There’s a big ferris wheel set up in town at the moment, giving a 100 foot bird’s eye view of Sheffield for those crazy enough to weather the freezing temperatures sitting in a damp gondola in the middle of winter. It’s very nice, though, and going on it on Saturday gave me a chance to try out my new camera phone (with which I also took a picture of my Christmas tree!).
I take the tram to and from work every day. The line runs pretty much door to door, give or take a minute or two’s walk to the stop, so it’s really useful.
Tonight at the tram stop from work, the platform was packed and the tram was late. When a tram finally crawled up the hill, all its lights were off and we realised it was broken and was being pushed back to the depot by a tram behind it. Because the line had been blocked by the slow moving tram, three followed in quick succession, and I squeezed onto the first one and struck up a conversation with a work colleague who was heading in the same direction. We knew it was going to be a slow journey going behind the tow tram, but I had nowhere important to be.
We got out to the other side of town, past Pond’s Forge, and as we turned the curve off the overhead bridge there was a horrible grinding and crunching noise, and the tram came off the rails! Thankfully, we were travelling slowly and the tram was in no danger of tipping over. Nonetheless, the tram driver opened the doors and we all piled off. They let us know that the trams wouldn’t be going anywhere for several hours at least, so my work colleague and I met up with my housemate (who had been on the tram behind us, I found out when I phoned her) and headed for the taxi ranks in town. The three of us shared a taxi with two others who were headed in the same direction, given the taxi queue was swelling considerably with the trams out of action.
I’m just glad it wasn’t worse, and I hope the trams are back in commission as normal tomorrow morning!
Ah, the things I do for my dear old Dad. Just spent the last hour on the phone to him trying to kick his comments system into line since enetation went tits up without warning. Went through enetation, Blogger comments and squawkbox (and all their signup/install/edit/help screens before finally settling on Haloscan as the best replacement. At least all the faffing around with code keeps my HTML skills from getting too rusty!
So Madame Tussaud’s have set up a nativity scene as part of their Christmas waxwork decor, using existing waxwork models and dressing them up per the traditional nativity.
David and Victoria Beckham are Joseph and Mary. Kylie is an angel. The three wise men are Tony Blair, George Bush and the Duke of Edinburgh.
I’m not the only one who thinks they’ve not got it quite right, am I?
In HMV in town today, whilst I was humming along to a CD at one of the listening posts, a man started browsing the DVDs on the rack a few feet away from me.
He was wearing a black t-shirt with a picture of a British bulldog on the front. On the back of his left hand was a tattoo of a skull and crossed bones, with the words ‘100% racist’ underneath it just above his knuckles. On the back of his right hand was a Union Jack flag tattoo, with the word ‘England’ below. His head was completely shaven, and he had another large tattoo in black just above his left ear - the eagle of Hitler’s Third Reich, complete with swastika below it.
I was so sickened and disgusted I hung up the headphones and walked straight out of the store. I passed by a security guard on the way out, and noticed he was watching the man. I hope he threw him out.
A joke, courtesy of R at lunchtime. I take no blame.
Q. Which is the odd one out - a lobster, an Englishman under a lorry, or a Chinaman under a lorry?
A. The Englishman. The other two are both crustaceans.
I had a leaflet drop through the letterbox yesterday. This is a fairly common occurrence, and I usually just throw them in the bin as they’re always neighbourhood meetings or political flyers or other such rubbish. This one made me stop and read it. And re-read it. It was a flyer for a clairvoyant / healer from ‘the most Powerful Spiritual Centre in Africa’. Apparently, he can remove such things as black magic, impotency, witchcraft and bad luck from my life, and solve all my problems. Results ‘100% guaranteed’.
I had to laugh at the description. Impotency and black magic? And a guarantee? How do you guarantee that kind of thing? Do you get your money back if you break your leg or fail to win the lottery or get sacked or don’t get pregnant?
