Footy

Like all honest people of the world I'm totally peeved over Fifa's World Cup decision today.

Giving the tournament to Russia send out all the following signals, including:-

• Human rights records in the host nation are not important
• Racism is acceptable (ditto if it had gone to Spain/Portugal)
• Football fans are not considered when making these decisions
• Hooliganism is okay
• Standards of stadia are not important
• The rules of the bidding process (not slandering opponents etc) are there to be broken (just like Putin and the head of the Russian bid did)
• Corruption/bribery pays off

Great signal to send Fifa!

So, I had to chuckle when I saw this.
http://strayving.blogspot.com/2010/12/corruption-at-fifa_02.html

I think it's time we took our ball (a proper one, not the stupid Jabulani) back and start from scratch with a fair governing body (okay, the FA ain't great but they're better than the rest). this way we won't have idiotic rules made up by some crazy Swiss despot (Sepp Fatter) who has never played the game and doesn't even understand the rules.

Rant over! :-)

Christmas isn't far away!!!!

So, here's some gift ideas!

Snort funny!

Ben made up his first "knock knock" joke the other day.

Ben: Knock Knock
Me: Who's there?
Ben: Pig
Me: Pig who?
Ben (points at me): There!

As ever I thought of the witty riposte too late - Cheeky little swine!

Okay, he's not quite grasped the concept of knock knock jokes, but it was so out of the blue that it was quite funny so laughed quite a bit. He now tells it at every opportunity and howls with laughter to encourage his audience to laugh too!

Flock

Whilst driving around Norwich on Sunday I pointed our a large white French Poodle to Ben, my 2 year old.

His response was (quite sincerely) "I want a sheep!"

I tweet!

Yeah baby! Last week I decided to start tweeting.

I've resisted for a while because I'm stilll fond of full length blogging, even though it means I sit here for long periods of time pondering what to blog (and then realising how boring my life is when no subject crops up!) but I've always been evangelical about the power of this interweb-thing, so I do need to play at being a tweeter in order for work purposes.

I don't think tweeting will take away from this blog because tweets are more sput of the moment (like the fire at Zizzi's pizza restaurant in Norwich today) whereas this blog is often a reflection of the day or days gone by.

So, my most recent tweets will appear on this blog (at ths side) and you can follow me @originalmajato. I kept it the same as this blgo because it's nice and easy to remember and because there are many pretend majato's but there can only ever be 1 originalMaJaTo.

There's a shark in the park!!!

In the absence of anything worth blogging about I figured I'd stick this in. My boys love it (and I do too!)

don't you hate it...

...when your tapping away on the keyboard when suddenly most of what you have typed disappears, possibly because your hand came within a few millimeters of the mousepad on your laptop?

Not too bad when you are writing in Word, Powerpoint etc, but when it's a rant on your blog it doesn't seem to allow you to "undo"

I can't be arsed to retype the rant, which was a pop at Ebay (shock, horror)

Uncle Harry

Just wanted to post a quick link to some articles relating to the recent passing away of my Uncle Harry in case any members of my family are reading.

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/tributes_to_norfolk_lifeboat_hero_killed_in_tragedy_1_662078

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/localnews/Tributes-after-longserving-lifeboatman-dies.6565712.jp

http://www.rnli.org.uk/wcm/site/pages/access/media/printableVersion.aspx?article=612791&transform=425588

Yay for October

I was tempted to explain to Luke that October has its origins with the latin number 8 (octó), which can also be found in words such as Octopus and Octagon.

He kinda likes languages so I would've mentioned some foreign numbers that are similar, such as:-
Ocho - Spanish
Acht - German /Dutch
Otto - Italian
Oito - Portuguese
Agt - Afrikaan
οκτώ - Greek

However, to do so I would need to explain why October is the 10th month, not the eighth. I'll leave that one for now.

10 is the magic number

I set out to achieve double figures this month, but a couple of weeks of blog absenteeism almost jeopardised this modest ambition.

So, here I am, writing my 10th post in September purely so I can reach achieve this feat.

Is that cheating? Yes.

Do I care? No.

Will I match or even exceed 10 posts next month? Unlikely.

Normally I like food....

...but right at this moment it is not my friend.

On Friday night we drove up to Hull in order to see relatives and go to an afternoon barbecue at a friends' house.

I didn't feel at hungry as I normally do at these occasions (remember: food is my friend) but still enjoyed the occasion with a plate of well cooked (maybe even over-cooked) meats, and a couple of slices of cake.

D took the first stint driving home. . As we progressed my stomach felt bloated, and I felt nauseous. I tried to hold it in, but after less than an hour I desperately needed to stop for fresh air.  Unfortunately that wasn't all I needed to stop for! I only just made it to a tree before heaving. Not once, but three times. I just hope there weren't any CCTV cameras in Lincoln. Someone was watching - Luke. He decided that he now felt sick and the next time we stopped he tried to wretch!

The journey is normally fairly long (about 4.5hrs with a couple of pitstops) but this time it felt longer than ever. I felt rough for entire journey, needing to stop frequently, especially as another part of my body wanted to be in on the action!!!!

I've spent most of the day resting on the couch and still feel really rough, my stomach is bloated and, ahem, normal service has not resumed yet. My throat feels really rough too, probably from all that heaving.

And the working week starts tomorrow. Joy.

Pope off

Firstly, an apology to any of my friends reading this who are religious. You know I respect you and your society, and it is this respect I hope to receive in turn despite my atheism - I believe I do receive this from you. This post refers to a distinct lack of respect not only to my Country (England) but also to my belief (well, the lack of!) from someone with a white hat who should know better.

Those of you who know me will realise I keep opinions to myself, going on with the philosophy of letting others live their lives as they so choose. When I first heard that the Pope was coming to the UK I was not overly fussed. After all, he seems a harmless old bloke in a dress. It's not as if he's coming to incite hatred and violence like some other preachers.

However, once I learnt that his visit was to be paid for by UK tax payers my opinion changed. Why? Mainly because the Catholic Church is extremely wealthy and can easily afford to pay for this, but also because the UK's Head of State (Her Royal Maj, EII) is also Head of the Church of England - Protestant, not Catholic. The number of Catholics in the UK is around/less than 1m, out of a total population of 67m - pretty small (and the majority of them are Scottish, who don't pay much tax anyway!)

But, hey, what you do? I had no intention of voicing my complaints about this extra burden on the economy.

But the Pontiff and his cronies has pushed the button today. In a speech by the Pope he associated Atheism with Nazism, and his aide, Cardinal Walter Kasper, has said that "England today is a secularised, pluralistic country. When you land at Heathrow Airport, you sometimes think you'd landed in a Third World country" and his refers to "aggressive Neo-atheism" in England, claiming that we discriminate against Christians.

Let's look at some facts:-

• The Catholic Churches views are no longer relevant to the modern world. They are almost as medieval as Islam
• The Pope is:-
• Opposing the distribution of condoms and so increasing large families in poor countries and the spread of Aids
• Denying abortion to even the most vulnerable women
• Opposing equal rights for lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people
• Meddling in children's education - education is state responsibility, not the Church
• Failing to address the many cases of abuse of children by paedophile priests globally
• Trying to bribe people into Catholic faith by offering money (according to Reverend Ian Paisley)
• Pope Benedict was a member of the Hitler Youth, and has in the past quoted Nazi philosophers to back up his hardline views
• The Catholic church lecture people about the sanctity of vows (whether it's marriage or priests' vow of celibacy) but priests involved in sex scandals are regular tabloid events
• The Vatican has Mafia connections (search for books on the Vatican Mafia)
• The Catholic Church deny the rights of women in society. If they had their way women would still be chained to the kitchen sink - no wonder they won't allow women priests!
• It is a fact that the UK Government discriminate in favour of minority faiths and immigrants. Whilst Christians may feel some of this directed at them (crosses banned at school, whilst burqas, nijabs and ceremonial daggers are okay) Atheists also suffer in this and any other society. As a silent and peaceful majority, we have accepted this because of the non-secular history.
• The "discrimination" that Wally Kasper refers to was established under Tony Blairs' government. Blair is a devoted Christian and a Catholic convert!

Atheists are not uncivilised, we are not lacking in morals and we are certainly not violent. As an Atheist I live my life by high moral standards, letting others get on with their lives, hoping they too will keep to accepted world morals. After all, morals are not the sole preserve of religion, and going on the reputation of the Catholic Church, they don't seem to have any morals at all!

Finally, Remember, the majority of wars have been caused by religion - who's the violent aggressive now, Pope?

So, Benedict, Walter and your cronies - you can take a bloody long walk of a very short pier, for Christ's sake!

 There. I said it. Rant over. I encourage people to join this website. http://www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/

Non-dairy creamer cannon

One of my favourite explosions on Mythbusters.



Sounds a bit wierd without Robin Banks doing the voiceover.

I'm reliably informed

...that this song will be played a lot when we next visit Eurodisney.

Local stuff - Norwich Castle

Remember a long time ago I said I'd start sticking the occasional piece in here about Norwich and the surrounding area?

Well, I did a couple of articles and then I forgot about it, until now.

So, I figured I'd prattle on about Norwich Castle. Afterall, it is pretty much the centre piece of the City.

Norwich castle was built in 1067 at the request of William the Conqueror originally as a motte and bailey(mound) with a wooden keep, which was replaced by the current stone keep at the around 1120. The old structure was more about defending an important City such as Norwich (which was the 2nd largest City in England at the time), but the stone castle was originally  a royal palace and later it was used a prison. It has been a museum for the past 126 years.