A couple of nights a go I watched a documentary about a professional, middle class male who worked within the sq mile, earning a 6 figure salary and who was only 30. He had never had any connection with what one may call "real" Britain. He had never done any voluntary work, didn't appreciate the conditions many people live and work in and had no knowledge of what life is like living on the streets of Ldn. He was set a task. To abandon his champagne and Jacuzzi lifestyle and be a charity worker for a week.

The guy in question was placed in a hostel for homeless. It was actually a very interesting program for several reasons - the insight into the hostel itself, the work of the volunteers, the opinions of some of the inhabitants and also the reaction and changing views of our young professional.

One marked point about the hostel was the level of alcohol abuse. I don't mean the average alcoholic - no, these guys woke up and drank. They then continued to drink until they could drink no more, or were sick, or fell asleep. They then awoke and started the cycle again. Continual addiction to cheap alcohol. "A way to forget" some of the people said. "When you are this low, on the streets, not knowing if the next person is going to chat to you kindly for 3mins or kick you in the face, alcohol is a comfort". Those quotes are paraphrases, but the essence is there.

As most readers are aware, I have been witness to alcohol abuse. I have seen close relatives drunk, out of control, pissing themselves, their strong admiring presence disintegrate into nothing, being sick, being unable to communicate, irritable. and violent. So yeah, I think alcohol stinks. So much so that I have made a resolve that come September 1st I shall not drink until the end of my finals. I don't care if people want to have a laugh - heh, I enjoy a drink and I won’t condemn anyone who does, but I don’t think it is for me. Truth be told alcohol scares me. It makes me scared deep down. Maybe I don’t want to end up in the same way as some of the people I have seen close to me have done. I hate seeing people I am dependent upon in a state utter un-control (if there is such a word). I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

Anyway, what I am getting at is this. It was interesting when faced with the alcoholics in this hostel that our guy didn’t feel sympathy, didn’t feel pity, didn’t want to go and help them, didn’t wonder why they were in such a state. No, he thought of the families – the children of the drunks watching their parents in this way, the abandoned wives, parents, carers etc. Those who had to sit back and watch alcoholism in action. And for this I commend him. I don’t mean to say I don’t feel any of the former emotions for alcoholics – I do – but I think it just reiterates that there are always two sides to every argument –there are the suffering parents of an anorexic and there is also the anguish of the sufferer themselves, there is the alcoholic and there is his/her family, for every adulterer and estranged wife/husband there are reasons why, for every family who is anti a sibling being gay that person may themselves be going through turmoil. I think that society sometimes forgets the ‘other side’ and maybe we should stop jumping to feelings/emotions and stop and think about the ‘whole’ picture rather than instantly attaching our emotions to the person who appears on the outside to be suffering the most.

Niall Ferguson has finally made his way to Harvard, by way of NYU. To think that Oxford could have kept him. Considering that if there's any academic I would likely end up like, it would be him, this is a good thing.

When my little sister, with a face that was the very definition of glee, handed me a note from my dad telling me to mow the front lawn, I thought the task would be hell. My sister Alice very well knew that, and this was the source of her amusement. I'd said that since my band Idiotchild aren't playing this festival in Thetford that we were supposed to be, I'd stay at home and maybe do some work or something whilst my dad went off to East Anglia to drop some stuff off for a client. Clearly my dad knew only too well that this meant I'd lounge around all day working on my own website, so he left a note condemning me to lawnmowing duty.

Well, now I know that lawnmowing is nature's definition of a good time. The sun is out, you're surrounded by birds and insects busying themselves happily (or probably actually screaming "piss off away from the hedges, you bastard!" at me in their own inimitable little way), you're wearing a really big hat to avoid sunburn that makes you just look so cool, and you have this almighty weapon in your hands, so to speak. Not only that, but I had brought for my listening pleasure the Goldfrapp album Black Cherry. So there I was, Discman blazing into my ears, Flymo purring contentedly as it chopped ants in half, conducting an odd kind of dance in amongst the flora and fauna of our front garden. Anyone watching me would have thought I was a prat, but I, to myself, was the very essence of deep honey, the mower my strict machine, the hairy trees about to be less so (at the base at least), twisting round the garden like a train, tiptoeing round the edges to make sure there was no slippage. The grass was a crystalline green except in rare instances where the sun had burnt it almost to black, cherry blossom filled the air and it felt like I could go on forever. It felt good. It felt right.

I officially declare that I am backing John Kerry for President.

In 2000, I supported George W. Bush. There were two main reasons for this. The first was that OJ supported Al Gore and therefore there was effectively no other choice; the second was that he had a cool little three-fingered 'Dubya' sign and I could do a passable (read: crap) impersonation of him. In a remarkably accurate imitation of the 2000 election, my Dubya defeated OJ's Gore in a debate, possibly with the aid of lemon sherbets hurled into the crowd during voting, although I would like to think that it was the sheer persuasive elements within my keynote address that swung the audience.

No doubt some people might expect, given my Bush vote, that I might follow a Republican stance and stick with him this year. Not so. It must be remembered that in this situation, I make my choices on a whim and with a flagrant disregard bordering on the reckless as to what candidates actually stand for. After all, if I wanted to decide this on an issue close to me, for example gay marriage, I'd be voting for Ralph Nader. However, Nader is a silly sounding surname, so I can't. This leaves me the choice between Bush and Kerry.

Reasons to vote for George W Bush:
- I can still kind of do my little impersonation ("Ah am the fordy-second presahdunt of the yoonahted states uv ahmericah")
- He's hilarious to watch when he's on TV
- I quite like satirical cartoonists and the man is helping them to stay in jobs

Reasons NOT to vote for George W Bush:
- The man clearly has no good policies, cares only for the economy and is led around by whatever conservative opinion and his cosy bunch of advisors tell him
- Opposes abortion (I'm pro-abortion. I'll just go and stand over in this corner and let you all claw at me and hiss)
- Thinks Kyoto was Dorothy's dog in that wizard film

Reasons to vote for John Kerry:
- The Democratic Convention is on TV at the moment and it looks really good with lots of clapping and videos and nice American people thanking the British for "wut we did post nahn-uhleven"
- He looks much more like a stereotypical made-for-TV-movie US President than Dubya does
- He's appeared on the same stage as lots of very nice famous people, mostly thanks to photo editing software
- I prefer his name
- His sister looks just like him but with grey hair! It's uncanny. And she kind of looks like my Aunt Jenny so by extension he's part of my family, so it's my duty to support him

Reasons why NOT to vote for John Kerry:
- A really loud beeping noise has just started through my headphones, so the sound at the Convention must be screwing around, which is - directly or indirectly - his fault
- A sign has appeared on BBC News 24 saying that the channel is for "APTN Direct subscribers only" and giving an American number to call. Clearly the BBC have not paid the subscription fee. That is also John Kerry's fault for charging us nice British people just to watch him
- OJ probably also supports him but I've declared first so I thereby take the moral, political, ethical and psychological high ground

So there you have it. Kerry in 2004, say I. The vote, I believe, is the day after my birthday. Let's hope nothing is left pregnant on either occasion this time.

At times the world makes me smile. Which I'd have thought of it. Whatever next?

Heh. I like this article about Oxford's new Vice-Chancellor (despite the fact that he replaces a Lincoln man). It's all about the ceremonial difficulties posed by his non Oxford doctorate. He thus requires a different gown. And lo:

At the University Council meeting models paraded in various style options, prompting questions such as: “Ooh, should it have gold on it?” The topic took up 45 minutes of debate, leaving only 15 minutes for the somewhat weightier issue — student hardship. Bet he will look the part.

Makes a welcome change to the other reason why Oxford is in the papers today - the withdrawal of Montpellier from the construction of the university's new buildings to house animal research. No doubt some on this blog might have stronger attitudes concerning animal testing than I (as they might say, viva la difference?), but considering that the building is merely to replace existing labs, rather than creating new ones, it seems a shame that such a move was necessary.

I'm sure it will only be a few days befor the business sections of the papers over here start running stories about the Next Big Thing on the net - blinkx. Now, the concept behind the program is something that everyone - everyone being Apple, Google and Microsoft - are striving for: contextual search capability within the kernel. So you type Oxford into the blinkx box and every file that contains some mention of Oxford comes back to you. Clever stuff.

Except... it's still beta, and I've just uninstalled it after being pretty unimpressed by it. It couldn't index my files and the searches were useless. Its extra capabilities - searching for related web sites, blogs, news feeds - were similarly underwhelming. I'm sure that this technology is going to be great when it works and is implemented properly. But with only 10% of the web indexed, and a beta file finder, it's not going anywhere fast.

So, I think I wasn't the only one that was getting bored and annoyed with all the spam comments that we were having, and that kept on flooding my inbox. Finding myself with a nice day off, and some spare time outside dispensing medical advice, I finally got around to downloading and installing MT-Blacklist (harder than it sounds - I had to dig out how to access the hosting server and other such wonderful things that haven't been touched in a year). Damn, but it's good. I have now deleted all the spam comments, about 200 in all. That's really surprising, because someone is targeting us when really we are just a tiny website with a readership of 3. Anyway, now that the blacklist is up and running, hopefully things should be a little more pleasant from now on...

If there is one thing which annoys me in this world, it is people being right. By this I mean people telling me what I should do when I don’t want to do it. This results in me being stubborn although deep down I know whatever this person has suggested is probably the right or the best thing to do.

Today, we have a classic example. I am ill. I have a headache, squeaky voice, am burning up and an annoying cough. I hate taking paracetamol or anything along those lines, yet today I have taken Beechams all in one flu thingies with parcetamol, decongesant, congestant, just the estant etc etc every four hours. This is a big thing for me.

I then phone the boyfriend for some TLC. I mention the fact that I have been sweating buckets, and he compares me with a greasy pig. Nice. He then asks me the question I dread “Have I had fizzy vitamin C tablets”. These tablets are evil. They were purchased in Boots by OJ sometime in Hilary when I was ill. He made me drink this glass of chalky, orangey liquid, insisting that it would make me feel better. I refuse to comment on whether it did or not. Today he hassled me again, gave me a long spiel about how it would be good for me. Now, excuse me! I know my own body, if I wanted to take fizzy orange thingies I would, if I wanted to be told what medicine to take I would go to the Doctor. What gives darling OJ the right, other than the fact he cares, to say “these will be good for you” and “these will make you better”.

The really annoying thing is, I know he is probably right and consequently I have just drunk a glass of this ghastly concoction. So, OJ has won and I have had to give in to being stubborn. The Bastard.

Come on, how about it? Form a new company and we could have the "Oliver and Kennedy University for advanced learning" or something like that. Beats whatever other careers we were planning.

*Edit*

Suggested degree titles so far include... (no prizes for guessing which one of us would be the chief professor in each :p)

"Orange t-shirt wearing"
"Guide for gay lovers on the use of msn/aol to find future partners"
"How to be a fag hag"
"How to put "I've studied in the States" into every blog you write"
"Projectiles and their many origins"
"Having a disfunctional family"
"How to achieve low self esteem"
"Hugging"

Any more for any more?! :p

I am haunted in my sleep.

It is an odd haunting too, because it has happened before but I did not really expect it to happen again. See, when I was on my school holidays, around about a month after we had broken up I would start dreaming about... being at school. I'm not sure if this is an odd thing to do or fairly natural, almost a way of subconsciously making up for the absence of school from real life for a couple of months, but it happened without fail every year. And now it is happening again.

Two nights ago, they were pretty much full-blown nightmares. The first one involved being bullied at school by someone who looked remarkably like, but wasn't, James Holdsworth (who used to be in my year at school, and it's not as if I haven't been in a fight with him before, but that's another story). Then, later the same night - well, let's be honest, it was around 10am by now - I dreamt about having university exams. Normally I'm alright with exams of course, and the guy sitting to my right during last year's history mods proclaimed me to be the essence of calm and collectedness (I think he did better than me). This time round, not only was I late for the exam and unsure of which building it was in, let alone where my seat was, but I was also horrendously unprepared for the exam itself, which was on Othello. I studied that play at school and sat an exam on it, but it's not the kind of thing I was expecting to have to do at university in the middle of a history degree. I was in a state of sheer panic, then mercifully woke up before I actually had to write anything.

Last night's dream was not so bad but ran along the same lines. This time I was in a biology lesson... at university. There's a pattern emerging here, which is my subconscious adding disciplines to my university curriculum without my prior consent. I was also doing Latin (as well as history, which my brain had at least remembered was the whole point of being there), judging from the Latin textbooks in my room, which was a dark, windowless affair beneath a winding staircase somewhere in Trinity College.

Then it all went a bit more surreal and I ended up playing football with some uni friends between a load of trams in some faintly Brazilian setting, but let's focus on the stuff before that. None of this happened (to my recollection) last summer, but now, the moment I arrive in my old stomping ground of Somerset, the academic dreams are flooding back. It is almost painful to think that I can't even get any sleep without studying (although we were larking about so much in biology that we didn't know any of the answers to questions Mrs Courts asked us. What was she doing at Oxford? She was my primary school physics teacher!).

The psychologists among us - and I'm surrounded by them down here, alas - might go deeper and suggest a few more subtle things. The whole dreaming-about-uni-because-I'm-no-longer-there thing kind of makes sense. It might also be suggested that having dreams where things go wrong at university is a sign of being worried (you may be ahead of me here) about things going wrong at university. I'm also prepared to accept that. However the most fascinating thing for me is that my subconscious quite clearly wants a multi-disciplined curriculum reinstated. It is bored with just doing history and it wants more subjects, namely biology and Latin. I distinctly remember, during the dream, feeling pleased that I was in a biology lesson because it was a break from history. In fact, if I could add biology and Latin to my uni schedule, I probably would, just to ease the monotony a little. Would you agree with that?

Corporate lawyer of corporate whore...?

...today I bought a pair of bright pink shoes...

the jury is still out apparently.

I like poetry. I know not everyone does (e.g. OJ), but I do. It is expressionate, there is a poem for every occasion - especially in my massive collection - and sometimes a poem can really capture your own thoughts and feelings and help one make light of them. Larkin is a favourite of mine – I studied him at A Level and he's fantastically cynical about the world. On this fine and sunny morning in July I thought I would share with you the following well-known verse. I agree with all but the last line. The penultimate line is so very very tempting.

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself

These days, AOL don't like being phoned. As far as they are concerned they might as well be ex-directory. On calling their Member Services, customers whose PCs are not in imminent danger of causing nuclear meltdown/failing to connect to AOL at all are all shepherded back onto the internet and told to go to Live Chat for further assistance.

This is what I did a few days ago when I had a few questions about how AOL Broadband would fare when adapted for a wireless network. I clicked the 'Live Chat' button, and lo and behold, I was deposited in a chat room with what sounded suspiciously like a chatbot (their username was something like CustomerHelp01348355). They told me, in what seemed like copy/pasted chatbotspeak, that I may have to wait as they may be busy handling other victims.

Despite this assertion, it only took about 10 seconds after I had asked my question ("Can you use AOL Broadband platinum on more than one household PC at the same time using different screen names?") to get a reply. The answer was yes. Seriously, the answer was "Yes." That was it. This made me feel even more like I was talking to a chatbot, as clearly the operator had been trained not to display the slightest hint of emotion, compassion, even interest in the consumer's query. I decided to double-check the answer and asked a second question regarding the compatibility of user accounts, only to be brushed off with "You can find this at AOL Keyword: Home Networking." In other words, "listen, sonny, you're wasting my valuable time, I can't be bothered teaching you how to suck eggs, go and read that."

Well that's fair enough, I guess. If the information is there - and that keyword did prove helpful - then send me there. But I got the distinct impression that I was an unwelcome intruder into this person's life, despite their job description being to entertain my every whim just so long as I ended up giving AOL cash. My next question was a more technical one (AOL had magicked up the wrong screen name to be the master account and refused to budge from its choice), but was greeted with a slightly patronising "That option was included on the setup screen." Yes, but AOL was installed in a different location six months ago, wise guy, and now I'm installing broadband in a different house. Thus this is a different kettle of fish. What say you now, oh instant messenging demon of limited vocabulary? "Uninstall then reinstall."

Now I don't want to sound like an old fuddy-duddy - we have OJ for that - but would a little politeness really kill anyone? The AOL assistant went through the conversation using nothing but the bare minimum number of words required for me to comprehend. No niceties, not a sniff of concern about the problem, just an eagerness to get me out of the way. This can be put down to a number of things. For a start, one imagines that the job gets very tedious after the fifty-seventh person has asked you, on a Monday morning, whether the thing that just popped out is a CD tray or a coffee cup holder. After all, that is the kind of person that normally uses AOL - the technologically brain-dead, unassuming, 2.4-children kind of person that sees the pretty lady on television with AOL on her dress, and decides that the pretty lady will surely stop little Jimmy and Susie seeing smut. I dread to think what AOL assistants have to put up with.

However that is no excuse for treating all customers on some kind of subhuman level. I can think of two other reasons why this approach may be tempting. Firstly, one imagines that reducing the number of words typed reduces the risk of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which is quite ingenious but bloody unhelpful for the likes of me, the beleaguered customer. Secondly and more importantly, these people probably work to quotas. The more people to whom you explain the difference between a CD tray and a coffee cup holder in an hour, the more you earn. In that case then the urge, having lured customers in, to swat them out of the way as quickly as possible must be a strong one. One of my friends worked as a "Customer Services Operative" for Screwfix Direct one summer and found himself given a target whereby he was encouraged to keep the average call length to just three minutes. If AOL operate that kind of system - and they almost certainly do - then it's no wonder that customers get pushed through like sardines into a tin. I got an email yesterday with an invoice from a hosting company I use. The email began "Dear Valued Customer". If I was that valued, would it have hurt to know my name? Customer recognition in the age of the internet is, I fear, at its lowest ebb.

Of course, whilst being an AOL assistant probably sucks as a job, it could be worse. They don't have to be up at 3am and endure 23-hour working days with screaming brats. Unlike OJ.

Finally, one piece of news. OJ will remember that despite a lack of artistic talent which led to my technology teacher telling a 12-year-old me that I had the "painting skills of a 6-year-old", I had a two or three year phase of drawing comic strips. Most of them centred around my dog, Toby, although for some bizarre reason had a setting in an office populated by dogs. Well, Toby: Business Dog Of The 90s (to give it its full name, which will now change to reflect the passing of time) is back. I know what you're thinking, but mercifully the artistic side of things is no longer my responsibility - it just so happens that I'm currently going out with an exceptionally skilled artist who wants to restart the strip and be in charge of the actual drawings. This is fantastic. Watch this space...

I have decided I am going to write a novel. Ok, it'll be crap, but heh. And any comments such as OJ's (not that I am bitter) of "that's good dear... they say everyone has a book in them... and that it should stay there..." are not going to be appreicated. When I am the next thingy thingy who wrote Harry Potter, you'll be sorry. (Needless to say OJ has grovelled sufficiently for such an abusive remark)

Btw - currently at Freshfields on a vac scheme. Have met someone from the University of Hull. *shudder* Where is that?? At least 50% of people are still Oxbridge. Not that I am snobbish or anything... more on the experience at a later date.

Oh Cement!
How murky and mucky ye are,
like a
dark mysterious visitor
from far far away.

Oh Cement!
Wherefore you draining,
emotional and physical.
Reminds me of years past.

Oh Cement!
Shall I ever get you off my mind?
Or will thou still be there in the morning
mocking
as the geese do to ducks.

Oh Cement!
(Etc.)

Well, it’s July 2004 and that means that this Dayorama has been up and running for a year. And it is still going – wonders will never cease.

I just thought that I should pass comment on the book ‘A million little pieces’ – see the post with nearly the same title. I must admit, this was an extremely good read – highly captivating, very vivid, emotive and thought provoking. The story is true – the author provides us with an insight into his time spent at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic. The tales are graphic, the emotions are real and it is possible to connect with them and really see through the author’s eyes. Needless to say, the novel isn’t for the faint hearted, and one needs to have a fairly open mind to cope with the language and some of the content. I was able to connect with several of the emotions he discusses, especially regarding inner fury and anger towards parents who only ever try to do their best for me and yet are rejected at every interval. Frey also discusses Tao Te Ching – very uplifting. So, I would recommend the novel but prepare to be moved by it, maybe shed a tear and yet at the same time be inspired.

I haven’t ‘changed my life in 7 days’ yet, probably because I haven’t had the book for seven days, but there again, the content is certainly noteworthy.