To respond to people who have been wondering, yes the exam and indeed yesterday was mine.

I now have three MCPs under the uber belly, which will serve me well in the future if I run out of toilet paper. So here we are, I am currently at an academic place, about to be bored to tears about projects of questionable length and start crying.

The bad days are here again.

Which kind of means that I may have to take my foot off the pedal as far as the blogging and the podcasts go, which is a disturbing turn of events I grant you, but in order to get the sheer level of documentation done as well study for an exam I thought I wouldn’t have to sit, I have taken the stance of:

Get the work done, leave everything else for now, and then when you have more time then come back to doing this lovely malarky for fun and frolicks.

Don’t worry dear readers, I will still be about, occasionally posting, but it will more than likely be on the progress of the work getting done, unless something fantastic happens like someone else does the work for me…. anyone?

Check back later for the happenings of the weekend and also a suprise birthday party. Yes, the fact that I kept my mouth shut for a change amases even me…

Because of the lack of updates recently you might be thinking that the Special Forces of our government have kidnapped the Lord of Leisure to aid them in their hour of need. That pesky evil person with the secret underground lair just won’t stop trying to do naughty to the world and only the laziness of the Lord of Leisure can prevent him from carrying out his evil plans.

If he becomes lethargic, then we are all saved.

Beside from selling the movie rights to that Oscar winning flick, I have a Microsoft exam tomorrow which I have been revising for and failing at the practise exams, so I expect to be crying after 4pm tomorrow. Never mind, whatever happens I will post on Thursday more happenings from last weekend, including the dubious overuse of the phrase “Sexual Tyrannosaurus Rex” from Predator at a birthday doo out.

Also other news from the week will be including my slight “dissatisfaction” with certain further education institutions after their incompetence with messing us about, and the feeling like I should have listened to others at the beginning of the educational year. Trust me, as far as I am concerned they deserve no respect as they haven’t figured out how to communicate with each other. More later.

I have some emails to respond to, including a brief email from my good friend in Birmingham and some emails to send regarding required details and I will get to that on Thursday too.

So for now, dear readers take heart with the fact that the Lord of Leisure is around but otherwise occupied, so please leave a message after the beep.

Beep.

Lots of MP3s from those lovable rouges, Crashing Cario are now avaliable on t’internet priced at 50 cents per song. Come people, give your money, with the exchange rate that works out at 25p. you don’t get that kind of value from Itunes so come on down, and take away some musical magic today!

(do I get commission for this?)

It’s been a long and boring week I’m afraid.

I’ve had nothing but trouble with the EvilBeast of a computer going from one operating system to the next, while watching various blockbuster films of questionable value on the DVD player in the front room. That’s the life of a technology bloke, keep everything in the same room in case of emergency.

I have been busy with trying to compare Windows XP to Windows Vista with some suprising results and that will be posted up at some point to keep the recent glut of fan boys who have been coming to the site at bay.

The Podcast page soon will have a lengthy extension, because I’ve had a few emails asking how the hell I do it, so to appease those people (I will email you all of course back when it’s done) and to perhaps cast light over the shadow of podcast production, I will be posting a guide and a few pictures of the typical steps taken to produce the audio masterpiece that swells from my man-bosom.

I know that the updates to the site have been few and far between, due to laziness in some ways and not in others, Life tends to surprise you in many ways at how it robs you of your senses and time, like the old man who runs the amusement park in Scooby Doo. Come Febuary, I do hope that changes but for now folks that’s the way it’s going to be.

The weekend does bring some welcome and I really do mean this now, welcome relief from computers.

I am getting a bit sick of them now, and yes please hold the ironic comments till the end, I think a break from them without anything breaking would do me and my faulty creative mind some good. However, I have a Microsoft exam coming up again, the only one I have failed before and well being frank I expect to fail again. Never mind, at least someone else is footing the bill this time. So yep I am being kept in geeksville for a little while longer.

Anyway, It’s a celebration of my good friend’s Kelly birthday in Manchester which will be good, ahh, to chance a break from the norm, it’s too good to be true.

Not the most fantastic of updates once again I grant you, but an update none the less. Now be quiet, I have more breaking of eletronic crap to do….and Casino Royale has just started on my DVD player.

We return on this Wednesday with more goings-on after the awful fact that it’s been a bit of a bad week for most people and it’s not over just yet.

You see, Monday according to various psychotic people (you know those people who take your money and ask “how does that make you feel?”) is the worst day of the year, because the Christmas malaise has passed, the bills are coming in, the sad fact that work beckons for another full year, and the kids start wanting more things again, not being content with the uber deluxe ultra console 6000 with 170 games and a new car they gained over the festive period.

So this all means that you, the discerning reader of this text will have felt like complete and utter dog poop, or least you will be aspiring to that level.
Is that the case, after all, we have gotten used to the rotten times by now surely? The expense, the bad weather, the feeling that you left the iron on, all these things are now part and parcel of modern life and like soldiers, we march on regardless, hoping to give Gerry what for. When Gerry finds out that everyone is after him and is going give him whatever the “what for” is, he’s going to want somewhere to hide.

And he can hide here at oohsometimes. Fear not dear readers, like the women of the night who keep on “giving”, we too welcome all who waddle into our street corner on the internet.

Fear not, not all is bad…

Granted the economy from all that credit malarkey with rising bills, is now heading into recession whether people want to admit it or not, areas of the job market are drying up (just look at IT and the amount of jobs being offered at the moment, where you are to know everything under the sun for £3.50. If you’re lucky), various pieces of computer type gibbons, which for some reason happen to contain everything about everyone ever, have been disappearing left right and center, but that’s no reason to be disheartened.

Those people who survived the plane turning itself off due to a computer glitch (one hell of a computer glitch if you ask me) will have been kissing the ground, themselves and possibly each other in various forms, just will have been so happy to walk away. That was a good day in retrospect, no-one died.

In fact one could argue that in order change the status quo, you would have to change your situation yourself. But therein lies the rub. That sort of silliness requires huge amounts of effort and if, like me, you are a lord/lady of leisure then the only true concerns you have are sleeping, eating and playing Guitar Hero 3 on a Sunday morning in some colourful underpants. Preferably your own underpants but who can say in this cosmopolitan age?

So if you are feeling blue, just remember to do something to make yourself feel better. Or have a cup of tea, that does wonders for me.

As for the weekend past, once again it was a fairly torrid affair, filled with tales of woe. Well sort of. The parents came to visit again, and I went missing for most of the day, mainly glad that the work was done the day before and I had time to relax before more work was required for the site or indeed Episode 2.

I did actually go to the gym in town, and for the first time in ages, gave the body a good thrashing which it deserved after being naughty all this time. It was extremely hard going on the cross trainer, you know that steppy thing with the two sticks you hold onto that goes back and forth. Ok, not too descriptive but use your imagination to see what it looks like.

Or use Google.

Saturday night was spent with the lady friend of leisure and Laura from Brummieland (well she came from Lithuania too, but now she lives there) drinking various liquids of ill repute and watching Dogma. It was a hoot and a holler, as our American friends like to phrase it. We had a good laugh, talking about issues of the day, and other things which won’t be mentioned here for the same ye olde mystery element that I love creating.

Sunday however was a day which opened my eyes, and then made them sleepy. Laura wanted new stuff for her kitchen to show off to people when they come around for dinner and wanted Natalie’s expertise on the “style” of the cutlery and other bits. Yep, the style. No longer do people just go and buy a dinner set for £20 and all’s done. No, all day was spent worrying about whether or not the plates go with the table cloth.

Now, call me cynical, perhaps disenfranchised but that doesn’t sound like a worthwhile way to spend time. But then again in the company in two attractive women; we men seem to want to put up with just about everything. All for the poon.

Now it’s been a bit of a quiet time here over the past couple of days despite what else has been going on in the world for others, the only joy that’s been had by anyone has been learning or trying to learn for an exam next week, but today brought something completely unexpected.

Warning – the following contains information that only computer geeks will actually find interesting. I’m serious. Normal people will just go: what the f**k? Why? You go out don’t you? You like girls? Why would you buy that then? What possible use is it? No wonder you don’t have money…etc

OK, are you all set?

Sure you’re prepared for the horror?

Righto.

I have joined the elite of geekdom. The finest of the ones with spots, fear of the outside and social problems with other humans away from a screen. Women scare me, but frankly that’s no different to normal.

Sitting at home for me upon my return from yet another wonderful day at work, was a huge brown box from Blizzard Entertainment. They are the people who make lots of quality games which win awards and who have also happened to have hooked 10 million people to play WOW all the time. Digital crack cocaine no less.

Inside said box was another box, completely black except for one side, the picture of which you can see on the left hand side on this lovely text. It was a limited edition Tychus Findlay Starcraft 2 figure, weighing an ton, with the character from the unreleased game standing on a dead alien thing.

Go ahead, say it.

What the f**k?

I’m not normally the type of person to actually go for this sort of thing, the whole comic book statue thing, the cheap computer tat for fan boys which cost two pence to make, but they charge £50 for it. But this was different. I just signed up for the pre-order because it looked cool to me. It was for two main reasons.

1) It was the Christmas present for myself that I knew no-one in their right mind (makes sense right there) would ever get.
2) It’s an investment.

For the christmas present idea, it was bleeding late (supposed to have been sent towards the end of November), and I was borderline canceling the order before it turned up. but the second reason sort of makes sense if you think about it. As long as Blizzard continue to have a huge fan base, then things like this will be gold dust. And sooner or later people will be wanting these and willing to pay for them. Just take a look at an example here from the US site of Ebay:

Already, they are going for auction and people are starting to pay money. They sold in the US for $250 so already that man has made a profit. That is not guaranteed in the future by any means, I grant you. But these things are likely to hold value, considering there are only 1250 of them in the world and I have number 571. That does mean for the most return if I were to auction it, I would have been better off leaving it in the box, but….

What’s the point in that? I want to see what I bought. That and what if the thing was damaged? It had to be checked out. So for the time being it is sitting on top on the bookshelf until I can find somewhere proper for its weighty footprint to rest.

The problem is, I have no real room as it is around here. Looking around the front room, there aren’t many places with such a thing can be placed.

Mind you it’s hardly something you can place in an antique room, filled with priceless paintings. “And here we come to the prize of our collection, a man in a baked beans tin, standing on a dead thing.”

That’s all people. Don’t worry, I’ll take some more heroin mixed with lemsip and be fine in the morning…

Don’t worry the post title is not a mistype, this is just a brief message at silly time o’ clock to the useless f**ker in ISRAEL, yes that evil place where all the real naughty happens, where people want to blow each other up for a “holy” piece of crap land where even Redrow wouldn’t build new houses on and the place containing a single person hell bent on trying to advertise little tiny blue pills to make my wee wee the size of the grand canyon for rather extended (pardon the pun) periods of time.

Surely you will have seen by now, that none of your spam gets through the comments because anyone who hasn’t posted here before gets monitored, and therefore it take three seconds to make you as spam and therefore make you that you don’t trouble me again, but bless you, you do keep on trying and being perfectly honest for the past week, you have filled my inbox with emails filled with your commented silliness, and now the time has come.

Stop it now because there is no way your attempts will even get through the new shiny spam filter I have installed on this site to automate the deletion process. Shame I can’t even look at the adverts any more. Maybe now you will actually stop trying? I doubt it.

Sorry campers, it’s just these tatics employed by certain firms annoy. Hell my Windows Live email is a dumping ground for adverts from company after company with vouchers, limited time offers and I’ve won so many cars, I should have opened a dealership by now. When will they just stop, and allow people to use the internet as it was meant to be, downloading sexual acts on video which happen to be illegal in several countries? With the bandwidth freed up from spam email, we would make ourselves happy a lot quicker, and without the aid of little blue things.

That is all. Stay tuned for more questionable content that your workplace’s web-filter systems will block!

For those of you who didn’t download the new Season 2 premiere of Ooh Sometimes, here is the original review from this month’s Gamers’ Corner for you look at, but really for full effect you should listen to the show because that was changed during the editing process. The score is the same but there were one or two different points from this. Basically it just is so much better.

This will be a regular thing from here on out in case anyone is wondering, the reviews from Gamers’ Corner will appear on the blog site a few days after each release of the podcast, and to that end the review of Call of Duty 4 from season 1 will also appear here in due course but for now sit back in your favourite or at least, most comfortable chair and read on….

Gears of War then, a game created by Epic for those big monsters of Microsoft for the Xbox 360 over a year ago and when it arrived it filled various people with so much joy, they had to store it in their cheeks for the winter. And finally the PC version is here with a few extras over the console version according to the nice shiny box, like extra game chapters but the thing is, I haven’t played the Xbox 360 version so I have no idea what’s been added. Oh and a game editor and lots of downloadable things.

So let’s see what it’s all about then.

It appears that a group of naughty alien people have sent a planet to hell and the game’s actual plot begins fourteen years after Emergence Day, whatever national holiday that is. Marcus Fenix, a former soldier whose body is the size of Belgium, is reinstated into the military which luck would have it also consists entirely of men the size of Belgium after spending four years in prison. His friend comes along, takes to meet various people, and from then on in you shoot everything.

Oh look honey, the world’s gone to s**t again. Let’s have a picnic and watch.

Seriously, how many more times now in all these games, is the world going to go down the toilet with humanity bearly surviving, only to come out on top in end, remember kids, add the american flag waving in the background because it seems they are the only ones ever to survive and start fighting. No, I’m not counting Hellgate: London, because those English accents used make the characters out to be cockney Dick Van Dyke wannabes at best.

So as I was saying, unless you live in the US, I suggest now that you kill yourselves because when the next meteour / germ warfare device / nuclear explosion / ex-girlfriend turning up pregnant happens only in America will life go on.

Ok so the game takes place on another planet but come on, you can join the dots here!

Don’t worry I do start talking about the game proper now. Gears of War is actually for once quite enjoyable if indeed repetitive compared to other alien blowy uppy shenanigans where you charge ever forward saying “Die please because you’re all being jolly rude for making people upset”.

This fills me with hope. At last something ever so slightly different for the PC. I guess my surprise is only heightened because up until I started playing I thought I would just be entering just another third person shooter killing everything and becoming god. Well that sort of happens, but there are good extra bits.

To aim properly you enter first person with a very helpful gun sight. You need that, no question as you don’t have the gun sight when in third person, so third person shooting can be done, but it’s when you are surrounded and need to take the bastards out while moving about and you need to see where you are going. But if you are in that situation, then the shit has already hit the fan most likely and a reload is your next port of call.

You are rarely on your own in this game thanks to your make-believe team-mates, though on occasion they seem to want to go to the enemy and read them poetry, otherwise why would they charge forward get killed and start shouting I need major orthopedic surgery to you as you are the only one who can help fallen comrades what with your gift for using Tesco value scalpels and x-ray machines (aisle 5 next to the meat) but hey it doesn’t happen all the time and they seem to be pretty much on the level throughout, so being honest that’s more of a niggle.

The use of cover forces a slow pace despite all the explosions and gunfire and you need to take your time using various amounts of cover through each set piece of death because being honest if you are out in the open for then 5 seconds, you quickly become next week’s bacon sandwich. And you can “shoot blind” too. No, not like Steve Wonder, you just shoot from behind cover roughly aiming at people while not exposing yourself. Actually that sounds wrong.

The pace of the game isn’t slow enough to make you think time for the pub and maybe make a cheese sandwich in-between each section, but not so fast, you get overwhelmed by 1000 enemies before you’ve had change to pull your socks up.

The difficulty with shooting lots of alien people seems to be just right, As for the bad guys themselves, in terms of looks, well they do forefil all requirements for being Miss Universe that is if the requirements were to look like burned crash test dummies, and as you would expect the further in you go, the hard it is to take them down, save with using that rather handy chainsaw thingy.

The funniest people who charge at you hap-hazardly shooting off weapons in various directions so far, have been the Rocket launcher guys have feel the need to say boom every 2 seconds. They just need some love and a new hobby, so I think just give them a drum set each and then they would feel a lot better.

The naughtiest so far are the cunningly titled because I don’t know the real names of them; “walking on ceiling then drop down on you” guys are pretty nasty and heavy groups of them tend to be a rather bad thing.

As per the console version there is no save system as such except for checkpoints. Ordinarily this would annoy, but with the sections short and intense you feel happy when the checkpoint flashes on the screen, but then that’s the purely coincidental cue for more bad guys to come at you.

Marcus Fenix has a manly but comically voice and yes, when I first heard the big man speak, I instantly wondered if Bender from Futurama was going to pop around the corner laughing and saying how great he is.

The music and other voices are perfectly fine, the graphics are mighty fine boyo, but once again be prepared to take a trip to judder town if you don’t have a high end PC. But even toning down the options, The graphics are vastly detailed as you would expect, with a variety of brown and grey.

And it is very dark throughout, which means you may want to turn the brightness up. Most of the screenshots taken were far too dark to show, so a bit of lighting was required. But for the record, the best part are the landscapes you see outside while fighting, it is a sight indeed and adds to the huge gravity of the situation.

But yes, it is another game where the best results can only be achieved with Uber expensive equipment, but it seems to be par the course these days, unless you’re like Crysis where no-one at the moment has a true chance of running the thing with full everything, not even selling your loved ones’ organs for money will help with that one.

This game offers you the option to play online co-op with some other unknown entity via Microsoft’s online Xbox thingy. The game crashed several times while signing my life away and once there I found I can’t do an awful lot until I start paying Microsoft lots of money every month for a Gold Membership.

This frankly reeks like my underpants after three weeks of continuous usage. As far as I know, it’s only Microsoft that uses Live on the PC, and for access to all features, other games you don’t tend to pay for games like this. Sorry, we’re not that stupid to pay for something that we get free elsewhere. There is a month’s free Gold subscription, but I went for the stuff you only get after that runs out.

I know there are other examples out there; Hellgate London is one such game where you pay extra for additional bits and bobs but with the least amount of respect humanly possible, that’s another example where I wouldn’t pay extra. In fact that game together with some native British currency got traded in for Gears of War, so what does that tell you? One point knocked off the final score for Gears of War I’m afraid.

So for the features I was able to play around with, I played co-op with a guy through several rooms of a house, escaping to a nice car before a big scary thing comes and does naughty. We both died several times but I tell you what, it was a big scoop of ice fun. Playing with others through the single player content brought a lot more to the gameplay.

Other gameplay types involve running after other people and gunning them down silly. And maybe getting some areas for your team sometimes. Either way from my experiences so far with online is it won’t last long. Team Fortress 2 is more ingenious and comical. And of course, I have a nasty feeling that people will drop this given some time in favour of more established PC titles.

So to sum up an already too long review:

• Another holocaust with Aliens.
• Looks Pretty, but requires powerful PC to see.
• Lots of shooting to do.
• Your computer team mates in single player are actually good most of the time.
• Lots of Bad Guys in different varieties.
• Use of cover is good.
• Save system doesn’t actually annoy for a change, and serves to stop people from saving every 10 seconds.
• Windows Live is b******ks, give us a normal multiplayer without further payment.
• Multiplayer’s best asset, co-op, the rest you can leave alone.
• Questionable lasting appeal, and the fact is, it’s already an old title.

And of course, using the outstandingly amazing 1-10 system (where 1 is complete nuts while 10 is the dog’s nuts, with 12 being given for nuts of unquestioning perfection) I hereby award Gears of War on PC:

This is a very good game, The co-op multiplayer, the use of cover, the bad guys. Good job Epic basically. But the game is a year late, I wonder how long it is before you roll back onto Team Fortress 2, Windows Live is rubbish on PC, and they expect you to pay for extra features that other games provide free. Bad Microsoft, Bad Microsoft. Shame I have to be harsh, this game doesn’t deserve it.

 

 Episode 1: New Year [38:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Wow, holy hannah wearing hand-me-downs eating some carrots, the new podcast is here and we are feeling rather proud of this particular show. No real reason, just the fact that it’s finished is enough feel happy about. It is the start of Season 2 for the show, hence the new shiny new logo which looks nice and we promise to deliver nothing but 100% pure rubbish as normal! Enjoy!

As usual you can subscribe to the show via the feed URL: http://www.oohsometimes.com/podcasts/feed.xml which you place carefully into your program of choice such as the free programs Juice or Doppler.

You also have the choice of searching the iTunes store, searching using either Paul Hughes, or Ooh Sometimes and subscribing using the software.

If you like what you hear or you don’t then please let us know at: podcast@oohsometimes.com and we’ll respond at some point.

Music:
The Seldon Plan – Dance Despite the Obvious
Frank Royster – Brenna, You!

Credits:
Paul Hughes – feels like chicken tonight….
S.L. Slaughter – Mr. Voice Over Man
Special Guest Star – Listen and see!

Background Music by Kevin MacLeod (Kevin’s Website) The new title music was by Seismic Anomaly who feature at Magnatune. Some SFX have been used from The Freesound Project.

This
work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

References Used:
Now because some of the jokes used require some prior knowledge of ye olde television shown in the UK, I have included the YouTube clips to two british shows which people may or may not be aware of, to get the joke in the material used on the podcast. Marry them up to when they appear in audio form and it all makes sense. Enjoy!

Bullseye

It was a quiz show which featured playing darts and the whole joke about the speical prize was about winning either a caravan or a speedboat. Go to about 4:30 into the clip for the best bit.

Knightmare

This was a Kids Adventure game in the UK back in the late 80’s / Early 90’s. It was something I grew up with and frankly it was a shame that the show was stopped all those years ago. The sound for the bell came from this show, which remains the copyright of ITV Anglia but is used on the podcast for effect. If anyone objects to the use of this, please contact me, and I will change the bell for another one. Sounds bizzare, that does.

Yep, another week and grand news, the script for the first show is complete, with the second show’s script coming along quite nicely as it goes, which is a first for me as I rarely have enough energy to lift a finger, let alone repeat the forbidden practise long enough to complete words in a sentence. Recording has commenced with a nice little twist for the end of episode 1, but there is lots of editing to do before you hear the final product.

Never mind, as far as I can tell, there have been literally people wondering what’s been going on since the last update on the 12th September, and it’s not often now that gaps are left for such a long time.

Well for a starters in traditional blogging fashion, I will bore you all to death about the last weekend. It was fun packed and is the more important news affecting us all of course, after all it’s the personal nitty gritty which keeps people sane, and glued to all those “various-gods-so-as-not-offend-any-particular-religious-group” awful soap operas. Which, so long as I live, will continue to be a source of cheap comedy material and puzzlement.

The weekend of course brought around Natalie’s birthday, in which in a bizarre twist, she wanted to celebrate. Well I never, what will the neighbours say? Well if they are anything like my next door neighbours over the past three years, they will move in for 3 minutes then leave without paying the rent, so in fact I imagine that not much would be said.

We started off late (due to me mainly, I really will welcome suggestions for improving my time keeping) and headed off to Chester of all places, to wander around some places which sell art of various landscapes people and famous places. Being honest I had never considered Chester to go for such things, but then again, it’s now rare I consider Chester for anything.

Natalie of course, had and had a list of places to see. I had no idea how many gallieries there actually are and once you enter the inside, you can only be gasping at how much people can ask for what is considered “Modern Art”, where even the humble s**t-stain can be considered something wonderful to hang in your front room. Perhaps there is more to this art than meets the eye?

The naked form is also something which seems to be something to admire more often than not, with the various galleries showcasing the ladies in various poses and differing amounts of clothing. It sort of strikes you that this is the more sophisticated version of pornography, most certainly the more expensive, with sticky page syndrome that most magazines suffer not really applicable. Basically to walk around such a place with not even smirking takes considerable will power.

I refuse to believe that it’s so childish to smile at and that you must be grown up to appreciate such an art form. You can appreciate it at any age, there’s just no harm in having a cheap laugh at its expense.

One such gallery should be appladed simply for having a cow dressed as a Tudor, complete with smile. Now that’s classy.

Cheshire Oaks supplied the evening’s fun and tomfoolery where we enjoyed a very nice course of naughty at Chiquitas or Chiqutos, whatever it’s called. The place was packed out as you would expect on a Saturday Night, but it was rather disturbing to see how many couples there were. A vomit bag can be found under your table in case the scenery gets to you.

On a sidetrack we’ve not really had a lot of Mexican food, and what they do offer there on the menu is very nice. There were numours wraps (world famous, though I hadn’t heard of it) pasta thingys and other various themed stuff designed to make you slobber all the place like a rabid dog.

If you get chance, please give it a go and you may be surprised. Although if the food is too hot for you, that can be quelled with the traditional remedy for life depressing situations: the cup of tea. Yes, I am a freak, go figure.

And the evening finished with a viewing of Charlie Wilson’s War, at the beginning, Tom Hanks is being applauded for seemingly just standing there, before going back to the 80’s in which Tom Hanks is a senator with an appreciation of the womanly form and various forms of booze, is told by Julia Roberts, a high class woman with money that comes from nowhere to come to her house to watch a film.

They meet up and do the naughty, and during the aftermath she politly tells him to visit Pakistan and the prime minster, where he sees people in camps gets annoyed and then flys back. Julia then goes on to make sure that Tom sets about stopping the Russian Sillys by being defeated by the Afghanistannies in a bloody yet highly entertaining gorilla war, to change the course of the “Chilled, don’t rush to bring it to a boil lest you spoil the broth” War back in the eighties.

To do all this, they talk to an extremely funny CIA man who likes telling bosses to go f**k themselves and bugging things, which in turn takes the shape of going round the world, seeing refugees again, feeling bad then getting stupendous amounts of money as a result and then getting everyone in the Middle east to play nice while looking like they still hate each other and want to remove each other’s digestive systems using a toaster and a pair of cooking tongs.

The film, despite the silliness, was very very funny in places, and frankly you wonder how this man played by Tom Hanks got into office considering what he did in his off hours. I must say for the record. I wish I worked in an office filled with gorgeous women. Look, just having the odd couple around where I currently work is not enough. They all must be women with brains and bodies that just make a man cry and aroused at the same time. That is all.

Because it’s based on real events as the film painstakingly points out at the beginning, though for some of it, I really do have to wonder, all you have to do is read the history books in order to find out what happens, so go and look on Wikipedia, the factual website where everything is the truth. And yes I did invent the grilling machine, not George Foreman.

But after seeing the film, it gives you the ominous message that the film makers want you to take away to think about, considering the high-jinks that is going on right now and they want to appear like they care. Very true but there was another message to take away too.

All I thought about: What a waste of money and life. Mind you, the whole Cold War thing didn’t really have a point and somehow neither does the dillydallying happening today. It’s all pointless.

Enough Blah, all in all it was a jolly good day, and Natalie certainly enjoyed it.

Frankly after that, the only things I have been getting bogged down with are work, being late for work, and lots of writing and recording. Being perfectly honest you really have now caught up to what I have been doing. As said a long time ago on these very web pages, January in terms of the social life, is like buses. Nothing for a while then three come along at once.

And now for the travel on the roads where you are….