timboblog

Random guff

1) I changed the typeface for this site yesterday for a couple of reasons: a) it makes more sense to have everything uniform, rather than a bit Georgia and a bit Arial. Whatever was I thinking? And b) you know something's got to give when you're not able to read your own website without squinting. So either the text was too small or I'm going blind.

2) I've had a blogroll purge. A bunch of blogs have either expired (if that's what blogs do) or become somewhat defunct, in a way not disimilar to the way this one appeared to be going until very recently. It's all very sad, but there's not much point linking to something that doesn't exist is there? I've also added a link to the Lardblog, cos it's good innit? And also this site. Tis genius.

3) I've updated the 'Thingys' section too, so that there are now links to Big Blogger 2005 and I Hate Keane. Seeing as these were fucking hilariously great fun to do, and make me laugh even now, it seems like the right thing to do. Plans are even afoot to reinstate I Hate Keane to it's former glory, with added hate! Watch this space.

And 4) While going through I Hate Keane, imagine my astonishment when I found a whopping 66 comments, all for me! Some people love Keane (the fools) and some hate them. Some are indifferent, but practically all the comments are highly amusing. Apart from the ones in Spanish. I haven't got a clue whether they're amusing or not.

My favourite comments include these gems:

"leave keane alone, they've done nothing wrong apart from make great music."
Are you sure?

"FUCK YOU YOU MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD!"
Subtle.

"When I heard " This Is The Last Time", I thought it was a refreshing new sound. I do hear where guitar could come in and really fill out a lot of their music. But they are just starting out on their big career. Give em a break man. I also didn't like his high voice at first...I wonder if he was in a boys choir before. The piano is simple but emotive. The video for "Somewhere only we know" is ok...but "Everybody's Changing" and the claymation one are actually pretty profound. The lyrics are enigmatical. I haven't heard all the hype that you have about Keane over in England...so maybe I'm sheltered. I am very ecclectic in my tastes and Keane just kind of reached out and grabbed me. Not too many artists can do that with me. The thing I don't understand is how young girls like Ashley and Dana can get so horny over someone like Tom. What's wrong with them anyway?"
Peace to you too Mr Enigmatical, which isn't a word.

"Fuck it for you!!!! You are a son of bich shet, your mother is a bi tch."
Fuck it for you too!

"why do u ate them so much?"
I didn't eat them. And sort out your Engrish prease.

"FUCK THIS BAND IN THE EAR."
Indeed.

Le Competition!

I've gone all stupid in the head (Mrs Timbo will tell you this is nothing new) and fancy a bit of blogger vs blogger action, therefore I have hereby decided that it's competition time for one and all. Well, all six of you that skim-read this blog. Here's the score:

All you have to do is decipher all (or as many as you are able; this is highly dependant on your mental capacity and/or how many cups of typhoo you just necked) of the assorted personalities, riff-raff, and, err, other stuff. Whoever gets the most right is a) a fucking genius, and b) gone in the head. That person will also win... something. Balls, time to think of something...

So! There are sixteen things/peeps/objet d'arts (okay, no objet d'arts - I just wanted to say it), and I await your entries with glee. That sounded wrong.

FYI - No. 8 is the bloke to the left of the number 8, and not the Gay Pride chad thing above it. That's there because, well, it just is. Goes well on the leg dontcha thunk?

Also, FYI (whatever FYI bloody means), I'm proud of my hirsute legs. In case anyone was considering bringing that up at any stage.

AND, FYI YET AGAIN, click on the photo for a mahoosive version that will boggle your mind right out! Whoooo!

Things I Hate: Chris Martin (No. 1 in a series)

Apart from Ricky Gervais and The General Public, this knob is top of my hit list. In fact, such is my detestation that I'm not even going to give him the pleasure of having his picture on my site. He'd love that. He'd probably get really turned on by the thought, then act all modest and coy (act badly), so that anyone paying any real attention would easily spot what a publicity-loving, bollocks-talking (or not talking...) contemptable bag of piss he really is.

He of the seemingly sarcastic "It's good you came to see us now, before we go Bon Jovi massive." comments at Glastonbury in 2000, and of the "I don't really like talking about stuff" remark to an interviewer on Radio 4. Not when it doesn't concern how bloody famous and great you are, you don't! Who goes on the radio to be interviewed, then sulks off halfway through because he doesn't like having to think about what he's being asked? When some cheesy twat on Radio 1 asks him whether he likes his eggs fried or scrambled, that's fine. But ask him why he gave his album a faux-meaningful title and he gets all reticent. Poor baby.

To recap: 1) He's super arrogant. 2) He's all mouth and no substance. 3) His lyrics are pretentious and meaningless ('Yellow' was named after a Yellow Pages for fuck's sake). 4) He wears t-shirts that say shit like 'Stop Handgun Violence'. I mean, the sentiment is all well and good, but on a t-shirt? I don't think so. 5) He can't even sing very well. Which is a bit of an issue for me, seeing as he's a singer. 6) Bad hair. Bad bad hair. 7) And bad teeth. 8) Simon Pegg (UGH!) is the godfather of one of his kids and was even allowed to sing on one of Coldplay's tracks. Double UGH. 9) This is unverified, but I bet any money he really loves Ricky Gervais.

That's enough of him.

Here's some quality goodness from the mouths of Joan Wasser and Rufus W.

CLICKY 4 MUZAK!!!

And here is where to go to read all about Peach and Ariel's (amongst others) new blook (it's a blog-book apparently), and to be honest, if you're reading this blog you probably already know about this, but anyway. It's for charidee, and it has lots of bloggers' wordage in it. Not mine sadly, as I was on hiatus while the wheels were in motion. But rest assured I may possibly get my arse in gear if there ever happens to be a Blook Mk II. So go and buy it or something, and if you buy 250 copies (which by my reckoning would set you back a cool 3,125 of your Earth pounds) Ariel will even go on a coffee date with you. For that money I'd expect a muffin, newspaper, and possibly a foot massage as well, but I'm not buying 250 copies of it, so maybe the person who does will have slightly lower expectations than me. For Ariel's sake I can only hope that that is the case.

Dave (of e-luv fame) is also releasing a new book soon, which is all rather spiffing if you ask me, so good for him! You must all rush out to your, erm, computer, and buy it.

This post is dedicated to Cat, who I know hates Chris Martin almost as much as me, and has a cool new haircut, so good for her too! (Good for everyone!)

Waynadoni?

I know there'll be loads of people who know who the guy on the left is (and frankly, if you don't know who he is then I must tell you that I hate you rather a lot), and there are definitely a countryful who know who the guy on the right is, but I'm pretty certain there aren't that many people out there who would be aware of who BOTH of these people are and what they do, both at the same time. But I am one of those people, and I happen to think that somebody here may be copying somebody else's style. Either that, or it just happens to be some amazingly freakish coincidence that they look TOTALLY IDENTICAL. And wear suits.

Is it just me? (Yes)

Other quality newsage:
One of my photos of naked people on bikes got used by a nice news lady in Canada. I gave her permission. Check it out and check the photos, and there you shall find the heavily bronzed old naked guy being spied on from above. Fame and fortune must surely await me!
On the same subject, I can 100% confirm that people like pictures of naked people, as all the pictures of the naked bike ride that I put on Flickr have, within a matter of hours, become my most viewed pictures ever. Every single one of them. Even the one with the old guy. This says quite alot about something or other I'm sure, but I won't go into it as I'm pretty certain it doesn't need spelling out. But I will anyway:

P-E-O-P-L-E  L-I-K-E  N-A-K-E-D.

Naked people! Bucketloads of naked!

Sometimes you find yourself surrounded, nay, invaded, by amorphous blobs (read 'other people') who flagrantly disregard you, your personal space, your companions, your conversation. Generally, YOU. And that's something I find annoying. Maybe I'm the only one? I don't know.

Then at other times you get totally surrounded by shitloads of naked people, cycling about, making all sorts of noise, and generally being TOTALLY NAKED with all their bits out on display. Right there. And the weird thing about that isn't the nakedness or the being surrounded by a whole bunch of nakedness. It's the fact that it's, well, more normal (and natural) than anything else and yet paradoxically totally abnormal to see that sort of thing because of the 'rules' that our society dumps upon us and the embarrassment factor that makes it so weird and great and celebratory.

So to conclude, more nakedness please! And I don't mean that in a dodgy way, I just think, you know, that it's a good thing. Personal freedom, expressiveness, a distinct lack of twattishness... It's all good stuff.

The moral of this story is that open-minded people are great (although if they play the bongos and sing really badly, yet obviously think their singing is THE BEST, then they don't count), and close-minded yobbish thugs (essentially the stereotypical flag-waving van-driving Sun-reading British male - it's only a stereotype because it fucking exists!) can go swivel. Although whoops! Silly me! I'm not being very inclusive here. Let's also include every person who makes no effort whatsoever to move even slightly out of your way while walking along the pavement, even forcing you to walk into the path of oncoming traffic, such is their disregard. And let us not forget practically every smoker ever, who without fail, WITHOUT FAIL, will always flick their fag butt into the street, and drop the foil and wrapper from their packet of smokes on to the ground despite there being a bin conveniently placed about 2 feet from them. AND any person who while walking along stops dead in their tracks to have a look around and have a sandwich/insert anything you like here frankly, then acts surprised that you nearly walked through their sandwich and had to make a frantic avoidance manoeuvre and ended up in a pile in the gutter as a result. They're crap too.

This one could go on and on, so I'll save more for next time. If anybody feels like having a cathartic moan or alternatively a big old celebration about nakedness in the comments then be my guest.

FYI - The nakedness was all to do with World Naked Bike Ride Day. Check the relevant link for all the info. Nakedness + Good Cause = perfect for Brighton. Although I'm still not 100% sure exactly what being naked has to do with anything, but still, MORE NAKEDNESS!

Have camera. Will use.

These are some photos of the Children's Parade from a couple of weeks ago which passed right outside Our Brilliant New Flat (I'm gonna start referring to it as OBNF to save on typing). We have a good view.

If we stick our heads out far enough and manage not to fall out we can even say that we have a sea view.

We love OBNF.

(Click on the photos for bigger versions)

It's a long long way (to Worthing)

This last week and a bit has been a right old up and down affair (not in the saucy sense though; that'd just be rude), veering from the sublime to the shit with unerring regularity. A nice boring patch of humdrum mundanity wouldn't go amiss every now and again, but what's the likelihood of that happening? Pretty fucking low.

So, to catalogue our escapades (as opposed to our espadrilles, which are very nice and shiny as it happens) let's get the proper shit stuff out of the way first. Hold on to your hats people, cos I've been ill again! Woohoo! Readers of this blog either think that I'm ill all the time, or that I'm a massive hypochondriac. I can assure you that neither of these is the case. It's true, I do like writing about being poorly, because it let's me get it off my chest (as it were). But re the hypochondria, well, I fucking wish I was a hypochondriac, then I wouldn't actually be as ill as I have been over the last year or so. Maybe I've just turned that corner into Bed-Ridden Old Bastard Avenue, or maybe it's something else even more sinister. Whatever, it sucks arse, and I don't much like it. I've spent the last four days on the sofa, throwing up occasionally, and generally feeling like a pile of manky bollocks. This morning I went into work and nearly fell off my chair, so I decided going home would be the safer option. I'm feeling a bit perkier now, but we shall see. To my complete lack of surprise my GP had no good advice to offer. Either I have an infection and have just been really unlucky over the last year with all this food poisoning, etc, OR I have something really wrong with me. He even suggested having an HIV test, which is all very kind of him, but probably not essential seeing as I've been with Mrs Timbo for almost seven years now. So unless someone craftily took advantage of me while I was busy checking the price of couscous in Waitrose the other day (if they did I didn't notice), then I can't rightly explain it. So it's probably not that, but please feel free to share your observations in the comments box. I'm all ears.

Annoyingly, I really intended to get loads of stuff done over the weekend, so being really fucking ill well and truly scuppered my plans. The only productive thing I managed in the 48-hour period from Saturday lunchtime to Monday lunchtime was waking up in a horrible sweat on the sofa at 3am on Sunday morning, with Great Balls of Fire (starring Dennis Quaid with a godawful haircut and a stupid face) on the telly and some knob playing Bob Marley at a stupid volume somewhere up the road, only to find that I'd left the rabbit out and about in the lounge for the last 12 hours and that in that time she'd set up her own makeshift latrine in the corner by the cd rack and proceeded to do large scale shits and pisses all over it, all of which meant that had to spend about twenty minutes trying very unsuccessfully to persuade her to get in her fucking hutch, followed by a good hour or so of cleaning up stinky rabbit wee. At least their poo isn't runny and icky.

So that was all good fun!

But it hasn't all been sickness and bodily excretions. We've also managed to take advantage of the amazing weather by doing a ton of walking and beaching. Mrs T has been to London and picked up some stonking blisters for her troubles, and I went for a walk on the South Downs with my Mum and brother, and as a result of which got right royally burnt to a cinder. Still, it was a lovely walk, and I saw lots of birdies and little furry animals and generally had a very lovely time. And last week me and my good lady ventured all the way down the coast to Worthing (which is a little bit further away from Brighton than I thought it was) and had a very nice walk all the way along the beach from Worthing to Shoreham power station (photos to come), then back to the main part of Shoreham because there was nowhere to cross back to the mainland, then back to where we'd just come from but on the right side of the water this time, and then all the way back to Portslade and then Hove. Unfortunately, due to the afore-mentioned misjudgement, coupled with the fact that we only got to Worthing at 5pm in the first place, this meant that we ended up getting home at about 11pm. Slightly later than we expected. Still, it was a lovely evening and a lovely walk for the most part. We'll just conveniently forget about the last two hours spent walking along a shitty main road in the dark...

What else? Oh yeah, the main computer totally fucked up (again) so I had to spend an entire evening sorting the bastard thing out. Thank the lord for partitioned hard drives!

I must start posting regularly again, because every ten days is pretty poor (although noticeably better than one post every six months), so there are gonna be some photo posts soonish because I've got a bunch of cracking photos that need to see daylight, and I'm going to go into detail about the new gaff, because we love it and want to show it off! Hurrah!

Lastly, many thanks for all the comments after the last post.  They are always appreciated (even if I don't always understand what you're on about), are generally informative and insightful (where else can I learn all there is to know about the world's greatest deodorants?) and have a tendency to put a smile on my face, which I am politely informed is for the most part 'a good thing',  although this must surely be a matter of opinion. Still, keep them coming! I love you all.

The dumptruck moanyscrote blues

You know what I find bloody annoying? (Apart from Lily Allen, Ricky Gervais, avocados that for some reason don't want to ripen, and, umm, a significant proportion of humanity, obviously.)

I will tell you.

Being stupidly tired when there is no chance of getting any rest/sleep, and then having insomnia  or not being able to sleep at the times when I do have the opportunity to rest is what I find Bloody Annoying. It fucks me off!

I have massive eyebags (and I mean massive), I feel run down, my skin looks like shite, and I hardly ever want to do anything because I never seem to have the energy. The other day, while out with Mrs Timbo, I was quite literally The Crabbiest Person In The World Ever, and seemed to semi-regress to a childlike state of tantrums and sulks outside (and inside)  Homebase. Maybe that's just the effect Homebase has on me? Whatever, it was rubbish. So! All of this horrible nonsense at the same time as having LOADS TO DO. I need to sort out the new gaff, ebay all our old possessions to buggery, watch Lost (!) and have an actual real-life enjoyable (shock! gasp!) life with my girlfriend! This must all be achieved in the meagre sliver of time I am permitted away from work. Can't I swap the two around, and get a meagre sliver of time at work instead? That would be far more suitable.

I think I just need a holiday. Or a fortnight off. Or a run of early nights. And some exercise.

You see what's happening here? I'm creating lists! And my deodorant is rubbish. Somebody invent some decent deodorant that doesn't make your shirt armpits go crusty and that actually has some effect against sweat!

Good things are happening though. I know I moan, but that's just my nature. I mean, we have an ace new home, it's nearly summer, we're going on holiday next month, I'm taking photos again, and look! I'm blogging again!

I must be fucking ill.

I no lie!

Told you I'd be back.

(Burning question No.1: Does this count as a post?)

Shout out

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/zimbabwe1

And the international community stood idly by...

At least the common man can focus on an (apparently) unextinguishable flame in order to make his feelings known about another oppressive regime. What can he do about Zimbabwe?

Nb. Back soon, with pictures.