OXFAM's Spending Habit.

I'm looking for the income versus expenditure figures of Oxfam, I heard somewhere that the amount of money that actually goes to funding projects is a scarily low percentage of what they get as donations and I want to see the figures.

My figures web-fu is not too hot...where might I find this?

All I've got so far is this: random chart but it really doesn't make much sense to me. What's it telling me?

S.A.D?

I've just read a description of the symptoms of S.A.D. and it sounds suspiciously like me.

Seriously. It can't be right to want to eat beef stew and dumplings and mashed potato and syrup-sponge every night, and I don't do it in the Summer.

And I won't even begin going over the sleep thing again. I already feel like it's all I ever talk about.

Hmnmm...

Can they test for it? You know, measure your seratonin levels or whatever? Isn't depression to do with your seratonin levels anyway? And if so, why are sun-lamps not the treatment for depression in general?

Neurocam

I'm tired of reading everyone's blogs and all the chit chat about Neurocam, but never finding anything out.

Does anyone know what the point behind it actually is yet? Or is everyone joining and being given random small tasks just because everyone else is?

I might join.

An article in The Age started the worldwide interest and lady j's site is full of information about it. But no real help...

Sod it. I'm gonna join.

The beautiful man and his band Planetman playing live on the radio station GTFM.

How exciting is that?!

R.A.F. Music Choices of the Sick and Twisted Kind.

On Desert Island Disks this morning SAS soldier Andy McNabb chose Phil Collins "In the air tonight" as one of his records.

This is wrong for several reasons, not in the least because it's unkind to inflict Phil Collins on people at any point of the day, but especially first thing in the morning. More specifically however, it's wrong because of this:

The reason he gave for choosing it was that during the Gulf War the Royal Air Force played it as background music to a sequence of images of target 'acquisitions'.


Hello???

That's just seven shades of wrong...

Googlebomb.

Read this:

Basically it says if you have a website, you should help create a new Googlebomb.

The target is the website of Christian Voice, the organisation who have the audacity to complain about Jerry Springer The Opera, whilst preaching their anti-gay, anti-abortion, racist message, and the link text is ignorant bigots.

That's, ignorant bigots.

On The Tale Of The Blogger Who Shouldn't Have.

And the moral of that story is;

a)Do not adapt the name of the company you work to 'bastardanything' on your blog because 'bastardstones' is clearly not 'Borders'.

b)Do not call your boss sandal-wearing and evil if you have already identified yourself as from Edinburgh and working for 'bastardstones'.

c)Do not post about your evil sandal-wearing boss at 'bastardstones' if you're doing it from the 'bastardstones' office.

d)Be very aware that your blog is not a private conversation down the pub with your mates and is in fact a private conversation conducted in front of an audience of thousands and is accessible by anyone who can be bothered to look.

I'm back!

I'm back and I can post again after the fiasco that is my ISP ditched my whole site by accident.

So I'm back and what a thing to start with:

On Good, Good Things That Make You Feel So Sad You Can't Stop Crying.

I get a CD in the post today and it's by a band I've never heard of and I know I didn't order it and there's no note or anything but it's from the band's website. So I put it on and it's this beautiful folk band called Show of Hands.

And instantly I know who its from. Because for my birthday I got a card from my Step-Mum (of 22 years) which said she'd bought me a CD in it, but that it would be late arriving.

This is important because we've fallen out over something really quite trivial in the long term scheme of things, yet it was a thing that was vitally emotionally important to me. So we fell out and it's all the worse because my Dad died and so there's no blood-family link between us anymore.

In fact if my Dad hadn't died we wouldn't have fallen out because the book wouldn't have been published and I wouldn't have not been thanked on it and I wouldn't have got upset and...well anyway.

We haven't talked for about a year, except to exchange Christmas book vouchers and birthday cards.

So then I play this CD, and the last song is called this: "Don't be a stranger.'

Here are the lyrics:

We’ve been together 100 nights or more
10,000 miles on the clock
But the year is almost over
And others voices call
And so this journey has to stop

Whatever roads may follow
The parting of the ways
In times of doubt and danger

Think about this moment
Look back on these days
And don’t be a stranger

The spoils have been divided
Numbers exchanged
Promises were make to keep in touch
All the secrets we confided
All the lives we gently changed
The best intentions only mean so much

Whatever roads may follow
The parting of the ways
In times of doubt and danger

Look back on these moments
Think about these days
And don’t be a stranger

Time and space conspire
To gently dowse the fire
Of friendship we fought so hard to light

So pass this way again
Let our laughter fan the flame
It’s embers will warm us through the night

Whatever roads may follow
The parting of the ways
In times of doubt and danger

Think about these moments
Look back upon these days
And don’t be a stranger.

I transcribed them so that I could post them here, because they don't exist on the internet.

And as I looked at the track list I knew why she'd sent it, so I played that track which is the last one on the CD and I listened and I cried, and I cried and I cried.

If it wasn't so late I'd ring her and tell her I'm sorry and I love her, but it is so I won't.

But I will and I do.

What a beautiful, lovely gift to give.