Saturday 28 November 2009

Treading Where Millions of Photographers Have Trodden Before

Blogging has been on the back burner recently due to the ridiculous amounts of work I have had to do. For some reason they expect me to go in every week day from 9 till 5! This only leaves weekends, evenings and lunchtime in which to blog. Its ridiculous. I am going to complain.


Lat week I was in Canada yet again. This time I think it will be my last trip for which I am glad. Although it is interesting and always a good opportunity to visit another country with work. It is blooming tiring.

Another trip means another set of photos of Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Though this time it was dark, so at least there was some variation:

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Its a bit grainy as I don't have any kind of mini transportable tripod (hint for Christmas). But I like the people standing around the Centennial. In fact, they were all snappy happy tourists like me. 

I also hit Canada's National War Museum and the National Gallery, both of which were surprisingly empty (considering it was a weekend!), but both excellent if you happen to be passing by Ottawa.

Friday 13 November 2009

On Hobbys

WARNING: THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS UNSUBSTANTIATED GENERALISATIONS

I was driving back from a business trip in London a couple of days ago with a work colleague of mine. We are both grumpy Yorkshiremen so we like to have a good moan and a whine when we get together. We usually put the world to rights through a strange process of mutual agreement and re-enforcement of each others views. A communal re-enforcement of views which is experienced by many men when left together with no supervision. Thats pretty much how wars start.

I think in that trip we solved all of the UK's problems relating to energy security, social housing and planning law in the space of only 3 hours which was good work. Next week we plan on tackling world peace and creating a Windows operating system that works. 

Our discussions turned as they usually do, to generally complaining about women and specifically that our women folk have the cheek to be different from us and to hold opinions which are not directly in line with our own.

We agreed that generally, the source of all of the issues which our women have (or we generally have) is rooted in their lack of a hobby. You see, men can't really get their head around how many women can get by without having any particular interest in anything. 

And more than that, men can't understand how, if women do have a hobby - they often aren't particularly bothered about being any good at it. They just don't care. If men have a hobby, they have to be the best at it, whether that is getting as many blog comments as you possibly can, or having a faster car than all of your mates, or going to the gym more than anyone else you know. We all feel we have to have a niche skill in something. Its in our nature.

By way of example, my colleague is obsessive about music and spends his weekends perusing record shops, attending hi-fi conferences or inspecting the home-made insulation on his specially converted garage sound-room. Whereas I spend my weekends in the gym, climbing or galavanting around hills somewhere (also obsessively).

We thought about this for a while and something struck us. What do our other halves do as soon as they get home from work? What do they spend their weekends looking at and what do their evenings revolve around.

The answer .... crap TV.

Both of our partners are completely obsessed with crap TV. Whether it be crap reality TV, crap talent shows, crap cooking competitions, or Kirsty and Phil helping Gerrard from Staines find the crappy 1 bedroom flat of his dreams - crap TV rules both of our homes. Lucy even likes to watch 'wedding TV' and more surprisingly 'wedding TV asia' which even my colleague thought was weird.

I have to say though, one programme in particular is the bane of my life. It serves absolutely no educational purpose (as some of the above may be argued is some bizarre roundabout way, to do), it is dragged out to lengths I cant even contemplate (one episode spanning an entire week), and I can't even bear to be in the room when it is on. Sound familiar?

Yes its 'Come Dine with Me'.

Basically if you haven't seen it, it involves a group of complete misfits who are never in a million years going to get on together, cooking for each other and generally falling out and providing mild entertainment of the worst variety. Actually that sounds a bit like Big Brother doesn't it?

Its on ALL the time.

However. 

I can't criticise 'Come Dine with Me' too much, for one reason. A bunch of friends and me (The Lawyer and The Nurse) have decided, with out girlfriends, to recreate the show in our houses using a video camera and everything. 

We were first this week. I have to say it was a little stressful as I am not too keen on people judging my Chicken Udon soup.  With actual pieces of paper with scores on and everything.

I am sure I will post the video up when it is all edited together.