Fight the Power

Posted in Work, Internet at Fri 27 Oct 2006 by Stavros

I know it’s a minor gripe compared to this story, but I’m royally pissed off about our IT department’s decision to restrict our internet use at work. Silently and cowardly the bastards in Red Dwarf t-shirts downed their dice and censored the web at work. So no more ebay, cricinfo, Blogger blogs, meebo or the instant messaging bit of Google mail. No Amazon, or bizarrely the currency converter I actually use for business purposes (well I did once use it to learn the Vietnamese curreny is the Dong, and it’d take about 33 quid to have a million Dongs). Amusingly they also restricted BBC Sport, but only the front page, which made it laughably easy to get round.

True Colours?

I can still read Rich’s and Morti’s blogs through Netvibes, and I can still follow the cricket through Sporting Life. I’m more annoyed that the firm’s relaxed and grown-up policy to internet usage has been dashed in one unexplained move. Merk’s set up remote access to the computer at home, but i want to try and fight this rather than go ‘underground’. It’s time for a beret and Kalashnikov. Anybody know how to smash the system?

Grapes of Wrath

Posted in Food & Drink at Fri 20 Oct 2006 by Stavros

What are the exact properties that make a bottle of wine “cheeky”. I used the term myself yesterday morning, despite a promise to never use phrases I don’t fully understand. That promise arising from some shoe-horned French phrases that ended up sounding much more Trotter than Truffaut. So, is white wine more likely to be “cheeky” than red, if so where does that leave rosé? Is it always bottles though, can just a glass be “cheeky”?

And of all the foods and drinks and the descriptions that go with them, I personally think cheese is much more likely to be cheeky then wine. If left in the wrong company wine can get ever-so elitist. Whereas cheese spans the classes, it could as easily be a rather rakish bourgeois country gent Swiss cheese, as a spightly young West Country jack-the-lad of a cheese. Hell, the word “cheese” even sounds cheeky. It’s almost the same word.

But wine? Wine’s about as cheeky as a potato. And they’re not cheeky at all. Unless it’s chips, it’s chips I suppose.

Blog Shy

Posted in Beer, TV, Philosophy at Mon 16 Oct 2006 by Stavros

I apologise for this break in transmission. Things will be back to normal as soon as something happens interesting enough to write about. You’ve missed nowt, a few beers, a few badheads, dodgy karaoke, and endless office boredom. I didn’t win the lottery. Meanwhile, here’s another pointless list.

Five things I’d miss if I emigrated:

  1. Tea
  2. Branston pickle
  3. Real pubs
  4. Lamb Tikka Balti
  5. Classified scores at full-time on a Saturday afternoon

Five things I wouldn’t miss:

  1. Ant & Dec (and that brand of Saturday night telly in general)
  2. The nanny state
  3. British lager
  4. Dying High Streets
  5. The tabloid press (like this)

I think I’ll stay for now. So, what about you lot?