TD Online

Well, this has taken me long enough to actually start to write, but here it is – my quick (or maybe not so quick, depending on your reading speed) rundown of my experiences on a recent visit to our nation’s capital, where the streets are rumoured to be paved with gold, where all your dreams are possible, and where the Queen lives.

I was struggling for a number of things before starting this, highest on the list being inspiration. However, I believe I’ve found that now, and in doing so think I’ve come up with a fairly worthwhile way of making it brief, but thorough, which is by subdividing it up into constituent parts, and expanding them from there.

Not that you needed to know that.

So sit back, grab a brew, and try to enjoy a whirlwind review of my first experience of London-town since I was 8 years old, and my first experience as a ‘proper grown up’.

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Item Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/americas/6159225.stm

I shouldn’t, but a few things in this made me titter. First up was:

“Police said it was unclear why he was in the water in the early hours, but he had admitted taking crack cocaine.

At a guess, the cocaine had something to do with it.

“The alligator believed to have carried out the attack was later caught, wildlife officials said.”

That’ll be the one with bits of human flesh on its teeth then…

I’m getting bored of quoting BBC News, but every time I try to stop something makes me laugh.

Time for a change.

I’ve finally decided that I’m sick of making that age old sacrifice of drinking the shit, watered-down, excuse for a beer those in England call “lager” and the rest of the world attempt to actually pass off as “beer”.
I have no need to make such sacrifices. Why perpetuate the cycle when I can just step out of the circle?

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Booked my flights back to the UK today – flying into Heathrow on Friday the 8th December to visit Dicko and Duncan in London for the weekend before travelling back homewards on the 11th, when I’m then back for the next two months (all being well).

Looking forward to it immensely.

Also had a moment of madness today and ordered a random mixture from my Amazon wishlist of CDs – will be good to have a few more tracks to listen to when I’m home, although we’ll see what my mother has to say about that when they arrive on the doorstep!

Other than that, all is fine, about to head back out on safari tomorrow morning. Feeling tired. Season’s nearly over. Bonus.

Peace x

Well, this week’s been entertaining off, starting off with a suprise and a couple of other things. AG turned up with my new Salvo HID in tow – and a very ncie light it is too. Then my parents and a bunch of diving friends from home turned up for a week on the boat when I was expecting Russians, meaning they were here for my birthday, which was kind of cool, and the 24th saw the start of Ramadan, meaning I’m now into my fourth day of fasting (no food or water during daylight hours). As part of the fasting I’m also giving up all other substances (cigarettes, hash, alcohol) for the month’s duration as well. Just to make things interesting.

The fact that I was fasting certainly came as a surprise to most people, not least of which was to my parents to find me not drinking on my birthday.
Other folks also seemed to wonder why I was fasting, whether I was considering converting, etc.
Rest assured, I am not going to convert. First things first I find it pretty weird to consider ‘converting’ from nothing to something. The fact that I’m doing it does not indicate I’m doing it for any religious reasons at all.
The main reason I’m fasting is because I’m stubborn. I did 5 days last year, and decided I would make an effort to do the whole month this time around. Besides which, I find it’s actually quite a nice thing to do with the rest of the crew doing it as well – sort of brings a family atmosphere to it all, which is nice. Having said that, now there’s only me and two of the crew actually still fasting, the others have cracked for various reasons already, most of them cracking today. Hopefully I’ll at least see out the end of the week!

Hmmm, I’m sure there was more I wanted to write, guess I’m too tired. Birthday was fun, but busy.

Tarra.

Wow, that last post was a little bit angry.

Apologies. I’ve relaxed a bit now but feeling slightly depressed from the night!

Time to recover from the alcohol…

Hmm, Cairo, indeed.

Been back a few days now and have to admit – after further discussion with Mo, the guy I’m going to be working with for the next few months, if not longer – it’s a kickass city. It’s dirty as you can imagine, that much is true, but the sheer diversity in terms of its buildings, and yet the basic, traditional Egyptian / Arabic feel to it (compared to other Egyptian cities / towns I’ve visited) gives it a weird sort of balance that manages to make it less appealing yet beautiful at the same time.

Not quite sure what quite applies to that. but it is.

In other news, as I’m basically not arsed to write about tonight which was a combination between weird / bag of wank and a good laugh, I haven’t written here for a while due to being at home.
For whatever reason, I don’t know why I don’t write stuff down when I’m at home just because I can’t access the webpage properly / easily (local server location makes it trickier than one would like) doesn’t give me a reason for not writing into a text document and pasting it in later, as per being on the boat.
To summarise, I had fun whilst home, bought a few CDs, including Modern Times by Dylan which is VERY damn cool, and generally enjoyed things.

Mo, the guy I’m due to work with for the next 3 months, seems sound as a proverbial pound, and looking forward to working with him.

Guess I’ll see folks in 3 months.

These rules may also apply to the rest of Egypt, but they definitely apply in Cairo:

1. Road Markings are a Figment of Your Imagination
   Sure, they may seem like they mean something, but adhere to them at your own risk. Pretend they mean something if you like, but nobody else does.
2. Never Look Back
   I know you may feel the temptation to check behind you fully before pulling out, but don’t. If the guy / girl behind you can’t see that you’re about to turn erratically one way or the other at a moment’s notice without indicating then they shouldn’t be on the fucking road in the first place. If they scratch your car feel free to jump out and politely tell them that they’re in the wrong.
   Or scream and shout.
   Or ignore it.
3. Traffic Lights are for Decoration
   Never, ever, pay attention to traffic lights. They’re simply there to provide illumination on a dark evening and to keep up with the rest of the world. In the absence of a Traffic Policeman to remind you to ignore them, just keep edging the car slowly further forward until you’re across all the oncoming traffic. They’ll slow down, they have to.
4. Fuck the Pedestrian
   There’s plenty more where they come from. Fucking lunatics
5. Wear Your Seatbelt
   Or we’ll book you.
   That’s right, you might feel secure playing destruction derby along our roads, or passing public transport with people hanging out of the doors, but if you’ve not got your seatbelt on then you’re not, and you will get booked for it.
   Conversely, speed as much as you like. There are limits, but without a speed gun, how are we meant to know how fast you’re going? Your seatbelt though? Well, we can see that…

Morning / Afternoon / Evening.

This little introduction should serve more as a warning that there is nothing of much interest in this post. This entire post is primarily for my benefit by allowing me to record somewhere some ideas that came up in my head today.
Included are: Installing rockbox on my ipod; my desire to re-rip all my music to ogg; my current progress with ‘Operation Open Source Dave‘; how I organize my music collections; and not much else.

Read on if ye dare

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I’ve reached a semi crisis point in my life. My head is a mash of conflicting views and trying to maintain reality. Because today, I’ve considered cropping back my golden locks.

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