a disk that I could use to get work done on. And so, I became a non-windows user for the first time in my life. There were giddy highs with Ubuntu (being able to play Mah-Jong, and having Firefox as standard) as well as crashing lows (having to save everything on my memory stick, not being able to play any music due to the lack of a free disk drive, and my shiny Civ 4 disk being just a coaster), but I learnt that windows, while easily navigable was not necessarily the only OS. I pottered along using Ubuntu for a while, recognising some of it's good features, and frustraited by the lack of a free CD/DVD drive. In the end, I went to the PC World store in Hereford (my warrenty is still going strong), and asked them to fix it. They told me to put in a special disk, and rest the computer, assuring me that the saved files (photos of Hong Kong and other times, work files documenting A-levels and the start of University, my large music collection) would be fine and dandy. Alas, it was not to be. These disks did, truth be told, restore my computer to the state of the day I first started the little thing up. It also removed everything that I had put on the computer from then until now. Everything. Think of your computer, the one you are using now, and imagine everything that you had saved on it, removed, never to come back. You may well be shaking, weeping even, because yes, although you had backed up some things, large, large portions had simply been removed. I didn't weep, granted, but the feeling was similar. I had formed a bond with my computer, one where I had left my own, special imprint on its desktop. I had set up folders to hold my things in the way I wanted them, not all my documents in one uber folder as Microsoft would have it. I had lovingly moved my music into genre based groups, and had given the desktop a pleasing aestetic, unique to me. If I wasn't cold and dead inside, I could, dear reader, have wept. But there was a glimmer of hope, despite the Empire Strikes Back flavour of the post so far, The Jedi will Return. although scattered, parts of my computer had saved the epic, operatic destruction. Some of my photographs had found salvation in flickr, others were on disks, and others still were on my USB memory stick. documents had been backed up over the summer, and a quick archeological excavation may yeld treasures beyond my wildest dreams. Although much is lost, I will continue onwards and upwards, perhaps towards the ultimate assention to an Apple Mac in time. But for now, have a great festive time, whether Christmas, Winterval, Hanukkah, The Celebration of the birth of the Prophet Isa, Capitalism Day, Chrismukkah, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, Newtonmas or Kwanzza.

I was interested to find that David Cameron is now targeting Lib Dem voters. It seems that Labour has made a significant change to British society, making social democracy a large force in the country, large enough to force the Tories to move left in order to try to gain votes. Although I won't be swayed by his attempt to seduce me into join the party with the fluffy 'beliefs' section almost lifted off the Lib Dem website. I'm not going to be taken in by their knavish tricks though. The other thing I like is the picture of two police-officers holding hands while they go for a stroll, an attempt to show that the party is now fluffy and 'gay-friendly' perhaps? Who knows - you decide. In other Lib Dem related news, it seems like poor old Charlie boy may be on the way out. I like him, and he's given the party some great results, pushing the Tories into third and sometimes fourth place (behind UKIP - poor loves), but perhaps a new face is needed, perhaps TV's Lembit Opik? Whoever it is though, he/she won't have the same charms as this liberal politician from Brazil.

Happy Birthday to one-time collaborator on the blog, Max. He shares it with two of the Bee Gees and Emperor Antoku of Japan, but we all know who the real Birthday boy is (he just lets them share the date).

Well, I'm back. I spent a few days showing Bridget the sights of Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, notably Raglan Castle, Tintern Abbey, Hereford Cathedral and Monmouth. Civil Partnerships come into play now, so congratulations to all those getting married, including celebrities Elton John and mypartnerDavidFurnish. *edit* Also, BBC Wales reports a Druid couple tied the knot today. Well, that's North Wales for you. I'll try to get some photos up of our antics in a little while. Ciao for now

Well, I've got through over 1/9th of my Uni education already. I went out last night, with the Hat Soc group (see Flickr account for photos). We're hosting Bridget for a couple of days over the hols, so you may look forward to photo-documentation of our antics, although blogging in general over this period will be sparce. So long, and thanks for all the fish!

This is Bertrand, my cactus (named after Bertrand Russel), who i'm thinking of decorating for Xmas. Very small tinsil anyone?

Rowhouse 'Hood You scored 28 out of 40 on urban-rural and 23 out of 40 land intensity.

People know you as: The Bohemian Gentrifier Quote: "That crack house just needed a little paint." Your score indicates that you are a city-dweller of the old-school. You like a dense, finely grained neighborhood with restaurants, churches and brothels all on the same block. Although you've never spoken to him personally, you know that guy Eddie down the street is a pimp and you're sure to tell your lame suburban friends about him at every opportunity, just to freak them out. The bad news is that as more and more people like you move into your neighborhood it gradually becomes less cool and more expensive. Enjoy things while you can, because in 5 years you're going to have to move to the next 'hood uptown. Examples of places you should live: Baltimore, Philadelphia All Categories Secluded Hideaway / Farm or Ranch / Small Town / Little City / Suburb / Streetcar Suburb / Rowhouse 'Hood / Downtown Loft

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 70% on urban-rural You scored higher than 62% on land intensity

Link: The Where Should You Live Test written by TwelveFloorsUp on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Avant tout chose, je voudrais m'excuser de mon intrusion dans votre vie privée. Je me nomme Mme samira mazier, Cadre au Departement de la Comptabilité à la EcoBank of Côte d'Ivoire. Un compte a été ouvert au sein de notre banque en 1985 et depuis 1990,aucune opération ne s'est effectuée. Ce compte présente à ce jour dans nos livres, un compte créditeur de 20.8 millions de dollars américains. Après avoir consulté méticuleusement toutes les archives et les dossiers relatifs à ce compte, je me suis rendu compte que je pouvais disposer aisément de cet argent si je réussissais à le virer sur un compte à l'extérieur. Le possesseur de ce compte fut feu Mark Davids, un expatrié,directeur de Petrol-Technical Support Services Inc., ingénieur en chimie,décédé suite à un accident de la circulation. Personne ne sait à ce jour l'existence de ce compte. Ce co mpte ne possède aucun autre bénéficiaire aussi bien dans sa famille que dans son entreprise. Je voudrais transférer l'argent de ce compte dans un compte sûr à l'étranger mais je ne connais personne à l'extérieur. C'est ainsi que l'idée m'est venue de vous contacter et de vous faire la proposition de virer cette somme sur votre compte bancaire, pour partage.J'ai conscience que ce message vous surprendra car nous ne nous connaissions pas auparavant, mais soyez sûr que c'est une véritable opportunité que je vous offre. Vous pouvez me répondre à l'adresse suivante:*************@yahoo.fr Je vous demande de me répondre le plus vite possible. cordialement. Samira. At least they are moving spamming operations away from poor Nigeria. My French is rather lame, but it seems she works at a bank in the Ivory Cost, there's a bank account with loads of money in it, no-one else knows about the bank account, and she wants to transfer all the money to me. Blah Blah etc. It would, of course be highly tragi-comic if this was all true, and the bank worker can't understand how people keep on turning this down. P.S. Hello to my first visiters from Iran and Iceland (as well as Belgium on Thursday)!

I'm thinking of joining the Cult of the Mac. If Umberto Eco describes them as the Catholicism of the Computer World, then perhaps these are a mystical branch, a bit like Sufis maybe?

...normally is just used to show where you've been, I decided to see how many countries my visiters come from - quite a few! create your own visited country map

Ordered two more books last night - only little ones, and resisted getting 'An introduction to Confucionism' by Xinzong Yao - my Confucionism and Taoism lecturer next term. The books I went for last night are by Aff Cath, the great high church Anglo-Catholic that I'm interested in - one's by Dr. Jeffery John, and the other is by a namesake of the person who killed John Lennon. I got my Christian Doctrine essay back, I did pretty well, considering I only had two books to quote from, and one of those was the book of common prayer. The other was by the fantastic Karen Armstrong. It was on the concept of the Trinity 'from two Christian viewpoints' - I went for Eastern and Western, and rambled on about the western rational heritage, and the eastern view of it as mystical. And I got an upper second for it - groovy.

...thank goodness. Last one was Study of Religion, I had to "Assess the relevance of religion in cyberspace as an area of interest for Religious Studies". Well, it was easier than the question on phenomenology at least. I talked about how religion is influenced hugly by technology, in particular writing, the alphabet and the printing press, and the internet is perhaps another stage like that. I bumbled along talking about how if Buddha visited a web site, would that be the same as a tree the Buddha sat under? and things like that. Oh yes, if a person turns an online prayer-wheel, is that of the same value as turning an offline prayer-wheel? My answer is that if the believer considers it to be valid, as a Religionist, it is therefore worthy of study.

Anthropology in Context today, One man. One computer. One invigilater. Two Questions. Two hours. Compare and contrast the theoretical trend of Structuralism with that of Structural Marxism and Outline and discuss the differences and similarities - if any - between "the anthropology of women" and "feminist anthropology" The first one wasn't too bad, as you can just take the key points from each one, and then, well, compare and contrast. The seconf one was trickier, as the anthropology of women just means recognising male bias in the anthropologists doing the fieldwork, and feminist anthropology is recognising the male bias in the anthropologist, as well as the bias in the society under study, and therefore the anthropologists informants, and thirdly the inherent bias in the academic system. Not a fun question by any means, but I got to mention the Sapir-Worf hypothesis in both, and used the word 'heteronormative', which is is almost as fun to type as 'egogoogle'. X

sigh Oh Iran, you don't have to be like this. That's what happens when the EU is making progress over things, using negotiation, and then Bush comes along all gung ho, and frightens the Iranian people into going for a hardliner.

Second exam over today - Islamic Doctrine. I had to do one question out of the following:

1. How does Islamic Theology affect the daily life of a Muslim? Discuss with examples both from text and history if possible.
2. What are the main tenants of Islamic faith?
3. Reality in Islam is of two generic kinds, God and Non-God. Highlight this statement within the tenants of Islamic faith.
4. Discuss the Islamic concept of God within the notion of Tawhid.

I went for 2, as it seemed I could just do a 'memory dump', and it seemed the most structured. I was going to just analyse the five pillars, but as that's only in the Sunni tradition, it's a bit problematic. In the end I quoted the phrase "lā ilāhā illā-llāhu; muhammadur-rasūlu-llāhi" or "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his messinger", and used that to explain the centraliy of Tawhid, and its relation to religious tolerence, and then a big section of the Qu'ran, with a little bit on the five pillars (although I could only recall four, so just brushed over that), and a small part on the six articles of belief. I also included as much as I could from Karen Armstrongs History of Islam, mainly about religious toleration in Muslim countries. And I got to include the anecdote about Muslims telling off Protestant missionaries for not respecting the Virgin Mary enough, as well as the thing about Jesus (Isa) being mentioned more times in the Qu'ran than Mohammed.

After speaking to the others, it seems most did that, except the Polish lady who did 3. Wahima and John also did a similarly structured essay to me.

*Edit*

I drank three big mugs of coffee, and now am just a little bit hyper - and having that nosebleed feeling - I doubt I'll have a nosebleed, but i just feel like I may be about to have one - this is due perhaps to the small amount of blood in my caffeinestream.

...name that band - fantastic prize* to winner *Terms and Conditions apply

First. Ever. Uni. Exam. Christian Doctrine, "Describe what is meant by the cross of Christ bringing salvation", woffled for an hour on the idea of sin and sacrifice to atone for sin. Went to evangelical cafe afterwards and tried to make owner (sitting reading Bible on next table - clearly listening in) hurrumph at our conversation (particularly the part about how women and gay people should be in all parts of the trifold ministary). Got bagel. Went to student union bar (1.30 - so lunch drinks instead of very early afternoon drinks). May go to rock soc night, but probs not. Buenos Noches!

If you're reading this, then you could be my 500th visitor - well done. Please leave a little about yourself in the comment thing. *edit* Thanks to the 500th person (since records started) visiting. Not to mention you other lovely commenters. Thanks.

I went to church for the first time in quite a few years today. I'm not sure, but I could be un-lapsing. The Uni chapel is a lovely one, with fantastic carved wooden pews, and statues. The service itself was of the good old Anglo-Catholic high-church variety, with all the smells and bells that go with it (none of the evangelical crap here!). In other news, welcome to my first visiters from Morocco, Hong Kong, Turkey and Taiwan. Also, happy birthday to Mikilan for yesterday - I hope you had a good one!

...Or so it seems according to these photos from Hertfordshire. The Smoke rising up, and to give an idea of the scale, another photo;

Went for a few drinks in the SU bar with a girl (High Church Anglo-Catholic, from Newport - no accent), Grabbed some food, back to hers, and, well, ahmm.... ate some good dahl! Why, what did you think I was going to do? ;) In other news, the article on Hugo Chavez is the featured article on wikipedia. Chavez is fantastic. I've helped with the wikipedia articles about him, most importantly adding him to the list of Christian Leftists for the following: "So Jesus Christ is no doubt a historical figure—he was someone who rebelled, an anti-imperialist guy. He confronted the Roman Empire.... Because who might think that Jesus was a capitalist? No. Judas was the capitalist, for taking the coins! Christ was a revolutionary. He confronted the religious hierarchies. He confronted the economic power of the time. He preferred death in the defense of his humanistic ideals, who fostered change.... He is our Jesus Christ"

...are rocking my socks!

...hit count yesterday - 33! Also, it was the first day with visiters from the UK not making up the largest group - the USA held it with 15. It could be significant. Or not. I'm still working on my Islamic Doctrine essay - the concept of the five pillars in relation to the ket tenants of Islam. It's basically an opportunity to talk about tawhid and how it can relate to so many things in Islamic culture and practice. I may put up juicy nuggets of info about it when it's done and dusted. I'm going to pop and get some pastrami from the local deli, and a nice bit of fresh bread, to make a lush ciabatta. Ciao!

I may be in the process of dropping the 'a'. Hmm. This could be interesting. Humph: Affirming Catholicism

Had a bit of a crisis just now. For some reason, the position of posts went wild, and things weren't where they were ment to be, and lo, there was much wailing, and gnashing of teeth. After a few moments panic I fixed it though, although this did mean loosing two comments on a post (one from an american, who may perhaps never visit this fair blog again, and the other from Humph. Welcome to my first reader from Bulgaria today, as well as Finland, not to mention my first from Israel yesterday, bumping up my 'no. of countries' count - good job! I cooked dhal for lunch (it isn't the only thing I eat by the way!), but jazzed it up by using red onions instead of normal ones. Wild stuff indeed. I watched a little bit of the 'classic' Dr. Who with Richie, and drank far too much tea, and then sat about wondering how to make Bertrand, my cactus into a festive plant. He's too small for tinsel, so i'm considering making very small baubles to hang from his spines. There's only a week left here in Lampeter - the semester has gone pretty quickly, I get to leave stuff in my room over the festive break, and'll start packing on Thursday or so - not much rush to do anything. Buenos Noches Amogos!

It seems that those ignorant bigots at Christian Voice are blackmailing Wooloworths into not stocking DVDs of 'Jerry Springer the Opera'. Now, while I would not watch the rather tacky show myself, I don't think that 10 people should be able to have it removed, so people cannot make up their own minds whether to purchase it or not. This is the group that bullied a cancer charity into giving up a £10,000 donation. With this in mind, I emailed Woolworths: From: Anthropax@googlemail.com To: Woolworths Customer Relations Dear Sir, I was upset to discover that Woolworths has removed the DVD of 'Jerry Springer the Opera' from sale, due to a small number of protests from the group "Christian Voice". "Christian Voice" is the same group that threatened a small cancer charity with pickets if it accepted a charitable donation of £10,000 from a gala performance of 'Jerry Springer the Opera', the charity was bullied into not accepting the donation, that could have made a large difference to peoples lives - does Woolworths wish to be associated with this group? "Christian Voice" also campaign against gay rights, removing its accounts from the CO-OP because of its promotion of equal rights - does Woolworths wish to be associated with such a group? By caving in to this group of extremists, that seem to be neither Christian, or the voice of British Christians, Woolworths seems to support the views held by the group. I usually spend over £100 in Woolworths over the festive period, and my family and friends spend far more, unless the DVD is reinstated for sale, I will boycott Woolworths stores, and strongly encourage those I know to do as well. Yours, [Anthropax] www.anthro_pax.blogspot.com Woolworths replied with a pretty stock answer: Dear Sir / Madam Woolworths is guided by legislation and regulatory bodies on what it can and cannot sell in its stores. Our decisions to sell products are based on customer demand. The product is not currently available in stores, however should a customer wish to purchase it, it is available from our website Regards, Woolworths Plc Needless to say, the following (counter-?) reply is winging its way to them: Dear Sir / Madam, From your reply, can I assume that Woolworths feels the BBFC guidelines not to be enough? The DVD is rated 18, and therefore only adults should be able to purchase it. Due to its content, I feel that this is perfectly valid. However, the decision to remove the DVD from stores not only discriminates against those without Internet access, but also is an insult to customers. As the DVD is rate 18, only adults may purchase it, as free moral agents, they may choose whether to purchase it, with the knowledge of its content, or not purchase it, deciding that the content may perhaps offend their personal morality, or that it lacked entertainment value. However, the decision to remove the choice of purchase from the adult individual is plain wrong. I find Jim Davidson's 'comedy' racist, misogynistic and homophobic, yet still feel that people should have the choice to purchase it if they wish. If I were a muslim, I may well find the idea of eating pork products disgusting, yet I would not lobby shops to stop selling bacon sandwiches. This is a highly illiberal act, and I feel a great sadness in having to withdraw my potential purchasing power from your stores, but I deem the action necessary. Yours, [Anthropax] Some useful links on the subject: Chicken Yogurt The Indie Bloggerheads ignorant bigots The BBC are covering it Mediawatch Watch

Not long now girls and boys. The geese are getting fat etc, and we've had our decades regulation snow allowence. I've got two essays (one Anthropology, and one Islamic Doctrine) to do, and four exams next next week. I'll be staying in Lampeter this weekend, in order to get a bit of revision done, but all the lecturers seem rather laid back in regards to the tests. As is traditional after birthdays, I'll give the lowdown on gifts. Highlights include:

• Money (as a poor student, this is very welcome)
• Book tokens (just as much so)
• Luxury Pyjamas (my room is heated well enough not to need them, but they're nice anyway)
• Amazon voucher (see right for details of purchases)
• Wine Glass set
• Sponge Bob Square Pants keyring (it flashes!)
• Home-made 'cookies'
• Loads of groovy cards - thanks all for those!

Not to mention the great time I had out and about. In other news, the CU has invited people to go see the Narnia film with them. These are the Evangenazis who got thrown out of the SU for being bad, and as happy clappy Talebangelicals, aren't the nice sort of Rowan Williams type Christians. They have a Cafe called 'The Mustard Seed' which I like to sit in to read my Guardian, as it gives me something of a kick. I was chatting to a Methodist minister the other day, and it seems that they're the anti-social ones when it comes to the different churches getting along. Anyway, I've got to check for post, and pick up some washing, so ciao for now.

Thanks to the 23 visitars today, and in particular from those in the Americas. With visits from Canada, the USA, Mexico, Brazil and Chile, we almost got a tip-to-tip thing going on. Groovy. Been watching Dr Who with a housemate (if you share halls with someone, is it OK to refer to them as a 'housemate'? I'm not sure), and had nice tea (at last!). Later peeps!

Wonderful Electric picks up on this unfortunate (see bottom-right story) page at BBC news

And then we went to another bar. On the beach. In Lampeter.








I may be fibbing about that bit. Perhaps.

whatever next...

Clockwise from empty seat:
Hannah (not stoned - just bad picture)
Louise
Bridget
Nick
Amanda
Ross
John

Later, a few of us went to have a bite to eat. Here are a few lovely people on the way...

I had a go at making mulled wine - which I had in some lovely glasses (thanks Ross and Amanda - both you and the glasses are lush) with Bridget and Richie. Some great M&S mince pies made it into a nice afternoon treat.

Not much on really. The all star god of Anthropax turns 19, something about monmuental Civil Rights legislation coming through on his birthday, leading to increased equality in Britain. But apart from that... Not much.

I'm home for the weekend at the moment. Partly to allow a nice sit down by a real fire with a good book or three, partly in hope of pampering by a loving family (fat chance...I never learn) and partly in hope of early Birthday presents from said family. I was shocked to see the ghastly Hate Mail in the house. My mother decided that she wanted the free DVD that came with it, and moved from her usual Torygraph. She just lacks the moral calibre to resist, the rag's giving away a Blondie CD (do they know anything about Debbie herself?) on Sunday, and as much as I would like it, I'll resist. Needless to say, as I burnt the paper, a little bit of evil escaped (as a matter of fact, I was supprised to see that some of the flames were green... not sure what that was), and the house felt that little bit better. I got The Handmaids Tale on Friday, and although it's a cliche to say so, I couldn't put it down. I'll be lending it to Bridget in the near future, as it's an interesting take on the potential of the Talebangelvist type people thatI'm watching 'Preachers to be' at the moment, Monawar Hussain stands out as a great person, and Mandy the Anglican's nice. Talking about Anglicans, Tony raises an interesting issue in regards to the civil partnership here. I've almost decided on the new links that I'll put up. Currently reading up for my Islamic Doctrine essay. Watch this space...