Dom's Rambles

Part of Down & Out in Sheffield & Lincoln

Thursday, November 29, 2007

"If I had an inch..."

This made me laugh - as indeed did this closely related article from the ever superb The Onion.

posted by Dom # 11:20 PM 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Stalk This Way

Since I've had my new stats package installed I've been able to keep track of my more regular visitors. Using a combination of their IP numbers and hostnames as well as the search terms they arrive via, the pages they look at, for how long and at what time of day, I've been able to hazard a guess as to some of their identities (and no, I don't get out much).

For example, the guy who keeps entering 'Dom Bescoby really can't take a joke' (whatever that's supposed to mean) into a Google search engine is no mystery whatsoever - even if the address he's logging on from is a little puzzling as I always thought he was too much of a fucking moron to even have a job, let alone one at a reputable installer of heating systems.

Some are a little more ambiguous. If you log on to this site it will tell you your IP number. If it's one of the following - especially one of the first two - then I have have my suspicions about you!

194.176.105.37
194.176.105.38
86.6.53.194
213.38.169.149

Update: It seems I was wrong about the identity of the guy searching on the term 'Dom Bescoby really can't take a joke'. However, it would appear to suggest I was right in my assumption that the original suspect is indeed too much of a fucking moron to have a job!

posted by Dom # 12:22 PM 0 comments links to this post

Saturday, November 17, 2007

The Chernobyl Biker

I linked to this site off my old blog (the blog which featured in the groundbreaking 2005 Blogged: Dispatches from the Blogosphere by Tim Worstall - one reviewer describing my contribution as '...gloriously unhinged', which pleased me immensely) but thought I'd revisit the thing as it seem to have been updated a little since then.
Basically it's a collection of captioned photos taken by a Russian girl called Elena who burns around Chernobyl and the surrounding area on her bike. Some of the images, particularly the shots from the abandoned kindergarten, are quite haunting - see what you think.
The meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor was actually the second worst man-made ecological disaster of all time. The worst, which I had never even heard of until I read an article about it by A A Gill, was the Biblical horror visited upon the Aral Sea region and was made by the same men who brought us the the aforementioned Chernobyl.

posted by Dom # 12:38 PM 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A Random Nutter.

One of the most enduring memories of my regular sojourns to London during 1986 and the early part of 1987 is of the above loon, one Mr Stanley Green, parading up and down Oxford Street (read more about him here). One evening my then girlfriend and I found ourselves sat opposite Mr Green on a tube train whereupon she pointed out – and between fits of badly suppressed giggling - that he was the spitting image of my old man.
The paternal side of my family always was shrouded in mystery - perhaps this is why. Perhaps Stanley Green was my long lost uncle.
Closer to home, and on a more contemporary level, there are a frightening number of people I’ve known who have gone barking mad over the years. Hardly a month goes by without me bumping into a former member of Lincoln's boho set who I haven't seen for years and who turns out to be either suffering from, or getting over, a bout of some catastrophic mental illness or other.
This is not a coincidence and rather begs a certain question – a question which has been at the centre of one of the great drunken pub debates of our time:

Did that scene and lifestyle attract people who had a few screws loose to start with?
Did it send them that way?
Or was it a bit of both?

Discuss.

posted by Dom # 5:30 PM 0 comments links to this post

Friday, November 09, 2007

Mandy's Photos

Thanks once more to Mandy for digging out and scanning her photo collection. These shots are mostly taken in Lazers nightclub and are seriously old school. Judging by my rather outlandish hairstyle they have to date from somewhere around the summer of 1988.

As usual, click on the thumbnails to get the full size pictures.

posted by Dom # 11:47 AM 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Sue's Annual Halloween Party.

Last weekend saw the traditional fancy dress Halloween party at Sue’s place. Sue has the dubious honour of being the only ex-girlfriend I have who I’m still on speaking – and, more importantly, friendly - terms with.

Check out the photos by clicking on the thumbnail - and if any of the old Vaults crowd who can remember as far back as 1989/1990 are reading this then yes, that girl is who you think it is!

posted by Dom # 2:53 PM 0 comments links to this post

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Unintentionally Lewd Comic Artwork (Redux)

I was looking back on the old blog today (don't look for it, I just deleted the thing) and came across this post which I've reproduced here in lieu of the next mammoth entry which details the recent search for, and finding of, my long lost seventeen year old son (who is so much like his father at the same age that it's scary).
In the meantime I'm having a really hard time believing that some of these were as naïvely conceived as their vintage might suggest!

posted by Dom # 7:40 PM 0 comments links to this post