Monthly Archive for August, 2008

Mistaken identity

Excuse me?
Yes?
I’ve been waiting here for fifteen minutes, it just isn’t good enough, I’ve got better things to be doing you know.
Well, quite.
I’ve been waiting to get served here and that’s your attitude? Disgraceful! Where’s your manager, I want to speak to your manager. That sort of attitude is… how dare you speak to…
I. Don’t. Work. Here.
I’m sorry?
I said I don’t work here you uppity bitch, and if I did, and you spoke to me like that, I wouldn’t fucking serve you. Now get off your high horse and wait like everyone else.

Sometimes, I’ve just no patience with people.

What?

Seriously, what? I mean, as much as I hate to be part of viral marketing (the crafty bastards), what the fuck’s going on here? The French yiff now?

Rewards

Since retrieving my car some three to four weeks ago I’ve forsaken cycling to work; not because I’m lazy, though at heart I am, it’s merely the case that I needed a rest. I’ve had Sir Wheels-a-lot for just over a year now and in that time I’ve cycled over two thousand miles, the bulk of it in the past few months. My thighs may now be wrought of steel, though my weight remains stubbornly constant, yet even steel fatigues in time and requires a few weeks off with a nice sandwich and some drinks.

I’m only saying this to make myself feel better.

Still, rested legs means I’ve been able to embark upon stage… um… whatever stage my forever stalling fitness regime is currently at, of my fitness regime. Jogging.

Now I am by no means a jogger, neither in bulk nor in inclination; I find it a loathsome business, an activity for people in tiny shorts, fluffy sweatbands and possessed of beady eyes. Football, I like, along with rowing, cycling, swimming, and almost any other form of exercise, but I hate jogging. It is the devil.

Which is why I’m doing it.

Which doesn’t make much sense.

My feet hurt.

Where are my papers?

I mused, not too long ago, about emigration – an option that is still very much on the table – and the creeping arrival of our shiny new police state; two concepts which, it must be said, fail to fill me with any particular enthusiasm. You see, for all my bluster and bridling, I don’t really want to leave the country, I like it here.

Well, I like certain aspects of being here, my friends living just down the road is handy and, when it’s not being marred by lego-inspired building projects, the countryside is glorious – weather permitting. Yet there remains much that is distressing, and the general direction in which the nation is heading remains chief among many disappointments. The level of violent crime bothers me, of course, but there is simply something about our increasingly draconian government, the measures they implement, and their endless polit-speak that I find more unsettling than the prospect of being mugged in the dark. I imagine it’s simply my own paranoia.

Granted, I don’t live in a country where debate is quashed and dissenters disappear in the middle of the night, but that, I suspect, is simply because there’d be no need for anything so extreme, a large proportion of the population seems quite happy reading Heat Magazine and watching East Enders until apathy drives their brain out through their nose. When there is debate, it’s almost impossible to discuss the continuing growth of our surveillance state without someone quoting Niemöller, referencing Orwell, or spiralling into the usual paranoid delusions of plots, schemes, and secret government departments. I realise that I’m guilty of this to some extent, indeed, my fears may well be completely unfounded, but the more I hear the argument that those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear, the more I worry.

So then, do I have something to hide? Well, no, not really. I also don’t have anything that I feel particularly compelled to share with anyone beyond these pages, let alone faceless bureaucracy. I certainly don’t appreciate being hassled by PCSOs for taking photographs, or having to explain myself when I – shock-horror – return from holiday.

Personally, I don’t think my expectations are especially unreasonable; I’d like to hear a valid case for a national ID card scheme, preferably one where the RFID chips can’t be hacked in a few minutes, and I’d like it if councils weren’t allowed to use anti-terrorism legislation to spy on the very people they’re supposed to be working for. Ideally, I’d like to live in a world where politicians are held accountable, beyond the usual piecemeal apologies, every time they shit millions of pounds of our collective money into holes in the ground. A glorious dream, but is it really that unreasonable?

As it is, I’m sat here reading about Police Officers who like to try and arrest you for taking pictures of them, taking pictures of you. Which seems… odd in a country that’s supposed to be open and honest, filled with love and flowers, and possessed of all sorts of wonderful things Westminster assures us we need. Detention without charge is my favourite.

The Something of Borris

Adam and Joe, I still love you :p

Tedious sentiment

We’re better than you. No you aren’t. Yes we are. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Bitter grapes. Yeah? Well you cheated.

And so, interminably, on. Why do people think this shite matters? It’s just sport.

lolocaust

A man walks into a bar with his pet monkey. He orders a drink and while he’s drinking, the monkey jumps all around all over the place. The monkey grabs some olives off the bar and eats them, then he grabs some sliced limes and eats them. He then jumps onto the pool table and grabs one of the billiard balls. To everyone’s amazement, he sticks it in his mouth and somehow swallows it whole!

The bartender screams at the man, “Did you see what your monkey just did?”

“No, what?”

“He just ate the cue ball off my pool table… whole!”

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,” replied the man, “he eats everything in sight, sorry. I’ll pay for the cue ball and all the other stuff.”

The man finishes his drink, pays his bill, pays for the stuff the monkey ate, and leaves.

Two weeks later the same man is back in the bar again and, true to form, has his monkey with him. He orders a drink and the monkey starts running around the bar again. While the man is having his drink, the monkey finds a maraschino cherry on the bar. He grabs it, sticks it up his arse, pulls it out and eats it.

Then the monkey finds a peanut, again he sticks it up his arse, pulls it out, and eats it.

The bartender is disgusted. “Did you see what your monkey just did ?”

“No, what?” replied the man.

“Well, he stuck a maraschino cherry and a peanut up his arse, pulled them out, and ate them!”

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,” replied the man. “He still eats everything in sight, but ever since he had to pass that cue ball he measures everything first.”

B-dum TISH!

Apologies to everyone expecting something with a bit more substance, but that joke brightened my morning at work considerably ^_^

Slightly unearthly

I was tired last night, very tired, and I passed out with the light on at around twelve-thirty-ish. Then, at around 1am, I woke up. At least, I think I woke up, I’m not really sure because it all went a bit strange.

I was definitely asleep, definitely, and sprawled across the bed as usual. Then, gradually, I came-to in that muzzy, uncertain state you fall into when your body wakes you for matters of necessity – you know what I mean, it’s that state of consciousness that propels you without direct input from you brain, like when you wake up in the morning and your glass of water is empty but you don’t recall drinking it – and remember thinking that I’d left my computer on because I could see Azureus ticking away, downloading.

A part of me was evidently sufficiently awake to want to turn off the Bat Computer and save our electricity bill because it proposed moving my arm. It was at around this point that the rest of my body helpfully pointed out that something was pressing down on every part of me and that movement wasn’t an option. Indeed, the only parts of my body able to move appeared to be eyelids, my fingers and, with some wiggling, my toes. My mouth wouldn’t even open because it felt like hands were holding it shut.

Curiously, I didn’t panic. I tried to move my arm again and, when that failed, I tried to roll over. Satisfied that I really couldn’t move I ran through what could be wrong with me. I felt ok, so ruled out paralysis or some medical complaint like a seizure; I supposed it could be a dream, albeit an odd one, but then I started to become more aware and something really didn’t feel right. I was in bed alone, in the same position that I went to sleep in, my door was still shut and my light was still on, but the room didn’t feel empty.

Does that make sense?

Anyway, I started to panic a little because, dreaming or not, I’d started putting pieces together and it was starting to feel like I was being held down by someone I couldn’t see (I sleep on my front) and couldn’t feel beyond a weight holding me down. It wasn’t nice. I could see my arm sticking out from under the covers but I couldn’t move it and, though nothing appeared to be holding it down, it felt for all the world as though someone were laying across it. To be honest, I fully expected to see – I don’t know – something, in my peripheral vision beyond the ceiling.

Years ago, I think I would have been terrified, last night I was just pissed off with all the fucking about whether it was a nightmare or not. I made a final attempt to move and when the pressure on top of me increased to the extent that it felt difficult to breathe I resorted to growling abuse.

Initially this had no effect but, after a minute or two, I found I could move freely again and the weight vanished. The room still didn’t feel empty however, and I resisted the urge to roll over on the off-chance that I’d see something I wouldn’t like.

Trippy.

Good news for Vampires

Transfusion breakthrough as human blood grown from stem cells

Vials of human blood have been grown from embryonic stem cells for the first time during research that promises to provide an almost limitless supply suitable for transfusion into any patient.

The achievement by scientists in the United States could lead to trials of the blood within two years, and ultimately to an alternative to donations that would transform medicine.

If such blood was made from stem cells of the O negative blood type, which is compatible with every blood group but is often in short supply, it could be given safely to anybody who needs a transfusion.

Stem-cell-derived blood would also eliminate the risk of transmitting the pathogens that cause hepatitis, HIV and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) through transfusions.

Scientists behind the advance said that it has huge therapeutic potential and could easily become the first application of embryonic stem-cell research to enter widespread clinical use. “Limitations in the supply of blood can have potentially life-threatening consequences for patients with massive blood loss,” said Robert Lanza, of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Massachusetts, who led the experiments. “Embryonic stem cells represent a new source of cells that can be propagated and expanded indefinitely, providing a potentially inexhaustible source of red blood cells for human therapy. The identification of a stem cell line with O negative blood type would permit the production of compatible ‘universal donor’ blood.”

Blood comes in four groups, A, B, AB and O, and in two rhesus types, positive and negative, and only some of these are compatible with one another. A person with type A, for example, can donate to people with type A or AB, and receive blood of type A or O. Only O negative blood can be given to any patient.

While there is no national shortage of donated blood in Britain, O negative blood sometimes runs low. It is also used widely in military medicine.

The research also has more immediate clinical promise for efforts to turn embryonic stem cells into other types of tissue, to treat conditions such as diabetes and Parkinson’s.

One of the biggest safety hurdles that must be cleared before stem-cell therapies enter clinical trials is the risk of uncontrolled cell growth causing cancer. Red blood cells, however, do not have nuclei that carry the genetic material that goes wrong in cancer, and thus should not present this danger. “This could be one of the biggest breaks for the early clinical application of embryonic stem cells,” Dr Lanza said. “There is still work to be done, but we could certainly be studying these cells clinically within the next year or two.”

While a few red blood cells have been created from embryonic stem cells before, the ACT team is the first to mass-produce them on the scale required for medical use. They also showed that the red cells were capable of carrying oxygen, and that they responded to biological cues in similar fashion to the real thing. About two thirds had no nucleus, which suggests that they are fully fledged adult red blood cells, and the researchers hope to bring this closer to 100 per cent. Details of the research are published in the journal Blood.

Though embryonic stem cells were used in this experiment, it may be possible to create blood from reprogrammed adult cells, also known as induced pluripotent (IPS) cells. These would circumvent some ethical objections to the use of embryonic tissue.

Independent scientists welcomed the work. Professor Alex Medvinsky, a blood stem cell expert at the University of Edinburgh, said: “The problem with relying on donated blood is that there are always shortages. The ability to generate red blood cells in very large numbers would be a very big thing.”

Source: Times Online

Obviously this is going to generate a lot of whining from the Moral Outrage Brigade, but fuck ‘em, a limitless supply of human blood can only be a good thing.

Dear James

I received this by email this morning. Sometimes I think my friends don’t like me.