Mutterings for the Minority

300

Mrs DDWT and I actually sat down tonight to watch Sky Movies and the premiere of ‘300′. It was the first time we’d seen a movie in a few months - well even if it wasn’t that long it certainly felt like it!

As for the film, well it was certainly one for the boys (toy soldier stuff you see) as I’m sure the only plusses for the ladies would be the bare, taut and well defined/developed torsos of the Spartans.

Having now watched it, I can see why some people thought it was on the gory side.  For me the only thing that was misplaced were the sparse (yet unnecessary) sexual scenes, which felt out of context for the film as a whole.  After all it was a film about the battle between 300 Spartans (Greeks) and the Persians in 480 BC!

The acting and effects were first class and were combined magnificently to give the film a very Greek mythological feel, which obviously was the director’s intention.

I enjoyed it (unlike Mrs DDWT) and thought it was worth watching.  I’d recommend it to anyone who likes films such as ‘55 Days at Peking’, ‘Braveheart’, ‘Troy’, ‘El Cid’, etc - if that’s not your bag, then I’d leave well alone to be honest.

In bed with Google

Seeing as the stomach bug has literally knocked the stuffing out of me, I was off work today.

I decided to spend some time catching up (in between frequent vists the loo) with some of the books which have been gathering dust on my bedside cabinet.

Today’s digest was “Get into bed with Google” by Jon Smith. A very handy little book (quite literally) from which I picked up quite a few little gems - which I’ll be certain to use, when I’m back to my best!

Spring snowfall

Like most of Wales, we awoke this morning to find a 1cm covering of snow outside - which was totally unexpected as the forecast had been for ‘light snow showers’.

Having been up since around 7am DDWT Junior and I got to see most of the snow and the snow showers, as by the time Mrs DDWT surfaced from bed (around 9am) most of it had started to melt away in the warm ‘ish spring sunshine. Come mid-morning and you’d never have said it had snowed at all!

With the afternoon sunshine, I decided to take the family down to Swansea’s new central library - which they hadn’t yet seen. Having been before I was in little doubt that they’d be impressed and I was proved correct as we spent the best part of an hour and a half in the children’s area alone!

It really is a super library and if you are ever in Swansea, then I’d recommend a visit. You can even grab a bite to eat or have a nice cuppa in the coffee shop adjacent to it in Swansea City Council’s civic centre.

I suppose it goes without saying that we couldn’t leave without DDWT Junior borrowing a couple of dinosaur books and Mrs DDWT picking up her usual batch of autobiography’s - Marie Helvin and Leslie Grantham in this case. Me well I went for my usual techy stuff, “Going to Bed With Google”!

No visit to Swansea is complete without a visit to the beach, so we took the short cut from County Hall straight onto the beach. At this point I thought it would be a good time to take a snap of the progress being made on Swansea’s highest (to be) building - Meridian Quay - since the last time I took a picture.

It’s grown quite considerably as you can see!

After last week’s weight horror show, I decided not to put added pressure on myself by weighing this week, especially as I have been exercising and watching what I’ve eaten. I couldn’t have handled the disappointment of not losing any weight this week.

Anyway, yesterday I did a 30 minute stint on the elliptical worker (10.8KM) and I did another 30 minutes today (11KM) and burnt 302 calories in the process. So I’m getting there, albeit slowly.

Swansea Jacks

No this isn’t an explanation as to why people from Swansea are referred to as ‘Jacks‘, it’s about a book I’ve just finished reading.

The book was called ‘The Swansea Jacks - From Skinheads to Stone Island‘ and was as the title might suggest about football hooliganism or terrace culture as it is often referred to nowadays. Now you’re probably wondering why the hell I’d want to read a book of this nature.

Well there are several reasons to be quite frank… I’m a Swansea fan and am intrigued by our ‘hooligan element’ and their literary skills (LOL); I was curious if I knew/recognised any of the ‘faces’ (which I did); but most of all it was because I have an interest in the world of football hooliganism - purely from a psychology perspective I can assure you!

As an ex-semi professional rugby player who represented his country, I’m intrigued (and always have been) as to what makes these men/teenagers (and some women believe it or not) get out of being a football hooligan. Now I’m not referring to the people who walk around clad out in the latest Stone Island, Burberry, Aquasanctum gear for bravado - I’m on about the real hardcore element who purely want a scrap with the oppositions firm/dressers call them what you want and get one hell of a buzz out of doing so.

I just find it odd that you don’t get this sort of needle between rival sets of rugby fans - well none that I’ve witnessed anyway - but you do with football. Is it because the ‘aggro’ is on the field perhaps?

I suppose I always remember what a football playing mate of mine used to say - “The real hard lads in school played rugby, whereas the lads who thought they were hard played football” - now personally I don’t entirely agree with that statement, but I can see what he means to an extent.

Anyway, back to the book. It’s pretty much a warts and all story of the top Swansea ‘faces’ over the last 30 years or so broken down into sections by each hooligan. It was an ok read, but I felt the book was let down by a lack of consistency between each section - which could vary between 2 pages to 20+ pages.

From what my memory recalls of the media reporting about various bouts of trouble involving the Swansea Jacks, the book is a pretty accurate reproduction of the facts. It certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re a local and follow the Swans then it should hold enough interest for you to see it through to the end.

The next book on my reading list is ‘Killer Web Content’ by Gerry McGovern - which as the title suggests is the complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of my book reading habits!

Time to take them down

Yes indeed, with the festive season now well and truly over it was time to take down the Christmas deccies and pack them away in the loft for another 12 months. The task didn’t go off without some rumblings of discontent from DDWT Junior however, his mutterings only being calmed by the promise of baloons et al for his 4th birthday next week.

In fact the whole day has been a rather busy affair. We’ve had umpteen deliveries - Next sale, M&S sale, Toys’R'Us sale, etc and my dad having to go back to hospital due to some post-operation problems (which thankfully turned out to be ok). Mrs DDWT got a few bits and bobs for DDWT Junior’s birthday - whilst I built aeroplanes, buses, robots and such like out of lego (in between watching Tom & Jerry, Scooby Doo and Go Diego Go). I also somehow managed to find the time to repair a broken toilet seat, don’t ask.

Our movie watching ritual has continued into the new year, with us watching ‘The Sentinel‘ last night. Quite a decent movie really, but how corny is it that Michael Douglas should be having an affair with Kim Basinger eh?!?! Must have been something to do with his self-confessed addiction to sex - and here was me thinking that’s normal behaviour

It’s the turn of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ tonight …..

Happy New Year

Happy New year to you and best wishes for 2008!

The house of DDWT hasn’t long surfaced this morning after an unexpected late night - the plan was to go to bed early after having a few too many late nights th elast few weeks. We ended up seeing in the new year watching ‘Hot Fuzz‘ - having now become fans of Simon Pegg since watching him on the Jonathan Ross show a few weeks back. Now there’s a guranteed laugh for you!

The plan for today is to welcome in the new year with a nice walk along the river tawe and Swansea valley canal. You simply can’t beat the fresh air and some exercise

Vote for Sustrans’ Connect2

Calling all cyclists - don’t forget to vote for Sustrans’ Connect2 in the People’s £50 Million Lottery Giveaway.

Connect2 is a UK-wide project that aims to improve local travel in 79 communities by creating new walking and cycling routes for those everyday journeys. In terms of south west Wales, this would mean valuable funding for improving the cycle link at Afon Tawe bridge, Clydach and Gowerton, Penclawdd and Crofty. There are many similar projects throughout Wales.

So PLEASE vote now and help improve the already amazing cycle paths and routes in Wales.

I had a pleasant surprise today to see that this very blog had been given a mention on the British Heart Foundation blog - as a result of my ramblings about the Swansea Santa jog.

You can read the article for yourself here, but better still why not take part in one of the many BHF events and raise some money for a worthy cause.

I’m glad to report that DDWT Junior returned to school today and although he’s not back to his normal 100% self - he asked to go himself! It does seem however that lots of his classmates are suffering with similar illnesses as the class number has dwindled to less than 10 this week.

We took the opportunity this morning to see how tall the little fella is now as well - partly because he also seems to be displayed the classic symptoms of growing pains. Anyway he now stands at 107.5 cm or 3ft 6′ - which seems to me to be quite tall for someone who is 46 months old. But what do I know.

Destination Gloucester

My work took me to Gloucester today to see how the County Council had setup their call centre. It also gave me an opportunity to have a look at the ‘Solidus’ system from Sony Ericsson - which was quite impressive I hasten to add.

The timing of the trip was a week out however, as last Friday the Osprey’s were at Kingsholm (home of Gloucester RFC) for a European Rugby Cup - which would have been an ideal destination post-meeting time. Oh well maybe next time.

Our return journey via the A40 (as opposed to the M4 - anything to avoid the toll bridge you see) I got my first glimpse of the new Amazon building on Jersey Marine. It is MASSIVE and a great coup for this area, especially in terms of the economy and regeneration. My only concern however is what ’sort’ of jobs will be on offer and how much they are likely to be paid. Time will tell I guess, but I doubt very much that Amazon would be a bad company to work for - especially given their global size and status.

On the subject of the Opsrey’s I had the misfortune of watching them misfire (again) against Leinster on the box earlier. Granted they were missing 9 senior players, but given the squad Lyn Jones has assembled surely they could have got a result against Brian O’Driscoll’s men? I’m beginning to think that the time for change at coaching level is fast approaching.

Talking of TV, I saw the much debated ‘Swansea at Christmas’ advert on ITV tonight. Despite my initial optimism BEFORE seeing it, I really felt deflated after seeing it - it could literally have been anywhere in the UK and I felt it came across on the cheap side. What a major disappointment, considering the vibrant and stunning area we live in.

Santa - THE video

I decided to ‘try’ my knee out again today by accompanying Razor on a lunchtime run. Whilst it was better than last time (a week ago today) I still felt considerable pain boh during and after the 36 minute run around Swansea Marina and SA1.

It really isn’t looking good for the Reindeer 10k a week Sunday and to be quite frank I don’t want to risk doing some serious damage to my knee by pushing it unecessarily. Thankfully this Sunday’s Swansea Santa jog shouldn’t pose too much of a problem, but only because it’s a 2k circuit.

Talking of Santa, do you remember THAT video I mentioned last week? Well here it is - so please be gentle with me ….

Santa Claus the video

It’s been a fun and bizarre kind of day today. The reason for this is because I was involved in making a Father Christmas promotional video this morning - dressed as the man himself!

Not the sort of thing your average web developer does really, but what the heck it was fun and we all had a good laugh making the video. I’m not going to give much more away than that as this moment in time, except to say that it should be hitting YouTube sometime soon.

I decided to go for a bike ride lunchtime, nothing too strenous but enough to gauge how my knee would react to some exercise. I did 9.7 miles in about 40 minutes , averaging 14.5 mph in the process. I’m glad to report that apart from some initial throbbing, it seems to have reacted ok so far, but I’ll take stock tomorrow before making a decision on whether or not to train for a 2nd consecutive day.