Ah, a parastatic magnetometer.

Captain Tact and I recently visited the Doctor Who Exhibition at Kelvingrove. It's new series stuff only, but totally worth a look. The rest of the museum is good too - keep an eye out for the enormous Irish Deer skeleton.

Well, I was impressed.

A zebra never changes his spots.

We went to the zoo.

Apparently, I get a discount on entry.

And zebras are shy.

Mum's Birthday

This is ART.

You can find it at Jupiter Artland
(just outside Edinburgh).

It's a sculpture garden, and it's very nice.
If you like that sort of thing.

We shall strike a balance between culture and fun.

Quite recently Captain Tact and I went to Belgium – Brussels, if you want to be precise. Highlights included a sandwich the size of your face; an enormous Tintin cartoon in the middle of the city square and another (better one) on a gable end; waffles, waffles everywhere and not a drop to drink except for pure liquid chocolate; and fourteen thousand Japanese tourists.

During our sojourn we visited a comic museum where everything was in Flemish (except a couple of excerpts from Death Note which were in Japanese), a Magritte exhibition that wasn’t open for another month (but was probably in Flemish), and a small statue of a child doing a wee. There was also an open-air jazz festival with approximately no jazz to be had; an outdoor rave; and a musical instrument museum with an ocarina shaped like an elephant. It was all very nice if fairly incomprehensible, but the captain’s famous Sean Bean impersonations didn’t so much aid translation as create a vague sense of uneasiness and mistrust.

Nevertheless, we reached the end of our trip unscathed, and were back in plenty time for me to attend a job interview, which several weeks later led to me being told I was overqualified. The moral of the story? Move to Brussels.

Pies Are Nice

It's the Great Edinburgh Run Today.

I celebrated in my own small way by having an onion ring sandwich for breakfast.

Vive la resistance.

Whatever happened to weekend lie-ins?

Originally posted on Deadjournal

9am on Saturday morning, first into the library is our resident computer enthusiast, a man whose main claim to fame is a recent appearance on Jeremy Kyle. We aren’t entirely sure what it was about, having only learned about it through some kids taking the piss. Seems a little beyond the librarian/reader relationship to quiz him on whether Jezzer told him he was a terrible father, a slimy love rat, or a mixture of the two. A colleague looked into acquiring the episode online, but the only way to do this is to watch an entire series until we find the one he’s in. Frankly, life is too short.

First teen to appear, around 9.10am, shall be called X. She is resplendent in grey tracksuit and fluorescent yellow eyeshadow, piled above a thick layer of black eyeliner and several coats of mascara. She’s toned down the blusher lately, perhaps in response to a negative comment from one of the boys on her ‘permanent beamer’. She was up at 8am apparently, and had pizza for breakfast. This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder how much of the bad behaviour we see is diet-related. Someone should get Jamie Oliver on the case.

Next on the scene (9.20ish) is a fellow of 14, who requires a shot on the PS3. As he reclines upon the comfy sofa playing Fifa '09 on the indecently large plasma, he engages in witty banter with the young lady, who is checking her Bebo. It transpires she is also on msn, talking to the gentleman’s sometime-girlfriend.

“ASK HER,” he bellows at a volume some traditionalists might consider unreasonable for this setting, “IF SHE’S MEETIN ME LATER. I THOUGHT SHE WASN’T BUT NOW I THINK SHE MIGHT BE.”

To the untrained ear this assumption may seem baseless, but it makes sense to the girl, who taps something in before thundering back,

“SHE’S NO SURE. Why’re you goin oot wi hur?”

“Ah’m doin it fur Liam,” he explains, “cuz he’s goin oot wi hur mate.”

What a lucky lady.

“SHE KENS THAT’S WHY,” he adds as an afterthought.

I feel old.

Chocolate.

You're never too old or too agnostic to celebrate Easter by smashing boiled eggs in the back garden.

This is Lauren from Hollyoaks egg, created by my brother.

Pretty hard to tell the difference between her and the real thing, non?