If you're going to be a ruthless dictator, it's best not to have a rhyming name such as Muqtada al-Sadr, as bad poets all around the globe will probably write limericks in your honour and your enemies will fall about in the aisles rather than quake tremulously in your presence.

Similarly, if you are called something like Tara O'Hara you probably won't get a top job with the real IRA.

I am a very old school person, and here's some (more) proof. I am particularly punctilious when it comes to putting the correct date on any letter that I send through the post and there's nothing that annoys me more than receiving something (say) on August 29th 2007 that claims to have been posted on August 16th and plainly wasn't put in the post until about 26th.

Why do these inept letter-posters antagonise me in this peculiar manner?

hmm... think I might have to re-do this one at a time that isn't disgustingly late.

If I mute my mobile phone (Samsung E250) it still vibrates if I receive an incoming text msg. However, it does precisely nothing if I receive an incoming telephone call. Is this normal? [I have been trying to read the booklet and so far have not been able to shed any light on the matter.]

I have been waiting 4 days for it to be Tuesday! Well, at last Tuesday has arrived and I can get back to my gameplan of kicking some serious arse.

Virtually everyone I am dealing with seems to need the arse-kicking treatment, so at least I can say that a pattern is beginning to emerge.

I have a couple of dozen RTS letters to post in a minute. For the uninitiated, these are 'return to sender' letters, which I usually fill out in full: 'gone away please return to sender'.

I had been 'saving' some (for 8 months) for an ex-lodger who has since disappeared into thin air, so this needs to be done now. Other things being equal, she will show up on my doorstep on Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. asking for her mail.

Surely, no-one is an optimist (just look at the arson-led fires in Greece today for example).

Therefore, you are a pessimist or a realist, but who has the clearer vision? Or, to put it another way, who is deluding themselves the most?

I was speaking with a music colleague earlier today and telling them of a handful of interesting career things I have happening right now. His remark: "It hasn't exactly fallen into your lap" (meaning I've had to work and work to get where I am today and fight every inch of the way).

To a certain extent, I have had an optimistic approach to my career as a composer (without it, I would have given up many years ago). It's surely one of the hardest professions to 'crack' and I am still a long way from 'making it' (unless one of my pipeline projects suddenly comes up trumps).

Apart from my attitude towards my 'goal career', I think I veer more towards pessimism than realism on a day-to-day basis.

Here's one reason why.

I have known about the Masterprize Composition Competition since the late 90's. It is considered to be the premiere prize for composers. The task is to compose a work for a large orchestra. I sat down from 2002-2006 (5 years if you think about it) and wrote a work good enough to win this competition (if you must know, my Jazz Symphony in 33 Grooves). I am now all ready to enter the competition apart from one small minor detail. The competition appears to have 'lost sponsorship' (the first prize would have been £50,000).

time for tea
it is time for tea
is it time for tea?
it is teatime
is it teatime?
indeed it is
that would explain the cup of tea (on my right)
there is a cup of tea to my right
I am right, the cup on my right contains tea
which makes it tea time
any time is a good time to have tea
(as George Mikes once remarked)

the sunny day outside is enjoying itself
while I get on with more constructive matters
like composing music for flute and piano
and writing things that look like poems but which are not
because I say they are not

cyn·ic (sĭn'ĭk) n.

1. A person who believes all people are motivated by selfishness.

2. A person whose outlook is scornfully and often habitually negative.

3. Cynic A member of a sect of ancient Greek philosophers who believed virtue to be the only good and self-control to be the only means of achieving virtue.

I once waited 3 days for it to stop raining so that I could go out and buy an umbrella.

A composition of mine is going to be broadcast on Spanish tv station TVE2 (probably in Nov. or Dec. '07). Does anyone at this site have this station on sattelite tv? I'd like to get a copy on VHS or (for preference) DVD.

I am going to have the picture (above) included in a book of contemporary photography published by www.picture.com I can get a copy of this book for around $81 (no actual obligation to buy a copy though).

Does this deal strike anyone as 'genuine'?

Hundreds of university courses should be abolished to save public money, a group campaigning for lower taxes has said.

The group said courses such as Golf management and Equestrian psychology, "lend the respectability of scholarly qualifications to non-academic subjects".

...a Gervaisian catchphrase springs to mind.

http://tinyurl.com/2sngvz

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

Flew from Edinburgh to Birmingham this morning. At the point of the descent where we just appeared to rest on the top of the clouds, several humorous images of St Peter and the pearly gates suddenly sprang to mind. An air-pocket or two soon brought me thudding back to reality though.

Inquiry for Bored Inc.

Name: Jonathan FeBland

Message: I am interested. Please send me more details.

(reply)

Hi Jonathan,
Please let us know what you are particularly interested in. Is it wholesale information, or licensing?
Once I know, I can better assist you with any information you might need.
Thanks,
Courtney

Courtney Regli
Bored Inc.
www.boredinc.net

Janey Godley (who blogs on this site) has either just 'made it' or is on the absolute verge of doing so! She's already been called the female Billy Connolly and her one woman stand up show (which I was privileged to experience last night), more than lived up to this description. Five (or if you like, Ten) Stars!

http://janeygodley.blog.co.uk/

Best shows so far have been Paul Merton & impro chums and Arcadia by Tom Stoppard - a few others I will mention on my return to blighty. I will try to see Janey Godley (who blogs at this site!) - she has (at least) two shows on here!!!

Generally, I am doing OK and enjoying the holiday!

You'll get the serious reviews when I return to blighty, but just to say that some comps were thrust into the hands of my party today and exactly what I feared, transpired i.e. we walked out of the play which I earlier simply described in a text msg as 'horrid'. When probed a little further, I added that it was dull, boring, trivial, pretentious, monosyllabic, predictable and percussive.

The weather here is very changeable and we've caught some of the worst of it at times.

On the plus side, the buses seem to be particularly reliable (except on Sundays).

Thanks GrayBags101 for this unusual coin generating link (in German).

http://www.onlinewahn.de/generator/

I only saw a few minutes of the last episode of this series and realised immediately that I'd missed something of the hightest possible televisual quality. The Wikipedia page on this series looks interesting and there is also coverage at IMDb. I intend to pick up the DVDs at an early opportunity!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars_(TV_series)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478942/

I found this picture over at Geograph today -

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/69337

I am about a five minute walk from this particular spot. This suburb of Birmingham has quite a bit of local history and from what I can work out, there appear to be a dozen or more books about it on the market.

http://www.solihull-online.com/

http://www.solihull-online.com/history.htm