the joys of digital music

My lovely collection of music has come a cropper. I don't know what happened, but this morning there seemed to be something wrong with the external disc that I store my iTunes library (20,000+ tracks). I had to repair it and I now seem to have lost a huge number of tracks. Looks like it could run into the 1000s. I have learnt three things from this. 1. Back up 2. Macs are wonderful. It was a simple matter of clicking a few buttons and the disc was repaired, thus saving most of my collection. 3. Back up. I'm ordering a second external disc immediately. That is the only problem with digital stuff. You need a lot of storage space, and it has to be spread around a few different places. I guess I'll get the hang of it eventually.

dydd Dewi sant again

We have archives now, so I don't have to regurgitate what I wrote last year, it's here

that was the day

I was woken at 2.45 am by the sound of Slinky retching. I put the light on and discovered he was projectile vomiting over the bedroom carpet. While Slinky has long despised this offensive inherited carpet and attempted to decorate it with paint footprints, vomiting was not a way to make it look better.

The day did not improve at work, when the whole team practically broke down crying because they feel so overworked. I found it very hard not to join in and managed to escape to my office afterwards where Ms Ginger Cake found me sobbing like a baby. I've made up my mind though, I'm asking for a transfer and I'm taking no prisoners. Grrr! My bad self is back.

Anyway, I was going to write today off as one of those days best not remembered, when I found some cheeriness from blogging. How can I feel bad when I am Minister of the Special Relationship and Nagl has sacrificed his beard for us?

digital hell

I have been struggling with deleting the dead tracks in iTunes after my disc failure. This morning after reading through various forums and the like I deleted all the music from my iTunes library. This was nerve wrecking stuff. I only deleted the reference to the music files, and the idea is that the file itself should still be accessible. I then re-imported all the music in the iTunes folder. The good news is that it worked. All the dead tracks are gone. The bad news is that I now know the full extent of the damage. I have lost 2620 tracks in total. The very strange, and really annoying, thing is that the tracks are missing across a range of albums, one track from this one, two tracks from that one. I'm in two minds about deleting the lot and start again. I made some mistakes with the cataloguing system that I used in the beginning, including deleting all the album track numbers in a moment of madness. Something that I have been gradually repairing over the last year or so. There is something very attractive about the idea of having it all set up in exactly the way I want. I have even been debating with myself about whether I should have imported the tracks in AAC@160 kbps rather than 128kbps. The quality of the music at 128kbps is absolutely fine to my ears, but the quality does deteriorate slightly when I burn music to disc. To rebuild the library to it's current level would probably take around a year. Decisions. Decisions. What is a boy to do?

a little friday night music...

Amazing! Do people really still make music like this? The Mars Volta are incredible. This reminds of the glory days of Genesis and Rush when you just had to read the lyrics while you listened to the song. Here [beware it's nearly 13 minutes long and weighs in at more than 12Mbs] is the third track from the five, multi-part, track album Frances the Mute and here are the lyrics to one of the most interesting songs. Before you ask, I have no idea what the Spanish stuff is about. In fact, I'm struggling to make sense of any of the lyrics. It's apparently based on a found diary left behind by someone who killed themselves. Great stuff. Listen to it all and LISTEN TO IT LOUD.

L'Via L'Viaquez

L’ Via
Hija de Miranda
Tu Apellido se cambió
L’ Via
Sin Ojos me quieres dar
Una historia sin mi madre
Solo tengo que decirte
El dolor de noche dice
Solo se quedo el vestido
Le lave la sangre

L’ Via
No dejes de descansar
En la calle caminas
Quien te va a perseguir
L’ Via
Te quieren matar
Dientes de Machete
Cabezas de gallo

L’ Via
Durmiendo en paz
Abre los ojos
Todo cambiará
L’ Via
Soñado de venganza
Y yo te lo juro
Lo van a pagar
Blackmailed, she fell off every mountain
The ones they tightly wrapped in tape
In her eraser sang the guilty
As it made the best mistakes
And with everybody that I find
And with every clamor that they mine
I won’t forget who I’m looking for
Oh mother help me I’m looking for

L ‘ Via
Hija de Miranda
Tu apellido se cambió
L’ Via
Sin ojos me quieres dar
Una historia sin mi madre
Solo tengo que decirte
El dolor de noche dice
Solo se quedo el vestido
Le lave la sangre

Blackmailed, she fell off every mountain
The ones they tightly wrapped in tape
In her eraser sang the guilty
As it made the best mistakes
And with everybody that I find
And with every clamor that they mine
I won’t forget who I’m looking for
Oh mother help me I’m looking for
Solo tengo
Una hora
Y me duermo
Terminado
Por veinte y cinco
Años pasaron
Siguen los cuerpos
Aqui temblando
Tome la sangre
Comi el cuerpo
Mis lagrimas
Quiebra el espejo

When all the worms come
Crawlin out of your head
Telling you
Don’t you be afraid
When all the worms come
Crawlin out of your head
Telling you
Don’t you be afraid

Blackmailed she fell off every mountain
The ones they tightly wrapped in tape
In her eraser sang the guilty
As it made the best mistakes
Shark kites got tangled in the moleskin
Urgent plea of escape
A mouth to mouth on the chalkboard
Written in fingernail distaste
And with everybody that I find
And with every clamor that they mine
I won’t forget who I’m looking for
Oh mother help me I’m looking for

Blackmailed she fell off every mountain
The ones they tightly wrapped in tape
In her eraser sang the guilty
As it made the best mistakes
And with everybody that I find
And with every clamor that they mine
I won’t forget who I’m looking for
Oh mother help me I’m looking for

something to spice up your boring blog

I found this and thought of you, little miss Spanglemonkey. Quite a few new words here for you.

something to cheer you up

I love this song, and this version in particular. Do you know who it is?

good grief...we're famous

The NewsFire site has a quote from one of our posts about their wonderful newsreader. That's pretty cool. I have been using the beta version for some time but this morning when I switched it on I was told that it had expired and I have to download the final version. I really will have to buy it now.

guess who's back, back again...

...'tis me, Mrs McMuffin and I am in a very cheery mood. I think that the nadir of Wednesday has allowed me to move forward and I am brimming with bonhommie, despite finding out that I cannot transfer to another team because the vacancy does not exist. Anyway, life is ok, even though I have sorely missed Gypsy Tart (she and Rock Cake have been in Egypt) and continue to miss working with Ms Ginger Cake every sorry day of my working life.

I took a pile of work home with me this weekend on the basis that this is work only I can do, so I need to finish it, dump the rest on my boss and take some of the annual leave entitlement I shall lose if I don't have it before April. I intend to take my leave and get the House of Shame looking less shameful. I have grand plans:

Sort out the front garden so that the house no longer looks like a squat.
Replace the front door so that the house no longer looks like a squat.
Decorate the hallway so that the house no longer looks likes a squat.
Decorate our bedroom so that our house no longer looks like a squat.
Get a plumber in to deal with the leaks, so that our house no longer feels like a sqat.

I think there's a picture emerging here. Anyway, I just want to thank Nagl for shaving for our sins and let him know that I am redeemed.

perfect...almost

Mrs McMuffin is almost perfect. She just measured herself and she has an almost perfect hourglass figure. Sadly she is a little top heavy. Just an inch mind, but it does throw the proportions way out. Nevermind, she will always be almost perfect to me.

just too late

To wish everyone a happy International Women's Day, although reading the previous post you might think that feminism is an unknown word in chez McMuffin. I don't know what came over the mister. I think he was just gobsmacked to see me taking any interest in my measurements (there was a tape measure on the side and I haven't measured my waist since I was about eighteen, so I just went crazy with it). All very strange.

Anyway, I have three days annual leave this week. Hurrah. There will be no queues outside my door, no constant calls and messages and best of all no bloody email from the various senior managers who can't quite bring themselves to direct their enquiries to the appropriate level and give my name out to people, as if promising some kind of special service. This makes me angry like the Hulk gets angry, although without the whole green, hopping, clothes ripping thing, obviously. I shall just have peace for the rest of the week. Hurrah again.

the glamour of it all

I am up late and relishing the opportunity to actually read blogs properly and not just driveby comment. I have been idly speculating about my life as a lady of leisure. I am too old, educated, British and classy to be Paris Hilton, but I certainly want her ability to spend time just doing whatever comes into her pretty head. As I was dreaming about this fabulous lifestyle, I glanced down and saw the note I had written Mr McMuffin earlier. It said: Please take bin bag out tomorrow. Slinky did big, slimy poo in bathroom. His stomach is not right.. Burst my bubble, that's for sure.

meme aid...

Jo at Counting Sheep is encouraging everyone to take part in the bloggers disco over at troubled diva. Apparently troubled diva will donate £1 to Comic Relief for every song we post linking back to his disco loveliness. Mrs McMuffin suggested that we should all dance around to She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult, to remind us all that the 80s weren't all bad.

a little something for steve...

got to post something...

...so that the first thing you see when you visit us, is not a partial picture of the most enormous boobs. I really think Mr McMuffin has his silly head on. I have to confess to an interest when he chose the photograph, as I can't believe the size of mammaries some women have. Perhaps If I had developed these enormous glands myself, I might not have the annoying habit of staring at large breasted women. I try and be subtle, but I sort of understand why some men gawk, because large boobs are completely fascinating. I suppose our motivations might be different though, as I spend my staring time wondering about the practicalities of large breast ownership (running? sleeping? buying bras? getting clothes to fit?). I can't imagine the staring men do that.

what comes around

I have been cooking for the last couple of days and now understand how frustrated Mr McMuffin feels when I roll in an hour after he expected me, complaining about my busy day. I keep turning the oven up, down, taking the food out, putting it back in and so on, just to try and stop the meal turning into burnt slop.

I have also found that I can't remember what his plans are and what time he said he was going to be back home. I find this intensely irritating when it happens to me, but for the life of me I can't remember what he said he was doing tonight. I know what he'll be eating, though.

googlewhack

Here you go. Don't know what all the fuss is about, it only took about two minutes.

me too

I can do it as well. Look. I like this one best, though.

conspiracy

How can you have two really great googlewhacks before you go to bed and then they're gone by the morning? How fast can the google spider run?

I speak the language of cats

For some years now, little Slinky has been trying to teach us how to communicate with him. Recently he has stepped up his efforts, but we are still too ignorant to grasp the subtleties and nuances of his expressions. Over the last few days he hasn't been very well and yesterday seemed to have a fever, as his little paws were burning and his fur was sweaty and disheveled. Of course, he kept trying to tell us what he needed, but we found it hard to distinguish between his cries for food and yowls for cuddles. His fever seems to have broken today, but he has developed a new mew. It is complex and clearly heartfelt and seems to translate roughly as this, I need to drink your bathwater and your protest at my attempts to do this, (with you in the bath) are annoying and disruptive to my sense of wellbeing.

Mr McMuffin is being slowly driven insane by Slink's incessant demands for attention at 5.30am and admonished me to shut him in the dining room last night. By the time I got upstairs, Slinky was snuggled up on the bed and Mr McMuffin had his arm thrown over him. Very mixed messages going out here. Sometimes I am relieved that we don't have children to mess up, although we wouldn't make them sleep in dining rooms, obviously.

By the way, why do the people who write those begging letters rarely seem to have a valid email address? How on earth are we supposed to send them our bank details so that they can give us a cut of the money they received as a result of murder of family members by their corrupt governments (God bless us)?

equilbrium

We just watched Equilibrium again. If you leave to one side that it is a bit of a Matrix rip-off, it really is a great movie. Christian Bale is Cleric John Preston in a future world where feeling is outlawed. It's his job to enforce the law, and guess what happens...There are some fantastic fight scenes and Bale give a moving performance as a man coming to terms with his feelings by kicking some ass and saving the free world. Rent it now. You will not be disappointed.

beautiful...

I was just leafing through the latest edition of Q magazine and I found a review for Antony & The Johnsons. I was intriqued by the idea that "...his simple, unadorned songs of longing, belonging and love are so striking that contributions from such distinctive guest as Boy George, Rufus Wainright and Lou Reed pass almost unnoticed." I downloaded the album I am a bird now and imagine my surprise to find for once the hyperbole was true. Antony has one of the most distinctive, beautiful, voices that I have heard in a long time. The music is some kind of mix of soul and gospel, and I can hear traces of Nina Simone in his voice. There are tracks on this album that will make you cry. The album is simpy stunning, and I think you should all rush out and buy it now. Here is the opening track Hope There's Someone and the lovely duet with Boy George, who now has a weary of the world tone to his voice, You Are My Sister.

one step closer to a grand slam

Nor much more to say, really, but that's never stopped me before. I have faithfully not been watching Wales play and it appears to be paying off. Big sister however, is convinced that her personal attention is required for Wales to win and has watched every match. We seem to be becoming superstitious freaks.

We have also synchronised our alcohol abuse and after Mr McMuffin and Gypsy Tart got me drinking margaritas last night I phoned Big Sis up to find out whether my present parcel had reached the Brother in Law. It had, but this did not end the conversation, no indeed. Big Sis had also had a couple of glasses of wine and we got to talking about how great it would be if we all met up in Prague. Fortunately only my drunken desire to find the best deal for flights and hotels stopped us intruding on their weekend. Big Sis phoned up this morning and seemed quite disappointed that we weren't going, as did Brother in Law. Oh well, I suppose we could try and meet up with them, but I did fancy spending our hard earned cash on going somewhere we hadn't been before.

I really do watch America's Next Top Model

...and imagine my surprise when I didn't get to see more of Amanda, free spirited mum, who's going blind (I didn't make that up, that was the exact description) and the other girls competing. It was one of those rubbish, filler full, catch up episodes. Now I watch this crap every single week and I love it, but no eviction means no fun and I feel cheated and let down. Bad Tyra. Not even the previously unseen footage of your non existent calves compensated for this.

hey...

I'm sitting here listening to Brendan Benson, who is one of the latest cool young hip things. Not bad, but I can't imagine that I will listen to it all that much. Not like Antony & The Johnsons, who I have listened to almost non-stop for a week or so. I even bought (shock, horror!) their first album from iTunes. I've loaded the iPod shuffle with just these two albums and I have listened to nothing else, and when I get home I put it on the stereo. Is it wrong to like the music of a weird gay bald guy so much? The good news is that he is playing in London next month, and I am going to see him. How cool is that? That cheered me up a bit when I found out. I have been a little bit flat over the last couple of weeks. Work is shit. I hate my job and the people who manage me. The sad thing is, I should be managing them, but I try not to feel bitter about it. I try to feel satisfied with the fact that I earn more than them! It truly is an odd system. I am feeling a little bit better today because I led some training on supporting children in therapy yesterday and all the foster carers thought I was wonderful. I also had a long talk with my boss's boss's boss about my unhappiness with the way things were, and she seemed to pay attention to what I was saying.

That's all for now. Got to go and eat and watch the final episode of the first season of Nip/Tuck, which is fantastic by the way.

am puzzled

But I can't be bothered to do the research. I'm just wondering if peas are fruits or vegetables. I know tomatoes are fruits because they develop from flowers, but is it the same for peas? Why do I care, even?

mcmuffin love

Mr McM: Are you coming to bed?
Me: Are you talking to me?
Mr McM (in all seriousness): No, I'm talking to Slink. He waits for me to ask him if he wants to sleep on the bed.

Two minutes later an unclothed Mr McMuffin appears in the dining room...

Mr McM: F**cking cat's thrown up in the bedroom. Bring the cleaning stuff up.
Me: No. Come and get it yourself.
Mr McM (in very bad mood): You're wearing my dressing gown. Take it off now.

Our heroine throws the dressing gown at Mr McM. He cleans up the cat vomit, then returns downstairs to bin the nastiness.

Me: I'm blogging about you and your nasty ways.

Mr McM just smirks.

Two minutes later, Slink comes downstairs and tries to encourage Mrs McM to bed with lots of yowling. Our heroine gives up. The two males in her house are as bloody annoying as each other.

bibulous passion

Given how fantasic you were at sorting out the whole pea/fruit/vegetable thing, I was just wondering if anyone can explain the massive similarity between Only love can break your heart by Neil Young and Only love can break a heart by Bacharach and David (Dionne Warwick singing, of course).

flowers

I love the look of cut flowers just before they die. There is something fascinating about the overstretching ripeness of them for me. I could just sit and look at them for hours. Here are a couple of photos that I have taken recently. In fact, I just took the photo of the tulips this morning. I took the vase of flowers outside into the blazing spring sunshine. It's a lovely day.

help needed...

Please help us by distributing this poster. Thanks.

my afternoon...

Mrs McMuffin went off with Ms Gypsy Tart and Ms Ginger Cake to meet up with some people in a pub in London to watch rugby. I lay on the couch with Slinky attached, of course, and promtly fell asleep. I have managed to sleep for about five hours. Pretty good going. I have now booked tickets for us all to go to see the lovely Keanu in Constantine tonight and made some green pasta [big pasta shells with pesto, finely sliced courgettes and leeks, spinach and pancetta.] in preparation for their return from the big city. I just need to have a bath now because I am a bit smelly. I am wearing the same clothes I was wearing yesterday, which isn't so bad, but I slept in them last night. I fell asleep on the couch and ended up spending the night there. I have now had another sleep in them. I really need to bathe.

stating again...

Remember a couple of months ago I mentioned that we had been visited by people from 57 of the world's countries? Well, I've just been looking at our stats again, thinking about releasing our first quarter results, and I discovered that we have now had visitors from 92 countries. Apparently there are 192, or 193 if you count the Vatican City, countries in the world. The internet is amazing.

two words

Grand Slam.

career best...

Just a brief note to say that yesterday was the eleventh anniversary of our first date together. I can't remember if we've posted about this before and if we have then you'll have to bear with as we slip gently into our dotage. We should have gone out the week before but Mrs McMuffin cancelled because she was too hung over from a night out with the girls in Canterbury. If memory serves, the weather on the day was a bit like yesterday: sunny and warm. Mrs McMuffin took me to the Chiding Stone just outside Tunbridge Wells. We sat on the stone and chatted for ages pretending to be interested in what each other had to say but really thinking "I wonder what they look like naked". Of course, that might just have been me. Later on we went for a pizza and I gave Mrs McMuffin a taste of what was to come. I refused to eat in the first pizza place we went to because I couldn't smoke there, so we traipsed around until we found a smoking establishment. All in all we had a lovely day together and to cap it all we had a kiss at the end of the day that was like something out of a Woody Allen film.

call me Jonah

My delusions of having any impact on Welsh rugby are now shared beyond my immediate family. I did start watching the match and saw the first few points being scored by the Irish team. Hoping to encourage Wales, Ms Ginger Cake and I went to the hell that is the Soho end of Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon to peer in all the crap shops (apart from my beloved Muji of course). It was hot and horrible so we decided that a sufficent amount of time had passed to give Wales a proper advantage and went back to the pub. As we descended the stairs to the basement bar I heard Gypsy Tart and her Welsh friend's cries over the cheers of the Irish friends (an Irish bar, why?). As they caught sight of me their faces filled with horror and they gestured for me to leave. I did. When the match was safely over I had six converts to my power.

I am now seeking sponsorship from the Welsh team. For their own safety they should ensure an all expenses paid trip for me and Mr McMuffin to some gorgeous location with no tv for the whole of the six nations.

is it just me...

...or are the LCD Soundsystem great? Why not try this one on for size. It's a massive 10Mb, 11 minute tune, but worth every bit of bandwidth. Their energy reminds me a lot of early Chemical Brothers stuff, back in the days when they were exciting, although to be fair I really like the new album, Push The Button.

it's official...

We are now the 54,967,372½ most successful website on the internet. We just had our 100,000 visitor. There must be a way of making money from this. If only we could get them to stay for longer than 3 seconds, we could be onto a winner.

a little guest

I am sitting at home trying to write a relatively brief report. So far, I've done nothing but mess around on the computer and smoke cigarettes. During one of my fag breaks I was sitting looking out of the back door when I realised that we were being invaded by frogs. There are four frogs sitting outside our back door waiting to come in. It's been raining here all morning and I imagine the damp has brought them out of their hiding places. Slinky, the great hunter, walked right past them as if he didn't even notice that they were there. I managed to get quite close to one of them although he kept moving, so the photo has a little bit of a blur to it. I made quite a sight. Me, outside in the rain, in my dressing gown, kneeling on the ground, photographing a frog. That's not something you see every day.

take a break

I'm on annual leave now for a couple of weeks, as I have to 'use it or lose it'. I woke up bright (well not so bright, as Mr McMuffin will testify I was in a bit of a foul mood, but that didn't last long once I saw the sun) and early and so far have spent the day cleaning, tidying, gardening and throwing things out. I can't remember the last time I had this much energy and it's bloody marvellous.

I have been saddened to see that Mindy and Melissa aren't blogging at the moment. They will be missed in the McMuffin household and we hope they'll be back soon.

lady of leisure

I have decide not to publish two very long posts because indulgent as blogs are, you have to draw a line sometimes. However, here is the essence:

Work is poo.
Heartfelt thanks to the early socialists and feminists for paving the way for me to benefit from your hard work.
I need a housewife.
Less privileged women are dealing with matters of life and death, not wittering on about how their work sucks the life out of them.
Social Workers are brilliant, especially me.
According to my qualitative and entirely unscientific research, Canadian Social Workers are the best in the world.
I have been shopping and ironing cushion covers.

I have also been developing stigmata for Easter. Well, not really, but I did get a splinter in my thumb yesterday and one underneath my nail today (from a shoe display no less) and although none of this compares with the pain of Christ on the cross, I can empathise.

mostly today...

I have been listening to...I loaded up the ol' iPod shuffle this morning with the best of Ronnie James Dio. He's a great heavy rock vocalist and song writer from the 70s and 80s. He's written some great songs over the years. I have been listening to Rainbow Rising by Rainbow, Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath and Holy Diver by Dio (I can't be bothered to put any links in, you lazy gits. Do a search!) all day as I have driven from one interview to the next. I nearly deafened myself on the M25 tonight as I was driving home. Here's a little taste of the man. It's Starstuck from Rainbow Rising.

beautiful mrs mcmuffin...

I've been playing with iPhoto this weekend and thought I'd let you all see how beautiful Mrs McMuffin looked on our wedding day a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I have had to disguise her to protect the innocent.

work...

I haven't posted much over the last few weeks because I'm having a hellish time at work. I have spent the entire weekend thinking about whether I can bear to go back to that place on Tuesday. It difficult to explain what's going on, but basically I have been given far too much work to do and then my managers refuse to allow me the time to do the work. They continually ask me to do other things and have the nerve to almost suggest that my difficulties have something to do with poor time management. I have spent the last month on the verge of tears every time they ask me to do something else. This is not healthy. Nothing I say seems to make any difference. I have even spoken with my manager's manager's manager and still nothing changes. The final straw is really something very small. I found out as I was leaving work on Thursday that this authority uses a different report format from the one that 99% of other authorities use for child care reviews. I have prepared the wrong form and I cannot bear the thought of going to the meeting on Tuesday to be told that I have done it wrong. I feel a bit pathetic. Working here makes me feel like crap and I have to keep reminding myself that I am a very competent, experienced, worker. This is easily the very worse job that I have ever had. I have decided as I am writing this that I am going to give them a week's notice tomorrow. It's not as if I have a mortage, debts and a cat to feed. Oh no, wait, I do!

like a hurricane

I have been a veritable whirlwind, a Tasmanian Devil of activity. Over the bank holiday weekend I have worked with Gypsy Tart to transform our gardens. Digging practically to Australia, hefting large chunks of concrete and countless bricks, chopping up enormous roots and the more usual potting out and cutting the grass have been my life and I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to see the results of my work, for once.

Poor Mr McMuffin has been reclining on the sofa for most of this time, only pulling himself together to get up and out and be his usual charming self with our chums. I wish he could find a nice new job, as surviving each day is wearing him out and he looks completely exhausted. Social Work can be shitty at any time, but working with incompetents at the 'coalface' of child protection just has to be the worst and although I have my own work whinges, I wouldn't want to swap places.

Whiny Slinky seems to have been even more needy since we threw him out on Saturday night. Fortunately we didn't have to suffer his demented cries as we were out until the small hours, but Gypsy Tart, Single Cookie and the Carrot Cakes were forced to listen to his pain as he wouldn't leave Gypsy Tart's garden. Apparently Mrs Carrot Cake confessed that she'd always hated Slinky, but been too embarassed to tell us. Don't worry, Mrs Carrot Cake, we detest him too. In fact I detest him so much that he's curled up on my lap right now, at least I know he's not pooing anywhere and he's quiet for once.

Newsflash: Mr McMuffin has given notice. He now has a smile on his face and a spring in his step.

no 1 for cheesy bugs

Oh yes we are and I still have no idea why woodlice are called cheesybugs in the bit of the world I grew up in (South London/North Kent borders). I have discovered this though and do recognise a few of the words. I suspect that a lot of them aren't just Kentish, surely most people know what 'chawing', 'doobrie', 'goosegogs', 'pog' and 'shrapnel' mean?

recently updated

Every now and then I investigate some of the recently updated blogs and other people's links with a Christmas present type expectation-you just can't tell what's inside, fabulous or crap. Sometimes I have been very disappointed. Imagine my hurt when I found out that Iowahawk for example, wasn't really about Iowa, or hawks. I have also felt quite cheated when I have misread a blogname. Sheila as(h)tray seemed like someone I could get to know, a fellow diva nicotina, but in reality was nothing to do with a woman smoking fags.

I like to think our blogname does what it says on the tin, but perhaps there are people out there who have a real sense of disappointment on discovering that we are not a family of eggburgers, but rather a medium for Slinky to acquire an internet presence.