My big project is progressing. Would love to show you guys it but DA doesn't seem to be what it used to, it's been abot an hour I've been trying to upload an image now, I'm abut ready to give up.

I'll try again, but it's increasingly likely I'll be starting to host my art on my own site sometime soon.

Jark was right a year ago, DA served its purpose and it's probably about time we let it die with some dignity, rather than letting all the cliques, fanclubs, and bad management continue to violate its corpse ad ininitum.

My new project:
I've mentioned it a lot - here it is.



Expect updates as it comes along!

Just so you all know I'm not dead!
Actually my time has been divided between Louise, and a massive artistic project I'm working on. More to come on that later with work in progress shots!

What a couple of days!

The last two days have seen me and Louise bouncing from coast to coast in the space of 24 hours, visiting both ends of the wall, travelling past the village I went to school in and through the countryside of my upbringing, buying books, eating good food and much more!

It all began shortly after midnight on wednesday. Unable to contain the anticipation any longer, I presented Louise with the present I had been working on for her for the last month. A katana she saw in the local antiques and militaria store which I have been painstakingly restoring for her. She was surprised, overjoyed, and very, very satisfied. This was only the beginning however, of a very good day.

After waking up later in the day, we set off on the metro to the little fishing village of Cullercoats. In a wonderful little bay on a beautiful stretch of coastline.
Louise enjoyed the caves, although we had little time to see them as the tide was moving in, but we got a wonderful view of the village from the bay.



On the other side of the bay (Which we had to reach from the village road, as the beach was by then broken in two by a stretch of water) I got a nice shot of Louise on the cliffs. After which we went down to the beach and walked out to get a good look at the rest of the bay.

So, after the mooninites invaded Cullercoats (lol) we headed onto the metro to Tynemouth, where I introduced Louise to a nice little place in an old church full of shops, it confused her at first but we bought several books. Following that, we headed down to the priory, unfortunately closed, and decided to sit eating our fish and chips in front of it. From there we could see the Collingwood statue down at the mouth of the river, which Lou got a nice shot of in the distance.



Once we strolled over to Collingwood, we were able to get a shot of the priory in the background, and afterwards I took a pic of the sun setting over the tyne from the very end of the pier. We sat and watched a ship sail out to sea before heading back.

After a delicious meal cooked by yours truly, we turned in for the night and were off again in the morning to take advantage of my new disabled railcard to hop onto the train to Carlisle, where Louise was pleased by the immediate view outside the station of the city gates.



Once inside the most beautiful city, we strolled down towards the castle, which we shall be visiting later in the year, and into the museum, which we both got into cheaply and where I chatted for a while with the staff about changes to it over the years (I remember the days when only the small museum now known as "old Tullie House" existed, now a massive centre ten times its size stands there) before finally heading to the cathedral after a very fun two hours in the museum.



Louise's photography of cathedrals WINS, and after some time outside with the camera, we went inside to check out the architecture and small museum collection and history of the cathedral.

Finally, we grabbed a nice tasting pub meal, the perfect finish to our time in what I like to think of as the biggest village in the world. And then it was off to the station where my keen eyes as we visited the toilets spotted a train to Newcastle with one minute to departing standing at the next platform, and we were on our way home.

Magnificent.

For a long time I've not watched TV.
It's pointless, it's a waste of money. The license fee is an archaic 1940s concept no longer relevant to the modern world and the publicly funded channels have become a massive commercial enterprise. And most of all the shows just aren't good enough to warrant wasting my time watching.


A few things which could improve this and make me watch again.

No more home improvement/makeover shows.
I really hate these things. Anything telling people what to like is automatically pure evil. Moreso when you get ones where the individuals focused on doing work for are comparitively RICH. It just makes me SICK. This is worse because these shows seem to make up half of all daytime TV.

Sports
Start showing some good sports. Ones that aren't the same thing over and over again with a different shaped ball/net.
Would it kill more channels than specialist cable ones and late night segments on Channel 4 (A COMMERCIALLY FUNDED channel which the license fee doesn't pay for) to show things like Poker? UFC? Hell, for that matter why does nobody show big LAN tournaments? I'd pay to see CS championships, and the Guild Wars world tournament.

"Reality TV" is the most mind numbing shit ever to despoil our screens.
Seriously, there is nothing "real" about a bunch of wannabe actors with no real talent all trying to outdo each other on behaving like soap characters.

And on the topic...

Do we really need a bunch of shows which run in cycles of telling the same stories about different people having the same thing happen to them over and over on a particular street?
Emmerdale. Eastenders. Coronation street. Neighbours. You all know what you're guilty of.

Funny sitcoms.
I get DVDs of the one or two which actually make me laugh. But I laugh more at the ones WITHOUT canned laughter. This is purely to hint at people where they should be laughing because the jokes are so shit that they fail to stir the slightest hint of amusement. A fe get away with it because they are filmed with a live audience. This I can live with. Forced, mechanical laughter I can'. The tone of a laugh is related to the amusing observation which spawned it, laughter which does not match this tone is clearly not connected in any way with the amusing thing on screen. It sounds like a hostile invading force which serves to detract from your enjoyment.
If your sitcom is crap, do not think canned laughter makes it funnier. Can the show.

Real news.
Please stop showing the same two or three headlines and padding it with mindless crap. We don't care about the stuff with cute animals. We DO care about events going on worldwide or in our back yard if they have any relevance to us. Celebrities who are artificially made so with no real reason are just like royalty. In fact they have largely REPLACED the main roles fo the monarchy. A modern society has no place for them as icons for the masses. Stop feeding the belief that they are in any way important.

Stop canning all the original, imaginative shows.
Urban Gothic. Monkey Dust. Each of us can name several such shows which were canned, but which truly showed imagination and gave something that truly made us want to watch TV. However every such series never lasts very long.
In the modern day and age I doubt Babylon 5 would have been allowed to continue to a second season, it started so slowly but built up to a massive storyline. These days the shows which don't instantly pull high figures don't get to continue. The result? Only those which offer immediate gratification are allowed to spread like a virus across our screens. Immediate gratification is one of the greatest flaws dragging all of society down, pulling us into a spiral of greed and destruction which WILL, make no mistake, be the end of our species as the world falls into anarchy.


Just following a few of these simple guidelines could make the difference between an intelligent, concerned individual like myself watching TV, and abandoning it for the internet. But then, maybe that's a good thing.


But remember, if you don't watch TV you are a DANGEROUS, CRIMINAL DEVIANT because nobody could possibly not want to watch it. So you must be a liar. Everyone wants to watch TV. Big brother is watching you. The computer is your friend. Go back to bed, your government is in control. You are free to do what we tell you!