JasonBlog

Not feeling ourselves

And that isn't meant in a naughty way at all - it simply refers to the fact that some people we know were having a Fancy Dress Party at the weekend, and it was a bit of fun pretending to be someone else for an evening. I chose to go as John Lennon, partly because he's a hero of mine, and partly because it's quite an easy one - I already have the clothes, and just need a wig and some glasses. Despite my attention to detail - even taking along my first guitar which is now covered in psychadelic paintwork and stickers - most people thought I was Neil off the Young Ones.

Toni was a Goth, as was our lovely host Elaine - JJ was Old Macdonald (we never found out truthfully what was beneath his kilt), Ian and Rebecca were a Headmaster and St Trinians schoolgirl (I'll let you guess which was which) Toddy was Elvis and Linda was Sandra Dee, and also present were peope in police uniforms, pyjamas, a soldier and a Native American - and some others too probably but my memory of the evening is slightly hazy for some reason. I have done a Photo Album on Facebook which is ready to view here now - it was as fun as it looks!!!

Tonight I wish you a funtastic New Year, and we'll get together in 2008 for more fun, japes and thought provoking mindfood. Yeah. Right.

Hello you lot

And almost back to normal after a very hectic yet mostly very enjoyable few days. Christmas day seems like weeks ago now. The day its self seemed like about 3 days. Good though - I think on balance it's been a really good Christmas.

I picked my mum up from Scotch Corner this morning, and she'd had a good ol' Christmas with my sis Mich and her family. And it was nice listening to Radio 2 and chatting about stuff with her on the way home.

Yesterday, with a small amount of money burning holes in the pockets of our three kiddywinkies, we set sail for Toys R Us at the Metro Centre. We got there at about 3pm to see the shutters firmly closed and no toys were on sale from there that day, of that there was little doubt. So instead we skipped over to the Metro Centre proper, and had a quick retail session. I went to HMV and got the new Blade Runner Ultimate 5 disc set, as well as That's Entertainment 3 disc set, The Magnificent Ambersons, Play it Again Sam (all heavily reduced) and Knocked Up - a truly wonderful film that I spoke of a few months ago.

Last night I enjoyed what was to be the last re-heating of Christmas Dinner, and then ate some of the LOVELY packet cheesecake with toffee and cashew nut sauce that Andy had made for me. I told him a while ago that of all the many delicious cheesecakes I'd eaten in my short eventful life, my favourite is still the cheapo packet mix, the philistine that I am - so he duly made me one. Bless his lovely hairy face and truly Christlike attitude.

Last night I watched a few of the Knocked Up extras and a couple of episodes of Deal Learner and South Park then had a troubled night's sleep. I'd tempted to blame the cheesecake, but I cannot find it within my heart to do so, knowing that a) it isn't true, and b) criticizing Andy's kindness in this most public of forums would be akin to stabbing him through his big soft velvety heart with a cake knife. In fact I was feeling a bit off most of yesterday, and so this morning I awoke at 5pm and came downstairs where it was my plan to watch a film before anyone else got up.

Imagine my surprise then when I entered the living room to see young Oliver (9) watching The Discovery Channel. So I watched some documentary about a new tomb they've found in the Valley of the Kings, and it was rather fascinating. It was all leading up to the identification of the mummy that was in the final coffin they managed to find in the tomb, and every ad break was a cliffhanger to keep you coming back to see whether it was Tutenkhamun's wife or not. At the end of the programme they still hadn't removed the coffin and looked in it, and a typed caption said they'd continue to work over the next few months to try and get it out safely and identify it. What an anticlimax, and a mummified slap in the face for our hour's dedication to their story - which they knew full well wasn't complete from the beginning the swines. Bah!!!

I went back to bed at 7 after watching a few Blade Runner extras. And had a lovely hours sleep making me fresh as a daisy and ready for today. Lovely.

Hours in the day

There have been too many of these, and yet not enough to blog. I wanted to do a full My Christmas account, but never really got the chance. So here's a disjointed BranStorm version:

The day began at 4.45am - thought it was an hour later but we were all up before noticing this - opened stuff and had much lovely joy - kids delighted with their mobiles and spent whole day listening to the ringtones and playing the Java Games on them - Rebecca loved her MP3 player and speakers - Toni liked her bracelet and iPod - I very much appreciated the ukulele, DVDs, books, whiskey and cigars - dinner was beautiful, we had rolled sirloin of beef - visited dad and gave him his hat scarf and gloves and bottle of Old Spice - borrowed the de'Wessington's car because ours are out of action - filled the digital picture frame with photos - turned on all the lava lamps - ate chocolate coins - drank lots of tea - tidied up lots of wrapping paper - helped the kids make things with lego - built Rebecca's new pink storage units for all her toys in her room - read lots of Russell Brand's Booky Wook which is great - ate more chocolate coins, and a Kinder egg - received Toni's uncle,mum, dad, grans and Iku and chatted about all sorts of stuff - watched The Simpsons Movie - played with Toni's Grandad's microscope that he left to us - played my ukulele some more - more tea and chocolate - visited The Curtis Household where my thoughtful gifts were roundly condemned, rightly - received Ian, Rebecca and Kieran for a martini - dozed on the settee - helped Katrin connect to the Internet with her mobile - drank - ate reheated Christmas dinner and drank whiskey - went to bed after watching a couple of episodes of Dean Learner and South Park. Slept.

A very Merry Christmas to all

Hope you're having a great day - update on mine soon...

Quick update and that

I feel a bit more organised recently, because after years of living with DVDs and videos and books 3 deep on shelves, and in piles on the floor, I went out and got some better DVD storage from IKEA, and now our DVDs are much more easily accessible, with the added benefit that they're not all in our living room, cluttering everything up. I was a bit surprised at the number of them. I bought storage for 264 DVDs, and this has cleared out the FIRST row of titles on each shelf. They're still 2 deep on the remaining shelves, and we have all the kids ones upstairs, and a few more in our bedroom and my office. But the main thing is they're more accessible, and I have seen some titles that I haven't for ages - and will be re-watching these soon...

We've actually cleared out a lot of the VHS tapes which are never watched, and we have left only one box of essential stuff, which includes things not available on DVD and stuff I did with my friends or while I was at college. I'll put these on DVD when I can be bothered.

Yesterday I took my mum down to my sister, where she's spending Christmas this year. I usually take her down to Scotch Corner which is about half way. We almost made it there - the car broke down at Sedgefield, about 20 miles north of our meet up. Something to do with the fuel injection system.

The recovery company came out quickly, Michelle met up with us in Sedgefield and picked up mum there instead, and I was towed home by a man who talked to me just about the righ amount.

I am not good at conversations where I'm with a total stranger for an extended period of time - especially if it's a blokey mechanic type. I know nothing about sport or cars, so finding things of common interest is chellenging. In the end we settled on a discussion of Inperial Chinese Artworks and their relationship with the politics of freedom, truth, and the concept of education delivery in a psychologically restrictive and repressive society before the development of modes of mass communication. I was home by mid-day.

Weebl and Bob's Guide to Colds

When out a couple of mights ago with Chris From The Band, he kindly showed me a web site which contains funny stuff, including animations about Weebl and bob, which I think are very funny, and remind me of the sort of thing I'd have done a few years ago before life turnd me into a bitter humourless waste of skin and tears. Check it out: here's some handy information for those who want to know more about COLDS: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/colds/

Point to ponder

I heard an interesting potential question to a newsreader on a podcast this week: "Is there less news on a Monday because the week hasn't all gone by?"

'Tis the season to be...

Fill in your own variable here. I'll go with the usual Jolly for now, and see how it goes.

Our tree is now up, and various lights and glittery things and stuff that looks like holly and unfeasibly long pine tree branches and stuff is entangled around our house, just as Jesus would have liked. Rebecca remarked on the strangeness of erecting and decorating a full size tree inside the house, and I told her it was the fault of a dead German royal (Albert) who thought it might be fun to combine two existing modes of celebration a hundred years ago. I think I'm right there.

So, Cinnamon Grahams have finally changed their name. It WAS a rubbish name for a breakfast cerial wasn't it. So they had an opportunity to get a firm of consultants in, and get rid of a naff image, and finally celebrate their delicious crispy cinnamon-ness. And they came up with Curiously Cinnamon. What the hell are they doing. Not only is it worse - it introduces an element of doubt that it's key ingredient is actually causing he cinnamon flavour. Surely it would only be curious that something tasted cinnamony...if it didn't contain cinnamon!!!! A glance at the ingredients reassured me - there about half way down (after salt, but I suppose Curiously Salty wouldn't sell as a breakfast cerial, except to Rebecca de'Wessington) was the ingredient Cinnamon - followed by a whole pharmacy of other strange additives, and even the bold 'Colours' which is quite up front yet vague of them. Why didn't they call them Cinnamon Toasties? It's so much more positive, and Cinnamon Toast is already a well respected foodstuff.

Other idiocy was displayed when the marketing people in charge of coming up with a new slogan which welcomed peole to Scotland decided after lengthy expensive consultation and deliberation...Welcome to Scotland. Nice one. Narrowly beaten into second place was 'No English - Thanks!'

It's so cold at the moment - I must get my car heating fixed. My car wouldn't start yesterday and I had to cancel a long freezing cold drive to Berwick. I wasn't too sad. It gave me an opportunity to clear out my office, as a precursor to me getting properly organised as described in the Getting Things Done book. I cleared out drawers that I hadn't looked in for 7 years. Emails dated 2000 and notes from meetings with companies that don't exist any more lurked there, along side a truly surprising number of unused Post It pads, computer mice, empty cheque books, pens, rulers, wires and plugs, instruction manuals, calendars, sweets, old pages from my Filofax, and lots of other stuff. My problem is I have never had the ability to decide what is and what isn't rubbish, with the result that I keep everything in case it ISN'T rubbish and one day it strangely becomes THE VERY THING I NEED ABOVE ALL OTHER THINGS. The fact that if that day arrived by some miracle, my filing system woud make it impossible to find anyway, so I'd be no better off for hoarding everything. So I binned loads of stuff yesterday. Woo-hoo!!

Tonight we're going to brave Newcastle or The Metro Centre to see if the true meaning of Christmas is lurking there. What do you think? Oh and what's your favourite Christmas song? I'm keen to know - it might be the start of another Ultimate Christmas Album. If we get 12 or more different suggestions I'll do a CD for everyone who wants one.

I demand a new kind of talent show

There has been a run of shows that allow C, D and E List celebrities to gain a bit of television exposure for their flagging careers. Celebrity Come Dancing, Cirque de Celebrite, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Celebrity Big Brother, etc. However, these shows all miss the point that a true celebrity is someone who can rely on their personality and whatever skills they may already have to entertain us fir a few minutes.

I rather enjoyed the Ricky Gervais spot at the Concert For Diana - where he was introducing Elton John, who took about 10 minutes longer than expectd to get onstage, leaving Ricky to fill the space with Something Entertaining in front of tens of thousands of people, and no prepared material. This, I believe, is the future of Celebrity TV.

First, the show MUST be live and prime time. Next, the celebrities must be totally unaware that they have to perform. They must be duped into thinking they're just going to be in the audience, or even better, having a meeting with someone - until the moment they're pushed out onto an empty, brightly lit stage and given a massive introduction which explains that they're here to entertain us, and leads to a huge sense of expectation. Then it's simply a case of seeing what unfolds over the next few minutes. Either that, or they're given a very specific task to do (juggling, stand-up, sing a song) with no preparation whatsoever.

Which celebrities would you like to see on this show, and what would you like to force them to do on live TV? The show could be called something like I'm a Celebrity, You'd Think I'd Be Able To Entertain, Wouldn't You?

Getting Things Done - at last!

I bought a book last night. I went to Borders at Silverlink with one of the many Ians I know (you know who you are) and we had a pretty thorough look through most of the departments - and it was whilst in the psychology shelves that I came across a book that really cought my attention. It's called Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress Free Productivity. Now that's a concept that interests me. I feel that I can't manage my workflow most of the time, and my mind is full of the things I should be doing. But my problem - or one of them - is prioritising and managing my To Do lists, and coping with the things I'm not doing whilst I'm doing the things I can.

I've only read the first few chapters of this book so far, but it has already made a difference. One thing that's such an easy tip is, when you come across something on your To Do list that will take less than 2 minutes - DO IT NOW - whatever the priority. Then it's off the list. Also, thinking in much clearer terms about the NEXT ACTION I need to take on an item in the list, rather than a vague 'Finish This Project' sort of note. That really helps to know what the next thing to do is - and makes you mugh more motivated to do it.

I'll let you know how I get on with the rest of it, but so far it's very interesting and highly recommended.