PS

Slow day at the Office dept:    After a short break I’m giving blogging another chance. Alas, since it became “new and improved” WordPress still doesn’t work right with Internet Explorer. I used to be able to throw out some words and a picture, hit “Publish” and in less than 5 minutes the job was done. Now I can type some peerless prose, click “save” and watch everything disappear into oblivion.  Adding images is hit and miss. The “Kitchen Sink” is invisible but is still there if you rummage around with your mouse. Messages of “insecure content” keep popping up. I could go on…… They seem to want me to move to Chr*me but I dislike G$$gle even more than Micr*s*ft. However I’ve found some unused draft posts and I’ve got a free afternoon so I think I’ll faff about until I’ve added a few more posts to my digital scrapbook.

I guess eventually I’ll set the Blog to “private” when I decide my amateurish efforts have become too embarrassing to be on public show. I’m not sure how the Facebook/Twitter archives work but as far as Websites and Blogs go it is impossible to completely delete anything. That’s all thanks to the “Wayback Machine” at “The Internet Archive”. Even this humble Blog has been archived 17 times between 2008 and this year and consequently will be available in some fashion until Doomsday.

Rest in Peace dept:      Sad to hear that Deviant and writer Mick Farren passed away a few days ago, apparently whilst on stage. The obituaries pages in the press will increasingly fill up with 1960s Pop personalities over the next decade.

Big C is back dept:      Why has the UK lost the plot when it comes to “comedy” TV shows? They keep saying we make the best TV in the world but every time I turn it on there seem to be (non) “personalities” like Phillip Schofield or Ant and Dec or unfunny stand-up comics. Oh for the days when sitcoms were “filmed before a live studio audience”. I like the bitter-sweet “Big C” though, even if it isn’t home grown. We’re finally getting to see Series 3 (?) hidden somewhere in the middle of the +1/endless repeats Channels. At the end of series 2 although it is Cathy who has cancer and feels the weight of mortality upon her, it is her husband who collapses, apparently dead. He seems to have recovered for Series 3. Will the wheels of Cathy’s life continue to come off as the end approaches?

The end of the world as we know it dept:     And talking of the end, if (like me) you’ve been living in a cave recently you might not be aware that (this year’s supposed) Doomsday is only a few months away. Highlight your calendar from mid November 2013 onward.  Whatever happened to Planet X? It was predicted to have knocked Earth out of its orbit years ago. “YouTube” is full of videos claiming to show “Two Suns” (?!?). This time there is a little more science involved and we may actually see something. The “four-mile-wide” Comet ISON is supposed to slingshot around the sun between November 2013 and January 2014 before heading back into the void.  Although it’s more likely that due to heavy cloud across the western world only Rock-hopper  penguins on some remote island on the 28th of November will see an object “brighter than the full moon”. They won’t get all excited like the Beeb and Sky News and will happily continue hopping rocks.