Day 1043 – 31st January 2010

Let me start by saying this: arse.

Yes, it’s the news that Andy Murray lost the Australian Open final this morning. I actually managed to go through the VPN at uni and watch it. It was, as ever, very tense. This was probably worse than watching Henman, because Murray is actually very capable of beating Roger Federer.

Sadly it wasn’t to be, it only took three sets for the Swiss to overcome the plucky Brit – didn’t go out without a fight, but he was outclassed pretty much on all fronts.

Now, there was something else I was going to mention, but it’s slipped my mind so it can’t have been that interesting – not that anything I prattle on about really is.

Oh yeah, it’s the last day of January – one twelfth of the year gone. Not really got a point to make here, probably why I initially forgot about it.

Day 1042 – 30th January 2010

Today was quite a contrast from yesterday, weather-wise and otherwise. It’s the weekend, so I tend to do very little. I did very little.

The psycho guy is back in the corridor, but all he’s doing is shouting again so I can’t be arsed to get another recording – I’ll only do that if it gets worse, there’s already enough audio of a mad man screaming to last us a lifetime.

Day 1041 – 29th January 2010

I now have a keyboard – which is nice. I feel like I can type again now – there’s little use in a massive screen if you still have to sit at your laptop to use the computer!

It’s been a strange day – the sun beaming over everywhere this morning then quickly making a disappearance, plunging us all into a greyness only surpassed by the UK. This evening I could see the remains of a wonderful sunset in the distance, but it was just that – in the distance. It seems a giant cloud has settled on this town. Judging by recent activity, it’s probably smokes from fires in the street.

People here seem to shift into some kind of strange ‘bad weather’ mode, or should I say ‘sun’s not shining’ mode. Not a drop of water has fallen from the skies today, yet I saw two people walking around with umbrellas over their heads, and they weren’t together. If I see someone in a sowester anytime I’ll try and get a picture.

Day 1040 – 28th January 2010

Some guy downstairs has decided to try his hand at DIY. Early this afternoon, I heard a large crack then a bang. That smoke you see all the way down on the ground floor is concrete dust. Whatever happened, it’s left a thin film of grey powder everywhere.

I’m sure this wouldn’t have happened if it were easier to find a builder here.

Day 1039 – 27th January 2010

As part of my course, I have to write a journal of my experience here in Spain. I’ve been hacking away at the bloody thing for ages now and it seems fairly dull and meaningless. I suppose I could say the same thing about this, but it doesn’t seem the same somehow.

With this, if I’ve got nothing to say, then I say nothing – just the picture. With the journal, I have to think of something, or make something up, whatever big load of shite it ends up being – it’s not like I’ve got nothing else to do either. I shall stop moaning before people from the languages department start trying to ram some sort of meaning for it down my throat.

Day 1038 – 26th January 2010

Remember hit US sitcom ‘Cheers’? Neither do I. Believe it or not, this is the hottest place in town. It is, of course, closed.

This place isn’t alone – there’s a steak house called ‘Dallas’ (with pictures of the statue of liberty inside…) and a bar called ‘Hawaii 5-0’. I’m just waiting for the murder she wrote strip club to open and this place shall be complete.

Day 1037 – 25th January 2010

So, my neighbour from downstairs is moving back to the UK next week, and he said he’d sell me his old monitor for 25 euros – I took his word for it when he told me it was all in working order etc…

Anyway, he turns up with it this morning and here it is – just look at the size of that bastard. This screen dwarfs every web page I come across – I feel like it’s about to swallow me up! It’s all good though, and I’ve just about got room for it (didn’t think I’d need that much!) so I’m a happy man. It’s actually quite useful – my laptop screen is really very small, not just compared to this behemoth but also in reality.

Got haircut today – bit of an event for me, as I just worked out it only happens three times a year. I was proposed the mullet and successfully turned it down although besides that one I was asked a strange set of questions, like ‘over or behind the ear?’ and ‘do you want any off the sides?’. I managed to come out only with a centre parting – which made me look like a freak but was quickly ironed out upon exit.

Day 1036 – 24th January 2010

I don’t talk much about football, not every week anyway, but today was a momentous occasion in the history of Stoke City. They beat Arsenal 3-1 in the FA cup!

I would joke about it being miraculous, and how they somehow managed this feat, but the truth is quite satisfying – they actually played well and won. It’s no fairytale, no one was robbed, there was no ridiculous extra time, just a straight win.

The people at the bar downstairs kindly switched ITV on for me, but I was alone in the whole place. It’s a bizarre feeling watching the football in utter silence, the bartender’s eyes fixed on your drink poised to offer you a refill – they clearly don’t get much business at this time of year…

Anyway, well done to Stoke – in all my days of supporting them that’s the first time I’ve ever actually seen them score live on TV. Someone did point out that the only time they would appear on TV is when they come up against big sides like Arsenal – fair point.

Day 1035 – 23rd January 2010

Ooh yeah look at my burgers. Couldn’t get the Chernobyl cheese to melt, even under the grill, so I gave up and used the slices as coasters.

Day 1034 – 22nd January 2010

I drove out to the east side of the island this afternoon, just to see what was going on – I hadn’t been out there for a while. I got stopped three times by the police – they’d set themselves up at almost every roundabout I came to. I don’t know what the rozzers are looking for here, but I get stopped almost every time I go out in the car – they are literally all over the place. It’s beginning to feel slightly oppressive…

When I wasn’t being questioned or having my details taken I managed to get a picture – surprised there’s no fuzz in it.

Day 1033 – 21st January 2010

I wish someone would hurry up and invent a safe, easy to use jet pack. If they don’t I’ll have to give up teaching and do it myself. You have been warned.

Day 1032 – 20th January 2010

There’s a bakery that’s opened near me. It’s open every day, even Sunday mornings. Nothing happens on a Sunday here, and acquiring food within a ten mile radius of where I live is difficult. It’s not Sunday today, but I tried it anyway.

It’s pants.

I bought two different kinds of bread, a loaf which was dry and bland, and a baguette, which was rubbery. I bought some croissants. They were greasy. One of them even had some congealed fat on the bottom. They are the worst croissants I’ve ever had, and I’ve had some fucking bad croissants in my time.

I keep telling myself I won’t go back, but when I forget to get bread in for the weekend next week I’ll probably end up going in. Who knows, it might get better. It’ll have to if it wants to stay open, it’s not a good situation to be in as a baker when the bread at the petrol station is better than yours.

I’m a sucker for pictures like today’s – especially now I’ve got a tripod.

Day 1031 – 19th January 2010

Something had been bugging me for a while here – I’d been feeling cramped, slightly penned in. Then it dawned on me – the curtains are taking up a whole lot of space here for such a small room. So, I took them down.

They were horrible, moth eaten and drab. In fact, the moth damage was worse then I thought – they started to disintegrate as the slightest breeze. Not good for something that hangs by a window. They’re gone now and it feels good, it feels open and slightly airier. There’s an awning outside so if the light gets too much I can just use that, but I always sleep curtains open anyway – I like the natural light coming in.

I had to go through the whole quest for gas once again today – took an hour, which is only a third of the time it took me last time, but still quite a while. For our American cousins, when I say gas I mean gas, not petrol. Although I got some of that too. Whilst riding the energy wave I thought I might as well get some batteries to top it all off.

Day 1030 – 18th January 2010

I’m not even going to try and explain this.

Just before I go to bed, a quick happy birthday to my mother, uuh… happy birthday.

Day 1029 – 17th January 2010

Senor psycho made a bit of a comeback today, this time involving eggs – he even shouted in English at one point. You can hear the goings on here, here and here.

It’s quickly becoming old news, but I think it’s worth a mention – Google has decided to no longer censor its search results in China, even if that means completely pulling out of the country. This follows an attack on their mail system coming from China, trying to hack into the accounts of human rights activists.

It’s a long story, but I mention it not only because it’s good news to see a big company do the right thing, but also because it could mark the start of a shift on how giant corporations deal with the freedom of speech and human rights issues that trading in China inevitably throws up.

I should say, in the interests of full disclosure, that this site is banned in China. It’s hosted by Google, so that probably won’t improve anytime soon! It’ll be very interesting indeed to see what happens in the next few weeks/months…

As a quick addition to yesterday’s post – if you want a quick way to donate to the Red Cross’ efforts in Haiti, then I just discovered that you can donate through the iTunes music store. It’s the same as buying anything else on there – 1 click and it’s done.

Day 1028 – 16th January 2010

I’ve heard a massive explosion outside. Looking out of the window, all I could see was a blaze about two hundred yards down the road, so I went to investigate. Turns out it had nothing to do with the explosion, but people were having a bonfire in the street.

I kid you not, the people in the picture are standing on the pavement and the massive fire is smack bang in the middle of the street. They were having a barbecue (you can see its smoke on the right), and using this to warm themselves up. It’s 11 degrees outside – maybe a slightly extreme measure for such a mild climate?

You’ve probably heard about the earthquake in Haiti. It’s a tragic, tragic event and one of the biggest disasters of all time, death toll estimates reach above 100,000 people, although no one can be sure. I’m not sure it matters.

As with so many natural disasters throughout history, people in Britain and throughout the world have pulled together in an effort to donate as much money as possible to the organisations providing vital aid to the affected area.

However, some people have taken advantage of this and set up scams to ‘cash in’ on people’s good will. I have been asked to provide this link, from Google, as a guide for people who want to donate, or want more information. Not only does it have instant donation buttons, it also has a list of organisations taking part in the relief effort, and information on missing persons etc…

Day 1027 – 15th January 2010

Pancakes! As with almost every time I have them, I have too many and I’m now stuffed. I can barely move. It’s difficult to type right now, that involves leaning forwards which I don’t particularly want to do for obvious reasons. I wish they’d invent a keyboard that typed what you were thinking – that would be the height of laziness.

Day 1026 – 14th January 2010

I got some new shoes today. I don’t get many, so it’s probably worth a mention.  I’m normally a Timberland fan, but this time I went for the local brand – Campers. The picture makes them look like boots, they are not boots – just normal shoes. It’s quite dull really.

Day 1025 – 13th January 2010

It’s been a very windy day indeed, strong enough to pick up debris and rubble. Someone told me a house brick hit this window in the entrance. As I was walking down the street in town towards the post office, all kinds of things were flying around me, branches, signs, hats – I even saw a flagpole come down…

If I’d had more guts today’s picture would have been yet another example of weirdos in town. I saw a guy bending over, scrabbling around on the ground putting stuff into a bag. I was going to help him, he’d obviously spilt his shopping or something, when I noticed what it was he was picking up. Hundreds upon thousands of burger king ketchup sachets.

For some reason this man had decided to hoard these things, dropped them, then was embarrassingly picking them up before anyone would notice. I thought it perhaps best not to get involved, but I was so tempted to get a picture – I just couldn’t bring myself to stick my camera in his face at what was clearly a low point in his life.

Day 1024 – 12th January 2010

Check this out – it’s my new space heater. It heats bugger all really, but it kind of does the job if you’re right next to it, which I am.

I’m really annoyed with the postman. I’ve been in all day – so imagine my surprise when I find a slip in the post box downstairs saying sorry we missed you and that I need to go to the post office to pick up a parcel! Nobody ever knocked on the door in the first place! Grr…

Day 1023 – 11th January 2010

It’s that old bedroom window shot again. I don’t think I’ve featured it for a while now though, but when ever you see that hill over there in the distance, then rest assured that very little happened on that day.

I set out quite determined, I went to the dentists, but they were closed, I went to see the builder, he wasn’t in – all I managed to really get done was some food shopping, and even then they were out of cheese and carrots.

One thing I did do though was take a shot in  widescreen. It looks pretty good to me, and I’d love to take it on for the site – but it’d require a whole lot of a redesign to compensate for the extra width. Plus, I don’t think widescreen shots suit everything, whereas your standard 4:3 can pretty much do you for anything you like – as I’ve seen over the pass thousand days or so. So I don’t think it’s time for such a radical change, but you can check out the picture here if you want.

Day 1022 – 10th January 2010

I hate to repeat what seems like the same picture over and over again, but I have spent most of the day catching up on some recording work, so there’s little else I can do. Plus, it’s a Sunday so nothing’s open and it’s been fairly miserable outside – a perfect day for being cooped up inside with the laptop and the microphone.

No raging psychopaths in the hallway today though – it seems like most of the damage was repaired from yesterday. I hope it stays that way, although I have to say that the occasional raging nutter bastard does make the day quite interesting!

Day 1021 – 9th January 2010

Snow! In the med! It’s pretty much unobtainable, I noticed a couple of roads leading up to the mountains were closed, but it’s there. I haven’t actually seen a flake fall from the skies, but I hear they got some down south in Palma.

I got stopped by the police today, on this very journey in fact. I noticed they’d set themselves up on the roundabout near my house, and they let me through on my way out. On the way back home, they decided to pull me over. I wouldn’t mention it if it hadn’t had taken so long. When I opened the window, the officer said he’d seen me go through twice and asked me why. That seemed to be a stupid question, as I was going in opposite directions, but I just nodded.

Anyway, I parked up and they searched the car. They then asked me to get back in the car and one of them said ‘Do you smoke weed?’ I said I didn’t, which is true, but then he said ‘I’m sorry sir, I’m going to have to take your details.’

The whole process took half an hour – I guess I must look particularly shifty.

Then later on – another weird thing happened. Remember the crazy swastika guy from Day 919? Well, if you do you’ll be pleased to know that he came back today. You can listen to the two-part account of it here and here. I couldn’t get a picture of the carnage, there were police everywhere and my camera ran out of battery (a first for picture of the day, by the way).

It’s been a strange, strange day. All of it goes further towards my theory that I am currently living in the twilight zone. The thing is, stuff like this (maybe not as extreme, the crazy guy trashed the place) happens almost every day – I just don’t really take notice of it anymore. It’s probably best I don’t.

Day 1020 – 8th January 2010

My school career taught me that warm air rises, cools, condenses and then – it rains. Today, as you can see, it did just that. In fact, it’s still doing just that. Once again the skies have opened and once again the roads are blocked. It was particularly bad this time though, I thought it was going to short the electrics in my car – I was literally wading at some points.

Needless to say I didn’t go out on the bike today.

Day 1019 – 7th January 2010

What a miserable day it’s been. Drizzling non-stop, ever since I woke up. There definitely was a nip in the air – I wanted to go out to get some bread and it took me half an hour to de-fog the screen!

Word on the street is that something’s happened to the postman – nobody’s seen any mail for about a week now. If you ask me it’s probably got something to do with the string of bank holidays and days off – yesterday being another one of those.

I’m a bit under the weather today – I seem to have yet another headache. I seem to be getting ill like this so much more often since I came out to Mallorca – it’s only really ever in short bursts, but it’s maybe once every two weeks, sometimes even weekly. I’ve tried more exercise and a healthier diet, and whilst that’s making me feel more energetic and better overall, it’s really not helping with the headaches. Can a place make you ill? Unlikely. I’m sure I’ll get over it…

I hear Jonathan Ross announced he is leaving the BBC today. I’ve never been a hater of his like many people are, but I’m not exactly sad to see him go – that’s a whole load of license fee cash they’ll be saving on him alone. Having said that – if Graham Norton takes his job then we’ll all have learnt to be careful what we wished for.

I won’t go on, there’s been too much talk of it already, but I should add that this does coincide somewhat neatly with the corporation-wide pay cuts taking place at the BBC…

Day 1018 – 6th January 2010

There it is – the bike picture. No interesting backdrop or anything, but it’ll do for now! If you’re living in the UK right now, you’d probably look at this with disbelief – it does seem rather like a summer’s day. My thoughts do go out to you if you’re stuck in the snow – I do rather miss the white stuff though…

The sharp ones among will have noticed the pictures have got bigger. Obviously, being a site all about photos, size really does matter, but there’s always been a thin line between having a massive picture and ending up with having to scroll sideways – really annoying. Statistically, the average screen size has got wider, so it shouldn’t be a problem for you.

If, however, you are one of those people who now has to scroll sideways, then I can only apologise. The aesthetic gain makes it a price worth paying, I think.

Day 1017 – 5th January 2010

Upon getting in from work, I went round to a friend’s house a few block away, on my bike of course. He showed me how to open a bottle with a lighter. It’s those small things in life that keep me entertained…

Anyway, apart from the above, I’ve been riding around like a crazy man – I’ve got nowhere to go, but at this rate I’m bound to get there soon…

Day 1016 – 4th January 2010

Yo. I’m getting into this bike riding lark now – takes me back to my youth. I’m riding around everywhere aimlessly. Unfortunately, much like when I’m walking, I have a tendency to want to go as fast as possible. As a result, I’m tired. Hey, it can’t be doing any harm.

I won’t go on today, but I should mention that my neighbours have the ‘Florence + The Machine’ album on really loud. If you’re thinking of buying it, don’t – it’s really naf.

Day 1015 – 3rd January 2010

Taking pictures with your camera strapped to your bike isn’t as easy as it seems. This is the best one I got. I think you can just about make out the brake cables, the basket and the smudged front lamp.

I’ll try better tomorrow – probably easier if I go out when there’s more light. That said, I wouldn’t mind blurry pictures if they actually looked good! One day I’ll get the perfect one, you’ll see.

It seems Leeds knocked Manchester United out of the FA cup today – if you haven’t followed the league for 20 years you’d think it no big deal, but nowadays Leeds are two leagues below the red devils. Not good.

Day 1014 – 2nd January 2010

My New Year’s resolution was to find something that makes a half decent cup of coffee in the morning. I did. In fact, this one’ll do it anytime you like. It’s a pain in the arse to clean out – but that’s a small price to pay.

Believe it or not, I now own a bike. I got it cheap through a friend – it only has one gear, but otherwise it’s fine. I think I might use it to go to the supermarket etc, it’s got a basket – the exercise can’t do me any harm either.

Thanks to my new bendy tripod, I realised I can fix my camera to the front of it, so I hope to get a cool ‘bike eye view’ shot tomorrow!

Day 1013 – 1st January 2010

I know this looks rubbish, but today’s picture was surprisingly difficult to put together. My new camera, with all its great features, does lack the ability to manually control shutter speed – not good when you want to get a long exposure shot.

I managed to squeeze two seconds out of it in the pitch black by tricking it into thinking I was using a tripod. I couldn’t release the button though, otherwise it forgets everything and goes back to a split second shutter speed. So, I had to draw the numbers out by having a light on the table and moving the camera about.

If you were drawing pen to paper, it would be like moving the paper whilst holding the pen still. Not easy. Anyway, one by one I got there, then layered them up in GIMP and voila – slightly substandard labour of love.

All that to mark the new year. Well, it only took about ten minutes, but I can’t say I spend ten minutes taking many other pictures!

So yeah, Happy New Year.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, last night I was in the bar and we were counting down to midnight. Ten seconds to go and we started to count in unison, but at the very moment the clock turned twelve, thunder struck, as if on cue. Everyone gasped then went silent. It was really, really creepy. What are the chances?

After about ten seconds the hubbub started again and we cracked open the champagne, but some people were really, really freaked out by it for a good hour afterwards. I have to say I was slightly disturbed – the timing was so dead on it was astounding.

The first thought that came into my head was ‘wait, the world can’t have ended, it’s still only 11 o’clock in England.’ That probably says it all.

I’m glad I remembered to mention that, it’s something that won’t ever happen again – if it does, then I’ll have cause to be really freaked out.