Here's the poem I found, pencilled in my Pukka pad, that was written a couple of years ago now. I know that it looks like I was in a rather strange mood when I wrote it, but then that tends to be the only times I write them.

when

I hate waiting for a phone that never rings
I hate waiting for things life cannot bring
I hate the way my impatience makes me feel
When will I find out who I am for real?

For all the good days, there will always be bad
For all the happiness I bring, I'll always make people mad
For all my contentment, there will always be strife
When will I find out what I want from my life?

I love the way that my friends make me feel
From just sending emails to cooking me a meal
But I hate the way that I always want more
When I will I like myself enough to be sure?

I've so much love to give and so want to be loved
But all my live I've been pushed and shoved
Not really by others, but all on my own
When will I admit I can't be happy alone?

'When' is a question I may never answer
Even though I live my life faster and faster
The fact that I can see my problems is good
I just don't resolve them as fast as I could

I've been looking through a lot of my boxed-up stuff today. Since my last house move in December I have binned so much surplus stuff that it's got to the point where I've hardly got anything to store anymore. Although I'm not one of these people who keeps everything I get hold of, there's some things that I will never ever throw away because there's always a overcast Sunday afternoon when you decide to remind yourself about things from yesteryear that you've kept stored in boxes. These things are mainly letters and postcards (I've kept every letter I've been sent since September 1995), photographs (I have literally hundreds), flyers, and notepads.

Amazon like to recommend things to me given my past purchases and current wish list items. I thought it was pretty good at it, until it recommended this to me. I'm so afraid.

When I was growing up in St. Helens, our public transport came in the form of banged out cream and green Merseyside Transport buses. I clearly remember that the seats had this kind of grey and red plasticy upholstery, which you'd just slide off if the driver slowed down too quickly. On the double decker buses the seats at the back were directly above the engine and would get so hot that you just could not sit on them. Also, sitting near the engine for any length of time would ensure that you would be get off the bus completely deaf.

Other than these recollections, my overriding memory of these buses was a transparent sign on each of the windows. The sign read thus: "WILFUL DAMAGE TO SEATS ETC. - THE MANAGEMENT WILL PRESS FOR THE HEAVIEST PENALTIES AGAINST OFFENDERS". I only know that the sign said this through guesswork, because I didn't see a specimen that didn't have letters scratched off. Observe:

A measure of the early development of my purile mind - this humour, simple but effective, really has stood the test of time.

This week hasn't really been that good, if truth be told. No one thing has made it that way, it's just the way the tide is at the moment. It wasn't all bad either. Meh. Here are a few appropriate-to-be-published-publicly downers from this week (in no particular order).

Work snowshaker
Work feels really strange at the moment as we're in a kind of transition period. My manager has now left, one of my team left yesterday and another member has tendered her resignation. Never before has there been so many coming and goings all in one go, and sometimes it feels like one-way traffic as well.

To top it off I might be being seconded to elsewhere in the company for upto six months, which will be good - but again I don't really know anything about it yet. I'm sure it'll all settle down and be normal again soon, but it's never nice when anyone leaves and so it's all a bit strange at the moment.

A little while ago I decided that I'd like to join a Leeds bloggers web ring. A little later I discovered that such a thing didn't exist, so I started my own. Today, I finished the website for Leeds Blogs and it's all up and working.

There's lots to protest about in today's fukd up world and it's the Bush/Blair duo and our modern values that take the flack from DJ Rubbish. With tracks titled 'Tony Blair is a Bad Man' and 'Who Are The Real Terrorists?', DJ Rubbish tells it like it is. Read on...

Remember kids, be careful. Here are a handful of accidents making the news today.

Tanker falls from motorway (BBC News, Manchester)
Learner driver fined after fatal smash (Calendar News)
Teenager crushed under horse is named (Calendar News)
Builders trapped after wall collapses (BBC News, Merseyside)
Car crashes in police pursuit (BBC News, Manchester)
Eight lawyers bitten in court by stray dog (Ananova)
Whale crash-lands on family's holiday boat (Guardian Unlimited)

Web logging, blogging, journaling, call it what you want - it seems like everyone is doing it in abundance. But everyone isn't doing it, because you don't do it. But you want to do it, because you have something to say. Well, here is a thirty-second guide to giving it a go with what you need to know to get started.

Web logging has a long history. But what is a web log? This simple explanation is provided by Blogger, a well established web log system. Another is Moveable Type (example). They both depend on you having your own webspace, which your internet service provider (NTL, Freeserve etc.) might give you. Moveable Type needs extra things to make it work, whereas Blogger just needs to know some basic information about your webspace. These sorts of services all tend to be free.

If you don't have webspace or don't want that fuss and want to keep it simple, then pick a hosted web logger. Some of these charge a small fee for using their bandwidth and space on their server. A popular one is Blog*Spot (example) which is free, and a sophisticated one is Type Pad which has a monthly fee. Blog*Spot is very easy to use, as is Diaryland (example). Another popular hosted system is LiveJournal (example).

This entry seems to have got corrupted somehow. However here's the image that was with it.

I've not been sat around doing nothing this weekend. No, I've been pounding the many streets of Leeds and Manchester armed with my digital camera. The camera is getting on a bit now and is pretty poor compared to cameras around today, in particular it's no use in poor or low light or in the dark and at 1.3 mega pixels the resolution could be much better. If anyone wants to recommend a three mega pixels (or better) camera, feel free to leave your recommendations (positive or negative) in the comment box.

The flash mob that was planned to take place in Leeds on Saturday afternoon has now been cancelled and the organiser has effectively taken down the Leeds Flash Mob website and killed the mailing list. It would be quite easy to criticise the organiser for briefing the biggest broadcasting news-gatherer in the world and the local paper prior to the event, but there's no point in fussing about it now.

The West Yorkshire Police seemed to have an issue with it.

Call me a sceptic but I don't think we'll see a flash mob in Leeds anytime soon.

[Friday 17:00] Now this website has appeared. Paul confused.

[Saturday 22:00] I walked past the meeting place and took this photograph at 4:16pm. A few people hanging around, a few people with cameras and microphones, and a policeman - and lots of people walking past, including myself. Oh, and a Biffa bin.

[Sunday 19:00] This story reports the event. '30 people' turn up and read a newspaper in a jewellery shop. Paul decides that it's a complete bunch of arse, and ceases to show any further interest.

[Monday 23:00] Okay, maybe just one more update to highlight Flash Mugging.

I thought it was about time to give some deserved credit to the stuff that helps make this site work the way it does. Apart from the hosting, all this stuff is freely available unless stated otherwise. Items marked with an asterisk are no longer in use on the site.

[Friday 13:00] The mob planned for Saturday in Leeds is cancelled.

Just to follow up an earlier article about flash mobbing, specifically in Leeds. I hate to say it but it really does sound like there's far too much publicity for flash mobbing at the moment - it's going to cause a problem. It's all over the internet today:

City braced for flash mobbing (BBC News, West Yorkshire)
Flash mob hits Manchester (BBC News, Manchester)
Beware the mob (The 7 O'Clock News, BBC Three)
Cult mob arrives - in a flash (ManchesterOnline)

The BBC News West Yorkshire article is pretty comprehensive - but I'd argue that this spoils all the fun.

The following is probably of interest to no-one except myself, but what the hell. As provided by the Office of National Statistics, here are the demographics of the population of Leeds as at the 2001 census. The comparison with Bradford and other parts of the county is pretty interesting.

The Census 2001 site is pretty comprehensive with some decent graphing of the data and a little analysis here and there. There are also detailed profiles with bucketloads of interesting statistics on work, families, health, housing and religion.

In Leeds, 34.1% of everyone over 16 is single (never married) - there's hope for me yet!

I suppose it's getting to the point where strange stories are almost the norm. This one featured in The Scotsman is pretty damn strange.

"A former police driver was awarded