As you might be aware, the UK is going through what could be understatedly called ‘a bit of a cold snap’ right now.

I’ve been snowed out of going to work for two days so far, and today decided to try and free the car and at least make it to the shops to stock up on food. Here’s how …

This was the view of my car from my window this morning: blanketed snugly in snow.

Not possessed of a shovel, I needed something to help shift that amount of snow. I don’t like throwing things away, especially when they are festive in nature, so luckily I still had something to help …

This was, at one point, filled with foody items. The first step was to remove the festive cellophane, then start dismantling the wrapping paper …

This leaves us with …

Armed with my “shovel” I ventured outside – the first step was to retrieve my boots from within the car itself! The snow was rather deep …

And here’s what my car looked like when I got round the back to see it …

The snow was pretty deep …

I used the smaller piece of cardboard to clear the passenger side, as this had less snow on it and was also in the sun. Finally I got the car open!

With the boots now retrieved …

I got back into the house to put them on, then back out to clear the rest of the car.

Before beginning, I turned the engine on, whacked up the climate control to 32 degrees, and turned on the heated windscreen and rear screen.

You can’t see here, but there was actually steam rising off the windscreen

After clearing away snow from the back of the car as well, I made a bolt for it. I actually managed to get it past those garages you see behind the car into the clear area, before getting stuck for good. One of my neighbours was trying to dig her garage out, so graciously gave me a push *back* into my parking space, before we both headed off to  Tesco by foot to stock up on some provisions!

Here’s an awesome snowman we saw on the way…

Yeah … so almost 7 months have passed since I last tried doing something with this website.

Since then, I got laser eye surgery, went to Korea, came back from Korea, moved house, and set up a photography site for my piccies. The last bit is what encouraged me to get back in here.

The first bit you can read about in a post. The other stuff … well you’ll just have to wait for that. There *is* a Korea post in the offing, but I’ve been working on it on and off for a considerable amount of time.

You CAN however look at alllll the pretty pictures (there are some of me, so those don’t count as pretty pictures, before anybody sues me for retinal damage) that I took whilst there, plus a whole bunch of others. I’m particularly pleased with the portraits.

Either click the Gallery link above or to the right, or mash your mouse right on THIS FAT ARSE LINK HERE. BOOM.

That’s it for now. More to follow! At … some … point …

My bowels have just expressed their anger with the world with devastating fury. I’m writing this from the toilet, bless the iPhone for bringing bog-blogging to the masses!!
I haven’t updated this in months and have just realized it still exists. Time to do something with it …

So it’s 2.30am. I’ve just downloaded the Wordpress app for the iPhone to make this post.
Why? Well, I’m just not tired. Crazy thing is, I know that in two days time I’ll be begging for sleep by about 9pm …

And now here’s a blurry photo of the time, if that feature works …

The modern connected world is ridiculous. I work in it, and I love it, but still it’s ridiculous.

I’m sitting here online at my PC, with my iPhone beside me.

Han and Rob are on MSN. I start talking to Han, and it’s somebody else, so instead I start texting her.
Then she is there, and replies to the text I just sent via MSN.
I have Firefox open on Facebook, and somebody adds a comment to a status. It flags it up on Facebook, my iPhone ‘bongs’ because it’s just received the email telling me that the comment has been made, and soon enough Outlook will do the same because it’s connected to the same email account.

I can either refresh the page, click the notification, go to the email, or go to Facebook on my iPhone, all to see this update.

Then Han makes a comment on a photo on Facebook, all the bongs happen to tell me, I see it, then discuss it with her on MSN, rather than Facebook.

Whilst it’s great that we can all get information in so many ways these days (granted, Facebook is hardly mission critical), it’s all a bit ridiculous isn’t it?

I dislike New Year. I like to remember good things that have happened; things that made me laugh, happy times with friends, moments of success. Thinking back over an entire year encapsulates everything, both good and bad. Whilst it’s the bad things that shape us all just as much – if not moreso – than the good things, I prefer not to take a whole years’ worth of crap all in one go.

New Year always kind of forces that kind of reflection. For the last two years (i.e. beginning of 2007 and 2008) I’ve been really looking forward to the year ahead. 2009 I’m not so keen on, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Despite all of my mutterings though, here I am, reflecting on what a year 2008 was. It certainly had its ups and downs …

I started 2008 with one month left of my contract at HP-CDS. I was heading back to Coventry for some training which – I hoped – would kick my career up onto the next rung of the ladder and get me into Cardiff, the closest city to where I currently live and the one I’d like to live in. I turned down a few options at HP-CDS in order to leave, but I felt that I had learnt a good amount and contributed well to the company, and that it was time to move on.

The training was mostly good. I spent all my additional savings I’d accrued whilst working at HP-CDS in order to do it, but got a lot of information and a lot of learning resources into the bargain.
Almost in a carbon-copy of 2007, I got a call from an agency before I finished the training and was offered a contract role at the Welsh Assembly Government with Siemens IT Services (oddly not Fujitsu-Siemens this time). I finished the training, and took up a 5 week contract. It was advertised as 6 months at first, then 3, then ended up being 5 weeks. Cheeky of the agency, but it was well-paid work so I can’t complain.

During this time, somebody back at HP-CDS decided they wanted me back. Cue a call from Proveya Ltd whilst I’m with Siemens (actually whilst I was standing in line at Subway, but that’s by-the-by). I negotiated a rate as high as they would go (£5 per hour more than I was on before) and once I’d finished at Cardiff, I was back off to the Southern Counties of England after a short week’s break, just 3 months after I’d left.

Things had changed in 3 months. The system that myself and just a handful of others had been supporting was becoming de rigeur across the whole business, and I found myself more and more dealing with the antiquated older system that I’d not even touched when I was there before.

To be brutally honest, my second go around was nowhere near as fulfilling, and I don’t mind saying that (and have done on several occasions). The work was either boring or impossible (requiring somebody with specialist knowledge of a product to step in and effect a fix after I’d spent a week trying to figure it out on my own/with others) and almost always totally irrelevant to the outside world. Whilst other organisations were romping away with a tried and tested Windows XP/Server 2003 infrastructure, here I was muddling away with a bunch of NT4 shite and proprietary software that most people had never heard of.
It was particularly disappointing to see that after the work that myself and another colleague had put in, new opportunities were not even offered to us, instead taken up by somebody entirely new coming to work with us.

Regardless, all experience is good experience, and the money was good. The people were good too. I’ve been at the company long enough now to make some good friends there, which does help the crappier days get by!

Speaking of friends and outside of work, I saw one of my best friends finally achieve his goal and head off to stretch his considerable talent at a university down in the South, and I also saw another of my best – and in fact my longest lasting – friends come back from Durham to live much closer once more!! We set about making a weekly arrangement whereby we’d go to the cinema each Wednesday to see whatever was on. It was nice, to have something to break the week up and pull my mind away from work and the interminable commute, or whatever else was on it at the time.

I also finally realised my dream of owning a car that I could be truly proud of. In 2007 I swapped my Ford Ka3 for my parents Renault Laguna. This year, I bought myself a 2006 BMW 320Cd. It’s truly a great car. It looks fantastic, drives wonderfully, and gets better economy than the Laguna. What more could a young, car-loving commuter ask for?
The monthly repayments are kinda high, but I borrowed money from my parents at a set interest rate and I hate debt, so I’m trying to pay that back as quickly as possible.

Skipping across to 2008 money, I invoiced more money this year than I have ever done before, which marks off my 2008 goal of “Earn more money”. Note that I say invoiced, because to date, I’ve still not been paid for 7 weeks, which works out somewhere in the region of £4,000.

The aforementioned Proveya Ltd went into liquidation, along with their double-dealing bastard of a manager, leaving myself and many other contractors up a certain creek without a certain instrument. We’re still trying to reclaim the money.

As we all know, in the final quarter of the year the bottom fell out of the economy and the shit really did hit the industrial-sized fan.
Just before Christmas, I was informed that the position I held was to become a permanent role. Which basically means, either I take the position (a salaried position, and what I’m guessing will be an effective ~40% pay cut) or leave when they find somebody else to take that place.

I hate being forced into a decision, but that’s what I have to decide on when I go back next week. If the offer is too low, I simply cannot afford to continue there. If the offer is right, then I’ll be upping sticks and moving to the area, and – unless the company is generous – scraping along. Unfortunately I made the error of predicating my standing orders on being in contracted employment for the forseeable future, which means I have a large amount going out each month. Easily covered as a contractor. Not so easily once on a lower salary.

There is one thing keeping me at the company which I can’t discuss here, which would do wonders for my future prospects, so it’s in my interest to try and achieve that.

I suppose we’ll see.

So, 2008/2009.

I technically made more money than I ever have, yet end the year with less than this time last year, and head into an economically uncertain 2009 with either a massive pay cut, or impending unemployment!

I’ve made some good new friends, but by the end of February will have lost the one closest (and probably most important) to me to the wilds of South Korea, and if I’m out of HP-CDS, those new ones will be elsewhere too.

My career is pretty much stagnant. I’ve not pushed myself forward in what I learn, primarily because the opportunity to do anything of interest and/or in relation to what I learned in Coventry is simply non-existant unless I move to another company, as far as I can see (and in spite of all the pie-in-the-sky half-promises made at the company).

As for my own personal goals .. fitness, socially, etc., it’s been as underwhelming as 2007 was. I won’t even bother with excuses this time, I’m simply not performing as well as I should.

All in all, a pretty mixed bag. Plenty of good, but also plenty of bad to balance it out. 2008 sped by like a blur, and I think that was mainly because it was just so damn uninteresting.

Here’s to 2009, and lighting a fire under my arse.

The music creeps gently into my ears, pouring itself over my eardrums like warm oil.

I keep my eyes closed, listening to the chords and gentle melodies echo gracefully from the stone flags that pave my surroundings, and the glass canopy that shelters me from the inky black skies above. The gentle burbles and trickles of water from the pool in the centre of the enclave mix with the rich musical notes, soothing away any and all of the troubles that, moments ago, encroached on my mind.
My body is warm; a balmy current of air flows over me, almost too subtle to notice but despite my sense of deep relaxation, my sense are simultaneously soothed and heightened.

I open my eyes and look upwards. There is no light save for that inside the pool. Crystal blue light ripples across the glass canopy, an oblong of serene calm that diffuses outwards into the black of the night sky, providing the perfect visual complement to the aural atmosphere.
Beyond the glass walls that surround us, curving from the roof to meet the sandstone flags, there is nothing but night. It feels oddly comforting but I wonder if it would feel so were the barrier not there. It is a fleeting thought of contemplation which passes quickly.

Closing my eyes again, I stretch my arms outward, feeling as though I am drifting slowly on a current of warm air towards the earth. My hand touches another; her skin is soft and warm as always and I gently feel the outline of her hand and wrist. She is with me again. Though I cannot see her, I feel her smile.

Minutes pass, or perhaps just seconds. Time blurs, it is a meaningless frippery in this place, and I have no need nor want for its presence.

Eventually we rise, walking past the rippling, crystal-blue waters and emerge from the warm glass enclave into the night.
The air is cool and refreshing, not biting but a contrasting complement to the warm air within. We step to the edge of the building we are atop of and look downwards.

Below are the lights and noise of a busy city. Within the lights and noise are the complications, the problems, the challenges and the people of my life. I long to be there but simultaneously never want to return. I would stay here forever if I could.
I reach for my companion, but she is gone, melted away into the night sky. The enclave is receeding from view and soon I can barely make out its soothing blue light, and the gentle music that soothed me is now silent.

That place is not real, the sensations it evokes nothing but a dream. The woman is not mine to hold, the feelings forever cursed to lie entombed and locked away for none to see.

I close my eyes again, knowing that when I re-open them I will be back in a room a million miles away from that place, that person, that wonderful sense that nothing really matters …

Inspired by Leftfield: Melt

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, of the personal variety. Makes a difference from stressing over things that I can’t fix at work I suppose, but this is the kind of stuff that means I don’t eat or sleep so well, which is a bit of a fucking pain when you’ve got to get up at half five every morning and slog 100 miles up the M4 into work.

I’ve just been sitting here tidying up bits and pieces with iTunes on shuffle, when Look for the Woman by Dan le Sac & Scroobius Pip came on. I’m a big fan, absolutely love the album, and think that Pip is a lyrical genius. Then these verses hit me, and it was almost like he was talking directly to me …

I guess lately I’ve had too much time to think and, yeah, way
too much to drink and when the paper meets the ink over
thinking is the chink in my armour. But that’s just what I do.

And I’ve always been that way forever questioning each
day and every play that’s made that may mean when I lay
my busy mind will make me pay by finding problems and
reasons that might not even be true

You can listen to the whole track here (ignore the crappy slideshow over the top of it)

But I’m listening, and thinking … crap that’s me all over! Just this week I dug a hole for myself through no other reason than over thinking a situation that apparently didn’t even exist in the first place … it’s kinda nice to have it verbalized in a song though

According to Wikipedia, Mansun were an indie band that formed in 1995 that “liberally [mixed] beatrock, prog, psychedelia, pop, and 80s noir influences—along with having a fearsome live act who drastically rearranged their songs for the stage”.

I think that Paul Draper (vocalist, rhythm guitarist) would take exception to that. It wasn’t indie, it was rock and roll.
It is the 10th anniversary of the band’s album Six, and Paul has written an extensive, revealing and (at times) downright bizarre two-part blog about the album, it’s meanings, inspirations, the trials and tribulations of putting it together, and everything in between.

To me, Mansun were – and still are – much more than just a band that did some off-the-wall shit and tried to challenge preconceptions and genres, getting critically slaughtered whilst doing it.

Mansun were the first band I ever saw live, during their Six tour back in late 1998. I would have been almost 14 then, living in Mid-Cheshire and just finding my way through the social minefield that was High School, being a teenager, and all that other crap we all have to go through before we find an even keel to guide us through this crazy world. I can still remember queueing up outside the Chester Leisure Centre (it was a big place!) at night with my friends, sheltered from the winter weather by ridiculous black puffa jackets. Yeah, we sure were cool back then.

It seemed like an age before the band came on stage, and we were so short we could barely see anything anyway. Along with the ridiculous jackets (which were so hot we risked passing out from heat exhaustion), it all got considerably uncomfortable. We left the crowd and ended up walking around the upper floors of the Centre, whilst Mansun’s sound perforated every wall and surface, echoing down corridors so that wherever we went, it would find us.
We went back in at the end, standing near the side with the people in wheelchairs, in time for their final song. I can’t even remember what it was, but to this day I still remember the experience, so it must’ve meant something to me.

The album Six, however, meant and means a whole lot more. Mainly because I can listen to it without standing behind unfeasably tall men whilst my internal organs boil out of my ears perhaps. 2008 is, as I’ve already said, the 10th anniversary of an album which is as musically complex and fascinating as anything else I’ve known. And I’m going to talk more about it. Click ‘More’ if you’re bored, and maybe want to get an inner glimpse at my internal locus.So, here you are. Well done.

Reading the blogs that Paul has written will give you a much better understanding of Six and perhaps the band as a whole, but I don’t know that it will make a whole lot of sense unless you’re familiar with the album beforehand.
If just this much has gotten you curious, hit up these links where you can hear tracks legally. Or just buy the album, it’s probably only a couple of quid by now. (Hmm, the second link currently has demos that are referred to in the blogs, but the videos down the left have the album tracks)
Most people I mention Mansun to have never heard of them, or assume that I’m talking about Marilyn Manson. Nobody has yet assumed I’m going on about Charlie Manson, thank god.

Musically, Mansun are incredibly interesting to listen to. Reading the blogs, it becomes clear just what insane lengths they went to in order to create the sound they did. The accepted standard of song structures was tossed out of the window, along with most other accepted conventions at the time, in order to make something that was specifically different and, I guess, a “fuck you” to the music scene of the day. They were, of course, widely slated by critics of the time, when everybody and everything had to be pigeonholed into one genre or the other, or else people just wouldn’t “get it”.

Now, I think, the album is critically acclaimed. Funny how things change, isn’t it?

Whilst the music, especially the crazy, wailing guitars, were impressive to me (strange how my current love of good electronic music is partly to do with the insane production and layering of sounds that goes on, which is exactly the sort of thing that Mansun implemented in their music), the lyrics meant so much more.

The overwhelming feeling of Six – to me at least – is of quite a chaotic, dark, tortured mind. It turns out, reading the blogs, that in a lot of cases, Paul and the band were plainly taking the piss

As a kid, I was a bit … misplaced. I moved from my childhood friends and relationships in South Wales to the North West, just in time for High School. Using my tried-and-tested combination of affability (is that a word?), gentle self depracation and a knack for avoiding anything that would seriously embarrass myself (for example, anything sport-related) I got in with a fairly close-knit group of friends and things were alright.
But it was a big, scary world, and I had my own demons to deal with. Maybe I didn’t even know it at the time, but once I found Mansun and Six, I started feeling like I had something with which I could associate with my innermost thoughts.

Even if that something was just a Compact Disc.

The family moved again, a year or two later, back to where we came from. A blessing and a curse, because although I knew far more people, they had all changed – hell, I had changed. Again, the intricate, dark lyrics of Six came back into play. I remember having bad days, getting on the bus home and plugging that into my ears, and just feeling somehow better by the time I got home.

To me, Six was very much about being different, being an outcast, not truly belonging to one place or another, even if that was all inside and nobody really knew about it. To this day, if I really strip myself down to the basics, that’s how I feel.
It makes life one helluva lot easier to be affable and nice to everyone, and it feels good. But by not going to one extreme or another in anything that you do, you end up not really belonging to anything or anyone. I still dress like people I’d be out of my depth with to socialise with people I love to be with but will never fit into the ‘culture’ that they are a part of.
It’s something that I’ve done for so long that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to change, or if I want to. It’s all a bit strange, really.

But I digress.

Back in the Young Ed days, I took the words of the songs as literally as I could. I’ve never been a great philosopher and, as such, all the Taoist, religious stuff threaded in and out of songs was a bit beyond me. So I took what I could understand and tried to make it relevant to my life.

The second track on the album, Negative, has such nuggets as

Stop, you’re looking miserable / Can’t be bothered getting up today / My future’s looking positive / No one even picked on me today

Turns out this song is all about getting a mortgage application approved, and is actually a really positive song!! But as I say, at the time it was all about what it meant to me. There were some people who made my life needlessly negative for their own personal enjoyment, and this song worked well with it.

Inverse Midas is a wonderful track. Very short, with just a simple message:

Everybody helps me make my own mistakes
If i’m left alone i’d make them anyway

It was a song intended to outline how we all blame outside influences for our mistakes to make ourselves feel better but, if we look at it objectively, it’s all on us. As relevant today as it ever was, if you ask me. I think that plenty of us are guilty of making ourselves feel good by blaming other people needlessly. There was a lot in my life I had control over and never exercised that control to make things better. It’s a personal failing of mine, one which continues to this day.

Anti Everything is a song about homeless people. Specifically, the grief that Paul Draper got off a homeless person in London. I like the song, and thankfully its words mean nothing to me. But the title always struck a chord with me, despite my considerably conformist attitud to life, the universe and everything.
I guess we all have a little anarchist in us just waiting to come out

Cancer, a 9min32sec collosus of a song, struck a chord on a few levels. For a start it contains the repeated lyric

I’m emotionally raped by Jesus

This, as a member of a catholic school whilst not entirely agreeing with catholicism (nor any sort of organised religion) provided me with great entertainment. I think I always fancied that one day I’d whack this track on in the middle of Religious Education. I’d probably have been burnt as a heretic, but the little anarchist in me obviously isn’t too fond of fire so it never happened.

I’m emotional and sensitive and frail
In need of some love

Yeah, you can laugh. But everyone needs love, and that includes me. I’m still emotional and sensitive. I’ll break your teeth if you try and test out the frail bit though. Be warned.

Special/Blown It (Delete as Appropriate) is a brilliant song, musically speaking. Lyrically this might be the one that I identified with most, depending on where my mood was swinging on the crazy pendulum of life.
The track is quite personal to Paul Draper, envisaging himself in the future after Six, what he may have become, depending on how things all go.
For me – at times feeling like I was stuck on a tireless treadmill going nowhere, achieving nothing, feeling like I would never achieve anything worthwhile, the words were like a warm blanket to cling to. Sounds perverse, but when you can’t vocalise your thoughts and feelings that are nagging at the back of your skull, having a song do it all for you is quite comforting.
Sometimes the urge to just turn away from it all, forsake everyone and everything and disappear to another life was tempting. I never had the balls to do it though.

It’s still a song that came to my head whenever I failed at something where others succeeded. I beat myself up pretty badly over stuff, perhaps sometimes to the point of obsession. I’m not so bad at that now, probably because I don’t fail much anymore

You should really listen to this, but fuck it, here’s the lyrics all anyway.

I’ve blown it in every single way
Screwed every single chance that came
You’re a super star in waiting for the silver screen
Then the pressure came
Swept away in a tidal wave
Could be all of you, still awake at noon
Blew my chances in a tragic flurry, sweeping apathy
Buy all my food from the B.P. store when the night kicks in
I’m turning my back on everyone
I’ve blown everything i’ve ever done

I’ve fucked it up, shot my load
Spewed onto the motorway shoulder
I could have been somebody special

I’m not such a tragic waste of space
I could bring happiness to people
Just one more greatest hits tour for the devotees
The same old faces came
They love their summer spectaculars
By the grace of god could be up by noon
And not a tragic waster but i can’t stay focused for my apathy
They could have bought me a brand new car and a house in france
I’ve really blown it now
Blew it all away on a whim

Sat on my own for far too long
Things could have been so different now
Life looks so confusing through my window bay
Just to see a face, i’m really pleased when the gas man comes
Could be all of you still awake at noon
Blew my chances in a tragic flurry of apathy
All my food from a B.P. store when the night kicks in
I’ve really blown it now
Blew it all away on a whim

But i fucked it up, shot my load
Spewed onto the motorway shoulder
I could have been somebody special

Legacy was and is an amazing track. The vocals are just so hauntingly beautiful. Got to hand it to Paul, he has a fantastic voice. I think this one has had a specific relevance throughout life, maybe still now. I think Paul explains it best, as it’s also how I see the song:

… looking back at the sacrifice of your emotional happiness for material gain has had on your life and where it’s got you. Trying to justify to yourself it’s been the right path to take in your life by lessening the importance of relationships and justifying it by looking at the damage personal relationships can do in your life.
The second half of the second verse asks what’s the root of ambition, what character defect drives you? The line: “I wouldn’t care if I was washed up tomorrow” is false bravado, a self-defence mechanism to hide the fear of failure from your ambition. It’s just raising some questions about ambition and the futility of it because in the end. The price. The cost. What’s left at the end of the day when ambition’s drained the last drop out of you? Well I just pictured the view from the stage during a gig. The sea of faces looking back at you, that’s what your doing it all for, just them people, and at the end of the day, after you’ve given everything, well nobody really cares when you’re gone, do they?

Talking to someone the other night, I realised that material gain is all I’m gunning for in life right now. It’s short term happiness, the absolute worst kind you can get. When I look back at my life, am I going to regret all of that? I’m fairly determined that’s not going to happen. Changes are afoot, or nearly are anyway. I don’t want my Legacy to be devoid of meaning, with nobody caring when I’m gone.

The last song on the album, Being a Girl is not, as some short-sighted morons might think, about wanting a sex change. It’s an allegory for being unhappy with your situation. As you’ve probably guessed by now, this was yet another poignant track.

Lyrics like

I’m so boring, my clothes wanna keep
Someone else warm, someone cooler

and

My deodorant hides the real me
These things elevate me above animals

occasionally come back to nag at me. It’s the age old questions we all face – who am I? Why am I? What am I doing with my life? What makes me special?
You can kind of see why Sylar got all crazy and homicidal once he started getting powers. Yay for Heroes reference.

Christ on a cracker, this has gone on a long while. I think I’ve been writing/listening for about an hour. I need to get out more. Oh wait, it’s dark and Monday. Whatever.

I specifically didn’t mention the title track and first track of the album, Six. Mainly because this contains the most currently topical (in reference to me) lyrics of them all, and partly because it makes me look mildly clever by linking the end of the post into the post title.

And you see, i kind of shivered to conformity
Did you see the way I cowered to authority
You see, my life, it’s a series of compromises anyway
It’s a sham, and i’m conditioned to accept it all

I don’t like making compromises. I want the best that I can get, at all times. I don’t think that that’s a bad way to be. It’s a miracle that we’re all here on this planet – regardless of what religion you do or do not believe in – and it’s my personal belief that we owe it to whatever power that got us here to be the best that we can be in at least one way in our lives.

I also use that as a reason not to do things. I work one side of the country, live the other. Either I stay here, take a different job that won’t pay as well and try and get a life, or I go live over there, get paid just as well but live somewhere not so nice.

The payoff of either is that I finally get a life back, meet new people and finally strike up a relationship again with some attractive young lady.

The other night I got some good advice. It wasn’t ground-breaking stuff, in fact it was exactly what I’ve been telling myself for a long time. I think I just needed to hear it from somebody else, someone who realistically doesn’t have any kind of vested interest in whatever I choose to do – or not do.

So yeah. Life is a series of compromises. Sometimes you just have to, in order to make yourself better than if you’d stuck to your principles and not bothered.

Mansun’s Six is a triumph of musical and lyrical talent.

And I was all Intel, Emo-Inside as a teenager, without having to wear ANY fucking mascara or faux-goth clothing to get attention and feel special.

Who knew?

Not a musing (read: rant) this time, you’ll be glad to see

I just scrolled down and saw my post Making a Mark. Posted on June 6th, it was borne out of a desire to do something with my life (a recurring theme of mine that ebbs and flows like a very sporadic tide) and a decision to make that something photography.

Since then I sold my Canon S3 IS, and purchased a Canon EOS 450D. The full bananas. I thought if I was going to do it, I may as well do it properly. Digital Photography, that is. Besides it’s not like I spend my money on having a life or anything (sorry, but it’s pretty much true) so I might as well splurge a bit from time to time (in monetary terms, that is).

It’s an amazing camera, and despite myself I have actually managed to get a few decent pictures here and there. I don’t have a decent macro lens though, and I remembered when I was just trying to take some pictures of a dragonfly that I actually really like macro photography. Something to go on the list I guess.

The money that I’m not spending or putting into a pension ISA (see, I do have sensible grown-up plans other than just buying shiny toys) is being saved for a new car. I like my current car, but it’s rapidly approaching 100,000 miles and is realistically too big for my needs. More often than not it’s just me in the car, so I have absolutely no requirements for a family hatchback …

Originally I was looking at the second-hand market, but the Fiat Grande Punto caught my eye, with Fiat’s 0% 3 Year Finance deal. It’s an attractive looking car, with hints of Maserati in the styling, and over the last few weeks I specified the exact model that I wanted (pretty much the top of the range with all the toys ) and there were only two sticking points.

Firstly, I hadn’t decided what colour I wanted and secondly (and more importantly) I hadn’t actually sat in one, let alone driven one. The reviews spoke of a great little car, but with a cheap interior and loose gearbox.

Now I like quality (which is why I tend to buy the more expensive of any option given) and I like a nice crisp gearchange in a car, or at least something positive. This morning I took a trip to Newport to take a look.

They had a GP model, the one below the model I would want (the Sporting) in the colour I would probably have it in (red), so I took a seat inside and had a look around. I thought that maybe the reviews were being overly harsh and, as a driver of a 10 year old car, I’d find the plastics and trim pretty damn good.

I was mistaken.

The steering wheel (leather stitched) was a joy to hold compared to the one in my car, and the instrument cluster was smart, but the rest of the interior really fell short. All the buttons felt incredibly cheap and almost soft, not in the ’soft touch plastics’ way but in the ‘this might fall apart when you need to use it’ way. The gearbox also felt really loose – I was sitting still, but I don’t imagine it would get much better on the road.

Overall I came away with a fairly negative impression. I could take a test drive and maybe should, but now I’m going back to the second-hand market.

I found that, instead of paying £15,000 over three years, I could get the Punto through Broadspeed.com for about £12,000. This didn’t involve a finance deal, but I can borrow that money at agreeable terms.

So, what can I get for that money on the second-hand market? A BMW 320 diesel coupe, that’s what. OK, so I don’t get any dealer perks, and the car will have mileage, but provided I do my research and buy a good example, I’ll be getting more car and – most importantly – a much higher level of quality for my money.

And in the end, I’m all about maximising my investment if I can maximise my enjoyment at the same time.