I've been suffering from a lot of trapped wind recently (it can be very painful) and so popped into the chemist's to buy a box of fruit flavoured chalk [calcium carbonate] tablets.

On the box it stated that the maximum daily dose is sixteen tablets; yet there are eighty tablets in the box (four tubes of twenty tablets each): therefore you could easily accidently overdose by consuming an entire tube in a day.

With tablets such as paracetamol or aspirin it's now only possible to buy sixteen tablets at a time in order to make taking an overdose more difficult; why doesn't this restriction apply to simple indigestion remedies? What are the symptons of chalk poisoning anyhow?

I thought I'd try typing 'Doncaster' into Google Images and see what I might find...the photograph shows a slain scrap iron dragon somewhere within sight of Saint George's Minster.

Rather appropriate, I think.

Apart from the first attraction on the list, as far as I'm aware admission to all of the venues is free.

Yorkshire Mining Museum, Caphouse Colliery, Wakefield - I've never been and I'm not really interested.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield - one of my favourite places to visit but I haven't been there for ten years because it's poorly served by public transport.

Lotherton Hall Bird Garden, near Castleford - again, no public transport.

National Railway Museum, York - I've been there a couple of times in recent years now that it's free admission.

National Armouries at Leeds - very disappointing.

National Museum of Film, Photography and Television - based in an old mill; you can spend all day there.

I'm fortunate that I'm currently enjoying broadband access at home because of a £500 poetry bursary that I've received. The conditions which come with the award are very generous; all I have to do is use the money to place as much of my poetry on the web as possible. This means a bit of research and emailing off my poems and biographical details; but nothing too difficult or time consuming.

Of course most of my time online is not related to my poetry at all, but whilst researching grant aid I came across these two examples of genuine cash awards or budgetary allocations for academic studies.

1979: The McDonnell Foundation awarded $500,000 to Washing University (St. Louis) to study spoon-bending children.

1981: The Pentagon spent $6m to determine if burning a photograph of a Soviet missile would actually destroy the missile.

Recently I saw a news report about people selling genuine and counterfeit Blue Peter badges on eBay.

These badges were awarded to children who appeared on the TV show or in some way contributed to their local communities.

Apparently there's a thriving market for the badges because they allow free admission to certain tourist and educational attractions... I never knew that.

You would think though that each year's badges would be slightly different and easily identifiable, thus making it obvious to anyone when people are trying to abuse the system by using old badges.

Anti-eating face mask

Body squeegee

Inflatable rug

System for magnetically attaching templeless eyewear to a person

Bird diaper/nappy

Apparatus for simulating a 'high five'

Toe puppet

Motorised ice cream cone

Flushable vehicle spittoon

Santa Claus detector

Jet powered surfboard

Fly swatter with sound effects

Hat simulating a fried egg

I currently have thirty six people on my friends list, and only four of these I already knew before I started blogging; of which only one person (Phil in Wakefield) is currently active on the site.

The other three registered when I first sent them an invitation, but as for as I'm aware none of them has posted an entry (two of them do occasionally view my blog though.)

I've not seen Phil for over a year now, but we keep in touch by email. I see my friend Jon, (who used to live in Doncaster, but now lives in Glasgow) about once a year, but we also email each other regularly. My other friend on the site, Mick, I see him at least weekly because he lives locally. Finally, I contact my sister Della in Adelaide by using instant messaging.

Following on from my post about Woody Allen quotes, here are some more quotes. Dali is my favourite painter...by a long way!

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.

I don't do drugs. I am drugs.

The problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it.

I shall be so brief that I have already finished.

I've just been to collect my prescription for neoclarityn for my hay fever. It's raining quite heavily and I was dripping wet when I went to the counter. A few minutes later the chemist seemed to be giving me a funny look (it's certainly not hay fever weather outside) and so I felt the need to briefly explain that I'm allergic to tree pollen and that it appears very early in the season.

He then proceeded to tell me to take one tablet a day as he confirmed my details...it's my hay fever, I know how to medicate myself; I've been on the same tablets for twenty years so I know what I'm doing.

Adobe - Adobe Creek which flowed behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke.

AltaVista - Spanish for 'high view.'

Amazon.com - simply named after the river. Also chosen because it's at the beginning of the alphabet and would take preference on search engine results pages.

Apple - favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs. It was used as an inhouse project name until someone devised a better name...apparently no-one did.

eBay - originally meant to be Echo Bay after the name of the founder's first company EB Technology (a name randomly chosen). However 'Echo Bay' was already in use so the name was just shortened to 'eBay.'

Google - a deliberate misspelling of 'googol' - a very large number.

Lycos - from Lycosidae, the family of wolfspiders.

Mozilla - a corrupted form of 'mosaic killer', influenced by 'Godzilla'. I couldn't find out why on Earth 'mosaic killer' and 'Godzilla' are relevant though.

Yahoo - Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. (I'm not sure about this one.)

One of my favourite actors/directors...a very funny man.

Here are a few of his most famous quotes.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Masturbation is having sex with someone I like a lot.

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?

It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work...I want to achieve it through not dying.

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.

Reading the local press online recently I've discovered that the actual shop which was used in the series as Arkwright's shop is currently threatened with demolition.

The premises, situated in Balby (about a mile from the town centre) are now a unisex hair salon and are right in the middle of an area scheduled for demolition as part of a neighbourhood improvement scheme.

To be honest, I don't know how I feel about this; I really enjoyed watching the programme on TV, but the building is nothing much to look at and the area is really rundown and something certainly needs to be done.

I've never really been particularly interested in music. Yes, I like to dance when I'm out socialising and there's the opportunity; but pretty much any type of music will do.

I don't see the point in sitting at home listening to music on my own. Since getting broadband I've been listening to a lot of radio and audio files; but all of it is speech based.

Maybe I'm missing out on something?

Here's a list of some of the more bureaucratic-sounding activities at the headquarters in New York.

Administrative Committee on Co-ordination
High Level Committee on Management
High Level Committee on Programmes
Inter-Agency Working Group on Evaluation
United Nations Office for Project Services

No doubt several hundred people will have secure, well-paid jobs as a result of these continuing activities.

This morning I decided to walk all the way across town to Sainbury's in order to redeem my voucher for a free 1.5kg bag of ovenready chips.

When I got to the frozen food department I found that they only stocked a 1.875kg bag (1.5kg plus 25% 'free'.) Straight away, with me being a naturally suspicious person, I thought that this was a scam to deny me something for nothing and was preparing exactly what I would be saying to the checkout operator and the manager.

However, when I reached the till there wasn't a problem. Maybe I was disappointed?

Kim Jong II - North Korea
Obsessed with Hollywood films: kidnapped a South Korean film director and force-fed him grass to make him do a Marxist version of Godzilla.

Saparmurat Niyazov - Turkmenistan
All government workers must memorise passages of his books in order to keep their jobs. He's also banned beards, gold teeth and circuses. Renamed months of the year after his mum [how many names does she have?] and created a public holiday to celebrate melons.

Jean Bedel Bokassa - Central African Republic/Empire
Had a disturbing penchant for drinking blood and was rumoured to eat babies.

Idi Amin Dada - Uganda
Beheaded his oponents and sat their corpses around the presidential dining table so he could censure them for their behaviour. Crowned himself 'The King of Scotland'.

Sani Abacha - Nigeria
Died during a sex romp with three Indian prostitutes.

...when typing up patients' medical records from recorded consultations.

lansoprazole (a drug) typed up as 'Lanzarote'.

phlebitis [vein inflammation], left leg - flea bite, his left leg.

'below knee amputation' became 'baloney amputation'.

eustatachian tube [in the ear] malfunction ended up as 'Euston Station tube malfunction'.

(Found on Fortean Times forum page.)

...that I found on someone's blog on another site.

What would my epitaph be?
'Was that it?'

The title of my autobiography?
'Accidental Rhymes.'

My worst nightmare?
Being seriously ill.

What am I worth?
Whatever anyone is willing to offer.

Who would I like to be for a day?
A Death Row prisoner who's sheduled for execution the next day.

What would I do if I were invisible?
I'd certainly not spend as much time on my own sitting in front of the computer screen!

Yesterday I had to go to the jobcentre to sign on. My appointment was for 9:30 but by 9:45 I hadn't heard my name called out. Not for the first time it had been called out but I'd not heard it; my name 'Firth' is a difficult name to listen out for - it's only got one syllable and no real vowel and very easily gets lost in the background noise of piped music, ringing telephones and people talking.

It wasn't a problem though, I just went over to the reception and it was soon sorted.

Where can I buy sparrow sized hot water bottles?

What position will you die in?

My dog wants to eat the cursor.

My first daffodil of the spring is finally just about in flower, six weeks later than last year. By the look of the state of the other bulbs I should have a spectacular display within the next few days; everything flowering at the same time.

I've already had a couple of insepid grape hyacinths showing a bit of colour since January; but that's it. I can't remember spring ever being so late though.

Fortunately after eight months online I've not had a computer virus yet, I'm very careful with what files I download and open though. Of course I currently have several hundred unwanted items of spyware on my machine; all I can do is scan my files and then manually delete all the Trojan horses, downloaders and whatever else they're called.

I recently went on a site to read about the history of computer virus writing and found a gazzetteer of all known viruses. Some of them have rather strange names; here are some of my favourites.

Ant-Cow

Chinese Blood

Christmas Violator

Elk Cloner

Maltese Amoeba

Mutation Engine

No Wednesday

Penis Size

Back Orifice

Following on from an earlier posting listing U.S. geographical portmanteau names here are a few similarly formed expletives, most of them used by U.S. college students.

permafucked

beshitted

flooser

foff

fucktard

fugly

fungry

gaytard

bugly

dicktard

fuckster

Some of them are quite clever and effective; I'd never come across any of them though until I found them on a website a few days ago.

I just love the sound of these words; I can't even remember the definition or context of a couple of them though and it's only been a few days since I first came across them.

clinistrip

coffin corner

catblogging

chainstore paradox

incretin

elongated pentagonal orthocupolarotunda

frost flowers

Nintendocore music

econobox cars

dew warning

thundersnow

Communitarianism

Social wage

Nanotechnology

Online communities

Scientific re-definition of a planet

Citizenship

Workfare

Therapeutic art

Restorative justice

1...Why is it than whenever I see people doing sign language interpretation on TV, they always look gormless?

2...Why do some people think that being able to do anything they want with their lives means that they are are able to (or are compelled to) do everything?

I'm just wondering.

I've just been watching live coverage of the third test, India versus England from Bombay (Mumbai). The feed isn't full screen, but it's watchable...and there aren't any adverts.

Here's the link. There's a choice of ten alternative feeds on the left of the screen; so one of them should work.

The live broadcast is from 04:30 to 11:30 or 12:00 GMy for the next four days (weather permitting.)

My brother came to visit me on Thursday, which is nice; but I think I was a bit down since I mentioned that as usual there wasn't much positive happening in my life.

He thought for a few seconds and then said, "It's the same for pensioners and disabled people."

I didn't need to think at all; I just replied, "But I'm not a pensioner, and I'm not disabled." He's not either and he's lonelier and more bored than I am...but he keeps it to himself.

1...Why are there no toilets anywhere on Star Trek?

2...Why, when people are speaking on the phone, do they always say a lot more than the person at the other end of the line?

3...Why do cars in U.S. chase scenes frequently crash into empty cardboard boxes left piled up in alleyways?

4...Why are so many drama series set in tourist locations?

It's ironic, with all the snow and cold weather we're having recently, but I'll soon have to phone up the doctor's surgery and arrange to collect my prescription of neoclarityn for my hayfever. I think I'm allergic to tree pollen, and that appears early in the season; even when the weather is still rather unpleasant.

In today's earlier posting I mentioned that people at the place where I was contemplating doing some voluntary work might have been a bit uncomfortable with my physical appearance and demeanour. This observation isn't a case of my being negative or a bit paranoid, it's just as it is: several times a week strangers go out of their way to make unpleasant or sarcastic comments about my appearance and I've even had to disable user tags on this blog because of similar such remarks.

It's not that I'm particularly unattractive or even disfigured; the problem is that my physical appearance and speech make me look and sound like someone strange and unusual, freakish or threatening...not very helpful when seeking employment or social acceptance.

So, what's my problem? Well, I've got a very pronounced squint, bulging eyes, a misaligned jaw and really thick, straight hair that just doesn't look right (especially when it's windy and it just sits there on my head, not the least bit affected by the gusts.) Additionally, I've got disproportionately long limbs which makes my gait awkward and clumsy (yet I have no difficulty in actually walking for long distances.)

I've known for a long time that my appearance and demeanour is offputting to most people; they initially visualise me as being a drug addict, a criminal, or having some type of mental illness or behavioural problem. There's nothing I can do about the situation though; there's nothing wrong with me - it's society that's sick, with its obsession with physical beauty...so sod 'em all! If people don't want to work with me or share a relationship with me because of their own preconceptions then it's their loss. It really is their loss, because I'm an absolutist and would give one hundred precent to whatever I'm doing; whatever it is.

I've decided to give the voluntary work a miss. After last week's phonecall (telling me they didn't need me to attend) I got the feeling that maybe they'd prefer it if I didn't volunteer at all. There could be all sorts of reasons for this and it's no use me worrying why (lack of employment/personal circumstances/too enthusiastic/ or [as I suspect] they're uncomfortable with my physical appearance.)

To be honest, I didn't like the building where the project is based, and how it's managed. It's a 'Resource Centre' as opposed to a 'Community Centre' so only paid staff (and volunteers) are based there and members of the public can't just walk in straight off the street - they always need an appointment and a specific reason to be there.

It's not what I'm used to, so I'll look elsewhere.

I've always been interested in the naming of wars and battles; it's a very controversial and politically-sensitive subject.

For example; the English Civil War is also known as the War of the Three Kingdoms and the American Civil War sometimes goes by the alternative name, the War Between The States.

Anyhow, here's a list of oddly-named wars though.

War of Jenkins' Ear

War of the Oranges

The Pastry War

War of Tatters

Opium Wars

War of the Eight Princes

Wars of the Roses

War of the Whiskers

Potato War

War of the Priests

Bishops' Wars

War of the Two Brothers