I was going to explain my absence, but what would that achieve? So instead I'll tell you random things and maybe you can join that together into some kind of sensible story. I managed to find the right kind of notepad. Thanks Jen, wouldn't have been able to do that without you. It makes all the difference to have the right one. I know I have a million and one places to write stuff down, but not all of them are the right place. I really need to organise all the notebooks and stories I have dotted about the place. Maybe next year. Anyway, the new book is perfect, and already filling up with the great story about Lowell and York, and a few other people. You'll like this one, I can tell. In other news, I still haven't worked out how to get a return in this edit pane without sending the blog, so you'll be reading a really huge paragraph. My Burton snowboarding catalogue turned up, about four million years after I asked for it. I had horrible thoughts about what fate might have befallen it, but no, it was fine. Just very, very late. None of my friends actually read this blog, so I can safely say that my bananas are going to have eyes. Once again, thanks have to go to Jen for the idea. Genius. And the vines are going to look so cool, it's a shame most of the world won't see them. Still, those who care, the cult of the monkey, will see, understand and appreciate. And I think the parrot will like it. He's been a bit bored and lonely on top of the palm tree for a while now, and even though we draped a bit of black fabric over his head recently, I think he still craves attention. Bit of new scenery should make him happier. Of course, the question that must be on none of your lips is "what about the alpine scenery?". And my answer to that is, well, I don't really have an answer. I'm asking everyone to perhaps imagine we're in a jungle near the alps. Could happen, you never know what surprises global climate change will throw up next. So I think that's all I wanted to say right now. Actually, I didn't want to say anything, but there's this little nagging voice in the back of my head that says I shouldn't be so bloody lazy about everything. Time to buck up, kiddo.
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O, so that really didn't work, did it? Failed to send the links with the text, and failed to send any apostrophes either. Oh well. The links are as follows: tree disussion can be found at http://www.webmesh.co.uk/nativetrees.htm, and picture can be found at http://fantasies-end.com/ff/xii/images/art/art-02.jpg. Sorry, you'll have to do a bit of cutting and pasting since I appear to be rubbish at all things net related.
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As I was walking through the park this morning, it occurred to me quite how much I despise English cities. Although I went to school in what was technically a London borough, and one of the worst at that, I lived for the majority of my childhood in a village high on the North Downs. It was a great place to grow up, really, and one that instilled in me a love of the countryside. Trees and grass and animals are fantastic, and the park on the way in is a little haven in the concrete jungle that is Sheffield. Except that it�s not quite right. I can still hear all the traffic in the background, and when I close my eyes and put on my mp3 player, the grass doesn�t feel right beneath my feet. I can�t put my finger on exactly why, but it all feels wrong. Perhaps some prehistoric sixth sense can feel the vibrations from the traffic, or perhaps it�s just that the turf I�m walking across is so overworked, and the grass an imported variety. Why import grass? The stuff we have here is bloody good stuff. Why else would we be so good at livestock?
And when you emerge from the park, it just gets worse. Here and there are valiant attempts at greenery, but all fall short of the mark. Yesterday, as I walked past a caf� that is having a patch of earth which skirts around its front �landscaped�, I saw that an acer had been planted. Acers are commonly known as Japanese maple, and really are fantastic looking trees. But not a native variety. Surely it would have been more productive to plant a tree that is proven to do well in our environment, than one that will need nurturing until it has grown strong enough to survive on its own, in ten years� time. I suppose I just don�t understand the point of a garden unless it�s as natural as it is possible to be. A garden should be a reflection of the countryside, constantly on the verge of being as wild as the environment it has replaced. But city gardens are, typically, anything but. I�m of the opinion that a city garden should be even closer to nature than its counterpart in the countryside, just because that sense of wilderness is so far detached when you live in the city.
Now, I�m aware that all this is slightly flawed as a concept. In theory (and in fact) most of the English countryside is an import if you delve far enough into the past. It would be reasonable to argue that the introduction of foreign planting has led to the countryside we have today. Reasonable, but rather pointless, I think. It�s ok to deal in ideals all the time, if all you ever wants is dreams. But this is a reality, and the line has to be drawn somewhere. So, what counts as native? I would say anything that was here before 1000AD is a native species. There�s quite a good article here discussing native and non-native trees, and the list of true natives really comes up quite short. I wouldn�t be that harsh, but I like the way it�s been handled.
So I suppose I should sum this up and get to the point. Well, there isn�t much of a point, is there? It�s not as though we really have the opportunity to change anything, is it? I would love to see every possible square inch of London�s rooftops covered in the green stuff, with more spilling out of the sides of the buildings all the way down, but it�ll never happen, and I can sort of accept that. I love the imagery behind this artwork , and I suppose that one day I hope the world�s cities resemble it, but it�s fantasy. It�s from a game called Final Fantasy XII. So not reality, then, nor is it ever likely to be. I just wish our cities were a little more like that, and a little less like, well, cities.
That�s quite enough from me right now, I�m getting incoherent.

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Ok, one more, I couldn't resist...
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One last one: me and the cat, who, for some reason known only to her, loves to be draped across my shoulders
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A nice bridge with a canal boat next to it, somewhere near Oxford
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A big scary church thing
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Jen is actually further up this tree than she looks.
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Our local trying to be a trendy bar
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A few pics taken with my new camera phone. Quality's not great, as you can see, but in terms of spontaneity, can't really beat a camera phone...
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I'm just so confused these days. Everything confuses me, it really does.
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A "gropu" of children, in case you were wondering having read the last post, is rather like a group of children, except not spelled quite so correctly.
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say was that it throws strange coincidences at you. And it's also impossible to hit return in this program without it posting the damn blog. I was walking through the park on the way to work this morning, and Weather With You by Crowded House started playing on my MP3 player. Not, on it's own, a particularly strange event, except that as I was strolling along, happily listening, I spotted several gropus of children, obviously on some sort of field trip, and each with a portable weather station. It makes you wonder...
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What I meant to
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Isn't life strange?
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By the way, all these images are being posted using a program from the makers of Picasa called Hello. It's a brilliant idea, which involves the use of a chat client to talk to a blogging bot, which posts everything for you. I'd recommend it for anyone who needs to get their pictures in their blog. There's a link to it right underneath this sentence. Just there. No, down a bit... yeah, that's it, just there.
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Oh, the possibilities are endless. All this stuff is copyright me, by the way. It's all mine, so no nicking things without asking first. And there's no excuse for not asking, there's a link to e-mail me at the top right of the page.
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I mean, when you can post pictures like this panorama of Ladybower Reservoir in the Peak District, people might actually start taking an interest in things.
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makes things look a little more interesting, doesn't it?
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Now that I can actually post pictures, I'm tempted to do a lot of it... This, for instance.
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Right, that seems to have worked. We were a lot closer than it looks on the picture, actually.
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Ok, so that didn't work. Sorry, new software, trying to get used to it. I've obviously missed something... Right, let's try again...
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This is one of the pictures I took with my rather incapable camera phone at the Ben Folds gig. I'm sure there's all sorts of copyright issues surrounding posting pictures of gigs, but Ben's usually a fairly decent chap about that sort of thing, so I'm not expecting a court summons any time soon.
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So, blog, blog, blog...
Erm, went to see Ben Folds last night. Not too shabby. Could have done with staying out there a bit longer. Only 2 1/4 hours? What's that about? Seriously, though, it was absolutely amazing. He gives everything to the performance, to the point of having to tape his fingernails on so they don't fall off as he plays. Heroic.
In other news, I'm more determined than ever to finish my book and get the thing published, if only to prove the doubters wrong. Anyone out there keen on publishing my book for me? It's really good. Honest. Heroic fantasy, in the Eddings/Feist/Brooks mould.
My peach squash also happens to taste quite a lot like Fairy washing up liquid, because I wasn't thorough enough with the rinsing this morning. That'll learn me.

Forgot to say...
The Ben Folds album came out at last. I like it. Lots and lots. A great deal, in fact. Next month's concert is, quite frankly, going to kick bottom...

Lyrics that make sense and tattoos that do, too...
"I don't wanna make a plan
For a day far away,
While I'm young and I'm able,
All I wanna do is..."
Seems like the right idea to me.
On another note, something that needs to happen sooner or later is a tattoo. Jen's name, because I want to show the thoroughness of my commitment (because getting married isn't a commitment, obviously...). Permanently stamped property. I liked the idea when I came up with it, and I still like it now, a couple of months later, so it must be a good idea, right? Number 11, here we come...
The sun came out, it made me happy, but it's going to go away again, so I'd better enjoy it while I can. Plenty of window staring to be done. Daydreamer extraordinaire.

Wooh!!
No real reason, just wooh, generally.

Fountains of Wayne: Welcome Interstate Managers
You might have a bit of trouble getting hold of it. Well, at least Amazon did, maybe there was just a temporary shortage. Well worth the effort though - very good album. To quote the review snippet on the sticker on the front, "you should buy Welcome Interstate Managers. In the unlikely event that you don't like it you could increase the sum of human happiness by passing it on to a friend". They're right, it makes you one happy person to listen to. Think Wheatus, but grown up with a Ben Folds tone to the lyrics.
On a Ben Folds theme, there's a new single ('Landed') out, but Sony haven't released it to the UK version of iTunes, so I can't get hold of it to tell you exactly how good it is. Album's out soon(ish), though, so we'll see...

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US school's new challenge to Darwin
This bothers me slightly. It always seems that there is no possibility that a compromise can be reached between creationism and evolution theory. The fact is that it's perfectly possible to support both ideas within the same framework. I won't pretend that the suggestion that I'm about to make is new - it's been aired many times before, most comically by Dave Gorman in his Googlewhack Adventure book (which is brilliantly funny and sobering in equal amounts). The theory goes something like this: there is/are a God/Gods, and he/she/it/they set in place a sequence of events which led to the evolution of the species. I can hear the sharp intake of breath from here. "No," you say, "that's simply not plausible!" What, less plausible than the whole universe being created in six days, or the quite ridiculously small chance that life would come into being and grow as complex as it is without some intervention? Come on, give me a break!
I'm not actually decided myself yet. I mean, I'm a scientist, and I've seen how tenacious life can be, but that's not really an argument for either side, is it? Creationists would argue that the existence of life in bizarre and unlikely places simply proves that God exists. Otherwise, how would these evolutionary unlikelihoods even exist? But Darwinists would argue that it's proof that there is no need to have a God designing everything, that life itself is such an all-conquering force that it will spring into existence at the merest hint of a water molecule and some amino acids. Neither side is particularly convincing, and there's evidence for both. I find it hard to believe that the Bible's story of creation as told in Genesis is meant to be a literal story, and if you assume that it isn't, there's plenty of room for interpretation, none of which actually conflicts too strongly with the products of millions of years of evolution. But creationist arguments often centre around the implausibility of random evolutionary events leading to human beings from the primordial sludge which existed 3.5 billion years (give or take) ago. That's silly. I can prove that evolution is a fast and powerful force. Bacteria are fairly simple entities, but in fact have a moderate degree of genetic complexity; they just happen to be quite small, and therefore made up of only a few components. Bacteria are found everywhere on earth. Everywhere. In all places. The single most extraordinary of these, however, is the type of bacteria which live on the control rods of nuclear reactors. Not only are these guys subjected to the most intense heat, but they are constantly bombarded by radiation. Radiation is one of the biggest causes of genetic mutation, and mutation usually leads to cell death. Sometimes it doesn't, as in the case of cancer cells, but most of the time mutated cells die or are killed. Intense radiation should kill all life. Nothing should survive in a nuclear reactor, and yet in the fifty years or so we've been playing with fission, a type of bacteria has evolved which is stable against the immense radiative bombardment that it receives on a daily basis, and in fact thrives upon it. That's a rather short space of time, on the scale of the hundreds of millions of years evolution has been going. So it would seem that the evolutionary viewpoint has rather strong support, wouldn't it? Except for one thing - you get all the ingredients of the most basic life forms possible and put them in a test tube, and what do you get? Nothing, except for a big mix of ingredients. Life doesn't spring into being. So, how did it do it in the first place? Some scientists have suggested a lightning strike might have kick-started life, blending and heating the components in such a way as to make life appear out of the goo. Well, try it. Take your test tube and put 10,000V through it. It won't make life, I can guarantee you that. It'll boil everything inside, and dissociate the amino acids. D'oh, not exactly the result you were looking for, right? Another favourite is the possibility that life started elsewhere, and came in on bits of space rock ("asteroids", we like to call them...). This always leaves one question conveniently ignored - where the hell did this life come from, and how did it start at that end? Who knows, maybe God(s) made the universe, then breathed a bit of life into a bit of rock, and threw it at the nascent Earth, knowing that it would eventually lead to a race of highly intelligent, self-aware, inquisitive gits, because the chemistry on the surface and the predicted number of meteor impacts for the foreseeable future (which is, of course, the whole expanse of time) is just right. When you look at how ridiculously complex life is, there's no way you can discount any of these possibilities on the basis that they're a little unlikely. Life itself is unlikely. Very fuckin' unlikely.