Mocking The Afflicted
I know it's cruel, but I am having a rare (at the moment) chuckle over Iain Dincan Smith's predicament. Having challenged people who think he should face a No Confidence vote to put up or shut up, he's now in the situation where they've put up.
And so he's left putting a brave face on it. At his press conference yesterday he said that he'd called on the party to resolve this situation one way or the other by Wednesday, and "I can therefore say today that I welcome, and am pleased, that we will have an opportunity to do that".
Right, so you were really hoping for a challenge all along then?
Diabolical Night
I found myself feeling all queasy when I went to bed last night (I'm really not looking forward to some stuff), and couldn't settle. Even once the queasy had faded, which a cup of tea helped with, I really couldn't settle. It's been one of those nights where you just lay there, acutely aware of every sound, and not able to be comfortable no matter the position you adopt.
What a great start to the week.
Just Some Stuff
I'm still here by the way, just not talking much at the moment.
My original plan for this weekend was to hermit, but it was suggested by one or two people that in my current frame of mind sitting at home and brooding (which I would do) was not a particularly sensible plan. So Alison, Chris and I went out last night for Mexican food and *finally* to see Calendar Girls. So it was a good break from the weekend routine. I had a bit of a brood, but they kicked my right out of it as best they could.
Today's Observer is running a feature on The 20 Most Oustanding Gay Men and Lesbains in Britain - some interesting choices. More than a few of them I'm quite surprised by, but I guess they had their criteria for 'outstanding'.
By the way, last week's Observer contained an excellent Pet Shop Boys interview :
Neil: Some people think that with pop, everything you write is autobiographical.
Chris: Well, Robbie Williams's entire back catalogue is about him.
This of course is ahead of the release of PopArt, which looks like an amazing collection of material.
As Bad Days Go….
.... I'm placing this one in the top few that I can remember. One of those days where nothing that I do seems likely to get me past the obstacles that are in the way, and even past those obstacles there are others looming.
I may be about to go a bit quiet. Don't worry if I do - just keep talking among yourselves 
Hear Hear
Over at Blogadoon, Ian had a few things to say last week about the event that I still insist on calling Pride.
Well said, that man.
Modern Man’s Guide To Monsters
I've been meaning to plug Working Title Comics for a while. It's a kind of semi-offshoot of MillarWorld that produces online comics created by a group of contributors.
The reason I've finally been kicked into mentioning it is the addition of a new comic drawn by Guest Blogger James, The Modern Man's Guide To Monsters, which I think is pretty cool, so I'm suggesting you check it out too. It picks up on the Japanese monster tradition of Gojira/Godzilla and its ilk. Very clever.
Uncrashed
Thanks to Dave's sterling work, I'm back with a functioning laptop, though with a new hard drive, so certain stuff is gone away forever since I hadn't backed up for a little while. Among the specific things that are gone is my ICQ contact list, so if you were on it, can you drop me a message so that I can add you into my new one? Ta.
Crash (Literally)
Hellfire and damnation.
Owing to a small accident on Saturday, the laptop hard drive is dead. Which is a complete bugger of course. I had every intention of being extremely productive on some of my own stuff during my projected quiet time yesterday afternoon, and that plan came to naught.
Anyway, the other crash was the one after Ted's party. It was well after 5am Sunday morning when I crashed into bed, so I didn't get up to play tennis, inevitably. Good do though. Ted throws a good party, and there was much entertainment gleaned, plus a few sightings of people I haven't seen for a while, including my scary psycho-stalker of a few years ago.
Anyway, Dave is attempting to sort out the laptop for me, so hopefully I'll be back online at home at some point.
Weekend? What Weekend?
Argh.
Just when what I want more than anything is two days when I can sleep late and do nothing, I'm getting a weekend of busy busy busy. I'm helping move furniture all day today (just about to go and collect the van), though I'm getting a cooker and a fridge-freezer out of the deal, so I don't mind that so much.
Then tonight Ted's having his big 65th birthday party - which based on his last big event birthday five years ago should be a bit of a stormer, then tomorrow it'll be up for tennis and the final dispersal of furniture items.
I'm hoping to have afew hours of quiet time tomorrow evening....
Next weekend, I'm promising myself a hermit weekend. Definitely.
Comment Spam-Posting Fuckers
Having received my first ever comment spam overnight, I've since had two more from the same source.
And I can't be doing with this at all, so at Chris's suggestion, I've installed MT-Blacklist, deleted the fuckers, and blocked them from reposting that particular spam.
Unfortunately, when retroactively removing, the posting still shows up as having received a recent comment in the list on the left, but I'm willing to put up with that minor inconsistency.