Conspiracy Theory

Track of the day - Jailhouse Blues - Chris Barber.

First the bad news.

I'm posting this blind. I can't open Milt's Page today for some reason. I can get to the control panel to type in my bits but the resulting pages won't display in any of my browsers.
Which is a great pity because I got a mail from the nice people at Blogger saying that as a result of my recent tirade against unencoded ampersands they'd made some changes -

"Thanks for writing in.
Due in large part to your input and feedback, we have reviewed and recently fixed several bugs on the new version of Blogger."

I rushed off to check whether my stuff validates again and found myself staring at an error screen.
At least I could see the page before you guys fixed the ampersands!

Now for the good news.

The spam attack seems to be subsiding.
There were a mere 500 of the boggers pointed at my inbox yesterday, still a pain in the ass but a considerable improvement on Monday's high of 3,247. There's a graph of my weekend inbox traffic here if anyone wants to see it - it is in colour.
I was wrong.
I've been hit by 1,743 returned mails today.

I have a theory that it's all the result of a high level conspiracy, that my computer is being targeted by the British Government, MI5, MI6, the Police, Blogger, Harrods and any other influential agency that I've irritated with my recent utterings and pictures.

The appearance of a male blackcap in the garden yesterday must have been an omen. Judges used to don the 'black cap' before they passed sentence of death on the prisoner in the dock.

Hot Dogs & Harrods

Track of the day - Hot Dog Buddy Buddy - Bill Haley and the Comets.



Even people who shop at Harrods have to eat.

Unsolicited Emails

We're just coming up to midnight on Monday and today's total is 3227 unsolicited mails.
Luckily the Mailwasher massacre continues.
I've suffered a grand total of seven thousand and five unsolicited emails since Saturday and that,believe me, is no joke.
My email provider says there's nothing that they can do about it. Great!
I'm now not just deleting, I'm also bouncing as many of them as I can. I realise that that's just causing a problem for someone else but perhaps the someone else will be more expert at tracking the source down than I will ever be.
The sooner the prat's spam generating program runs out of permutations for my email address the better. It's driving me barmy, or it would be if MailWasher wasn't sorting the mail for me.
I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have MailWasher, the computer would have long since sailed out through the window.

The Massacre Of The Four Thousand

Track of the day - Mythical Kings and Iguanas - Dory Previn.

Now I know where the Deputy Prime Minister spends his weekends.
Well I'm convinced that it was John Prescott who spent last weekend here in the pond.

The undeliverable emails are still flooding in.
So far today MailWasher has deleted 820 of the boggers so it's now massacred over four thousand of them since Saturday morning.

I wandered outside to get away from the slaughter but the wind was so cold that I wandered back inside and ended up here.
The sooner that the sun warms up, the better.
I think I must have been a reptile last time round.

Spam Emails Attack

I'm under attack.
One of my email inboxes is chock full of bounced spam emails.
Some prize bogger has used my email address in spam mailings and I'm now drowning in the bounced responses.
Yesterday I received 1045 emails and today, by midnight Sunday, I had received 2733.

I'm not tearing my hair out because I use Mailwasher Pro which intercepted and deleted them all before they got to my inbox.
I'd be in the madhouse without Mailwasher. If I had to examine all the emails before I could delete them it would take me hours because the mails were coming in faster than I could check them.

If anyone out there is tearing their hair out because of spam emails I suggest they go and look at Mailwasher's homepage, here's a link to the free version.
And no - I don't have any connection with Mailwasher, I'm just a very grateful user.

Today's total closed at midnight on 2733.
Yesterday I received 1045 returned emails so that makes a grand weekend total of 3778 bounced emails.
I'll soon be able to apply for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.

Tony Blair Manbreasts

Track of the day - Nice Work If You Can Get It - Bud Powell Trio.

The Tony Blair manbreasts artwork on the banks of the Thames has gone largely unnoticed and unreported. Until now that is.

On Thursday evening I wandered down the road to the Hole in the Ground bar. As I approached the bar, the girl with the pierced nostrils pulled me a pint of Carlsberg. It tasted fine so I drank two further pints.
At closing time I noticed a guy wandering around behind the bar, checking the tills.
"A new manager," I thought to myself.
He hadn't been behind the bar serving drinks, he'd been playing pool in the back room.

When I woke on Friday morning I had a splitting headache and barely had time to sprint to the bathroom.
I had all the classic symptoms of food poisoning or in my case the classic symptoms of beer from dirty beer lines.
The last manager knew how to look after his cellar and how to clean the beer lines but he fell out with the lease holder and was sacked.
The lease holder rarely, if ever, visits the bar.
You can't blame him.

Up Up & Away

Track of the day - Up Up and Away - The Fifth Dimension.

I was taking pictures of reflections in the widows, or windows even, of an office block when I heard someone shouting and spotted this boy.
If you want to know what he was up to you'll have to go here.
But to find out why he was so excited you'll also have to look here and probably play the track of the day at the top of the page.

Well it keeps me occupied and out of trouble.

Fix those unencoded ampersands please Blogger. I'm sick of not being able to validate my pages.

Junior Come Dancing

Track of the day - Save The Last Dance For Me - Sam Cooke.



I liked the pattern of the bricks and the steps here but I realised that the two kids enjoying themselves in the middle of the floor and the lad taking a breather on the side were more interesting than the bricks.
I just hope that the guy in the red top doesn't become another of life's perennial wallflowers.
There are more than enough of us as it is.

Unknown Tourists In Tooley Street

Track of the day - A Picture Of You - Joe Brown



So there I was 'dahn'in London taking photographs of everything and everything but, true to type, I kept spotting interesting pubs.
This one's the Shipwrights Arms in Tooley Street SE1. It's not far from London Bridge and I was attracted to it by the reflections in the upstairs windows.

Back in Bogsville I noticed that there were two people standing very proudly in the bottom right hand corner of this picture.
I have no idea who those two people are. To be honest I didn't see them when I was taking the picture but they obviously saw me and decided to stand to attention while I took the photograph.
I have enlarged the section with them on it, you can see it here, so if anyone recognises this couple please tell them where to look to get a reminder of their trip to London and of the 'tool' taking photographs in Tooley Street, SE1 on Saturday morning.

A Bee A Train & The River

Track of the day - The Train and the River - Jimmy Giuffre

The sun came out and there he was, flying from flower to flower, collecting pollen. I hope he made it back home with his goodies because when the sun disappeared it was much too cold for bees.

I've charged up my mobile phone and I'm off 'dahn' to London by train. I'm going to London Bridge to interact with the lights on Tower Bridge.
If your phone is set to bluetooth, there are sensors on London Bridge that pick up the signal and track your progress as you cross. The signals light up an interactive lighting installation on Tower Bridge. As you cross London Bridge you can see the lights change on Tower Bridge - allegedly.
I don't understand it.
Well it'll make a change from watching Bogsville Bees and I do like the River. Listen to this guy talking about it.

Valentine's Day Massacre

Track of the day - My Funny Valentine - Chet Baker



In need of a new outfit, I popped into my local boutique to see what was available. Most of the garments seemed to have been designed for much warmer weather so I decided to stick to my usual attire.
If I wore any of the stuff on display in the window there'd be a Valentine's Day massacre.

I would like to thank Soothsayer for providing me with a translation of yesterday's Soccer Speak

"Oi Milt, I've run this one through the old Enigma code breaker, and bingo, this is it!

I have maintained throughout that our chaps will reach the play-off zone.
I have been consistent in this view.
I sincerely believe they will achieve this, as it were, via the rear entrance.
This will come to pass as their competitors fall on the field of battle.
Moreover, I think he (their esteemed manager) is steadying them ready to strike at the opportune moment, and to cry 'the sixth spot is ours, have no fear'.

As to its veracity, machine says ....load of Bull."

Where, I ask, would we all be without the skills of cunning linguists?

BBC Steve Bull Subtitles

Quote of the day - Soccer Speak - Steve Bull



There was a soccer item on last night's BBC news that confused me totally. It was an interview with retired England international Steve Bull.
The guy might have been good at scoring goals but sadly he never mastered clear speech.
My trusty 'Sky+' box enables me to replay live items, so I pressed the rewind button and listened again.
What the guy said made no more sense when I heard it a second or a third time.
I decided to rerun it with the subtitles switched on. The only subtitle that came up was the one in the above picture.
It made no sense at all either.

W3C Validation.

My page still doesn't validate. If you go to the little envelope gif at the end of this post, right click on it and select properties you should be able to spot the unencoded ampersand just before the word 'postID' that is causing the problem.
I've emailed Blogger about it twice now so I expect they'll get round to fixing the code one day. They did the last time that I complained.
Until then I guess that anyone using Blogger will be stuck with pages that don't validate. It's reassuring to know that Blogger or Google, or whoever runs Blogger nowadays, employs coders who can't be bothered to check their code properly.

Blogger's Unencoded Ampersands

I've gone back to the template version that, thanks to the coders at Blogger, no longer validates.
The changes that I made to the template yesterday got rid of the unencoded ampersands but screwed up the comments.
Any comment entered, appeared on all the posts because the posts all ended up with the same postid and I haven't a clue how to get round that.
I tried to reinstall the Haloscan code using their automatic installer but my Blogger dashboard doesn't have the required 'save the original template button'. I suspect that was only on the beta version of New Blogger.
I can save the template manually but Haloscan doesn't work on a template that doesn't have 'official Blogger' save codes in it.
As a result of all this I am totally fed up.
To make matters worse the rain is lashing down outside so I'm stuck indoors.
Luckily I have just remembered that I have bread dough on the go so I'll have to go and sort that out.

If anyone can suggest a way to sort this mess I'd be eternally grateful.

Why Blogger decided to publish two identical versions of this post baffles me. Yes I have deleted the extra post, I'm not totally crazy.

Early Red Admiral

Track of the day - Poor Butterfly - Joe Pass and Zoot Sims

The snow has gone and a very early Red Admiral appeared in the garden. I hope it's got somewhere warm to go tonight.

I have struggled with the template and somehow managed to get rid of Blogger's unencoded &. It's made a mess of the template but the page seems to validate.
It has screwed the Haloscan comment section up. Not that that matters much. I posted a comment to myself and noticed that the same comment appears on all of last week's posts.

Yesterday I discovered why I was supposed to be in Aberdeen. They are interring Mrs B's father's ashes.
Oh well - 'plus ça change' and all that.

Flight Cancelled

Track of the day - World Waiting - Nerve Engine

I was supposed to be flying to Aberdeen today but I cancelled so Mrs B. was left to go on her own. The flight was supposed to leave Birmingham at 16:45 but didn't.

Birmingham airport is now officially closed because of bad weather but I notice that the flight is finally listed as boarding at 19:47.
The last message I got from her said,
"They are starting to clear behind the planes now. Fingers crossed."
It's amazing what they can do these days, take off in reverse even! How cool is that?

The bird in the picture? I think it's a Blackcap. I've never seen one before so it probably isn't.

New Blogger

I'm well pissed off with this new Blogger. It doesn't validate because the people at Blogger who created the new version couldn't be arsed to fully encode an & instead of just putting the &. The error is in their coding for submitting blogs by email. Something I'm never going to do.
End result is that my page no longer validates. It doesn't matter what I type, the Blogger gurus' html buggers my stuff. How do I get my stuff back in the old version of Blogger? Don't tell me - I know - I can't.

Added to which Mrs B is still sitting in the plane at Birmingham airport and it is now 21:43.
Aberdeen airport claims they expect the flight to arrive at 22:45.
The flight eventually landed at 23:06. Mrs B was sitting in the plane from 20:00 until 22:00 waiting for it to be 'snow blown' and 'de-iced'. The pilot was getting very annoyed by the lack of activity and said that in his experience the delay was typical of Birmingham Airport.
I think I probably made the right decision when I decided to stay at home.

Cold Tits & A Blue Whale Tail

Track of the day - I've Got My Love To Keep me Warm - Billie Holliday

The snow arrived, eventually. When it came there was hardly enough of it to justify closing all the schools in Dudley, Birmingham and Solihull.
The police were suggesting that drivers should stay off the roads and the advice from Birmingham Airport was that passengers should travel to the airport.

What is it about snow and the UK? Half an inch of white stuff and the whole country grinds to a halt.

Despite the chaos our friendly Royal Mail delivery man turned up with a parcel.
In it was the Electrisave unit I ordered yesterday innit. I'm slowly getting used to sitting in the dark with the heating turned off trying to work out where the 2Kw registering periodically on the display are going to. Ever tried to boil a kettle over a candle flame?

This little tit looked very cold to me so I rushed out with some food for it.
It flew away.
Apparently you don't feel the cold if you keep your ass well wrapped up.
The girl on the right must have been feeling very cold if the colour of her whale tail was anything to go by.
The weather man says it's going to be cold tonight so some of the local schools have already cancelled tomorrow's sessions. At least that'll keep the school-run 4X4's off the roads.

Dudley Schools Closure

Track of the day - Singalong - Les Dawson

Breaking News

There is currently no snow in the West Midlands but I'm reliably informed that Dudley Education Department has announced the closure of all Dudley schools tomorrow,
just in case it snows.

We have somehow managed to use £16 worth of electricity in a week.
This came as a bit of a shock because we don't have an electric cooker and all our lightbulbs have been of the energy efficient variety for the last fifteen years. The immersion heater hasn't been on for two years, we don't have any electric fires or a microwave oven so where it's all going beats me.
It can't all be the computer.
So I decided to order an Electrisave. Not because it saves electricity but because it tells you how much electricity is currently being consumed.
The plan is to install it and then run round the house pulling plugs to find out which bit of kit is guilty of guzzling too much electricity.

I found a review on Ciao by BNibbles and found it so entertaining that I rushed off to buy an Electrisave from the Ethical Superstore. An Ethical Superstore? How could I resist that?

Chinese Year of the Pig

I imagine that the Chinese Year of the Pig will cause all sorts of problems for Dudley Council's political correctness department.
If they don't acknowledge it they'll upset their Chinese residents and if they do they risk upsetting the crackpot in the Finance Department who complained about the pig stress busters.

Live At Leeds

Track of the day - World Waiting - Nerve Engine



Playing 'Live at Leeds' is as good a way for a band to sign off as any.
On Saturday a crowd of 450 rock fans witnessed Nerve Engine's farewell performance at Leeds University.
I hear that the Rock of Ages night crowd swelled to a capacity 800 for the band's encore session. That's the way to go out guys!

No acrimonious Rock 'n' Roll split, they just decided that they had gone as far as they were going as a band.
No doubt the guys will find other musical outlets for their undoubted talents.
Until they do I'll just have to put my earplugs into temporary storage.
There are four tracks to download on Nerve Engine's MySpace site.

Here's a link toNerve Engine - Distance

Now go to the band's My Space page to download
One Chance
Never See Me Fall
Phoenix
and Rise.

Thanks for the music guys and best wishes for the future.

Nerve Engine Gig Gallery (not Leeds).

Long Tailed Tits

Track of the day - Get Away - Georgie Fame



I didn't get to the bar.
The thought of the sewage that might come out of the beer pulls and the effect it would have on me the following day put me off.
I am in danger of becoming a recluse. It's all very worrying.

I did liven up yesterday when I spotted a pair of tits swinging about in the garden.
In true Bogsville fashion one decided to present me with its backside. I expect it was the female.
I have to admit that until yesterday I thought that long tailed tits were the ones that were adorned with tassels.

I was peering out of the front window this lunchtime when I was dazzled by the sun reflecting off a bald pate.
Some wrinkly old guy was climbing back into his car. He'd parked outside our house and staggered off to the local butcher's shop to buy his alligator or kangeroo steak.
I cursed him for parking there and then realised that I knew him from somewhere.
This wrinkly old man with the shiny pate was in my class at primary school.
"Has it really come to this?" I asked myself and decided that taking pictures of tits was much more fun.

Crude Sewage

Track of the day - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet - Mix

On my travels with a camera I discovered a sign that should be fixed to the front of all the local Bogsville bars.
Why anyone should want to sample crude sewage defeats me. It just proves that some people will drink anything.
I haven't been in a bar for two weeks now.
I keep planning to visit one but the thought of paying money for that 'authentic crude sewage taste' puts me off.


Fit For Purpose

What better way to prove to that your under fire department is 'fit for purpose' than to mount yet another dawn anti-terrorist raid on the unsuspecting back-streets of Birmingham.
Seems to me that John Reid wants me to think I'm dicing with death every time I leave my house.
One thing is for sure, I can guarantee I won't see any police.
They're all too busy knocking doors down in Birmingham.

Just in case you suspect that the guy next door poses a threat to the safety of the UK, MI5 have a page where you can report your concerns.
Me - I'm off to sample crude sewage.