Running On

The Whitehouse Bridge apparently it has the dubious distinction of being one of the most struck bridges in the country and despite awareness campaigns and some very prominent signs being installed some people still insist on ploughing on trying to get their vehicle under despite the very obvious evidence to the contrary. I was going past the area a while ago and a van driver was still try to drive on despite the roof scraping along the top of the bridge and drivers both behind and going past shouting out things, I couldn’t hear exactly what was said but I think it was along the lines of “I think that’s a jolly foolish endeavour you’re embarking upon” and “oh dear I think you should turn round” though it could be that the language was slightly more Anglo-Saxon. Unlike many bridges trains can still run over despite the strike and rather cool tests like this one in 1996 at 40 mph can be done.

Like that driver I’m sure there are things we continue to do despite all evidence to the contrary there’s plenty of research into the psychology of investors especially during bear markets that make them unwilling to ditch a dud clinging to a dead cat bounce as the sign that they might make their money back until its too late and the fear and panic hits whereby they swear they’ll never make the same mistakes again as they start buying flats to rent out. 

Mistakes? Never made one myself.

Meet Jet

Meet Jet. He's a rough and ready go-getting type of guy. Jet by name and Jet by nature, smooth and self assured, he with his good hair and designer stubble. He'll take credit for good ideas his minions came up with. He'll talk about 360 degree synergistic strategies. He'll list his strengths ending with making lurrrve at which point there'll be some god-awful boast about his penis-fencing prowess.

Yes I hate him as well.

Ask me to list my strengths and I'll um and er my weaknesses are quicker to mind and I could go on and on to the extent of making myself sound like a totally hopeless case. Its probably my fear of appearing to be bragging, a degree of modesty, some shyness and total dislike of any form of public speaking which holds me back.

There are some things, heck bugger modesty there are many things I am not just good at I'm bloody brilliant at them and I don't have to resort to using meaningless buzz words either.

Modesty is a great, almost laudable trait though there's a time and a place. If you don't promote yourself then chances are unless you've the budget for PR (even then the best promoter of yourself is almost always yourself) nobody will do it for you. If you don't knob heads like Jet will run the world.

Just A Bit Of Banter

Oh my word! I seem to have been transported back several decades to some office and I'm a secretary and that must be my boss.

SMACK!


He knows I love a playful pat on the bum really.

GIGGLES.

Sorry about that. Thankfully we are past the time when being a bit of a sexist dick can be dismissed as banter or playfulness. The fuss over Gray and Keys being two total twonks has abated, the anonymous Youtube poster with their job done disappears. Though it wasn't surprising that Sky had tolerated such outrageous behaviour when a just a few years ago they were advertising their sports news shows by how attractive their female presenters were.


Had a look on the recently released crime map which revealed that I live in a slightly dull area and my local PCSO has a magnificent moustache. It also revealed, and you might want to be prepared for this revelation, that the area where all the pubs and clubs are had a few incidents. So all in all money well spent because I never would have known that. What it didn't display was any context or detail, the uninitiated observer might just think it a total danger zone whereas its fine outside of a Friday or Saturday night.

BUZZZZZ

Oh I'll have to stop now the boss wants me to step into his office and take down some particulars.

Bear Up A Tree

I hope this year is treating you well so far. I imagine those exercise equipment bought are already gathering dust or being used as expensive clothes horses.

Not a lot has been going on there's been work and the inevitable allowing of the mind to wander resulting in me trying to fit (or crowbar) Wiltshire place names into film titles which is a variation of numerous Twitter memes admittedly. So a late afternoon war spent coming up with films like Scenes From A Marlborough, The Rodbourne Supremacy, The Ogbourne Ultimatum, Park South The Movie, Wild Wild Westbury. I could go on and on but you'll be mercifully delighted to hear, I wont.

The bear up the tree I photographed along the bridle path on my way home having suffered the rather soggy and cold weather and looking definitely worse for it. Makes a change from the symbol of modern Britain, a bag of dog poo being tied to a branch which always made of wonder why, especially when there were designated bins nearby. When I was growing up (and even in the mid 90's) there were no bins and owners were not as thoughtful. In Marlborough there was one such lane from a well-to-do part of town to the High Street which was so befouled it was commonly referred to as dog shit alley where you would be lucky not to end up with something horrible on your shoe.

MMXI

Happy new year.

Just been giving the blog a spring clean and clearing dead links. I also had a look at the search keywords used to reach the site, a lot of these are searching for others I have linked to on the side or in the past some are no longer there, searches for Stephanie's Pillowbook are numerous as are the Candyfloss Girl, Abi and others. I probably disappointed the student who I presume had a upcoming tutorial when the searched for "workshop on wednesbury unreasonableness" and as for "lesbian lust transv tvchix estate sex" I don't know what to make of.

So without further to do, here are my ambitions for the year, just don't call them resolutions.

Ambitions for 2011.

• Work toward obtaining my professional qualifications.
• Make new friends.
• Get fit and lose weight.
• Travel and explore more.
• Learn another language. 
• Start a thread on the Angels Forum which gets locked. But I can't be a troll about it, as that wont count.
• Practice make up skills.

Here's to 2011.

Merry Something

Three posts in a week, I've hardly done that most months recently let alone a fairly busy week like this one has been The photograph was taken outside Christ Church which is near the top of the hill in Old Town and can be seen for miles around especially when illuminated at night.

Here's a cold looking plastic pig outside the County Ground.

The last post was about traditions, this one is the traditional Christmas entry. Thank you for reading in 2010 and merry Christmas.

Tradition

During Christmas day at home when I was growing up the television was on the whole day starting with the children's programmes. The strand generally ended with a very poor festive cartoon film called something like Flossy Reindeer Saves Christmas. Where the eponymous hero learns something about the true meaning of Christmas and other moralising messages pausing only for some really bad songs. Nobody's really watching it though because its presents time!

Television at Christmas time thrives on tradition, turning over just as the Queen's speech is starting and only tuning back once its safely finished. watching The Snowman on Channel 4. Which I see is being shown again, although no longer on Christmas day. Repeats give rise to that great pre Christmas traditions the newspaper article complaining about the amount of repeats. The Daily Mail managed to excel this year by publishing the piece before the schedules had been released.

Tradition is why the Sound Of Music gets another showing, personally I'm not a fan of over saccharine type films with the possible exception of Its A Wonderful Life. The great thing about tradition is that every family's traditions are different and there's probably a new one starting this year.

The Worm That Turned

Forced feminisation and emasculation of men featuring a stern but skimperly leather clad women including the woman from the Shake-N-Vac adverts.

It sounds like some premium top shelf adult goods but believe it or not it was a series of sketches called The Worm That Turned on a prime time BBC family show.

In the serial women rule Britain while men wear traditionally women's clothes and law and order is maintained by a secret police force led by Diana Dors. It is, simply put, one of numerous anti-feminist satires where extremist feminists take over which popped up from the mid 60's showing what a awful place it would be (for misogynists, especially television writers) if women had equal pay and opportunities. In the end the evil feminists plan is throated because deep down all they want is children, fluffy things and a penis inside them.

A lot of just makes one groan rather than feel bothered, its just dated like a time capsule into a time long gone like the Miss World. Society has moved on for instance attempts by Sky and Channel Five to broadcast Miss World Contests in the UK flopped despite the publicity.

I was reminded about The Two Ronnies for some reason on the one hand they produced some of the finest sketch comedy ever (even at the time of Not The Nine O'clock News' Two Ninies parody) produced but there was also some quite naff or hideously sexist items.

Great Trans Cliché's

A number of overused word and phrase's used within the transgender communities in no particular order. Yes this writer pleads guilty of uttering at least one and asks for a series of other transgressions to be taken into consideration.

• Transition or die.
• Real Self (or Selves or me).
• True Self (a variation on the previous)
• Its not about the clothes.
• En Fem.
• I'm not interested in (sport or a particular sport).
• Passing
• Stealth
• Hun

Any more suggestions?

Thought It Ended 5 Years Ago

The Jerry Springer show is 20 years old which is surprising to me as I thought it ended at least 5 years ago. Twenty years where a millionaire invited mockery on people who were mainly poor and stupid. But then the well off have been mocking the poor for essentially being poor for centuries. Perhaps the nastiest recent example was the use of words like pram-face which more than one tv executive thought was an acceptable term to put in a shows title.

From a trans perspective it also helped to perpetuate negative and unhelpful transgender stereotypes, Jerry's Transsexual Surprise, Guess What, I'm Really A Man, High School Transsexual being some of the episode titles .I personally find it depressing that transgender (and I use the general rather than the specific transsexual because the results radiate out, affecting all) people are displayed in such a way to barely disguised titters. 

Much like trans Big Brother contestants where you just know there's a gag about there being a knob under that skirt round the corner before they show a prosthetic penis to emphasise the point.

In its defence it doesn't claim to be anything else but silly, mainly scripted, trash, no pretence of "after-care" and unlike Jeremy Kyle there's no smug bullying lectures mid way though a segment. But it does annoy the hell out of me to see trans peoples portrayed in such a way.

Altogether, JER-RY! JER-RY! JER-RY! JER-RY!

Death of a Transwomen

A death happened. The victim died instantly after being struck by a tube train. Someone else is charged with allegedly murdering the victim. A tragic event, one for the investigation team to try to piece together the events leading up and a subsequent jury or jury's to decide if there is culpability based on the facts presented to them.

The victim was transgender. This made all the difference to how it was reported in several outlets and what this post will focus on along with disgraceful online muckraking and tedious labelling.

In newspaper land Sonia was not a talented solicitor instrumental in the formation of several legal precedents and helping many people but just a transvestite or a "man in dress" with wilful insertions of the male pronoun the reporting was horribly sensationalised by several outlets including the Daily Mail, Evening Standard and The Sun. To compound it journalists started sifting through her online life, destroying her memory and suddenly the transvestite became a "a transsexual escort" who was living "a secret life".

Even in reporting the touching tribute from her family which showed true love and acceptance by calling her Sonia not David they had to ruin it.

Killing A Polar Bear

Just consumed a shop bought salad bowls, half of which you end throwing away because they bulk it up with sweetcorn and pasta leaving a horrible gunk at the bottom, I suppose its all to do with psychology and it looks big on the shelf, but it is truly wasteful. I've yet to find someone who can get through it and at a time when you're made to feel like you've just killed a polar bear for requiring a extremely flimsy bag, its not very ecological.

A little bit of pasta would be fine but I have no idea what the point of sweetcorn is.

Another thing I have no idea about is where my bra's disappear, in particular my white bra's. Its quite feasible to imagine a sock disappearing somewhere along the line so its bra shopping time unlike the first time I knew what I was doing and not turning a nice shade of scarlet while shopping.

That first piece turned up while I was searching. It had to be the one which didn't disappear, to use a modern buzz word it is no longer fit for purpose. bought while I was metaphorically fumbling about and trying to learn a lot in a very short space of time, before I knew about forms socks and tissues were used instead.

Enough early trans reverie it will probably turn up someday in some inexplicable location, like behind the fridge.

On The Bus

19:15 hours. Haven't written for a while, going to see if I can try to compile an entry on the bus. Catching the last bus home from deepest darkest Berkshire having visited my mum and dropped off a birthday card for my brother so I thought I'd try to write a stream of consciousness entry with a little tidy up when I get home.

Think the drivers in a rush to get home.

Just looked out the window for a second and saw some deer running on the top of a hill silhouetted in the dusky sky, that would have made a good photo.

A few weeks ago I went to Cardiff....

Bus went over the top of the Ridgeway and you could see the lights of several towns and villages.

...took a look at the Mardi Gras event which was in a cordoned off section of Bute Park, typical pride event really, been there before this summer. Remembered to grab some things to put in my scrapbook. Sadly a bad face day, looked a little blotchy and had a spot or two so  didn't look my best which hardly helped my confidence.

Went round the city taking photo's (which I'll hopefully remember to put in later). As I was walking back to the city centre someone who looked like a reject from Goldie Lookin Chain only without the wit, looks, intelligence or verbal dexterity shouted something homo/transphobic, I have to say if you had the choice of being abused in any accent, the Cardiff accent is probably the one I'd choose. Oh well, I know I wasn't "passing".

Parts of the city centre have been redeveloped and pedestrianised since last I visited a few years ago.

Time to get off, had to stop for a while on a very bendy country road somewhere in Oxfordshire, that looking at it you wouldn't think a bus could get through.

Footage Of Estate Agent Boards

Just noticed a business local to me has shut down, over ten years ago as a student I was asked to look over their books (once I had written them, this is how disorganised they were) I said they were losing money and heavily in debt. Somehow they managed to limp on adding more debt, somehow I think the bank will be lucky to see more than a few pounds of the six figures its owed. With lending like that its no wonder this bank has the UK government as its largest shareholder these days.

While I'm on the subject of money, why is the reporting of finance in non-specialist media so patronising? The default position is that my tiny little brain is unable to grasp anything with money or percentages in it.

Admittedly I've been known to read the markets section of the FT but no other section seems to be treated in the same way coverage of politics doesn't have the presenter promising to use clear language and having to explain every technical term. A typical report on interest rates has the reporter saying how the average mortgage holder will pay £13 more/less a month over footage of estate agent boards and how that affects the market in great length before a brief mention of savers just because they don't want to be seen as being obsessed about home prices.

Pride Before A (Rain) Fall

Another week, another pride. This one was more local but sadly the rain didn't hold back.

Swindon Pride is very much a small provincial pride event, the main event is held in the Town Gardens a pleasant park from the Victorian era with the Bowl stage built in the 1920's with some of the art Deco touches you'd expect from that era, it was restored a few years ago and hold several outdoor concerts a year, including this one.

I did not go any further than the entrance to the stage area, can't say I'm that interested in the line-up, though looking back toward the bandstand, there was a band tuning up, so there was some alternative. I found out later it had turned muddy towards the stage I did not have the footwear for that. Perhaps I should add some nice patterned Wellington boots to my shoe collection, if only I could spot them in my size.

In nicer weather it would have been a great place to have a picnic, sadly the heathens really opened and we all set off to find a bar or cafe in Old Town eventually settling upon a nice Spanish bar.

Overall (leaving aside one menacingly rude man who one felt was spoiling for a confrontation, if not a fight) was that it was pleasantly youthful and friendly though there were very few trans or gender variant people that I saw

Even if my shoes were wet. Got a hug which made it worth getting damp.

There was a group going round offering free hugs (nope me neither) which decided to give me one, for some reason, which I tried to respond to in some non shy English way and failed miserably.

Thank you to Jenny and her wife for the lift there, I'm sorry I messed up the directions though the roundabout obsessed West Swindon (Lydiard Millicent is not a bad village though:)) and to those I met including Jae.