The love story of Ralph and Edna.

Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have. 
  
Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool. Ralph suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. 
    
When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna’s heroic act  she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable. When she went to tell Edna the news she said, ‘Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re being discharged, since you were  able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love. I have concluded that your act displays soundmindedness. The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he’s dead.’ 
    
Edna replied, ‘He didn’t hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?’ 

An interresting couple of days…

It’s not very often that I write something on my website, but when I do get around to it, it’s usually because something weird, odd, exciting or just plain fabtastic has happened to me. This is one of those moments, and I thought it something that I should probably put down in writing.

A little background I suppose is in order.
Since approximately the beginning of December, maybe even mid-November… Bryan and I haven’t had a weekend to ourselves. A weekend where you do nothing. A weekend where you just sit back and do nothing. You see, over the past few weeks we’ve been tourists around London (Tim), tourists in Edinburgh (Tim), Christmas with friends and family, moving house (!), tourists in London (Gillian) again and other general running about setting up a new flat, as you do!

So why the background… why am I even bothering to tell you all this… well!!!
This weekend, Bryan and I got our wish. A weekend where we did absolutely nothing! Relaxy Relaxy! The most stressful thing that I did last weekend was to make an Almond biscuit and Raspberry Coulis Whip desert, Onion seasoned chicken wrapped in bacon with an orange reduction sauce on a bed of mash and mange-tout… started off with a broccoli soup.
Yes… I love cooking!

So that was on Saturday. On Sunday we went to Carnaby Street and dropped off Bryan’s phone and then headed off to the city to a cinema where they were showing Chariots of Fire. We were tempted to go in, but just sat in a wine bar across the road which was FULL of gay-boys. It was a very nice place.

So… back to work on the Monday. I’m doing back-up stuff at the moment and it’s a little time consuming, but so be it!

We’ve also booked our holidays to South Africa in April. It’s going to be a fabulous holiday. Kruger Park, Cape Town, Pretoria and a party at my parent’s place! A good time! I suspect I’ll send an invite out on Facebook and get a whole load of people around! This’ll be Bryan’s first time in Africa, so I can’t wait to see what his reaction is going to be. It’s such a differant world down there, and so many things can shock and scare you, but I’m sure he’ll be fine and enjoy every moment of it. I know I will. I’ve never been to the Kruger, and it’s been years since I went to Cape Town, so it’s going to be an experience for me as well.

I’m also back at the gym (sort-of). I need to get back into it now that I hav a ate for when I’m going to SA. I seriously need to loose this tyre that’s forming around my belly… but it’s gonna take a lot of work I think. Perhaps I should get a personal trainer.

Right… I’m off to go and eat some carrots!
Love to you and yours…
G x

Bryan locks himself in a room… for the last time

It has come to that time of the year again, Bryan has locked himself in a room to finish his studies for the final exam in his course. At long last the course he has been working on, Chartered Secretary Accreditation, is in its final stages.

So, I guess the point of this little post is to wish him well, and ask you to do the same.
You can…

• Send him a message on Facebook (you must be logged into FB)
  
• Check out his website
• Post a comment here where he’ll read it (I think)

Good luck luv… *hug*

The ‘Great Unwashed’

It’s a worrying state of affairs when people in our culture get off on watching other people suffer, be it in emotional of physical suffering. It all boils down to the television really, the programmes available on the multitude of reality channels on cable and satellite.

The one programme that has caught my eye over the past few months is Street Wars, where a camera crew follow the activities of drunken yobs and neds in various places around the country, in the company of our beloved police force. While watching the programme, a few things catch my eye at every point. The majority of assailants in the program are young men who have had far too much to drink. Woman, even young girls on a few occasions, have been known to throw rocks and stones at friends / police / fire crews (you choose), but the overall ratio swings the wave of crime in favour of men.

So here we are, a first world country with men who are unpredictable and like a few drinks on a Saturday night. Yet they still manage to get themselves nicked because they’re standing in a corner somewhere pissing on a pavement or shagging something they probably shouldn’t be.

How I love the intricacies and complexities of the Great Unwashed. As long as they don’t touch me on the bus, I’ll survive.

Why is Facebook so addictive?

In a world where we are literally spoiled for choice when it comes to websites offering services, images and food, I would like to know what it is that makes Facebook such an addictive force and why so many people are flocking to the site to get their daily fix.

Facebook is now worth a few BILLION quid, which is really scary considering how old it is, and the fact that it’s a simple website. It’s a brilliant philosophy; Facebook provide a shell for people to play with, nerdy folk (not emplyed by FB) build applications which fit into the Facebook infrastructure meaning that millions of people can join in on the fun, loading applications, playing games and generally wasting their lives. All the while, Facebook can sit back while advertising revenue streams through the door and into their coffers.

So with a multi-billion pound operation raking in the dosh from the West-coast of the US, how is it that such a simple idea manages to hook people into the site and keep them coming back for more, day after day? Lets have a look at some of the facts:

People need to feel connected to eachother.
Let’s face the facts here, people like to know that other people are thinking about them. The more people the better. What Facebook does is it allows you to broadcast yourself a lot easier and faster than any other website has in the past. You can connect to someone and then they will know every move you make, every person you connect to and every group you talk with. This is fulfilling the basic need for people to know they are being listened too.

People need to be nosey.
What better way to wile the hours away than to stick your nose into other people’s business without them really knowng you’re doing it. Relationships, friends, hobbies, purchases and moods… there’s little you can’t find out about someone on Facebook, unless they’ve got you set to ‘limited profile’ in which case they’re just being anal!

Employers love it, and so does Mr Skinner.
Since Facebook took of, people have been ‘taking off’. In other words, some people have become so addicted to the site, that they bunk of work, school and any other commitment they should be attending to in their normal life. Employees have been fired from their jobs because their bosses have seen their activities on Facebook. Items such as ‘watching the game today‘, ‘isn’t the beach beautiful today‘, and my personal favorite, ‘what a night, I have a killer hangover‘ all landing people in some serious hot water.

Gay or Straight… the eternal question.
Let’s use a scenario for this one. You get to work one day, get a coffee and sit down at your desk to start the daily grind. You’re a happy, single gay guy and not a care in the world, but you’ve noticed something different in the office. Something that isn’t the same as yesterday. Someone new! Someone sexy!
The only problem is you can’t tell if he’s straight or gay let alone available! The only thing going for you is that you know his name! So you log onto Facebook, add him as a friend (after you’ve introduced yourself face-to-face of course) and hey presto you can check if he’s ‘in the club’, single and by looking at past relationships you can tell if you’re his type as well! All that’s left for you to do is to seduce him in the canteen and do naughty things in the service elevator!

It solves the problem of setting up your own website.
Who needs one when you have a Facebook profile?

I haven’t seen them in years.
Facebook has so many users that it is practically impossible not to find friends that you haven’t seen in years. Perhaps you lost touch with someone because you moved house when you were five, or maybe you dumped someone you probably shouldn’t have. What if you worked with someone that you hated and you want to tell them why. Facebook makes it easy to find them and tell them what’s on your mind, no matter what it is.

Looking at everything we’ve spoken about already, it’s fairly easy to figure out why people flock to the website morning, noon and night. It makes your own tedious life look dazzling and interresting when in actual fact your stuck in front of your computer screen munching on Pringles and slugging down Fanta.

I think the really amusing this is that I don’t care if that’s the case, just as long as I have more friends than you.