a fair old bit has happened since I last spoke at you.
I've been for an appointment at a private hospital in Manchester to discuss the potential of our trying another cycle of IVF. Following that, we buggered off to Scarborough for a 4 night break. Came home and watched England beat the Kazak's 4-0, and now the BNP have won two European Parliamentary Seats.
The visit to the hospital was interesting. I had to produce a "sample" (wank in a pot, basically). I was escorted into a small room, which had several prints on the wall of things like the Eiffel tower, the twin towers, and other such phallic imagery. To help me along, they had a plentiful supply of soft porn. The stuff of 15 year old boys dreams. Readers Wives, Escort and Fiesta. How these publications make money in these modern internet days is beyond me, but still. Having done this before, I was prepared this time. I downloaded and converted loads of porn for viewing on my iPod. Job done. I had 3 sperms in my sample. None of them moving, but hey - god bless them for trying.
We then drove, for what seems like an eternity, over to Scarborough. We arrived at the caravan site where we were staying only to find that the security people had no keys for us. After waiting for 40 minutes, someone with a clue turned up and found the keys. Hmph. The holiday itself was really nice, though. We stayed at Cayton Bay, which is equidistant between Scarborough and Filey. We visited both places and had a lovely time. Luke tripped over my feet and banged his head on the ground. His head is grazed, and my lovely wife is telling everyone I assaulted him.
We were going to visit Flamingo Land on the last day of the holiday before driving home that evening. Sky News told us the night before that the weather on the Friday was going to be shocking, so we decided to drive home early Friday instead. The weather turned out to be lovely. Bloody Sky News weather. Uber-fit presenters, but rubbish forecasting.
On Saturday we had friends round to watch England vs Kazakhstan. It was a lovely afternoon / evening that we spent together. Their two daughters seemed to poo almost constantly, so that was amusing (and slightly smelly). Oh yeah - I rang Morrisons to complain about a pizza we'd bought. It had ingredients missing off it. I've never rung one of those phone lines before now but I was enraged that not only did it have ingredients missing, but those that were present were sparse. I am waiting on a call back from William Morrison plc today.
Sunday saw me officially become middle aged. I've been middle aged in my head for as long as I can remember, but given I am now 35, and I have no optimism that I will live beyond 70, I am middle aged. Initially, I greeted middle age with despair, but I'm kind of getting used to it now. My slightly large middle can be put down to "middle aged spread". Brilliant! I am looking forward to other "middle aged" things happening soon. We travelled down to my sister-in-laws on Sunday afternoon where we were all treated to a birthday curry from The Viceroy. Very very nice it was too!!
Sunday evening saw the count of the European Elections. There has been a furore (one of my top 5 words) over the BNP securing two seats. I've had a mooch round the news websites this morning, and I have learned that just over 14 Million people voted, and the BNP secured just over 900,000 votes. The response to this on Twitter has been interesting. Just about everyone (except some Aussie bloke who's pissed off with the rioting Indians in Melbourne) is of the opinion that it's a sad day in politics, all the Brit's have become racists and how could this happen in our green a pleasant land.
I believe that rather than being upset with the BNP, who have, to be fair to them, performed very well given their minority support, we need to question why over 900,000 voted for them. The BNP has the image of being a party of racists, but what they did in the run up to this election was campaigned in towns and villages who might be, say, more tolerant of them, at grass roots level. Problems with wheely bins, and litter, and the state of parks and gardens, etc. They promised to tackle simple things like that. That sort of campaigning won people over. When it came to the time to visit the poll booths, all the media reports of MP's expenses are still at the forefront of people's minds, and they trust nobody. And then they remember the "nice" man from the BNP who promised to sort out the wheely bin collections, and they place an X in a box.
I doubt very much indeed that the BNP will hold on to either of their two European seats in the next election. They should act as a huge kick up the arse of the mainstream parties, conveying the message that the UK populus is running out of political options.
I'm off for a haircut.
