In a little under an hour, the Army will officially end active service in Norn Iron. But you and I, on the street, probably won’t notice the difference. Because the scale back in Army patrolling and deployment has been so gradual that it’s only really noticeable when looked at in retrospect.

Seriously, I haven’t seen any Army patrol in a year or more. I haven’t been spotted the choreographed helicopter movements in nearly two. In fact, I’ve only noticed an Army chopper once in the last few months, spying on something in the area of my office.

So there has been a drastic shift, year on year, in the situation in Norn Iron. A decade ago, the police and army patrolled together. Five years ago, the army were leading toddlers to school and manning checkpoints on the road. Two years ago, the army were on hot standby should the police need them. And tomorrow, they’ll not be. And the change is all the more dramatic for being so gradual; the army operation officially ends in minutes, but the point at which it ended for most people would be impossible to specify. For me, it ended at some point between the Whiterock riots and today – I couldn’t be more specific.

So ends an era; not with a bang, but with a whimper. Now lets see what the future brings…

Back in the dark mists of time, I attended a fairly small scout jamboree. In fact, when I was tidying a load of the stuff up while moving house, I found a little something from it…

Now, it wasn’t the world’s biggest jamboree, but it wasn’t exactly tiny either. And, IIRC, it cost about £80 – £100 to attend. Not hugely cheap, but probably an absolute bargain for parents at the time¹.

Fast forward fourteen years, and a bigger, better effort is ongoing in deepest darkest Essex. 40,000 members of the scouting movement from all over the world are attending to mark the centenary of the movement. Big event.

I happened to be talking, quite unexpectedly, to my old scout leader last evening. And he was able to tell me that, to his pride, one of the members of the old troop is attending. But what got me was the sharp rise in price. Something in the order of 800 quid per western lad to attend. Which is annual inflation of something like 17%. And there was me thinking economies of scale would be kicking in.

That said, I envy the little bastards. Back in Ballyfin, for your £80ish, you got obstacle courses, canoeing, quad biking, gladiator style challenges, woods to riot in, water pistols galore, stacks of wood to make massive fires with, traditional rivalries between the blue shirts and green shirts, girls in tents nearby and plenty of hedges in which to be sick². For £800 it would need ot be considerably better than that…

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¹ – “What, you’ll take him off our hands, for two weeks, and all it’d cost would be £80 and a couple of t-shirts? Sweet.”

² – All blog mentions of being sick in hedges are © ScaryDuck.

I complained a few weeks ago that Norn Iron is painfully small. I should’ve known that the world would come right back at me and explain that it’s not just Norn Iron that’s small, but the entire world.

For that is what happened yesterday, during a conversation held at a random wedding.

Her: Here, I was talking to someone that knows you.

Me: Oh? Who?

Her: Can’t remember their name. Some fella, balding, maybe 60ish.

Me: You might be surprised by this, but that doesn’t narrow it down a whole lot… Did they say how they knew me?

Her: Er, yes. Can’t remember how, though.

Me: Again, helpful. So where did you meet them?

Her: Oh, they were sat next to me on a plane. From Chicago.

Me: Really? You know, I’d be quite interested in knowing how that particular conversation got started.

Her: Oh, talking about where we’re from. I said I was from Randyville, he asked if I knew the **** family, I said ‘Know? I’ve picked one of them off of the floor more than enough times’, and he then went on to sing your da’s praises for 20 minutes.

Me: I can’t remember you picking me off the floor ever.

Her: Yeah, the reason you can’t remember and the requirement for you to be picked up may be connected…

Oh dear. So that’s another story or two that may end up being passed through unofficial channels to very official ears, depending on how it was he knew the clan. Bother.

And then, to top it off, Madam Sweary does a post on parochialism as well. That’s just freaky coincidental, so it is.

All together now:

It’s a small world, after all…

I am, of course, quite pleased that the bloody Umbrella song has been knocked off the No1 spot.

But why, people of Britain, did you have to replace it with one that is, if anything, more annoying. I know that I’m probably a bit over sensitive about such things, but “The Way I Are” is just bad grammar, and putting it in just to try and make a rhyme is bound to be some sort of crime against language.

Bah. Young people and their ‘music’. Wouldn’t have happened in my day…

Found at Chris’ place:

My Conservative Identity:

You are an Anti-government Gunslinger, also known as a libertarian conservative. You believe in smaller government, states’ rights, gun rights, and that, as Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Take the quiz at www.FightLiberals.com

Our resident knife wielder has tagged me for a meme. And, due to the aforementioned wielding of knife, I’m far too scared not to comply.

However, I take issue with calling it an iPod meme. So from now on, it’s a Generic MP3 Player meme. Rolls of the tongue a bit easier, don’t you think.

What does next year have in store for you?

Friendship – Tenacious D And a better layout for any year would be hard to find.

What’s your love life like?

Rang Dang – Bloodhound Gang If your love life is best summed up by a Bloodhound Gang song, then you may be in bother. And the line ‘fill me with your Holy Spirit’ could get a man in more bother. And the chorus would not just get you in bother, but arrested.

What do you say when life gets hard?

Plug it in – Basement Jaxx So many ways that this could be taken, and only one or two of them are less that sick

What do you think of on waking up?

The Garden – Faithless IIRC, this is the one used in all of the O₂ ads, so my waking thoughts are clearly all about communication. Obviously.

What song will you dance to at my wedding?

Only Happy When It Rains – Garbage Fuck me, that’d be a depressing one for a first dance, wouldn’t it?

What do you want as a career?

Lift me up – Moby An uplifting song, to be sure, but I’m not sure that a career as an elevator operator is for me.

Your favourite saying?

Shut Up – Blink 182 I can’t believe how apt this particular one is.

Your favourite place?

Demon Days – Gorillaz Erm, this cannot be a good result. My favourite place is full of demons? Thusly either being Hell or Ballymena? Can I try again?

What do you think of your parents?

Go – Moby No, not at all. Especially since one of them has already gone.

Your pornstar name?

Mad Flava – Fatboy Slim Oh, man, that would be so cool as a pornstar name. “Hi, my name’s Mad Flava, and I’m here to fix your fridge…”

Where would you go on a first date?

Don’t Leave Me – Blink 182 Nothing says desperation like using that line on a first date, does it?

Drug of choice?

High Society – High Contrast Yes, I get high on High Society. No, I don’t know what it means, but I can’t argue with the meme rules, can I?

Describe yourself.

Girl Like You (Hiya) – The Shirehorses Does this mean that I’m like a girl, or that girls like me without me having to describe myself? I’m confuddled.

What is the thing you like doing most?

Find My Baby – Moby Yes, I enjoy nothing more than a quick baby hunt. Worryingly.

What is your state of mind like at the moment?

25 Pounds – The Saw Doctors Buys us a dinner and a bottle of wine? What more does a man need?

How will you die?

It Won’t Be Tonight – The Saw Doctors That’s all I need to hear. And if the same holds for tomorrow, that’s grand as well.

I don’t go much for tagging; if you feel an overpowering urge to continue, go right ahead.

I wouldn’t say that I revel in people’s description of me as a right wing nut job or a good old-fashioned degenerate right-winger, but then again, I’m not exactly displeased with the title. Because I definitely wouldn’t say I was left wing, and I get mighty pissed off when people automatically assume that being right of centre on economic policy means that I want to sacrifice the unemployed to the fires of my pension fund.

I would also say that I’m generally a fan of Robert Baden-Powell, he who founded the Scouts. But then you read some of the things he wrote in the original Scouting for Boys:

On the character of bees:

They are a quite a model community for they respect their Queen and kill their unemployed

Now that’s a little extreme, even for me. Perhaps the level of my nut-jobness has been over-estimated…

I don’t think Nelly meant this as a meme, but it would probably work well as one. So here goes.

TEN THINGS I DON’T DO EVERY DAY

Saunter along the Ravenhill Road in the pouring rain.

Read a brief history of the sangers of South Armagh.

Spread spoilers about who died in Harry Potter VII.

Take the morning off work.

Manage the whole day without answering a work phone.

Explain the effect of delisting a company.

Learn how to inflate tyres in a hurry using flammable gas.

Think that maybe the smoking ban isn’t that bad, because sometimes being able to take your pint outside for a bit is nice.

Find out that yer man Bowden has beaten my score in the Traveller IQ challenge (European bit).

Blogged about ten things, well twenty things actually but being pedantic belongs on the second half of the list…

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TEN THINGS I DO EVERY DAY

Read some blogs.

Laugh at Calvin and Hobbes.

Pick at a random phrase in a pedantic manner.

Shower and shave.

Read a little bit of a book, any book.

Have a brief perusal of the Economist that resides in the bathroom.

Seeing as how it’s more often a work day than not, changed the backup tapes.

Drive Abby a bit, and generally curse traffic and traffic lights that don’t change when I want them to.

Listen to a bit of music.

Wonder why there are so many spiders in my house.

• Finding out that a local family of magpies have decided that the time and the place to teach the kids how to fly is 5:07am, and on the noisy plastic guttering mere feet from where I’m sleeping.

Mood for today: grouchy.

Despite finding out about it, blogging about it and talking about it, I completely forgot to watch the Top Gear Polar Special. And went out to get rather drunk instead. But I’m over that now, and had this morning off to ensure that I’m over it. Which meant that I could watch it as a) entertainment and b) hangover relief.

And it fulfilled both rules mightily. Great fun, and the scale of it was breathtaking. And even the Icelandics were getting in on the act, doing Borat impressions while messing about with flame-throwers. Great success!

But there is a serious point to this. I saw no promotion for this; no ads, no radio spots, no press previews (which may have been intentional). It looked for all the world like the Beeb didn’t want to acknowledge that they had spent quite a lot of money on it, and were then showing it. Like they were ashamed that it was on their channel. Despite it being mighty entertaining, and being something that no other channel is doing. Despite it being really popular, the BBC give the impression that they’d rather not have it on.

Which pisses me off, mightily. This show is the only one that I’d really miss if the BBC was removed from the air tomorrow, and yet the BBC seems to hate it. Ah well. As long as they keep it on air, I can live with their stupid attitude…

UPDATE: Some interesting background here.

I’m fairly confident that this particular image is tongue-in-cheek, but given the general trend in bastardising useful things and making them worse than useless, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone, somewhere, was selling something along these lines.

Worse yet, I’m sure there would be people who’d buy them, and not even in an ironic sense. And then they’d probably make some comment about how useful they’d be given the summer we’ve had.

Yeah. Useful like a sieve when it comes to bailing out the Titanic…

A turn of phrase that cropped up in an ancient comment has stayed with me, although not necessarily in regard to the same thing.

Fear the coming gray vote madness.

Except I don’t, really. Because there are too many other flavours of madness that will prevent the greys from ruining everything. Chief amongst them being the greens. For this is clearly just the start.

People are being told to wear jumpers instead of crowding round patio heaters in a bid to save the planet.

The Energy Saving Trust has urged retailers to stop selling the heaters after a report suggesting their use will almost double over the next year.

Aside from the cheerful, patronising, control freak tone, I can sort of see the point. I mean, if you’re using a patio heater just to ward off a slight chill, it could look silly. But it’s never just that simple, is it? Because the only time I’ve really spent under a patio heater was under different circumstances. And involved two words that would put the fear of God into any old UWSU steward. Ramp and February.

Because it was not unheard of for people to be standing there wearing a t-shirt, jumper, black door jacket, small green fleece, large green fleece and high vis jacket, and still be freezing. For when the wind got going in the Midlands, it got lazy. And would go through you, rather than round you. The occasional time that money could be found to power the heater was bliss, because it meant that the icicles on your nose started to melt.

And, of course, this is just the start. Some nutjob from Friends of the Earth was on t’radio last night, saying that they’re expecting government to outlaw the sale of patio heaters. Not to make them stigmatised; not to tax them; not to ask politely. No, to make them illegal.

And it gets worse. Because she was perfectly clear: this would just be a small step on the road to combat ting climate change. Because so much more would have to be outlawed to change the effect of humans on Gaia. People would have to be shown that it was for the Greater Good. And if they didn’t accept such changes voluntarily, they’d have to be coerced.

Sorry, did I say ‘Fear the coming green madness’? My mistake, it’s already here…

Rumours are a-circulating that Ryanair is going to set up in Belfast. Which would be great success; not because I enjoy flying on them in anyway, but because a little competition goes a long way. Easyjet have already basically taken over the International, so it’s about time that the City got a low fares airline in as well. Set the two of them off against each other and you never know, one of them might even stop ass-raping people with their landing fees.

And no, FlyMayBe does not count as a low fares airline. For it is nearly as expensive as it was when it was a normal airline, except now you don’t even get a complimentary sandwich… Damn penny pinchers.

Further to my previous opinion on Google Reader and the like, there is one other thing in their favour. They have a much better memory than most.

So, when someone publishes a post and then regrets doing so, they have to move might quick to get it off their site before Google brings it back…

This came in mighty handy when I done a stupid thing and replaced every entry in my database with the word “CLOSED”; it meant that I had a nice place to start from when rebuilding the blog. But, for more entertainment, it means that such things as ‘weblawgger of the year, hey’ competitions that never happened are actually still there, if you know where to look. Despite the controversy that they almost caused, but didn’t because, as already mentioned, they never actually happened.

There are other circumstances in which posts are deleted, of course, and it is these that intrigue me. Posting under the influence of alcohol, for instance, a sin which I’ve been guilty of more than once. Or posting under the influence of the muse – waxing lyrical about something, letting a bit of writing out that doesn’t sit comfortably with the rest of the blog, but which is mighty fine nonetheless.

So, for example, you could have, on a blog that deals largely with action, forceful opinions and acerbic wit, a piece about how calming the still night is. Which doesn’t fit in at all with my perception of the author of the blog, but which improves my opinion of them immensely.

Apropos of nothing, those little unexpected things are what I like about this whole blogging lark.

On Sunday night, I found myself driving up the main road from Belfast to Carrick; torrential rain was the order of the day, and since I was pretty close to the bottom of several hills, there was a little flooding. Drains throwing manhole covers into the air, that sort of thing. Quite a strange thing to see out the side of a car in a place you know quite well.

But not as strange as some of the photos on the TV and interwebnet recently.

Like this one:

That’s a bit of Kenilworth that I used to go along to get to the airport. There’d occasionally be a bit of spray as you drove along there; a heavy rain would leave a puddle maybe an inch deep. Nothing quite like that, though.

And hitting it home a lot more is this shot:

That’s the footbridge betwixt Jephson Gardens and south Leam. Any time I had to walk between the North and South of the town, that’s the way I went. And that footbridge was three feet above the water. And where the chop is, on the left, was a weir, dropping another five feet. Meaning that the river would be nigh on eight feet above normal levels. Which means that Viallis, and the Jug and Jester, and so many other places I spent far too much time in would be mighty damp…

Shit. Just shit.

If you’ve turned on the idiot box in the corner recently, and happened to land on the BBC channels, you’ll probably have seen ads for such wonderful things as Captain Planet Saving Planet Earth (which is pontificatory shite), some random dancing show (which I can only assume is shite), Rome (which could be good but I can’t be bothered with it) and Heroes (which is very good, but I’ve seen it already).

Whereas the things that the BBC do that nobody else seems to be doing are conspicuously absent. Such as:

• James May’s Twentieth Century, for which I’ve seen a grand total of one ad. Despite it being a pretty good series that indulges the geekish part of me that enjoys seeing things like people passing out in centrifuges and travelling miles vertically in a second or two…
• Twentieth Century Battlefields, which lets Peter Snow take the swing-o-meter out of election reporting and move it onto the battlefield, with tours of the actual sites, technologies and tactics being shown by his son. Bloody good show. Total number of ads I’ve seen for it, in its two month run? Two.
• The Top Gear Polar Special, this Wednesday at 8. Which I only heard about this morning. Because I’ve seen no ads for it. None, at all, ever, despite this being the biggest regular ratings success on BBC2.

Now, it is entirely possible that there have been thousands of ads for these three shows, and I’ve just not caught them. But then why have I seen so many ads for other things that I have no interest in seeing? Why do they seem to be pushing the dross and letting people find out about the good stuff by accident?

A lawyer was riding in his limousine when he saw two men along the roadside eating grass. Disturbed, he ordered his driver to stop and he got out to investigate.

He asked one man, “Why are you eating grass?”

“We don’t have any money for food,” the poor man replied. “We have to eat grass.”

“Well, then, you can come with me to my house and I’ll feed you,” the lawyer said.

“But sir, I have a wife and two children with me. They are over there, under that tree.”

“Bring them along,” the lawyer replied.

Turning to the other poor man he said, “You come with us, also.”

The second man, in a pitiful voice, then said, “But sir, I also have a wife and SIX children with me!”

“Bring them all, as well, “the lawyer answered.

They all climbed into the car, which was no easy task, even for a car as large as the limousine.

Once underway, one of the men turned to the lawyer and said, “Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you.”

The lawyer replied, “Glad to do it. You’ll really love my place.

The grass is almost a foot high.”

Once again, Rowling has produced a book that is very easy to read, and a book that you’re glad you’ve read once it’s gone. And this one more than the previous ones, because now you know that there’s nothing to come after it. Yay.

Of course, if a reader felt the need, they could easily read a lot of anti-statist nonsense into the book as well. But I’m sure I’ll leave that for a drunken rant at some point in future…

I live under a constantly shifting burden of mild curses. Mild curses which cause me mental anguish and make me utter less than mild curses.

Some of these curses are televisual. When a season ends on a cliffhanger, a curse kicks in to annoy me until said cliffhanger is resolved. Other examples are to be found when an entire series is left unresolved; for evidence, see the end of the Sopranos. There are generally a couple of ongoing curses like these eating away at me; Battlestar being the most annoying at present.

Some are book related, and these are a little more annoying than the TV ones; most TV ones are fixed after a six month season break, but instalments in a series of books can be separated by many years. And there are, at the minute, three ones annoying me.

• Song of Ice and Fire, which won’t be resolved for a decade, probably. Brilliantly written, and on a massive scale. The first book was in ’96, the most recent was 2005, and there should be three more.
• Wheel of Time, ongoing for the last 17 years. Well written and with unbelievably believable characters. The theory is that there is one more book to come, which should tie a lot up. But the author is very, very seriously ill, so there may end up being no end.
• Potter. Bloody Harry bloody Potter. Neither very well written, nor with spectacularly well rounded characters. But with a damn good story at its heart.

Potter VII arrived this morning, so in a few hours there will be one less curse. And it’ll be the curse that annoyed me the most, because I should never have gotten into the series in the first place.

So, in a few hours I may be impressed by young JKR, or I may be cursing her, verily unto the thirteenth generation. Either way, I’ll be glad it’s over.

So, back to the book. Laters.

Readers of the blog may be aware that I’m a fan of NCIS. Predictably, this means that I would also watch an occasional episode of the show’s predecessor, JAG.

Such was the case last night, especially when I saw the synopsis for the particular episode: season 2, episode 6.

Trinity
The son of a Navy officer is kidnapped in Northern Ireland and the evidence implicates the boy’s father, an IRA leader.

Oh dear. So it’s going to be US military personnel going undercover in Belfast, is it? Done by USian TV people?

This I gotta see.

To be fair to them, they did a lot right. They got many of the details right, but also many very, very wrong.

• Street names. Yes, you could, conceivably, get a black taxi to the junction of York St and Broughan Street. But definitely not by saying to the driver “York and Broughan”. Kudos as well for heading to an IRA safe house in Millfield; nobody would think to hide there, no sirree.
• The postboxes were red, yes, but of the style of them looked suspiciously American. And sure, if there was anywhere in Belfast in ’97 where the ‘Ra could walk about in broad daylight with AKs, the postboxes would be green.
• The police had a choice of two vehicles: turreted versions of the Saracen and black taxis with blue lights on the roof. In 1997. Silly continuity people, it was all about the Saxon by then, with a side of Land Rovers. And the uniformed types used the finest of Mondeos.
• OTT stereotype alert: a safe house ‘just outside Belfast’ was actually a farmhouse out of Far and Away. With actual tilly lamps. Yet it still happened to have a basement, because that’s the convention in USian television.
• If you were pushed to come up with a suggestion for a bus in Belfast in ’97, what would you do? A Leopard, would be my suggestion. Not a bright red Routemaster, that’s for sure…
• The US consulate had armed Marines standing outside it. And was in the city centre. Unlike the real one, where the armed marines tend not to hand around the University area…

In other words, I spend an hour laughing myself silly at something that was almost good enough to get away with it. But not quite. Kudos for trying, though. I suppose.