I dispute with my friends

I'm not sure of the exact start date of my next job, so I thought it better to do something constructive rather than kick my heals around in Cardiff. I also wish to escape:

• The disrespectful youths who swear at me and snap tree saplings in the park

• The Harry Potter and Big Brother crazed masses

• People who want to blow themselves and others up

• Flocks of seagulls mobbing passers by

• Men in football shirts who ride stolen bicycles the wrong way down dual carriage ways before hurling them at the pavement and jumping on buses (Cardiff does have an integrated transport infrastructure - steal a bike and chase after a bus until it stops for you - discard the bike to allow someone else to use it)

• Groups of French exchange students

• Ants that have invaded my room

• Spitting. (how long has this been a publicaly acceptable behaviour? This change in seems to have passed me by.)
  

I'm taking a trip on a bike from John O Groats back towards Cardiff. Not sure how far I'll get before I either get tired, bored, or am needed to start the job. I have a return train ticket to Inverness though, so theoretically can duck out at any time.

I'm not sure of the route I'll take yet, but plan to follow the Sustrans routes as far as possible. That should take me from John O Groats along the North coast, then down to Inverness; along Loch Ness to Fort William; then somehow onto Glasgow. If I have time then I'd like to ride into North Wales and take the Sustrans route 8: Lon Las Cymru (North and South) to get back to Cardiff.
I plan to stay in hostels where possible and B&Bs where not. Unfortunately this hostel seems to be booked up for the night I would need it.

Here are some links to information about people's trips from Land's End to JOG (most people seem to ride the route in this direction).

I did toy with the idea walking to Woolies at midnight tonight to buy HP5. Haven't read any of them, but figured I could stay up all night and read the book, therefore finishing it before most, if not all the Harry Potter devotees. I would take quite some pleasure from that; being one of the first people to read a book that I'm not in the least bit interested in reading, while others are delirious with their marketing-hype induced obsession.

Raining on someone else's parade (when I don't respect the parade), is one of the few pleasures I have left.

My sister fell in love with smoked salmon when it was considered a luxury, but still clings to the magic of pink gold even when it comes from the Happy Shopper 'Giro day' range and is sourced from a salmon that has been 'farmed' in a colostomy bag and has been genetically spliced with a carcinogenic human lung give it its 'smoked' flavour. If someone were to mix a decent malt whiskey with Pepsi Max, then I'd get rather annoyed. Similarly, my sister will get annoyed with anyone eating the salmon who she doesn't feel is appreciating it on the same level as her. I clearly take great pleasure in eating smoked salmon in front of her and displaying as much appreciation as I would when eating a thin slice of Spam.

When the lottery started there was an obsession surrounding scratch cards. I once bought a couple and set fire to them without scratching and revealing the inevitable disappointment. My audience were horrified (and so was I for a while).

Unfortunately the local Wollies was not opening at midnight. One of the newsagents had the book in a window display - I was hoping someone would break in and get caught so I could see who could bring strongest prosecution, the police for breaking and entering, or the publisher for obtaining the book before the strictly enforced launch.

If anyone has tickets to the final Big Brother night then I'm interested. The only think I know about it is that one of the contestants is a woman with an afro.

matt handed me the musical baton

1. Total volume of music files on my computer:
About 4GB on my laptop. More on my desktop, which I rarely use these days

2. Last CD I bought:
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Airoplane over the Sea
Which I don't really 'get'. Don't tell Steve.

3. Song Playing Right Now:
Nothing, I think I've gone off music, and the sound from the laptop is pretty rubbish. Although I did recover my CREATIVE ZEN JUKEBOX earlier this evening, first time I'd touched it for about a year. Black Steel by Tricky started playing when I turned it on (I think it remembers). So that fits in with the public enemy quote at the top of my blog.

4. Five Songs (or Albums) I listen to a lot or that move me:

Off the top of my head.
*Sunshine on a rainy day - Zoe (not Emma Bunton)
*Tindersticks - My Sister
*Wagner - Tristan und Isolde - Prelude and liebestod
*Mae hen wlad fy nhadau
*Myfanway
*Nokia theme - moves me to my phone

5. Three people to whom I pass the baton:

I'll need to think about this one

Needed to scan in my expense receipts, so I got myself one of those scanner come printer come photo-copier machines.
I scanned in two pictures I'd cut out of the papers.
I know which world leader I'd trust with my babies.