Penguins

Dave and Jean sat and watched a documentry about the birthing process of various animals, namely Shark, Kangaroo, a type of Wasp and the Emperor Penguin.

The female Shark is brutally gang raped by a bunch of males, several of which can all result in pregnancy. In some types of Shark, survival of the fittest begins before birth. The strongest baby will kill and eat the other babies inside the womb. Seriously.

The Kangaroo is an odd little animal. Long before the baby is ready to be born, when it is still just a red little thing with two tiny arms and no legs, it crawls out of one of it's mum's holes, across the fur and into another, where it stays nice and safe in the pouch. When it's finally developed better, it will start it's life by popping in and out of it's mum for a few weeks.

The Wasp is incredibly evil. It injects it's kids into a catipillar, along with it's own unique virus, which basically takes over the catipillar's mind and body. The catipillar can no longer reproduce and lives only to serve it's new hosts. It's eats and eats and eats to provide the needed nutrients. When the kids are ready, they eat they're way out of the catipillar, but he doesn't die straight away. The final insult to him is that the virus effects it's brain so that it protects these things that have just ripped him apart as if they were his own kids, until he dies and they are big enough to fend for themselves.

The Penguin is simply incredible. They are the ultimate in selflessness. After the egg is produced, the male looks after it while the female goes to hunt. The males are willing to go without food for months with the egg balanced on their feet to keep it warm. As a group, the penguins huddle together and take turns as to who should be on the cold outside of the group. They all work perfectly and peacefully together for the greater good.

Dave couldn't help but wonder what the world would be like if humanity had evolved from Penguin instead of Monkey. If our vast knowledge and abilities were all combined freely for the benefit of all, rather than the personal satisfaction of the few.

Maybe after we've destroyed ourselves, the Penguin Empire, led peacefully by the Emperor Penguin, will put right what once went wrong.

(Hi Penguins. By the time u read this I will be gone. Assuming ur advanced enough to bring people back, I voted for u guys first. I'll be a good Monkey, I promise.)

Snippets.

Two months, 1 week down, 2 day to go. Dave had done it. He had survived. Anyone who had betted against him had lost out, against all the odds.

Jean would be home Tuesday.

The weeks and months that had felt like years and decades faded away into a foggy Thesis filled dream, with the occasional sprinkling of chocolate drops. Dave liked chocolate drops.

…

Ruth was getting excited. She would give birth any day now! Whoohoo!

…

“Hi Samuel,”

“Hey Monkey! How are you? Are you eating OK…?”

…

“Hi Bian,”

“Hey Monkey! How are you? Are you eating OK…?”

…

“Hi Xiong,”

“Hey Monkey! How are you? Are you eating OK…?”

…

Good old Jumbo Chinese restaurant. Great food with even better company, what more could Dave ask for? He stuffed his face in a somewhat hamster type manner to keep him going for the coming weeks. Huge thanks to Xiong and Re.

…

“Hey Monkey! Yao bu yao chi fan le?”

“Yao! Xie xie, Re!”

…

Tai Pan Chinese restaurant. Great food with even better company, AGAIN! Dave must have done something right in a past life. He refilled his face back to bursting point to keep him going for the coming weeks. Another huge thanks to Xiong and Re.

…

“Hi Xiong,”

“Hey Monkey! How are you? Are you eating OK…?”

…

Xiong is a great cook. Thanks again.

…

…“Scrubs without JD?” asked Mac, “That’s going to suck…”

…

…Dave lay there with his blood slowly trickling away. Boy he hated needles, but to save a life it was a small price to pay.

The nurse started fidgeting with it.

`Ow,’ thought Dave.

The needle had dislodged slightly and the nurse had apparently decided to just nudge it back in. Eventually she gave up and settled for a half pint.

…

… “Do you still give blood?” asked Mac.

“Yup, gave blood just last week.”

“The next time your there, do me a favour, sign up to give bone marrow.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“It’s pretty much the same as giving blood, it just takes longer”

`Hmm…,’ thought Dave, `.. is that true or is Mac just finally trying to get me back for all those times I almost killed him during chemistry experiments…’

…

… Baldy’s Blog : http://baldyblog.freshblogs.co.uk

Turns out Mac had been 100% right. Not often that happened.

Not only was bone marrow donation free of pain, it saved lives and could get you a day off work. He was also right about Adrian being a fantastic guy.

…

Late for work, Dave hurriedly completed the bone marrow list registration form.

`Wow that’s a lot of ways to ask me if I’m healthy…’

Now all they required was a small blood sample and Dave wouldn’t hear from them again unless required to save a life.

`Come on, just stick it in me, be quick, get it over with’

Dave suddenly had an insight into how Jean felt…

…

…“Smallville without Lex?” asked Mac, “That’s going to suck…”

…

Ste was nervous. Really nervous.

The next few moments could completely change his entire future. If everything didn’t go absolutely perfect he would regret it for many, many years to come.

Thankfully it all worked out perfectly. Exactly as he had planned it!
Liverpool scored and won the match!!!

“Oh, by the way, Cheryl, wanna get married?”

“Yeah OK,”

“Cool.”

Congratulations to the happy couple.

…

Hadleigh was sweating. This was it. The big day.

`Gosh darn it,’ he thought to himself, `Dave was right, I should have put some Weird Al songs on the music CD.’

Luckily the event still went perfectly and Hadleigh Wilks became one half of Mr and Mrs Drake.

Congratulations to the happy couple.

…

Thousands upon thousands of people walking up and down on a field in the rain. The V-festival rather quickly became a vast field of mud.
Thousands upon thousands of people walked around carefully, seeing slimy dirt and an accident waiting to happen.

Alan was different. Alan was special.

Alan, and about 10 of the other people there, saw a giant mosh pit, filled with all the joys a mud wrestle can bring.

You can take the man out of the Krazy House, but you can’t take the Krazy House out of the man.

Thousands upon thousands of people just stood there and stared.

…

Home made pizza, delights from Turkey (not to be confused with Turkish delights), Japanese film about ping pong (called `Ping Pong’) and a south Korean film about a monster squid/fish/thing (`The Host’). What more could anyone ask for?

Ping Pong was a quality film. About two kids called `Peco’ and `Smile’ (because he never does). Peco, best little ping pong star around, looks out for Smile when other kids try to pick on him, and Smile comes to idolise him.

Growing up, Peco’s gift at ping pong makes him cocky and lazy, whilst Smile’s kind nature and semi-worship of Peco holds him back from playing at his true potential for fear of outshining Peco. Funny and thought provoking, a quality film.

“I don’t want to play him!!! I don’t stand a chance! He’s Chinese!!!”

“Not ALL Chinese are good at Ping Pong!”

“Really?”

“Yes, just like some black people can’t dance. And some Germans don’t like beer.”

“Yeah. OK! I can do this!!”

21-0 to China.


The Host had everything you could ask for from a monster flick. Funny family, heart filled moments, evil Americans and a monster that you actually get to see from start to finish created by said evil Americans pouring toxic chemicals down the drain, just for kicks and giggles.

The film centres around a somewhat crazy family. Granddad runs a small food stand with `help’ from lazy son and cute little granddaughter. Not surprisingly the son is a terrible father, giving his girl a beer and sending her drunken uncle to parents nights. But his heart is generally in the right place. They sit off and watch her Aunt in an archery contest on TV.

Enter Squiddy. In broad day light. In clear view. Finally a film that u actually get to see the monster.

Squiddy goes berserk, smashes things up, eats some people, the usual. It catches the little girl and flees. Granddad, Lazy Dad, Drunken Uncle and Archer Aunt are heartbroken. Their tears are paused only to hurl abuse at each other. To add salt to their wounds, evil Americans have decided they must all be quarantined and tested on.

And then, in the dead of night, a ray of hope. A phone call from the little girl. She’s still alive! Well come on, they wouldn’t really kill off a cute innocent little girl… would they? Only problem is, no one will believe the phone call happened. They think Lazy Dad has just gone crazy. And so the family must put aside their differences, break out of quarantine (much easier than u may think) and find the girl themselves.

…

“I like that,” said Oyku. It was a 3 dimensional `picture’ of a jacket on Freddie’s wall.

“Yeah,” said Nathan, “I’m wondering if it was suppose to be art, or Freddie just didn’t clean his clothes for a very long time… I think Freddie’s mum is an artist, maybe she made it.”

“I think both Freddie’s parents are arty,” said Dave, “Freddie turned to Mathematics to rebel.”

…

`Any day now,’ thought Ruth, `..any day now…’

…


A big thank you to everyone who took part in the “Keep Dave Sane” project while Jean was away. Although the overall result was a failure and Dave has officially been declared nuttier than a bag of peanuts, it still turned out a lot better than any of us could have hoped.

Now go see Baldy’s blog and stick your name on that bone marrow list. http://baldyblog.freshblogs.co.uk .


Thanks guys.

Baldy's Blog

Adrian Sudbury was an amazing young man. In the words of his blog: He "had been a reporter for both the Huddersfield Express and Chronicle Series and the Huddersfield Examiner. In November 2006 the 25-year-old was promoted to digital journalist, effectively editing the new-look Examiner website. Just two days into his new role he became seriously ill and called in sick. A week later he drove himself to A&E and was eventually diagnosed with leukaemia. It was then identified that he actually has two distinct types of the disease running at the same time. According to the medical literature he is the only person in the world to have this condition."

Despite the unenviable situation he found himself in, he kept himself and those around him positive.

-"Needless to say being diagnosed with two types of leukaemia was a bit of a blow yet bizarrely my ego was purring at potentially being a sort of 'world first'. If only it had been in something slightly less life threatening."

Unfortunately, his condition went from bad to worst. A bone marrow transplant failed to rid him of the disease and began giving him additional complications when the donors cells started attacking his own. He was told in May 2008 he had weeks/months to live.

-"For new readers to this blog I sometimes wonder if you think I am making this shite up. My life has gone crazy and seems to derail spectacularly every seven to 12 days.
I wish I was making all this up. I promise you, up until l was 25 I had a fairly steady existence which included a girlfriend, going to work, going out and playing football once a week with colleagues.
Now I'm like a character in Hollyoaks, just slightly less attractive."

Despite this, he wanted it noted that without any treatment, without blood and bone marrow transfusions, he would have died back in late 06/early 07. He never stopped thanking his annomous bone marrow donor from Germany and the countless blood donors he required during treatment. He was appalled to discover 16,000 patients requiring bone marrow are currently dying without being given that chance because a matching donor hasn't been found. He was shocked to learn the process of donating bone marrow is far easier than most people realise, himself included, and disgusted by the thought that if only more people knew that, maybe those 16,000 people would have a fighting chance.

"What would you say if I said stem cell donation differed little from giving blood?
You'd probably say something like, "Shut up Sudders, I'm tired of your online cancer whinging, and if I was a bone marrow donor someone would need to smash my spine."
I have a degree in Physiology, have spent five months in and out of a haematology ward, and I'm still staggered that I have only learnt what stem cell donation is really like.
There is a huge amount of confusion on the issue. I used to give blood but never thought about donating stem cells because I thought there was a slight risk of paralysis.

The reality is very different."

In his last months he devoted himself to helping others. He began a campaign which successfully got the government in the UK to agree to educate all 14/15 year olds and the majority of 17/18 year olds into what donation actually involves, how simple the process is and how it can and does save lives. He had interviews with Gordon Brown, spoke on international TV with audiences of over 170 million, was regularly on Radio and his blog won several awards for being simply outstanding. His blog is now also being turned into a book.

Please check out his blog: http://baldyblog.freshblogs.co.uk

Adrian passed away August 20th 2008. Even towards the end he remained filled with overwhelming positive energy. An inspiration to us all.

"As I keep saying - don't feel sorry for me. I'm having a blast."

Olympics Final Score

Well the Olympics is over for another 4 years and everyone wants to know the final score. Who won? How did there country do?

Well it's not always a straight forward answer.

In terms of gold medals, the ranking is:

1. China - 51
2. USA - 36
3. Russia - 23
4. UK - 19

Well done China. However, in terms of total medals, the ranking changes:

1.USA - 110
2.China - 100
3. Russia - 72
4. UK - 47

Unsurprisingly, our good old cousins from across the pond prefer this method of scoring. But everyone knows not all medals are equal and it's crazy to score them as if they were. The simple example of gold = 3 points, silver =2 and bronze = 1 gives:

1. China - 246
2. USA - 220
3. Russia - 134
4. UK - 102

Slightly fairer, but it still doesn't take into account the real attitudes towards medals.

Here, for the first time in Olympic history, the new undisputedly perfectly fair method of medal scoring is unveiled.

Golds:
The first 10 gold medals are fantastic and thus worth 6 points each
The next 10 gold medals are great but nothing new and thus worth 2 points each.
Anything after 20 is unnessary and thus not scored.

Silvers:
The first 10 are OK and worth 1 point each.
The next 5 become painful, "so close to gold" and thus result in the lose of a point for each
Anything after 15 is really painful and thus loses 2 points each.

Bronze:
The first 10 aren't noticed.
The second 10 are OK, "at least we got a medal", 1 point each.
Anything after 20 aren't noticed.

Much research into the attitudes of both spectators and atheletes shows this scoring is 100% accurate and has, at time of writing, never been argued with by anyone ever. In addition this system has the added benefit of having a maximum score of 100.

Taking this to be the unquestionable true scoring system then, the final ranking for the 2008 Beijing Olympics is:

1. UK - 88
2. China - 83
2. Russia - 83
...
10. USA - 49

Congradulations to the UK, worlds greatest. Well done to China and Russia, good efforts, very close. USA? 10th? Poor performance, better luck in London.

Another Day

*Brrriiinggg* *Brriiiinnng*

"..urgh..."

*Brrriiinggg* *Brriiiinnng*

Jean fumbled her arm out of bed and across the desk to grab her phone. Asking Dave to wake her up early had seemed like such a good idea last night. Would allow her to get the hotel breakfast. Well it had worked, but she hadn't slept enough to compensate for a day that had been exhaustingly great. A day simply wasn't designed long enough for so much stuff.

Jean staggered off for complementary hotel food. Breakfast consisted of a wide variety of things, none of which was cereal, which she consumed in the front of her lovely hotel restaurant.

After breakfast she went to play. Her and her friend went to tour the beautiful Sanya. An hour in she visited a very relaxing spar. One of the treatments on offer involved sitting in a pool full of little fish and letting them nibble at her dead skin. She found it oddly enjoyable.

Returning to the streets, they checked out the local beaches and decided to go diving. Then she went down into water, playing around with all the little amazingly coloured fish.

They went off to buy some more food. Limitless veg, meat, fish and oysters fresh from the source. Yum. They ate at a restaurant in front of the sea, watching the waves.

Eventually returning to the hotel, they switched on the TV and got down to some great programmes. A little later her Dave called, they chatted together while she carried on watching the TV, although at a much reduced concentration.

Finally exhausted, she set Dave the task of being her alarm. Despite being placed as far away from her bed as he could be, he still had his uses. In fact, if he were with her, she would probably just wack him and go back to sleep. Then she finally went to bed.

*Snorr*

Note, for other days, activities varied greatly, including jetskiing, shoe shopping, visting aquariums and pleanty more great food.

Two weeks down, two months to go.

Back to the beach.

Day 1.

*Brrriiinggg* *Brriiiinnng*

"..urgh..."

*Brrriiinggg* *Brriiiinnng*

Dave stumbled out of bed and across the room to hit the alarm clock. Placing the alarm so far away had seemed like such a good idea last night. Would have to get him up. Well it had worked, but he hadn't slept well at all and now he didn't feel all that great. A double bed simply wasn't designed for single use. It became cold, empty and lonely.

Dave staggered off to hunt for food. Breakfast consisted of 4 Weetabix with some dried mixed fruit, which he consumed in front of the computer whilst checking emails aka deleting spam.

After breakfast he went to play on his Wii Fit. Started off with some lighter stepping exercises, moving on to workouts. An hour later he had a very much needed shower.

He returned to his computer, checked emails (more spam deleting) and opened up his file labelled "thesis". Then he got down to some hard work, stopping only every few minutes when MSN let him know he had some more spam to delete.

Around 4pm he went off to make some more food. Some veg, shallow boiled (like shallow frying, but replacing the oil with water), with added oyster source. Yum. He ate in front of the TV, despite nothing worth watching being on, then went off to work at his door to door job for the Echo.

Having failed to convince even a single person to sign up to have the Echo delivered, Dave returned home at around 9pm. Cooked himself a fried egg-tomotoe-mince meat meal, with added oyster source and ate in front of the TV, despite nothing worth watching being on. He then washed the dishes and retired upstairs.

Parking himself once more in front of the computer, he deleted spam, opened up his file "thesis" and got down to work. Around 11 his mind started to wonder a little, but he argued with himself and carried on for another 2 hours, although at a much reduced efficiency.

Finally exhausted, he set his alarm and placed it as far away from the bed as he could. Otherwise he would just wack it and go back to sleep. Then he finally went to bed.

... where he found he could not sleep... a double bed simply wasn't designed for single use... it became cold... empty... lonely.



Note, for day 2 onwards, simply change the title. For days off from the Echo (Friday-Sunday), replace the work with going food shopping, parking in front of computer, deleting spam, "thesis".

Two weeks down, two months to go.

Back to work.

Apart.

Coming home from work, Dave's daily routine involved pulling out his phone, dialling Jean's number and saying hi. The conversation would lead on from there, usually in a somewhat random direction. A somewhat pointless routine really, since it took less than 30 minutes to get home and Jean would be waiting for him on arrival, but a routine he wouldn't miss for the world.

Today was different. Today Dave's phone stayed in his pocket. Today a phone call would have been too pointless even for Dave, because today Jean wasn't at home, she was thousands of miles away, travelling at ridiculously high speeds on a rather large metal bird. Today, Jean left for China.

Since meeting several years ago, Dave and Jean had not been apart for longer than a week, rarely been apart for more than 3 days and usually not been seperated for more than several hours. They had been joined at the hip and enjoyed every moment of it. Now Jean would be away for over 2 months.

Why?

There were 2 main reasons for her going while he stayed. The first, Jean REALLY needed a break. The job she had just recently quit had caused her far too much stress (for far too little pay). She now had just over 2 months free before she returned to Uni to do an Msc and she needed to enjoy it. The second, Dave REALLY needed to get ALOT of work done. He was way behind his original schedule (and his second, third and fourth schedules) and needed to get his PhD back on track.

There was little Dave could do about the first target, other than prayer. For the next 10 weeks he would throw himself whole heartedly into the second.

Starting right now.

Wii Fit

There is an episode of South Park in which Cartman buys a failing fairground, closes the doors and keeps it all to himself. Suddenly, because he doesn't allow anyone in, everyone wants to get in. Discovering a fairground costs too much to run, Cartman is forced to open it back up to the public and it becomes a huge success again.

Why mention this? Well it is clearly the source of inspiration for the marketing people down at Nintendo. In the real world, no body seems to play the "You can't have this, nah nah" card better. The Wii is still not easy to find, games such as Mario Kart are few and far between and the Wii Fit simply doesn't seem to exist. Retailing at £70, the Wii Fit is in such high demand that it sells regularly on ebay for £150. Yet Nintendo still splashes out on TV ads and public demonstrations. For all these reasons, Dave was pretty darn happy to say the least when he finally tracked one down.

So what is? The Wii Fit is a game which comes with the Wii Board. The Wii Board is a sensitive weighing device, which can measure changes in balance side to side and front to back. It can thus be used to play games such as virtual skiing, to measure performance in work outs such as push ups and to improve posture through various yoga stances. In total, Wii Fit offers around 50 such things to choose from, ranging from cutely additive to physically exhuasting.

Although true a large amount of the activities on offer COULD, quite easily, be done WITHOUT a Wii Board or the Wii Fit, the majority of people simply don't do them. Tell a person to stand on one leg for 30 seconds a day, then swap to the other leg and repeat and it simply won't get done. Put them on a Wii Fit and the same task becomes fun. It shifts exercise away from the "work" catorgory that alot of people have placed it in, back to the "play" slot where it belongs.

But most importantly, it produces pretty graphs.

Chaos Conference 2008

The first ever annual Chaotic Conference on Modelling and Simulating Chaos was taking place in Crete, near Chania. Dave, due to a horrible flight time table, had the rare honour of being one of the first, if not THE first, to arrive at the first ever conference of it's type, at around 7am.

So, what is Chaos? According to Wiki:

"In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos."

Clear? Good.

Academic conferences in general follow a simply layout. There are important talks, which usually last an hour, given by key speakers that everyone should attend. Then there are shorter 20 min talks given by people attending. Usually 4 or so of these talks happen at the same time and people must choose which talk they wish to see from the program. Dave was scheduled to give his talk at 10am on the second day of the conference. Each session is controlled by a chair person, who basically acts as a stopwatch.

Session 1, first day. No chair person shows up. 2 out of 4 of the speakers don't show up. The other "2" speakers turn out to be just 1 person giving 2 talks. These are presented with no idea of length of time.

Good start.

Session 2. The chair person IS the speaker, thus not having any idea of time. Another speaker doesn't show up, talks are given early due to this, anyone following the program in another room is missing the talks they wanted to hear here.

Hmm...

Dave's talk. Two speakers don't turn up before him, he gives the talk at 9:20am to an audience who have no idea what he is talking about and finishes 20 minutes before his actual audience is due to arrive.

...

Over the four days of talks, Dave personally counted 32 normal speakers going AWOL, 4 chair people not attending, the majority of sessions being chaired by a speaker, 1 "important" speaker sending his apologies, at least 3 computational difficulties, including one rather spectacular explosion of a projector bulb and a total of around 3 talks that actually happened at the time they were suppose to.

For anyone who didn't quite follow the Wiki definition earlier, THIS is Chaos.

Athens

Since as far back as Dave could remember he had always wanted to visit Athens. The place of his father's birth and, much more recently, home of the ancient Greeks, arguably the birth place of Philosopy and Mathematics. It had called to Dave constantly.

Now, finally, after almost 24 years of waiting, 5 hours of flight and another few hours waiting in Prague, Dave finally picked up his luggage at around 1am, Athens airport and stepped out into Athens.

Finally.

2 minutes later he stepped back into the airport to go catch another flight to Crete, where he would have a conference on Modeling and Simulating Chaos.

Still, it was nice while it lasted.

5 down, 5 to go...?

May 30th 2008.

Dave's 5th driving test.

Garston, new centre, new area, new roads, shake off all the old demons. That was the plan.

Dave and his instructor Bruce showed up 15min early. They were the only ones around.

"We do have the right day right?"

Finally a lady came along, Bruce knew her, whispered, "She's nice," to Dave. So far, so good. Off to the car.

Eye test, check.

Questions, check.

"Right, I'd like you to turn to the left or the right and reverse into one of these bays."

No one around, start the engine, go.

STOP!

Two cars suddenly came straight into the car park.

"No.."

"I'm sorry to tell you..."

"No, no , no..."

"you have failed..."

"Not AGAIN!"

That's when Dave woke up, went out, did his driving test, PASSED with only 7 minor faults!

Look out world, DAVE CAN DRIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tibet

Once upon a time there was a land, high in the mountains, filled with peaceful Buddhist monks. They lived in perfect harmony, one with their fellow man and the wonderous nature around them. Lead by their glorious spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, they could do no wrong. There they remained for thousands of years, until, one horrible, fateful day, The Dragon came, destroying culture, killing innocent, conquering all.

FREE TIBET!!!!.... ?

Isn't life simple in fairy tales? It's always so obvious to pick a side. Perhaps it's time to look a little closer. Ask some questions...

Q: Was Tibet independent before China came in the 1950's?

-Far from straightforward to answer. The offical records of China have claimed Tibet as part of their country for hundreds of years. At no point did they ever grant Tibet independence. However, the good old British also tried their hand at claiming Tibet as their own when they took India. China didn't really agree to that for some reason. But who cares, we're British. Of cause, then the British got bored of conquering the world and let India and Tibet go free. They allowed Tibet it's independence. Two days later China granted N.Ireland Independence, no, wait, they can't do that right... ?

Q: Why did China enter Tibet?

-China was at civil war. However, one thing both sides of China could agree on was Tibet belonged to them. Many surporting the old Chinese government had gone to Tibet. The newbies went in to find them. They did not rush in to conquer. They believed it was already theirs. The agreement signed by Tibet and China at the time focused mainly on two points. Tibet should help find those loyal to the old government and China should improve the general living standards of the people of Tibet, including new schools etc. Otherwise, it was agreed, Tibet could continue business as usual.

Q: So why kick out the Dalai Lama?

-Tibet struck first. The nobles planned an uprising, with substancial military aid and guidance from the good old guys in the USA. It failed. They ran to India. Interestingly, the Dalai Lama has always, in all his lives, had a real passion for running away if he felt in danger.

Q: But, if they had America's backing, they must be the good guys, right?

-That doesn't deserve an answer.

Q: Why won't China let Tibet preserve it's tradional way of life?

-It is very true that China does not want the Tibet of old to return. Heartless fiends. What do they object to? The peaceful prayers and meditation? Not really.

Before the new government of China, 5% of Tibet's people DID indeed live very nice lives. Very very nice lives. The remaining 95%? Not so much. A huge proportion of them where slaves. They were bought and sold and swapped for cows and all the usual joys of slavedom. The majority of the rest where serfs. The difference? Although serfs had to do all their masters chores without pay, the master didn't techniquely own them. This meant they could tax them (the list of taxes is huge, including a tax to be put IN prison) and they had no requirement to feed them. Do you want it to go back to that?

Q: But at least their Buddhist masters treated them nicely right?

-Buddhists are not suppose to kill anything. There are rumours of slaves and serfs being killed anyway, but these might not be true. For sake of arguement we'll assume Buddhists didn't kill anyone, ever. However, to quote Aladdin, "You'll be amazed what you can live through."

Punishments included removal of eyes, hands, arms, ears, noses, etc etc etc. These "punishments" were decided completely by the master, no trial needed, and where given for the standard "stealing to feed a starving child" type crimes or for not paying taxes or for any reason really. Another favorite was to almost kill someone then leave them in the cold mountains for God to decide what happened. Skinning alive is also there.

A master could choose any female servant he desired to do with as he wished, even those already married. Objection by either man or woman resulted in punishment, see above. There is also strong evidence that young boys, aged 8-10, taken into monestries for "training", where consistantly raped.

Q: What happened to the Dalai after fleeing Tibet?

-The Dalai Lama set up a new exciled goverment for the 80,000 people he brought with him from Tibet. He then sought aid from the globe to put pressure on China to realise Tibet back into his control. However, he has always been quoted as wanting a peaceful solution to be found. He travels the world, a religous teacher. He is seen as the most open minded of all spiritual leaders. He admits in any conflicts between science and religion people should listen to science. He accepts homosexuality (though doesn't approve of anal, oral or masturbation). He allows other religions. He promotes all the positive aspects of Buddhism. He is generally highly regarded, and recieved alot of awards, including 5 honary docurates and a nobel peace prize.

Q: So why do China hate him?

-He helps to twist the global view of China in a very negative direction. This is something China is very capable of doing all by itself and doesn't require his help. On fleeing Tibet, he created and stands by the fairy tale. In addition, his numbers never add up. He claims 1.2 million people were killed when China took the reigns and "at least as many" became political prisoners. However, all records show only around 2 million people in Tibet at the time TOTAL. So China killed over 50% and imprisoned over 50%? Tibet is around half the size of Europe and made of mountains, did China really round them all up? In addition, it is common knowledge that the uprising failed because the serfs and slaves didn't really join in. For some reason alot of them liked where China was taking them. It is often stated that Tibet couldn't defend itself, so China just decided to kill and imprison more than 100% of the population of any area half the size of Europe, whilst also dealing with a civil war?

The Dalai has always been rather brief on the issue of slavery. He does point out that China also had slaves at the time, and their slaves were treated even worst. Amazingly, he makes this sound like a good thing for him and a bad thing for the current chinese government, the government which abolished slavery in both areas. Think about it.

Mostly, the Chinese government doesn't trust what the Dalai would do if he regained power. He is often quoted as saying he would like a return to

"Tibet's historical role as a peaceful and neutral Buddhist nation "

arguing that

"Tibetans will soon be no more than a tourist attraction and relic of a noble past."

Given the details of this noble past, do you trust him? Would you give him your country?

Q: Isn't it a shame that this ancient civilazation will be replaced by a much more modern one, with all these super highways and trainlines China keeps putting in?

-No. It isn't. Just like it wasn't a shame when England abolished slavery. Nor was it a shame when we stopped burning witches. Nor was it a shame when we stopped conquering the world. Nor was it a shame when we installed indoor flushable toilets. Nor was it a shame when we got medical treatments which didn't involve drilling holes in peoples heads to let out demons.

If you want the return of this noble tradition, why not volunteer to be a slave or serf?



Q: I take it your fond of the Chinese government then?

-No. The Chinese government is corrupt, selfish and quite often wrong. It's views on freedom of speech are just stupid and out of date. It's behavior in events such as Tianamen Square unforgivable, although almost 20 years ago now.

I am fond of looking at both sides of a story though. For example, the next time you see those poor Tibetan RIOTERS being attacked, stop and think 1. Who started the violence and 2.Where do the pictures come from, since China doesn't allow cameras in? In fact all the pictures are from either Nepal or India.

I'm fond of thinking.

Fourth time lucky?

April 7th 2008 1:40pm, Daves 4th driving test was about to begin.

Eye test, no problems.

Questions, easy.

"Right, I'd like you to choose one of these bays and reverse into it."

Straight in, no worries. Off they went on the drive. The guy didn't even bother to get his folder out.

Left, right, right, left, friendly banter back and forth.

"Turn right here." A bit of a queue of oncoming also turning right. A small gap, but pretty tight, Dave decided to wait, road cleared, off they went.

"We're going to reverse left round this corner."

Get into position, start the turn, stop to let a car past, finish the turn, very close to the pavement. Dave looked briefly at the examiner, he had his eyes closed!

'Whatever, two manuvers down, just drive back and pick up your licence.'

The drive back was without incident, parked nicely at the centre and the examiner said...

"I'm sorry to tell you you haven't passed."

'What the f*£k? Is that just the only thing these people know how to say at the end of a test?'

"You got a serious fault when turning right, you should have took the gap. On the reverse left round the corner you got another serious fault for not observing properly to the right. And you got another serious fault for stopping too early at giveways on 3 occassions."

Dave was speachless. Particularly annoying was the comment on the lack of observations coming from the guy with his eyes closed. The early stopping he had completely not noticed and the lack of balls to take a tiny gap he had never had imagined would be serious.

Such is life.

Failed.

Mrs and Mr Wilcock

Saturday 15th March 2008 at 1pm, Bridge Chapel, Garston.

David and Jos were finally getting married.

Dave and Jean put on their best, grabbed a taxi and headed down. The taxi driver had no idea where he was going. Luckily, good old Tom Tom was on hand to point them in the right direction. It would get them to the right area, then all they had to do was look for a chapel.

"Nope, not that one..."

"Not that one either..."

"Lets try down this way..."

Suddenly Jean called out to stop the taxi. "There it is!"

"Thats cheating..."

Bridge Chapel, should anyone ever wish to find it, does not look like a Chapel. It looks more like a school. Had Jean not have spotted it's name, they could have been driving around for days.

The service was lovely. Alot of smartly dressed guys and pretty looking girls scattered around and pleanty of gorgous flowers to keep Jean and her camera entertained. David looked incredibly happy and Jos looked stuning, so both very much as expected.

Hymns, talks and praise, then on with the ceremony.

"You may now kiss the bride."

David went in, Jos pulled back, everyone laughed. So much for the obedient bride.

That was the start of a wonderfully happy life time of love together.

Leasowe Castle, Wirral, 8pm. Reception time. Food, drink and pleanty of dancing and joy. The perfect end to the perfect day.

All Dave and Jean had to do was get the taxi there...

"I think it's this way..."

YSM

The Young Statisticians Meeting (YSM) 2008 was held in Newport, Wales, near Cardiff. Dave had been sent there to give a talk. The same talk he had given in Exeter a few weeks prior, though he would have to shorten it's length from an hour to 15 minutes. Easy.

On arrival he was surprised to discover a very small proportion of the people there were students. In fact, almost everyone there was working for the office of national statitics (ONS), with the majority of the remainder also working for various stats places. He was also surprised to see some people who had been to the meeting the previous year giving exactly the same talk a year later. One project in particular had been dated 2002 and had seemingly made no progress since.

The fact that there were very few students around changed matters. For a start, the standard student greetings of "So, what/where are you studying?" were met with confusement and shock. More worryingly for Dave, the real world had very little use for the type of statistics he was doing and non-students would have a much smaller chance of understanding any of it. On speaking around, Dave quickly found this assumption to be confirmed.

Onwards to the talk. Knowing his audience, Dave decided he would have to explain a bit about the background info first. Unfortuantely, 15 minutes is a rather short amount of time. He was still explaining the background when the 5 minute warning sign was held up. That gave him 5 minutes to explain 3 years of research. Easy.

5 minutes later, he summed up.

"...In conclusion, old method bad, new method good."

A few giggles and smiles and looks of relief confirming that last sentence to be the only one of the talk any of them would remember.

Still, good job.

Shaken, not stirred.

Jean turned to Dave and said, "The Earth really moved for me."

Dave yawned, took this as a good sign, and went back to sleep.

The next morning, the news reported biggest earthquake in England since 1984.

Gutted.

Thanks

Dave had never been to Exeter before, right down in the south of England, tucked away. He'd never been anywhere in England south of London before. It was a fairly long trip. 6 hours, 3 trains, 2 of them packed to busting point, though luckily he had a seat.

He had been invited to give a talk. He would arrive Sunday, stay the night, talk Monday and head home, another 6 hour-3 train journey. While there he would see the inspiration that was Mark Holland. Dave, Mark and Dave's supervisor would spend the day together, chatting all things stats and chaos.

On arrival, the hotel was but a short walk up a steep hill. St David's Hill to be precise, a lovely name. The place felt somewhat countryside-ish, plenty of greeny and fresh air. The hotel was a converted three storey house, the room following the standard bed, desk, TV, bathroom layout, but with a cute slightly flowery twist. All in all, Dave liked it.

Dave's Supervisor was... less impressed. "It reminds me of my undergraduate days," he commented, in a negative tone.

Exeter University was beautiful. A scattering of University buildings on top of a hill. Bright green nature in every direction. A wonderful 10 minute walk from the hotel to meet Mark.

Dave's Supervisor... less impressed... and somewhat exhusted.

At lunch, the trio went off to find food. Mark was in somewhat of a hurry, needing to see students an hour later. The staff house was being fixed up so the only option was to dine in studentville, the Exeter Guild. The food was decent, the place was comfy, Dave was satisfied.

Needless to say how Dave's Supervisor took it.

The Talk. Dave's talk. Suppose to last 45min, trailed on for the hour. The questions were relevant, the comments useful, it was going well. The talk finished and people came to give feedback.

This was Dave's moment. This is what he had spent two days making slides for and two days travelling. That's almost a week of his life, all came down to this.

Someone approached. "Nice talk". Completely clear of sarcasim! Success!

Dave's Supervisor replied, "Thanks," and the two carried on chatting.

'....'

England Vs China: The rest.

"So what of hospitals, politicians, religion, spirituality...?"

The list of differences between China and England is possibly never ending. Some big, some small and some just difficult to say which is really "better".

England is generally seen as having better hospitals and health services, yet it costs nearly 20 pounds in England just to show a dentist your teeth whilst the same 20 pounds in China could get every tooth fixed up.

Politicians in England are more open, but they've all blurred into each other and no one sees any point in voting. England has freedom of speech but far more terrorists.

England has a much wider array of religions and spiritual beliefs, China allows these beliefs it just doesn't have a strong tradition in them and thus doesn't force them on anyone.

etc etc etc.

The bottom line is the differences don't matter. It's the similarities that count. It's the ability to overcome every obstacle and for each to still acknowledge the other is filled with fellow human beings.

Whatever the faith of the reader, almost everyone can agree that the Chinese and the English all came from the same place. The same individual mother of humanity. The belief that this individual was human or monkey, thousands or millions of years ago doesn’t really make a difference.

If you prick us, do we not bleed? (Side note: Dave carried out a test on 1000 English people and 1000 Chinese people and found out that 100% of each group do in fact bleed.)

One day there won’t be labels, borders or mindless wars.

Then everyone will be a winner.

England Vs China: Round 6: Language.

The biggest and most difficult seperation to overcome between England and China is that of language. The English speak English, the Chinese collectively have around 8000 different local dialects, which are generally grouped into 8 real different languages but the majority speak either Cantonese and/or Mandarin. Here the comparsion will be between English and Mandarin.

The observant and logical thinking reader will have noticed this English artical may have some bias. This is possibly unavoidable, but an attempt to be fair will still be made.

The English language has an alphabet of 26 letters. Knowledge of these 26 letters then makes every word readable, even if the meaning is unclear. For example the word "Wiswo", currently meaningless, but most English speaking readers will have pronounced it in a similar manner.

How do you pronounce "爱"？The reader either knows or does not. Even a Chinese individual who knows every other Chinese character except this one (a very poor individual indeed, since everyone should have someone to 爱) cannot know how to pronounce this.

There are over 60,000 Chinese characters, although only around 6,000 are used and known by the majority of educated Chinese speakers. Thats around 230 times more things to learn than in English. Written English clearly has the advantage.

What of spoken?

Chinese is a tonal language. The meaning of each syllable can change depending on the tone. "Ma" and "Ma" mean "horse" and "mother", depending on the tone. This tonal aspect is often of great difficultly for an individual not used to such a language, but it would be a huge bias to announce it inferior. It is simply different.

Mandarin has far less spoken syllables than English. Ignoring the tones it has around 400, including the tones it has around 1000. English has around 12,000 possible ones. So, clearly Mandarin wins on spoken and the round ends in a draw.

Well... no.

Mandarin has around 1000 possible syllables. Yet it has around 6,000 commonly used characters, each representing a syllable, each with a different meaning. This means that, on average, every spoken syllable, even if the tone is flawless, has 6 possible different meanings. Put 3 syllables together and unless familar enough with the language to imediately recognise it's meaning, a mental search of 216 possible combinations needs to be carried out.

Although possibly still being baised, the equaliser is scored.

England 3 - 3 China

England Vs China: Round 5: Smoking.

The cigarette. The only natural predator of the human species left in the wild. The main driving force of human evolution in the world today, picking off the weak willed and the stupid day by day. Unfortunately, it’s method of slow, painful death is often not quick enough to stop the stupidity passing to the next generation.

Smoking in England is more and more being seen for the curse on humanity that it actually is. Warning labels are compulsory, advertising is seriously restricted and smoking in public has been outlawed. Smokers are becoming a minority in England, and the majority of that minority try not to let their dirty habit harm others and are indeed trying, or at least considering, to quit. The others are simply stupid, weak willed or/and rude.

Smoking in China is polite. The truth of smoking is well known and yet somehow, in some very twisted leap of logic, it is polite to pull out a packet of cigarettes and ensure everyone at the table has one. They will not force a non-smoker to smoke, but they may very well offer them several more that evening.

Such a tragic lack of common sense sees the three lions making a come back,

England 2 – 3 China

England Vs China: Round 4: Alcohol.

Alcoholic drinks in England and China do not differ greatly. England has more choice when it comes to cocktails, China has more available in strong spirits and rice wine. Both countries have very similar, and in some cases identical, beers and wines.

The main difference between the two countries is the goal of drinking. The English drink to be drunk. This is not the case of all English drinkers, but certainly true for too large a proportion. They drink as much as they can as quick as they can so that they can escape any responsibilities and be “free”. This freedom often involves urinating in public, being violently sick and just being plain violent. England at night is no place for the sober.

The Chinese drink in groups whilst eating to be social and friendly. That is not to say that the Chinese don’t get drunk, but they usually become “friendly” drunks and the number of sober individuals in the group is often enough to ensure nothing goes too seriously wrong. Generally, the streets of China at night are a much calmer place.

Thus the Dragon sails into the lead and round 4 goes to China.

England 1 – 3 China.

England Vs China: Round 3: Teenagers.

The streets of England are ruled by fear of teenage hooligans. They lurk on street corners awaiting their next victim. They hurl random insults at everyone and everything and give physical abuse either to those who respond or those who don’t. Despite this, it is still often frowned upon for any adult to strike back, after all, they’re only kids. They go unchecked, undisciplined, unpunished and they make England’s future look cloudy to say the least.

The Chinese in this respect have evolved far beyond their English counterparts. There are no teenagers in China. There are little children, there are adults, there is little or no sign of anything in between. Logic suggests this cannot be the case, but it is clearly what the evidence suggests.

Apparently, so the legend goes, the group of Chinese known as Teenage lurk in the shadows of school grounds during the day and seek the shelter of home where they can study during the night. There may also be small underground hideaways in which they group together, but these have never been found. Indeed, no one has ever seen one of these “Teenage”, it’s always “a friend of a friend” who has seen one.

In comparison, there can be only one winner.

England 1 – 2 China.

England Vs China: Round 2: Traffic.

When it comes to traffic, China has a huge advantage: Probably more than half it’s vehicles are bikes or motorbikes. Compare this to England, which has less than one percent. (Side note: 98.2576% of all statistics are made up on the spot.) The per person pollution is greatly reduced and traffic jams occur less frequently. The remaining vehicles are made up mostly of taxis and busses, which are very cheap compared to England, with very few taxi rides costing greater than a pound. On paper, China wins round two hands down and is off to a flying start at two-nil.

However, China’s roads do have one small disadvantage compared to England’s. They lack any noticeable rules.

Undertake, overtake, it’s all the same. Traffic lights? More of a guideline, but shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Priority? Who got there first? Driving into oncoming traffic? Frowned upon, but when you’ve got to go you’ve got to go.

The roads in China are utter chaos, although strangely, seem to have less accidents than in England. Or perhaps they just cover them up quicker. Still, every time one crosses the road it feels like a mammoth achievement, and would be followed immediately by going straight home to sleep, but that would involve crossing back.

Therefore, despite all of the Island’s flaws, round two goes to England.


England 1 – 1 China.

England Vs China: Round 1: Food

The difference in attitude to eating between England and China was made famously clear in the comical HSBC advert, namely, the English find it rude not to finish their plate whilst the Chinese find it rude not to supply more than enough food for their guest to leave each meal stuffed. The meeting of these two cultures helps explain why England is fat and China is poor.

The type of food on offer in each country is vastly different. The Chinese are among the finest chefs in the world. Taking a single main ingredient such as rice they can produce tables and tables of dishes, complete with starters, main courses and desserts. Multiply this ability over the vast number of ingredients on offer and one has a menu which can take days to read. A typical Chinese market contains all the fruit, veg and meat available in England and then a large variety of others which the average English person will never in their lives know exist.

England, on the other hand, has next to no food that it can call it’s own. Anyone considering a meal in England will think “Italian, French, Greek, … , or Chinese?” and it fails even in imitation to produce.

The final blow comes in with the price. The price of food in England in pounds is pretty much the same as the price of food in China in RMB. With a conversation rate of 1 to 15 China wins round one with little effort.
England 0 – 1 China.

Test day

Bruce confirmed the test date and time back on 13th November.

Tuesday 11th December. 8.20am. Norris Green test centre.

The test lasts an hour and he liked an hour before hand for his student to warm up, hence if all went to plan the final lesson would start at 7:20am and by 9:20am Dave would legally be able to drive. Bruce also pointed out that a test at this time would very likely be much easier, since half of it would be waiting around in traffic. General driving was going well and with 7 more lessons before the finale Dave was confident. Focus could now go on the fine tuning work, aka reversing.

Dave had been secretly driving since september. He had planned to give Jean his license as a big christmas present. Along the way, she eventually found out about it, but Dave reasoned that a present doesn't have to be a surprise to be appreciated.

December 11th 2007: Test day: Dave had gone to bed around 10pm and woke up nice and early 7am, with enough time to eat breakfast and be nice and ready for the test. Bruce arrived 7:20, Dave jumped in the drivers seat and they were away. The drive to the test centre went ok, though for some reason Dave had suddenly developed the habit of flashing his lights every time he signalled left. Thankfully, after 5 or 6 flashes, the habit disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
The test centre was small and cold. Bruce and Dave waited quietly in the seating area. After a couple of minutes the examiners appeared.
“David Natsios,” said one lady.
The meeting was a little awkward. The lady introduced her self as Leslie. Dave went in for a handshake while she was just interested in getting Dave’s documents out of his other hand, she switched and went for the shake and Dave placed the documents in her handshake. It was a clumsy start.

The eye test was fine and the show me, tell me section was a walk over. No problems.
“Drive off when you’re ready.”
Dave checked all round and he was away. The drive was picture perfect. Signals, mirrors, speed, position, all perfect. Meeting situation occurred, Dave slowed, ready to stop, but there was enough room to take it slowly so forward he went.

The car suddenly stopped.

“There is a no entry sign there.”

The actually road had turned off to the left. Straight on had a no entry. In such a situation the examiner does not need to tell you to go left. There is no other choice.

The paint on the road had not been clear and Dave’s focus had been on the approaching car. But no entry meant no entry and when the examiner takes action that means only one thing.

Failed.

Dave continued left. A few seconds later, on a left emerge, Dave did all his observations correctly, had just enough time to get round and at that point in time wasn’t in the mood to wait. The car stopped again, but it made little difference. You can only fail each test once.

Leslie stayed quiet, so Dave asked the obvious, “Do we just drive back now or…?”

“Well, you have failed. You can chose to complete the test or we can stop here and get someone to come and collect you. I am only allowed to accompany you in exam conditions.”

The test went on. The drive in the second half was much less smooth. Dave was gutted. Still, the reverse round the corner was perfect and the reverse bay park was pretty good, although Leslie felt the need to say “You’re a little close to the red car”, which Dave had been aware of and was already fixing for, but techniquely meant he failed the test a third time. And just to kick sand in his eyes, she failed him a fourth time for forgetting to signal when stopping.

On a driving test you are allowed 16 minor faults, but no serious ones. Over the entire test, Dave finished with only 4 minor faults. Unfortuanately, he also had 4 that were marked as serious.

He had failed. Failed Bruce. Failed himself. Failed Jean. He would never be able to honestly say he passed first time.

Dave was not used to failing. It did not feel good.

But live and learn.

Now what on Earth could he get Jean for Christmas?

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.

Stare. Think. Scratch head. Stare. Idea! Research (Wikipedia). R program. Program fails. Scratch head. Rewrite. Fails. Rewrite. Graph!

And repeat.


Dave was going well. His pile of graphs got bigger by the day. Such pretty things, even his supervisor had fallen for them. So, so pretty.

However, after the days turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months and the months turned into years, Dave finally decided perhaps he should actually do some statstics for his statistics PhD, to add to his pretty pretty graphs. Therein lied his mistake.

"What? That can't be right." Nope, when Dave spoke to himself it was almost always a bad sign.

The statistics suggested his results were wrong. He checked again. And again. And again. How could it be? The graphs were so very very pretty.

Defeated, with only five minutes before his meeting with both supervisor and sponsor, why, oh why, had he checked the stats?

Dave now had several options, most of which involved faking his own death, faking his results or coming clean. The fool chose to come clean.

"Hmm.." said his supervisor.

There were several possible explanations as to what happened next. Perhaps the supervisor felt sorry for the student. Perhaps he thought stupid student makes him look bad. Perhaps he was still thinking about the pretty pretty graphs. Or perhaps he wasn't really paying attention.

In any case, the facts were brushed to one side, some other tests were suggested and the conversation continued as if it had never happened.

Ah the beauty of statistics. If at first you don't succeed, just keep changing the test until you find one that agrees with you. And if THAT fails, create a whole new test.

Phew.

Vicky Weir

Vicky was diagnosed with breast cancer Friday 27th October 2006, 3 weeks before her 40th birthday. Her little girl Iona was 5 at the time and she had been with her partner Martin for exactly 2 years, they met through speed dating.

Vicky was full of life. She brought fun and joy to everyone she met and even to some people she never met, myself included. When Vicky was first diagnosed she started writing an online journal (http://vickyweir.blogspot.com). I know her through these words.

They say you can judge a person by their friends. If this is the case then Vicky was a very fine lady. Her blog had more readers each day than mine had in a year, and this was only including those who knew her well enough to leave a comment. I could never think of any comment to add. I still don't know what to say and this entry does not do justice to how I feel or who she was.

Despite fighting this every step of the way and clinging to life with every breath, Vicky's cancer spread. She passed away this morning, November 14th 2007, 3 days before her 41st birthday.

My thoughts and prayers are with Iona, Martin and the rest of her many, many close friends and family.

Dr? Who?

"...aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh..." sighed Dave. After bursting for a Wii for weeks it felt really good to finally have one.

Virgin had recieved a new stock of 28 Wiis. All 28 had sold out within 20 minutes. Jean had managed to get number 26. Mission accomplished.

After an incredibly fast weekend with Jean, Bian and a Wii, came Monday and Dave was presented with a new problem. Although he had work to do, he had no timetables, no set obligations, not even a meeting with his supervisor, nothing. For the next two weeks, he was completely his own boss. And the Wii was just sitting there...

On one shoulder was Evil Dave, dressed in the sluttiest little devil costume you could imagine. Very sexy, especially his legs. Evil Dave whispered little things into Dave's right ear.

"Two weeks free. Two weeks! Take this week off, go play Zelda! ... Zelda.... Zelda.... Zelda.... "

Thankfully, on Dave's other shoulder was Good Dave. Dressed in an adorable little angel costume, complete with halo. Still very sexy, but in more of a wedding day, white dress kind of way. Good Dave was there to whisper into Dave's left ear.

"Five minutes won't hurt. I mean, come on, it's Zelda! You only live once."

Could Dave regain focus? Would he ever complete his PhD? Would anyone who read this ever be able to get rid off the disturbing image of Evil Dave?

Find out, next time.

I really need a Wii.

Dave and Jean were over at Xiong and Re's new place for a meal. It was nice. Samuel, a privately hired chauffeur, had picked them up from their door, Xiong and Re had cooked everything and Kelly had been asked over to provide "entertainment". What more could anyone ask for?

The apartment was lovely. A modern flat, with incredibly comfortable sofas. Jean checked out every room in the place, including the housemates room who she had never met. Why Jean had felt the need to explore a strange man's room while he wasn't around was a mystery. Why Re had felt comfortable showing her around it was more so. Privacy was clearly not included in the rent.

The meal was delicious accompanied by standard coversation topics such as late night Porn and all male threesomes. Then came time to play some physical games with Kelly. Dave knew what Jean would say before she said it, and she said it before the games even began...

"Dave! I wanna Wii!"

The Wii is surely Nintendo's finest hour. Move over naked chef, the Wii is the ultimate answer to childhood (and adulthood) obesity, making excercise unbelievably fun. For anyone who doesn't know (welcome to Earth, feel free to take Bush when u leave), the Wii uses motion senses so that the player actually has to move to move their character. Playing Tennis you actually have to swing, racing cows you actually have to steer and boxing you actually have to punch. Alot.

By the end of the night Dave and Jean were aching all over. Their backs, shoulders, elbows and arms, but most of all their pockets. They had to have one.

"I really need a Wii."

But having a Wii was not a straight forward task. Even a year after it's release, the Wii, best selling console out of the three big boys, is completely sold out. No where in Liverpool city centre was there a place to have a Wii. Neither was there many places online. Although the Wii sells for £180, ebay was selling second hand ones for over £200. Clearly everyone was bursting for a Wii and with Christmas in the air things were not going to get better any time soon.

It looked like Dave and Jean would have to wait.

Housewife Boy.

It wasn't everyday one discovered they had a special ability. A super human power. Dave had suspected it for a few weeks now, but today it had surely been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

"... oh, Chin might be round in a bit..."

Jean often threw these little surprises Dave's way. She wouldn't mention until the last possible moment, and sometimes not even then, if they were expected guests or had plans to go somewhere. This time however, Dave had expected it all along. He had cleaned the house top to bottom.

In fact, the last 5 times Dave had cleaned the house had co-insided perfectly with the last 5 surprise visits. Dave would feel the need to have a tidy house and then boom, a visitor would see it. Although Dave hadn't been given any clues, he had been constantly wondering who would drop by today as he vacuumed like a madman.

It was obvious he had a gift. He wasn't entirely sure if his tidying created the surprise visits or if he had the ability to "know" when a tidying was required, but he clearly had a gift.

But with great gifts came great responsibilty. He must put these new found powers to good use.

He was... Housewife Boy!


(Should any big shot movie producer happen across this, the movie rights for "Housewife Boy" are available, get in touch, we'll do business.)

BBQ

Bank Holiday Monday, time for a break.

Dave and Jean spent the morning with two of Jean's friends having a BBQ.

The BBQ followed the usual pattern, 3hrs trying to get the fire going, followed by a fire big enough to be seen from space, followed by tasty chicken.

In addition to the standard BBQ joys, Dave also had the pleasure of the guessing game, since the conversation was almost entirely in Chinese.

".... I saw some things I really shouldn't have saw...."

"... liu ge nan..." (six males)

"... qiao ke li...." (chocolate)

"... hao bu hao kan?..." (Did it look good?)

Dave had no idea what they were talking about, but he was fairly certain his version of the conversation was more entertaining than theirs.

AWOL

It had started out as an ordinary day. Dave had slept till noon and Jean had woke him with complaints about a lack of help around the house. Dave had then yawned and went back to sleep till one.

It had continued into an ordinary bus journey. Dave and Jean sitting hand in hand on an Arriva number 10. Possibly a 10A. The journey ended in the usual fashion with the bus stopping, the doors opening and Dave and Jean stepping off into the big bad world...

The phrase "What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours," is widely known. The reality is that it takes far less than 24 hrs for things to change. Blink and you'll miss it.

... "Where's my bag?"...

Jean's bag was, of cause, still on the Arriva 10. Possibly 10A. The bad news was that it contained Jean's mobile, address book, wallet, money, keys, stuff for work and various sentimental items.

The good news was that it had Jean's day rider ticket, so it could stay on the bus all day without being kicked off. Heck it could even switch busses as many times as it liked.

The overall cost of replacing the bag seemed likely to be in the range of at least 100 pounds, which wasn't great. Dave would now need to chase up cancelling various things, replacing things and trying desperately to locate the bag through the lost and found, though early efforts had all led to nought.

On the way home, an Ambulance drove noisely by and quickly disappeared into the distance. Someone, somewhere, was in serious need of help. Dave wondered how long the accident had taken to happen.

Blink and you'll miss it.

Dave and Jean should count themselves lucky.

8 Today

Saturday August 4th 2007 at 6pm was Emma's party to celebrate her 8th Birthday.

Alan and Emily were a little late, Peter and Rachel were later, John's mum and dad were reasonably on time and Dave was a half hour early and had helped Emma to finish most of the sweets before the others had arrived.

Emma had all her new toys lined up on display and seemed incredibly happy with them all. Dave added a fairy playset to the collection, Alan and Emily came in with a pair of fairies and Peter and Rachel had a fairy Bratz horse to deliver, which went rather well with her new fairy Bratz doll. There seemed to be some kind of common theme, but Dave couldn't put his finger on it. Strangely, they had all chosen their gifts independently.

After a few hours of sweets, chit chat, a crazy 8-year old and some wrestling videos which made everyone realise their age, Dave got a lift from Alan back home. It was a lovely day.

A little later he recieved a text:

"Daved thak yow foor my presents lovv emma"

"Happy Birthday Emma. Hope you had a great one."

Problem Gambling

With the new super Casinos on the horizon, stories of gambling addicition became increasingly common. The list of people who had lost everything on the role of a dice, then stole more to lose on the next role, seemed surprisingly large, with new names added all the time. Dave had always been amazed at such stupidity. Little did he know, his name would soon be attached to the bottom.

It had started out friendly enough, a simple game of cards between friends, something to pass the time. The games grew longer, more frequent and came to their unavoidable destination. Gambling.

But this was not just small time gambling. Not just a few pound coins passed back and forth. No. The stakes were far higher.

The sentences,

"Whoever loses this game has to wash the dishes!"

and

"Whoever loses this game has to eat all the leftovers!"

became increasingly common.

Like any true addict, Dave found he couldn't stop. Having lost once, he would gamble on who would clean the dishes the next day and then the next!

Now, having washed the dishes three days straight and standing in front of a mountain of plates, pots and greesy pans, Dave knew he had a problem.

Still, it could be worse.

Bian now weighed 40 stone.

Careers Workshop

Monday, July 16th, Dave woke early, staggered out of bed and rushed out the door, thankfully pausing just long enough to put on clothes. He was off to the University of Liverpool's GRAD school Careers Workshop week in Edge Hill University, where he would stay for the next two and a half days.

After signing in and picking up his keys, he had a short break to check out his accomadation. His initial thought of "So this is why some students kill themselves" described it perfectly. It was a small plain room. A bed, a closet, a desk, nothing more. No room to fit anything more if you wanted to. The bed seemed on the small side even for a single, and it squeeked with every movement. The bed sheets were of a questionable nature and the pillow was waffer thin. Attached to the room was a small bathroom, toilet, sink and shower. The shower was fun. It took a remarkably long time to heat up, then quickly went from icy cold to bubbling hot.

As much as Dave wanted to just hang out and relax in his new crib, he was here to work and day one was about to begin.

The workshop was a very mixed event. From the people presenting, the people attending and the subjects on study it was mixed in every possible way. It ranged from CV building and mock interviews to seemingly pointless "fun" team games. In the first evening there was a chill out session complete with pub quiz and in the second a hardcore dancing session resulting in bruising and blisters for several people. Dave picked up some wonderful advice to advance his career, such as "wear pink", "get drunk" and "sleep with people for publicity".

Dave's main interest during the three days was not so much what the presenters were saying, but how his fellow PhD students responded. A large amount of them seemed to hate the whole thing with a passion. Dave, who very rarely hated anything with a passion and prefered to just make the most of it and get whatever cheap laughs were available, found their attitude rather amusing. Yes, it was a bit silly and pointless at times, but it had to be done, so why not be silly and pointless in a mature way rather than pointlessly and sillily complaining about pointless and silly performances, if that makes sense.

Another thing Dave picked up on was how strange a thing confidence was. Dave did very little in his spare time, he found it very difficult to talk to new people, conversation did not come naturally to him, he had no idea what he would do next in life, his written work was apparently abysmal and his supervisor told him on a weekly basis how awful his PhD was. Despite studying a PhD in statistics, Dave had failed to answer even one statistics related question asked by other students there. In comparison, another student there had been to Cambridge, was a Scout Leader, played Tenis tournements, badminton, swimming, kayaking, etc, etc, played 5 instruments, several of which were self taught, had a job, career goals, owned a house and was doing a PhD part time. What Dave found bizare was that when the two of them spoke, it was Dave who came across as the confident one. In fact, Dave had somehow managed to sound fairly confident throughout the whole event. He had even fooled at least one person into thinking he was "a good comunicator". How he had pulled that off he had no idea.

After a long hard day, Dave got back to his room and collasped onto his bed. Of cause, being used to a double bed and being very tired, he misjudged his fall going head first into the wall. That hurt. Thankfully, no one was around to see that moment of stupidity.

No one would ever know.

Dad

They had finally caught him. The Giant Greek Monkey, thought by many to be a myth. They had caught him and operated on him, removed the tumour from his bladder and forced him to lie around for several days to recover. The operation had been a complete success, though they would keep an eye on the rare specimen just to be safe.

Dave and Jean watched as the animal turned and struggled, anxious to be free of the various tubes sticking in various places, desperate to be rid of the annoying drip, longing, hopelessly longing to return to the wild where he belonged.

This Monkey was, of cause, Dave's father.

"Dad, can we get you anything? Anything at all? Food, drink? A Pizza?"

"No, no," grumbled the beast, "I'm fine."

"Some coke?"

"Yes."

When the couple returned with a large amount of coke the Monkey's eyes finally lit up, clearly reminded of the rivers of coke from back home. The pleasure was short lived, however, when the nurse informed him no fizzy drinks.

"Dad, can we get you anything else? Anything at all? Food, drink? A Pizza?"

"No, no," grumbled the beast, "I'm fine."

The Monkey's other son, Alan, showed up a little later. The brothers and Jean asked several more times if he wanted anything and eventually gave up. Alan got down to the more important task of taking the p*ss, Dave laughed and Jean fell asleep. The Monkey longed for home more and more with each passing moment.

At the end of visiting hours, Dave's dad turned to the brothers and said, "Why didn't you buy me anything to eat? I'll be hungry in an hour."

In his weakened state he probably would have been alot easier to kill. The thought clearly crossed both the brothers' minds.

They convinced the nurses to extend visiting hours a little longer, picked up a ham and pineapple pizza and delivered it.

"Enjoy."

Consequence of Insulting Sod's Law

Dave woke early, he had a dentist appointment at 10:15am. He had not been to this dentist before. He left with plenty of time to get there and, despite getting lost for a while, still arrived with almost 30 min to spare.

He sat down in the waiting area and banged his head on an awkwardly positioned cabinet.

After almost an hour wait, he went in to see the dentist.
"I've been told I need root canal work done."

"Oh..." said the dentist, and then she explained that due to the cost of root canal work, she was unable to offer it. Dave would need to go elsewhere.

Having wasted his morning, Dave swung back to Uni where he would meet his supervisor. There he spent the majority of his afternoon learning how inadequate his PhD work currently was.

"I remember my other student, Alex, he let me down enormously," his supervisor told him, "You remind me alot of him."

Onwards, Dave jumped on a bus to work. Here, dispite most of the bus being empty, a lady of aproximately 55 years of age, very drunk and ugly, decided to sit next to Dave.

"I want you up inside me," she informed Dave
"Go away," said Dave.

The conversation continued like this for the majority of the journey, a journey which usually takes 10 - 20 min, but for some reason today took half an hour.

"Why don't you wanna sh'.. me?" she asked
"There are too many reasons to list, go away, there are plenty of empty seats, pick one."

She swayed back and forth, half way between failing to look sexy and almost falling over, the result was almost comical. Most of her words were too badly slurred to be understood, but the occasional sentence came out.

"I wanna f**k you."
"That will NEVER happen, you're replusive, go away."

Eventually, a kind gentleman getting off the bus stole her glasses as he walked past and informed her if she wanted them back she would have to come and get them. She finally left. Dave thanked the man from the bottom of his heart.

Next up, as he went door to door, it started to piss down.

And the perfect end to the perfect day, he got a paper cut.

Dream On

Last night Dave had a dream.

He dreamt that he was back at his old junior school, a school which in real life has now been demolished. It was just as he had remembered it. A school kid came up to him and asked him why he was still here and Dave suddenly realised it was all a dream, but he didn't want to wake up, he wanted to look around while he still could. It was a pleasant trip down memory lane.

He went over to a small cabinet and started looking at the things there. He picked something up, he later couldn't remember what it was, but he looked at the bottom. There was a serial number. 112116. He repeated it to himself several times. He wanted to remember it. See if it was a real serial number in real life. 112116.

Suddenly the 2 moved, dreams were like that, so Dave wasn't too concerned. It was now 121116. The 2 moved back and forth a few more times, but no other change occured. 112116, 121116, 112116, 121116....

Dave, finally sure he would remember the numbers on waking, continued his look around his childhood memories.

Eventually, he woke up.

He did indeed remember the numbers on waking, and, although in the real world he thought it alot sillier than his dream self, he decided to do a quick google search.

112116

The first page that jumped up was "Prime Curios!", a site which had unusual facts about Prime numbers. It said:

"One of only two six digit integers, abcdef, that has the property that both (abcdef)/(a+b+c+d+e+f) and (abcdef)/(a*b*c*d*e*f) are both prime. Coincidentally, they are the same prime. "

Interesting, if you like that kind of thing, but it was about to get a whole lot stranger...

121116

The second page that jumped up was, again, "Prime Curios!". Dave simply could not believe his eyes....

"The larger, of only two six-digit integers, abcdef, that has the property that both (abcdef)/(a+b+c+d+e+f) and (abcdef)/(a*b*c*d*e*f) are both prime. Coincidentally, they are the same prime. "

The words "only two" hit him like a ton of bricks. There were 900,000 possible 6 digit numbers. Only two of them had this property. To get 1 of them was fairly meaningless, since most numbers have some kind of property, but to get both? And "only" both?

Dave was certain he had never heard of either of these numbers before.

That was spooky.

Gifts

Giving up gifts was not easy for Dave. Not easy at all. In fact, it was surprisingly difficult.

It had all looked so simply on paper. All he had to do was tell everyone they didn't need to get him anything any more, though they could donate to charity if they wished and that would be that. He had no real desire to recieve presents and it would be nice to make his little stand against the tide. Simple.

In practice it didn't work that way. People wanted to give him gifts. Giving gifts at birthdays and Christmas seems deeply, deeply associated with showing you care. People wanted to show they cared. Further, refusing gifts or asking not to recieve any seemed to insult people.

"My gifts aren't good enough?"

This was not the intention and completely not true. The gifts he had recieved were all top quality stuff which he was very thankful for. Why then did Dave not want any more?

Dave had two main problems with gifts.

Firstly, the fact that more money is spent on just the wrapping paper, never mind the gifts, every year than on charities is quite horrific. Add to this the amount of waste created by said wrapping paper, along with packaging etc. It just doesn't seem right.

Secondly, gifts do not equal love. Love equals love. Gifts can be a sign of love, but it's not always the case and it's certainly not the only way to show it. Dave wished he could live in a world where people could feel the love without the gifts.

Alas, this was not the case. People wanted to give and recieve and were hurt if this was taken away. Dave did not want to hurt anyone.

Perhaps some battles just weren't worth fighting.

Happy Birthday Dave

Dave woke up feeling like s**t. His nose was blocked, his head was banging and his throat felt pretty rough. In a few hours he would need to give his annual speech in Uni, defending his PhD to the entire department, or face failing the course.

It was, of cause, Dave's 23rd birthday.

In addition to giving the speech, Dave had also been left in charge of setting the speech up. Of cause, the key required to get to the laptop went awol. Luckily he had started searching for it almost an hour early, because it wasn't found until 5 minutes late.

Finally ready, his flashkey decided that even though it had worked fine a few hours earlier, it wouldn't bother to work now. Thankfully, Dave had thought of this and had also emailed himself another copy of the file.

Show time.

30 -50 min the speech should last. Over an hour of constant questions later, Dave finally got a chance to sit down. His wife decided to take him out for a romantic meal for two.

During the meal, he recieved a phone call from his supervisor. He would be going on holiday for over a week and wanted to talk to Dave about how his speech went. Of cause, he wanted Dave to call him back, because it was costing him too much to talk on his mobile. Dave did so, and was told all the wonderful shortcomings of his speech and his work in general and how it all needed alot more added to it. A very long phone call, but Dave paid for it, so that was fine.

When the phone call had started the meal had not yet arrived. When the phone call had ended, Jean had already finished her meal (and half of his) and his food had gone cold.

"Happy Birthday Dave!"

Despite all this, Dave did manage to have a decent day. He recieved message after message from family and friends filled with hugs, snogs, congrats, best wishes and a million happy birthdays.

In all honesty, what more could anyone ask for?

The Law of the Sod

With his wife away, Dave hadn't slept well at all. Try as he might he could just not get used to her absense. Still, she would only be gone for a week and he would sleep plenty on her return.

Now, with his wife finally back at his side, Dave once again could not sleep.

He had toothache.

"Bloody Sod and his stupid laws!"

Third time lucky.

"Hey mum, what's up?"

"Nothing, just wanted to check how you were since Jean is away."

"I'm fine..."

"Are you sleeping OK?"

Jean was away in Birmingham for a work related training course. She'd been gone almost a week, in which time Dave had been lucky to get 6 hours sleep in a night. That his mum had guessed this straight off led him to believe he probably took after his mum, and that she herself had had a few sleepless nights whenever his dad had been away. Either that or he'd went on about it too much the last time he'd been away from Jean. Whichever.

Dave's sister was spring cleaning, better late than never, Dave's sister in law was almost a teacher and Dave's brother in law had quit smoking. Things were looking good. Dave's dad would be going into hospital for an operation, again, sometime early July. Hopefully, it'd be third time lucky.

"Jean's birthday is around then right?"

"Yup," said Dave

"She's going to be 25?"

"Yup."

"When I first met her she said she would have babies when she was 25."

"..."

"Dave?"

Jean... this says June...

Jean had passed her test, all the documents were ready, everything was all set to send away for her new unlimited Visa. The website mentioned a warning to say do not apply more than 28 days before your current visa runs out. The visa was suppose to be expiring near the begining of July, it was now June 3rd, everything was going according to plan.

Dave decided to check the date on the visa to see if they could send away now or if they had to wait another week.

"... hmmm... Jean... this says June not July... your visa expired two days ago..."

"Oh well, guess we'll just send it away now," said Jean (Note, these were not her exact words, but children could be reading this.)

So they calmly got all the finishing touches done and dusted and it was sent of the very next morning.

And they all lived happily ever after.

...hopefully.

Exam Stress

Dave had never worried about exams. He had never found any reason to worry. An exam was simply sitting down and answering questions. There were no "hard" questions, you either knew the answer or you didn't, and, lucky for Dave, he usually knew more than he didn't.

In fact, doing a PhD, Dave kind of missed the simple life of exams. And yet, during the past few weeks, one exam had given him more stress than every other examination he had ever taken all rolled into one. The really hard part was it wasn't his exam to take.

The result of his wife's Life in The UK test may very well determine his entire life and all he could do was sit outside the exam room and wait. And wait...

Liverpool central Library proved to be very poorly managed. The test is made up of 24 pointless questions answered on a computer with imediate results available and each person has a maximum of 45 min in which to complete it. The majority of people, pass or fail, finish it with at least 15 min to spare. So how did the Library manage to make the whole procedure last for over 2 hrs?

Dave waited...

Weeks and weeks of endless study for this examination, some of which involved Jean, and now it was just a very long 2 hours away from being over.

Finally the results were in, although in true Library style they were handed out one by one as slowly as possible. Finally the time came...

"Jing Luo?"

Jean rushed into the little room, was handed a piece of paper and came out with a smile.

It was a pass.

It was also the fakest looking certificate in the history of certificates. It was a normal paper A4 print off of Jean's details with the word "Pass" stamped on it.

"Keep this safe, we will not provide another copy," Jean was told as she left. 'I don't think I'll need one,' thought Jean, 'I could print off a dozen more myself.'

Still, a pass was a pass, and with the madness finally over, Dave and Jean met up with Macca for a Chinese and a Pint.

All in all 100% successful trip.

Update?

"So," said Dave, "How's me dad?"

"Well," said Dave's mum....

Dave's dad had always had a thing for having a somewhat pessimistic view when it came to his personal health. For example, on one occassion when he discovered his hands had turned a slightly blue colour he immediately assumed he was about to die. Dave's mum had pointed out that it was dye from his gloves and therefore not all that lethal.

With this in mind, Dave could only begin to imagine what his dad had thought when they sat him in a chair and said, "Mr Natsios, the check we are about to do to discover what the growth is will involve us going up the urethra and scratching a small piece off for testing. You will be awake throughout the entire thing and if it goes wrong, which is unlikely, your urethra could swell up and you will be unable to use it and you will need to be hooked up to a bag."

Dave's dad left the hospital without having the check.

After a few days and a few chats with Dave's mum, he finally had the courage to go back and have the check. However the hospital had other ideas. He was placed directly into a cancer ward and was about to be given an operation to remove the growth without bothering to discover how serious it was. "If this goes wrong, which is unlikely, you may end up in a wheelchair..."

Dave's dad left the hospital again without having anything done. The current situation was, despite the trips to the hospital, nothing further was known and nothing further had been done.

... "and then, as your dad was leaving the hospital, the doctor said to him, I can see your not ready Mr Natsios, but please come back soon, I don't want my patient to die."

Dave took the news, or lack of news, rather well. He would hopefully find out more soon, but for now there was nothing much to worry about.

The next morning Dave woke up in a flood of tears, but, on the bright side, it got him out of bed before 10am on a saturday, which was almost unheard of.

"He's going to be fine," said Jean,

"He's going to be fine."

MyHeritage.com

Dave had discovered a great new game. MyHeritage.com. Basically, it's a website on which you up load pictures of yourself, friends and family. The site then uses state of the art techniques to decide which 10 celebrities the person in the picture looks most like.

When you think about it, that's pretty damn clever.

To Dave's horror his photo had a 50% match to Justin Timberlake, the celebrity certain people had tried to convince Dave he looked like, which Dave had always found to be nonsense. He apparently also had a 55% match to Sean Hayes, the really gay friend of Will in Will and Grace.

To Dave's amusement, other peoples photos had had some fairly interesting results....

Jean: 56% match to Joseph E. Stiglitz (guy going bald with a beard)
Dave's mum: 53% match to Uri Geller, 50% match to David Schwimmer (Ross from friends)
Dave's dad: 55% match to Whoopi Goldberg, 55% match to the Dalai Lama and 52% match to the Prince of Wales. (How is it even slightly possible for anyone to get that combination?)
Alan: 66% match to Isabella Rossellini
Andrea: 70% match to Madonna, 68% match to Wentworth Miller (guy from Prisonbreak)
Steven: 72% match to Meg Ryan, 63% match to Audrey Tautou and actually 9 of 10 of his matches were women.
Peter: 48% match to Christina Aguilera
Emma: 70% match to Katie Holmes
Anya: 55% match to Naomi Campbell

Aline: 71% match to Britney Spears
Macca: 70% match to Sarah Jessica Parker (the main one from Sex in the City). As with Ste, 9 out of 10 of these matches were women.

‘So’, thought Dave, ‘If I look like Justin Timberlake, I’m taking everyone else down with me.’

Context

"Growth"

What do you think of when you hear the word "Growth"?

The evironmentalist may think of new forests and plant life.
The parent may think of how quickly there little ones seem to shoot up.
The pyscologist may think of an individual's maturity.
The builder may think of expanding cities and highways.
The Head of Tesco may think of world domination.

Unfortanetly, when Dave heard the word recently he didn't have the luxory of any of these interpretations.

"Dave," said his mum, "Your dad's had his tests, they found a growth on his bladder..."

Dave didn't know what to think. He knew what he most certainly did NOT want to think of, but that was the thing that kept coming to him anyway.

The doctors didn't know what it was yet. They would do some more tests. There was a wide range of possiblities with an equally wide range of how serious it could be.

For now, Dave could only hope, prayer and say, "It's bound to be nothing".

Failure

Dave had set himself 3 challenges for Lent. Now, with Lent done and dusted, he could see his results.

No sweets: Passed
No alcohol: Passed
Daily pressups and weekly swimming: Failed. Not even close.

He could give himself list upon list of excuses why it hadn't happened. He could blame this. that or the other. He could console himself with the words of meatloaf that "two outa three aiin't bad".

Or he could simply accept the cold hard reality that he had completely failed and begin training for next year.

...right after he finished these chocy eggs....

Playing with Wiki.

Wikipedia. The greatest invention since sliced bread, which, according to Wikipedia, first came out in July 1928. Endless volumes of infinite knowledge. Dave was fairly certain he would have failed his PhD miserably had it not been around. It could also be used as a wonderfully entertaining game.

"Jing Luo"

Gives Jing Jing Luo, famous chinese composer

"McNeilis"

Gives "Danger Man"

and

"Natsios"

Gives "The Return of The Bastards"

Wikipedia really did know everything.

Best of British

When were women given the right to vote?
In which year will be the next census?
How wide is the widest point of Britain?
What year were women allowed to divorce their husbands?
What percentage of young people go into higher education?
How many years was the second world war?

Okay, an easy one:
Who is the head of the Government?

Prime Minister? Nope, The Queen.

Apparently, knowing the answers to all of these questions and many more like them is essential if you wish to blend in to the day to day British life as they all appear in the "Life in the UK" test which must be passed by anyone who wishes to stay indefinately in this country. Previously, passing the test was only required when applying for a British Passport. From April 2nd 2007 it has been extended to anyone who wishes indefinate leave to remain even if they don't want to be British.
This was somewhat bothersome for Dave. It meant his wife, Jean, now had only two months in which to learn all this "incredibly useful" information and pass the test. This time was shortened further because the new book relevant for the new tests from April 2nd was not yet available. Added to the £35 fee for the test and the £10 fee for the book, the couple were also now faced with an increase of the visa price from £335 to £750. That's an increase of 124%. Apparently this was a perfectly fair charge and should be paid for by legal foreigners, since the extra money would be used to keep illegal foreigners out.
For some reason, Dave couldn't quite figure out the logic with that.