This is a poem I wrote in 1997, when I was twenty two. Yes, a poem. Do not adjust your set. I found it in a Word document on my hard disk on Friday with no comments or anything in it. I have, quite honestly, no recollection of writing it. I don’t even like poetry. I had to Google the first couple of lines of it to make sure that it wasn’t a poem of someone else’s that I had written down, or a song, or something.

I don’t think it’s intended to be funny so it’s not exactly in line with other things I post here. Also, please be nice. This is something I wrote a long time ago, when I was young and stuff. These days I’m a possible contender for Most Thick-Skinned Person ever but, back then, I wasn’t so much, and I feel that I’ll end up reading your unpleasant comments in some sort of strange flashback mode. I was very much in two minds about posting this – I reread it yesterday and I didn’t think it looked terrible, but then I don’t know anything about poetry. Heaven knows why I wrote some. Oh well, here goes. Cry Havoc.

Same again, please

As democracy thunders through acres of tape
In some topical communist state
The headlines smile on at the Forces of Good
As they line up the Forces of Hate

The public euphoria seen on the streets
Shows a people released from their past
They knock down their walls and burn their bridges –
They’re free from oppression at last

But the days grow shorter and the queues grow longer
And taxes are starting to climb
The rose-tinted spectacles get slightly stronger
But the government needs some more time

So the tension flares up and the populous march
And the activists refill the square
Slitting the throats of the same old scapegoats
And firing their guns in the air

Out comes the tear gas, the crowd is dispersed
The Army is back on patrol
We’re into another state of emergency
But everything’s under control

 Last year’s leader gets out of his chair
And taps his cigar on the floor
He slowly and steadily straightens his hat
Turns round, and opens the door

Some months ago, I told my new media whore friends that I was thinking about starting a blog. Oh, they said, you have to pick a topic and stick to it. You can’t just make it your random ramblings.

So I did that. I decided that I was going to blog only about things that were particularly good or bad about America. This tied in nicely with the content on my dictionary site, which I was sort of intending to promote. I carefully made notes about things that I liked, and things that I didn’t like. Then I made blog posts about them.

After a while, I discovered a problem. I neither enjoy nor excel at being positive about things. This happens at work, as well – I keep telling customers that are products are okay, which is not apparently the messaging that marketing had in mind. This personality trait means that it’s very hard to write a blog that’s supposed to be 50% positive – the blog sort of morphed into “things that are bad about America” and “things that are bad about other places”. Also, I ran out of topics. Friends of mine very kindly suggested new ones, but it’s hard to rant about something that wasn’t your idea.

So I’m going to do what everyone told me not to do, and just put my random ramblings in here. Most of them will be a bit negative.

So I’ve been working on this mobile phone application. The primary purpose of the app is to stop people who’d had a few beers and taken the train home from dozing off and missing their train station. My app will use the GPS to track their progress, then wake them up before they sleep past their train station. However, it can also be used for all sorts of other location-based triggers – SMSing your carpool buddy when you’re about to arrive and pick him up; letting your dad know when he should come and meet you from the bus stop, et cetera. You basically pick a location, and a bunch of things you’d like to do there, and it does them (you can also pick multiple locations).

The app is pretty much finished, but it is currently uninspiringly called “LocAlarm”. I need a way better name, and I am willing to give three signed copies of The Septic’s Companion to the person who thinks of one. How’s about THAT?

Why can’t I think of one myself? Well, it’s kind of complicated. I want it to be immediately apparent that it will stop you sleeping past your train/bus stop (because that’s mostly what it’s for) but I also don’t want to rule out all those other uses. The situation is complicated by the fact that it will be sold through the Windows Mobile Marketplace site, where people will only see the icon, app name and my company name, like so:

Clicking on the app shows a long description. This means that my program name and icon have to alert the casual browser to the fact that that this is to stop him sleeping past his train station, but also does other stuff. I was originally keen to have some sort of catchy Twitter-style name – was thinking about “Jitterbug” (as in “wake me up, before you go-go”) or “Dozer” but I think this is a no-go as you’d actually have to click on the app to see what it did. I then got thinking about some train-specific catchy ones (“WakeMeUp“, “BRT“) but wasn’t too happy that either of them was particularly great. The maximum length of app name is 58 characters, so I am now heading towards something horribly bland and Microsofty (“GPS Alarm“, “Location Alarm“) – I hate myself for doing this but, given the way in which the app is going to appear, I think it might be my only option.

Does anyone have any better ideas? If anyone can come up with some sort of name (and ideally an icon too) that somehow tells the reader all these things, I shall be delighted to send them three books. I will also immortalise them on the credits screen for the app, should they wish!

So, the other night I collated all of the name suggestions I’d had for my mobile application. Spread across Facebook and the comments on the blog post, I had fifty six of them! Anyway, I printed them all out (with no names attached) and showed them to several people:

• Myself
• A friend of mine who works in marketing
• A friend of mine who works in publishing
• My wife (this doesn’t really count, as she said “you didn’t put my suggestion on there” and then refused to look at it)
• A selection of my colleagues at my real job

There were a few popular ones. In the end, these people whittled it down to small batch (some of which got modified in the whittling process). The ones left were:

• Proximity
• Commuter’s Companion
• BuzzStop
• Are We There Yet?
• Whereabouts

These are all pretty good names, but there can be only one winner. And the winner is…

… drum roll…

“Proximity”.

This wasn’t actually suggested by anyone on its own, but it was a part of a number of suggestions from a gentleman named Eamon Holmes, on Facebook. I’m pronouncing Eamon the winner, and will send through his books. Many thanks to all who took part – I expected about three responses so was somewhat surprised by what happened. A lot of the funny ones gave us a lot of entertainment but may possibly not count as very professional. And I am, of course, exceptionally professional at all times.

I’ll be posting here again when the app is available – will probably be in a month or so.

As a non-religious person, I applaud the renaming of various things which once had religious significance. Until last year, “Christmas” in my house involved singing hymns, praying, nailing ourselves to crosses and drinking the blood of bats.  Now, with the invention of the new “holiday yuletide snow fun” period, the event has been completely transformed. We buy a tree, give each other gifts – and this year we didn’t even sacrifice anyone!

I’m equally pleased about the abandoning of the archaic term “AD” (“Anno Domini” – in the year of our Lord) in favour of “CE” (“Common Era”). Previously, every time I wrote down the date I was caught up in a terrible misery over the death of Jesus, the son whom I doubt existed of a god I don’t believe in. As I write dates quite regularly for my job, this was causing me a lot of anguish and I’m very pleased it’s being painstakingly stamped out.

My only complaint is that these changes don’t go far enough. The next things to approach are:

• The word “enthusiast“, as I’m sure you know, means a person possessed by a god. This is out of touch with modern reality. We should use “fan” instead.
• The term “OMG” currently stands for “oh my god”. Do we all live in the fourth century now? Let’s stop this nonsense and make it stand for “oh my goodness” instead.
• Somehow the term “milky way” and its Greek equivalent, “galaxy“, continue to see regular use. We need to stamp this out – although we can’t be sure of exactly where the galaxy came from, we can be confident that it did not come from breast milk sprayed into the sky after Zeus’ baby son woke up during feeding. I recommend we use “distinct universe area”.
• I don’t believe in the Norse god of strength, Thor, and every Thursday this riles me up into a frenzy. I propose we rename “Thursday” to “Beyonceday” to reflect more current thinking.

These are quite common terms, so making the necessary changes will no doubt take a while. Rewriting the history books will probably be the most time-consuming part, but I think we can all agree that it will be a useful investment.

I was inspired yesterday by my friend Richard MacKinnon to go hunting for the search terms people have used to find my site. I use Google Analytics to monitor my site traffic, which provides a nice way of scrolling through these. Of course, most of them are pretty predictable – “british insults”, “british slang”, “british slang words” et cetera. What’s more interesting is where you scroll down to the searches that had only one single occurence.

Some of these were still looking for my site.

the septic’s guide
septic dictionary
septic mans dictionary
syptic companion

Some of them were looking for the right sort of thing, although perhaps they didn’t find it on my site.

what does the term love mean to british

[Lady, I think this means it was a one night stand.]

british euphemisms has your wooden leg fallen off

[Are you pulling my leg?]

Some people were just angry. About stuff.

why are americans such tosspots
are audio cable companies taking the piss

Some people needed help with something.

how to demo letter g?

[This is your seventh demo, right?]

derogatory chat up lines

[Hmm. Your mother told you this was a good idea?]

am i most likely to date a guy thats starts with the letter c

[Perhaps, but I’ve a sense it’s not me.]

c-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-s meaning in each letter

[Fact: Christmas started as an acronym.]

what do americans call faggotts

[Well, erm…]

I want to have a pear everyday is that ok

[Knock yourself out. Assuming you’re eating it, there are worse vices.]

what belt would faggot attic ed wear

[I’m going to a fancy dress party as Ed. Ed. You know Ed. No, not that Ed. Faggot Attic Ed.]

Some people were looking for… well, they were looking for something. Heaven knows what it was. I’d like to warn readers that this is where it’s going to start getting more colourful. If Faggot Attic Ed was too much for you, close this window now.

“fag snow fairy”

[For the person who’s tried everything on top of the tree.]

the bitterness of s.w.o.t. is in the analysis,while the sweetness of wedding cake is in the icing sugar.discuss

[The nonsequiteur seminar seemed to have started well.]

why do prostitutes eat ice cream

[Good question. And why is it that they wave when they see someone they recognise? Those crazy prostitutes.]

strung up by the tits tube

[YouTube for the sado masochist.]

is the word fucking religion an insult?

[That’s two words. And probably.]

colloquialism for nothing dick

[Yep, I’ve got ole’ nothing dick again.]

wanking with washing up liquid

[Not recommended. It says on the bottle that it softens your hands.]

wellington boots wanking 

[Unless these are children’s boots, you’re better endowed than I am.]

big fat black slaves hung by pantyhose

[There’s no such thing as an overly-specific fetish.]

animal words for willies and vaginas beaver

[If animals could talk, my bet would be that this was a likely topic.]

dog buggers the grandmother

[Not just any grandmother.]

russian or romany lady required as live in 4-sex shagg buy please apply if you can help

[I get a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart that some people didn’t end up with very accurate search results.]

how to get your wife to make sense and shag you

[Do you need these simultaneously?]

how to strangle your manky skanky daughters

[It’s just the same as strangling other people. Drop some search terms for better results.]

how to transport a naked girl into your house in two seconds 

[On wheels? Or teleport?]

if was going to shove veggies up my pussy i use a zucchini

[This is why nobody at the party understood! Those Brits call them aubergines!]

And finally, onto some personal favourites.

replica of chocolate cocks

[A real chocolate cock?! What do you take me for?]

arab womne looking like binbags

[Come on, admit it. We’ve all done this search after a few beers.]

quickest way to deflate boner at the beach

[My site is pretty much guaranteed to have provided some results.]

where can you fine scandinavian grope suit 

[Well, sir, they’re over here. What chest size are you. Oh – wait – *Scandinavian*?]

what do you call a system that really slows work flow in a company 

Ah yes. That would be the internet. Back to work, everyone.