tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45668989632842429752011-11-27T16:38:03.949-08:00Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.comBlogger321100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-69516418532900481262009-12-22T01:58:00.000-08:002009-12-22T05:03:56.543-08:00

I hated a list program the other day that was the 50 "iconic" tv adverts of the decade or somesuch. Instead of only highlighting some especially funny or clever ads, they chose to intersperse them with the many of the most ubiquitous and annoying ones (e.g. Howard from the Halifax). A mistake I think. Just because some company has a daft budget and no taste, doesn't make its adverts worth

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-75406025182625440272009-07-09T00:07:00.000-07:002009-07-09T00:49:00.658-07:00

The 13th July this year will be 216th anniversary of the birth of John Clare and the following day will see his house in Helpston opened to the public. I feel an affinity with Clare for a number of reasons. His deep knowledge of and abiding love for nature stands him apart from contemporaries. Many romantics were charmed by their surroundings but few chose to know them as well as he did, fewer

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-42181467938810181652009-06-18T00:55:00.001-07:002009-06-18T01:44:47.989-07:00

Self-discipline is not my forte. Maybe I need to get riled before I write on this and, now that our politicians are being upstaged by Iranians, I'm not so angry... One thing that is calming anyway though (and I haven't done it for some time) is fishing. I've never written about it, and now there's probably no point anyway, because it's being done terrifically well over at http://

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-59823027669977912812009-06-02T05:42:00.000-07:002009-06-03T14:08:25.585-07:00

The MP's scandal has enough momentum to still be current when Britain goes to the pols to elect MEP's on Thursday. That it still has legs owes much to the piecemeal way in which the telegraph has used the information it has. They're not doing it methodically out of probity. It's because they spent money on it and want to recoup the maxium return on their investment one day at a time. I have far

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-79993090698999141632009-05-31T03:41:00.001-07:002009-05-31T03:49:10.070-07:00

Had the week off (apart from going into work very briefly on Thursday to pick up a couple of compo CD's i made for two friends, taking part in the Law Society anual charity quiz (we came 4th) and then dropping in to the Coach for karaoke fun. So the allotment has improved markedly after some much needed attention. It looks occupied now. Also been enjoying the good weather and getting a bit red (

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-23669820195681921332009-05-25T15:59:00.000-07:002009-05-25T16:24:21.720-07:00

I heard something today that turned my stomach. "What would Jesus do? Vote BNP". There is so much wrong with that it is almost impossible to keep my composure. I wouldn't do what Jesus would do. But I could readily do what Simon Peter did when I heard it; just put a sword in my hand. At a time when minority parties stand to make modest gains on the back of Westminster incompetence, Nick Griffin

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-71150563815510545282009-05-25T03:59:00.000-07:002009-05-25T05:23:05.083-07:00

Spent a part of yesterday down the allotment. The bloke across the way showed up and made a start on harvesting the vast swathes of cooch grass he has cultivated. Actually this is a bit unfair since he explained to me he had only just got over heart trouble and hadn't got around to doing much last year. He told me this as I was helping him to douse the flames of a wayward bonfire he had started

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-82770049931145001892009-05-22T23:30:00.000-07:002009-05-22T23:48:03.956-07:00

Following on from the discussion about money and Westminster, do watch the latest Question Time on iPlayer. People are still mad as hell and it looks like they want a general election now. One slight problem I have is that it would not be good to have one whilst our blood is still up. Maybe better to ensure we have cooled our jets a bit before making any decisions. The Euro elections should give

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-27812822768661029432009-05-21T22:38:00.000-07:002009-05-22T23:30:41.855-07:00

You take a man who is a dangerous terrorist. You imprison him for years without trial and subject him to torture and deprivation. The rest of the civilised world is appalled by your treatment of him, no matter what he has done before (and no one is ever told what that was, it's taken completely on trust). He is completely within your power. And yet when it comes time to deal fairly with that

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-4713060866312581152009-05-19T15:44:00.000-07:002009-05-20T01:27:39.709-07:00

I have been appointed a school governor. I went down there regally in my pomp to do a bit of governing. Unfortunately I got lost - mired in a nightmare forest of tiny chairs and disturbing ghoulish poster painting - and I was late. I was greeted with the sight of school sec offering me a libation from the vending machine like it was some kind of gift from an aztec robot god that required

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-89790700048534988032009-05-17T01:35:00.000-07:002009-05-17T02:17:07.288-07:00

Noticed people getting bored of the MP expenses thing and saying "can't we talk about something else?" Adam and Joe on R6 for example. It almost doesn't matter what a story is though, it almost always goes on too long for some people. I heard the other day that Madeline McCann's parents were releasing an artists impression of what she looks like now. And for a terrible second I thought to myself

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-16300083121597387852009-05-15T01:08:00.001-07:002009-05-15T08:35:51.685-07:00

Some interesting developments in the MP's Expenses Scandal. Actual resignations and firings and demotions. I thought it had taken them a while to get around to taking action and I now find it's been an issue for even longer than I imagined. Heather Brooke had been trying to obtain information about expenses since 2004, legitimately, using the Freedom of Information Act. She was taken all the way

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-86024652176869562172009-05-14T05:38:00.000-07:002009-05-14T05:56:30.629-07:00

Watching the BBC News yesterday I came across a report - worded rather differently than one would expect - regarding the falling price of cocaine. It was unusual because they inadvertently made the trade in the infamous egotoxin sound like a legitimate business that had fallen on hard times; pointing out a diminution in quality, accompanied by rising price of yer high street gram, as if coke

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-39472193178826374212009-05-14T04:00:00.000-07:002009-05-14T05:03:25.804-07:00

Anyone who thinks petty corruption isn't worth dealing with because there are more important things to concern officials (and I'm looking at the normally so rational Stephen Fry whose 140 character vignettes I follow so avidly on Twitter), should read this dispatch from Manila http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/manila/1dispatch6.html. Books are something Mr Fry (and all other right thinking people)

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-45409184885012461632009-05-13T15:22:00.000-07:002009-05-14T05:59:22.654-07:00

I feel bad for sneakily checking on who the for and against law firms were in the upcoming Trafigura case. I don't think it is quite Bopal level but it is serious and I'm glad that our firm isn't on the wrong side of this one. Evasion seems to have already been a feature of the story and it may be that Trafigura have run out of goodwill. "Everyone is entitled to a defence": so say Law firms

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-75201460094628296032009-05-12T12:35:00.000-07:002009-05-12T14:12:16.729-07:00

It seems that if Lord Foulkes http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045371.stm   and Stephen Fry http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045040.stm are one one side of an argument, as my friend Stu indicated to me they were today, it's quite hard to take the opposite viewpoint. But personally I have to stick to my guns. The row over compensation claims by MP's is not a storm in a teacup. The

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-64802987190352612412009-05-12T01:22:00.000-07:002009-05-12T01:28:20.865-07:00

Last night there was a program on TV about the South Pacific. Featured in it were albatross chicks taking their first tentative steps, wings outstretched down a narrow beach runway. At time you could see the prevailing wind lift their massive outstretched wings and see the power and potential they had despite how ungainly they were on their tiny feet. Then after a few experimental wingbeats they

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-3310106749056456702009-05-10T01:48:00.000-07:002009-05-10T02:59:31.510-07:00

The Telegraph has decided to milk the mole. That conjures up an image doesn't it? They want to release the dirty details of MP's expense claims on a daily basis. This helps them sell papers but it also means that the public is assailed relentlessly with waves of corruption. If you want to make someone angry, repetitive irritation to the point of combustion is a far more effective tactic than a

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-21042319672053547842009-05-09T01:55:00.000-07:002009-05-09T04:20:00.636-07:00

It's tough to keep a blog going because you should have something to say rather than just writing tat for the purposes of self discipline. I have violated this rule by having nothing to say andalso waiting 4 days to say it. Actually I have loads to say but when I log in here I forget all of it. I need to write down the things I'm going to blog somewhere. In some kind of diary. Or log. Maybe an

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-11231127634121480362009-05-05T07:10:00.000-07:002009-05-05T07:23:01.249-07:00

Blog posts reduced to one or two liners. Probably because I'm busy playing REALLIFE TM ...great new game that is subject of massive bidding war between Apple, Microsoft, Google and Hamleys. What you do is live in this unlikely world where you have to eat, sleep, breathe, drink, work, reproduce and otherwise interact with other "characters" and ...get this...NONE OF IT NEEDS TO TAKE PLACE ONLINE!

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-31617746078709977102009-05-02T02:31:00.001-07:002009-05-02T02:32:19.830-07:00

Knew I wouldn't keep it up. May turn this into an allotment blog now - still looking for a theme or idea that ties all random thoughts togerth. Still I may have time to blog something as it's a bank holiday weekend (yeah right)

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-27554874932557749332009-04-29T13:40:00.000-07:002009-04-29T13:42:28.871-07:00

Not the worst result for Arsenal I think. Not sure what Diaby contributed in the game. Expect a team like United to be able to punish ten men (or nine when bendtner came on).

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-43889877923397028772009-04-28T01:56:00.000-07:002009-04-29T07:17:25.914-07:00

Returned home from the Arsenal game on Sunday by way of a crappy bar in Peterborough (Bogarts has been closed due to allowing underage drinking). Met with some locals and decided it's about time I got to know the denizens of this city. And they were horrible. I tried to like them but the group I met were insincere, obnoxious and spoiling for a fight. And that was just the girls. Pugnacious and

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-89337583930111070062009-04-24T05:12:00.000-07:002009-04-29T07:17:47.665-07:00

The Panorama program approached the subject of health and safety exactly like any member of the public. They resent being told what to do, don't like well paid consultants, will not countenance any risk for their own loved ones but are happy to accept significant personal risk if the rewards are there, feel someone should always be blamed for any failure, hate bureaucracy but demand

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-73967268507112116822009-04-19T13:42:00.000-07:002009-04-29T07:18:39.660-07:00

I had a very productive day. This is what happens when I'm not knackered from work. Tongued and grooved the bath panel to a rocksteady beat, bought some tools from B& Q and went down the dump twice. The dump is a difficult place to be if you're not either a mouth breathing simpleton in a hi-vis vest or a middle aged woman with an Audi full of cardboard and paving slabs. The latter, blissfully

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-87248600660615931252009-04-18T11:48:00.000-07:002009-04-18T11:53:25.583-07:00

Some people - who do not think hard enough to power an LED - might be wondering how Arsenal just squandered a perfectly good opportunity at a cup final after being trophyless for 5 years. The answer is quite simple: they are a team of naive fatalists who think that results are consequential. 

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-48238072093500141302009-04-17T14:35:00.000-07:002009-04-29T07:19:37.900-07:00

Just hearing Lee Morgan composition on Jazz625 called "Lament for Stacey" - never heard it before and I'm guessing Stacey was a girl (they almost all are apart from me and dastardly womanising drug addict and namesake Stacey Keach). Tonight's program follows up a program about Nica De Rothschild and her relationship with Thelonious Monk. And the next Jazz625 features the great man himself. I'll

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-12997278035980440182009-04-16T12:07:00.000-07:002009-04-16T12:23:54.711-07:00

Fantastic night last night in The Gunners. Although I couldn't get a ticket I'd say The Gunners is the next best thing, although I was disappointed they have got rid of the barco in favour of a smaller plasma screen tv. there was planty of singing and backslapping and the feeling that this current Arsenal crop can get something from a patchy season. I was later gratified to learn that The Pens

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-69093573114417654342009-04-14T12:20:00.000-07:002009-04-29T07:21:07.763-07:00

I spent all day with the ISO auditor who looks a bit like Liam Neesons bearded avuncular brother, and has piercing blue eyes that probably are a useful tool of the trade. We managed to have a series of embarassing gaffes which made his job a damn sight easier; almost embarassingly so. Two barrels of ethylene glycol appeared next to the cycle racks. Our waste oil was unbunded and no one could tell

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-75644406878437719722009-04-13T10:08:00.000-07:002009-04-13T14:41:05.115-07:00

Just got back from the allotment. I have a proliferation of comfrey and over winter I made up two barrels of fertiliser from it. Smells like catshit. I used some today and washed my hands about six times afterward, but one hand still smells of cat shit. I expect to wake tomorrow with one normal size hand and one giant shit smelling hand; like Kenny Everett with worms.Got a few beers in for the

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-41341349871031806132009-04-12T12:08:00.000-07:002009-04-12T12:38:23.591-07:00

This afternoon I did go to the allotment and there was rather a large leek growing. Serendipitously it was one that had popped up from the year before, not one I had deliberately planted. It was hidden by a thicket of twitchy grass so I had missed it earlier. Nevertheless I am taking full credit. (Also the asparagus started to appear. I'm not sure how much longer the blessed plot can keep

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4566898963284242975.post-37583728129788512652009-04-12T01:54:00.000-07:002009-04-12T08:19:20.063-07:00

There is so much I should be doing right now that starting a blog is a wilfully self-indulgent procrastination. I have a half painted fence and a half painted bedroom, a neglected allotment, a dirty car, an untidy dining room, and a pile of washing and I am in need of a bath. So the timing couldn't be more perfect. If I am an expert in anything (both professionally and personally) it is "making a

Stacey "Safety" Collinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02844279871234278075noreply@blogger.com0