casting the net – clegg, by a nose

Today’s blog review is up over at LC.

Pick of the bunch is this pro-Tesco polemic by Julie Burchill (via.).

I wrote my dissertation (I did a post-grad in the grocery industry, as I worked for a major supplier to the multiples) on the Tesco supply-chain. It is, in a word, awesome.

hello

No action on the blog for a couple of days as I’ve been very busy. It was the penultimate Christmas Shop yesterday. Everything but a handful of DVDs bought, so annual panic over. Work is also absolutely manic.

Yesterday’s Casting the net is here. And today’s here. Enjoy.

More blogging later. BTW this* is effin’ hilarious (Linux and Mac users will LOL).

*via. DK

casting the net – kicking brown when he’s down

Nice and early. The blog review is up at LC.

Mrs. tyger and the kids are back. Toys are strewn across the floor and I’m constantly running up and down the stairs taking the boy to the loo (ah, the joys of toilet training). Of course the independent-minded little git has no intention of using a potty, rather like the way he flat refuses to use a beaker. Grrr.

casting the net – revisiting iraq

Today’s blog review highlights the latest dispatch from Michael J. Totten, who has revisited the Iraqi city of Fallujah – the site of one of the biggest battles of the latest Iraq War (Operation Phantom Fury was an infamous siege where US forces used chemical weapons – namely White Phosphorous – on suspected insurgents).

The blog review can be found at LC.

There will be no blog review tomorrow – or, probably, any activity on tygerland.net – as I’m going to the airport to collect the family. I’ve been on my own for 5-and-a-half-weeks, so I can’t wait to have some life in the house again. Everything is ready: the floors are scrubbed, the washing is done, the bathroom is clean, and I’ve even cleaned and disinfected the fridge. We’re talking serious brownie points here, people.

casting the net – morrissey is not exactly nick griffin and other revelations

Catch my blog review over on Liberal Conspiracy.

Not feeling 100% today. Cough, cold, blocked nose and achy… Manflu, I think they call it.

If I don’t make it, please send donations to The Tamar Otter Sanctuary.

casting the net – money talks

Today’s blog review, which assesses the blog reaction to the ongoing funding crisis at the Labour Party, is up at Liberal Conspiracy.

BTW. Vince Cable just commented – at PMQs – about Gordon Brown’s remarkable transformation, in just a few weeks, from Stalin to Mr. Bean. Genius. Cable would be a cracking leader for the Lib Dems – so much more charismatic than the pair of feckless suits up for the job.

I have to take the car for its MOT this afternoon. Wish me luck…

casting the net – 12.11.07

As I emerge from a shocker of a weekend (don’t ask), I’m hoping this week brings greater productivity, more sleep and a jackpot-winning Euromillions lottery ticket.

My daily blog review is up on Liberal Conspiracy, here.

casting the net – 09.11.07

Really busy today – not to mention, tired.

Will probably post something later (BTW. did you enjoy the Guitar Hero videos?).

In the meantime, my daily blog review is here.

up since four

More of this. Knackered today. Watching Zombie Hotel. Don’t ask.

when you just know you’re not going to get anymore sleep, but you try anyway

tyger jnr. is two-and-a-half and has just begun coming into our bed in the night.

I suppose we’re very lucky that the boy hasn’t started this before now. But he’s always been prone to waking up at around six – just when a lie-in was in the offing. You lie there, slowly stirring to hopeful cries of “papa.” You know that further sleep isn’t going to happen.

Now it happens in the middle of the night. No warning. You just get the sense that something small, possibly something damp (if the nappy has slipped again), has entered the bed. Occasionally, he’ll be content to be carried back to his own room, with a complementary bottle of warm milk. But more and more he trundles back, bottle in hand (the fraud!), and is tucked up before I’ve had chance to climb in myself. In the middle too, between Mrs. tyger and myself, which means a spoon-snooze is out of the question. Grrr.

This morning he crept into our bed at about 05:30. He wiggled into his usual spot, not unlike an overgrown caterpillar (well, one dressed in Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas anyway).

He didn’t, alas, have any intention of sleeping though. Thus began the daily ritual of the “sleep-off”. Mrs. tyger and myself will both try our best to present the best possible example of someone absolutely shattered and in need of the one available lie-in spot. The loser of the sleep-off is saddled with a couple of hours of Cbeebies and the chance to try and get as many Rice Krispies down the boy’s throat as he or she can. I say “he or she,” but what I mean is me. I have never won a sleep-off yet.

And so this morning, like so many before it, I found myself blinking in the darkness reaching for a warm sweater en route downstairs. The boy doesn’t watch much TV. We try and keep it to just in the morning – and nothing with adverts. I tend to use the time to write a blog post or read a chapter of a book. A cup of tea and a slice of toast doesn’t go amiss, either. To be honest, and don’t tell Mrs. tyger this, I rather enjoy it.

Good morning.

the irregular photo of the day

, originally uploaded by foxbox.

Sullen.

things i should not be doing

There are many things in life that, at this advanced stage in our civilisation, we should not be doing.

Grinding up plants, wrapping them in paper, and smoking them would be right at the top of the list. How about buying toys needing batteries that we have no intention of replacing? Travelling 30 miles to sit at a desk connected to the very same internet you just left at home would be another. The human race is, it seems, resistant to progress and common sense.

What makes me even angrier, however, is huge advancements that turn out to be complete bollocks.

Earlier today I found myself, not for the first time, ironing a non-iron shirt. Non-Iron shirts are a crock of shit. Never, ever have I taken one of these garments from the dryer and said, “well that doesn’t need once-over with the Rowenta.” Maybe they need air drying outside (yeah, and that’s likely during most of the British year), or whatever, but the tag says, “NON-IRON.” It’s bullshit. And I for one am fed up.

It’s the lies that get to me.

good morning!

Ham and eggs, originally uploaded by tygerland.net.

It’s Friday!

And it’s a lovely day here in Blighty, so why not have a great one?

is it safe yet to carry a manbag?

Have you ever stopped to realise how much stuff you’re carrying around with you these days?

There was a day when all a guy carried was a few keys, some money, and maybe, if he was feeling particularly lucky, a rubber. Woman, always the carrier of useless tat, would of course have a handbag full of makeup, tissues, gloves, an address book, sanitary towels, and maybe, if she was feeling particularly lucky, some paracetamol. There used to be a definite division of the sexes.

Today, as with most things, the divisions are blurred. And the question on many people’s lips: is it now okay to carry a manbag?

Mr. Zhisou asked this very question back in January of last year (was it so long ago?).

He received short shrift from me: under no circumstances should you consider a ‘man-bag’. This blurring of the sexes is just what we should be cautioning young men about; Prada, Gucci, et al will do anything to ensnare the gentleman in their seasonal merry-go-round of leather accessories.

But I wonder if this subject shouldn’t be re-evaluated? Maybe Mr. Z was right? Should we not reconsider the usefulness of a medium sized personal carry-all for us gents?

Yesterday afternoon I was out. As the work-day hadn’t finished I had my field-equipment with me. I was carrying: -

12” Laptop
Nokia cell phone
BlackBerry
business cards
keys
iPod
camera
pens
diary
notebooks
cables

Ok, so I had a laptop, cables, and notebooks (things I wouldn’t normally carry), which are carried in a small case anyway, but even without these I still haven’t got room for everything else about my person. I only have a few pockets – and I look a proper gimp with them bulging awkwardly as I amble down the street. So how can I carry around such ‘indispensable’ things such as my BlackBerry, iPod, business cards, keys and diary without resorting to some kind of man-bag? The truth is I can’t.

The problem is, I don’t feel brave enough to carry a manbag. No way. I’m always reticent to try new fashions, this is why I still wear cords.

No I have a single choice. Do I cut out some of the gadgets, or do I brave a potential sartorial faux pas and plump for manbag?

So what can I lose?

Nokia? Probably, I only carry it because I have the matching hands free kit in the car. The business cards are a must but they’re not so big anyway. The BlackBerry is a necessity, as is the iPod (I hate waiting in queues or walking somewhere without my iPod – it’s such dead-time). I suppose I could dump the Moleskine diary and use the facility on the BlackBerry, but I so hate computerised diaries – they’re so unintuitive and slow. I could lose the camera, but I just hate seeing something that demands capture, only to be without a camera. It’s no good – I need all this stuff!

You see? I definitely need some sort of manbag – there is no other solution.

This commercialised world has finally destroyed my last drop of manliness. Anyone care for a white wine spritzer?

help required

Mrs. tyger returns to England a week from tomorrow. While I have done my very best to tidy up after myself, the house could certainly do with a woman’s touch before I welcome my family back into their home. And so, with scant regard for any dignity I may have left, I am pleading for a kindly woman who could spare a few days to make the house ship-shape again.

You could think of me a sort of charity case. Helping a sad specimen of a man in his hour of need. I mean, what self-respect could I have left, begging strangers on the internet to clean my house?

The problem is, if no-one comes to my rescue, I’ll have to don the marigolds myself. Can you imagine how much of a dick I’d look in latex yellow gloves? Sex-pest springs to mind. And I never want to look like a sex-pest (not again, anyway). Also, I don’t have the stamina for cleaning. I’m built for power and speed – able to cover short distances quickly, handy when racing to club an animal to death. I’m a hunter, you see? Woefully ill-equiped (does that count as a double-negative(?), I think not) as I am for such a task, I find myself imploring you to help.

While I can’t pay you, there are numerous benefits: -

I make great coffee. Green tea on request

Biscuits – with currants(!!)

Lunch (do you like re-heated Chinese food?)

Music provided while you scrub – I’m quite the DJ

Uniform supplied *ahem…*

Isn’t that the best off you’ve had today? Ok, maybe not.

*tyger dons marigolds and puts suggestive uniform back in its box*