Dan Germain

the plain truth is that everyone knows that photos of sunsets are never as good as they actually seem when you're looking at them with your eyes, but we keep taking them anyway

choosing new books

I've been away. Holiday. No blogging and little thinking. But I've saved up some things that I thought might be interesting. First, this, which will help you choose your next book. Who knows, the mobile library might even have it, all lined up and waiting for you. It's called bookseer.

nasty dan

magic box

It's been a while, but I think this is worth it.

I was looking for some beer to take to a BYO curry house in Great Malvern the other night, and I tried a local boozer. Not only were they happy to oblige, but they had a special Tetrapak-style carton for me to use, with a special clip for the top that kept the important liquid within.

So, proper cask-conditioned draught beer to take away. No problem. Just stick it in the box.

You can keep your fibre optics and your touch sensitive screens. This is the most important technological advance I've heard of since man invented the spoon. Cheers.

a milestone

The old dog. The cosmic blue chariot.

My car has been called many things in its lifetime. And it has achieved. It has broken down. It has lost fights with pheasants. It has been to Winchester (no link available – it wasn't that exciting). So it was with great joy that we celebrated a landmark on Saturday evening, together, halfway round the bottom of the M25 on the way back from watching Gillingham draw 0-0 with Bury.

123456 miles on the clock.

I've been waiting for it to come up for a while, and now it's passed, we are ready for 234567, driveshaft permitting.

good people to meet

I would like to link to some people who have good blogs.

First, Dan Heaver.

Dan is a good man. I hope he doesn't mind me using this photo of him that I found on his blog. Sure he won't. He occasionally writes innocent labels for beer money and spends most of his time doing things with film for people. Grows veg, makes chutney, fashions catapults out of squirrel bones (maybe). You should get to know him.

Then there's James. His blog is called Seen By Sigmund, or maybe it's Pushes Emotional Buttons. Anyway, it's a good blog, even though I have no photo of James playing a guitar.

in ancient days, men looked at stars

Ben finds lots of stuff but never gets round to starting a blog where he can put it all. So I'm nicking the best things he finds and passing them off as my own.

We begin with the speech that Nixon's speechwriter William Safire had up his sleeve, just in case Armstrong and Aldrin never came back from the Moon. Read it here.

Thank you Ben.

the making of inner meet me

I believe that this may be the greatest pop video ever. Here is an article about how it was made. I especially like the part about stirring a puddle with a stick to get that 'beam me up' effect.

some important things

I have had a short blog holiday. It lasted about a month. And now it's done.

In that time many things have changed in the world.

The tankard has returned. It's going to travel once again.

Violet celebrated her first birthday. We wore hats and erected a tent in the living room to celebrate.

And my granddad died.

Morris was a champ. The kindest, most generous man you could ever care to meet. He loved his children and his grandchildren and his great grandchildren. He defeated the Germans by himself (allegedly) and never had a bad word to say about anyone, ever. I've always been so proud to be related to him, and I always will be. I couldn't have had a greater example of how a man should lead his life.

Onward.

country hazards, part 10 – it came from the hedgerow

A pheasant has altered my life. She (it was one of the lady ones) flew out of a hedge and straight into my car aerial, snapping it and thus depriving me of radio waves. I'm a bit buggered to be honest. I'm lost without Five Live.

Do I stick an old coat hanger in the hole or does anyone know how you actually fix these things?