While carrying out some tidying up of this site, I suddenly noticed that on almost every post, there were 3 or 4 comments. This bewildered me, for it is one of my standing moans that nobody ever bothers commenting, and I was sure that these had all sprung up overnight.
When I read them, the plot thickened. For a start, they were all anonymous. Secondly, they said the most ludicrously complimentary things.
"Super color scheme, I like it! Good job. Go on."
My site is black and grey, the two least interesting colours in the universe. Stylish, perhaps. Super? Probably not.
"Hallo I absolutely adore your site. You have beautiful graphics I have ever seen."
I have a picture of a plastic duck wearing a judge's wig. It took me five minutes in Fireworks to glue together two images that I stole from the Interweb, without even bothering to fix the fact that the wig faces forwards while the duck faces the left. This is the sum total of my "beautiful graphics".
After reading a few of these, I soon noticed a pattern - on each post, there were a few random complimentary comments, followed by a comment linking to an online poker site. Ahah! There was no insane stalker issuing nonsensical compliments as a prelude to visiting my house in the early hours. Instead, there was an automated comments-hijacking system of fiendish simplicity.
I have now set up one of those irritating word-verification things to stop it happening again. This won't affect anyone human because, and I think I've mentioned this, nobody ever writes a comment anyway. What have I done with the ones already there? I've deleted the ones with the link, and left the complimentary ones intact to allow myself to pretend that they were written by real people.
Needless to say, I had the last laugh.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Sailing - It's a Mini Adventure
As promised, here is the story of my sailing adventures. You might think it slightly late, but then, I only said it would be "tomorrow", and as the wize old druid guy in Asterix used to say, "tomorrow never comes." So there.
There wasn't much wind to begin with, so we started off by learning all kinds of crazy knots - I can now bend a rope in a number of bizarre ways to do such exotic things as stopping it slipping through a hole or tying a boat to a post.
Next up was capsize drill. We were all taken out onto the lake in a larger boat and then all took turns in being capsized out of a smaller one, and then trying to get it upright again. The temperature of the water was, as I have written in a groundbreaking article in science journals, actually below absolute zero. Nevertheless, we cheerfully pulled on ropes and things until the boat was once again the right way up. Huzzah.
The wind then picked up, so we went for our first sailing trip, with our every move being carefully co-ordinated by an instructor. For any nautically-minded people, this was in a Wayfarer boat, which is nice and stable and roomy. Lovely.
The next day we were thrown to the lions. (Metaphorically, obviously. Lions don't swim.) We were all sent out in pairs sans instructor. I was in a Topaz, which is a small, fairly fast boat that put me in mind of a plastic bathtub, with a 14-year-old small child. Thus, responsibility was on me to make sure that we didn't cause the deaths of everyone on the lake, including, most importantly, me.
We were clipping along nicely when one of the random guys who'd helped us with the capsize drill pulled up alongside in his Laser and asked me if I wanted a go. Not wishing to appear impolite, I agreed, and so we switched boats. I soon found out, to my chagrin, that the Laser was, being a racing boat, the least stable craft ever devised. The merest breath would make it tip alarmingly, and I imagine that if a squirrel in the woods bordering the lake had farted, all would have been lost. If the Topaz was a bathtub, the Laser was a teatray.
I managed to keep it upright for about 15 minutes, but finally the inevitable happened. I capsized. I managed to right the boat, and then 2 minutes later, capsized again. At this point the boat's owner, realising his mistake, relieved me of command and I returned to the Topaz, which we carried on sailing for the rest of the morning. The afternoon was spent sailing a Seafly, which was similar to the Wayfarer, and thus joyously did not capsize at all.
That's a long blog. But overall it was great, and I can highly recommend it as a place to learn!
Glenridding Sailing Centre
There wasn't much wind to begin with, so we started off by learning all kinds of crazy knots - I can now bend a rope in a number of bizarre ways to do such exotic things as stopping it slipping through a hole or tying a boat to a post.
Next up was capsize drill. We were all taken out onto the lake in a larger boat and then all took turns in being capsized out of a smaller one, and then trying to get it upright again. The temperature of the water was, as I have written in a groundbreaking article in science journals, actually below absolute zero. Nevertheless, we cheerfully pulled on ropes and things until the boat was once again the right way up. Huzzah.
The wind then picked up, so we went for our first sailing trip, with our every move being carefully co-ordinated by an instructor. For any nautically-minded people, this was in a Wayfarer boat, which is nice and stable and roomy. Lovely.
The next day we were thrown to the lions. (Metaphorically, obviously. Lions don't swim.) We were all sent out in pairs sans instructor. I was in a Topaz, which is a small, fairly fast boat that put me in mind of a plastic bathtub, with a 14-year-old small child. Thus, responsibility was on me to make sure that we didn't cause the deaths of everyone on the lake, including, most importantly, me.
We were clipping along nicely when one of the random guys who'd helped us with the capsize drill pulled up alongside in his Laser and asked me if I wanted a go. Not wishing to appear impolite, I agreed, and so we switched boats. I soon found out, to my chagrin, that the Laser was, being a racing boat, the least stable craft ever devised. The merest breath would make it tip alarmingly, and I imagine that if a squirrel in the woods bordering the lake had farted, all would have been lost. If the Topaz was a bathtub, the Laser was a teatray.
I managed to keep it upright for about 15 minutes, but finally the inevitable happened. I capsized. I managed to right the boat, and then 2 minutes later, capsized again. At this point the boat's owner, realising his mistake, relieved me of command and I returned to the Topaz, which we carried on sailing for the rest of the morning. The afternoon was spent sailing a Seafly, which was similar to the Wayfarer, and thus joyously did not capsize at all.
That's a long blog. But overall it was great, and I can highly recommend it as a place to learn!
Glenridding Sailing Centre
Friday, August 11, 2006
Miscellaneous Adventures
I had originally decided that I wouldn't blog during the holidays. After all, I thought, the whole idea of this crazy endeavour was to be a work-avoidance technique, and I currently have no work to avoid! I realise that my failure to tell anyone that this was my plan has almost certainly caused great inconvenience to my many readers. I can imagine people across the land hunched over their computers and desperately hammering the Refresh button in their browsers, waiting for the next installment.
I apologise for so irresponsibly leaving a wailing chasm / howling void (couldn't decide which phrase I liked more) in everyone's lives. But never mind, you'll get over it. C'est la vie, as they say in Spain.
The reason that I changed my mind about the whole "blogging during the holidays" thing was that I heard word of new blogs begun by two friends of mine, Jack and Cecily. (Rotate your eyes a few degrees to the right for links.) Inspired by their noble example (or should that be consumed with jealous rage?) I have decided to regale you with exciting tales of my recent visit to the Lake District, during which I learnt to sail several small boats and enjoyed several Cumbrian sausages.
Yet I realise now that this post is becoming rather inordinately long. Thus, delighted with the irony of explaining that I had decided not to post whereas now have changed my mind and am intending to post, and then not actually posting about anything at all, I shall end. Updates on sailing exploits tomorrow(ish).
Thank you to Jack for kindly linking to here, thus probably trebling my readership at a stroke.
I apologise for so irresponsibly leaving a wailing chasm / howling void (couldn't decide which phrase I liked more) in everyone's lives. But never mind, you'll get over it. C'est la vie, as they say in Spain.
The reason that I changed my mind about the whole "blogging during the holidays" thing was that I heard word of new blogs begun by two friends of mine, Jack and Cecily. (Rotate your eyes a few degrees to the right for links.) Inspired by their noble example (or should that be consumed with jealous rage?) I have decided to regale you with exciting tales of my recent visit to the Lake District, during which I learnt to sail several small boats and enjoyed several Cumbrian sausages.
Yet I realise now that this post is becoming rather inordinately long. Thus, delighted with the irony of explaining that I had decided not to post whereas now have changed my mind and am intending to post, and then not actually posting about anything at all, I shall end. Updates on sailing exploits tomorrow(ish).
Thank you to Jack for kindly linking to here, thus probably trebling my readership at a stroke.
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